001Good evening and welcome to the 6:30 special called meeting of the Stafford County School Board. I'd like There is no one There's no one this evening participating electronically, so we will move on. Miss Hall, can you uh read the role? Yes, ma'am. Dr. Chase here. Miss Hazard, here. Miss Healey, here. Miss Hollerback here, Miss Randall here, Dr. Warner here, and Miss Young here. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. All right. All are here. We are going to be going into close session. Miss Randall, can you read us in please? I move that the school Madam Chairman, before that a motion that we approve the agenda. Oh, sorry. Yes. Thank you. Let's approve the agenda. Moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Miss Healey. Uh,
002Miss Randall, I move that the school board convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-2711A1 of the code of Virginia to discuss and consider the appointment of an acting superintendent. Is there a second? Second. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We are in close session. The code of Virginia the closed meeting of the school board of Stafford County on August 4th, 2021 be certified by adopting the following resolution. Now therefore, be it resolved that the school board of Stafford County hereby certifies to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies. And two, only such public business matters
003as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board. Second. All right, Miss Hall, will you pull the board, please? Yes, ma'am. Dr. Chase, agreed. Miss Hazard, agreed. Miss Healey, agree. Miss Hollerback, agree. Miss Randall, agree. Dr. Warner, agree. And Miss Young, can I borrow your mic, Dr. Warner? Agree. Madam Chair, motion passes. All right. Is there a motion out of uh close session? Madam chair, I make a motion to that the board authorize the chair to um begin discussions and consideration of appointing an actum or entering interim superintendent for the um on Dr. Kisner's retirement. Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right, we will be closing our special called
004meeting. Give me one minute and then we will start our other meeting. Give us just a moment. All right. Welcome to the 7 o'clock special called meeting uh on Wednesday, August 4th of the Stafford County School Board. None of the members will be participating electronically in this meeting this this evening. I'm going to ask each of the members, beginning with Miss Healey, to just introduce themselves and their district as our roll call. Patricia Healey, Rock Hill District. Irene Hollowback, the Aqua District. Susan Randall, George Washington District. Holly Hazard, Hartwood District. Be loud. Hame Young, Garrisonville. Elizabeth Warner, Griffith Widewater. Sarah Chase, Falmouth. All right. All members are here this evening. Is there a motion to approve the agenda, please? Move to approve. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Madam Chairman, we have one
005action item, 4.01, which is funding for a um head start, and I'd like to move that before citizen comments if we can because I know we have staff here that may if they choose to stay can, but they also I'm fine with that amendment. Is the seconder okay with that amendment? Second. Yes, that's fine. All right, Madam Chair. Yes, ma'am. Um there did you mention both of them? 401 and 40 402. No, we were just going with um 401. Just 401. That's the the federal Head Start fun. All right. This um I'm just going to go ahead. The Head Start Policy Council met on June 16. Hold on. Let us approve the agenda. We got to get approved first. So this is going to be approving the meeting agenda with moving action item 4.01 only
006to before citizen comment. All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. So, we will deal with uh action item. I guess it will be I don't know. I'll let you all do that later about the approval of our funding carry over reprogramming. Since um Dr. Warner sits on our policy council, I'm going to give her the floor. Thank you, Madam Chair. The policy council met on June 16th and unanimously approved this dispersement. Um, this requires a budget transfer for carryover of $238,415. Um, the Office of Head Start is requiring full school board approval, which isn't normally done under um and normally just the Head Start policy council can approve these these purchases. Um, Head Start plans on purchasing one 77 passenger Bluebird B school bus with integrated child
007restraint seats and one Thomas special needs bus equipped with three wheelchair restraints and a lift to transport special needs students as well as 22 general education preschoolers and child restraining seats. Um, this was passed unanimously, but it requires schoolboard approval for an initial carryover of funds for from FY21 to FY22 and then to authorize the purchase. Can I get a clarification? So, this money is not from general school operating funds. Is that correct? This money is from the grant that funds Head Start. Is that am I correct? And correct. These are carryover funds from compensation and benefits. Dr. Warner, is that a motion to approve? Oh, can I I have one more question? No, we have we really should have the motion and then have the discussion. But so motion to approve this carryover funding.
008Second that and then we can go discussion. Thank you. Yeah. So when you said um can can you repeat where the benefits came from again? It's compensation and benefits that was unused from FY21. Okay. But where specifically benefits from where? Not specific from that department. Right. From Head Start. It was from Head Start. Yeah. It's all Head Start funding. Yeah. Okay. These are all Head Start funds. Perfect. All right. Any excuse me. Any further questions? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor of approving the bus purchases, please say, "I." Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Miss Massie, for coming this evening and get those buses or Mr. Fulmer, get those buses. All right. So, our next item, we will now move to citizen comment. And don't forget North Star. This evening, citizen comment
009uh will be limited to one hour. Each speaker will have one minute to address the board. Public comment is limited to the topic in agenda item 4.02. I'm not sure if we've changed the number, but it's the approval of the proposed health mitigation strategies for the 202122 school year. If for some reason you have um your comments are longer, you may certainly submit them to our clerk. I know many people have submitted them to us through the schoolboard member list and individually. What will happen is the light will come on I believe as yellow. Will it start at yellow? Okay. And then when you hit when it gets to red, we will have you wrap up and end your comments. Um we we're not going to give a lot of grace this evening so we
010can get as many people through as possible. So what I will do is I will read the first seven names. If you are on that list, I would ask that you um move to the sides of the um of the chamber so you can quickly come forward. Not to back up right here, but just on the sides and then just come forward. When we get to the sixth person, I will have them pause before the seventh speaks and I will call another seven names just so we can keep things moving and get as many people um able to speak this evening. Yes. Um when is it going to go on yellow? I mean, it's going to be read at one minute. So, I've never done it for one minute. Well, I'm I'm just If someone's
011watching the the uh stop light there, they should know when it's yellow. Does it start with yellow? Can it start to yellow? Yeah. Starting with green. Okay, hold on. Let's just But you said it's going to go yellow to red. So, actually, I was hoping that it would could start on yellow and then go to red, but that does not appear how the system works. Is that correct? Minutes, right? The system is about the minutes. Okay. I will have to have somebody else be doing the timing. I I would ask because I'm um going to be focusing this forward. All right. So, when they're All right. And then when they're No. Okay. All right. That was sorry my assumption. I'm not the technology expert I have to say. So we will start with the with
012the green and then when there is five seconds I guess I would ask that we say there's 5 seconds remaining. All right. All right. So I'm going to read the first seven names. Like I said come forward. Stand to the side so you can come forward. Uh, Alyssa Holstead, Sophia I believe Holstead, Kelly Loins, Suzanne Selby, Daniel Cortez, Isaac Meyers, and Christopher Meyers. Um, she's I don't know if she's gonna be able to reach there's no Oh, thanks. You're ready for her? Now, are you telling me when I go? Yes. Give it just a moment till the green comes on. I'm here tonight to remind you that America is one nation under God, not the government. America is a great nation because we do not allow the government to control our homes or our lives.
013Tonight, we, the parents of Stafford County, say no more. We are taking back the reigns and saying there's only one option here, parent choice. The misinformation and unverified data in the mitigation strategy are legal issues that you should be concerning yourselves with. Last week, someone said 600 kids were dead from COVID. And that's a bold-faced lie. There's a very strong possibility, and we all know that there is one, that these kids died because for one year they were masked and their immune system shut down, leaving them weak and vulnerable. Masks are not intended for healthy people. They're intended for sick people. Healthy people need germs to stay healthy. Scientists estimate 380 trillion viruses live inside or on our body. While most coexist with us, some are poised ready to cause illness at any time. They
014are there to support your immune system and keep it active. Our kids need someone to protect them from the real viruses information, have information, and political agendas. Thank you. Just a second. I would ask that we um stop not have the uh clapping this evening so we can continue to have people come quickly forward. I would like to make sure and if you could she can pull down pull this down. There you go. Go ahead. My name is Sophia and I don't want to wear a mask anymore. They're uncomfortable and it makes me sad that my friends and I can't be near each other and laugh and enjoy each other. the way we used to. My mom says, "God gave me this smile because he loves to see it, but now he can't see it
015because people keep making me wear this mask. I am not going to wear a mask anymore because I want God to see my smile." And when he wants to, please don't be mad at me or my mom. My dad was in the Marine Corps and I know the Marine Corps fights for our freedom and we are here tonight to fight for mine and my friend's freedom. Thank you. Manda, Kelly Loins, Rock Hill District. Can you pull I'm sorry. Let can let let her start over again because we were talking about hearing you and it was a little low. So, thank you. Kelly Loins, Rock Hill District. I spoke last week about the negative effects of long-term maskearing. Every mask bought or made is with the knowledge that they are not intended to prevent illness. We
016are a year and a half into two weeks to stop the spread. At what point do we say enough is enough and start to worry more about the long-term mental health effects this year and a half has had and will continue to have on our children. Miss Hazard stated last week that she did not believe that school boards were the most equipped to make decisions regarding children's health policy. I agree. School boards are not the most equipped. Nor is the governor, the Virginia Department of Health, or the CDC. These are the same entities that told us schools should close and virtual learning would be fine. We know now in hindsight that was a huge mistake. The full ramifications of this ill-advised decision are still not known. There will never be a day that is free
017from illness or a day that is 100% safe. Please stop contributing to this delusion. Parents are the most equipped to judge what is needed for their children to be happy, healthy, and safe mentally, emotionally, and physically. Please institute a parent choice policy for masks. Thank you. Hello. On page eight of Stafford County Public Schools schedule for transitioning out of the pandemic states, "Create an engaging environment for students, an opportunity to build positive relationships while meeting social and emotional needs." At the last school board meeting, it was stated children while eating lunch should not talk to one another. And it was further stated while talking talking while eating is a choking hazard. Let me ask for the past year and a half when you are eating with family and friends, do you sit in silence because
018you are afraid of choking or passing along a virus? My children, two of whom are in high school, participated in the hybrid model during their lunch period. If they began to talk to their peers, the monitors would blow their whistles asking them not to talk during lunch. Please tell me why you think sitting in silence when eating lunch creates an engaging environment, an opportunity to build positive relationships while meeting social and emotional needs. 5 seconds. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. I'm Danielle Cortez. I sit on the President's Advisory Commission on Hispanic Prosperity. I come here to make the board and the public aware that I've asked for a meeting with your superintendent and now you and any public interested that on issues that affect not only our Hispanic community, but all communities. Clearly
019the COVID and masking issues with respect to our children as well as critical race theory on all on are on the forefront. I left cards with your board clerk that we can discuss this publicly or privately. Now as a private citizen I would like to state to you of my opposition and I have a granddaughter in our school district opposition to masking small children when the science is an act and causing them great harm. I encourage you to listen to these citizens and I thank you for your time. While the Meyers are approaching, I'm going to read the next seven names. So, if you all just let me get through those and then um so I have Chris Russ, Jacob Fiser, James Fischer, Josh Pacheo, Elizabeth Chingaong. Okay, I'm probably messed that up. and Erica
020Doerty and Anastasia Sigman. You all could just be waiting in the wings. All right, go ahead. Hello, I'm Isaac Myers, 58 Kane Ross Drive, Stafford, Virginia. I'm a sixth grader going into Rodney Thompson this year. Before I ask the question that I want to ask, I respect that different people have different comfort levels of this virus and that I believe it should be their choice whether to wear a mask or not to wear a mask. But getting back to the point, my question is if masks are doing what they're supposed to do, then why would you send people home when someone around them catches CO? Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Dr. Christopher Meyers. I'm a nationally board certified psychologist and Army veteran and a proud parent of Isaac and three uh
021wonderful second graders. My question for the board is what is an acceptable level of risk? Any public health decision should be based in that one core question. What is an acceptable level of risk? If there is no established finish line, the marathon will go on forever and ever and ever. The 7day COVID death rate average, the rolling 7-day average in the state of Virginia, the entire state of Virginia right now is zero. If zero is not the finish line, then what is? It's zero. In 2018, over 2700 school age kids died by suicide. 5 seconds. These masks do not help mental health. That's a nine times the risk of dying by CO. Thank you. Don't trade those risks. [Applause] Hello, Chris Russy Run Elementary. Lord Actton once said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." I'm here today
022to ask you not to take the power that you have been given by the parents of this district to corrupt this coming school year for our students and staff. The CDC and the NEA are taking their power and using it against our children, staff, parents, and others across this great nation. Will you let them do that? Will you follow Actton's famous words? Or will you take the power that the voters of this district have given you and give choice back to parents and staff as well for this coming year? Will you follow the CDC and NEA with their lack of transparency and weak data and corrupt our school year, a school year that is filled with such promise and educational opportunity for our children. Please make the choice that Spennsylvania County has done and give
