Board of Education Meeting: January 11, 2022

001all right thanks very much for joining us here tonight for the board of education meeting this evening uh please make sure to mute your cell phones as we begin the meeting and today is tuesday january 11 2022 and this meeting is now called the order at 6 30 pm the first item of business today is would any board members like to make changes to the agenda nate yes i would like to move consideration of the resolution on martin luther king jr day ahead in the agenda and i can't remember where we want it but i think between recognitions and the superintendent's report yes please okay so i would make that motion do i have a second okay that was jim seconded i think do we can we have a do we have any discussion on

002that or are we good for a vote okay let's have a vote dj anderson aye jim brokish aye nate donovan aye christian draper aye rob pederson aye carolyn reed aye jessica zamora aye motion pass seven zero excellent thank you very much lexi and i was just pointed out to me that i got ahead of myself and the second thing on the agenda is actually the pledge of allegiance so i would like us to share in that together if you'd stand to join me please justice all right now i think we're back on track um so with that we'll go to our next item which is recognitions and i'll turn that over to superintendent kingsley good evening members of the board members of the community tonight we have several outstanding recognitions this evening honoring our amazing

003staff student athletes and a valued community partner our executive director of communications madeline knoblet will lead us in those celebrations thank you madeleine welcome you're welcome thank you superintendent kingsley welcome everybody members of our board cabinet all of the folks gathered here this evening and the folks watching at home this is one of my favorite parts of the evening being able to recognize our outstanding students and colleagues and community partners who make every day possible this evening we have first up a group who has done something pretty phenomenal when it comes to the safety and care of our children but before i announce them and bring them up i'd first like to welcome superintendent kingsley and director draper who will present the award as far as the order they'll go ahead and come up and

004speak each of our recipients may say a few words if they wish but they may just wave an acknowledgement to say thank you we'll go ahead and present the award and then you'll see there's a little bit of shuffling as we bring our different groups in for the evening with that i would like to welcome my colleague bennett elementary principal amy smythe and my colleagues patrick murray and francis anderson who have done something pretty incredible for one of our children in this district so thank you very much good evening board of education superintendent kingsley and cabinet thanks for having us um so like she said i'm amy smyth the principal at ben elementary and while i consider all of my staff and the staff of the school district superheroes i'm here to honor two of

005those today um on december 8th these two fine staff members of mine were on duty in our school cafeteria when it came to mrs anderson's attention that a student was choking she calmly walked over to the student and sat with him monitored his breathing made sure that he was doing okay when she felt like it could be moving to the next level she motioned mr murray our head custodian over to assist they stood there together what was very what made me really proud was that what could have been a really traumatic experience for all of the kids in the cafeteria they handled with such finesse that they took care of the child while also maintaining calm and privacy for him so mr murray eventually walked the student who was still able to walk he was

006still breathing outside away from the other students and ended up in the position where he did do perform the heimlich maneuver which successfully dislodged the thing that was obstructing the breathing and brought the student back in and they went back to work like it was just another day in the cafeteria so with that i just wanted to present to you mr patrick murray who is our head custodian and mrs francis anderson who is one of our interventionists well thank you for that um i think we both appreciate it and uh i think the main thing here is that we're just so happy with the outcome that uh you know it could have been something that was quite a bit more tragic so that in itself was uh thanks enough for us but thank you for

007your time and honoring us tonight appreciate it thank you [Applause] thank you so very much for your commitment you i just want to say thanks everybody we've been doing our job and that's what we do thank you [Applause] all right now my friend michael will escort our student recognition groups we're going to take just a moment here to allow everyone to come in and position themselves against the back wall all right good evening welcome so next we are going to recognize the rocky mountain high school esports state champion teams with that we are going to welcome two of the league teams and their coaches this evening to talk about this incredible achievement taking first at state so i would like to welcome at this time we'll have first the rocket league team go ahead and

008stand here by me if you would and then spaced out a little ways let's have the super smash bros team next and then if i could welcome my colleagues coaches chance matia and walter chard and i will go ahead and read off the names of our team members here and then the coaches are going to say a few words about these incredible competitors so on the rocket league team we have cameron garcia kyle papp and grady bartran so go ahead and give them a round of applause and then we are actually waiting for our other team to file in so thank you for the patience well wait just a moment we appreciate your patience as we've done a new approach here with recognitions just to make sure we're bringing everyone in and trying to keep

009them distanced let's go ahead since we have our rocket league team if i could have one of the coaches come up and let's have you speak and introduce the students and say a few words and then we'll go ahead and honor our super smash bros competitors here momentarily hi i'm i'm chance and i coach the rocket league and super smash bros team um it's just been a lot of fun over the last three years esports has been brand new um just to see them succeed and come together and just do something that they're good at and achieve something special and something new [Applause] thank you for your leadership congratulations all right so hi everybody i'm cameron move this up a little bit um so yeah no gaming video games in general been a part of

010my life for a really long time um so coming to rocky um really made me find my place with these guys these guys are some of the best friends i'll probably ever make um and so you know we you know us three got into a rocket league game you know video games and started competing with other schools uh around the state and you know i guess we've won it three times in a row and we're going to keep doing it until these guys leave so yeah i know i just want to thank rocky mazia you've been one of the best teachers i've had one of the best coaches mentors um walter you've been one of the best friends always checking in on me so it's fantastic so but yeah i know thank you guys so

011much appreciate it [Applause] all right and then here are our super smash bros winners so we have sawyer hicks and oliver bunnell am i saying that right bunnell thank you and then their teammate fernando de la cruz is not here tonight but we want to make sure that he is recognized for his efforts as well and at that point i'd like to welcome my colleague walter chard to say a few words about the team as well [Applause] thank you guys for having us it's a it's an honor to get a little bit of recognition thrown esports his way it's not just playing video games after school which a lot of people kind of assume that it is it's way more about teamwork uh problem solving sportsmanship competitiveness and making sure we assert our dominance over

012another school in psd primarily um but it's a keeps these kids safe out of trouble we're we're having a good time together they're learning a lot and making good friends along the way so appreciate the the recognition congrats to the super smash brothers team by the way first time we competed in any smash brothers event this season to come the inaugural state championship hey thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much i just want to point out that uh it's so great that we have representation out there in this with the state and doing this and i also want to people that aren't aware this is an opportunity for these kids to get scholarships uh out in this in college nowadays and so uh as i think you sped very well

013this isn't just playing video games and so it's it's great that it is it is a sport and trying to use your mind and your agilities in your in your thumbs mostly but it is awesome thank you very much thank you congratulations thank you have a good night all right and we'll give them a moment and then we'll transition to our last category of the evening okay so some of you have joined us for board meetings before know that this year as part of our recognitions we've made sure that we're looking and recognizing the efforts of our various community partners we have a tremendous group of people who just give so much to our district and our students every day and we wanted to be intentional in saying thank you to them and highlighting the

014different ways that they are supporting our students and so with that i would like to go ahead and welcome the group here who is here this evening my colleague beth higgins will go ahead and introduce our partners from the united way of larimer county we have had a decades-long partnership with everyone at their organization and we are so thankful and with that i will go ahead and turn it over to beth to say a few words of thanks you thank you madeline okay sorry we just walked all the way across very quickly so i'm going to take just a moment okay good evening members of the board superintendent kingsley cabinet and community members joining us this evening and online my name is beth higgins and i'm with the grants and partnerships office with psd and

015i'm absolutely honored to be here tonight to help us congratulate and thank united way of larimer county county excuse me joining us tonight is deirdre sullivan president and ceo of uh united way with larimer county justin davis the chair of the board of directors for united way and scott hafner who's our senior corporate engagement manager for the last 25 years united way has partnered with psd to provide our students families and community with the supports resources and services that we need to strengthen our community through the psd employee giving campaign psd employees have contributed in addition with everyone else more than 25 million dollars to support the kinds of programs that our students and our families need they address the most pressing needs in our community including youth and education and financial stability one of

016the programs that i like to call out because i think it's so important is the child care services that united way provides we know how incredibly expensive it can be for a family to provide child care and they can get that resource through united way not only that but their women give program offers single moms the opportunity to go back to school with child care so that they can get their degree breaking that cycle of poverty and giving an entirely different future to those children coming through our system so we're incredibly grateful for that kind of work that united way does united way tackles the issues that matter most in our community and using a collaborative approach that allows them to accomplish more together they provide opportunities for businesses individuals and organizations to be involved

017in strengthening larimer county they ensure that the gifts of time talent and treasure address today's greatest needs and reduce those needs tomorrow we all know what a valuable resource united way of larimer county is and we are incredibly grateful for the support of this amazing organization and the opportunity for us to continue to collaborate as these needs arise in the future so please join me in thinking and then i'm gonna welcome deirdre up to say just a few words thanks beth you said it better than i could i think we might be looking for a new spoke [Laughter] well the we are beyond grateful for your expression of um gratitude to us and we extend it to you all tonight um i would be remiss as a parent of three kids one of whom has

018graduated um to not use my time on the mic to just without choking up thank the board and the school district for all you've done and all you've been for our entire community these past well for a long time but these past um 20 months who's counting more than anything we were thrilled to be partners with you in your work to get kids ready for your classrooms to have them succeed in thriving as they move through the school district and then graduating and life beyond that so i feel like we're in a time of of new beginnings and new partnerships we're so grateful for all you've done up until this point and beyond excited for what's to come with your leadership and the great work of this board and your staff as beth mentioned you

019know in addition to our partnership around programming and work that supports students your staff last year on top of all of the other things you do contributed almost fifteen thousand dollars um to our united effort so it just is an all around expression of thanks to you all so we appreciate being here so thank you guys for coming here tonight thank you for all that you do and your partnership with psd i think i speak on behalf of the whole board and thanking you for all that you do and i'd really like to thank you too deirdre because even before you came to united way you've always been a community servant and i've always appreciated that and deirdre was one of the first people who reached out to me when i was elected to the

020board in 2014 she was one of the first people who reached out to me and made me feel welcome on the board thank you so much for all that you do thanks all right thank you so much and have a great evening and that concludes our recognitions for this evening all right great thanks very much uh madeline and uh now uh we'll go to our uh amended agenda item which is the resolution in support of martin luther king junior day may i get a motion for the resolution in support of martin luther king jr day kristen do you want to do that go ahead i recommend approval of a resolution in support of martin luther king day junior uh junior day sorry january 17th 2022. go uh actually we got we had a second from

021nate and then why don't you go ahead and read it kristen and then we can have any discussion that we want to have and and well we'll invite uh we'll invite our guests absolutely to share with us all right resolution in support of martin luther king jr day january 17 2022 whereas the reverend martin luther king jr was the leader of the american civil rights movement through non-violence and civil disobedience from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 and whereas the reverend martin luther king jr was awarded the nobel peace prize in 1964 the presidential medal of freedom in 1977 and the congressional gold medal in 2004 among many other awards and whereas for his work in alleviating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance martin luther king jr day was signed into law by president ronald reagan

