Board Meeting - July 19, 2021

001uh i'd like to resume the july 19 2021 board of education reading i would first stand for the pledge of allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] okay before we begin um first i would like to welcome trisha olsen the district's new legal counsel to the board table and also the new board secretary i do want to make an announcement of a public comment i believe we have more than 20 public comments mr sanders so we have a board policy that when we have more than 20 speakers with public comment the time allotted for each speaker is reduced from three to two minutes we do add a second public comment period at the end of the meeting and public

002comments relating to items on the board agenda for the e excuse me that evening will be heard in the first public comments section at the beginning of the meeting public comments not related to items in the agenda will be heard in the second public comment section so to begin also i should note this meeting is still under governor pritzker's covert 19 executive order number 83 so following that okay strategic plan report uh thank you madam president members of the board of education it's a pleasure to be back with you again this evening uh as promised we told you that when we received an updated guidance from either the federal or state government and began to develop our plans for the return of students for the 2021-2022 school year that we would certainly provide you an

003update and we're glad to do so this evening so in addition to me presenting i have with me chief of staff brian lindholm jeff judge who's our coordinator of health services and sheila downs who's director of plant operations um i'm going to first hand it over to brian lindholm to talk a little bit about the instructional model that the board is aware that we're following at least for the students who want the remote learning options so mr lindell thank you superintendent sanders so on may 19 the illinois state board of education unanimously approved a declaration requiring daily in-person learning for all students for the 21-22 school year with a very narrow set of exceptions under which a student may qualify for remote learning so under this guidance we've been forming our plans to safely open

004schools next month and we'll be sharing more of these details tonight we had a small number of students who qualified for the remote learning option under the eligibility criteria of being both unable to receive a vaccine vaccination and with an underlying health condition to support these students at the elementary level we will be creating multi-grade sections with a small number of students typically less than five and a full-time teacher assigned to each class they will follow the daily distance learning schedule that was in place at the end of the previous school year for middle and high school students we'll be assigning them to online learning courses using our apex model with the u46 teacher assigned to support these students learning progress families that qualified for our remote learning option were notified last week and will

005be contacted shortly by u46 team member to begin drafting their students individualized learning plan for the upcoming school year so for the next few slides i'll turn it back to superintendent sanders we'll share the latest guidance from cdc and the illinois department of public health and how this latest guidance has factored into our plans and as i do that i'd like to also quickly thank jeff judge and his team of the nurses across the schools that did the reviews for the students who requested the remote option i know it was a lot of time and energy after a year of a lot of time and energy spent doing contact racing so thank you to you and your team for all of your hard work um typically i'm not one that likes to read slides but

006given the latest guidance from the cdc i think it's really important for everybody to understand the actual language and the nuance behind the language that they put into place so under the new guidance let me first start off with the caveat that everything that we're presenting here tonight is contingent on further guidance from either idph or the illinois state board of education we do expect to receive some additional guidance that you'll hear about later tonight in regards to quarantine in regards to food service among several other areas but this is based on what we have in front of us at this time our next slide we will start going to the cdc guidance i'd like to start off by sharing with you the actual quote from dr uh in ghazi in zika the director of

007the illinois department of public health she says our goal is to protect the health of students teachers and staff so that in person can learning can resume as safely as possible the cdc is right vaccination is the best preventative strategy as school board members parents teachers and superintendents plan for a return to in-person learning in the fall we strongly encourage those who are not vaccinated to continue to mask so now the rest of the cdc guidance number one mass should be worn indoors by all individuals age two and older who are not fully vaccinated this is straight straight from the cdc maintain at least three feet of physical distance between students within classroom combined with indoor mass scoring by people who are not fully vaccinated to reduce transmission transmission risk when it is not possible

008to maintain a physical distance of at least three feet such as when schools cannot fully reopen while maintaining these distances it is especially important to layer multiple other prevention strategies such as indoor masking screening testing ventilation hand washing and respiratory etiquette staying at home when sick and getting tested contact pricing in combination with quarantine and isolation and cleaning and disinfection are also important layers of prevention for schools by the way this is the next slide uh brian leatherby students teachers and staff should stay home when they have signs of any infectious illness and can be referred to their health care provider for testing and care on the next slide many schools serve children under the age of 12 who are not eligible for vaccination at this time therefore this guidance emphasizes implementing layered prevention strategies

009such as using multiple prevention strategies together consistently to protect people who are not fully vaccinated including students teachers staff and other members of their households the next slide covet 19 prevention strategies remain critical to protect people including students teachers and staff who are not fully vaccinated especially in areas of moderate to high community transmission levels localities should monitor community transmission vaccine coverage screening testing and occurrence of outbreaks to guide decisions in the level of layered prevention strategies that are being used that is specifically the language that was provided by the cdc when they announced their updated guidance on july 9th 2021 i thought it was important for the board to hear it even though i hated reading it to you but you needed to understand exactly what they did recommend at this time i'm going

