Red Clay Board of Education Meeting: August 18, 2021

001good evening and a very warm welcome to everyone in attendance so to our red clayston board uh meeting and the new school year i'm kathy thompson president of the red play school district board of education the board is thankful you have come out tonight and grateful to have you here we're anxious to hear what you have to say the august 18 2021 red clay school board meeting is called to order it is 7 00 p.m this meeting is our first regular board meeting since delaware state of emergency ending as voted on by our board it's july 7 2021 meeting this meeting is a hybrid meeting so that people can access the meeting remotely via zoom or youtube youtube on the red clay schools youtube channel or in person at cab calloway school of the arts

002100 north dupont road wilmington delaware in the theater which is the anchor location for this meeting all other requirements of 29 delaware code 1006 a relating to virtual meetings are met so thank you very much the information regarding this meeting including information on how to access the meeting in person and or electronically was published on august 11 2021 on the red clay school district website under the notices section individuals may participate in this meeting either via zoom conferencing or uh or in person at cab calloway school of the arts and may speak by completing the public comment form available and submitting it at least one half hour prior to the start of the meeting if electronic in order to speak you must have provided a complete zoom name first and last name on the public

003comment form and it must match what shows on your zoom account if for some reason you're signed up as a speaker and present but not called on please raise your hand on the zoom app and our very helpful staff will assist you while the declaration of a state of emergency ended on july 12 2021 a declaration of a public health emergency for the state of delaware was put in place by governor carney on that same day to prevent the spread of covet 19. on monday august 16 2021 governor carney required all students staff and visitors in school to be masked which applies to us at night masks are required according to the governor's most recent mandate because we have at least one student present in ilena and so we need to be masked which we

004are if you do not have a mask a mask will be provided to you just raise your hand also we intend and expect to have a respectful and productive meeting with everyone listening only one person will will be recognized to speak at a time and we won't have any over speaking we welcome again our student rep eileena matthews from ai high school i kind of guess she drew the short stroll or something because she's here for her second meeting but we welcome you eileen and are glad to have you here we look forward to hearing from you later on in the meeting as a courtesy to others and to prevent unnecessary disruption all devices will be muted unless and until a person is recognized to speak all school board members that are present are present

005and here in person tonight which is fantastic because this is a hybrid meeting in order to maximize the effectiveness and orderliness of this meeting we will do the following we will have a roll call vote for each item to be voted on each board member should identify themselves by name prior to speaking if any board member wishes to speak or ask questions please raise your hand and let me know so i can call on members in order so that we only have one board member speak at a time and just so everyone knows this meeting is being recorded thank you again very much for coming out so the first thing we do is we start with the pledge of allegiance so if everyone will rise and say the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag

006of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and now i will accept the motion to approve the agenda as presented is there a motion so moved ashley sabo sabo moves is there a second second jason casper mr casper seconds okay maria we will have a vote please dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss knee smith yes ms sabo yes miss thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries thank you very much the next item is public comment and again we are thankful to have you come out tonight and anxious to hear you speak and share your thoughts under board policy 2006 the board encourages the staff and community to share concerns concerning school issues and educational programs

007sharing can be done verbally in writing and or by speaking at the meeting under board policy 2006 the board shall provide a time period of up to 30 minutes at each board meeting for public comments which time may be extended at the discretion of the board speakers are requested to give a written comment of their remarks to the superintendent and speakers are limited to a three-minute time period the time will be monitored and you will be able to see a timer on the screen which shows you which counts down the time for you so you'll know when the time is up speakers will be unmuted by the red clay team when it's time to speak and when the time is up the mic will be muted so thank you very much for coming out again

008and we look forward to hearing you so our first speaker is via zoom and it's mr ahmed sachdeva welcome mr such deva thank you so my comment was uh thank you by the way for letting me speak here um so with the rising cases of the more dangerous covet variant that we've seen recently and the fact that elementary school children have not been vaccinated um how can you assure that our children's health will not be impacted by attending in-person classes um and we are very concerned about the fact that parents are not being given an option to have their children attend classes virtually that's that's my question okay thank you mr such deva our next speaker is miss christina paula who i believe is here in person welcome miss paula okay i'm here for my

009kids um hello red clay board my name is christina paula and i have two children in the red clay school district first let me start off by saying that my children love their schools and their teachers however what they don't love are these masks i'm here tonight to say to you that as my children's guardian i should have the choice whether my children wear a mask or not you know that 32 states have left the choice to the parents decide what is best for their children do you know that according to forbes magazine delaware is among one of the 10 states with the strictest mandates covet is a virus that will never go away there will be new variants new guidelines to follow are you going to mask our children forever are we going to

010keep complying because that is what this is really about control this is what we do now we know that there has been no spread in the red clay schools since cohen began 457 children 17 and under have died nationwide in delaware two children have died from covet all these children had pre-existing conditions no healthy children have died let me repeat that no healthy children have died this is what we do know the long-lasting effects of wearing a mask with five days a week eight hours a day let alone the psychological effects the masks are having on our children more children are suffering from depression and anxiety suicide rates are up you will be liable for a child's physical and psychological health issues from mandated mass squaring when the decision is not based on science when

011you walk into a restaurant and everyone is at their tables eating drinking and laughing with no mess do you consider that the children are sitting quietly at their desk and have to it must wear a mask there's no science to this decision only abuse i'm calling him all of you to please stand up for the children let us parents have the choice to decide what is best for our children for if not now when when will all of you stand up for our children the order please thank you miss paula our next speaker is miss april lardier welcome miss lardia thank you my name is april ordier mother of three grandmother of one thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak tonight i am here tonight as an advocate for my children and granddaughter

012i try to teach my kids to trust their instincts because your instincts are god's way of telling you right from wrong my motherly instincts are telling me that my kids being forced to wear a mask in school is wrong we all want what is best for our kids so let's think about this with common sense and not be fear-mongered any longer kovid will never go away but the good news is kids have a very high survival rate we have to learn to live with it just like we have done with the flu there are medications and healthy choices that lessen symptoms so our focus should be on spreading that information we're told they must wear masks to slow the spread of cobit but numerous studies which i have if any one of you would like

013to see them show that schools without mass requirements for children had case rates just as low or even lower than schools which did have mass requirements our children have an extremely high survival rate from cobit it has been proven that our children have a higher chance of dying from the flu and did anyone suggest our children wear masks because of the flu no they did not covet poses almost no threat to our children but forcing them to wear a mask all day long in school does post psychological damage to them teaching them the air is toxic and everyone around them is sick and forcing them to breathe through sweat and spit it's utterly heartbreaking and what about learning we can't realistically expect them to fully grasp the material when they can't even see their teachers

014enunciate words and most times hear their muscled mask covered words this is psychological warfare on our children and it must stop now what and what has been doing they're developing the immune system it's very hard for them to breathe with mass on my daughter nina has come home from school many times with headaches which make it very difficult for her to focus on school work how can you be satisfied to put this burden on our children it's clearly not to keep them safe they are safe 0.2 percent of cobit deaths are aged under 25. it is clear to me that this is being done to protect certain people politically and they should be ashamed of themselves i implore you do not do this to our children let their parents decide what is best for them

015and let's be honest kids play and hang out closely with each other for hours at night and on the weekends it is not about safety and health this is about control and fear of non-compliance and what's next soon they will be mandating experimental shocks on our babies when does the madness end all of this starts with compliance started with compliance of wearing a mask we need to fight for our kids to get back to into a school environment conducive to learning by ending this unnecessary mass mandate the only way out of this is americans to say enough is enough let's take a stand together and consent to anyone any to any more of this craziness we have common sense facts right in front of us let's let's let our children have a beautiful school thank

016you miss lardiere our next speaker is miss nina lourdes years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty good evening my name is nina lardiere and i'm going into fifth grade at brandywine springs i'm here tonight to speak up against governor carney's school mass mandate and tell you why i feel in his attack on our liberty given to us by god and not the government it should be our parents choice whether they want their child to wear a mask in school or not i feel that masks have a negative effect on my schoolwork it is hard to learn while my teacher's voice is being muscled by a mask wearing a mask also makes it harder for me to socially interact with other children for example have you ever tried

017to tell a joke while wearing a mask somehow it doesn't seem as funny because you can't see their facial expression and they can't see yours it's also confusing to me that one of the only places i'm forced to wear a mask is at school but according to the new york times it is 10 times more likely for a child to die in a car accident than from coven so why isn't governor carney banning cars along with many of my friends i am along with many of my friends have come home from school with headaches after wearing a mask for close to six hours straight in closing i would like us all to remember the immortal words of the great patriot and founding father benjamin franklin those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little

018temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety thank you for your time [Applause] our next speaker is miss liz nicholson welcome ms nicholson my name is liz nicholson wife mother of three i pray tonight that there is less discussion more action we love our schools red clay and community and this past year we've all had to pivot many times schools parents children it's not easy but it was necessary to get through the unknowns of last year we are typically excited for school but this year is feeling anxious and heavy thinking back to how amassed six to seven hours a day five days a week affects our children our nine-year-old who would come home feeling such stress lack of focus and headaches in april i received an email that he was in the nurse's office because he

019was dizzy who is liable if they fall or the trauma of the consistent stress and anxiety daily i don't judge but i respect those who choose to wear a mask to protect themselves because it's their choice i practiced as a dental hygienist for 10 years and the purpose of wearing in a mask was to protect me not the patient to protect the mass protects the person who's wearing it a friend who is also a nurse on the coveted floor shared the same the covet patient doesn't wear the mask the caregiver wears it to protect themselves i quote the cdc the size of a virus particle is far too small to be stopped by cloth or surgical masks a single variant of sars covid2 is 0.1 microns the pore size in a surgical mask is 200

020to 1 000 times that size wearing a mask to prevent cool that is like throwing sand at a chain length fence and hoping it will stop it my son spent two different weeks and then my son spent two weeks at an overnight camp two different weeks living with eight kids from different areas playing living no mass no covet no problems just joy we want the board to make a decision will it be follow the lawless mass mandates or the decision to end them giving our children and their parents the right to decide if mass usage is the right decision for them your hands are not tied by the governor only ten states are choosing to do that it's the missing information and the half truths and the real truths are that our children are not

021at risk are not super spreaders and this might be hard to swallow but education has an ugly history with segregation and our district is at a precipice of repeating atrocious mistakes again will you continue to adopt segregation practices like we have seen all over the world and right here in our own backyard again will students be threatened scolded punished singled out by the self-appointed campus mass police or you take a stand on the side of real science truth morality by refusing medical discrimination of any kind during a time of forced medical interventions that resembles germany circa 1932-1945 and in closing the real truth is this we've been following the guidelines of attorneys in public health we're following the ever-changing guidelines of the cdc and their swiss cheese science but may remind you that no single