022in 1986 and whereas the black community faces cultural and systemic barriers to an inclusive and equitable education pruder's school district strives to close the equity and opportunity gaps for these students and promises to create and uphold equitable inclusive and rigorous educational opportunities experiences and outcomes and whereas the poor school board administration and staff are committed to making pluto school district a welcoming community for all staffs students and staff and we recognize there is more work ahead of us equity diversity and inclusion are fundamental values in pooter school district ensuring that all students and staff are valued for who they are now therefore be it resolved the pooter school district board of education does hereby proclaim january 17th 2022 as martin luther king jr day in pruder school district we encourage students staff in the community

023to celebrate reverend martin luther king jr and those who have followed in the reverend's footsteps expanding social social justice and civil rights throughout the united states of america and here in fort collins thanks very much kristen and i believe superintendent kingsley we have uh guests here to uh talk to us we sure do members of the board this is not just a special resolution it's a special celebration with the incredible people to help us memorialize uh these words in practice like you i am a believer that leadership doesn't happen by accident it happens by design and i had an opportunity to visit principal thomas at zac elementary school a couple of weeks ago and i ran into this incredible shining bright blazing star of a student miss danielle apow who not only wooed me with

024her intelligence but her desire to speak to this resolution was incredible and danielle is not just a superstar because of what's happening at zak elementary school under the leadership of principal thomas but she's a superstar because of her family as well and along with welcoming her we have her family who her brother who i believe his name is el nathan sister gladys and parents aaron and alvis are here in partnership uh to support this resolution and director mckay i'm so grateful that you're here to introduce them i know i just stole a little bit of your thunder uh but i couldn't pass up an opportunity to just share in this incredible experience with you so mr mckay would you take it from here yeah thank you so much um thank you mr kingsley the board

025of education it's great to see so many um faces that are here with us this evening celebrating the life of dr martin luther king is an annual honor that allows us to reflect on service determination justice and hope we join many local organizations in celebrating as a community the lessons of dr king the lce department has joined with other amazing psd leaders like aisha thomas in organizing the celebrations in pooter school district i encourage all community members and psd colleagues to consider joining our community celebration on monday january 17th in a local march and afterwards hearing from miss carlotta lanier the youngest of the little rock nine in national women's hall of fame inductee dr king used his voice to elevate the needs of others seeking justice and peace in pewter school district the importance

026of student voice can never be overstated it's a privilege to have a student this evening that will share her insight and wisdom as it relates to dr martin luther king jr danielle apollo student of alves and aaron abu is a third grader at zac elementary danielle loves school and has been at zach since kindergarten she also loves outdoor activities like roller skating and biking when danielle grows up she hopes to be a chemist or medical doctor she is going to share some of her thoughts about martin luther dr martin luther king jr and i know that i would ask her to express her last name because i know that i'm not saying it exactly how it needs to be said and i would appreciate that opportunity to hear it in said the right way so

027daniel thank you so much for being with us this evening good evening pooter school district board cabinet and community my name is daniella powe and i'm a third grader at zac elementary my principal miss thomas asked me to speak to you tonight about dr reverend martin luther king he and i share the same birthday he was burnt born in georgia and as a young man became very inspired by gandhi's teachings of non-violent activism later he became a minister and key leader of the civil rights movements he had many successes like winning the nobel peace prize and he also had many sad moments witnessing hurt and injustice he was committed to inspiring people to racial justice through nonviolent resistance i think the best thing that can be said about him is simply saying his own words

028out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope i was a drum major for justice peace and righteousness we shall overcome because the ark of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice true peace is not mere not merely the absence of tension it is the presence of justice injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that hates cannot drive out hate only love can do that thank you [Applause] thank you so much danielle we really appreciate those those thoughts and and and words of wisdom that you shared with us and and the thoughts of dr king that you also shared with us thank you so much does anybody on the board wish to follow that [Laughter] to make to make comment on

029the resolution before we call a vote okay i think that i think that says i think what uh danielle shared with us says it all so i i support that as well and i would ask lexi to call a vote of the board dj anderson aye jim brokers aye nate donovan aye christian draper aye rob patterson aye carolyn reed aye jessica zamora aye motion passes seven zero excellent thank you so much we will now go back to the regular order of our agenda and that is uh superintendent kingsley will now make remarks to the board of education and to the community as a whole members of the board members of the community it is not often that i'm at a loss for words but following that incredible uh speech and presentation i think it's just

030a symbol of how special this community is listening to danielle speak reminds me of my favorite dr martin luther king quote which is about compassion and i intended on already speaking a little bit about compassion and leadership tonight but dr martin luther king once said that simply flinging a coin to a beggar is not true compassion it's realizing that there's an edifice that creates that beggar and that needs to be restructured and actually doing it i may not have verbatim when i'm close but the idea here between compassion and student leadership adult leadership whether it's through esports whether it's through philanthropy and partnership or commitment to be a part of your local governance process and attending your board meeting you know showing up matters i had an opportunity over the last gosh 48 hours to

031meet with every principal in this district and we talked about the realities and the complexities of what it's like to be an educator and a leader in our district right now it's probably no different than the complexities of being a board member or being a parent a neighbor or even a student showing up matters i had an opportunity over the break to get a gift from one of our members of our community to get a book called one word that will change your life the author is actually in this room and going to be speaking to us tonight as i read that book it was i thought you know a call to action in terms of thinking about one word that can provide us direction that can provide you personally us individually or us even

032as a system purpose to give us commitment deeper sense of commitment and alignment i had a cough a coffee with this author today with one of our board members dj thank you and the word came to me of what i would say my one word is right now is drive how do we drive compassion in our community how do we drive strength in our community how do we continue to drive resilience in our community conversations but also i feel compelled to make sure that we have a call to action to drive results for all of our children because we only get one chance to have them in our school system at our respective grades there's a lot of conversation in the local media as well as in our community and in our various homes that

033make our community around what's happening in our community right now in terms of our school system staying open and potentially going to remote i want you to know the baseline here is not to just keep our doors open it's to keep our doors open and teach our hearts out we cannot go back and you've been clear with me and i'm clear with you we're a partnership in a governance team that is strong and united that we stand strong committed to in-person learning but doing so safely and making decisions along the way that is informed by data i think as we continue to think about my one word i'd like to share it with you around drive we got to figure out ways to drive through these challenges i'm flanked by a cabinet here an executive

034leadership team that did not have holidays they worked over the break to make sense of the various complexities of the new guidance and the second iteration of guidance from the federal level sometimes the absence of guidance all to make sure that we work around the clock to provide some level of clarity some level of clarity the best way we can for our families to have confidence in us before they return into our buildings we have 53 principles that make this school system strong with various assistant principals and other leaders who help make sure that things go we have a few of our schools ladies and gentlemen that are holding it together barely as a result of staff shortages the announcement that i made prior to the return to school was not to in stoke fear

035amongst this community it was just to name simply the realities and the challenges that our school system is dealing with on a day-to-day basis all in service of making sure our doors stay open and children get to smile and walk through them each and every day and we get to not just feed them and take care of them but educate their hearts and their minds like danielle and her siblings that doesn't happen by accident it happens by design we had 40 custodians out today across the school system which meant people picked up those pieces whether they're teachers cleaning their own rooms principals being the lead engineers of their schools and trying to figure out how to make sure that their facility continues to be spotless whether it's our operations department mobilizing all hands on deck

036approach to retool and think about differently and creatively various people whether you're in the trades or different positions how do we make sure that we do whatever we can regardless of whatever our job description is that's happening not just today it's happened every day since we returned there is a lot happening that's not in the media and not in the press we have some schools that have 15 to 20 teachers out right now but principals are thinking creatively and instinctively to make sure especially knowing that children are already on weights on the way to their schools to think creatively through volunteerism paraprofessionals our classified staff figuring out ways not just to think about how we create coverage for students because we're not glorified babysitters we're focused on quality education and i've just been so impressed

037by every constituent level in this organization that includes our teachers who are navigating these various complexities both in the classroom as well as outside of the classroom and i'm also incredibly proud of this community our parents and our students who are navigating that with us in order to drive compassion in this system and understanding and empathy of what people are experiencing we have to sit down and continue to talk to each other i want to acknowledge that the feelings that exist in our community are all over the place and i say that with respect and humility and what i mean by that is there's fear there's frustration there's anger there's hostility but there's also love in light and brilliance and hope and optimism and every day we have a choice on which one we want

038to choose to focus on my one word and i want to thank jimmy page as being one of the authors for this book i drive towards light and love just like the people who are here tonight even when we disagree but i also want to drive confidence we're not always going to get it right i promise you i will never tell you and or this board that we're going to be perfect but i will tell you that we are giving it everything we can a hundred billion percent to stay committed to not just keeping our buildings open but making sure our students receive in-person instruction but doing so safely there are changes that you will hear tonight to covet protocols we're making sense of them in real time just the way that you are but

039i do believe it enables and empowers us to keep our buildings open but we have to also keep staff and people healthy along the way in order to do that well i just am extraordinarily inspired by the people that i get a chance to do life and work with every day and that's what i wanted to speak to you about that's what danielle reminded all of us about as well as the other people who surround us and i'm just really grateful for that opportunity and for you providing me the time to celebrate that this evening so thank you thank you very much uh superintendent kingsley well spoken really appreciate those words and all the work that you and your cabinet and all of the staff of the district are putting in to to keep our

040schools open and our students being educated um the next uh item on the agenda is community comment um i will say this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they signed up and will be allowed 90 seconds to address the board uh two two additional comments i will make one of them is a procedural thing and that is just fyi when the yellow light goes on that means you have 45 seconds so you're about halfway through so that's something to keep in mind the other thing is i would ask you all respectfully to to continue wearing your masks and wear them properly over your nose and mouth i appreciate your cooperation

041with that so with that i believe jeff offer hide is our first speaker my name is jeff after heidi from wellington thanks my name is jeff after heidi from wellington colorado the last board meeting you guys had an executive session where um you were discussing uh the benefits and and pay etc with the pooter education association and others and this is concerning because when we started the 2020 2021 season in march they were one of the stakeholders for uh for engaging in in what's known to be the american rescue plan and esser funds and the reason that's concerning is because the national education association ties these funds to particular policies in other words they have a layered approach strategy so you have to adhere to vaccine policies you have to adhere to mass policies and

042that's what you're going to hear tonight a bunch of concerned parents talking about masks and how it affects them and how some of these policies affect the parents or the children rather and what i have here is i have two photos these were both taken on the same day and what you have here is the photo on the left is the pooter education association they don't have any masks they have they're they're with becky pringle who is the democrat and this is also the same day and this is your buddhist school directors four of them with the same individuals with masks outside i'm going to respectfully request that the charades stop thank you all right thank you our next speaker is jessica krauss for months now you have heard from parents how your coveted policies