023back the choice of masking back to our parents and of our beautiful children and to our amazing staff members for this coming school year. Do not corrupt. Absolutely. Thank you. I just want to say Dr. Kisner, God bless you and thank you so much for everything you've done for our district. We really love you. Thank you. All right, Jacob. I have Jacob and James. Go ahead or You all don't have to duke it out over there. But good evening. My name is Jacob Fischer and I am an eighth grader at H Pool Middle School. Today I am here with three words. Follow the science. Please do not force us to wear masks in school. They do not work and there are no studies that prove conclusively that masks are effective against preventing CO 19. However,
024credible science shows that masks do cause harm. Masks give us headaches, depression, anxiety, staff infections, raised heart rate, CO2 levels, high CO2 levels, neurological problems, risk of more serious bacterial infections, and many more. Masks as well can reduce the ability for a child to learn and they reduce the effectiveness of our own immune system. I'm asking for the school board to follow the science and give we the people a choice as Americans to not wear masks. Thank [Applause] you. Good evening. Since I only have a minute at the conclusion of my comments, actually I just did it. I'll be delivering two letters, one for each of my two children. These letters put you on notice that in the event this board decides to put a mandatory mass policy in place, you're in violation of several
025federal laws. The main point of the letter is this. It is illegal to mandate emergency use experimental medical therapies or to conduct medical research, even in a case of an emergency, without the informed consent of all participants. Accordingly, I urge you to comply with federal law and advise children they have the right to refuse or wear a mask as a measure to prevent or reduce infection from COVID 19. Any other course of action is contrary to the law. And in case you're wondering, article six, paragraph 2 of the US Constitution establishes that federal the federal constitution and federal law take precedence over in this case recommendations from the Virginia Department of Health and the CDC. If this board moves forward with instituting a mandatory mandate in school, you may leave me no choice but to
026take the maximum action posible under the law. Your comment time is over. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] My name is Elizabeth Chinyong. I've already sent you guys many letters, emails, um, explaining, uh, my position. And um I'd just like to say that during the community comments at the last week's board meeting um the board was provided with overwhelming amount of evidence that masks are not only ineffective but unethical and unlawful to mandate. This pandemic is going to end when people stop wearing masks, when people stop asking for permission. When people stop social distancing, and when people just start living like free people. And I encourage you tonight to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem by voting for no masks in our schools. Let parents have the choice. Let
027kids have the choice. Thank you. [Applause] Hello, my name is Erikica Dhy and I have a vaccinated eighth grader at AG Wright Middle School and a kindergarter at Rock Hill Elementary School. I believe that Stafford County Schools should adopt a parent choice for masks for all kids and adults. Nobody should be forced to wear a mask at school. As of 8321, the total number of children ages 0 to 19 who have tested positive for CO 19 in our Rapahhanic Health region as reported by the Virginia Department of Health has been 5,449 cases since the beginning of COVID tracking. Of those, there has only been 27 hospitalizations of children ages 0 to 19. That is a 0.00499 rate or 0.49% 49% rate of hospitalization among children. Less than a half of a percent of our children
028even had to go to the hospital for COVID. Therefore, there is not even a 1% reason that Stafford County should implement a mask mandate. It is a parents fundamental right to make that choice for their own child and family. Thank you. Thank you. Um, hi. I'm Anastasia Sigman. I go am eighth grade at Ronnie Thompson Middle School. Um, this year, if you require masks, I will have spent two of my precious three years in middle school with masks. There are teachers and friends and students whose faces I have never seen. and my class in my class. I took a public speaking and debate class this year. I cannot begin to tell you how hard it was to be able to understand the speeches and to tell my own speech with the mask cuz they muffled
029the words. And part of public speaking is your facial expression. And if we can't see their faces and their facial expressions that it's really hard to tell the emotion behind it. And in conclusion, my parents have made every single medical decision up until now and I am not g you should not make this decision for me. Thank you. As you approach, I'm just going to read the next few names. I have William Jones, John Hatsis, Dana Brown, Dan Jensen, Maren Sigund, Dan McCle, and Lucy. Oh gosh, I got it wrong. Ching Vong. So, I'll just have you all begin to line up on the sides. Okay, sir. Thank you. We have heard from an overwhelming majority of parents who want you to decide that it's the parents choice as to whether or not masks should
030be optional this school year. We have heard and seen that masks do not work against this virus. This is not about keeping our kids protected as there are many studies that have determined long-term wearing of masks can be detrimental to a kid's health. As you are elected to represent the parents of our county, I hope you are listening to us and make the decision to let us decide what is best for our kids. Unfortunately, I believe your decision has been made for some time and that your decision is based upon your personal beliefs. So, instead of addressing this board, I address the people behind me and in our county. Have we elected the people on this board? Is this the best we can do? The board has failed our kids with the decision last year.
031Their educational losses that our children have endured ultimately cannot be made in a short time. How do we have a board whose members don't even know the time that our schools are to start this year? Or how some members believe that maybe we should allow to our kids to eat during the school because that would mean they would have to lower their mask. And hopefully they don't speak while they eat because they might choke. In closing, we live in a world of risk. At what risk do we continue to allow the board to control the future of our children? Thank you. [Laughter] When I was at school, some people when I was at recess, we played a game called hot potato. We passed a stick, but we do not get sick after school. So, if
032we had to wear mask in recess and PE, we get sweaty and that sucks. So, we have to stop this right now. Unless people are going to get more sick and it's going to spread more and then the world's going to get all not worseer. Okay. I'm his dad. I'll take the 28 seconds left. I just want to remind the school board that you do not work for the uh overpaid politicians in Richmond. You work for us. Hopefully, you make decisions that reflect that. Thank you. [Applause] Uh, Dr. Kizner and school board. Good evening. Uh, my name is John Hansis. I'm a rising junior at Mountain View High School and I live in the Rock Hill district. You know, I don't have a lot of time up here, so I just wanted to strongly urge
033you to go mask optional for the next school year. I think I can speak for many students in the county when I say that mask wearing had a negative effect on my learning in the past year and that parents, students, and teachers deserve to have a choice whether or not they wear a mask. And I wanted to close by noting that something that Miss Healey, my representative, and I'm pretty proud to call you my representative, said in the past meeting. And she said that it is the job of the school board to make policy. You know, it's not the VOE. You know, I really like you, Dr. Kisner, but it is the school board that that is making these policies. It's not the teachers unions. And it's it shouldn't really be the people at the
034Rapahhanic Area District that should be making this policy. It really should be you. So, I hope that you take a stand in support of parental choice and go with a mask optional policy. Thank you. [Applause] Dana Brown, Rock Hill District. First of all, I just want to say one minute public comments. Shame on all of you. That's ridiculous. I'm here to share my N95 brand new box that I got made in the USA. There's 11 warnings on the back. The first warning says, "This product does not eliminate the risk of contracting any disease or infection." So, are we doing masks because they work? The box says no. or are we doing it for psychological comfort? If I were up there voting, I'd be doing like you were going to do originally, make it optional. If
035things start trending bad, what's your favorite word? Pivot and then go back to mask only. And the last thing is, what's up with the blue tape? Are we social distancing again? I mean, I didn't know that there was a rule on that. Did you vote on it or did staff get it leaked to staff that you were already going to do it and this is all for show? So, make it optional. [Applause] Um, hi, I'm Lucy. Um, did like the viruses, they're way smaller than the holes that are like weaving into the mask. So, the virus goes straight through the mask, so it's not really protecting you or anything. And the communists, they kind of use the mask to um not make us see each other. So, um we're kind of like separated from the
036actual society and um uh uh and we're not also community I mean connected to our community. So, um uh can you please vote no? Thank you. Have a good night. Moren Sigman, Garrisonville district. The American Lung Association says masks are less than 50% effective. This leads to a false sense of protection for others. Let's stop lying to our kids and teach them the right way to mitigate disease. Stay home when you're sick. Wash your hands. Maintain safe personal space. Masks also disproportionately impact some children with disabilities, which I know is not the intent, but it's the school's job to educate my kids and it's my job to keep them safe. So, if you have a mask policy, I would like to know how my kid is going to learn cuz with a mask on, she
037is not going to make progress on her IEP. And this is her last year in elementary school. and to miss class time for extra services be to make up for two years in masks is going to be even more hard once she gets to middle school. And I can't have that. And neither can a lot of other dis families with children on IEPs in our county. Thank you, Mr. Mccle. Before you begin, I'm going to read some a few more names. So, if you could just hold tight for just a second. All right, the next one I h I The next three names I have are Ed Henry, Jeff Smahile, sorry I can't read, and Jeremy O'Hara. So, if you three could go to the sides to come down. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank
038you. I'm a parent of two students and I'm a chief public safety officer in the neighboring jurisdiction. I currently serve in a role called the designated infection control officer in my job. I'm here tonight to tell you that you don't have to follow a mask mandate. The governor is not even making you and he's a pediatrician. You also don't even have to follow CDC quarantine guidance. I've got great news. The executive branch announced this week that 70% of adults now have at least one shot in their arm. All these measures were to flatten the curve. Those days are over. We do not have to live in fear anymore. The vulnerable, the elderly are protected. It's time to teach our kids resilience. It's time to stop letting bureaucrats in DC give us guidance that prevents us
039from and our children from learning. If you're sick, stay home. If you are vulnerable, mask up if you think that works. Let's be rational here. Let's be resilient. Give us a choice. For all of the those watching, make sure you vote. Thank you. [Applause] All right. Well, just like to say thank you for bringing in the extra muscle today to protect yourselves from the soccer moms of Stafford. I'm sure it's going to get hectic around here. Anyways, I don't have a lot of time since you cut it by twothirds. So, I'll just start with kind of the big thing here. You guys get to make this policy. That's fine. That's your decision. There are consequences to those those choices. Uh I think the highest vote getter here was 5,000 in Stafford. Easy to get rid
040of. So if you like your position, I suggest you vote choice. Also, since you are going to vote on uh kids wearing masks, if those kids get a bacterial infection, there's a very good chance that you could be held liable in civil court. And I'm not sure how deep your pockets are, but there's a few thousand people in Stafford. [Applause] Thanks. Come on down. Jeff Smeihall, Garrisonville. Um, I just want to say I have a second grader who was the most friendly, outgoing kid. Always made friends wherever he went. And the last two years, kids are afraid to approach each other on the playground. They're afraid to introduce and meet new friends because they don't know because psychologically you all have done this to them that they don't know if they can play if they're
041going to be rejected every time. And I'm tired and it breaks my heart every time to see that. We have the choice to take care of our kids and make their health decisions, not you. I'm getting ready to retire from 25 years in law enforcement. I will come after that seat. And I urge every parent in here who cares about their kids and has time on their hands to come after these seats. If you all can't make the decisions that we, the people, want you to make because it is up to our kids. If your teachers are afraid, they can wear six masks, they can wear 10 masks, we don't care. Kids want to wear masks, they should wear masks. But if kids don't want to wear masks, they shouldn't wear masks. Thank you. Thank
042you. Edward Henry, let me cut to the chase. The CO 19 uh alleged virus poses no risk uh risk to children. Okay, look at the CDC statistics. 74.1 million children 17 and under in the United States. They report 340 deaths. Of those 340 deaths, there were on average four co-orbidities, which means they died from something else. 5% that's 17 children of the 74.1 children in the United States died from COVID 19. That's a mortality risk of 0.00002%. And you're having every child wear a mask for that kind of risk. It doesn't make sense. Thank you, Miss Miss Hall. How many more minutes do we have? 33 minutes on the clock. On the clock. So, we have 27. Okay. Is there anyone else who wishes to address the next on the list? My name is Jeremy
043O'Hara. Oh, okay. Somebody must have jumped in. Sorry. Thank you. All right. No worries. Um, I'm public service for a long time as you're all public servants. You've not had one person in here supporting the wearing of masks. That should say something to you. Um, mostly I am extremely disappointed. It's the first time I've ever I've just moved to this district. First time to come here. This is supposed to be a discussion in the sense of getting information from us, but one minute is not a proper for any discussion. It's it's horrible. And to say that you can't even let groups have more than one minute. I'm very disappointed what I've seen the first day. I don't feel like there's a real debate to be done here. I feel I don't feel like you really
044care about the information we're going to present. That's why I don't think I need to talk anymore about mask. Every single person has said they want the choice. They want masks off their kids. My kids go here, too. I agree with them. Anyone who wants to wear a mask, absolutely their choice. Don't infringe on anyone else's rights, but don't infringe on my kids either. It's it should be everyone's choice to do what they feel most comfortable with. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, um, what I'll do is if, um, you are interested in speaking and have not signed up, if you could, um, move to the end so you can come up again easily, um, and quickly, I would appreciate it. And then, um, Miss Hall, how many more minutes if you will let
045us know? You have 31 minutes left. 31. Okay. Thank you. Come on down. And then sign in on the sheet to my left, your right. I'll be quick. Don't want to beat a dead horse. Uh, just wanted to let you guys know that I just got around to unpacking Jackson's backpack from last year three days before the new school year. Go me. Um, in his backpack, I found his hand sanitizer. It was never opened. It was still sealed. So, that's great. Um, we can measure a few things with CO 19. Um, and any other illness. Um, measurable things. That's handashing. You can you can measure how much germs, illness, whatever is on your hands. Sanitizing surfaces. That's measurable. mask wearing in an un uh Oh, shoot. Don't let me lose this. You can't measure masks.