022member of the cdc is an elected official but you are do the job this community elected you to do and provide an optimal academic social cultural psychologically neurologically healthy environment for our children to flourish and stop treating them like they are walking viral time bombs tonight we ask for a boat to make masks optional stating clearly that mask wearing be left to the personal discretion of students parent staff the message you send with this vote will not eradicate a virus any more than wearing masks will but it will kill the division that has affected our schools and community thank you thank you ms nicholson our next speaker is irene rodriguez on zoom welcome miss rodriguez hello can you hear me yes we can thank you okay i'm not sure i'm visible thank you so much

023for your time my concern here is for the students who actually thrived learning from home or having the hybrid option i know that um last year we had many opportunities to voice our preferences our concerns what worked what didn't work for us and i was very disappointed and shocked that that information that same step was not taken in preparation for the new school year i understand that a majority of students do need to be in school need to be there all day and i understand that that works but i i understand too that when it's important the school district turned on a dime and allowed the safety of our students until there was more understanding about the situation that was being faced to be the priority so we all went from one extreme of 30

024kids in a classroom switching classes every so often every hour so to everybody stay at home and we realized it didn't work for every kid 30 kids in a classroom switching classes it didn't work for most kids being at home but why did we go all the way back to everybody has to be at school there's no option or or any discussion about what works for the kids that can need that hybrid model or need something in between we know it worked for some kids and it's just extremely infuriating that that option wasn't given or considered in any way for the students who don't fit in the box we're forcing everybody to go back into the first box after we force everybody to go to a different box there are options that should be available

025to our students and the families should have been considered and asked i do also want to say thank you to the district for working so hard to keep our students safe i personally appreciate that the masks are being asked to be worn at school a little while longer i understand it's not fun it's not acceptable for a lot of people but i do think that until we get a little bit more through this and we have more options i just want to be the voice of thank you for following through with that piece of keeping our students safe can we please also now prioritize the learning differences that our students have and make up to them available the options that work for them we know they're out there thank you miss rodriguez our next speaker

026is miss mindy rogers and welcome miss rogers thank you a cdc study found mask requirements for students had little effect on covet 19 incidents while improved ventilation like opening a window reduced cases more than mass mandates for staff and teachers face masks lead to elevated carbon dioxide inhaled air with younger children appearing to be most effective most affected the complaints children have made about mask usage include headaches shortness of breath mouth and lip sores dry chapped and cracked skin and this doesn't include what they can't tell us and that's the mental health effects depression anxiety fear anger these are just a few of the ones i personally have witnessed in my own child and her peers i know you're in a position where you're just trying to follow the rules but we're fighting for our

027kids rights they're our kids we are the most responsible for them whether you have kids or don't i hope that you're trying to make those same kind of decisions for your own kids we're asking you to fight with us not against us the numbers of kids that are being pulled out of public schools to be home schooled is rapidly rising that will affect funding the school's funding salaries your salaries please please do the right thing thank you mrs rogers our next speaker is christine radovich welcome miss radovich thank you to the board for allowing me to speak my plight is not an emotional one it is a factual one i am going to recite a small article from the american medical association journal masks are bad for your kids quit forcing them to wear them

028a new report published by the american medical association journal revealed forcing children to wear masks leads to adverse health effects jama pediatrics a top rated monthly journal published by the ama found wearing masks increases the amount of carbon dioxide in inhaled air to unhealthy levels the study measured carbon dioxide levels in 45 children ages 6 to 17 while wearing masks the normal content of carbon dioxide in the air is 400 parts per million with anything above 2 000 parts per million considered unacceptable by the german federal environmental office the jama report measures measured averages of 13 120 to 13 9110 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the inhaled air of children wearing masks which is over six times higher than the safety threshold in the unsafe threshold the study further pointed out this measurement

029was after only three minutes of wearing a mask children forced to wear masks at school find themselves wearing masks for hours a day five days a week the jama report follows a larger german survey of over 25 000 children which found 68 of them reportedly had problems while wearing facial coverings most of the complaints reported by children can be understood as consequences of elevated carbon dioxide levels in inhaled air this is because the dead space volume of masks which collects exhaled carbon dioxide quickly after a short period of time this carbon dioxide mixes with fresh air and elevates the carbon dioxide content of inhaled air and it's more pronounced in this study for younger children the authors of the study urge those who are forcing children to wear masks to consider the scientific evidence when

030making that decision that responsibility falls on you people many governments have made nose and mouth covering or face mass compulsory for school children the evidence base for this is weak we suggest that decision makers weigh the hard evidence produced by experimental measurements accordingly which suggests that children should not be forced to wear these masks why is it acceptable that people can sit inside a restaurant in close proximity while dining and not wearing masks but children are forced to wear them all day long in school especially when you have the ability to set thank you miss radovich appreciate your comments our next speaker is sri lanka call kearney on zoom welcome miss call carney thank you [Applause] the next speaker is call to order this is being very disruptive to the meeting our next speaker is

031srilakka kalkarni on zoom welcome miss calcarni we we don't provide that excuse me there are no comments from the audience at this point miss call carney [Applause] is miss call carney online there she comes okay this is okay miss cole carney i don't know if this is we have two different cult carnies one is sri lanka and the next one is so i'm not sure which one is speaking we cannot hear you miss call carney hello is miss calcarni there can you hear me now we can so thank you yes we can okay that's good uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to the board members on this meeting uh it's a privilege sorry you're able to hear me can hear you thank you uh i just have a point that similar

032to last year we should have been a survey for the parents to choose what best option for their kids either a remote learning or which was a successful for the last year or in person if they want to send it to school right so that that survey i feel missing so that considering the new variant which is around and the examples that we are seeing throughout the country where there are many pediatric cases coming up so i would suggest to have that survey and count counting the parents input feedback for their kids as per their choices like they are working or they need a daycare similar to that if they want to send in or if they want to do a remote learning whichever is feasible considering the new variant and also we don't have

033a vaccine for the kids which are below 12 and we are now hearing that we may get it by the end of the winter so considering these all points i would request for the boat to to consider an option of remo remote learning as well as in-person learning similar to last year as a choice from the parents for their kids whichever best suits them so that kids will have both the option to choose and they'll be safe as well and we can take this option for like two to three marking periods and by that time we will have a vaccine for kids which are below 12 and if it is all through and it's approved and they can have that and we will feel more safe to send the schools in person rather than standing

034now and worrying like will they get that back in home where there are younger siblings or other siblings which are not vaccinated will that get spread or those kind of worries and also school will have a hard time like to measure those and then shut down and then go back to remote again rather than that start that approach now itself until we have a vaccine so that we will have in a better shape by the end of second or third marking period for our kids to decide right so that is my request to give a survey or option for parents to choose remote or in-person learning for their kids similar to last year which was a successful year and everyone had a good feedback on that for elementary school thank you thank you mr culcarney

035and i don't know if the other cal carney is speaking tony do you know if the other one is going to it's the same account so it the other m the other calcarni okay so we'll go on to the next speaker which is miss marianne rokin on zoom and welcome miss rokin we can't hear you miss rokin okay how about now now we can thank you thanks um i'm betting that we all agree that our children need to be in school in person this year and that's why i'd like to thank the board and the superintendent of red clay and governor carney for following the advice of the american academy of pediatrics the american medical association the centers for disease control and requiring students to wear masks in school this year and by the way

036i checked all those websites today and they are all in favor of universal masking it's true the risk of severe disease from covenant and young children is low was not zero and the risk of asymptomatic children spreading the infection to adults and their families is very real adults are much more likely to experience severe disease many students may have family members who have health problems that put them at risk of dying of covid for example delaware is number two in the nation for the incidence of cancer so it's likely that a significant number of students are living with a family member undergoing chemotherapy in our state um my son-in-law just got his 12th chemotherapy treatment today for stage 3 colon cancer and my grandson's been on zoom for the last year and a half and

037he's been looking forward to going back to class in person so i don't think it's fair to put the additional burden on him and students like him um to have to worry about giving their parents covey folks school pride is not just about rooting for a mascot it's about caring for your client and supporting your fellow students who need help the best way to show your support for our schools and to keep our students learning in person this year is to follow the advice of medical professionals which at this time means universal masking thank you miss rokin and now it's been 30 minutes so i will accept a motion from the board to um determine what they want to do regarding the remainder of public comments i would like to make a motion to extend

038public comments so the audience has the option to participate is there a second so dr bone moves and miss me smith seconds the motion on the floor is to permit public comment to continue for the remainder of the speakers is there any discussion okay hearing none i will call the question on the motion to continue public comment until the remainder of the speakers have had their opportunity to speak maria we will take a roll call vote please dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss nee smith yes ms sabo yes miss thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries okay so um and i'm gonna have to ask that everybody be respectful people are listening to the speaker and it is important that the audience permit the speaker to speak and not interrupt so the

039next speaker is miss kelly karuba on zoom welcome miss karuba hi can you hear me yes i am here today to simply ask for help i need the district to help me as a mother provide a safe environment for my children while also providing them with a quality education my oldest child has a history of cancer and spent two and a half years on chemo i will not risk her health by putting her in a crowded classroom however it seems the district does not believe every child deserves to have a teacher my child my children are going into the first and third grade and are not fluent readers how do you suppose how are they supposed to self-educate through this online platform that they are being forced to go on to every child whether considered

040healthy or at risk deserves to have a teacher the fact that i have to come to you and ask for a teacher for my children is heartbreaking please help me provide the basic right of a teacher for my children and not force them to self-educate through this outsourced online program which is not okay for my children they deserve to have a red clay teacher thank you miss karuba our next speaker is mr austin ward and welcome miss mr ward this year i was an 8th grader at brandywine spring school i wanted to go to school but when i went back within two hours i got a migraine and had to go home i was forced to be virtual the rest of the year with all the distractions over zoom i learned very little and if

041it wasn't for my parents who worked with me every day i would have failed eighth grade i consider most of those grades theirs due to not being ready for high school i am repeating eighth grade i used to hate school but last year i wanted to be back because of the math mandate i have asked my parents if i could be homeschooled if i had the choice i would be in school with my friends and teachers but this is not possible if i have to wear a mask as a school board i thought your job was to fight for student rights please stand up to the students and fight and make mass option we need a voice please be ours thank you mr ward [Applause] the next speaker is miss christine ward and welcome ward

042i have two students a fifth grader and an eighth grader who was repeating this year for the last few years my eighth grader struggled academically and socially and hated school he was finally enjoying school and was excited to go back due to the mass causing him migraines he was forced to go virtual the virtual process was a disaster i sat with him through the majority of the year and it was not a realistic learning environment there were lots of distractions both in the classroom and at home he passed a year but not without lots of help from my husband and i he rarely had a free day from school because it would take him through the weekend to catch up as a family we decided that sending in my high school would be setting him

043up to fail so he is repeating the eighth grade my fifth grader tolerated half of her fourth grade year before she started coming home with massive headaches on a daily basis she started hating school and would cry most days her state test scores which are normally above average were below average this past year both my kids desperately want to be at school with their friends and teachers but know that this is not possible with the mass being forced upon them i feel like for my children's health well-being and academic success that i am being forced into homeschooling there are others that i don't that don't have the luxury of homeschooling and will have to deal with depressed kids that hate school please fight for our children against these mass mandates studies show that rebreathing of