043are harming children from children traumatized from mass use violence in the schools and children behind in school because of quarantine you have never presented any long-term studies to us about the safety of long-term mask wearing in children and you continue to push an experimental vaccine if this weren't enough on new year's eve parents from all three school districts in the county we were sent a covid protocol update email signed from all three superintendents the email clearly stated that it was done in partnership with lcdhe and was put out before cdphe even issued new school specific guidelines it was stated that cdc had recently issued new guidelines and yet the garbled and confusing guidance sent out in the new year's eve email appears to be putting far more restrictions than the cdc issued despite the fact

044that lcdhe officials are always claiming they follow cdc to the letter the email was unclear at best and put parents under undue stress trying to figure out just what this new guidance meant poor timing on psd's part why would this be sent at the end of business day on a holiday was there a deadline a mandate to do this by the lcdhe perhaps the answer can be found on the cde website under the arps or requirements page the study of these requirements reveals why you set with deaf ears while children are suffering and parents are begging you to return our schools to normal return the funds our children aren't for sale superintendent kingsley for members of the public that are here tonight i do want to invite you following public comment later on this evening

045we will be providing a detailed update to those revised protocols and so i don't want to come across as being an oppositionist but i do invite you to listen to that because some of the protocols are actually being relaxed and i think it's important that we have community clarity on that and i just want to thank you again for being here and sharing your perspective but i look forward to hoping that you would consider staying as well thank you our next speaker is bridget phillips okay it appears richard phillips has not uh joined us this evening the next one is heather laden para if i got the name right i okay welcome thank you good evening that worked out well because i'm going to follow up on what jessica just said the arp esser requirement

046safe return checklist that you are bound to complete and turn into cde every six months in order to be reimbursed for the 19 million you accepted in s or 3 funds states that your coveted plans must be updated as situations or protocols change with updates being made no later than every six months was the new year's eve email meeting some kind of deadline is this why such hastily written and unclear guidance was sent to parents on a holiday shock and shockingly this checklist also states please ensure that the leas plan remains up-to-date during the period of availability of arp sr3 funds through september 30th 2024. do you intend to continue to ignore the suffering of children until september of 2024 nearly three more years in order to collect on the 19 million and be reimbursed

047will you be continuing to push the failing experimental vaccines that are claiming the lives and health of more children than any other vaccine in the history to both our children and the community as is stated in the mandated layered prevention standard strategies that are listed on the arp esser requirements page of the cde website will you be continuing to mask test contact trace isolate and physically distance our children until september of give the money back and free our children thank you [Applause] thank you next speaker is gina furcado good evening um as you said my name is gina furcado and i am a certified practical nutrition advisor formerly a high school teacher for spanish spanish for spanish speakers and english as a second language these careers give me a unique perspective as to what is

048currently happening to our children physically emotionally and mentally i receive calls from parents needing help for their kids with sleep stress management and more fortunately i'm able to help them but there is long-term damage that i will not be able to help them reverse as a former teacher i continue to be astounded by the fact that we are expecting learners of a foreign language to become proficient in communicating in a foreign language while being masked what about all the new refugees and immigrants that are coming to our area and required to learn english not only can they not hear the teachers well they cannot see their mouths be able to form the words correctly nor read lips to help clarify what they're hearing if if they can even hear correctly from a muffled mouth they're

049not acquiring the language at school then they have to go out into the community and try to understand what is being said at the grocery store library or other establishment where a mask is required isn't psd's mission to help the marginalized student the esl learner is at a huge disadvantage and cannot probably acquire our language under these conditions how can you expect to send them out after graduation when they have not fully learned how to communicate in english that does not seem like equity to me at all if the board truly wants to help our children thrive and be successful it needs to change the mass policy in order to include the disadvantaged learner masking needs to stop now thank you your time is up our next speaker is marquita anderson looks like marquita anderson

050has not joined us this evening therefore our next speaker is tasha carr good evening i wanted to welcome jim brokish to the board and to call attention to your new job description which includes direct responsibility to create the link between the residents of the district and those who work for it and i just want to remind everybody about the campaign flyer of broker-shree draper and zamora that referred to parents speaking at these meetings as anti-science extremists spouting dangerous conspiracy theories i appreciate that jim brokish apologized to me for this flyer however his apology was made in private and only after the election we have learned nothing from the other three board members this new term is an opportunity to clear the air regarding and regain the trust of the community so i asked the board

051how will you accomplish this primary responsibility all we have ever asked was that the full body of science be allowed to be presented and debated in more than 90 second sound bites science that is not debated is dogma and propaganda the science we presented has been proven correct in the school shutdowns mass mandates and vaccines have failed to stop the spread of covid while harming the most vulnerable students how is that equitable the cdc nafda and mah are now backpedaling revising their statements which finally agree with what we've been saying all along i hope you learned from your mistakes please don't repeat them the current psd policies are not grounded in wealth well-documented sciences your time is up excuse me your time is up could you please ask our next speaker here is listed as

052wayne brothers welcome my name is wayne brothers i've lived in fort collins for 44 years and my three kids attended psd schools k through 12. the psd website lists 18 programs as suggested bullying prevention programs one of these programs no place for hate is being significantly expanded this year my concern is since 2015 no place for hate has become increasingly embedded with elements of critical race theory and identity politics the 2021 no place for hate coordinator handbook and resource guide states that schools need to foster social justice vocal opponents and there are many of no place for hate have said the program is and i quote a deliberate highly focused training designed to enlist young people from elementary to high school into a radical army of woke social justice warriors i respectfully request the board

053to fully detail the district's plans for the implementation of no place for hate to provide transparency of those plans for district parents including the cost and the classroom time to be consumed and to explain how no place for hate fits into the district's vision for equity that the board discussed at the december 3rd broadmoor meeting thank you our next speaker is aaron rambler looks like oh she is here okay fine thank you aaron ramler from wellington i'm the mother of three pooter high school graduates and one fourth grader who we choose not to subject to your district this year i'm here once again asking you to get the masks off the faces of the children and the teachers stay in your lane stick to your mission education educate every student every day right quo warranto

054a latin or legal term for by what authority i ask by what authority do you make health care decisions for children by the health departments not on august 4th by the cdc's not on december 31st is it esser this week's new guidelines who's driving this one again educate every student every day free yourself get out of the business of health care join your cohorts in the world district and put health care decisions back in the hands of parents yesterday i watched my son swear an oath to this country and to our constitution as he joins my husband and his brother in serving this great nation in our armed forces i would like to ask you what oaths have you taken in your life what do you stand for where are your convictions who governs you

055and what guidance are you driven by what kind of politicians are you and how should history write the story of you thank you our next speaker is nikki galbraith nope looks like nikki galbraith did not make it this evening therefore our next speaker is jimmy page welcome you know i need extra time chair you know that my name is jimmy page i'm the president of unstoppable freedom alliance i'm also the author of the book that that brian mentioned today super thankful for our time for sure i'd like to reclaim my time i'm just here to bring a little bit of good news first the cdc admits what we've known all along and this is breaking news and i quote the overwhelming number of deaths over 75 percent in fact have occurred among people with at

056least four comorbidities so really there are people who are unwell to begin with here's a news flash we've known this from the very beginning in fact the very very beginning this truth has been buried buried by our media the cdc the government our public health officials and by hospitals this truth has been censored and silenced along with every single voice who dissented against the narrative of fear and blame including medical experts but you know what the truth always comes out the truth is very persistent isn't it the more you try and hold it down the faster it rises to the surface second point of good news there is statistically 0.02 percent risk of our children having a serious complication from covid and third well excuse me your time you either will put the mask on

057your face or your third weld county schools just decided to make wearing masks optional to put that decision back in the hands of the parents which seems to make sense imagine that they will now leave the decision up to parents never in our history have we ever put the burden of protecting our families on our children this is actually disgusting and disturbing especially since we now know that our mitigation strategies of lockdown school closings remote learning mass mandates have nothing to do with protecting public health and they've actually done more harm than good we are now your time i know it always does dawg on it uh we know that this is your time has expired you must leave the podium now excuse me your time is over and our next speaker is justin friedly

058good evening as this entire board of education all county commissioners the department of health and the coloradoan had neither the personal courage or the professional courtesy to respond to my three prior emails containing numerous scientific and clinical references i decided it best to appear in person to ensure my voice is heard on behalf of my three daughters and many other families in the district since you've limited the time to each speaker to 90 seconds i'll be pointed the current exposure quarantine policy for the district i believe is in violation of the equal educational opportunity act of 1974. the fact that the approval of any of the current covet vaccines did not include any studies or data on infection rates or transmission of disease when comparing vaccinated cohorts with the control groups therefore your clinically unsubstantiated

059quarantine policy that discriminates against unvaccinated children both academically and athletically creates a disparate learning environment and is soundly against the law it should be changed immediately unless you can provide sound documentation that vaccinated populations are infected and transmit at a statistically lower level than your policy is simply a red herring 25 months have now passed in which our children continue to suffer mentally physically and academically when this is all done which one of you will stand up and say to every child we chose special interest over you thank you our next speaker is kelly holdred welcome hi everyone um i am here today to read you a statement given to me by a high school student who is too afraid to speak out on them for themselves dear school board members i'm a sophomore at

060blank i am a straight a student and hope and my hope was to become a doctor one day just like my dad my dad is an anesthesiologist he helps people every day i admire what he does my mom is a stay-at-home mom she tells us that we're all inter interconnected everyone is connected everything is connected for example the pollution from china and india affects everyone on this planet i used to enjoy going to school but now i don't i thought i wanted to go to college and become a doctor but now i don't know what i want to do anymore going to school is no longer fun and exciting my older sister is at cu and she says it's even worse there at this point i'm not even planning on going to college i know

061i'm not the only one feeling this way a lot of us feel the same i felt i should let you guys know because how else will you know how are we doing i'm still getting straight a's but the grades don't say much about the real picture i don't enjoy going to school school is like a prison we wear a mask all day i don't know what the teachers look like i can't tell if someone is smiling or laughing my mom says we are all interconnected every decision you make there are consequences you may not think it is affecting you now but it will later if kids in my generation are not going to college who will become future doctors and nurses to help sick people who will be there helping you when you are old

062and need medical help in the future thanks thank you i believe our next speaker is lisa mclean welcome thank you hi my name is lisa mclean i'm a fort collins resident and i'm reading this letter for a parent who would like to remain anonymous i pulled my two children from psd schools this year and will continue because of how psd is handling kovid i deeply loved our neighborhood school and cried when i had to pull them from their friends and teachers because of the mask mandates i always went to public school and never even considered or thought of anything different until now the masks have greatly affected both my kids my son almost passed out twice going up the stairs he said he was so dizzy and lightheaded all the time he was scared he