046You can't measure it. It's not possible. Um so the really quickly the um the school supply list uh there there's no sanitizing items on there at all. No Lysol, no hand nothing, just masks. Um so I went to get his school supplies at Target in Stafford. These are surgical masks, child size. Um, number four on the cautions label, not intended for antimicrobial or antivac antiviral protection or related uses for infection prevention or reduction or related uses. Okay, what are we doing? Thank you. Yep. Thank you. And please state your name when you're coming up if you don't mind. Are we ready? All right. I'm Juliet Schwiter, uh, a quiet district, better known as a sign person. Anyway, two things. Um, I have three children. All three attend Brookpoint High School. Um, and what I'd like
047to say is this has been a rough year. We lost a student at Brook Point this year from suicide. Okay. Maskearing is so isolating for these children. The emotional toll is too high for our children versus having them in mask all day. Give our parents a choice. We deserve a choice. That's [Applause] it. Hello there. My name is Jade Lee. We are new to the area. We are a military family. I have four kids and three of which are at Parkidge. Um, as I walked out the door, my oldest said, "Mom, fight hard for us because if we have to wear masks, I want to be homeschooled." And this is my most social kid. He can find friends at the playground in 2 minutes. And I'm not kidding. Um, my third just had his first
048IEP. He's a rising kindergartener. He is non-speaking. He has zero words. And they are trying to make him wear a mask. How are we sending my little arrow boy to school to learn how to speak with a mask on? He already does not want to talk. He has zero words. He does not say mom. He is five. And now we are going to try to force a mask on him. I asked if we could write in his IEP that he would not need a mask and they refused. They said we cannot do that because of the mandate. Please, parents choice. Thank you. [Applause] My name is Rachel Johnson. I live in the Rock Hill district. I want to say that um for me, my husband does have an autoimmune disease and so CO did have
049me nervous. He was vaccinated. I'm thankful. If he wasn't, these Hello Kitty masks grandma made in her back basement aren't keeping him safe. I'm sorry they're not. N95s maybe. But parents who have children who are immune compromised or have families who are immune compromised need N95s. Everyone else needs to choose and people who want need to get vaccinated. Second, my daughter's had not one but two infections on her face. Staff had to be lanced and drained in a hot mess. And her pediatrician flat out said they're seeing that more from COVID. Now, my poor 8-year-old has a giant scar all over her chin from a staff infection from a virus that has pretty much zero chance of harming her. I respect people wanting to wear masks, but our kids need to be able to choose.
050Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. My name is Anthony Lorita. I I sent in my comments ahead of time. I'd encourage you to read them. I don't know if you'll agree with them. They're they're a little harsh. Um to be frank, the the brief was abysmal. Um I'm just going to focus in on my first point, which revolves around risk. Now, regardless of whether or not you believe one thing or the other, the science isn't settled. Um, so this boils down to risk assessment, but nowhere in the brief did it did it talk about what risks are you analyzing? How are you how are how are you prioritizing and waiting those risks? What are the trade-offs? And when you establish a risk response, masks, something else, or whatever it may be, there's new risks that are
051created every time you introduce something new to the equation. Um, none of that was discussed. So regardless of what your decision in decision becomes whether or not you choose the masks or not you owe us all a justification that burden lies with you all to justify what decision you go with and how that conclusion and that's all I have to say. Thank you [Applause] Mike Johnson Rockill District. Um staff did you a disservice last week. If I go to my boss, I need to bring courses of action, not one plan. Okay? Courses of action, as the gentleman before me said, have risks and benefits. Right? If I leave my computer in the box, it'll never get a virus, but I'll never be able to use that computer. Right? That's something we have to do a
052risk benefit analysis on. Um, and I can't believe that staff didn't bring you proper courses of action. I feel find that appalling. Right here, we're having this debate. Um, specifically, there are real risks to our children. Active shooters. Do we bulletproof all the windows? Do our kids wear bulletproof vests to school? Do the teachers sit behind a bulletproof shield? No. Because we make these risk analysis and be like, "We can't afford that." And we do drills, right? We do uh enforcement at the door, cameras, etc. Those are things that could be looked at, right? In the case of COVID is what I'm getting at. Um our kids all ride a bus on a bus with no seat belts. 5 seconds. Highway transportation safety has determined that's okay because they're big and yellow and drive slow.
053Come on, folks. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Teresa Onen. I'm a lifelong resident of Stafford County, as is both of my parents. I have four grandchildren in the Stafford County school system, and everyone has said exactly what I think. So, I'm going to say maybe I can offer a solution or two. Um, the repercussions of the mask mandates have damaged the children and it's got to stop. You have the ability to offer virtual school when the child is maybe not feeling well. There's no reason for them to completely miss school. We didn't even have a snow day last year. So, you have that ability with the computers that you already have. If liability is your concern, then you need to draft a waiver for the parents who want their children to be optional
054so that it's clear that they have no that you have no liability should the child come down with something. Those are my solutions. Thank you. Hi, my name is Megan Sanders. I'm a mother of six from ages 12 to two. So, this is a big uh this is a big deal to me. I just uh want you all to know that uh as you see, there's not been one parent who has shown up here who wants our children masks. Nobody has the uh my children or their friends, their peers, their classmates interests more at heart than I do, than we all do. If you still choose to mandate masks for our children, it'll show us that you still think that you know better than their own parents. I implore you, please vote no on masks.
055[Applause] My name is Diana Fiser. I'm here to urge you not to impose any mandates to require mass tests, vaccines, or quarantines of healthy students as mitigation procedures against the spread of CO 19. Federal law prohibits mandates of emergency use COVID vaccines, tests, and masks. If the school board does impose such mandates, you will be in violation of federal law. If you require children to wear a mask, you are promoting the idea that a mask can prevent or treat a disease, which is an illegal, deceptive practice. It's unlawful to advertise that a product or service can prevent a disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence substantiating that the claims are true. I'm also vehemently opposed to forced quarantines of healthy students. Asymptomatic spread has been proven untrue. I do not think healthy students
056should be forced to miss school because someone else is sick. That would be a violation of children's rights to receive an education. Follow the science and follow the law. Thank you. [Applause] Ma'am, can you make sure you signed in? Sorry. Come on down. Hello. My name is Lindsay Zabroski. Uh my daughter will be a second grader at Hampton Oaks. She's been very active this summer. Um she's been going to the pool, daycare, she's been going to birthday parties, sleepovers, and with friends. And now she's starting school next week, socially distant with a mask on, with the very same people she has spent all summer long with. How am I supposed to explain this to her as a mother? This makes no sense. I think you've all been presented with more than enough data tonight, especially
057data that the health department didn't even provide last week. It should be the parents choice. Period. All right. I don't see anybody else coming forward to speak. Is there? Nobody else. Okay. Okay. Just wait. Um, all right then. If there is nobody else coming up to speak, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment at this time. All right. So, then we will move on to our single now um remaining action item is the um is are the approval of the proposed health mitigation strategies for the 202122 school year. Dr. Ker, I'm going to turn that time over to you because I believe there's going to be a presentation prior to um any motions being made. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Um school board last week um wanted to submit questions to
058the administration for um answers specific to uh some of your concerns. So, you all receive that. And for the public, the uh questions and answers are on our it's on our website. It's on So I know if you're sitting here, it's you're not going to be able to see it, but um if you're home, just it's on the uh schoolboard agenda. So in there's a lot of questions. Instead of going over every single one, um there's 31 questions. Um, I think maybe a better use of time would be to ask the school board which questions would you want further clarification or did you have followup and um we will do our best to answer it um tonight. And I also want to make sure you're aware and I and I do want her to come
059to the podium. Uh, Miss Jennifer Parish, who's our the school board attorney, is here to talk about there was questions specific to uh, legal questions and um, obviously she's the best to answer that question. Oh, sorry. The indulgence of the board. Would we like to have Miss Parish come forward first? I I think we save ourselves a lot of time. We could get the legal aspects out of the way first because there are legal ramifications to this. If there are legal ramifications to this, then we should hear that upfront because the rest of the conversation would be completely moot if uh if it's not. So I I I would like to hear from Miss Parish. Is that right? Dr. Ker, do we mind if we start with Miss Parish? I'm sorry, Madam Chairman. I just
060want to ask her Dr. Ker question. Dr. Kizner, the additional information that you supplied in response to my request about the uh the source of the the data in response to my one question number 27, the number of of school age children in the local area. You had I had asked for the s the source of the the powerpoints that were the answer and you sent the um I I'll call it the parent data. um is is that on the website? Okay. So, there's two pieces of data we gave you. One was our data dashboard which we've been uh that's the data that looked at last year's staff and student the students and staff that were uh tested positive and students and staff that had to be quarantined. And that, as you were aware, we
061up we update that data every week. So we um just provided you a a summary of last year's data. So that's what you have. So that's our local data working with the health department that we've been doing every week that's been on our dash on our website um since the beginning of COVID. The other piece of data which looked at July of 20 compared to July of 21 that came uh directly from the Rapahanic Area Health Department. they were kind enough to take the data and break it down from children um five to 11 the uh group that cannot get a vaccine and the children from 12 um to 17. So that data was provided from them directly. Um I hope that answers your question. Well, well, what came back was the the data through
062I think it was July 25th and I specifically and there was powerpoints and I asked for the the documentation that that that data came from because I wanted to look at it in context and then you sent you sent to me and I sent to our clerk and she shared it with the board um the the information that came directly from the health department. And the reason I think it's important that that be included in this question and answer is because that data included the week ending August 1st. And from what I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, um the health department's comment was that there were no students from age 12 to 18 that um you know on on the list for that August 1st week ending and one student aged 5 to
06311. So I I think it's important because I had asked for the July data and since that data was in the letter that came to you and then you subsequently supplied it to the board when I asked for the the the source document. I think that source document needs to be you know on the website or is included as part of that answer. Yeah. All this data is on our website. So July 20 there were 30 cases COVID cases in Stafford school age children okay from the health department remember they're the official collector of the data and then in July of 21 there were 93 cases I'm asking for August 1st of 2021 the week ending August 1st of 2021 what was the report for that the question that you asked us you said last
064week we made a statement that the COVID cases for schoolaged children were going up and you wanted conf you wanted the data to support that. So the health department collects the data every Sunday. So the Sunday prior to the schoolboard meeting of July 27th is where we put the endpoint for the data to support the comment that was made on last Tuesday. Okay. I wasn't looking for support for the comment. I was looking for information. I'm I'm my point my point is let take this down because it's falling down. My point is that the that the document please the document that was provided in response to my request for the context of the PowerPoint and I'm assuming that PowerPoint's going to be part of this presentation tonight actually had more information more current information as
065of August 1st and if I read that document correctly there was one student aged 5 to 11 and zero aged 12 to 18. It's just I think it's important to have a full disclosure. Wait, Miss Miss Healey is correct and you will see next week that zero and one will go up because I already know we have more cases in of CO. But to go back to the question that you asked. Okay. I asked for July data. July data would end on I have your email. I'm not going to argue with you, but I have your email from yesterday. Okay. My my point though is that when we are provided information, I like to get the full picture and I don't want to have to come back and ask for the full picture to get
066that information, particularly when that may be contrary to certain positions that some may be taking. That's all. I'm I'm going to I'm going to back off now, but I think it's important that that information that was provided first to me and then my request to the rest of the board be included on the website with the response to the question number 27. Well, I'm going to say one thing because I've dealt with this for a few years with you. If you're suggesting that we're misleading you, that's inaccurate. The data that's important, you want to know if there was an increase in July. We've gone three times as much in July of 21 compared to July of 20. And that's the piece of data that I think is most important because if we're going to go
067one week by one week, then we're not going to get anywhere. So for the board information, we've gone up three times, 300% from one year of July of 20 to July of 21. You are correct about August and next week at the schoolboard meeting we could show you August 8th which will be another number. So we look for a trend to answer the question about the comment that was made on July 27th which was based on the latest data which ended on July 25th. Madam Chairman, would you just confirm whether or not that letter is going to be included in the website information? I I that is my request as a school board member. I had one question that I asked. This was a followup because I wanted to see the context and it is
068my request if there's no objection from the board that that information be put on the website. It's available to anybody under FOYA. So I see no reason on not having it there. I'm trying to make sure I know which letter is it. The response I'm and I'm sorry, Miss Hely response to me when I asked for the context in which the PowerPoint was created. I saw a PowerPoint. I didn't know what these numbers were, but I knew that I wasn't I didn't have all the information. I'll just say that. And I think that completes the picture. Can that be added as a I could add can that be answer the question. I could add one more case if that's the question that's being asked. I could add instead of saying there was I mean I'm
069not really even understanding the whole point but if the whole point is to say it's inaccurate then I could say we had instead of 93 cases we had 94 cases. So I'll add the one case. Okay. The point is not that it's inaccurate. The point is it's not complete. If there's more information more information was provided to this board then that information needs to be available to the public. It's a it's a it's a letter from the health department to you. It includes data. I It's public information. I agree. I left one case off. So, we have one additional case from the case I gave you. So, may can that letter be I guess add we'll amend we'll amend the graph to add from instead of 93 cases 94 cases. That's that's not what I'm
070asking. Oh, I'm asking for the letter from the health department to Dr. Kizner with the information for July up through August 1st that that be included in the response. It's really very simple. If not, you know, we can ask everybody to foy it if they want. It's available. It's public information. It's part of the response to my question and I think it's incomplete if it's not there. I also thought it was incomplete not to share it with all the board members which is why I asked that it go to all the board members. I just this is a very very personal and emotional subject and I think we need to be crystal clear that there's nothing being held back that you know all the information is is available and I'm I'm asking a simple thing.