044our exhaled air with without a doubt creates oxygen deficiencies and a flooding of carbon dioxide we know the human brain is very sensitive to oxygen deprivation and leads to increased headaches drowsiness dizziness reduced ability to concentrate and reduces cognitive function with the co with covet and any other virus children have an extremely active and adaptive immune system and it must be challenged to retain functionality a child unexposed to nature has little defense against a minor illness as i passed sports fields playgrounds camps and pools this summer i witnessed kids playing happily unmasked my family and i attended church festivals and went on vacation as well well as many friends and family members did not one person i know reported having or knowing someone that called covid as a result our kids have been back to

045normal and should not be forced into these extreme measures from a virus that they have little to no chance of getting kids who have died were too sick to be in school to begin with when they caught the virus i ask again please think of our children and do the job you're elected to do and fight for our children thank you miss ward our next speaker is mr jake kirkham welcome mr kirkham good evening good evening my name is jake kirkham and all three of my children attend red clay schools i'm deeply invested in the success of red clay which is why i was so very disappointed to learn that governor carney had issued a school-wide a statewide school mass mandate i think it's crucial that you know what parents in the district think about

046universal masking and that you along with us are advocates with the governor's office to make to get the mask mandate removed immediately the mass mandate makes no sense for red clay in high schools and middle schools every single student and teacher that's in that building has had an opportunity to be vaccinated and 70 of newcastle county residents 12 and up have had at least one dose even for elementary school students mass mandates do not make sense children under 12 are the least vulnerable population there is only one school-aged child in delaware who has died from covet for the entirety of the pandemic and nationwide the cdc has reported that hospitalizations account for roughly 250 children in the entire nation the cdc also acknowledges that many of those children were not even in the hospital for

047covent they test simply tested positive when they were there for something else according to lancet almost all children had symptoms resolution by eight weeks providing reassurance about long-term outcomes there is only one single retrospective study on the efficacy of masks for children and that study's results were inconclusive in fact president biden's own epidemiologist michael osterholm said on cnn last week quote many face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out there are other much more effective controls that have been studied and have already been implemented by red clay schools including social distancing improved ventilation and smaller class sizes now you might think that masks are harmless but as many other parents have listed out tonight they certainly are not and there are many many

048studies that list those i'd like to note that just last week doctors from john hopkins school of medicine and the chief of pediatric infectious diseases at tufts children's hospital wrote in the wall street journal and stated quote it is abusive to force kids who struggle with masks to sacrifice for the sake of unvaccinated adults i ask what is the end goal of the mask mandate it is not about protecting students it's not about protecting teachers frankly it is about protecting the governor politically and that is a terrible reason [Applause] that is a terrible reason to force kids to wear masks all year long i am asking you and the governor please return power back to parents i understand there are many parents who disagree with what i have to say but if you are get

049yourself and your kids vaccinated if you are still fearful send your kid to school in a mask you are free to do so but what you are not free to do is mandate that my kids have to live according to somebody else's fear please return power back to parents thank you mr kirkham and our next speaker is miss jenna gina anderson welcome miss anderson thank you i don't know where each of you stand on this personally so i'm just glad to be here to voice my opinion um the word is at mass for kids or a health emergency mandate issued by the governor so your hands are tied my question to everyone is do you want to be guided by fear or truth the truth is your hands are not tied if any of you

050are going to go along to get along stop it don't tell me you wouldn't hesitate to protest on an issue or pose a referendum if you felt strong enough against it don't even tell me you wouldn't do it because you would and if you're worried about losing funding you're going to lose it because people are pulling your kids from public schools specifically due to mass mandates and critical race theory based teachings it's garbage both of it get with it because the majority are being silent but they're waking up coveted truth it's not a risk for kids worth imposing this ridiculous abusive mandate a total of 4.2 million children have tested positive for covid and .008 have died what about the flu approximately 480 children died with the flu during 2018-2019 did anyone issue a mass

051mandate then did anyone ask for one no because truth is more kids died of the flu during 2018 and 19 and died of covet in this last year and a half twice as many have died from drowning each year is this putting things in perspective so with those stats even if masks were 100 affected do we even need them the psychological damage out way far outweighs the safety effort you're teaching them that everyone should be suspected of illness and the air is toxic what are the health effects of forcing kids to breathe through sweat spit and dirt soaked cloth every day for eight hours do you even know what is doing what is it doing to their immune systems what about developmentally depriving them from seeing each other's faces and reading facial cues what about

052when you're learning to read and you can't see the teacher enunciating words have you taken any of this into consideration at all or do you blindly follow the king and his mandates by emergency orders where do we draw the line much like the flu and colds covet is here to stay i'm sorry to tell you that there are already variants are we going to live a mass life for an illness that has a 99.9 recovery rate that's not living this burden has been placed on our children by the state and the governor with no facts present thank you miss anderson thank you you will please sit down our next speaker is miss lisa mala testing [Music] welcome ms mallet thank you um i just wanted to say welcome to day 520 uh flattening the curve

053and i i think this spread is slowed down um i just want to say last year my kids have had pretty unique situations in their schools with masks and my daughter who's in fifth grade was told to get in the back of the ice cream line because her mask was down too many times that day and was punished essentially for not having her mask covering her nose so that to me should be enough for all of you to say wait a minute we're doing the right thing here we're making a good choice as parents and i know some of you aren't even parents and don't really you know i'm not sure your opinion is jose i know you don't have kids so it might be a little different for you maybe but um and my

054son came in from school i'd say at least two out of three days for two out of five days i'm sorry with a headache because of the mask all day long and so for me as a parent i'm a dental hygienist i'm trained in ppe i understand the proper way to put on a mask and take off a mask and i know for a fact pulling one out of the bottom of your backpack and putting it on your face throughout the day is not a safe way to handle wearing a mask i also know for a fact that taking one of the back seat of your car or hanging from your rear of your mirror is not keeping it sanitized or it's not safe to have that on your face all day actually wearing one

055longer than an hour is unsafe touching it with your hands is unsafe going in the bathroom like every kid is doing in those schools and and using the restroom not washing their hands or or maybe they are washing their hands i really don't know but these kids are not properly trained to wear ppe throughout a day it's absolutely just disgrace and it's extremely dangerous and my question i i did mr green i did email you quite a few times so i didn't hear back and i'll ask the question now is who is liable for these kids who get hurt because i don't see anyone standing up and saying oh i'm the one who said to wear the mask you're going to blame carney he's going to blame this one you're going to blame that one

056but you know what sometime here we have to take responsibility and say oh you know what okay i'm going to help these kids because we're the only we're the ones doing it and you can see it all across the country it's not making that much of a difference so i don't i don't really know hopefully what we're saying here is going to maybe break through you guys i don't know if you're taking orders from some higher point which it seems because i don't think all of you could agree that this is not fair for kids i find it hard to believe that you all are on the same page with that just doesn't seem likely um but there is a step we can take next and basically i know that title 11 chapter 5 delaware

057criminal code is basically endangered in the welfare of a child um abuse means causing any physical injury to a child through unjustified force you're forcing our kids to wear a mask they're going to be hurt who's liable like i said a conviction is not required for an act of abuse or neglect to be used in prosecution and basically the definition is impairment of health or loss of impairment and function of the body so they can't breathe you're impairing them for breathing you're demanding they wear a mask no one's taking the liability so class action lawsuits i guess they're gonna have to be the next the next step so thank you thank you miss malatesta our next speaker is miss tisha fuchs on zoom and welcome miss zooks miss fooks can you hear me we can

058thank you okay all right so i just want uh the board to know that i support you i support the governor and i'm happy that my children can return to school this year and do so as safely as possible i support the mass masking mandate as it is a relatively simple thing to do that will save lives last year at this time our schools had to open virtually because it was not safe to return to school in person the delta variant is much more dangerous for young kids and one of my children in particular um he has a pre-existing condition and so last year i kept both kids home um virtual did not work for my youngest and i want them back in person but i want to do so safely i would rather have

059my kids in masks in person than to have them get sick or die from colvid or have the schools have to be all virtual again so many people beg to have the schools open in person last year and when the schools opened they gladly sent their kids in school um or to school in masks both of my children are under the age of 12 and not eligible for the vaccine yet so they depend on others without the masking mandates my kids would not be able to return to school in person i support the board and i realize that this mandate comes from the governor and is out of your hands but i do hope that you will continue to listen to science the cdc the apa and the evidence instead of extremist rhetoric please at

060least wait until all kids have been given the opportunity to be fully vaccinated kids follow examples if parents show a good example for wearing a mask kids will follow and that's all thank you miss fooks next speaker is miss maddie geller welcome miss gellow thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight um i graduated from this building from charter in 2016 and i went away to college and grad school and i am so happy to be back as a brand new red clay educator this year myself and many other teachers are relieved that the governor has required masks for students and staff in schools especially for our elementary kids under the age of 12. masks are the only protection we have for those students that are too young to be vaccinated we all want to

061be back to school in person and masks are really essential for this to happen when i went to new teacher orientation this week we were able to do everything we needed to do in masks and we were happy to do it to be together in the same room to have that professional development and get ready to welcome our students on the 30th and i would also like to reiterate that death is not the only negative outcome related to covid there are millions of americans with chronic illnesses who share their experiences every day on this topic so that one statistic alone is not representative of the negative health impacts of provide and again myself and other red clay staff very much appreciate the district and the board's continued support of the governor's order regarding masks and

062safety in our schools thank you thank you miss geller and welcome as a red clay educator we're thrilled thank you next speaker is mr keith anderson and welcome mr anderson thank you for your time i feel for you guys i know it's a tough meeting for you and i appreciate you seconding the motion to hear everybody because i would not have got my chance uh i've been in delaware 64 years graduated from brandywine high school and this is my very first school board meeting and it's i'm here because of what's going on in our country i'm a conservative i'm not a domestic terrorist i support my community and i back the blue i have seven children ages 26 to 3. three were adopted from guatemala mixed race and the other four are mixed race and

063they're in the elementary school system they go to uh cook elementary school um one of my child has has uh they there's i have four biological males and three biological females i would like to know what the policy of the district is going to be to provide locker rooms and bathrooms so that my daughter does not have to see somebody who identifies as a female in the bathroom or in the in the locker room if you want to support that that's fine i don't want my child exposed to that and i would like to know if you have a plan for that uh second i have a special needs child he's on the spectrum he goes to richardson park uh he's in the situation where when coveted came out he made major steps backwards and

064i talked with dominic scutera great guy helped me out as much as he could but we were not able to change the the virtual situation with him getting back to [Music] in-person learning and it really set him back years of progress is there a way that the district could possibly he's in a he's in a room with two teachers and four other students and i don't think the mass mandates in that situation should be the same as a thirty child with a two teacher to one ratio and that's all i have for you and i appreciate your time thank you mr anderson our next speaker is miss lynn klietkowski welcome ms kliekowski well i appreciate your time in extending this to get some public comment here this is my first school board meeting and i'm