063would pass out fall down the steps and get made fun of that infuriates me breathing air and getting enough oxygen for their brain is a god-given right for every person my daughter would come home with severe headaches almost daily she said she would pull down her mask and pretend to drink water just to take a deep breath that is not right i went to the doctor last year with a mask on as required she tried to get my blood oxygen level and it was really low she told me to take off my mask immediately and take deep breaths within two minutes i returned to normal levels i can't imagine wearing a mask all day like you're requiring psd students to do i have a large clientele of women with children who are beyond upset with

064psd they feel trapped because they work full time and can't homeschool charter schools are full and private schools are too expensive our tax dollars pay for public schools we should have a say in what we want for our children stop abusing our children they should be the ones we want to protect parents have a right to decide on their children's health thank you our next speaker is mark fuchs welcome uh evening i'm here to speak on behalf of another teacher about these ridiculous masks so she sees that kids are missing the human interaction of seeing people's faces students miss the warmth and empathy from their teachers the understandings smile when the teacher knows that they're trying but just can't get that word right teachers are trying to communicate other ways with a pat on the

065back but it just isn't the same as a smile larimer county kids are missing huge social emotional pieces because they can't see and learn from adults faces she has a pull to the filth of the kids mess which they wear all day now because of new mandate five-year-olds are masked all day instead of just a few hours they're at school have you ever seen the inside of kindergartner's mask it's disgusting after only a few minutes of wear these masks are unhealthy germ-breeding petri dishes sitting on children's faces all day because adults are reacting out of fear students are the victims their education has been extremely inconsistent her class just returned from learning remotely a few students tested positive so their whole class went online for a week coming back last week was like starting the

066school year all over again teachers retraining students on their routines behavior and classroom expectations the inconsistency is emotionally draining for the students parents and teachers some staff members are afraid of the children spreading a virus if the child runs up to them to ask a question to tell the adult something adult quickly holds out a stiff arm and backs away while telling the child to pull your mask up over your nose now tell me what does this communicate to a five-year-old stay away the adult doesn't like me i'm bad i'm harmful they don't want to be around me what are you doing to our children i'm going to run out of time so take the stupid mass off okay i'm uh before i invite the next speaker up i'm going to ask those of you

067who have let the masks fall below your nose some of you quite purposefully to put them back up over your nose or i'm going to ask you to leave the room i mean what i said you're you're you're a guest here and we welcome your comments but we expect you to follow the health protocols excuse me sir in the front row could you please put the mask up over your nose and and there and we had excuse me and we have accommodations for those who wish to uh speak to us with medical uh with medical conditions and that was made clear so i'm sorry but i'm going to ask you to either put the mask up over your nose or to leave the room i'm going to call a recess of the meeting now thank

068you yep okay so we are uh uh back in session now and we're prepared to listen to the rest of the community comment for those who have signed up i believe our last speaker was mark fuchs if i'm remembering correctly and i believe our next speaker on the list is breast strong espresso still here yes thank you welcome all right i'm reading a statement from a retired teacher i retired full-time from psd in 2015 for the but for the past six years have served in a long-term substitute assignments for office managers in several schools after 30 plus years of service this past july i knew it was time to finally end my psd employment with all the mandates and changes i no longer felt qualified to serve however i vowed to volunteer and help wherever

069i could so throughout the semester i've helped with visiting and hearing screenings and helped a friend in a couple of different schools and of course i've stayed in close contact with many friends who are employed by psd i'm very sad to see what has happened in our schools to unreasonable mandates and curriculum changes that do not educate but rather indoctrinate our staff and students while volunteering in elementary schools i've observed that students are trying to follow the mask rules it's quite obvious that from many of them their masks dangles slide and drop off and as we've learned most of these cute cloth masks are not really protecting anyone they just feed into the fear and control that these students have been living with and for many students they present a real hindrance to their ability

070to be educated the social skills that they should be learning in addition to academic skills are lost and these important social skills are greatly hindered in our upper grades the number one thing i've heard from friends still working in schools is that discipline problems and mental health issues are greatly increased students now feel free to break the rules on a regular basis the next speaker will share a few of the stories from this teacher thank you our next our next speaker is al armunda if i got that right that is the next person who signed up thank you welcome thanks for your time um among the many concerned parents we see an increase in abnormal behavior among kids across the district increased aggression and levels of hostility insomnia nightmares and heightened stress manifesting itself as

071panic we as critical thinkers analyze systems and processes inputs and outcomes well we've seen a lot of the outcomes and i can say what the inputs are prolonged social deprivation psychological deterioration deficiency of personal security there's an analog to which compare these inputs and outcomes there's two papers 10 psychological effects of prison what happens to your brain behind bars and another paper called your brain behind bars by gina ross higgins some things they see in the incarcerated population increased levels of hostility nightmares night terrors insomnia self-destructive behavior but i believe we are seeing is a slow methodical development of a prison mentality among our youth we're seeing amplified levels of disassociation social and emotional withdrawal diminished self-esteem resulting in depression we know the inevitable conclusion inadequate social skills long-term substance abuse years of therapeutic intervention

072to have a functioning member of society i'm warning you that this is the future we are assigned to our children oh yeah and from the cdc's own data this happens to over 80 percent of the prison population as well one more statistics cited by cdc when it comes to drivers of risk factors for use substance abuse lack of school connectedness perhaps whether we admitted it sorry your time is up thank you our next speaker who has signed up is kami larson is cami larson still here apparently not uh after that we have ellie roth or eli roth i'm not sure which looks like not i believe danny lawrence is up next okay danny lawrence is no longer here livy christensen welcome good evening first i need to say to you we wear masks to protect

073the most vulnerable to you yes you most of the people dying have coveted have comorbidities let me be clear covet adds to already present health challenges my sister who is in the audience is the most loving person i know she has a comorbidity does she deserve to die i am the most scared in this moment as i've ever been in my whole life and not because of the board i am terrified because of you your unacceptable unkind childish behavior is terrifying to me my name is libby christiance and i am a senior at pooter high school just down the street first i want to thank our community for the love and light they show me every day i love all of you i am here because i need every single anti-mass parent here to know

074what kind of human beings they are raising every day at school i don't feel safe and not just because many students don't wear their masks it's also because of how your students respond when i ask them to do the empathetic thing for our community and wear their math correctly let me tell you what they have said to me and i quote actually i'm not going to quote because i don't think you deserve to hear what they've been saying to me this behavior isn't developed in a vacuum i hope you feel the responsibility of the pain your students have brought to me and our community i invite you to take responsibility as a parent and be a part of it thank you our next speaker is tracy winnie i believe that if i'm so i apologize

075tracy whiney welcome mr raper i'd love for you to hear me i'll wait uh kristen all right tracy whiney we welcome your comments thank you i am bewildered to why the district no longer believes or trusts their employees parents students and community members to decide what is best for one's own self i honor respect and love my colleagues and students whether they are wearing one mask two masks or no masks at all i have a mass behind my right nostril and i'm only able to breathe at 50 percent yet i am forced to wear a mask there are times i literally cannot breathe while i am wearing my mask psd also demands i must report if i have any of the 12 symptoms they deem harmful including fatigue and diarrhea and now decides if their

076employees can report to work superintendent kingsley told us please don't come to work with any illness symptom no matter how minor they may be this is causing staff shortages if schools go remote it will not be because of legitimate sickness i work two jobs i am often colds i have a history of toothaches in the past i often taught with chills at headache tiredness all without spreading any sort of virus while earning the highest marks on my evaluation every year i want to be at school i love my students my colleagues my admin my sros and my greater community my most powerful experiences have been when everyone's opinion is heard valued and achieved to help create conditions to make the world a brighter place please believe that parent students and staff and volunteers are intelligent

077human beings thank you our next speaker is casey lindsey welcome i have an anonymous teacher's petition to read to the board because they're too scared to bring it to you themselves superintendent kingsley and board members unnecessary quarantines of students and staff need to stop during my seven years teaching in psd i have never felt this alone in a classroom teaching right now is done in complete isolation no para support no parent volunteers and my colleagues are treading water like i am this year the workload feels heavy almost unbearable trying to make up what the students lost last year due to remote learning and so many days lost to quarantine seems impossible when the decision to require mass for students and staff was made in august the reason was to keep teachers and kids in school

078and not be quarantined that has not been the result in total the students in my class have missed 77 school days due to quarantines i have 19 students that's an average of four days missed per student almost a week of instruction due to quarantine for each one that doesn't account for illnesses vacations or other appointments how do you keep a class on track with core instruction when you never have 100 of your class present more and more students are falling behind academically because of missed school days it's impossible for students to catch up when they're missing for instruction many of those students are missing intervention time also which is state mandated intervention time how can you say we are meeting the requirements for read plans when our students are at home missing intervention psd is

079failing these students what about our students on ieps now unfortunately your time is up very unfortunate thank you thank you i i will say for those of you who i've had to ask to stop you are certainly welcome to send an email to the board and we read those emails and we in fact are trying to to respond to all of the emails now so if you find that you send an email and we haven't responded to it whether you agree with the response is a different question but if you if you find that we haven't responded to it you should point that out to me because we are trying to to be uh more diligent about that the next speaker on the list is monique overturf is that correct okay thank you and welcome

080good evening just really quick my background is in special education and social work there is a potential danger to children in psd that comes from the fact that psd has given access to children's private medical information including immunization records to teachers through synergies teacher view these are legally questionable practices at best cd phe even states on their website that immunization records are confidential personal medical information since the return to school last week following the new year's eve email there have been reports of teachers forcing n95 masks on children teachers admonishing students to receive the coveted vaccines and boosters and teachers telling children that there will be way more quarantines this semester children do not need to be manipulated with threats of isolation this is abusive teachers have us excuse me teachers have an especially difficult

081job at this time but why are so many frightened why are the teachers and children being made afraid when we have witnessed our local health department tell businesses last friday that omnicron will blow through our community in three to four weeks and that omicron is less severe uc health and banner both reported to tom gonzalez on friday morning that people are not as sick and icus are not overwhelmed we have seen the chicago teachers union move the schools to remote disapproval from even the chicago mayor are the unions pushing remote learning are the unions scaring the teachers if there is retaliation by a teacher who views their students record and sees they are not up to date on the covet vaccine the district will be culpable because the district allows that information to be assessed

082by teacher synergy schools have become a hostile environment for many children and you should be taking steps to protect all of them thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is tracy sorg now i think it's lost in translation at this point because the security guard didn't do his job and putting me right behind her when we walked in so none of this is going to be read tonight i'm going to say what i feel after sitting here you are failing this district you are failing this community you are failing our children you are abusing the public trust i'm going to say the most important thing actually everybody in here is going to hear ever in their life you may not believe in god one day you will and at that point it's