010to ask jeff judge to weigh in and share out some of the quarantine protocols as we know them today mr judge yes thank you mr sanders and good evening everyone so as we know on july 9th the cdc updated their definition of a close contact with exclusions to that definition their still standing definition includes determination through proximity and duration or the six foot fifteen minute cumulative role the cdc's new verbage states that in the k-12 indoor classroom setting the close contact definition excludes students who were within three to six feet of an effective student where both students were engaged in consistent and correct use of well-fitting mask and other k-12 preventive strategies were in place in the 12 through k setting infection determination remains laboratory confirmed or symptoms can clinically compatible with copen19 preventive strategies

011do include examples such as proper mask use physical distancing and ventilation process as you mentioned mr sanders this exemption does not apply to teachers staff or other adults with the indoor classroom setting this is a student focused and in it's based on the assumption that teachers are eligible for vaccination next slide right exceptions are quarantined so the two exceptions of quarantine are people who have been fully vaccinated or are 14 days past their second dose of madrid or pfizer or the one dosage johnson and johnson vaccine and people who are previously diagnosed with covid within the last three months or 90 days updated guidances from idph is due sometime this week these updates are anticipated to include continued support for screening processes and within schools such as covet screening or testing shield testing is a

012free to students and family saliva based pcr cova test it's a voluntary sampling weekly at all school sites it's non-invasive with collection of saliva from students the turnaround time for test is 12 to 24 hours and it assists with early identification for quarantine um and for safety it helps us with contact tracing process and also with the new idph guidelines anticipated to come out abbreviated quarantine times and exclusions to reduce time for absences from schools right so earlier we shared our strategy regarding the remote learning options for students who cannot get vaccinated and who have a chronic underlying health condition pursuant to the same resolution from the state board of education we also must provide remote instruction for students who are unable to attend temporarily because they are placed under quarantine due to an exposure

013to covid in these instances we will ensure students continue to receive access to daily instruction from their classroom teachers and we'll be working closely with the elgin teachers association to determine exactly how this remote instruction will be delivered next slide please this is a visual of how we plan to implement the layered prevention strategy that has been recommended by the cdc and the state health departments as you can see vaccinations will represent our highest layer of protection followed by mask wearing and so forth on the following slide superintendent sanders we'll share more details on each of our preventive strategies for the 21-22 school year and again knowing the vaccinations is the number one prevention strategy for kova that is the first one we're going to cover um we will be asking uh not requiring during

014these upcoming weeks for families to share with us their child's vaccination status for the purpose of helping us with our contact tracing in the event that a child is exposed to someone with covet 19. as a reminder vaccinated students who do not vaccinated students do not have to quarantine unless they exhibit symptoms of covet 19 if they have been fully vaccinated sharing this information is voluntary noting that we do have access to the state database the eye care system to track this to see if a child or an adult is vaccinated it's a lot easier if we have access directly from the parents we will be also be asking parents of unvaccinated students to allow their child to participate in regular coveted testing that's the shield test that mr judge was referencing our ability to

015test students on a regular basis will be one of our key prevention strategies and one of the ones that the cdc strongly recommends moving on to mask wearing our recommendations is that for pre-k through sixth grade that mass will be required as we begin the school year this aligns closely to the cdc guidelines regarding ensuring prevention strategies that are layered if our local data local data suggests that we have low transmission rates in schools and in the community especially through our regular testing of students then we may begin removing layers of prevention strategies that's in keeping with the cdc and idph guidance again if you go back to the chart that shows vaccines would be the most uh effective form of mitigation the next would be mass squaring the third would be social distancing so

016if we were to slowly remove mitigation strategies the first would actually be to allow students to get within three feet of each other first before a mass would be removed for middle and high school mass will continue to be strongly encouraged especially for those who are not fully vaccinated however masks will not be required for middle and high school under alternative plans i have to note that mass must be worn on school buses regardless of vaccination status and that's per federal and state guidelines this will be enforced and if a student refuses to wear a mask on a school bus the student may be temporarily suspended from riding the bus and again that is a that is compulsory by state and federal guidelines further our mass protocols also are contingent on the governor's executive order

0172021-14 which compels mask usage in schools and school board meetings not being renewed so why the difference in the mass protocols i alluded to some of them as we went through at the elementary level no students are currently eligible for vaccine at the elementary level unless they happen to be age 12 and still in elementary school and that is why the cdc really emphasizes additional mitigation strategies again starting with mass and social distancing and other strategies is their recommendation while we monitor data to determine whether or not to add or reduce prevention strategies and finally it's a smaller learning environment which allows the ability for most more social distances the board is aware we invested additional resources using our federal kova dollars to put 41 one-year-only teachers to lower class sizes to allow for three