065actually going to direct it over to all the parents in this group because we're getting nowhere with the board and i know their hands may be shackled behind them through governor carney something has to be done right here at governor carney and lady kevin keynes listen to me [Music] we have been hoodwinked this is a flu this is a virus a very bad respiratory virus i am a retired school teacher of 43 years i pay my taxes i worked hard my whole life to see my grandchildren to have to go through this and wear masks and some of them are being taken to ai hospital do you guys have an idea of what's happening at ai hospital do you know what they put on the front window where my best friend works as a paramedic

066taking children there because now we're able to get to our they're trying to kill our children you guys really have to wake up these children right here this is our lifeblood this is gonna run our country we have to stand by our children right now okay we can't back down it is push now it is do we go to connie's house now tell me what to do i have to know i need some feedback here i'm one person but i'm here i retire next week [Applause] impeachment of tsar carney this is what has to happen we're getting nowhere absolutely nowhere yeah exactly we're in trouble meet me outside and i'll show you what they put on an ai hospital myocardial carditis of 12 year old young males the paramedics are asked how to treat them

067it's up there in the treatment right on the ai hospital got to go up there our next rally will be at ai hospital and you people are representing us you need to know that we know what you're doing we know what you're doing and we're part of it thank you mr caskey our last speaker is mr paul falkowski well porter we have our last speaker is mr paul falgowski falkowski welcome mr falkowski i want to take this down so that i can be heard i'm just going to read from my notes instead of doing what i know how to do better and that's to speak to everybody but um i um who am i i'm a math teacher united states army major retired jack of all trades i've lived in a city i identify as

068a red clay person i'm only half a block out and i taught at aiupon high school back in 2004 and i'm a computer programmer so i think i know how to logically think and do stuff anyhow problem we got here is medical science versus political science among other things these the vaccine does not work we know that people have been getting no please don't make any noise let me get this through um the vaccine doesn't work because we noticed so many people have had the vaccine they end up with the virus we've been under censorship because hcq and ivormectin work and for the last 18 months we've had the censorship of telling us we can't talk about it the thing about these masks are kind of like stupid too about a year ago when i

069was told i had to wear a mask i found something the closest i could to like a mosquito net these there is no specifications on what a mask is supposed to look like what who's supposed to wear it and how to wear it and when to clean it nothing hat like that happens but we sit there and say you got to wear a mask now i said i'm a math teacher if you guys need a math teacher you can handle me i'm open other than that let's do a little bit of a lesson here back to critical race theory from 1619 to 1776 is 157 years that people want to sit there and try to blame the united states of america for racism and for slavery please nobody that's 30 percent of the 400 years

070that they claim racism and slavery in the united states the united states was not here until 1776. so for your math lesson that's 157 years that we were under the control of the colonial powers of great britain france germany the netherlands and they're the ones that brought it here they're the ones that did plantations those plantations are the things that were given as land grants by the privileged people to be able to do what they did and that's what's that's what ended up bringing slavery here not the united states of america so what are you going to do with critical race theory please do not let them get away with the first 157 years of trying to sit there and say that um so i covered the mask i covered a little bit of health

071here um the uh and the with the critical race theory the thing i'd like to remind you too is that this country was based and thomas jefferson said it best all men are created equal that's what we started on december you know in 1776 and we did it in order to perform a more perfect union we weren't perfect when we started but we're the best thing that's ever been going now for the few seconds left i'd like some silence for sergeant e thank you mr falkowski appreciate your comments thank you everyone so we are now done with public comment and we will move on to the approval of the minutes so may i have a motion to accept the july 7 2021 executive session minutes so moved ashley sabo no move dr bone move miss

072sabo sac do you is there a second so second miss sabo seconds is there any discussion hearing none maria will take a roll call vote please yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes thank you miss knee smith yes ms sabo yes ms thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries um may i have a motion to accept the july 7 2021 organizational meeting and regular session any discussion okay we'll take a roll call vote please maria dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss nee smith yes ms sabo yes ms thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries and then may i have a motion to accept the august 4 2021 special board meeting minutes so move me smith miss knee smith moves is there a second dr bone i think mr matthews got it mr matthews

073seconds any discussion i'm going to be abstaining from this as i was not able to attend that meeting okay so hearing no comments other than the fact that mr casper will abstain we will take a roll call vote please maria dr bone yes mr casper abstain mr matthews yes thank you miss knee smith yes miss sabo abstain since i wasn't there as well miss thompson yes for yes to obtain motion carries thank you so now we move on to the action items and the first is is an administrative appointment for senior director of teaching and learning so is the recommendation that the directly board of education approved mr sam golder is the senior director of teaching and learning effective august 19th 2021 that's submitted salary is commissioner upon the approval of the administrative salaries is

074there a motion to accept is there a motion to exist mr casper moves is there a second second second will be mr matthews okay um so now is there any discussion hearing none maria we will take a roll call vote on on a point approving mr sam golder a senior director of teaching and learning dr bone yes and congratulations mr casper enthusiastically yes mr matthews yes congratulations sam miss nee smith yes congratulations ms sabo yes congrats ms thompson yes congratulations mr golder unanimous vote motion carry [Music] [Applause] okay the next action item is another administrative appointment so there's a recommendation that the red clay board of education approved mr mark pruitt as the director of secondary schools as submitted effective date is to be determined uh as mr pruitt is currently vacating or soon will

075be vacating his current positional role as the principal conrad schools of science uh his salary will be commiserating upon the approval administrative salaries is there a motion [Music] dr bone dr bone moves is there a second second mr casper seconds any discussion yes i'd just like to say congratulations uh my son attends conrad schools of science i am happy for you sad for him but i'm sure that the next leadership will uh do a fine job as they have been under your tutelage so congratulations okay we will take a roll call vote please marina on appointing approving mr pruitt as director of secondary schools dr baum yes mr casper absolutely yes mr matthews yes congratulations miss nee smith yes congratulations ms sabo yes miss thompson yes and congratulations mr pruitt unanimous vote close and carry

076the next our next action item is is on a certificate of necessity it is a recommendation that the board of education approved submission of the certificate of necessity for major capital improvements totaling 200 million dollars to the delaware department of education is there a motion so moved ashley sabo this sabot moves is there a second new smith second miss knee smith seconds any discussion okay hearing none we will take a roll call vote please maria dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss nee smith yes ms sabo yes miss thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries wonderful next action item is on the fiscal year 2022 preliminary budget it is a recommendation that the red clay board of education approved the fy 2022 preliminary budget as submitted is there a motion so move smith

077miss nee smith moves is there a second second ashley misabo second okay is there any discussion on the recommendation to approve the fy 2022 preliminary budget i'd just like to give kudos to uh dr flor uh for her hard work on putting that together and making it very clear to the to us for the needs that we have and be fiscally responsible is there any other that miss florey absolutely works very hard and does a fantastic job for our district we are so very blessed to have miss gloria as our cfo so is there any other discussion hearing none we will take a roll call vote please we will take a roll call vote please miss doc yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss knee smith yes miss sabo yes ms thompson yes unanimous

078vote motion carries the next action item is on a revised district wellness policy it is the recommendation that the red clay board of education approved the revised district wellness policy as submitted is there a motion so moved ashley sabo this sabo moves is there a second dr bone dr boom seconds is there any discussion hearing none we will take a roll call vote please maria dr baum yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss knee smith yes miss sabo yes samson yes unanimous vote motion carries the next action item is a donation it is a recommendation that the red clay board of education approved the donation of office furniture for the highland school nurse's office from miss marianne mcconnell a valued at twelve hundred dollars as submitted is there a motion to accept the donation

079dr bone moves is there a second second miss sabo seconds any discussion i would thank miss mcconnell because the donation is very very valuable so thank you very much any other discussion okay miss uh maria will take a roll call vote please dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss me smith yes ms sabo yes thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries thank you miss mcconnell and then the next is another donation that the last action item is another donation is the recommendation that the red clay board of education approved the donation of five hundred dollars the ai dupont high school from mr frank noble's estimate is there a motion to accept the donation so miss me smith moves is there a second doctor dr bone seconds any discussion thank you to mr nobles

080for the donation it's been fantastic for this ai high senior event planning any other discussion okay maria we will take a roll call vote please dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss me smith yes ms sabo yes ms thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries thank you mr nobles and now we move on to the consent agenda approval or the consent agenda items it's the recommendation that the red clay board of education approved consent action items a to c as submitted is there a motion so moved ashley sabo ms sabo moves is there a second second mr casper seconds we will take a roll call vote please maria dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes miss knee smith yes ms sabo yes ms thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries thank you

081maria and now we move on to the superintendent's report so mr green before is yours thank you madam president thank you to members who come to join us in person and those who are online i just wanted to start off as we start to approach a new school year um just acknowledging a lot of the hard work and effort amongst our staff who served and provided over 32 programs to students throughout regularly over the summer months we serve roughly about 5 500 students both in person and virtually for our summer school offerings most of the students did attend programs in person but staff helping out with transitioning back to schools all of our secondary schools had transition programs especially for students targeting students who were in remote learning environments last year we also had several

082partnerships with the fame stimulate change where students were provided stem experiences through interactive approaches and non-traditional classroom settings for students in grades k-6 the program's main objective was to demonstrate cross-curricular relationships among the four stem content areas which is science technology engineering and mathematics we had a stem-based program in partnership with the university of delaware as well that went extremely well and no matter president you have an opportunity to visit that program and so from our esi program across multiple sites both elementary and secondary and all of our summer online programming again we had a lot of offerings for our students as we gear up for the upcoming summers i mean upcoming school year we hosted and had a freedom school at warner elementary student school excuse me campus connect at both warner shortlist spring

083into learning at highlands and lewis spring into learning programs at both moat and richardson park and as mentioned the famed stimulate change service brandywine springs cook forest oak heritage linton hill marbrook and north star and those students participated in virtual programming for that we had our traditional credit recovery program wagner program for students who needed supports with credit recovery at the secondary level and again we also incorporated high-dose tutoring opportunities for students over the summer with resources during summer programs with reading assist and cern which was a math program that was partnered or provided by the state of delaware we also just recently welcomed uh several new teachers to brett clay um with stacy stratsky i know stacy isn't here out of our hr department with our year-long residency program we had several and actually

084one young man who's a kindergarten teacher you don't see that too often participate in a year-long residency program and the purpose of the year-long residency program is for our educators to go beyond just the traditional six-week student teaching experience they are immersed in the classroom for a year-long process the same way we would treat a doctor or somewhere else on an extended residency program and we were able to hire them to come back and teach them red clay so congratulations to all of those new hires as we celebrated that on august 8th and this is in conjunction with house bill 178 which is enacted title 14 of delaware code relating to year-long teacher residency programs and that was sponsored by our very own representative kim williams was the sponsor of that piece of legislation so