071I want that letter. It's no big deal. Now, it's going to be a big deal because we're having this extended discussion. If it's a letter from the health department, I don't see that there's an issue with sharing it. No, just to put it with the response to my one question number 27. Number 27. Can we just Can we amend that? It's it's truly a non-issue. We'll add it. Thank you. Now, we can go to All right, Miss Parish. quite all right. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair, Madame Vice Chair, Dr. Kizner, members of the board. Thank you all for having me here tonight. I'm here to uh talk with you about a summary, which most of you probably already know most of, of the current masking requirements or guidance under Virginia or federal law or
072guidance. and then to answer any questions you may have about um any of the legal concerns. Do you all um I know you all were given a copy as part of your agenda of a summary I created of the um current mask guidance and requirements. Do you all have that available? Because I have extra copies if anyone wants that in front of them. You want me to just hand a stack and thank you. And I believe I know she does. And I believe this is a this is attached to our agenda item as well. Thank you. Are we a question? We have questions. I'm gonna let her start to go over it. Okay. And you all will see when you have this in front of you. There there are five Roman numerals. The first four
073are basically the summary that I want to talk about tonight. Those are the considerations that you all have before you when you're making this very important decision that I know you all have a lot of uh speakers on both this week and in prior weeks. The first point, and the reason I put it first is because um it may be the most important guidance, but it's also the least well-known and wasn't discussed by um anyone tonight. And that is a the fact that the um Virginia General Assembly did pass a law during its special session that essentially uh or that does state that school boards shall follow guidance of the CDC in this issue. And we'll get to that guidance in a moment. But to explain that law, it's not a codified law, meaning we
074couldn't just look it up under 22.1. It is a law that was of limited duration and special effect, which is why it was an uncodified law that didn't really make the headlines anywhere. Um, it is in effect until August 1st, 2022. And the main thing that law did that everyone I think is very familiar with is it mandated that all school boards have in-person instruction this year. So everyone heard about that and that's what you all have all been working very hard to make sure you have is inerson instruction this year. But under section two of that law, it's it's chapter 456 and it was Senate Bill 1303 is the language that says each school board and then you will see that I've highlighted the sections that are relevant. Each school board shall provide such
075in-person instruction in a manner in which it adheres to the maximum extent practicable or reasonable or possible to any currently applicable mitigation strategies for elementary and secondary schools to reduce the transmission of CO 19 that have been provided by the federal centers for disease control. So the general assembly both the senate and the house passed that bill. Governor Northam signed that bill. He apparently didn't remember that he signed it later on when he gave some press conferences saying that schools had a choice in the matter, but that's what the Virginia law states. So then we get to the big change that happened last week. So, as you all know, last Tuesday, the CDC um very recently, of course, amended its guidance and before last Tuesday, its guidance was that school divisions should only require masks
076in schools for people who were unvaccinated. Um, so the CDC revised that last Tuesday and its current recommendation, again, not a mandate, but a recommendation, which is what most of the CDC um, publications have been, is that all teachers, staff, students, and visitors in K12 schools should wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. The third guidance that's on your list is the interim guidance um for COVID 19 prevention in Virginia PreK through 12 schools which has been out since July 21st and that was a joint publication by the Virginia Department of Health as well as the Virginia Department of Education. And that guidance um is a strong recommendation that elementary schools implement a requirement that students, teachers, and staff wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. Again, elementary schools. That for middle and high schools
077at a minimum that school division implement a requirement that students and staff who are not fully vaccinated wear masks indoors. and that school boards consider universal masking for specific reasons such as in areas of high transmission, etc. So, an interesting point to make is that the CDC guidance that was in effect before last Tuesday was actually less restrictive than your Virginia state guidance. So assuming that the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Health understood and knew about the Virginia law that passed under chapter 456, then their then issued guidance was consistent with the CDC because the CDC was saying only mask only require masking again if there's um no vaccination. So, at this point, the expectation, and we've all been saying this since last Tuesday, is that because the CDC um implemented
078the new guidance that gives you the guidance to ask for all masking in schools that the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Health will presumably pass new guidelines in the very near future because they have historically been either consistent with or even more restrictive than the CDC guidelines. So, as we sit here tonight, which is the night that you all have to vote, you know, there is certainly inconsistency about there is a act from your legislature that says you should follow CDC guidance and there's a CDC guidance that says um that everyone should be mandated to wear masks and preK through 12. And then you've got this state guidance that's inconsistent with both of those things. The fourth item I wanted to mention and I don't think that there's even a question
079about that now but just so that everyone knows there is a different requirement for wearing masking on public school buses and that is not guidance but it is in fact a mandate unlike other CDC guidance. Um, in this case, under federal law, the Center for Disease Control does have the right to make orders that are binding on everyone. And in this case, they um have an order under what's called section 361 of the Public Health Service Act, which is a requirement for persons to wear masks while on conveyances and transportation hubs. There was much discussion about whether that applied only to interstate commerce and not to, you know, city and county school systems in the Commonwealth of Virginia. And u much guidance was issued by the CDC and um it has been made clear specifically
080by the CDC that that order does apply to public school buses in all of the localities including Stafford County. Uh that was in effect as of February 1st and that remains in effect until the um public health emergency is um rescended and as of this time the federal public health emergency has been renewed effective July 20th, 2021. So that um that just means again no choice on that issue. You do have a federal CDC order that requires children on school buses to wear the masks. The only other point on my sheet is I always add this for school divisions as far as you know your obligations um under Virginia law as schoolboard members obviously you are um making all the decisions policy-wise for the running of the school board and under Virginia code section 22.1-79
081you have a powers and duties section and under that section a school board shall do several things but one thing it shall do is see that school laws are properly explained, enforced, and observed, and perform such other duties as shall be prescribed by the board of education or that are imposed by law. So, as we stand here tonight, we have the Virginia Act of the General Assembly, which says that you shall follow CDC guidance. You've got CDC guidance that says everyone should be masked in the preK through 12 setting. and you've got some contradictory state guidance that was not mentioned in the state statute. So, please let me know if I can answer any questions that you all have about that or any of the other issues. A question. So, as everybody knows, um just
082um passed the no mask last week and [Applause] the people, hey, we will say um please you all ask that we have this debate and this discussion. The way that the board can do that is to hear each other and to hear that the speakers. I would ask that you allow us to do that so we can make the best decision possible. Miss Hollerback. So if if what I understand that you just said is that they are not in compliance with state law. Is that correct? Again, I'd rather not state what another board is in compliance with. As you may know, I also represent that board. Um but please keep in mind that um that board made its decision on Monday and that was the day before the CDC changed its guidance. So as of
083Monday of last week, the CDC was saying masks were not required other than for elementary schools. So that has changed since then. Right. So I I guess I guess what I'm trying to do is kind of feel out what are the ramifications of if they are not in compliance with state law, what do they need to do? And I think that's a good question as far as what any board should you want to know. What are the consequences or what are the potential liabilities um if if you all make certain decisions tonight, which of course is in your hands. So the primary legal risk um is going to be a lawsuit for injunctive relief, which you all may be aware of could happen almost no matter what you do. But if you're looking at someone
084filing for an injunction, whether it's in state or federal court, if you, for example, um said there's no mask mandate, someone who believes that you're not following the law could file for an injunction or vice versa. So, it's um there may be more chances if you go one way than another that someone files for an injunction, but essentially your liability would be um having your decision reversed by a court and having to likely pay legal fees. Typically, injunctive relief is not something that's covered by your insurance because it doesn't involve a monetary claim or an accident or occurrence. So, it's just a request for a court to look at the issues, look at these laws and or guidance, and make a decision about whether you should be reversed as a board. So, that's that's one
085thing that could happen. Um, thankfully in Virginia, school boards have sovereign immunity. So, you may have heard some discussion tonight about how there may be civil liability for your decision. Um I don't have a lot of concerns about there being any civil liability. There can't be civil liability against school boards for, you know, what are called um tort claims. In other words, you made a decision and um because of your legislative decision as a board, we received injury and therefore we're going to sue you. You are immune from that. So it would um it would involve a motion to dismiss and you would not have to stand for that type of a lawsuit. Okay. the lawsuits you're not immune for um as you know contractual matters or civil rights matters. So some uh conceivably there
086could be some type of litigation as you all may have seen where um um someone could claim that their constitutional rights were violated because of a decision of the board. So there could be some type of illegal action uh that a constitutional right was violated and that would be something you have to defend. Okay. And I guess the sorry there's so many I know That's why I'm asking because this is a it's just a a mess. Like we were in a mess last spring when I had suggested or I asked the question, what would happen to us if we allowed prom to happen because we wanted our kids to have prom. I had a senior last year and I felt like he was, you know, and I asked what the what the ramifications to the
087board would be if we passed some kind of, you know, policy that says we're going to let the kids have prom. And I was told that we could all be charged with a misdemeanor. So, and and I think that, you know, um if if you all violate a law under section 22.1 of the code, which is the code of Virginia sections that relate to your public education, your members, there is a statute there that states if you violate that law, you all could be charged with a class 4 misdemeanor, which is a finable offense. However, importantly to know, this statute isn't part of 22.1. So, I I don't believe there would be any there could be no criminal action or in my opinion civil monetary action for a tort claim. Um, regardless of which way
088this board went on that issue. Okay, I'll let somebody else go ahead and ask now. I'm sure I'll come up with a few more questions. Thank you. Anyone else? Dr. Chase. So, um, I maybe you already answered this, but I just didn't understand the language. Um so let's say we have a child in the school system who um dies from COVID and we had not followed the law. Would there be any impact for our school system? Could could the school system be sued in that case? Um I do not believe that the school system could be successfully sued in that case because you all have sovereign immunity from decisions that you all make. um on that issue here as a legislative body. So, sovereign immunity protects you all in your decisions. It would not protect
089individual employees if they made decisions that were considered grossly negligent, a higher level, or in violation of law. But in something like this, in my opinion, your administrators are following your legislative action. So, it would not be um a general view that your administrators would get sued. Okay? um even though they could be sued, they shouldn't be for this because it's your decision, not the administrator's decision. So, let's say that we um said masks are optional. And so, I as a parent want my child to be masked. My child is in the school. The school system is not making sure that they stay masked. They develop COVID. Is there any liability for any of the employees in the school for not making sure that child was masked? Um, so we go back to the analysis
090of the of employees of a school board. So even though you all can't be sued, if you had a specific employee who committed some type of a um in civil injury called a tort that they could be sued for, the proof would have to be that they were, and I know this is very difficult to explain, but but they can't be sued for what is called simple negligence. So you made a mistake as a teacher. you forgot that um Jane Doe was supposed to wear the mask. You didn't enforce it and we can prove that John Doe received COVID because of that exposure. If that's just a mistake, that employee would be immune from that because in order to actually successfully sue an employee, you would have to be able to prove an intentional bad