083going to be too late what you're doing is so beyond wrong you will answer for this and you may not believe in him today but trust me one day you will don't let it be too late do what's right thank you i will also just be clear for everybody involved that the security guard did not order these these are ordered in the order that folks signed up so our next speaker is michelle duncan welcome i am going to be reading a teacher statement there are three things i want to bring to your attention tonight from the perspective of a psd educator number one expectations of teachers are extremely inconsistent and it is impacting our students some teachers have cancelled all events for the foreseeable future and are still acting like we are in total lockdown

084i have even heard teachers say they want students to be forced to disclose their vaccination status to participate in school activities some teachers think that we should return to the dumpster fire that was online or hybrid learning others like myself are trying to make everything happen as normal to the best of their abilities despite the endless red tape and find the questioning of student medical privacy disturbing your students experience in school is entirely dependent upon the whims of their specific teachers number two i often hear from colleagues if we would all get vaccinated this would all be over six members of my family contracted omnic omnicron in december from a triple vac family member after visiting for one hour we all had a mild cold for two days and i'm grateful to have natural immunity

085i know dozens of boosted individuals who have contracted and spread the virus many of whom have been quarantined from school this week please explain why having the booster exempts teachers and students from quarantine after february first and number three i've i fear that school has turned into a political battleground and when there is political overreach it is rarely walked back i fear we may be forced to wear masks and receive booster after booster for the future your time is up i appreciate your comments thank you and our last speaker this evening is keith dewey is keith do he's still here it appears not thank you all very much i uh we we do appreciate the community comment and we do listen to it i know sometimes it doesn't seem that way but you can be

086sure that i mean i can see for example kristin's been taking notes on every speaker over here so we're quite we're quite aware of what's being said and we thank you for your comments the next agenda item will be to have board committee reports this agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work who would like to begin are there any reports that folks want to share this evening go ahead dj uh hold on just like i get the right notes uh the legislative session is about ready to start and so we are going to start up our legislative committee meetings here um i had it uh actually for that we were gonna start up on monday at noon but i uh have just been reminded about the mlk

087thing so maybe we'll have to look at that time a little bit different but we'll be doing every two weeks on monday around noon for that along with that i wanted to talk about a couple state board things that have gone through one is on december they voted to support the normal administration of the state assessments in the spring and so that is looking like it's moving forward we'll see what the legislators might do anything with that or not my other one where's my other one the state board where is it the state board has also extended the deadline for accepting feedback on social studies they have the the new social studies standards uh they are extending it to february 1st now it does look like uh they have gotten a lot of good feedback

088the what has been put together by the team to update the standards i think most of us in the board felt pretty good with uh and so it's exciting to see that moving forward but if you do choose to get some feedback you can now have till february 1st uh then there's also the interim committee on school finance met and they are bringing a few bills uh forward one is they are looking at the at risk and how we calculate that for funding uh it will be interesting to see how that goes through and so we will keep on top of that they also are drafting a bill for the special education students tier a to increase that from 1250 to 1750 and an additional 40 million will be available for tier b so for

089some an area that has been underfunded for many many years that is any amount of money that we can start to get a little bit better for that is very positive they also have another bill trying to help the school districts with low property value wealth uh and to try to have a mill levy override what's the word i'm trying to look for um that the state will help with some of that money basically if the local voters would vote for it then the state could help so for different districts that have low funding where they'd have to raise the mills quite a bit to even get a thousand dollars which was very interesting too and then lastly i just wanted to pass on that the early childhood leadership commission uh passed their recommendations on

090for uh our pre-k which would be starting in 2023 our universal pre-k which would give all students 10 hours access to 10 hours of high quality early chair early childhood care and or education and so they are moving forward on that that is going to the governor and then the legislators to vote on but uh it does look good that that is continuing moving forward and we'll be watching that to see how that goes with our local preschool that we have going here and those were my notes thanks for that report we appreciate it yeah we're definitely going to get going on the legislative subcommittee i i know we all support that we just need to figure out the right scheduling relative to the activities on martin luther king junior day are there other reports

091it looks like kristin you'd like to say something yeah i just wanted a report dj and i had a great meeting yesterday with the student advisory council and i don't want to stay there steal their thunder because they're going to come talk to us next meeting but i just wanted to we had asked just a couple of things like what some of the fun things they had done before finals and the the winter break and um everybody had talked about a coco cram which i thought was uh really fun so hot cocoa was at huckabee graham crackers marshmallows all while studying for finals so um yeah so that was a great thing that they were doing um and so they'll be talking to us next uh meeting about uh the calendar and schedule uh sorry

092about the schedule not the calendar um so we'll be seeing we'll be hearing from them next time um also just wanted to note that we had our city county uh meeting this morning and um i think uh dr sorry superintendent kingsley presented some of the options of what we'll be presenting um for um the governor's um i'm sorry i'm forgetting the transformational funds that's it um and so we got to see two of the the three proposals that are being put together and i think we got a very good response uh today and actually one of the questions that came out of it was um from the city and county of okay well how do we make sure that we're on board with this how do we the council members how do they know what

093to do next um as far as making their voices heard and getting on board with this so i think it was very well received so thank you for that other reports or comments that the board wishes to make all right uh seeing none we'll move on to the consent agenda do we have any uh uh anybody who wishes to remove anything from the consent agenda uh yeah we did have one thank you yes sorry yes i wish to pull the minutes um for a correction um both both sets of minutes that's what i'm looking for and then we can make that's fine okay yes let's pull the minutes do i have a i guess we don't need a second for that so we will move that to an actual action item it'll be the only

094action item now that we've taken care of the martin luther king junior resolution uh does anybody wish to remove anything else from the consent agenda okay seeing none can i have a motion yes nate i move that the board approve and adopt the items the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda do i have a second for that thank you kristin second from kristen could we have a vote please uh call a vote lexi dj anderson aye jim brokish aye nate donovan live kristen draper aye rob pederson uh aye carolyn reed aye jessica's mara aye motion pass 7-0 thank you very much uh now we'll move on to the action item which is our new action item from uh from the consent agenda first we need a motion to approve the minutes and

095then if anybody wishes to amend them that comes after okay so kristen i knew that the board approved the meeting minutes for december 3rd 2021 and december 14th 2021 board of education meetings thank you very much we have second from nate all right great do we have any uh comments or amendments that anybody would like to make kristin i move that the minutes of december 14th to 2021 board meeting as presented on the board agenda be amended to revise the spelling of director patterson's last name on the top of page 2 from peterson with a single t to patterson with two t's do we have a second for that thank you jess just seconds that i will third it of course since it's my name but uh you know mr you know oversights happen and

096we it's an opera that's fine lexi we're all make we're all struggling we're all struggling through stuff you know so so this is just another thing and we're we're we're fixing it so that's good um are there any is there any further discussion of the minutes okay fine lexi would you like to call a vote oh yes we have to do this in the order i apologize lexi would you like to call a vote on the amendment dj anderson aye jim brokish hi nate donovan nate let's just move on christian draper yes rob patterson aye carolyn reed aye jessica zamora aye motion passed 6-1 i yeah thank you i guess um so uh if we could have a vote on the uh uh the minutes as amended now lexi okay dj anderson aye jim brokish

097hi nate donovan hi christian draper aye rob patterson aye carolyn reed aye jessica zamora aye motion pass seven zero great thank you thank you all i appreciate it um now we will move on to our informational reports and discussion items and our first item is a calendar committee update superintendent kingsley would you like to introduce that yes i would thank you members of the board members of our community we are joined once again by the co-chairs of the psd calendar committee principal melanie mirzois and principal alicia bono tonight they're here with a follow-up to the calendar committee work that was discussed at our last board regular business meeting uh prior to them starting the presentation if i can just set some high level context for our discussion here this evening the spirit of this presentation

098is to receive feedback from the board it's a discussion we're not bringing anything for you tonight to vote on we are focusing on this particular presentation on fall break for the 22-23 school year i also want to tell you that we're going to be able to provide you some high level data regarding our recent calendar survey that went out to our families our district is incredibly enthusiastic but also a little overwhelmed with the the response rate we hadn't had over 8 responses to that survey uh which as you can imagine is an incredible amount of data right so to do that data justice tonight we are going to provide some high level uh trends in oversights not oversight excuse me high level trends and things for us to pay attention to uh but we are

099intending on coming back to this board later in the spring with a deeper analysis of that data as well as updates and how in terms of how that intersects with our district's negotiations process so i just wanted to provide you that as a high level update to set some context for our co-chairs to present to you this evening mel and alicia welcome yeah thank you and welcome and i'll just i just want to i mean the 8571 responses is tremendous we really appreciate that input from the community thank you all very much yeah thank you so much for that introduction so our focus is going to be on those options for fall break and the continuing work of our committee so as superintendent kingsley prefaced for us tonight we will give an overview of the

100calendar survey specific to the responses related to fall break and then we will also be revisiting the options that we had given regarding a one week fall break for the next school year and also providing a recommendation from the calendar committee okay so just to review what the calendar committee does we developed that year-long school calendar with stakeholder input and were held by certain parameters such as our school funding law and then our employee agreement as well our committee is comprised of parents staff and community members so as you see here and was mentioned just now 8571 responses which is remarkable we were really pleased to see that that many people took the survey remembering that the the long-term goal of this survey was to really gather that long-term uh input to make decisions moving

101forward with the goal of also doing a survey every two years to continue to get input from our community remember this survey was open to the entire community most of the responses came from parents and guardians and we did have 500 middle school and high school students also respond to the survey which is a really nice end count we will review these results in depth we really want to make sure we take the time to dig in our next calendar committee meeting is january 24th and we want to do justice and honor the time that people took to provide input and give a lot of really insightful comments and so we will be back here in the spring and then also once we we present a full analysis of the survey data to the board

102that will also be posted on our website so um the calendar survey input we collected was on priorities that we could currently do within our current parameters um so things like the length of fall break and winter break the start and end dates of the semester and the school year maximizing instructional time prior prior to our standardized testing window alignment with the csu calendar and all k-12 students being on the same instructional calendar which is something we've discussed as a committee over time and then that partial week for the first day of school this is just a precursor again to remind you of the three options that we brought in december uh remembering the first option that you have also within your novus packet that the public can also see at home is the originally

103approved calendar option two was moving the building workday from november 11th to the start before the start of school and starting school one day prior to the original version and then option three was leaving that november work day in place and starting school two days earlier than the original option so we wanted to show you some calendar survey for just the fall break interest and this has a couple a little bit more information in it but if you look at this chart people were asked to rank their first priority second priority and third priority and so these are the top three responses for first priority top three responses for second priority top three responses for third priority and you can see that we highlighted there where fall break where that kind of fell into all