085we had 12 year long interns got the chance to fully accept full-time teaching positions here in red clay so we want to thank them for that experience we also want to acknowledge two students who worked with our communications department on some communications projects a young man by the name of caleb blake who attends thomas mccain high school and keeley fitzgerald at the comrade schools of science for completing successful summer internships with our red play office of communications both students earned invaluable opportunities to work and build experience through oppressor portfolios working on a number of communication projects over the summer including social media videos interviews with student leaders they designed and looked at marketing and branding for upcoming student leadership conference that we'll be hosting and in addition they organized and looked at time stamping over

08612 hours of board meetings so they actually had the opportunity to look at you know processes regarding board meetings again thank you to our communications office ms taylor green and rob mcropolis for supporting those students for their summer and term briefly mention the freedom school we were one of two freedom schools um statewide that's typically under the mother african ame church governor carney did excuse me visit that school and we hosted it again at warner elementary uh the red clay freedom school and thank you to dr juan de bond for facilitating that partnership with the peter spencer family life foundation to support children's defense fund freedom school programming at warner elementary school this new program aimed to help students address complex needs for children who come from low-income families students with disabilities english learners and

087others within our district additionally the program addressed learning loss experiences based experience through covet it helped build strong literary skills empowered our students to provide summer reading enrichment opportunities to students and the culminating activity was actually hosted at delaware state university where the president of delaware state university mr tony dr tony allen actually supported students celebrated with the students for the freedom schools that were held across the state school start the week of august 30th and again we're excited to and ready to safely open our schools for in-person uh learning again five days a week obviously based on public comment we all understand the situation we're in right now with the mass mandate we do have various mitigation strategies in place you know we are excited again to welcome all of our students back we

088are following the guidance of the american academy of pediatrics among others the national association of school nurses as we look at various mitigating strategies the first day of school will be monday august 30th for pre-k kindergarten grades one and six and nine tuesday august the 31st will be for grades seven and eight um in grades through 12. kindergarten is a split week so our kindergarten students have a split week for august the 30th through september 2nd all kindergarten students will attend on september 3rd please stay tuned for more details from your child's respective school the learning format again will be full day in person instruction five days a week health screenings we still encourage our families to take the morning health screenings mask and face coverings obviously hand sanitizer stations will continue to be available

089athletic and performing arts actually began this week as well so if you came up into the parking lot you would have seen students participating in band our fall sports are underway so students are engaging in those and we're excited to have our student athletes actually engage not only back in in-person learning but having the opportunity to continue to compete our student transportation again is federally required to have mass on school buses and sanitize and then online learning options are personalized learning platforms provided by edmonton and that will provide also have teacher support that window is open until the 23rd but you will have to have a medical need and require documentation for students who are participating in that program i also want to make a public service announcement that next week on august 25th we

090will have open house events at all middle schools we are encouraging our schools to prioritize those events and also stagger those for students and families again to not overwhelm schools but also give families the time attention and detail that they need to get the information that they may seek and we're also again prioritizing students and encouraging our abilities to prioritize students who have never had the opportunity to step foot in the school that they'll be attending and then on august 26 is open houses events for all elementary schools and again we are encouraging them to stagger those events use outdoor opportunities outdoor classrooms and other places to disseminate information to students and families who participate our school hours again just being mindful that our early years program in elementary schools are from 9 to 350

091middle schools are from 805 to 255 and our high school schedules are 7 25 to 2 15. brandywine school excuse me brady my spring school follows the middle school schedule calloway school of the arts conrad school of science and the ib middle years program at the john dickerson school follow the high school schedule we are happy to announce that there will be free school meals based on a new federally funded program it makes it easier for students to receive school meals at no cost for the 2021-2022 school year all right students will be eligible to receive free breakfast and lunch during school day there are no forms of paperwork required and again feel free to reach out to our school nutrition department to learn more as mentioned we're not in the same situation as we

092were last year with the number of resources that we have and staffing you know we we use all hand deck approach last year and really shuffling staff throughout the district and as the board remembers last year you had a class size waiver brought before you last year and that was for students who were in a remote setting when we knew we had a lot of pressure for our teachers who were in that remote setting that had class sizes that exceeded the state requirement thus requiring the board to file or approve a waiver again to meet student needs and learners who would benefit and may be immune compromised or have underlying health conditions we are offering a virtual option again that closes on the 23rd families have applied for it and we will be following up

093with those families who have applied you should receive information prior to the closing of this week or no later than monday when that option closed and again we're going with at moment edmonton at options academy at the secondary level and the calvary digital school at the elementary level and so with that being said you know we are really focused on diagnosing you know where our students are looking at learning acceleration and acceleration doesn't mean pace it means ensuring that we're giving on grade level subject matter for students as they reenter school making sure that we have a clear understanding of their needs and not just reteaching or looking at remediation before we have a clear understanding again of what that diagnostic may be for students and we will be using an i-ready assessment this year

094in grades k-9 and with that being said i will bring our newly appointed uh senior director of teaching and learning to come down to really share just some background on our philosophy for all of our students as it relates to a portion of our graduate for a right place i always turn it over to mr sandor at this time and i believe dr bond is coming down to possibly assist him yes you know dr bond always grabs me to assist with her presentation so she's returning me the favor back here thank you very much mr green board and audience members here tonight real excited this evening to roll out a relatively new concept here in red clay and that is that of the portrait of a red clay graduate it's a concept that really we

095started in 2018 got a little sidetracked with with being out of school for regular school last year but the idea is that yes we're an academic institution but at the same time we want our students 15 000 strong to leave our school district with a requisite skill set to be successful in an ever-evolving world so we want our students to have skills of empathy skills of integrity the ability to collaborate with one another strong writing skills so we brought together a committee a committee of teachers administrators parents and students to talk about about what this requisite skill set could look like so after many meetings many discussions and surveys we came up with our big twelve and that is what i'm going to present to you this evening so what does a red clay student

096need to be a successful portrait when they walk across that stage and get congratulated by mr green after their 12th grade year well we have four big buckets bucket number one is a passion for learning so to have that bucket we're going to ask for our students to be critical thinkers k to 12. i want to make that point too this isn't just a 9 to 12 initiative as a portrait of a graduate this is a k-12 initiative we want our students to be creative and innovative we want them to show initiative the ability to work independently and use self motivation to accomplish their tasks so that's the first bucket the passion for learning piece i'm going to turn it over to my partner for bucket number two thanks sam so i appreciate sam bringing

097me up to speak to you today about the portrait of a graduate because this really was sam's brainchild over several years and serving as a principal before my current role i was actually able to participate in a lot of the collaborative effort that went into designing some of these pieces so when we talk about commitment to people we're talking about collaboration empathy and integrity for our students dr selison's office has rolled out many initiatives and is also in the process this year of doing many deep dives into our mtss systems really digging into the socio-emotional learning that our students are participating in in our buildings to build things like empathy integrity to provide those spaces where our students can collaborate so again this has really been a collaborative model with this all coming together under

098one umbrella so with that i'm going to turn it back over to sam to talk a little bit more about the next topic and kudos by the way to miss keely fitzpatrick keeley was an intern in our communications office this summer working with ms green and she helped us with our infographic that you see uh this evening so we're trying to use students to help create this new portrait so i wanted to give kudos i hope i said that name right taylor to to keely fitzpatrick so in addition to being committed to people in addition to being collaborative we want our students to leave red clay as multi-level communicators the ability to be a capable writer we've talked many years now since mr green came on board about the use of student voice we want

099our students to have confident voice and be brave when they stand up in front of a group to influence motivate inform or entertain and we want our students to have emotional intelligence the ability to read a room the ability to handle interpersonal relationships because we know no matter what career field a student goes into those types of skills are going to do them well there's one more bucket i'll have dr bond finish this up with skills 10 through 12. thanks sam so when we talk about entrepreneurial spirit this isn't just about what our students do once they leave our schools in the real world when it comes to career and college this is talking about persistence and you all have heard the term growth mindset so really our students should be able to take the

100punches fall down but pull themselves back up so that is part of the persistence piece the global awareness as we see it really is about looking at diverse perspectives and cultures so two things that we're really excited about um that have come down that are coming down from the state are things like house bill 318 which is our holocaust and genocide bill which really for sixth through twelfth grade is going to help us implement primary and secondary sources around supports for our students to really get authentic learning and authentic engagement around the holocaust and genocide also house bill 198 which is the black history bill which is k-12 which is going to give our students the opportunity to really engage with black history from an authentic view with primary and secondary sources so those are

101some things that we're really proud of that will give our students a good handle of global awareness and different perspectives diverse perspectives of cultures which can ultimately uh provide solutions for the broader community and then the adaptability piece is really what we want our students to be able to do we want our students to be able to adapt to current situations and be civically minded and civically get engaged individuals when they leave red clay schools so with that i'd like to turn it over to sam golder to round us up so as far as a path forward goes uh for for the portrait of a graduate we've got kind of our our skill set of of 12. we had a point of order raised by dr boehm and i agree excuse me mr golder the

102audience will need to listen as we listen to you you will need to listen to the speakers there will be no audience disruption and if there is we will have to ask you to please leave so miss dr bone could not hear the last few minutes of dr bond i don't know where exactly she referenced the two pieces of legislation that was passed did you mean the legislation dr bone or was it before that i can't i can't hear you did you mean the legislation that dr bond was talking about that but then i didn't hear what she said after that thank you dr vaughan do you remember what you said after you talked about the legislation i think it was about civic-minded individuals yes she talked about house bill 198 and you want to

103finish up the way now that's a little quieter here yes i refer to i refer to house bill 198 which um was just passed and we're really proud about that that is the black history bill that has come down it's across the state and it's implementing black history curriculum with authentic lenses using primary and secondary sources k-12 so really just contributes to the global awareness of our students being able to really recognize diverse perspectives and cultures from different points of view and be real civic minded individuals when they leave red clay and that's part of our portrait of a graduate thank you very much thank you so much [Applause] thank you for the applause thank you thanks for that was for dr bond exactly i don't know so so next steps for for our portrait

104of a graduate you know now we've we've sort of formed our 12 uh character traits and the committee was involved with that we're excited to publicize this and make it a a k-12 initiative in a district this large we don't often have k to 12 initiatives you know and this is one we can rally around i feel like as a school district so now for our committee it's what does the concept of empathy look like at different grade configurations so in k to three what does empathy look like in six to eight what does integrity look like it's a matter of our groups getting together now and having some real lifetime activities that go along with the character traits the best part of this is through dr celestin's leadership our mtss teams our socio-emotional leadership