091act, which could occur in some cases, or um a what's called a grossly negligent act, which is again, it's ve, you know, it's something very high level that would not be just because you got mixed up about not enforcing a mask. And that's the difficulty about things like, you know, opt out forms or opt-in forms or those types of things is, you know, you will be giving your administrators and your employees uh the job to keep track of those things um to to to make sure they're enforced and then you are always going to have a problem with some students maybe not complying even with the enforcement. So, those are all things you might have to deal with on the ground. But again, I don't think there's a significant chance of a of a schoolboard
092employee being successfully sued for something like that. Miss Healey, I just have two questions. And for at least the tenure of this board and probably four boards before them, I've always asked the question about shall should. Now this CDC guidance says should wear masks indoors. Is should mandatory or is that a recommendation? The CDC guidance is definitely just a recommendation. So should is a recommendation. However, the general assembly's chapter 456 act says that you shall follow the should. But it says they shall. But the but that law says provide instruction in which it adheres and this is the to me the relevant words to the maximum extent practicable. Now if this board were to determine that it's not practicable to require mass because of negative impacts on children. I mean, we we have I believe
093it's more than one suicide last year. Um, and to families, would that not be a potential basis to say that it's not practicable to require this and and to make it parent choice? Would would that not be a reasonable interpretation? I think that could be an interpretation. I think when um and we don't know how that will play out because it's all so new and there haven't been any challenges. Um I imagine that some could argue that you did it last year or you did it over the summer. I guess that's a better argument. You did it over the summer or you did it with uh certain students who you allowed to come back and and you know it was reasonable and it and it worked. You know it didn't it didn't allow COVID to
094spread etc. So that would certainly be a factual argument but that is correct. the shall only applies um if you determine to the maximum extent practicable that that's a mitigation strategy that again what does maximum extent practicable mean right I think that's up to us and another you know issue is how do we know that the masks have stopped it I mean we've had people bring these ma I mean we all have these masks I mean I don't I don't know I'm not an expert but the ma if the if the the box that the mask comes in, including as you know, one of the speakers had tonight, that was the the N95, which is supposed to be the preferred mask. If that's a disclaimer that it's going to stop this transmission. We I don't
095know. I'll just speak for myself. I don't know that it has stopped it. Um, and I think the problem is, you know, the CDC has maybe developed its own reputation that many people have given their comments about tonight. And all of that, including the um the data that's been discussed tonight and what what you're talking about, all of that was discussed before the general assembly. So why they passed this law if they felt that I mean, why doesn't the law just say schools may make the choice? So that's what gives you all, you know, this predicament that you're in tonight. But the Virginia legislature chose not to say follow our state guidance by the health department, not follow our guidance by the V by the Virginia Department of Education, but they chose to say that
096you shall, if practical, follow the CDC guidance. So the general assembly chose to use that as the guidance to follow. They passed it. I I I wonder if you were to quiz everyone that voted on this as to what exactly they were signing for, you would get a variety of of responses. I'm I'm just I'm looking for something that will give us the ability to allow the parents to to choose and I personally am not convinced that it's the maximum extent practical to follow a recommendation and the governor previously required we had no choice when the governor's executive order came out masks were required now the governor who has that authority to do it again is not mandating it. So to me that's significant. Okay. Can I ask ahead? Okay. I I just when you
097when you're done. Okay. No, I'm I I will yield. But thank you. Thank you. Um Miss John, go ahead. So if there was at some time in the f today we're here for masking. Today we're voting on mask or no mask, not on option, right? Am I correct? So, yeah. So, so not an option for parents. We're not saying no mask. Well, I'm not saying no mask. I'm saying and at this point, we don't even have a motion on the table. Okay. So I'm just question the question in terms of if for example um individuals decide that they don't want to wear a mask. I don't know if this is a question for you or not. How do we know um that individuals are not carrying um the virus within the school and bringing it
098to school from home? I mean, I know we have like um people are home, they're on vacation, they're coming back, go to Florida or wherever. And how do we know or how can we um provide that safe space where, you know, do we can we ask for like, okay, uh a test, not vaccination, if they chose not to get vaccinated, is there a way that we could say, hey, can you be tested? Is that against uh the law or the rule? Well, there are a lot of ways um all of which are perhaps administratively burdensome that you could enforce that. Obviously, if you had a universal mask mandate, you know, it's easy. Everyone has a mask on unless there's been an accommodation that someone knows about. um with other choices. I you know a lot
099of it is and in many school divisions just like the public now it's just a matter of on your honor you know like like people now who are um mostly going maskless because um you know they've been vaccinated so most of the stores and other places don't don't allow it. So you know you all as a school division certainly have the right you know if you choose to implement it to um require proof of certain things. You can require proof from your employees. You can require proof from students. Those are things that you can require as a school board um in order to enforce that. But again, it's very difficult in a in the you know in the in the ground in the classroom level um if you again, let's just say you had um
100um parent choice optout form. A teacher is not going to know looking out of the classroom if they see five people masked and 18 people not masked. they're they're not going to, you know, they're going to have um hopefully their um their role list that will say if there's an outdout, for example, who's not having to wear a mask. That's how they would know who needs to wear it. And certainly you all, and this is probably again a maybe a question for Colette or your administration as far as how that will actually work depending on what your decision is tonight. Yeah, I know. um not um being vaccinated was one issue when we had um alpha, but now that we have the delta, which is even more serious, is even more serious for individuals that
101are vaccinated. Correct. To to the audience again. Thank you. If you all would like to leave the room and let us have our discussion, we are fine to do that. This is for the board to get accurate information. Our job is to it has been given to us to make this decision this evening. If you would like us to get the best information, allow us to have our discussion. According to the CDC, there are several strains right now, one stronger than the other. And so for this latest virus strain, even those that are vaccinated are having to be masked. So how even vaccinated folks can we say no mask? So it either has to be all or nothing. It doesn't seem like he could choose between mask and no mask. And I'm not sure was
102that I'm not sure if that I think it was a comment after the fact. Yeah. Dr. Warner, I've spent the last week speaking to a number of physicians who are working as emergency room doctors, a trauma surgeon, and a hospitalist and they're telling me the same thing that they're seeing more children in their hospitals and they have COVID and it's the Delta variant. We haven't had this many children in the school um for a year. um if we opt to ignore disregard the recommendations from the CDC and we start having um to quarantine students like Arkansas had 168 students quarantined, three teachers. The emergency rooms in Javal County, Florida are filling up with children in the ICU on ventilators. Do we become, you know, are we putting too much of a burden on our teachers
103to ask them to sort through which students can are required and which students are not required to wear a mask? And I also wonder how we um then we just oh whoops, we were wrong and we go back. Um what is our legal responsibility if if we have to suddenly reverse course? Well, I mean, your your legal responsibility as a board is to is to follow this law, but the problem is there are different interpretations on exactly what that means because of the confusion um with the statute as well as the um uh confusion with the differing guidance. But a lot of uh a lot of your question I think would probably better be answered by your administrative staff as far as what's going to happen because I think a lot of the issues are
104not legal issues. I think they are um logistical issues involving whether you're going to have too many people out, too many teachers out, whether you'll be able to teach or not, whether you're going to have increased quarantines. And those are really um probably statistical predictions that um staff could probably speak about better than I could. All right. Any other questions at this point for um Miss Parish? All right. I I have to end with um a couple. Um we talk about that um law that was passed. Um I call it the five-day law. I I don't because it's uncodified, but it is still the law for us until I believe next August 22. Um, having looked at the uh legislative uh voting on that particular law, it was 36-3 and in the House in the
105uh Senate and 88-9. So, this was a pretty much a bipartisan bill as I I mean whether we say whether they understood what they were voting on or not, I could talk at length on that issue, but how it was went through was a overwhelmingly I would say for our legislature bipartisan bill that was worked out. It does trouble me that um we had a and in in my opinion a law that says to school boards that you shall I agree to the maximum extent practable follow federal center of disease control and prevention and then we have our own Virginia department doing something different and that the that the state legislature chose the federal CDC guidelines over their own Virginia Department of Health that I just can't from from just a standpoint that is is
106troubling obviously to me in terms of but that's what their cho choice was and that is the choice that is given to the school boards as I understand it um the extra part about um putting the um federal guidelines as the standard in in their case um is is just troubling to me as a school board. Um Dr. I just wanted to you know we were all given the opportunity the last two days to meet with the Virginia Department of Health representative and I did take advantage of that this morning and their guidance is moving in the direction of the CDC's guidance. Right. So they it it may be I I I can't you know speculation but that that the legislature understood that the CDC would be faster at coming down with something and then
107the Virginia Department of Health would follow along. So that's just just No, no, I it's really more just a comment on um that maybe the Fed, you know, does move faster. Um, and I think the hardest part for well this school board member is timing. This is always changing and none of us have the crystal ball of what's going to happen next week, what's going to happen tomorrow. Except the one thing that I do know is that school is starting in Stafford County schools on Monday. And that weighs very heavily on me. that 30,000 students 4800 I'm looking at my staff maybe more 4,800 I'm going to make a wild guess of staff will be in our buildings that have not been in there in over a year and a half and that just weighs
108very very heavily on me because I don't believe that these are the decisions that school boards should be making because they are health decisions and I understand the comments of parents that it is your decision. However, school boards have to look at every student and every family weighing every student's um right to a free and public education. And that just weighs, I will say, very heavily on me and um is troubling at this point. Sure, Miss Young. Go ahead. So, according to uh the CDC, our Stafford level of community transmission is high. It doesn't say moderate. It doesn't say that it's it's substantial. It said it's high. Um our vaccination rate is 35%. Not 50, not 70. Um so we have 31% fully vaccinated. That's not her immunity. Um her immunity is not for people
109that have um or that had COVID. Her immunity is for those that are vaccinated. Um so vaccination rate please wait over 12 years of age is at 42% for one dose and 37% full vaccination. So Stafford right now is less than 50% vaccinated. Um so the are the rapic health department recommends that we follow the CDC guidelines. who recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K uh from K through 12 regardless of vaccination status. And then they also recommended that all children return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with layered prevention strategies in place. That is our duty. All right. Any other questions for Miss Parish in the legal area? Don't don't run away because we may think of some more. I'm sorry to say you may be with
110us for a while. Dr. Kizner, do you um I believe this was a layered approach um presentation. Is that correct? Or are it's up I'm going to take your lead. Yes. So um again last week you had the presentation of the mitigation strategies and then the board had a lot of questions and maybe I could just touch upon a couple of the questions that I think the board was um and I think the public might be interested in. one was um what would happen if a student um chooses to go virtual at this point in time. And I just want to make clear that there's another thing that we do not control and that's virtual Virginia. Virtual Virginia is a uh state program that sets the quota of how many students will be eligible for
111um virtual Virginia. They closed it about two weeks ago. Um I will say that Dr. Jones is making contact with the department of ed and see if there's an opportunity to open it up again. Um so we are being aggressive in that. But if they are not able to uh both the middle school and high school um administration working with the teachers are planning our own uh in-house virtual um program. It won't be to the extent of uh say a virtual Virginia will be focusing more on core subjects at the K I will okay I was going to say two things at the elementary level we are using K12 inc that one we still have opportunities okay that one is not as limited as virtual Virginia we are also pursuing we're not we have not