018feet of social distance we also ordered new furnishings for elementary schools that had different types of desks or setups so that we can ensure three feet of social distance in the elementary world in middle and high school as i've been i've been very transparent with the board throughout that it would be very difficult to ensure three feet of social distance in our middle and our high schools and because students in middle and high schools should have access to a code vaccine we are differentiating based on that factor we will continue to encourage students to mask we will continue to encourage teachers to mask but will not be enforced at the secondary level social distancing again is one of the key mitigation strategies uh all of last year we were really forced to follow the six

019foot rule now they've lowered that down to to say three to six feet is what is plausible as the board is aware we staffed elementary schools again to provide for that three feet of social distance this strategy coupled with universal masking in elementary will minimize the need to have students in quarantine so parents want their kids to be able to come back into school and remain in school without going into quarantine uh being masked and ensuring the social distancing ensures that your child would not then be placed in quarantine we are tentatively planning on social distancing of three feet during other parts of the day as well including lunch band and chorus however we understand that there might be further guidance from the federal government or the state on that topic finally parents and students

020who are eligible for the vaccine really need to note the risks to their child of being both unvaccinated and unmasked in any environment including schools [Music] parents and community members should also be assured that mitigation strategies that were put in place last year will continue we will still have hand washing stations available throughout the buildings access to hand sanitizer and personal protective equipment we will also continue increased cleaning measures and touch point disinfection of surfaces and follow the ventilation guidelines that were instituted last year again we will ramp up our efforts to perform regular surveillance screening so that we can identify cases quickly now jeff judge will walk us through the data monitoring process thanks sheila so this is an example of the data we'll be utilizing to make our decisions regarding peeling away any

021prevention strategies it includes county data use case data and district-based data within that is eligible vaccination rates and our screening results we will certainly consult with our state and local health departments as we finalize our metrics to ensure that they are appropriate parents should be prepared the prevention strategies may look different school by school depending on the school's rate of vaccination or surveillance testing results in the positivity rate within the county in which that school resides i would also like to take a moment to thank my team and our community partners who have worked so hard and stepped in to help get over 4 700 of our employees vaccinated in addition to the clinics and other opportunities that we've made available for our students and families since last spring last spring so license here thank

022you and just to reiterate what mr judge said decisions will be driven by data as it relates to removing prevention strategies in addition we are not recommending the continuation of self-certification at this time however we still ask families and staff to monitor their own health and remain home when sick if a student or staff member has symptoms of covid please report it to your school as soon as physically possible contact tracing will continue to be a key strategy for preventing the spread which means that students and staff may still have times when they must quarantine when symptoms are present as a reminder daily instruction will continue for students who are quarantined because all students will be masked we are not limiting the number of students on a bus we expect further guidance on meal service

023however in the interim we are planning for social distancing to the extent possible but not to the extent of six feet we will continue to discourage visitors to schools as we begin the school year however if visitors are allowed they must remain masked throughout their visit this does not mean that we do not want fam to welcome families we have set aside funds for each school to have some event to welcome back students staff and families we would encourage these events to be held outdoors facility rentals will continue to be declined at this time so that we can focus our energy on reopening schools safely finally we will be allowing local field trips to the extent possible when not possible we will examine opportunities for alternative events now superintendent sanders will walk us through the

024timeline leading to the start of the school year and the time that you see before us is uh after our update well first of all you have to be reminded that we literally got this guidance july 9th which if i remember correctly was a friday and so we worked diligently to put together at least a tentative plan to bring forward to the board for tonight during this upcoming week we'll begin sharing out this proposal not proposal but what our intentions are for the start of the school year with our families in the meantime we'll be working on what it will look like the process parents will go through to notify us whether their child has been vaccinated if they choose to share that information with us and also whether they would allow their child if

025unvaccinated to be included in our covid screening program between july 9th and august 9th we will also determine our plans for high school and middle school athletic competitions and participation among uh attendees that is something we've not yet had conversations in regards to and then we will again come back to the board on august 9th with an update in advance of our august 16th first day of school with 100 well all but all but a few students in attendance in person for the start of our first day of school 2021 2022 and members of the board that wraps up our formal presentation and we'd be glad to entertain any questions do board members have any questions done all right i'll get this started so again thank you for putting together the presentation for us um

026so that the community can kind of see what the plans are uh first i wanted to note that i did submit um i'm gonna say a large handful of questions ahead of time i did note that those have not been added to our online agenda yet so that the community can see the questions that have been asked prior and i don't want to go back through all of those because i don't want to you know take up too much time so hopefully um we can get those added so the community can see questions that were added prior yeah evelyn's listing now so i'll make sure that we get it matted as quickly as we possibly can and then um so my first question i'm just going to start kind of at the beginning of the