105teams have many of these activities already in place so it very much aligns to the work that her team has done in the past so that's kind of where we are on this portrait of a graduate stay tuned for more more information and more marketing the team is real excited about it uh here in wright clay so mr golder and dr bond just a question real quickly if anybody wanted to participate in any of these where you're helping to build out how might they do that uh absolutely send me an email give me a call to mr golden 3753 okay thank you i can talk to you i believe if i'm not mistaken i am handing off the doctor broome for help so yeah we're good thank you mr golden thank you dr bond and

106so before we wrap up um we do have our lead nurse and our deputy superintendent uh dr hugh bruma to come just to share again more of our health and safety and mitigation strategies as we open the school here good evening thank you um as we began to start at this presentation we started to reflect what things were like one year ago last year at this time we had to delay the first day of school to give schools enough time to figure out how to best move all students to online learning we had to we were fully remote for the first six weeks of school and our buildings are empty we mobilized quickly and distributed chromebooks for all red clay students despite nationwide shortages our bus drivers and nutrition services team pulled together to provide

107weekly meals to children in our area and to make sure they continue to receive proper nutrition at home our educators and support staff figured out how to set up makeshift classrooms so they could serve students from their own home while on zoom while other staff members checked up on families at home make sure what they had to stay connected with their schools online our community partners came together to help us secure thousands of pieces of personal protective equipment and other supplies to help us prepare for a gradual return to in-person learning since then we have had a vaccination for staff and students 12 and up and red clay has participated in vaccine clinics we had student and staff covet testing last school year for monthly purposes and this school year will be available on a

108weekly basis red clay schools are excited and ready to make a safe full return to in-person learning starting the first week of august last week of august august 30th with all students able to attend school five days per week with instructions from teachers in their enrolled school we have made this decision based on the needs of our students and the guidance we have received from the delaware division of public health and the delaware department of education in accordance with the recommendations from the cdc the american academy of pediatrics and the national association of school nurses welcoming students back to classrooms in person and surrounding them with caring educators and needed support is the best way to help them grow academically and re-engage in the learning and social environments that are critical to their development red

109clay schools are prepared to open with multiple layers of prevention strategies and keep students and state staff safe and healthy the first of those mitigation strategies is universal indoor mask wearing red clay will require a mask regardless of vaccination status in accordance with governor carney's declaration of a public health emergency masks are not required during outdoor activities daily screening every day before coming to school work students and staff must check for signs and or symptoms of illness using the coven 19 self screener the self screener can be found on our website under the reopening tag last school year the self screening tool in conjunction with mask wearing to really help to spread to stop the spread of illness in our school buildings now i want to introduce mandy pennington she's our supervisor of health services

110her and her team of nurses along with members of the health and wellness committee co-chaired by dr sarah seltzen i worked throughout the summer months to update the health and safety guidelines in preparation for our return to school this work is to ensure that our guidelines and procedures aligned with the newest most current emerging science surrounding covet 19. together with a team of educators and community stakeholders each section of the document was reviewed and updated to reflect best practices thank you so much it's so nice to see all of you it's never fun to go last but i promise you i'm the oldest child in italian family i talk fast let me know if you need me to slow down so welcome thank you we're welcome having you here man thank you thank you as

111dr broome mentioned um we spent a good deal of time this summer working with our health and wellness committee that i co-chair with dr selleston to update the health and wellness guidelines and the committee group consisted of administrators rca members nurses and then our community liaisons and stakeholders as well so the first documents that were updated are the process maps and the new district-wide processes will reflect the latest requirements and recommendations for managing potential or confirmed cases of coven 19 depending on the individual's symptoms and vaccination status we will attempt to maintain a three foot distance at all times when possible it has been noted on several of our you know cdc the american academy of pediatrics and national association of school nurses that it is more important that every student is able to attend

112school um than to maintain distance particularly during uh buses and at lunch so distancing is only one layer of our mitigation strategies that will help us be successful in keeping our students and staff safe well and in school we will continue um our increased ventilation and our cleaning procedures high touch surfaces such as doorknobs light switches will be cleaned twice a day uh during the school day and then once again in the evening red clay will continue the ventilation uh in accordance with ashrae which we use the reopening task force recommendations as we did last school year we also updated our 22 page document that you can find on our reopening tab it's quite extensive so i will not bore you and go through each page but just know that those uh that document includes

113detail protocols district-wide for contact tracing our personal protective equipment our registered nurses and several other important topics i do want to add that this year we have added two registered nurses to our team that will act as float nurses and those nurses will support um the building nurses to assist the screenings that we missed a lot of this last year due to most children being virtual or a good number of those children being virtual um those nurses will also assist with contact tracing and providing coverage for absences nurses are prepared for the new school year and they have all the necessary personal protective equipment we have surgical masks face shields gowns gloves to begin the school year we continue to be the only school district i'm very proud of this with fully functioning isolation rooms

114meaning that if there is a student or staff member who's identified to be symptomatic during the day we can separate them to a room that's ventilated to the outside and we are the only school district in the state that has those fully functioning so i'm very proud of that um to date red clay has had four vaccine clinics where we vaccinated over 600 members of our community we will continue to offer vaccine clinics during the fall and into the winter months as we anticipate the guidance to go down to age six in the next several weeks um there are several uh community vaccination sites that we also promote on our reopening page that community members can take advantage of in that guideline document i mentioned there's also some really good resource information about vaccines um

115side effects and all of the research that surrounds vaccination so there was early access for our educators and school employees in january and over 1500 red clay employees are currently vaccinated um there were clinics held at red clay schools that were funded and prepared by the delaware department of education and local pharmacies and then furthermore uh employees who were willing to provide their vaccination status were given 100 bonus uh we know that there's limited access for children and that right now um only ages 12 and above are able to be vaccinated um so the vaccine is still not available to roughly 50 of our population so to date we know that the best defense is vaccination and unfortunately that's not a possibility for that large amount of students that we serve we will have the

116capability for more frequent testing so this fall red clay is going to partner with quiddell which is a state vendor to perform weekly antigen testing to students or staff should they choose it's not required nor is it mandatory um which i guess is the same word isn't it um and it's of no cost to the individual so uh both registration and consent are required quadell will send automatic electronic test results to whomever registers and consents um if someone does happen to test positive on that antigen test they have the capability to do a pcr and send that to a state laboratory right away any questions mandy thank you so much for your diligence and hard work in this area and helping to keep our red clay community safe so thank you very very much thank

117you thank you so if you want more information again you can go to redclayschools.com backslash reopening again the guidance is subject to change as we routinely get new updates and new guidance from various agencies and departments in our efforts to keep our schools open so thank you to dr broome and nerf pennington for their presentation thank you to mr golder dr bond um and again we are excited regardless of the the tension regardless of the the messaging we are eager to get our doors open against children back in our building so again we're looking forward to august 30th to come so that we can get back and get as many children back in our red clay schools as possible so thank you everyone for your presentation comment time this evening and that concludes the superintendent

118report thank you mr greene and are there any questions for mr greene okay hearing none we will move on to the next one which is items submitted by the board and the first item that we're going to deal with is we're going to recognize our student representatives elena eileena matthews and ask ilena to say something and again eileena we welcome you to the meeting and are glad you are here thank you for providing the student voice for us thank you um so first i would like to applaud the two students that spoke today i know that it's not an easy thing to do and i was in your shoes last year and as a student representative i know the importance of student voice so i'm glad to see students coming out and i encourage more

119students to do that in the future so the first thing that i would like to include in a more casual presentation of what was going on in our district this past month is there was summer programming being held in middle schools and high schools across the district this was done for numerous reasons one of them being to get students used to going back into in-person learning as a lot of us were either fully virtual last year or doing hybrid learning so it's going to be an adjustment so that's why this summer programming was being offered besides getting used to in-person learning there was also an ability to practice the skills that might have been lost over remote learning and there was also some fun classes being offered that might not be offered during the traditional

120school year i know that there was photography classes and acting classes being offered and specifically my school ai had an automotive detailing class which is not something that is common in the traditional school year so i thought that was pretty cool um in the past couple of weeks there was also the preseason and fall sports that started back up and as we entered the next month and back to school events starting up again there will be more interest meetings regarding sports but i also encourage students and parents if you want your students to get more involved i think that clubs are also an important aspect that might be forgotten last year a lot of clubs were shut down and a lot of competitions were cancelled so this year we definitely want our clubs to have

121more engagement so if you're thinking about joining anything i really suggest that you do it and regarding the portrait of a red clay student as a senior i understand well i'm and i'm starting my college application process this year so that's definitely something that i've been thinking about is how has my schooling experience prepared me for becoming an adult and going into college so i was actually a part of some of those surveys that were conducted and i did give a lot of my own comments but i just wanted to represent the comments of the students that were in my group as well on to the board i know that something that a lot of us talked about was regarding our business classes we wanted to we wanted to learn directly from people that are

122in the workforce and i know the entrepreneurial spirit is something that you guys are pushing for and i think that a great way to learn directly from people is through internships or shadowing and there's already there's already programs in place i know that ai has the naf finance finance class and also the credit union at our school so i think that that's a great way that we're getting some hands-on learning so i would really appreciate if the district poor if the district and schools had more courses available that allowed for hands-on learning [Music] i also know of thesis writing classes regarding getting different types of writing experience there's also creative writing classes that i think a lot of students are interested in and sometimes they're not being offered so i think that you definitely want

123to make those courses more accessible and not just limited to certain schools we want as many students as possible to have access to those classes um i think besides that i don't have much else to say but if you guys have any other questions about the student i don't know the student voice on so thank you representative matthews you know again we have a direct line to mr golder and that team through our um student leaders at not only our high school and also with dr bond working with you know teams at the middle school level so again student voice is something that we are extremely proud of and i i second your sentiment to our scholars who you know so eloquently came up to that podium and stated their point and that didn't get

124lost in hearing from students so we do embrace and promote student voice and we will take your recommendations back and figure out how we can make sure that we have balance especially around areas of internship and shadowing opportunities as we look at work based development opportunities and look at local businesses and things within our community provide those opportunities to our students so thank you for those recommendations thank you very much so now does anybody have i want to order it so does anybody have items submitted by the board yes okay so miss lee smith mr matthews anybody else dr obama anybody else mr casper and before you go i was remiss to not acknowledge excuse me one thing within my report that i wanted to make the board aware of was um several months ago

125you know there was a solicitation on behalf of the community um to name a school after dr joseph johnson so we are in that process of continuing to engage with the community on renaming of a school and so dr amman is working with again the community as a liaison to start that process so to be more information to come to the board with regards to that so just wanted to flag that thank you okay smith you have the floor thank you and thank you i really appreciate our student voices as well i think student voice a lot of times they they know what's going on on the ground and and we're here to serve them so i do appreciate all of our student speakers and our student board members uh and i look forward to

126hearing more from you uh i'd just like to bring up a couple of things that we discussed last month uh one of the things i'd like to see is our committee reports being listed out on our agenda so that we can be held accountable for reporting back from those committees for which we signed up i think that would help me particularly uh be accountable and it also will give the public a lot more information as we consider sharing i know we have things on the website but if anybody's busy like i am we might not have so much time uh to go through that and read through so i just like to suggest that um we can kind of discuss that um secondly um we did discuss a board planning workshop uh about a month