112come to a conclusion that K12 inc also has an option for older students. It's K12. Okay. So, I guess what I'm saying is that those families that choose to go virtual, if they choose to, and we have about between the middle and high school, about 140 families that have inquire, no, let let me back that up. Inquired, but we have about 60 that really want to pursue uh a virtual after the date that closed. Okay. Now, I will say, and you heard some tonight, and it goes both ways. I'm not taking sides here. Um, tonight's action, what might change that number. Okay. Um, so that that's one thing I just want to make sure that those families that want virtual, a virtual option will be available, exactly what that would look like. It still has
113to be um ironed out. K5, we're pretty confident K5, K12, Inc. will be the model and that's what we've been using already. The other um uh question I think um I'm trying to focus on more in the instructional ones. um if a child is a short term has to be home because of a quarantine situation. Um something that the board was committed to and staff was definitely committed to and teachers absolutely committed to was to minimize as much as possible the concurrent teaching. But again, if a child's home because of either an illness or being quarantined, we are not going to stop the instruction. the child's still going to learn. So, we're going to have the concurrent teaching model in place. Of course, if a parent feels like their child is not healthy enough to
114do that, then we'll make other accommodations. So, my whole point is that we see no scenario, regardless of whatever decision you make tonight, where a child's learning will be disrupted. Dr. Kizner, um so that was one of my questions on the list about you, um parents that wanting virtual. Um what happens if their um siblings where the younger sibling um non-mask um contracts virus but then the older sibling middle school or high school may also have it. uh are we how are we tracking that and is there an opportunity where the older sibling the whole class has to quarantine and in that case do we have a plan for that? Yeah, we we have plans if if a whole class or a whole uh you know section of a of a um let's say the
115band you know whatever would be plans for every our goal is to try to reduce any disruptions to a child's learning. I I need to say one thing that has a change. Contact tracing now is not done by the school system. It's done by the health department. So when the family learns that their child has to quarantine, we will work with the health department to communicate that to the parent, but the decision will be made by the health department. prior to um the the uh state of emergency ending um it was the school system's responsibility to do the contact tracing but it's always been the responsibility of the health department to do contact tracing up till the state of emergency so that is a change um which I bring that up is because when we
116were doing it and I am proud of a lot of people I'll look at Colette but it's a whole team and George um we were pretty quick in notifying families and you know the health department were has five school systems. So um it may not be as quick as we would like but we will work closely with them. All right. Any other any questions comments? Yes, Dr. Chase. I just I just did want to make one comment because we had a number of people point out that that we heard from nobody um this evening who was prom. Um I do want to say that I received over 315 emails. Um, and I would say at least half of them um had the had the opposite point and that that there are a lot of people
117in our community who are very concerned and they don't want to come to a public forum like this where people are not masked. So I just I just want to make sure you all know that that we did hear the alternative um perspective on things that they were at Starbucks. Okay. Um and you know the anger is just really um it's it's very hurtful and um yeah it is right Miss Randall I think yeah wait a minute this is not this is not for discussion again we are to be making this decision tonight we are weighing all everything that is in front of us we are trying to do that in a respectful manner Please let us continue in that way. Miss Randle, um do you have any comments or questions for our So I
118would also agree with Dr. Chase and that we have received pretty equal amounts of conversations. And I will also say that one of the things that I've taken advantage of as a board member is reaching out to other board members who have an opposite opinion of mine and trying to work a solution. As adults and leaders in our division, we'd sometimes um work to try to find a a a solution that isn't easy for everyone, but has something in it for everyone. And I want you to know that as a board, I mean, it's it's been a lot of discussions this week. And you know, um, my biggest thing, and I I said it last week in my board member comments, and, um, is social emotional for me. Um, the US Department of Education put
119out their, uh, landmark one, two, and three of returning to school. The first one is to prioritize the health and safety of students, school personnel, and families. And that's obviously being considered. The second one was to build school communities, which is something I feel like our administrators and our teachers over last year, they took that upon themselves to do. As parents, we didn't have that option of coming in our schools and servicing our teachers with appreciation or running events that would bring our families together so neighbors would be talking to neighbors. We just didn't have that. And that's something that I feel like, you know, as someone who has raised three kids in the school system, to have an opportunity to talk to other parents in my child's classroom who I wanted them to have
120playdates with. As a school community, you may have done it on your own in your own communities, but as a school community, we didn't get to do that last year. And that's priority number two from the US Department of Education. And support students social, emotional, and mental health. That is something I feel is hugely important in supporting our in offering those social moments whether in in my questioning I asked specifically even about lunch because I feel in the middle school and I know Dr. Grider you've said that um depending on the room but I feel it's very important that all middle schoolers have their lunch in the cafeteria. Let's hear those buzzing talk. Let's have social time together. high schools I see are going to be going all back in the cafeteria. I just feel
121these are little things but important things. I also think that having the kids clubs and sports back is important because I feel it also helps their social emotional. The other piece is that I feel that we have put our money where our mouth is in providing more money for counselors and mental health workers and social workers in our schools this year coming. And we need to make sure that this isn't just for the kids that are to use an expression Dr. Kner uses loud and louder. We need to make sure that even the quiet and quieter kids are also given help and services to and I just want to make sure something uh wonderful in the field of social emotional support is offered to our students. I know this is a problem for social emotional
122for some for many of our kids but I also want to make sure um that we address it in a way that we can. Obviously, you've heard we have some legal challenge that was put before us. Um, and then the third one is to accelerate academic achievement. So, let's make sure our kids are safe. Let's make sure we support them and then we can teach them. That's how the order of US Department of Education and that's what's weighing on my mind in making this decision tonight. Thanks, Dr. Warner. I just wanted to also make the comment that last year everything was shut down. We haven't had this many kids and faculty and staff in the buildings at the same time. It is a risk to just open up the schools as if there is no
123CO 19 and as if there is no Delta variant because we are now we are now not doing the primary tenant that we've been tasked with and that's providing for the safety of everybody. As somebody who's worked in a hospital setting almost my whole life, masks do work. That's why when you go into the operating room, your team is wearing a mask. They're not doing it to protect themselves. They're doing it to protect you in case they have any infection or virus or anything that could make you sick. And we know they work because doctors and nurses have been wearing them for over a hundred years. All right, Dr. Chase. So, this is um just a a question in in the many many emails that I read. Um, one that was brought up was a
124parent was concerned about the playgrounds and this parent said that that last year um at this particular elementary school the children were not allowed to be on the playgrounds at all even at the end of the the school year. So I was curious what is the plan this year? I I and and in corresponding with this parent, I did say, well, you know, they were only in school for three hours a day. Um, and it was only two two days a week and then it went up to four days a week. So, what is the plan for recess and the playground for children this year? Uh, playgrounds will be open, playgrounds will be utilized, recess will take place. Um our goal is um to uh as Miss Randall stated and I think all of you
125is to try to have uh understand the social emotional needs but also uh work with our students for a reasonable level of social distancing but we have to be realistic. These are young children and they're going to be near each other and we can't get crazy about that. Okay. Um we are going to clean the playground equipment uh uh after each use um things of that nature but recess uh will no masks uh recess will take place uh you know outdoor PE that will all take place um uh the discussion is really about indoor this is not about outdoor um but we we're going to go as normal as possible and um and I think uh uh the social interaction during PE recess um is is essential so that so all the playgrounds are going
126to be open. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Just want to make an observation. I'm I'm wearing this as a courtesy. It's not a statement, but when you're speaking, when Dr. Kisner's speaking, in order to communicate to the board, you're pulling it down. So if we ple please this is a board meeting our teachers are not going to have that option if this is a requirement our students are not going to have that option I think it's something to think about all right so any further either comments or um of where do we go now from here is there Um, let me make one other comment as well. Um, I have gotten several emails. Some have been spoken about IEPs. So, I'm going to actually look more at Dr. Kissner and um, Dr. Hummer. There seems there
127are a lot of those concerns. what is the school's um really reach out in the area of the IEPs and um with regard to not even just mass any other mitigation strategies because at some point we may be required to do additional things as we were last year that we had no choice as a board. So what are the avenues? How do how are we reaching our parents who are whose students are I won't say mostly impacted because every child is impacted but those that may have special concerns. Sure. Sure. That's actually currently um it's in the guidance that if it's not developmentally appropriate, we can continue to teach the student to become desensitized to wearing the mask, but we're not going to force the issue if the student's not able to do that. And
128then we will you we will utilize other mitigation strategies, cleaning of areas, making sure we're encouraging social distancing to make sure that we are again layering those mitigation strategies in those programs. If there are any questions about those mitigation strategies, reach out to the designate of that building or you can reach out to our office. One question. Hold on. Okay, Miss Young first, then Miss Randall. So um I had emails where there are some parents that they may not have an IEP but um even in the audience I heard some you know rashes or whatever they have problems with the mask. Is there a requirement and I think I asked this question before for the specific type of mask that is layered a little bit better where um the the the students don't have that
129that problem or that breeding or you know just feeling stifled. one. Two, um I know I've made um um you know, some um I had some ideas in the past that may not have been popular, but then became popular because we're adopting them. And I mentioned last time about plexiglass. I haven't heard any feedback on that. So for those students that can't um put on face masks and things of that nature, are we investing in plexiglass and you know ventilation so that we could at least give them some comfort? Sure. I can actually answer both your questions with one answer. Absolutely. We consider all mitigation strategies for all of our students, especially for students with disabilities because it's individualized to their needs. I can share a specific example without disclosing the student's name where we
130were trying to desensitize the student to wearing masks, but we were able to give them the face shield and we were actually able to graduate them to wearing of the masks and it actually worked very very successfully. In regards to the shields, um we have some situations where we do that where if we're testing or if students are really close and we again we can't have them wear masks, we do we have invested in those types of shields, but unfortunately it could still carry over top. So we don't use it in a lot of settings but in some settings it has been appropriate but again it's case by case based on the needs of the students of that class. These are not just individuals with IEP or 504 just in general when correct correct thank
131you Randall did no he just answered all right thank you thank you Dr. Hammer. All right. Any other um comments or suggestions at this point? All right. Hearing none. Um Dr. Ker, any final comments? I don't always do that, but I'm going to give you that opportunity tonight. No, the the only final Well, no, the only final comment is that um last week we did a presentation and we called it recommendations. So, we're just waiting for the school board to take action on the the recommendations from staff. All right. Do we have e a motion an endorsement where Miss Healey? Madam Chairman, I move that we make our policy for pro-choice for parents whether they want to their child to wear mask or not wear a mask. And of course, any student over 18 would
132be um making that decision for him or herself. Second um sec and the same for staff that it be a choice. I'd like to make it on um vaccination status or right I'd like to make a let me just get the clarification. So it is to to generate okay let me I just want to make sure I understand parent parent choice for students unless the student is age 18 or over in which case it would be the student choice and staff choice as well to wear a mask or not to wear a mask. Now, I know there's going to be another motion, but if this motion were to pass, we would have to come up with appropriate documentation for um parents to sign evidencing that choice in in effect um having it for the record.