027slides and i'll make sure i stop so other people can ask questions as far as our original approach to allowing families to choose the remote learning option now that we see the numbers that have chosen it and we've been able to put a plan in place so that the families can see what we're going to be offering as far as what precautions in place masking or social distancing and obviously you know different families have different concerns and different feelings on that is there a way that we can further expand the remote learning for families based on the plan that we have that if they have uh even though like say maybe their child is vaccinated they have at-risk families is there is there a way to expand it at all at this time for families

028who may have extenuating such circumstances that you know weren't eligible before but you know that we could consider now that's a that's an excellent question unfortunately uh the answer is going to be no uh the the challenge that we have is we've we went through the process of collecting that information so that we could staff appropriately for the distance learning programs that we that we have been able to put in place um the ability to transition again that this this close to the school year would not make it really a plausible option at this time and on top of that really the the state board of education's declaration uh it makes it pretty clear that they the preferences for in-person instruction for all students okay i think should i go again if someone else has

029questions go ahead keep going i'm sorry um and one of my questions and i'm tony i'm glad you brought this up was when we're looking at the elementary schools i i appreciate that there's families that are going to be concerned that we are too cautious to start the year so one of my questions i have about the slides that were presented we both say low transmission and then we also say no transmission so do we have a feel for what we're truly looking at in terms of starting to peel back the layers to get towards pre-pandemic conditions which the cdc kind of does refer to in parts of their guidance i'm just um i'm concerned by when we say no transmission is that like are we aiming for something that is realistic to happen in

030the next school year even like no no transmission is such a it's a difficult concept so it's kind of wanted to get a feel for where what we're really aiming for i agree and i so i've already met uh since the guidance came out we've only had the opportunity uh to meet with the health department's uh twice actually one or once and the other one twice uh so unfortunately no i don't know exactly um the metrics in that draft sheet that mr judge shared with you was something that we created based on what the cdc is recommending we look at i'm expecting that at some point our local health departments or the state health department will give us better direction on what's an appropriate percentage what's a threshold that you should be reaching before you

031start removing mitigation mitigation or prevention strategies quite honestly i was expecting my hope was that whenever this was rolled out by the cdc or the state health department would be that we would have very explicit direction to say that when your community spread is at this rate and your shield testing demonstrates this rate then this is what you do uh and instead it's left really to local districts at this point in time to make those decisions um so certainly we'll be looking for greater clarity from idph and our local health departments to to manage that mr judge is anything beyond that that you could share at this time from your knowledge of the health departments and where they're at no i totally agree i mean i think we're all waiting for the the updates to

032come out and as you said i would imagine and common sense does dictate that getting to a no positivity rate is probably not a realistic measure that it would be a low rate so what that low rate is we don't know at this time and then i just wanted to um on top of the peeling back of pandemic precautions again i understand that there's a lot of conversation about um different layers of mitigation that people have specific feelings about i just want to put it out there that as we come up with the plans to move back to those conditions that we're truly looking at which layers to remove first that give our elementary students the best possible experience um you did mention um maybe it wasn't on the slides originally about we may be

033looking at moving the three feet as the first layer we move and i just want to make sure that as a you know a community and a board and a school district that as we remove the strategies things like three feet may have taking that away may have a bigger impact on the quality of education and social emotional well-being for our students once especially like kindergarten and first grade if they're able to be in contact and playing with each other again so i just want to make sure that while we're listening to the community and trying to respect everyone's different comfort levels that we're truly looking at the best interest of the educational experience for our students and especially those youngest learners where social contact and interaction is one of the most important pieces for

034them we absolutely agree with you absolutely melissa can i ask a question mr note they've you know been having a hard time hearing but um were you saying that social distancing is something that would be desirable to move towards before removing masks as a yes i'm saying that like as far as the best the best educational environment for the students like what's gonna let them especially the youngest students like you know it's it's difficult at the high school level um to say that really them wanting to be within three feet of each other versus not wearing masks for example would be the layer they would choose but when we're looking at you know pre-k kindergarten and first grade that social interaction part is such a huge piece of the learning experience that as we go

035through the planning process of peeling back the layers i just want to make sure that what we're removing makes the most sense from their you know not just educational but social emotional and just all the pieces that go into it yeah i just i want to make sure that i i hear you correct i heard you correctly and i don't disagree with you maybe um jeff judge maybe you can answer this question for me when i read the cdc guidelines the way that they're you know listed out with promoting vaccination being the first mitigation and then correct use of mass being the second mitigation social distancing or physical distancing being the third mitigation i'm reading that as an intentional prioritization of those strategies is that is that how i should be reading that or do

036you have any insight to that um i don't have any actual insight to that i know that that's the the terminology the sequence of terminology that they've been consistently utilizing i have never specifically heard that that was that was their intention of mitigation um through the process or through the covet experience and it's been all three as equal partners it's never been about one particular thing in order until now so i think this is a really new thing but that's a great question i think we can bring back to the department of public health with their guidance that's a very good observation and thank you for that and we'll certainly bring that back to the department of public health yeah i'd be interested to get their feedback on that because i mean when you look