127ago and i'd like for us to discuss and determine uh the dates possible dates so that we can do a handbook revision for our uh policy look at our policies but also our handbook for our governance of as a board uh and then i know uh you might speak about this uh president thompson uh the curriculum committee formation to focus on student achievement especially now that we have a lot of students who uh this could take some enrichment uh in terms of their academic and social emotional learning so i know the district is doing a lot around that and i'd like for us to also be engaged and then finally uh the there was a lot of comments tonight about different items in terms of masks in terms of uh remote learning and i just

128want to say thank you for sharing your thoughts i i heard the passion and the voices of the parents it's a very difficult time in our country for us to be able to uh navigate some of these challenges but your voices are not unheard uh and i just hope that we can get to a place where we can all have some consensus and that everybody can feel heard safe and and be able to move on and then finally the remote learning i hear the the concerns about the the the the way that we're doing remote learning so i like for us in thinking about innovation and moving forward in the next decade to begin to explore ways that we can provide blended learning for our students in red clay as many of you might be

129working in a field you may be working from home your corporations or your business may not require you to come into the building and so i think as one of the largest districts in delaware we can be on the forefront of making sure that our our schools provide some diversity of options going forward using our district-based curriculum as well as our educators who are highly qualified so i know it's not a simple thing and so for the parents who have advocated it can take a few years to develop a curriculum to be able to provide such a format and we look at our staffing it is hard to staff uh remote learning and in-person learning at the same time so i know that our district is working hard to meet the needs of the students

130and i'm hopeful that we will move forward and be able to do that in a better way as we go forward that's all i have okay so miss nee smith i i we talked at board planning about and mr green we talked about planning about getting input on the workshops and i know one workshop that had been brought up was governance as you mentioned with the handbook and the other was student achievement and we wanted to solicit i believe the remainder of everybody's ideas on workshop so that mr green would have the go-do of getting them scheduled so does anybody else have any other topics that they want to have workshops on i mean i'd like to say that i agree with both of the two presented subjects i think there are two strong ones

131i would be interested in attempting to participate great any other topics because i know we could have a couple on both frankly [Music] we may need that so we'll work to schedule and look at how we can coordinate with the board to get a workshop first and foremost on again government structures that it relates to a handbook revision and then secondly once we start acquiring more relevant in quality school achievement data as we look at bringing students back and assessing them this fall again because the current state assessment data the only really credible year that we had was 2019 and being able to use that you know post pandemic or post code it really isn't going to do the district any good we are making some substitute changes but we will look at how we

132can schedule and get those two workshops started at least we'll have a focal point really looking at the government structure they're looking at students but if there's any other topics please raise them so that we can we know what we're looking at um scheduling okay should we email them if we have any if we think of anything after feel free email them to to to me make sure you copy maria on them and then what we can maybe tentatively do is just send out a workshop schedule and then if there are these things that are scheduled that we can add items to um that way i know everyone has busy schedules and it's oftentimes difficult to coordinate you know eight different schedules um but we'll make sure that we at least get those schedules out

133there to work with the board to try to get into the items or topics for future workshops beyond the two that you've just identified okay great thank you okay mr matthews for you perfect thank you so much president thompson um i just wanted to say thank you to the other representative matthews for your presentation tonight um i reiterated that last meeting that there is no relation but um i can't tell you how excited i am to have a student voice on our board and i'm not sure um if i envisioned it in this way but i am so proud to have your representation and your encouragement for our student speakers and encouragement to our students to get involved and to have you be that person to be able to represent them is this so powerful

134so thank you for your service tonight um some of the first updates that i wanted to share from our last meeting um i was able to um attend the k-3 spec ed funding bill signing which actually was hosted by red clay uh superintendent green was there and it was a bill that was primarily sponsored by a red clay representative kim williams and also a former red play school board member this was a bill and an effort that was years in the making to be able to provide equitable funding for k-3 spec ed funding it's a multi-year bill and multi-year plan um that will basically increase unit count funding for k-3 spec ed students by fiscal year 2024. so to be able to be there in that moment was extremely powerful it's something that i've helped

135advocate for and to see the number of red play support legislatively and community wise was really quite an honor just to make a point for the community again that's for students who receive basic special ed classification so it's for basic special ed funding so it is to enhance for those students who are have the basic special ed classification so again thank you to our representatives legislators and obviously thank you for being here thank you superintendent green the other issue that i um or other matter i should say that i mentioned at the last meeting and i wanted to give an update on for constituents who've been reaching out is the class size waiver plan um and thank you to superintendent green for touching on that and your superintendent's report we are working with superintendent green's

136office and working to make sure that we can hopefully not have to pass a class size labor plan for this upcoming school year um so there are a few committees that i do sit on um the first one that i'd like to report on is our cad fund um so for those who may not know uh the cab fund helps subsidize some of the programming and services that we offer here at our magnet school which is a cab is a is a art specialty school and we help fundraise a lot of the initiatives that we offer here um we are off for the summer but we um start back up in september 20 september of this year and i will be having an update at our next month's meeting for facilities committee we did not

137have a facilities committee meeting since our last meeting those meetings are quarterly however we did have a workshop on august 4th to discuss and to present the certificate of necessity to the community it's a publicly noticed meeting and we unanimously passed that certificate of necessity tonight which is available in board docs for those who would like to read it and review it that certificate of necessity is due to doe at the end of this month um i am also on the dsba legislative committee we have not had any meetings since i was last appointed i was just appointed at our last meeting um but i did attend our annual we had an annual uh picnic on august 14th um it was well attended um and it was just nice to be able to welcome the

138other new school board members and to be able to engage with other members across the state and other than that i yield my time thank you mr matthews thank you and next is dr bone who is yours dr bones thank you very much so i have a few comments and a few questions and some of them may be repetitive but i'll just talk about them because they are on my list of things to talk about tonight so one i would like the board to meet during a workshop to update and create bylaws i think that's really important number two i think that we need to have a discussion about the class size waiver requests that may occur after we find out about our student enrollment i know we were asked to be proactive on that

139issue before and i think it's always best to have a plan in place prior to an event rather than trying to figure out what we're going to do after it so i think that's really important third i'd like a trans policy update so i know that's on the agenda for september and i'd like to make sure that we are provided with that information i also wanted to see a plan i've asked for this on numerous occasions to address the systemic admissions inequities that cab in regards to factors such as title one school attendance and race and ethnicity i talked about this a few months ago and actually went through the list and talked about the statistics i also wanted committee reports added to the board agenda and if i need to make a motion on

140that i'm happy to do so i also think it's important that unfinished business from month to month is carried over on the board agenda as well otherwise things get missed or forgotten because we all live very busy lives i also had a question i think i saw that in some of our correspondents it indicated that because of covid funding all of our children in all of our schools will receive free and reduced lunch is that correct it's not they have access to free breakfast and free lunch and so that's based on again federal resistance and requirements that students are eligible for that so it's only students eligible not all students all students all students and that's just for this year for 2021 2022 yes okay and i think that's an excellent policy and i think

141it's not again it's not a policy it's what we're receiving as and ms taranova obviously isn't here to speak to it from a school nutrition standpoint but that is what through the school meal program that's provided because that's federally funded federally supported that that's been provided to this year so it's not a district college okay so a number of districts across the country do provide free and reduced lunch to all of their students so i think just thinking about like miss neces pcme smith said thinking about a plan over the next five to ten years that could be another thing that we think about as well because reducing the amount of paperwork paper parents have to submit to qualify for free lunch is really a barrier so i think that would this is what we're

142doing this year is wonderful and i think we should continue to pursue providing free and reduced lunch and breakfast to all of our students i also wanted to say a special thank you to miss marianne mcconnell she and i have worked together for a number of years at highlands elementary school and the donations she provided are awesome so i want to say thank you very much i also noticed when i was going through all of the paperwork submitted for the board tonight that there were a number of resignations and i think moving forward we should have information on the exit interviews that take place when people leave the district so we can look for themes and begin to address those themes to see if we can be again proactive in those areas i also wanted

143to i know we had had a number of emails from parents who were concerned about covid and what happens if their children are quarantined and i think if we dig and sift through some of the correspondence one of the things that i was coming um to recognize as a theme was many parents who had students either with an iep accommodation or a 504 plan whose children received one-on-one instruction they were concerned that if their child had to quarantine how that they would how they would receive their services and i want to know if we could just have a little bit more information on that because i think that's a really valid concern that they're used to that one-on-one instruction and they are going to quarantine and we don't have the zoom option that we had

144available last year with the teachers instructing what would that look like and i would just say generally speaking that's not a universal process that may look different depending on that student's need as well so when we talk about students with disabilities and their ieps their id type is excuse me dictate the services that they will receive so it's not a blanket this is what what every student or every child would get because it's individual to their child and generally speaking our office of student supports or support services works with families they work with the eds they work with the staff within those buildings to ultimately determine what that level of service would look like because some services you can't provide as we learned through the pandemic um don't transition to teleservice you know so some

145things can't be done virtually and so it's really how do you look at what we thought discusses in terms of recovery services so when those hours are lost we provide supports to those families through recovery services to make sure those hours get made up but it's hard to kind of give or provide a blanket this is what we're going to do for all students because when we talk about students with disabilities their ieps are unique to them so but for some of them i think what the parent concern was and i think it's really legitimate is when they say that their child is used to having a one-on-one service because that's what their their iep requires would their child have to go to a fully remote process and not have someone who's going to work

146with them on a more personal or one-on-one basis and again that would be something that quarantines our temporary disruption to that we will try to mirror it as best we can but that's a hard kind of answer to or question to answer in this moment without actually knowing that specific child's needs relative to their iep and again that's why you will work with the educational diagnostician the case manager the folks at the school level to be able to address what the individual student needs would be so i appreciate that and it would just be my recommendation as someone who is an educator that the district would work to our best ability to accommodate parents requests to have that one-on-one service if they need it so we don't have to keep you know talking about it

147but i think that's really important and it's important to our families and i just want to say for all the people who emailed us or texted me or called me on the phone that i do hear you and i do appreciate your concern on the other thing i wanted to talk about perhaps a little bit more in depth with uh or about has to do with our contracts and our bids on contracts because we are the largest district in red clay and we have millions and millions of dollars in our budget and so when we have contracts and we put our bids out that's one way that you know money is disseminated into the community so i noticed that on our contracts that we were provided with tonight i actually went through all of them

148that there were there were contracts in which we bid out and sometimes we only have one bid so that group automatically gets the contract so what i'd like to actually see and it doesn't need to be for september but moving forward i would like to see a three to five year report on how many contracts we had bids on on an annual basis and then i'd like to flesh that out a little bit and i'd like to see how many of those contracts only had a single bid and i know that delaware i know that when we've uh put out our bids they're advertised in accordance with delaware code so i'm not suggesting we're not doing that i know we do that but i would like to see what that process looks like and so