133Now the the basis for that motion is that I believe that it is um it can be done in light of the language to the maximum extent practical and I think from what we've heard from the community through the emails and through our public hearings not just tonight but last week as well that there is an adverse effect on families and on a significant number of students by requiring the mask. So this this is I believe that can be consistent with this that it that it's not practical to follow that guidance that it they should be worn. I'd like to make a substitute motion that we um accept the uh mitigation plans presented by staff. Second. Second. All right. It's been moved and seconded regarding a um acceptance of a fully masked uh policy for
134all students and teachers in or and staff in Stafford County Public Schools. Is that correct? That's that's the one that has had a move and second. All right. I'm going to pass the gavvel because I'd like to make a substitute motion, a further a further substitute motion. I would like to move that Stafford County Public Schools begin the school year with a mask policy um for 30 for 30 days, which would be the day two days after Labor Day if we use regular days. If we were to use calendar days, it is the 21st, which is our next um school board meeting. Um during that time, a um opt out mask form would be generated for further review by the board. And because my um concern is is with the same language as Miss Healey
135about the maximum extent practicable. I do not believe from a practical or practicable. I'm not sure um that we have those um that we are have in place at this time the ability to implement this on next Monday. as well when we say practicable we are very clear that the 3 to six feet is not even close in our schools we have 97% or 98% I believe now at our high schools we have 90ome% almost in our each of our elementary and middle schools and at a and we are over a 100% in our kindergarten classrooms that at this point until we can figure out how we can um do those mitigation strategies ies. I um I support um masks, but the practicable part does concern me that I do believe in like in many
136things, we need to pilot and get started and find out how things go with 30,000 students and 4500 um student um staff. It weighs very much on me that the state has said that we have to follow the CDC guidelines. If our local numbers in the future were to um and upon many different metrics we have to look at, I am very much in favor of lobbying to have that changed. But from my me and a practical standpoint and a um start to school next Monday, I would um suggest the motion I made. Second. Any discussion or further motions? I guess I I have a a comment to make actually it's a question. So, when you you're suggesting this 30-day kind of it's a it's a temporary wear the mask for 30 days, see where
137we're at. Are we going to come back here as a board, look at the data, see if there have been any increases or um any influxes of of transmission in any of our schools, and if not, can we take the damn mask off? I would think at that meeting on I believe it's the 21st, and if my dates are wrong, please let me know. We would come back with that data if we need to have a special called meeting prior to that. I believe I do not believe meeting the Tuesday after Labor Day though Labor Day is the right choice because I don't think we'll have enough data after Labor Day in case there is a So are you thinking two weeks after Labor Day? I was thinking the 21st which is our regular meet
138a meeting we could already schedule on the um to get a report on what has occurred in the first 30 days. That would be my suggestion. So can I get clarification too? Um so uh we keep the mask mandate for 30 days. we develop an opt out form to be drafted and handed out or how how when do we get have that because I'd like to have we have a meeting on the 21st but but before that I would like to have sorry not having an opt out form that comes to us ready to go ready to go we have a meeting on the 14th that would be when we I believe we should bring that back the 14th of August or we have one on um September September 14th I mean August I'm sorry
139we have meeting August 24th 24th as well as the second day of school I do not think I really would prefer for staff's efforts to not be on that I would suggest August 24th August 24th we have a draft of an opt out form to be approved by the board or at least examined examined Okay. And then what would be So if on the 21st the metrics come to us, are we prepared to make a decision that day or are we pushing that day? I'm I'm just curious as to like when can we like have a date potentially that these come off? What What's your thinking is my thought. I'm sort of open for for more. I'm trying to give some. Can I can I can I can I say something real quick? So, we
140went from talking about masking to an opt out form that we don't even know what's going to be on the opt out form. We are one week away from school starting. We have 30,000 parents out there that are waiting for a decision so that they'll know what they're going to do with their children. And and so in one month's time, you're you're you're telling them we're going to be back here again in limbo deciding. Do you think the numbers are going to go down or up with with the virus that we're in right now? They went down this week. Okay. Yeah, they went down this week. I I so I'm just I'm I'm just I'm just speaking for the voiceless that are not here make that we have that we we have to know what's
141all involved so that they could also make a decision and have a choice whether they come in or do virtual. Dr. Chase I think you had a comment. Yeah. So, so the the concern I have is just we've seen over the last 18 months that there tends to be an increase following um holidays and breaks. And so I'm a little concerned about a 4-day break for Labor Day. So for us to be looking at this data prior to to Labor Day and making a decision, I'm just worried that we're going to see things change. But that's just I was think I think we were I thought I understood that the form would be at least reviewed by the board on the 24th. Um and metrics I had suggested the the 21st but maybe it's the
14214th of September. I that's a regular meeting. I'm sorry I'm going off of trying to look quickly. Um so I'm open for dates and suggestions. the dates, right? The 14th and 28th of September. Yeah, the meetings are the 14th and the 28th. The meeting on the 21st is your annual meeting with the PTO representatives, right? So, so Labor Day is September 6th and there's always a lag. There's a lag. So, um I'd probably be more comfortable with the 28th. Um I I agree that that's just just having watched what sort of happened after every sort of vacation period. But that's um so I think that would give it time to come up and then come back down again if we want to do that. If we review the form um in August, that gives some
143time for that to be circulated. Should in the future that be the the the will of the board that at least it's not voted one night and the next day it's released. I think that gives the board some time to um review that in August. I'm sure that our legal council will be assisting in that particular review. Um so that was my my suggestion for August 24th. you oh madam chair yes will we be besides just talking about the option um form will we also be discussing um virtual for because that's that's going to come right we need to make sure that there is virtual um teaching going on midepptember so parents are going to switch either way you go if you could reiterate Dr. Yes. So, tomorrow, I told the public last week in
144my letter Friday that I'll send a letter out tomorrow. So, I need to get some clarification. When if the board goes with this 30 days, are we talking about 30 days effect starting the 9th or 30 days starting after today? Okay. So, that's one thing that I would need some clarification. And to answer your question about the virtual and again we just hear things from parents until they put in writing we'll really know. Okay. So the question that might be asked is if in 30 days or September 21st, 28th, whatever day, I apologize, you make a decision that's going to upset a parent that is in a program now, will they be able to join a virtual program? Okay. And I don't have that answer. Virtual Virginia expects you to begin. K12 Inc. expects you
145to begin in the beginning, but we'll have to ask a question. I don't want to say no, but because that question has not been asked. Our in-house virtual program, of course, we could provide flexibility, but for K12, Inc. and Virtual Virginia, that would be their decision. So, I don't have the answer for that. So um so one thing if you go with this 30 days just let me know um in your motion when that 30 days would begin for for clarification for the board 30 school days and I believe I have counted them correct lands us on that September 21st date but but we don't have a meeting on the 21st um there's a tenative isn't there something on there we meet with Yes ma'am that is the board's annual meeting with the PTO representatives
146I must say on a personal level. I'm very happy you're coming back after September 1. Um I the the intent of the of the motion for me is to give some concrete guidance as of for Dr. Kizner to put in a letter and to say that for a 30-day period, uh, if we are saying calendar days or excuse me, school days, that would get us to September 21st, which allows us some time to work with our principles to give them um, the opportunity first to open their schools and focus on their kids who have not all been in that building for a long time. I would like their focus to be on that because as of right now um that's just where I want their focus. I want them to feel welcomed. I want them
147to feel happy in this building. And I understand that for some people that the mask is um an issue. However, many um workplaces and others are requiring it as well. I believe if we start with that with the expectation that we can always move in the other direction I believe this board is open to examining it. However, we do start school and to me different I believe than Miss Healey, the practicable part is of concern to me in schools that there are four trailers. We have at least at Rocky Run, we are going to have kids shoehorned in our classrooms and we need to have time to assess that particular um issue as well. I need to give our I believe our administrators need some time to figure out were we to go with this?
148How are they going to differentiate kids? I have some issues about with if you can even ask about vaccination that's a whole different thing. I did not go with that with Miss Parish. I believe there are other legal issues um to be made sure that we are correct. So that is the meaning behind the motion to get us started. Um, so yes, Miss Healey, I'm not a Robert's rules of order person, but I would like to ask Miss Parish, is it appropriate for us to be discussing two substitute motions to an original motion? Just just want to make sure I think so that we are in proper form. You are at the maximum. So you're allowed to have one motion and two substitute motions. So the motion before the floor now is the substitute motion
149that was seconded by Miss Hazard. So that should be up for discussion and vote first and if that fails you go back to the first substitute motion and if that fails you go back to the main motion. Yeah, I thought it was two. Thank you for making sure. Sure. I just Dr. Warren I just want to make a a clarification. If we change the rules after school starts, we have to give families adequate time if they decide they do not want to send their children. So, I don't want to put the burden on our staff in trying to implement this because the parents that are here are not going to be in the classroom. They're not going to be deciding which kids should and shouldn't be wearing masks and are supposed to and aren't. The
150teachers are going to have to do that. So, I want to make sure that if we're doing this and we're offering this opt out form, I want to make sure that there's adequate time for parents to make alternate arrangements for their kids and for the staff to figure out how they're going to referee this. Um, we have the meeting on the 14th and of September and um, I don't think we should make a decision until the 28th just so that there's adequate time for all these families. And and I'd like to just point out that the CDC guidance could change between now and then, right? I mean that's certainly nothing stays the same. Um and the Virginia Department of Health um advice may change. So um we we we would need to take all of
151that into consideration if we do this. Sorry, I'm just trying to make my notes. I would also just like to add in that um for this opt out form that we get to that we should be reviewing uh at the end at the August 24th meeting. I would still like for it to be um able to go out on the or as close to the 7th as possible um that Tuesday after Labor Day so that parents have time to read it, review it, sign it, return it, and you know, we can go about trying to um see how that's going to work. And but I also don't want to leave it open-ended. I would like to have an end date for that because we don't need flip-flopping for teachers to say, "Okay, today you are
152okay, today you're not." Um, like just to give it a concrete, parents, you have two weeks to submit your paperwork so we can get everything uh solidified in the schools. So, I'm a little confused. So, are we saying that we are going to give parents that option? I thought this was just saying we're going to look at it. So if we send out an opt out form before the board has made a decision, I think it may give parents I don't think we don't we can send out the opt out form you but the date to start is when we say the date to start is I don't say but I see the having the form and the paperwork ready to go is same with like family life. I mean you have everything filled out
153at the beginning of the year and they might not teach family life until the third quarter. um you still have all the paperwork in. I think that's why we were bringing the um an example of an opt- out form on the 24th to give time for the board to consider. I don't think we can send out anything that has not been reviewed or by our legal counsel or anybody up the chain. But I think that's why I made that date or suggested that date being before the um board consider wherever and whatever information we may have when we get to um September or after Labor Day was was my thinking. I please know this is not the area that I would like to be spending um my time um trying to make these decisions. I
154did Did you have a question for S? I'm confused. I don't understand the point of however many days it is, whether it's 30 or 40 or whatever. What is the point of that? If the point is to get an opt out form, then I would imagine we could get an opt out form tomorrow. I mean this this is not going plea please please this this this is not complicated. The parents know whether they want their child to wear a mask or they want the they don't want their child to wear a mask. They don't want their child to have to wear a mask. Man I I even I recognize that the the kids are going to have to wear mask on the buses at this point. That's that's the federal law. So, the kids will
155have the masks with them if they ride the buses, but I don't I it's not clear to me and and maybe because we have so many cooks in the kitchen here as to what this 30 days is intended to do because if anything, it's going to be confusing to our community because I I think as Miss Young and and others are alluding including if parents are going to make a decision about where to start their child in school next Monday and this decision changes, it's going to, I think, put a significant burden uh potentially on our staff to accommodate a change a month after school starts. So if if if you could articulate the reason for this then that may help me understand because to me it's it's pretty simple. It's either mask are required
156or parents can choose. I mean that to me that's that's the choice and that that's basically what we have in the original motion and the first substitute. And this is I mean it's a hybrid and I know oh you know we need to split the baby and try to accommodate everybody but that doesn't always work and I I think what we need to do is to make a decision and have that decision in place. I mean you're as I understand it you're not saying 30 days must become optional as I understand it and and please explain it if it's different. You're saying in 30 days we're going to look at it and decide where where we go. So So nobody knows anything other than we're going to start out with mask un under this. So
157if you could explain the purpose and what your intention is happen at this point and why we need the 30 days that would that would be helpful for me to understand. All right, I will I am trying to pull together many people's ideas. I believe that I know you believe that within 4 days on Monday, our staff can be ready with an opt- out form in every language and have reached every child. I do not think that's practicable and I do not think that our classrooms are ready to accommodate kids three three to six feet. We are supposed to be following according to the law the um CDC guidance whether I completely agree with it or not. I'm I may be to say that we are going to start the school year uh wearing masks.