037at the language it kind of hints towards that with vaccination being you know the the primary intervention especially for um our high school and middle school students so yeah i would be interested to hear their intake their their opinion on that the one deck that's probably on me because i'm the one when they continue to say the layered mitigation strategies and they they put them in that layered order that's the reason why i made the assumption that they that that was the pecking order in which they meant them but to mr judge's point maybe that's not maybe that's not accurate i and that i did the same as you i took it as being in order so okay thank you and i wanted to follow up with a question mrs martin asked and that is

038for you mr judge um on your your slide with the data monitoring you have a number of blocks in green there's one in orange and there's one in red are those based on numbers from somewhere some some you're looking at the county numbers sorry i don't have the counting numbers yes yeah i don't have the actual those were pulled uh just yesterday from the idph website okay so it's an id yeah those those are accurate and and they have a range so um a certain range will put you in moderate for example in new cases reported and so forth correct and those were those already established ranges from the department of public health as they report them and we're going to be looking at i know northwestern has a dashboard lots of zip codes there

039are probably other things that do as well are we going to be looking at our own zip codes because for example cook count is a pretty big county yes we're a little tiny part of it but i think we want to get more specific than just the whole of cook county you can you can actually go on to the state websites and look up areas by zip code that's been in progress since since so that's really probably what we'll be looking at for community we we have throughout so throughout the pandemic we've uh during our situational updates to administrators and others we've monitored county data and then within that zip code data and then the zip code really west side of elgin versus east side of belgium versus hanov our portion of hanover park and

040so forth and so mr posh's office oversees making sure that we all have that data in our hands okay more questions kate um so i mean first off i just want to say thank you to everybody for a very detailed report and everyone's been very very responsive to questions ms martin's questions were very helpful i realized i had several of them and so it was handy to have those answers um already done um so i guess my first thing is i do like these mask mandates i think that they are are good and i think that they are useful um a couple of things um can we incentivize the students particularly at that middle school and high school level to wear those masks give them a hero point give them a pbis point whatever the

041school says um if we can maybe take a look at that i think that would be something that would be really helpful um if students are outside say at recess at gym class they do not have to wear a mask is that correct that's my understanding at this time unless you've heard something different mr judge my opinion is outdoors yeah we understand it is it's being presented when you're outside you do not have to mask great can we also maybe set up some situations into where some of these kids can take science class outside they can do reading circle outside and things like that so that we can have more time outside of masks for kids i would love to be able to see something like that um i had a question about the buses

042um but you answered that um and then two other things who determines if the student was engaged in consistent and correct use of mask right i'm thinking of a high school kid who you know had six or seven different teachers that day gym class those kinds of things how do we determine they were wearing their masks correctly i can i can take that one i mean that's what they of i mean through the process of contact tracing and really through it's discussing unfortunately it's a lot of investigative work talking to the student and hoping that that individual just as we contact trace any individual is responding to our questions accurately and okay honestly and then just following up with those individuals that student or staff member may have been in contact with to verify that

043okay okay so generally the rule through through country tracing through the through the county if uh so all stories are consistent that we make the assumption that that is accurate information okay if there's two or more variances of the story yeah where it's determined that there may be different versions then we follow the idph rule of then we're going to assume that there is question involved and we will treat it like there is an actual exposure or potential exposure um and can you tell me a little bit more about how what the um testing is going to look like are we pulling kids out of learning time are we grabbing them at lunch how long does that test actually take the the testing itself is pretty minimal i mean we're working with shield currently they're

044willing to come out and develop very individualized processes for each individual school which is really wonderful which is part of the reason why we're working with shield testing because they're so amenable to work with and of course since it's free and accessible to all students and families which is which is a great plus um basically i mean we have to to be part of the screening process we have to do testing weekly okay each student that participates would participate weekly by providing a saliva sample it's pretty um time minimal i mean it's a tube and basically you're just just i mean yeah you know so that's that's a pretty quick process and then handing it to the person who is containing uh and labeling that sample so it's pretty minimal and each each process will

045vary per school okay um you know we may have to um do multiple days so like larger buildings we may have to do like sampling days for certain groups on mondays tuesdays or wednesdays and thursdays for multiple days who are minimizing time and interruption to right actually student learning and education i don't want students being pulled from um you know math class to stand online for 15 minutes to spit in a tube for 30 seconds so correct the way the program set up there's no waiting okay once you get your once you get your tube the teacher would release you you would pretty much step in the hallway pretty much expect while you're walking hand it to your you know i would hand it to mr sanders who was labeled him send off the sample