104top priorities so we felt like interest was consistent across all subgroups and not surprising you can kind of see in priority one there we're still dealing with heat as a top concern and so our calendar committee will continue to consider that in all decisions moving forward so then if you recall the survey after the priority rankings and we asked kind of if then statements and so the one pertaining to fall break said would you be interested in a week-long fall break if it meant and so the majority a pretty high majority of respondents were not interested if it meant winter break is shorter which obviously you saw in the previous slide was kind of priority number one of keeping that where it is they also were not interested if first semester then was extended past

105winter break and into january the majority of respondents are interested if it means beginning the school year two days earlier or ending two years later and if you recall from our conversations a month ago we did not draft an option making the calendar adding two days in may due to the 360 hours of seat requirement in the first semester to make sure that that stays stable within our current parameters so also as a result we had some findings that we know are going to take further consideration as we move into that 23-24 calendar year and these are things that are not just for our calendar committee but also for district consideration so things that came up starting the school year later longer shorter instructional days more or less training days for staff four-day student weeks

106or asynchronous fridays year-round school a longer shorter school breaks in consideration of observance of religious and federal holidays so these were some of the areas of interest and we know that those are going to have to be discussed at multiple levels and as with many things there are mixed results and opinions for each one of these topics across the board the board requested to see attendance data and so lauren requested from it to pull attendance data from our most previous to full school years and so you can see the student attendance data for the monday and tuesday prior to thanksgiving break for those two years if you recall we had an incredible snowstorm in 2019 so we don't have data for that tuesday and then here is the attendance data for those specific uh mentioned

107religious holidays the ones where you see a dash you see a time span because those are multi-day holidays and so it's showing the least attended day to the highest attendance day rate yes and i'm sorry let me i i forgot to mention so i might answer questions the average daily attendance rate per semester within those two years was 92 to 93 across the district so that's the average for you to use as a benchmark dj did you have a question yeah i was just wondering uh why going from like the good friday down the data switched from 2019 to 2020 instead of 2018 to 2019. there was a reason so they were just counting back okay thanks so i think this slide is mine is that correct right so members of our board so tonight

108as we begin to kind of orient uh you all to have a discussion this evening in terms of what you're hearing and kind of reacting to this evening in terms of our presentation a couple of thoughts that we want to be clear about in terms of us moving forward one we are asking the board to consider options one through three that were presented to you previously as well as reiterated to you tonight uh the next slide i will share with you a little bit about what the calendar committee is recommending so you at least have that as a sense of a preference but certainly open to broader discussion on that i believe collectively as a governance team at our last meeting we had a thoughtful conversation regarding exploring options for holiday observances for the 23-24

109school year calendar and i want to thank the calendar committee as well as other staff for working around the clock to prioritize that exploration in service of figuring out what's possible what i would say from my role is a couple of things need to happen one i need to take a leadership role in continuing to have engagement with faith-based leaders in our community to begin to think about what's possible and what's desired i've had some success with that but there's still room for me to grow knowing i've only been a part of our community for six months so i'm really eager and excited uh to double down on that collaboration in the months ahead but i just wanted you to be aware that there's more there's more conversation that's needed before we provide any formal

110recommendation to the board i would also say that we also have to think about as we look at the data making sure that we're adhering to the laws of our constitution both at the national level in the state of colorado to make sure that we are adhering to the establishment clause in terms of the separation between what we're doing from a legal perspective and not necessarily endorsing any particular religious beliefs through various decisions we may be asking you to make and so we'll need to have some continued dialogue with policy and legal counsel and with our community members to make sure that we're providing you a thoughtful presentation and or recommendation in the future what i will share with you something that we can do and i anticipate doing this quickly is codifying through a

111superintendent policy that we need to take a hard stance across the district around ensuring things that are extra curricular in nature that are above and beyond the role of our core business that's happening during our school day we really need to be respectful of our respective community members who are observing various holidays and not put them in a position to have to choose either participating in a school event on those days or choosing to observe their various respective religions and so i'm working with staff now i'm putting together a superintendent policy and drawing a hard line on that particular thing to be effective moving into the year ahead we have some schools that are doing an incredible job of observing this already i want to name that but we also have room to grow in

112this space in terms of being inclusive being aware of when these holidays are and i look forward to working with staff and providing a really strong communication strategy to our community as well as our internal stakeholders so we're all aware of the rules of engagement for lack of a better way of explaining it if you go the next slide please sure nate go ahead i'm sorry i'd when you're developing that superintendent policy i'd also request that we make sure that we're on firm legal ground with the establishment clause because i think that could be just as much of a minefield as talking about taking days off of school with respect to the establishment clause thank you for that feedback we will make sure that we do that and update the board prior to anything becoming

113a formal policy uh the following slide that is again just want to reorient you to the three options that have been shared with you on numerous occasions and just highlight and just draw and orient your eyes and attention to option three uh where there is a five day suggested fall break same holidays as this year but begin our school year next year again this is for the 2022 2023 calendar that we would begin next school year two days earlier in august that is the recommendation of the committee again we're not asking you to vote on any of these options this evening we're just seeking your feedback mel and lisa are there any other slides prior to having the board engaged in thoughtful dialogue this is just really our question at hand and we just wanted

114to point out if the board is interested in modifying the currently adopted calendar it'll be brought to the board for action at the january 25th work session thank you very much thanks for presenting that and thanks for all the work that goes behind it i know there's a lot of competing interests to try to balance here and we appreciate your thoughtful work on that so it looks like carolyn would like to leave the conversation here i i just wanted to to know if we do decide to start school two days earlier i'd like to know a little bit about what the heat's been like in the past few years you know i know it's not an exact exact science but you know i'd like to know kind of what the heat has been like when

115kids have started will it be i just want to understand if it's going to be a significant difference or or not okay i think lauren since brian had to step out for a minute if if you want to address that that's fine if you just want to take that as input to uh to what comes next that's also fine so we can definitely take that as input and look at that going forward i would also say i don't know if matt brian is prepared to speak a little bit to the mitigation strategies that are in place for heat in buildings early in august that would be in place going into this next school year as well that might be helpful for this for this part of the conversation all right if you're good with that

116matt that's fine if you'd like to have more preparation and discuss it next time that's okay too no it's real simple we're just going to deny having heat in august that's the plan um no vic i can i can kind of tell you what we do uh currently for mitigation and we'd follow some of the same steps that we that we currently do um a lot of that is is pre-cooling the buildings we run our ventilation systems earlier in the mornings to pump as much cool air from the early mornings as we can into the buildings the custodians will come in and open up the buildings put fans in the doors and the windows as much as possible bring in all that cool air and then we shut it down and we try to obtain

117we try to cold soak the building so to speak that is is one of the mitigation factors that we use what we've ran into this past year though is with using that and that factor we have to run our buildings more now we have to run our ventilation systems at maximum power so that we get a maximum number of air exchanges per hour for a covered response so we had a little bit of adverse effect with that but it still was effective to a point and all this is effective to a point i mean the principals can tell you in their buildings anything about past noon one o'clock in the afternoon it's it's it's it's an uphill battle at that point we're losing that battle from there on the other things that we do is

118is again run those systems um running those systems at max power during the day from that noontime period on we're drawing air from the rooftops which is very warm at that time of day so we're actually bringing warm air back into the building at that point and that's when we start getting most of our our complaints and our notifications that the buildings feel very hot we do run checks in our buildings we're able to look at the temperatures throughout the the district at every building through our automated control system we can pull uh reports to see where what days and what times our our hot spots happened um and make notifications to the to the schools about here's what you can do uh we have provided fans uh to those schools that really need them

119large fans they're very noisy but they do move air so any kind of air movement that you get in a room is usually very positive so teachers using those windows that have them that can open is important and using fans if possible i know i i have a personal relationship with a teacher here in the district and the fan is a little noisy and blows a lot of papers around her classroom and i hear about that when i get home so that and that's just you know the mitigation facts to a point are what we can do some of our buildings are old and they don't have don't have air conditioning and those classrooms do get very very hot and we do our best to try to try to cool those as much as we

120can and then work with staff and i know that schools come up with creative ways of water breaks teaching outdoors when they can in the shade and using the natural breezes and things like that so those outdoor learning spaces are important to have tuned up and cleaned up and ready to go for that use so we will continue to monitor that we'll continue to look for creative ways to help our situation in those places that don't have air conditioning and yeah we'll see what we can do and we're open to ideas i hope that helps i'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have further well we welcome we welcome you sending us that information just send it to boe psdschools.org and we'll all have a look at it and if you have

121some commentary to go with it send that too and we can also provide some trend analysis in comparison thank you very much other comments from the board dj i have a comment and a question actually the first question is um i'm great to see your guys's recommendation i just wonder if you could explain how that one won over two of you know moving one day versus two days earlier um there were a couple considerations one just looking at those survey results seeing that the two days were of interest um to the community two the fact that if we didn't keep that bw day in november that gave us i want to say five weeks that we're five full five day weeks and that's atypical for any other kind of period within the calendar so we

122felt like if we take that out then that doesn't provide um that kind of just different week within november so that was that was the reason that some people moved to that i will say that we did have members who kind of felt differently so there was some interest in one there was some interest in two it's just that three is where we landed okay and then the the second comment i guess that i had was uh with the the winter break then is we're coming back with basically two days of just hanging out the end of the week coming back and i i really kind of wondered if that was going to have a problem too and then i also had the thought about our pd if if that could be a pd time

123and the students still don't come back yet um but at the student advisory since i just had that last night i went ahead and threw that up to them and it was interesting to get their feedback again our group is eight so keep that in mind uh but it was um a lot of them thought it didn't matter as much because of the fact that you're just going over the syllabus you're kind of starting your week your semester up um so they they feel like that there's there probably will be kids missing it uh but they they didn't think that that was a big deal because of what is done during those days i i just kind of wonder if coming back and having those two days is is something that we could maybe look

124at too but i i appreciate all the work you guys have done and my personal i leaned towards the one day earlier uh but you know mine was more just because of the heat aspect that we do behind two quite often so that's all i had thank you i can add just a couple of things to that i do know that over time as we've talked with our committee one of the preferences both in august and when we kind of return from that longer break is shortened weeks um just because that kind of gets us back into the flow of things so that's kind of just another perspective but i wrote that down for us to also look at as we're considering that 2324 calendar make sure we pay attention thank you jess um i

125just have a comment on the heat days in case anyone doesn't remember this fall the two heat days that we were considering as over 100 degrees potentially were in september so while we talk about it as far as august goes it may we may have heat days regardless other comments or questions from the board nate yeah i just wanted to raise the issue of whether we're pretty much solid on a five five-day fall break i know since we're in the current issues with the pandemic that we really needed that extra two days but i do question whether that's in the best interest of the community when you look at that attendance data it doesn't appear i thought the attendance data would be much less or i guess the attendance would be much less on monday