158The board has will be reviewing an opt out form so that we may review it in August. board can pick the date and um at any of the upcoming meetings the board can move to put onto the agenda to change it. I mean I was trying to come up with some dates to to give but if dates are not what is on the majority of the board that was where I was going. I would just like to add that the 30 days gives gives us time to evaluate if there is any change in the transmission rates within our community. At the very minimum, it gives us an opportunity to see what happens when we go from having 30 suddenly have all 30,000 students in our schools, which we have not done. And many of the
159reasons that children may not have gotten sick last year was because everything that they were doing was closed to them. It gives us time. And our primary concern should be safety. The safety of our students, the safety of our staff because you don't know who your kid is sitting next to. You don't know if the kid sitting next to them has asthma. You don't know if their teacher has diabetes. You don't know any other medical condition. And the reality is that if they transmit the CO to the to somebody else, it could be fatal. That is reality. And I speak to doctors and nurses every day that tell me they see people dying every day who don't believe they even have CO. They think it's all a mistake. Oh, this isn't real. Delta is not
160real. But still, their emergency rooms are filling up with younger adults between the ages of 18 and 50 and with children. And those are people I know working on the front lines and they're tired of it because they're the ones that are they're the ones that are going home to their basement and can't even see their own family. So, I know what this is. Well, the the data in Stafford County, the data is in the Excuse me, Dr. If you let me finish the data that was provided today as of the week ending August 1st in children from age 5 to 11 there was one case from children aed 12 to 18 there were zero cases. So let's just make that part of the record as well. That's Stafford County Stafford County. Miss Healey, I
161I don't mind I don't mind you having an opinion, but you can't misrepresent the data. If you're suggesting that only one kid in Stafford has CO based on August 1st, that week, one kid was diagnosed. That's the month of July, 90 kids were diagnosed with COVID. So, you can't tell the public here. August one, we had one. We had 90 in July. I'm I I will quote from this. We had 90 in July. You could add up the numbers. You're not You're a very smart woman. But to suggest to the public that we only have one kid, one new case, one new case in Stafford County, the the the letter says, and this is a letter to you. You'll notice there is no visible data for the week of August 1st, 2021 for ages 12
162to 17. And that is because that week PN last week closed PN there were no cases in that age group. I'm quoting from the letter that I wanted made part of the Can you tell them the week before? Oh, you had the chart. Tell the public the week before. There's I want this letter on the record then everyone can read it. I'm just I'm just responding. Dr. Warner is giving her opinion and I'm saying this is the data, the latest data. I'm not saying it's not going to go up, but we don't know where these students even are going to get it. It doesn't necessarily mean if the numbers go up, they're from school. That's why I'm trying to discern, you know, what this motion is based on and what criteria is going to be
163applied. It sounds like, you know, we're all having different opinions or interpretations about what's going to happen in 30 days. And I I I mean, to me, you either voted in or you voted out. Can I say something? Because this isn't really given an answer. I mean, it we've we've had this discussion on other policies. Yes. I'll just leave it at that, Miss Randall. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, one of the things I think that um we did last year that I thought was um helpful was, you know, Dr. Kisner and much to his chagrin, we did a different interpretation of how school should start working together. And one of the things that we opted was piloting. And piloting was something that they had done in the schools to try to figure out did they
164have all the strategies right? Did they have all the resources right and that sort of thing. So my interpretation of the 30 days is that we are actually piloting to see how we are doing moving all of those things in the school. For me I I mean I'll look at data all day long but for me after 30 days I'm ready to say goodbye to the mask. That's just me. Um um you know madam chair sure go ahead. When I suggested the pilot program last year is because it was brand new to everyone. Co was brand new to us and so we needed to pilot it. Right now it is not new. We know what we have right now. We know what parents want or what parents don't want. And I'm one for voting. It's
165either a yes or a no. Parents need to know what we're doing and what they have to do to take care of their um their student, their child, their loved one. I back. I think you you were giving me the So, I'm First of all, I'm so over co I'm just I can't do this anymore. Um, I work in Arlington County and they've just the entire county has to wear one of these again everywhere. So, this is I'm not happy about this as the school division. Um, it's 30 days. I'm willing to support 30 days as long as we really look at this and we have serious discussion. I don't want to get into 30 days and just say, "Oh, you know, we've heard the room." No, we're going to look at it and we're
166going to have everybody talking about it. Um 30 days is better than the what is it? 180 days we have to be in school. Um so I'm willing to do the 30 days. Um and I'm going to support your motion with with the meeting the September 21st or the 14th. I'm sorry. I'm trying to add days and do like 50 things at one time. I I think the if we can put dates in the Dr. Chase, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's okay. Um, I guess I would also really like to encourage every member of the board here to talk to the Virginia Department of Health uh, physician. Um, I was really surprised when I spoke with with him this morning to hear him talk about um, the SIR model, susceptible, infected, uh, recovered. And one of
167the things he said is that vaccinated people are not considered to be over it. they're instead considered to be suscept susceptible prime. And so, um, that that's of concern to me and I think, um, we all need to, uh, be getting information from from all these different sources if we're going to be making these decisions. Um, and so when I asked, I said, "Okay, look, we're really tired of these masks." The CDC has said because Stafford is really high, there are maybe a few handful of counties in the country that are not in the red that could actually follow CDC guidelines and not have masks. I said, "Okay, so so what do we need to do to get away from the masks according to you all?" And what they said was if you get out
168of the orange into the yellow or green then you could let vaccinated people stop wearing masks. So I so I'm just sort of you know would really like us to be able to do um I I want to stop wearing the mask too. Please please understand that. Um, so just just to throw out there what I heard from um from the Virginia Department of Health this morning and maybe that'll change with with they're getting greater understanding. So So I I just want to piggyback on on that. We this whole conversation could possibly be moot by Friday, right? That PTOIC local is here. I know that some of the news media is is watching online and they're probably going to report on this. um you know what uh Jennifer Parish brought to us, you know, and
169and the the the the new law that nobody knew about. Um this is all going to come out tonight on the news. So I wouldn't be surprised if the regulatory and legislative agencies get together, talk about it, and by Friday, we're going to probably be told everybody's going to wear a mask. So stay tuned. Yes, Miss Randall. So, I would like to encourage though since you all know about the Senate Bill 1303 is take your uh typing fingers to your computer and write those legislators that all just stamped this new bill that has hand tied us in some respects. I would ask that you write your senator, write your representatives and let them know that this is not okay. Yes. Go ahead, Miss Miss Hilly. Excuse me. Excuse me. Ma'am, ma'am. Thank you. Go ahead,
170Missy. Then 30 days, it's going to be reviewed. Now, how soon after that would it potentially be changed? Because unless people have that form in advance, it's not going to be able to be immediately effective. You're probably talking about another week of this process. If you're going to develop a form, then that form needs to be made available and people should be able to send it in saying at such time that the board makes this um you know an option then I want to be needs to be before the 30 days because otherwise August 24th it's going to take more time. That's why the suggestion was August 24th was to review the form and to um at that time the board can establish any dates that the majority of the board will agree to. That's
171why I thought August 24th, not doing it the second um the next Tuesday. I I think that's um I like as I said I would like staff to be focused on opening schools but our next board meeting is the 24th and that was the date that I suggested we bring the opt out form for consideration and we can certainly pick any dates at that point that we believe that the form can be released be my suggestion madam chair that form I just want to follow up first Miss Young if before I lose this thought will that form be made available to our parents before the decision is made because otherwise there's going to be a lag. If we wait until we make a decision, then the form has to go out. It has to come
172back. It has to be processed. So, you're probably adding another month to this time period. So, that would be my request that that be provided and people have an opportunity to have it on file in advance. Now I understand you won't have a date but it can say at such time that this policy is is is approved by the board or however be optional because I I I'm I'm not going to support it because I I don't want to wait but if sounds like it's going to pass. So if it passes then I want to have it ready to roll when that 30 days is up. Madam chair. Yes, Miss Young. So, I'm hearing about processing the form, sending it out to the parents. Um, I didn't hear anything about legal. I didn't hear anything
173about, you know, running it through the medical team. Um, I'm I'm uncomfortable signing off in an opt out form. I I don't even recall seeing it. And I remember you attached it at last meeting, last minute. I didn't think we were going to vote on an option and so I haven't had any time to reviewed to review an option form. Correct. That's what that's as part of the original motion was to bring that form to the board on August 24th with legal and other um staff review was I I guess I'm you know I gather Miss Healey is not planning to support this. Um for me I would like to wait to make a decision about will we send the form out until I see the form. So, I'm I'm I'm not saying that I
174wouldn't agree for it to go out on a day or two after the 24th, but I don't want to put that in the motion right now because I haven't seen the form. I don't know what's going to happen with it. So, um that that's kind of where I'm at. That was why I thought that the motion was that we would be reviewing the form on the 24th that is before us in front of that. Then we can if the board lifts the mandate, I'm still struggling why we need an opt out form. Isn't the opt out the parent just doesn't have their kid wear a mask? Because there is an administrative burden to now ask our principles, everybody to start collecting these forms. I'm still trying to figure out we're giving the parents the option
175and and their child comes to school the next day without a mask. Isn't the assumption they opt out? What what what would the signature do to to support it? I'm not a nineyear-old could come in. I I I'm just I'm just in my mind trying to figure out the opt out action will be not coming to school with a mask. I think I think from my perspective I would like to at least put that out there if our legal counsel and review and how things go. They say you don't need one. That's an easy that's an easy night on the 24th. I just did not want to not have us if we felt that um forms were required then um I mean Miss Parish I hate to put you on the spot I I I
176and you may want to review that of whether they would be necessary. Of course we may get further guidance from the state which may tell us what to do. So I thought that on the 24th we have a placeholder for whatever that analysis is at that point. I don't know if I it would be appropriate for me to ask Miss Parish following on what Dr. Kizner said um if we just said masks. So So there's one scenario where we say masks are optional and there's another where we ask parents. So for the parent who wants their child to wear a mask, but the school system is assuming that if the kid doesn't have a mask on, the parent said that they didn't have to wear a mask. That may not be the case. Are we
177g I mean it's like a really muddy any any can you illuminate it all or are you just as muddied down as we are? Thank you Dr. Chase. I think it really depends upon what is in the hands of this board and what you decide. So if you decided as your basis at some point masks are mandated unless parents opt out. then you would want a signed opt- out form so that the teacher would know whether a young student um has a parent who's given that student permission not to wear it. If instead your motion was we're not going to require masks at all and if you require your child to wear a mask, then again you make that decision administratively whether you want them to sign some type of an optin form or make
178it known to their teacher that they're requiring their student to wear a mask. So, I don't know that the decision can be made administratively until until we have your vote to know whether you're going to have a mask mandate or not have a mask mandate. Don't make your teachers police. All right. All right. Um, any other comments? Any other comments? Um, you motion maker. I believe that I was the motion maker. Miss Hall, do we have um a readback? I'm sorry. Um, I believe it has changed, but um, not changed, but just to be clarified, what I have is that you made a motion to begin the school year with a mask policy. I assume that means a requirement for all pe all to wear a mask for 30 school days. And during that time,
179staff will prepare an opt out form which they will bring to the board for examination on August 24th. I believe there may have also been a um I believe that I said we were picking a date in September to make sure um that we were going to address this matter. I I apologize. I'm not sure that it was um the 14th or the 21st. And I'm sorry I I 30 days. Okay. So, the 21st is the 30 days, but we also have the PTO meeting. Correct. That meeting? That's correct. Yes. And that is that at 6 o'clock. The PT I believe at 6 o'clock. Yes. So, we could do a follow on by 7 that evening. Is that if that it would be just on this topic. I mean, barring I'm sorry. I just I'm
180just thinking about tomorrow's letter and tomorrow's conversation. Is everything we're talking about also apply to staff? Yes, if that was an it was that the opt out and also everything there. Um, we don't know until we bring that form and and op through that. I will also be deferring to our HR staff uh other council on what what we can and cannot do in that area. I do not want to opine on what we can ask and with staff. I I I just don't want to open that. personally myself the can of worms tonight but I in general the the motion was to cover both to start is everybody clear madam chairman I'd suggest you put a date certain there because maybe the 22nd I I don't know I'm just remember we have to have
181two days off for Labor Day the law requires us be closed that Friday and it's Friday and Monday but which is just I think certain will be simpler than 30 school days. We've had hurricanes in September and had to close. That's true. Yeah. When I counted the 30 using I think but I may not have counted the Friday before I did. Okay. I did better counting than I thought. Would the board prefer to um go with the 22nd which is a Wednesday? Let me ask that. I don't have any problem with the 21st. I just want a date there. We have had to close school in September early in the month when we've had a hurricane come through. And then what does that do? And you've got a you've got a meeting said if your
182intention is to address it that night, right? Then say that day, the 21st is the hard date in that. All right. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor of the second of the motion on the floor, which was the second substitute motion. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? No. Um, Miss Hall, can you pull the board, please? Dr. Chase, I. Miss Hazard, I. Miss Healey, no. Miss Hollerback, I. Miss Randall, I. Dr. Warner, I. And Miss Young, no. Madam chair, motion passes. All right. Thank you very much. Let me get to our um All right. That is our last uh item on the agenda for this evening. We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.