046okay so it really is that quick you're going to collect that i didn't entertain you apparently all right um but good question thank you yeah no thank you um yeah no i think i mean other than that just i would like as mr sanders had said i want some hard numbers from the cdc and illinois department of public health that says when your numbers get to this start removing these layers so that what we want is the fewest amount of kids out of a building absolutely thank you to be clear and if we don't get numbers from idph or the cdc we can certainly we will work to provide the board some idea of what at least based on you know using mr judge's wealth of experience uh we've got a lot of internal experts

047that can help us put this together as well with a pretty solid recommendation if we don't get something from the counties or the state so we'll have something that we can share publicly about what to expect okay thank you i appreciate everything thank you thank you melissa so piggybacking on this data um that we want from the health agencies um the one place where i'm continually getting tripped up on this plan is the lack of information on vaccines so if the cdc is saying and i'm going to go with my with the interpretation and they do say it in their guidance that you know vaccines are the primary mitigation strategy right um in my mind we're operating a little bit blindly here in that we do not have solid numbers for how many students and

048staff members are vaccinated within our buildings i understand that we can't require the vaccine i'm not asking to require the vaccine but i am asking why we can't have notification beyond just you know suggesting or hoping that people give us that information so that we know because what i'm looking at is and and we don't have these numbers yet i'd be interested to know what this is if we get to a vaccination rate in a building that's 50 60 70 whatever that threshold is i would you know i mean it's that's a game changer for me i think that you know at some point it's safe for everybody to be amassed because we've reached that protective threshold right um and so you know i know that we can look out idph um today the numbers

049for 12 to 15 year olds that are fully vaccinated is 2001 2 thousand and five adolescents between the age of 12 and fifteen are fully vaccinated um if you do real rough numbers from the the census that gets us to about thirty percent coverage on vaccinations and i asked mr sanders this earlier today um we've got numbers from kane county at 42 percent for 12 through 17 ages 12 through 17 and dupage county 48 so i mean you know if we take those numbers we're looking at right now in our high schools in our middle schools we can probably reasonably expect that we're around 30 to 50 vaccinated right i mean that would be a reasonable estimate based on just some very rough data points um and so you know i guess there's two questions

050right what is what is the optimal vaccination rate that we want to see in our schools before we're really comfortable with with even going you know less than mass strongly encouraged where we're comfortable with with people being able to be very optional with their masking and how do we get to that knowledge how can we how can we move in that direction those are really great thoughts and we have been working with the department of public health i mean part of the issue is is that currently coped 19 vaccine is not a mandated vaccine and therefore isn't mandated to be collected by the department of public health such as the mmr varicella those are mandated and tracked although they are tracking to the eye care system we do have access to that confidential access so

051we can verify if we need to contact trace either a staff or a student unfortunately we are going to have to rely on the county data because they're the ones distributing that information of who is vaccinated or who they've provided that vaccine and our parents to provide that information for of the students because it's not mandated we have no actual control over how we would get that information otherwise the the frustrating thing is that the cdc actually lists in their you know the the universal masking is appropriate if we don't have a method to actually uh know what the level of x vaccination coverage is i mean they actually say that in their guidance right um so that begs the question what is the tool then that we're supposed to use to to make that

052happen so and that's why we're going to ask parents to voluntarily provide that that the challenges i i did not go so far we did not go so far within our proposal to say that families must tell us because i don't know that we we have a statutory anything statutory or otherwise it would allow us to insist upon it but we do strongly request that they provide us access let us know whether or not their child is vaccinated and and upload their card we will ensure that they it's it's hipaa compliant that only the nurse i mean will will follow the correct protocols and use it for contact tracing purposes and then also so that we know within a school because it does help us long term to know that if if larkin high school

053has 72 percent of their staff students and staff vaccinated does that change where they are as a as a system compared to another high school for example you're you're right on so we are asking families and and hopefully they'll they'll listen and and give us the information um knowing that we it's with not with not for uh adverse purposes that would be the motivation is to help with contact tracing and all other kids to stay in school you know if there was a positive case yeah absolutely correct because otherwise your kid will quarantine if they will be sent home because we don't have any in play of knowing whether or not they've been vaccinated or not right so jessica um first of all i just want to say thank you guys so much for putting

054this all together as a student who has been online for the last quarter of sophomore year and then three quarters of my junior year i didn't realize how valuable it was to be back in person until we finally were being able to see my friends talk to my teacher talk to my teachers get to like be in band be in theater and be in all the clubs that i love to do so that's really valuable to me and it's valuable to so many of my friends and people in my school and so you guys being able to put together this information making sure that it is able that we're able to come back no matter like what the limitations are what the restrictions are just being in school and being with people and knowing that

055we can do the activities in some way that we love to do that's so important for our social mental health and being able to look forward to coming to school and engage in our classes again so i really really appreciate all the work that you guys have done and all the information that you're getting out in the community i think i share um the thoughts of all my board members here i do really look forward to a little bit more specific gardens concerning extracurricular sports um and those kind of benchmarks that we're looking for so we kind of know what to expect for the coming year um i did have one question you did mention that students would not be expected to wear masks outside um correct i was wondering if that would apply to