126and tuesday of that week uh and if and if it's really important to staff i think that's a great consideration it seems to me that it's less maybe less an issue with the community taking that off but if it's popular and that's the future that's fine too i just wanted us to consider that and so i'm fine with option three if we can mitigate those heat days or potential heat days thanks kristen well going back to the student advisory council um last night the the five-day uh november break was was a hit um everybody everybody really appreciated that um and from what the students were saying was that not much was happening on the monday and tuesday it was sort of prep for break um and so they felt like it was actually really good

127use of time to have off so that you could like you worked all the way up until friday and then you were done so that's what they were um we're saying um i'm i guess i'm i'm kind of leaning towards option two myself just because um as i'm looking at the calendar i know it's five weeks in between without much of a um without a four day week in there but then you get the five full days so i feel like yeah it's a little bit of a longer stretch there you've got one two three four five until the first work day in september and then you've got four until the one in october but then you've got five but then it's a full five days off so i guess i'm feeling like that might

128be a better you have the transition day on a tuesday and you start the kids everybody on a wednesday it's a shorter week for everyone to start with because you're out everybody's getting back into the swing of like right i have to like wake up and be present and that sort of thing um so i guess that's where i'm leaning although i am not going to like it it's not a deal breaker one way or the other but that would be my initial preference yep jim go ahead well i like that we're looking at this ahead of time and that i i think the recommendation works well for me i think to expect that a year from now our staffing problems are going to be resolved and that covet is completely gone and everything is

129back to the way it was three years ago is maybe just a little optimistic at least for me so i like that we're dealing with this in advance and really looking at this either two or three works for me i don't have a strong preference anybody else want to comment i know everybody has as he might want to make another comment okay i will say that i'm i'm open to either two or three i sort of frankly defer to the judgment of the or i guess the majority if you want to call it that of the committee which is i assume what this represents so i'm open to your guidance on that i do have a couple of questions though on what you presented and maybe this is more appropriate for when you come back

130with a more well i know part of is more appropriate for when you come back with more of a deep dive on the survey the first one may also be and that is the data talked about not wanting the first semester to go into january i'm i'm curious about what what people's understanding of what that actually means is you know so and so again that may be more appropriate for the next time we meet and the other thing is all those all those things listed under for further consideration there were some how shall we say very interesting things that were listed there and i'm going to be mighty interested to see how those inputs split among the various kinds of uh respondents teachers uh other kinds of staff um students parents and the like um

131so i hope when you come back you'll be able to have that kind of breakdown if you need you know need us to look at power bi or something we can probably do that too so you know whatever works that's absolutely the plan is to have time to really dig into the subgroups and those community comments and and really make sure that what we are representing and presenting is is actually what what is stated in the survey excellent nate you have another comment yeah i was going to say hasn't it been the case that for a long time with the calendar committee that those uh findings for further consideration are kind of some of the topics that are always topics or consideration didn't just come from the survey did it i mean it's kind of

132always in play i mean i'd say those are lots of things that we wrestle with every year for the calendar committee um a lot of this was confirming of things that we were like okay in some ways it felt good for some of the conversations we've had because we haven't done a survey in a while to say yeah this is exactly what we wrestle with every year now we have some concrete data on it that we can do some actionables for that 2324 but certainly things that we've heard and discussed in the past and in fact even kind of talking about that that data for that attendance for that week-long break that was something the committee's looked at in the past and we were surprised too because there were always conversations about a week of

133thanksgiving break at that at that time and when we looked at the attendance data we said huh that's not what we thought it would be um so kind of all things we've been talking about for the last couple years i would also add though of course and a lot of the comments and you know especially on slide nine many of those fall outside of the purview of the calendar committee right so those are things that those would be decisions made elsewhere that then we would draft calendars around did you have another thing you wanted to say nate yeah i guess i'm glad that kristen raised it that maybe what may be more important with those two days for fall break then the attendance factor is what kind of instruction is going on or lack of

134instruction that seems to be maybe more important than whether students are there if they're watching movies or something that may not be the best so thanks i appreciate it thank you very much for the feedback we appreciate mel thank you for being here yes thanks very much we really appreciate it thank you thank you all right and our last uh informational item for this evening is uh the covid 19 response update that uh superintendent kingsley referenced earlier and we'll turn it over to you to introduce it thank you our our final informational report this evening will be given by executive director of communications madeline knoblet and kovan 19 coordinator miss corey henry miss novel and miss henry will speak to the most current information related to our response to covet 19. and prior to getting

135started for those of you who are here who have been willing and able to stay for this detailed information on behalf of the board and myself we thank you madeline corey all right thank you so much one of the things that i'd like to start with particularly given some of the information and just feedback that some of our commenters shared this evening i just want to start and acknowledge at the front end how confusing it has probably felt the past you know 20 plus months but particularly the last couple of weeks i know that the guidance has been coming fast and furious from the centers for disease control and prevention the state health department the county and it has felt at least for me and i know our team's internally so fast-paced and so tonight

136what we're hoping is that with the information we're going to share that is a compliment to the inter the announcement that we sent as a district yesterday to our families and staff and community is that there may be some clarity and that we might be able to address some of the questions that we heard here tonight that's at least one of our goals so what we'd like to do is start by just giving an overview of what health officials have shared with us regarding the omicron variant we are going to touch on and give you our usual update around our psd specific covid19 data what we're seeing with cases here internally in the district and then we'll go through those updated public health guidelines for covid and what it will look like here as we've

137implemented them in psd in alignment with the public health guidelines that have been recently released specifically we want to go through what has changed and what has not because we know a lot of questions stem from the back and forth that we've seen in this staggered release of guidance so we'd like to address that and walk through each of those points one of the things that we have done or tried to do with each of our updates and you've heard superintendent kingsley speak to these and we've tried to maintain these in all of our messaging around coved to our communities is rooting us in our main drivers right what are those major values that we hold as we are trying to make decisions in the best interest of our staff and students here in the

138district and so as we've said and will continue to commit to we are prioritizing in-person learning you've probably heard us say the line many times but it continues to be true our students and our teachers and our staff their best when they are together and so i know looking around this room this governance team and all of the leaders across our system have been working to try to make that our reality and do what it takes to make that so student and staff health and safety their well-being is paramount and so we are always looking at that as we are considering the changing guidelines and deciding what that means for our response here in the district and then continuing to use data to inform decisions and as we know and discuss even here in this

139boardroom there are a lot of data sources and so we rely upon our psd specific data as well as data from our public health official partners at the state and county health departments and a number of other sources so this information about omicron we're capturing it from the weekly and sometimes multiple times a week calls that we are on with the larimer county department of health and environment so our goal is to share with you what it is that we're hearing from our most local public health partners so as many of you may know they're saying evidence of reduced severity with omicron we have evidence that omicron is more infectious than the delta variant we saw prior to winter break there's not yet a complete picture of what this means for hospitals but as many

140of you know and have probably been able to see for yourself the county does maintain a dashboard that is populated with data from the various hospital systems within our community banner uc health and the like and so you can see number of patients in the hospital icu capacity and all of those data that are related you all have seen in the past couple of weeks just by collecting your own information watching in the media communications from our district and others we're seeing record high cases um and so what's yet to be seen is whether the reduction in severity of those symptoms and just the experience of contracting omicron it may not be enough to reduce the burden on hospitals so one of the things the county epidemiologists had shared with us is if you were

141to have uh fewer uh cases but you were to have or you were to have less severity but more cases you could still end up overburdening the hospitals and so that's something that they're paying attention to and what that picture looks like in the weeks to come and they've continued to share that the best line of defense against kovid and various variants is vaccination and boosters and then just really important to point out that we do provide data on our dashboard and that can be found on the main web page if you go to the yellow covid tab that's at the top left that's where you can go and see information about cases in schools among grade levels and that's available right on that tab there to break it down this was since january 3rd

142i ran those numbers monday morning 431 since january 3rd previously before break it was about a hundred a week so that's a significant increase there's always a little bit of flex a little bit of um what we wonder about with this number is some things coming over from christmas break or winter break into last week but as we move through this week it should be stabilized to exactly where we are now and that does continue to be significantly higher than we saw before winter break again staff and students currently not in remote we're at 98.9 and then the breakdown of cases between elementary middle and high schools so we are still seeing more of our cases among elementary students one of the things that we're going to go through right now we have our updated

143guidelines that we received from cdphe first cdc put out their guidelines and then following that last friday cd phe did get updated guidelines to out to the counties just to build on what cory is saying around the release of guidance and some folks may be wondering about the timeline we heard some of that come out in public comment tonight wandering around the december 31st communication that our district sent out us thompson and estes what we were grappling with was an initial release of guidelines updated guidelines from the centers for disease control and prevention those were particular to our community at large but cdc had not yet specified updated schools guidance and so what we were grappling with is these guidelines were implemented and our state and county health departments were following them for our community

144and it felt like we could not go without updated guidance when there was a new release from the cdc and so the conversation with the county health department was to release interim guidance which was the intention of that december 31 communication and the timing was just the result of when the cdc guidance came out and we wanted to get it to our communities as quickly as possible knowing we knowing we were coming back from winter break that next monday then over the course of about five days we were receiving information that cd phe the state health department will come out with school specific guidance along with cdc and so we did see those come to fruition and so our intention was to wait until both cdc and cd phe and then the county which implements

145those two agencies guidelines they typically align we wanted to make sure that all three were in place before we then communicated again to our communities we figured that might be the most streamlined way and least confusing way to communicate so that we weren't doing multiple updates in a week adding to the confusion that was already out there so i just wanted to provide some of that context and let folks know why that decision was made and why they rolled out the way they did so what has changed what has changed for us is that isolation and quarantines are reduced in length of time from 10 days to 5 days so with the exception of those who are not able to wear a mask that remains at 10 days individuals who have been who have tested

146positive or students who have been asked at quarantine would be able to return on day six and then those who would be exempted from quarantine 18 and older would be required to have their booster dose of the vaccine cdphe in their announcement last week did add this additional piece to give a grace period of those who are eligible to be boosted would have until february 1st so will not be required to quarantine until february 1st if they don't yet have their booster dose to give that extra time additionally 5 to 17 year olds would need to have the primary series but even though they're eligible to be boosted they at this time do not have to be boosted to avoid quarantine they just need to be 14 days past their second dose and then um

147initially cdc took away the confirmation of a positive test in the last 90 days and then they did put that back in so having tested positive for covid in the previous 90 days would exempt someone from quarantine at this point can you go back a slide please just for clarity sake for the community uh going back to the last two bullets around the confirmed positive test obviously there's people taking tests at home that they've purchased in respective stores some are going to the mako line etc some other respective like timberline church i think is an example and there's other places across our county and community to get tested how can the community confirm a test to ensure that in the event that that applies to them that they don't get caught up into the the