149i'd like to see like i said how many contracts have singular bids how many contracts were awarded to female-owned companies and how many contracts were awarded to companies owned by people of color and if i can begin to see that data or the board can begin to see that data we can look for patterns and we can see how maybe we can make this process a little bit more robust and i noticed that for the alternative school services there was an increase of close to a million dollars this year i think it's important for the board as we move forward to see you know if there's an increase of close to a million dollars what is that what is the need where is the money going what is the request i also noticed that some

150contracts were extended indefinitely and i wanted to know if there was a process about that and what that process looked like and then i also noticed um i mean like their details like in the uh cyberlic energy services contract that hourly rate increased to 132 per hour so i think it's important for the board to just get more information on things like that like what was the rate prior to it increasing to 132 dollars per hour and i think those are my points but do i need to make a motion to request that the committee reports be added to the agenda yes so i'd like to make that motion thank you [Music] i'm sorry i missed the corporation to add committee reports to the next agendas i think we have to add that to the

151next to the next coordination well i made a motion and there was a second i know that there's a point of order and our point of order is we we notice those we know that we bring it up one meeting we notice it and we vote on it the next but it was bought up last year and it was brought up i brought up last month it wasn't on the agenda i asked for it to be on the agenda for a planning meeting it's a simple fix if the board makes a motion and the motion is second you have discussion on it and if the board wants to put committee reports on there and again it's the standing committees that the board serves on and that the board already reports out on so it's just

152a matter of noting that as a part of a formality that those would be standing agenda items and the board members don't have anything to report out on in that given month it doesn't get reported out on so again i would just generally rather than have the board debate committees that you already report out on it's just that we would generally just make those committee reports a standing agenda item moving forward and that would be what the board reports out of right can i understand can can we have a roll call what mad president what i was going to say is when we approve the agenda the agenda is approved and so in order to add something and add emotion at that point it's got it's got to be a two-thirds vote it actually does

153it it actually doesn't have robin's rules of order you can make a motion once motion is is is made and seconded you have to take a vote well under yeah and all i'm saying is it's got a it's gotta pass by two thirds once the the agenda is approved so and the board planning meeting we discussed um i i just want to make a point of clarification for the for the board um last month i've asked to put this that on the agenda i tried to make a motion said it had to go on to the next agenda and then we had discussion around whether that would be something the board wanted to do and it was my understanding that today we would discuss it and be able to make a motion on that based

154on our conversation at the board planning meeting um given that it does not affect the public i don't see why it has to be noticed for us to have the list of committee reports on the agenda it's a simple list can we have a roll call please we're not done with the discussion the other thing i would just say is even if it does require a two-thirds vote why don't we see where we fall out with the vote i agree thank you ashley i mean if we come out that it's i don't know it's there's seven of us so we need six of us i don't vote oh yes i'm just trying to just there's six of us because martin's mind okay so i just think that we should just vote and see where it

155comes out i mean if we already give report on the committees we sit on so we have a motion we have a second you need two thirds if it's not on the agenda so let's vote and see if we have two thirds and then go from there if we don't have two-thirds okay so the motion is to add committee reports to the agenda future agendas not this agenda because you've already reported out on it so it just literally would be the committees that you report out on making them standing items on the agenda so that board members report out of it so can you amend the motion adriana yes i would like to make a motion that committee reports are added to the board agenda which means that board members who have signed up for

156committees should report out on the board committees they attend or the committees that they attend second and is there a discussion i would just like to say that i think that adding committee reports to the agenda is important because it increases accountability and it also increases transparency within the district and i think that over the eight years that i've been on the school board one of the things i've heard the most is that people want our board to be more transparent and i think this is a wonderful way to do that because then people are aware of it i also think that the dates of the um committees when they met should be on those agendas as well so people who want to attend the meetings can attend they often don't know when the meetings

157are and and to add to that i think that we can you know have a very brief report structure and i'm happy to share a template for you to use or not use so that we can also note the next meeting in our discussion since this is a recorded meeting and so since i have a question since we often have three board members on a committee is each board member supposed to make a report on the committee give a committee report that's for the board to decide right again i also know sitting on a number of committees that often only one board member is in attendance and that often many board members don't attend committee meetings because people have busy lives so often there's only one person there and then i think if there are

158multiple people who attend say if mr casper and i attend a meeting i can say hey jason do you want to do the report and he can say hey adriana do you want to do it then i think we could figure it out between us could not be right i think that's okay too but just for orders um let's see how it goes um but we may want to maybe like each each if there's four meetings a year we may decide after the organizational meeting okay this month pcru report if i can't come then jose you'll report because we are we are engaged in multiple committees and not only one person has to give it but in order to know ahead of time so you're prepared you might want to designate going forward how many

159who's going to report and then you could always add um if you were not giving the actual report my only concern with doing it at an organizational meeting like in july is we don't i don't have my schedule for the entire year so i think that like adriana said if multiple people go to a meeting we can communicate with each other about giving it i mean i would not be comfortable signing up in july saying i will definitely give a report for x meetings since i don't have my schedule a year in advance i think we can i think we can work together and be flexible okay any other discussion i just want to clarify so with what mr green said this this is just going to be where we put committee reports as a

160standing agenda item and you know so there's a wellness committee report if for example a board member doesn't attend or has nothing to report or we just have nothing to report so yeah it's just about it's really just a template you're putting on our board docs you would list just like it's listed on you just like it's listed i think on the um the website it would be listed on the on the uh agenda yes that's the clarification it's not really that big of a deal and yeah and for example i mean tonight i gave a reported facilities to me we did not meet since the last meeting but not everyone out there knows that right and it might be good for them to know that we meet quarterly and that would explain why i

161don't have much to present at this meeting but we did have a workshop in relation to that so so the information could vary and there was supposed to be a meeting for code of conduct but there was a lack i guess it was the summer time and there was some minutes sent um so i guess we can report on that next week but um i think it just helps us to say stay abreast of what what we need to do thank you okay any other discussion maria will take a roll call vote please dr bone yes mr casper yes mr matthews yes ms knee smith yes ms sabo yes miss thompson yes unanimous vote motion carries i just had a quick question to a clarification when you talk to adriana about um unfinished business for

162month to month what do you mean by that specifically so when board members introduce items for instance i said that i think we need to have a meeting or a workshop to talk about bylaws i think that since we don't vote we are not voting on it this evening that should be carried over as unfinished business for our september agenda so that way we can keep track of the items board members are submitting and make sure we handle and address them properly in a transparent and accountable manner because they often get lost or left off or forgotten for one reason or another so it helps keep the board on track and it helps keep the community aware of what the board is doing thank you for that question it was terrific but my understanding is

163the bylaws thing is going to be part of the governance workshop i didn't hear you my understanding is that the whole idea about bylaws and work handbook and that kind of thing is part of the governance workshop that mr green is putting together yes that's wonderful yeah so it's it wouldn't be on september's meeting because it's going to be at the workshop she asked for an example i was just providing her with this example okay all right you wanted to make sure okay are you done with your report then dr baum yes okay so then mr uh casper you have the floor okay so um [Music] again with summer months there was not a lot of meetings that i was able to attend but i did want to just say that um i appreciate everybody

164coming out and via zoom and in person and then of course our staff want to also acknowledge mr aj nolan his staff wilmington police department for making a making themselves available this evening as well and it just seems kind of uh remiss that we would have an august meeting without wishing our students and staff a very happy and successful 2021-2022 school year that's going to be kicking off here in the next week or so week and a half uh kids will be coming back so uh staff is already back and i've seen kids out in the in the parking lots as i uh tour around and tool around the district and in a driver's ed car so i see uh you know students out on the fields practice fields and the band out in the

165parking lot and uh looks like everybody's just gearing up for a successful year so hopefully it will be a fantastic year hopefully the masks will be shortly if everybody gets their vaccines and um a special thanks to the custodial staff who have been every time i walk into a building this summer they are i mean they're just cleaning they're cleaning like i clean like my ocd they're cleaning like crazy so i appreciate it um just from a erotic standpoint i'll say um but uh and sam i'm sure you can appreciate we share that commonality but again um congratulations to our new um restructured administration our new teachers that are coming into red clay and best wishes to the students and staff for a hopefully what's going to be a wonderful school year after coming off

166of last year which was just kind of crazy for everybody staff and students you know collectively so congratulations and best wishes i hope everybody has a safe return to school thank you you done mr jasper i am done okay thank you and i have a couple of things to to mention first of all um there was i'm on the cfrc and there was the one month we don't have a meeting is august so um we didn't don't have anything to report but i do have to again express my deepest appreciation to miss flore as well as all of the members of the cfrc they do yeoman's work each month and to jane retini who chairs it as well as all of the members i'm really thankful and grateful for everyone that's on that committee the

167rcef we didn't have a meeting dropout we didn't have a meeting and wellness we didn't have a meeting i did note that mr marinucci sent out the schedule for both the board of directors meeting and the legislative committee meetings did you all get them okay and i would have a favor to ask it is critical that we have representation at all of those meetings so if for some reason or another either the representative can't go or the alternate can't go can you let the board know because someone should be able to attend that meeting it's really critical for us and we do pay a good amount of money to to belong to the dsba and they provide a very valuable function for us and i think sometimes and it would be best if we knew

168like at least a couple of days in advance that somebody can't attend because then we can alter our schedules because you have to go down to dover 6 15 on a wednesday or yeah you have to make it down there and getting through christiana mall at that time is often really difficult so it'd be really helpful if people would let the board know if they can't go it's fine because i'm sure one of these one of the seven ought to be able to go um and then i oh i did as mr greene mentioned have the opportunity to go view at the maker's gym down at ud that our many of our students had the opportunity to participate in i was frankly totally amazed at what our students could do they had to all create

169two projects and they worked in teams one project was a tower that they built and they had to test it for strength and wind resistance and they measured it with water and another was a bridge that they built our students were absolutely incredible when you would go to them and you would talk to them about how they conceived their design how they made it and they're using phenomenal equipment like these unbelievable printers and laser printers and the equipment they were using was amazing so i was really it was really a treat to be able to see that and then lastly i echo mr casper's comments thank you everyone for all the hard work that you have done for red clay and for all of our kids i know all of you are working really really

170hard and i believe the entire board fully appreciates all that you do so thank you very much and i just like mr casper and i'm sure the entire board we wish you a phenomenal 2021-2022 school year and we are hoping that we succeed and our students achieve and and all goes well but thank you for all that you do so we're going to speak it into existence it's not hope yes yes we will we will succeed so [Applause] on behalf of just the district we want to send our condolences thoughts and prayers out to mr wilson who's not in attendance tonight as a result of the passing of his mother so you know our thoughts prayers and heartfelt sympathies go out there mr wills correct and now i will accept the motion to adjourn so

171moved mr casper moves is there a second second second from mr matthews we'll do this by voice vote all in favor aye opposed okay we are adjourned thank you all very much yes