056other activities um just not like recess but like sports marching band would students be required to use like musician masks and bell covers that they're in band there is updated guidance coming out specific to sports and to band activities okay that will be coming out shortly we have some idea of of what that's going to look like but not the full picture as of yet all righty thank you so much you're welcome good question eva the unit 46 community is made up of many different communities and you know some communities are higher with more health underlying conditions do we plan to kind of really look at those schools that might be in some of those areas to make sure we are looking to make sure that the numbers don't go higher well i think the

057data reflects looking at each and every school which is why it's based on an individual looking at those individual schools their rates of positive positives through the screening process and just the overall monitoring of the zip code treated the same until we see the numbers are going up or down right so that's the whole they don't go anywhere they're just stable hopefully we're going to hope but we're going to hope but you know as as you know california has taken a whole sudden different direction so all this information is very fluid and this is as of today and we have to assume that it could get better or it could change in the opposite direction as well that's why we need to be responsive and look at everything for an individual school and how that

058school and community is being impacted as specifically for them which is how we've handled previous other infectious diseases when we flew is a good example when we had the swine flu a few years ago there are three schools that we had to shut down at the request of the public health departments because we had excess absenteeism as a result of illness and so to be safe rather than sorry they shut down the schools three different schools at that time so i do think you'll see not just statewide but nationwide i moved to recognize that cobot is going to be among us it's not going to go away even with the vaccine and therefore we're going to have to learn to to live with it and when we have cases spike within a particular school there

059might be times that a school has to close for a period of time just like we have done before for flu swine flu other illnesses before this yep thank you and would the health department be the one who would tell us that historically it's the health department that advises us to do so yes in those cases don so i'm going to ask a couple questions about the um the optional screening testing that we're going to be doing so i i'm a little confused so i'm going to apologize for the question um we're going to be providing it at both the elementary and the middle school and high school levels correct correct but they're used for slightly different purposes is that the best way to put it like so the older kids it's more about if

060they're doing the like the little spit test and doing the screening it helps avoid quarantine and at the elementary level not only quarantine but we're going to be using those results um as far as caseload to know the pulling back on the mitigation layers correct i guess technically correct i mean i mean it really is universal i mean it's universal at every level i mean the screening is for those that are unvaccinated only if you're vaccinated you wouldn't be you wouldn't be eligible to participate in the screening process okay so you'd have to be unvaccinated first of all so in the you're right there is going to be a difference between our elementary and our middle and high school because obviously middle and high school are eligible for vaccination therefore we're going to have a

061much higher rate of vaccination within those schools um there is because of the inability to get vaccinated there are more additional layers at the elementary level so yes i guess what you're saying is true as we track those numbers and the rates go down we would be able to utilize whatever we determine as that data to peel back those layers of mitigation or strategies and then as far as actually utilizing the test um i know that other schools have been using this already um doing the different you know spit tests and you know like glenn bart had for their high schools where students but they were doing it at home like they would do their test at home and they would bring it in every monday morning is is that something that we're looking at

062to take load off nurses within the schools and maybe you know give parents more of a comfort level that their kid isn't you know doing the spit test in front of people they don't know i don't know like i'm trying to think of ways to give um a community like the comfort level with how we're doing the testing and that it's it's going to help us avoid the quarantines and it's you know it's it's non-invasive and it's so i'm just trying especially because you're looking at large numbers of kids at the elementary level who would need to take the test correct well part of the reason that shield testing is because it's already been approved through idph so it's a pcr test which a lot of the slider-based tests are not which is not accepted

063by the department of public health as they determined to release someone from quarantine so that's the first first consideration when making the assessment of which tests we should use because from my perspective what's the point of taking a test that doesn't get you any results so that's first consideration why shield testing the second is um i mean there are home tests available so we can all take a home test you can now purchase those through walgreens cvs or local pharmacies so that's a great option for people who like to do that which none of those home tests again are approved to release someone from quarantine or release them per the idph rules okay so apparently i super misunderstood the testing we're doing then is not a spit test we're doing swab testing in the schools

064you are you are okay good is a saliva-based test is this is one of the first saliva tests that is a pcr and accepted by the department of health okay so which makes it unique in that difference so okay great um yeah unfortunately it isn't that it would not in allowance for that it is per idps it's not a home-based test okay clearly you know we if it's a home-based test we wouldn't know if i you know if my child was doing at home they would know if their sibling was doing it or so it's something that has to be observed labeled yeah so there's a process involved with it to make it an accurate test so then as far as at the elementary level due to the number of tests we have to do