148quarantine process so a confirmed test result would be a lab document documented result from a provider so it will have a date time type of test the recorded result so okay yep so that the at-home tests do not fall into that because we don't have a recorded result thank you corey i would ask you to ask that question after the meeting i'm sure that it depends whether you're willing to stay around that's fine next if you'd like to continue with the next slide so other things that have changed this first bullet is specific to pooter school district staff so our incredible i.t team built an employee symptom screener and we have evolved that to meet the current return to learn guidelines which have not changed with the recent revision and so each day all staff

149are required to take and pass this screener and so it's a pretty simple process whereby you indicate whether you have illness symptoms and then whether you've had an exposure to an individual who is positive for covid within the last five days if you answer no to those then you would get a an indication that you are cleared to enter any psd facility and if you were to answer yes to those it would indicate that you need to follow our process for return to learn so we follow the state's return to learn guidelines for staff and students for illness symptoms and then contact a supervisor to notify and so we do have staff who are monitoring and just making sure that we've got folks following the screener and then as far as contact tracing larimer county

150department of health and environment recommended to all schools within the county to stop contact tracing routine classroom cases and to focus on high risk exposures so we want to be clear that part of the change and the reason for that change communicated by the health department and something that we've experienced as a district as well is the overwhelming number of cases so we have folks you may have heard corey and i speak about our kovit 19 response teams across the district departments and schools have those we also have a district level contact tracing team and these individuals have put in incredible hours over the past 20 months to contact trace cases and follow the county and state health department guidelines to do so as the case numbers have risen due to the significant surge with

151omicron that workload has become tremendous and so our priority has been to focus on staffing and ensuring that we can keep our buildings open and provide that phenomenal educational experience and the county has communicated that they too are struggling to keep up with the current caseload particularly given delays and test results and some other factors in our current reality what that means is that we will continue to work with the health department to contact trace high risk exposures so the health department defines what those are those are defined by state and county health department and in the past just to give some context those have included things like athletics choir band where you might have wind instruments and that higher likelihood of producing the respiratory droplets and so that's something that we will move forward

152with and it's a significant change and we're working through that with our teams to make it as seamless as possible madeline may i add to that just briefly so i just want to over emphasize the significance of this shift in conversations that some of us uh as members of the governance team who participated in the county city liaison meeting this morning where tom gonzalez was in attendance a question that i had asked him that i want us to be clear about publicly is that this is a transition from not just focusing on preventing the spread of covet 19 but it's also a transition to figuring out ways based upon the mild severity of old macron to live with it i do think that this particular shift in this protocol is going to release significant pressure

153that's been upon staff i will tell you that my personal belief system and i know madeline didn't say this but she we all collectively believe it it's not omicron that put pressure on contact racing the pressure existed from the beginning of this pandemic and we've been carrying that piano uphill uh everybody all employees and and so our ability to focus on our core business has been compromised as a result of us trying to do some of these things so i know this is messy and it doesn't necessarily feel great but i do want to articulate that we are moving to a space where we should presume that we are surrounded by positivity and we need to do everything we can to mitigate spread but also recognize that this contact tracing as we knew it previously

154is no longer going to exist until something changes so i just think it's important to be clear with the public and with the community while i am excited i'm also nervous about what's happening in our schools knowing that we have increased positivity cases that while we still don't know the burden that this is placing on hospitals i can tell you that the burden that's happening in schools and school systems is real and it started already so i just want us to be clear and specific about that because this is a significant shift in prior protocols that i think the public is not yet clear on and i thought it was important to over emphasize and reiterate so thank you yeah thank you superintendent kingsley and and one last thing i would add to that is

155if the community is interested in reading a letter from the health department from director tom gonzalez on the change we do have it linked on our district website in the january 10 announcement that we sent to families so they may reference it there if they have additional questions and whatnot they may reach out certainly but wanted to make sure they knew where to find that information all right what has not changed as of now so as of today athletics performing arts clubs and events are in person what we've communicated is that the expectation is that the adults in our system our colleagues are thoughtful about their approach to hosting these types of activities things that we believe enrich the academic experience of our students here in pst they are asked to maintain six feet of

156distance when possible and again they have many months of experience living and working in this pandemic to draw upon and also have great resources in corey and our nursing team and others who can help consult as they move forward and put together these different events and activities for our kids psd is allowing community partners and volunteers to be at schools for educational student opportunities that's something we wanted to be sure to share because we know it's a question that's come out recently just given the conditions in our community and all of the information that we know people are trying to digest every single day and then we want folks to know too that like our staff we are asking our community partners and volunteers to complete a community symptom screener that again our incredible i.t

157team created and that we used during the past school year so we've reinstituted that so that we can ensure that they are going through similar processes as our employees in the system so to address as we are having people coming back to school sooner than they would have previously is just to reiterate not to come to school with illness symptoms and this is really important with mild symptoms as well so runny nose scratchy throat one thing and and i just want to correct that on here uh it's always been 24 hours of a major symptom or 48 hours of mild symptoms leads to a negative test to be able to return before 10 days that's now six days to match that time period that goes along with the quarantine and isolation we have so the

158return to learn guidance is still in effect we are waiting for cdphe to release that so they released their information last week and this is the one document that they pulled off and the update to that is coming soon we do have signs at each building encouraging people to follow that and then do you want to do masculine so you've heard us go through this before but we thought it was worth bringing it back just since it's a common question as folks are likely aware the county health department still has its mask order in effect and so as a district we are continuing to adhere to that public health order as well as continuing our district's policy of universal masking for students and staff in all facilities except for those who have an approved medical

159mask exemption we told our community we would reevaluate that decision at least quarterly and so that's something that we continue to revisit um and as of now with the order still being in place we as a district are not in a place to reconsider the adherence to that order but we continue to have conversations about what masking looks like as we proceed through this pandemic and the reasons for doing so remain the same to keep as many kids in school as possible and minimize spread with the newest updated guidance from cdc and cd phe as an example individuals as you heard previously who are able to wear a mask under the public health guidance may do the five-day quarantine return on day six if their symptoms are improving and that's contingent upon them being able

160to wear a mask however the public health guidance says that for those who are unable to wear a mask those with approved medical mask exemptions they would need to complete the 10-day isolation period and so that is part of the rationale of maintaining masks here in psd to remain in alignment with public health guidance as we communicated to our staff and to our communities public health guidance also recommends kn 95 masks but they are not required here in psd so that's something that i'm sure to clarify as i'm talking with different staff members and family members who ask we are making k 95 masks available for staff we did have a significant store of can 85 masks left over from when psd participated in the state's mask program for educational staff and so we have

161gotten that question of whether we have participated in our receiving masks and the answer is yes we had and our operations team has been distributing those and each staff member will be given two kn 95 masks per week as well as the store we had from the state from last year we have also purchased some of those masks as a district we are continuing to host the cdphe mobile vaccine bus clinics outside of psd school facilities again those are 100 voluntary as of january 3rd we had 614 pediatric second doses of fiber visor given and then we've continued with more clinics this week this week that have added to that number and the 12 to 15 year olds are now eligible to receive boosters as well as any staff community members families and then a

162reminder that parents and guardians must be with children 17 years and younger to give consent and individuals who are 8 and 18 and older are able to self-consent psd staff are not administering vaccines we do communicate with all families and staff we post on website and social or the timing of the clinics and the locations and then send out a monthly email listing the clinic dates to all families again we are still not requiring staff or students to be vaccinated some identified staff who are part of early head start are required to be vaccinated due to the federal ruling and any questions nate yeah on the vaccine clinics i know they're not operated by psd staff but it's my understanding that at least some of them are supposed to be operated on an appointment basis

163and there seems to be some confusion about whether walk-ups are allowed and where would people go to make an appointment if if they're supposed to be appointment based so there's two places they can go on our psd website where we list out all of the vaccine clinics as we receive those links from cdphe to the appointment they're they're on our site which has we have our own covid19 vaccine page within the psd website the other option is on the cdphe website itself they list out by the different regions all the clinics that they have available in the state of colorado and that's actually our links lead to that page so you can go and make appointments and as you mentioned they do also take walk-ins so both ways are available other comments or questions go

164ahead nate i mean go ahead kristen i'm sorry yeah whoever no i just wanted to say thank you i know it's been a very confusing couple of weeks um and that this had to be put together um over the holiday break so i know that y'all were working um you know over what should have been a restful period for you and instead you were madly trying to make sense of some of these guidances that were coming down um that you know coming down from some places but not others and we're waiting for some guidance and other places and so i just i really appreciate all the work that y'all put into it i appreciate the leadership you took with that um and i just know that it is it's no fun i mean this is

165not nobody's taking any pleasure in this at all but it's something that we're doing so that we can keep kids in school with their peers in front of their teachers and i just greatly greatly appreciate that so for all the work that you've done now and previously much thanks daddy kingsley if i could just echo what you just said and shout from the highest mountaintops i mean there's there's so many staff members in this district that deserve to be officially recognized but i want to just pay a special shout out to madeline and corey for their responsiveness not just in our own districts they've been coordinating collaboration and communication efforts across three districts in larimer county and i also had the pleasure and luxury to participate in an update with our principals as we were

166reorienting them to these newer expectations and the overwhelming sense of pride and responsiveness to both corey and madeline to continue to equip them with the information for them to lead in their school buildings was just off the charts so again just on behalf of our whole school district i want to thank you both [Applause] so i will echo that thanks and i will also make a comment for the public who may be watching and that is that picking up on the idea of keeping schools open and the staffing challenges that we're having in doing that and your comment that volunteers are are welcome still in the schools i would just emphasize that if parents or other community members wish to help in some way either by volunteering as people have often done or by signing

167up to be a substitute either as a teacher or as a classified staff person those would be greatly appreciated and would help immensely to relieve pressure on the staff and potentially even to keep buildings and classrooms operating in person which is our goal so again if you want have something to do that's that's something you can do it looks like madeline wants to comment there yeah and if i may add to what director patterson just shared thank you for that i would say too that we have multiple positions open across the district and so if you're looking to for a career to serve kids here in the district we have many many open positions from custodians to child nutrition team members to bus operators and everyone in between paraprofessionals so you could work directly with

168kids or do work to support kids in our buildings and so you can go onto our website www.psdschools.org and click the jobs tab and explore some options that might be available here and so we sure appreciate whether it's through volunteerism or through a job here in psd or service on one of our many committees any of that type of engagement is welcomed thanks for thanks for adding to that nate did you have something else you wanted to say yeah i know it's been said before but i just want to add my thanks to the teachers and other staff that are working every day and are exhausted and we appreciate your dedication and hopefully it'll get better okay if there's nothing else did you want to say something okay great if if there's nothing else then

169the next item on our agenda is an executive session which uh in full disclosure we actually did during the dinner session to try to shorten this meeting so i assuming we're not going to get a motion to go into executive session here okay cool so we're going to skip that agenda item and we'll go right to the next agenda item which is adjournment thank you very much for joining us this evening appreciate it and we will look forward to seeing i'm sure many of you uh next time uh two weeks from now thank you yes you