065this is something we're expecting our nurses to do within the buildings with help with the shield testing because we're a title one district in the grant itself from the state the state does provide additional support which is another reason for the shield testing that additional uh support that we are eligible for at each of our sites so so no it wouldn't be all on one person because we realize that that's not a possibility between daily care contact tracing the shield taste the the shield testing it's a lot of responsibility for one individual okay great thank you so much oh no problem happy to answer this question i'm sorry can we just clarify is shield the name of the company is it a metaphor for the kind of test i think that's what i'm not shield

066shield is the name of of it's both it's the name of the testing and the company it's issues from is from um the university of illinois okay uh it's out it's based out of the university of illinois okay so the equipment would be the name of the company coming in and doing the testing correct it is an idph and state-funded program okay all right thank you you're welcome additional questions comments [Music] okay so we appreciate the opportunity to provide the board the update and uh again we'll be back on august 9th with uh anything new make sure that we provide enough time to to give you another update on where we are at that point i greatly appreciate the time and the feedback to the board from the board and you'll have more information then

067from idph isbe ihsa i mean i haven't heard from them at all maybe they're waiting for i i i at some point we'll get some additional guidance yes well you mentioned ihsa and um the state because i have kids who do sports year-round the state of illinois had actually released new guidance on masking for sports specific a while back so families that want to see it it's it's under youth sports guidance on the idph website now i don't know like they say that it applies to school-based and club but i don't know if it truly will just because isbe is going to come up with their own because they do um so it may change but if anyone wanted to see it they they specifically address masking for indoor versus outdoor vaccinated versus unvaccinated and

068they talk about spectators and those types of things okay okay great thank you okay moving on to public comments so we'll have uh ruby read for the record our protocols recognizing again at the beginning of the meeting the board president recognized that we go to two minutes because of the number of public speakers um and then ruby once you're done with the public common piece i'll walk through with the process we're going to follow because we're going to put on screen the names of all the speakers so they know when they're up next good evening and welcome to the board of education meeting we are now at the public comment portion of the meeting attendees wishing to make a public comment in person or be assumed tonight were asked to complete a request to speak

069for in advance those who chose to speak via zoom are provided with a webinar id number to call in promptly at 7pm tonight as always speakers will be given three minutes except in this case two minutes to share their comments the board listens to the speakers but does not respond to individual questions or comments during the meeting a written response will be mailed to the speaker requested on the form those who provided a public comment but chose not to speak publicly in the meeting we're asked to submit an email to board at u-46 orig those emails were posted on the board agenda for public beauty buenas nochos [Music] so yes i what i would not do is have the three speakers at a time so angie roald of you roll the build i can't i'm

070sorry angie uh come out first along with um and i apologize mr leatherby can you make the screen just a little bit can you zoom in a little bit so we can see the names a little bit bigger it's not even there i see so it's on the screen for uh for our participants who are up in the overflow rooms to see when they're coming up so that they know to start heading down this way so if we could uh ask angie how busy boulder rolled over thank you very much if you could come on up along with miss polonsky and uh and then we will go to megan larsen via zoom and i'll i'll upload that one so forget the first two speakers come up and then i'll tee up megan larson after the

071first two speakers either whichever mic and just make sure your microphone is green because that means it's on and working the second person's name again uh second person is m-a-c-i-e-j okay and the third person is via zeal all right okay so good afternoon my name is angie robarul and i'm a u-46 district parent of an oncoming first grader and a preschooler during the school year my daughter was coming home on a daily basis crying that she's not able to breathe as a result of masks being mandatory she told me she hated going to school with a mask because she gets headaches when she lowered her mask for a second she would get scolded this is child abuse my daughter has experienced anxiety as a result i will no longer allow my child to suffer these

072coveted mask mandates are nothing but publicized children have a very low risk of dying from the virus however due to the pandemic we have seen an increase in child suicides face masks leading to bacterial infections and other medical problems children may end up being among the greatest casualties of the covid19 pandemic not because of the virus but due to the restrictions placed upon them over the last year which has interrupted mental social and emotional development ignoring data to support a political position that harms our children should never be the way any school board makes it decisions many school districts have already made masks optional this should be every parent's choice i choose to unmask my child we parents have our children's best interests no legislative body has enacted a mask law in schools guidance is

073not legally binding guidance is merely guidance the cdc provides guidance not mandates and decisions should be made on the local level isbe and idph cannot control our choice regarding face mask testing and quarantine per school code article 2 section 2-3.6 the state board of education may not adopt any rule or policy that alters an intent of authorizing law or that supersedes federal or state law again there is no federal or state law that says masking cove vaccines or quarantine must be enforced do the right thing and allow parent choice thank you for your time thank you show me on this side you can stay there yeah all right can you hear me yep all right good evening my name is marjorie duzhinski and i have uh two children in the district i choose to unmask

074them during the school year my first grader developed a heat rash due to the mask and cried from the uncomfortable feeling he had to endure while in school this is child abuse you need a parental permission for a overcome counter medication to be administered you will not disclose who has license school nor mandate them to stay home until they are lice free but you are willing to decide for us parents to mask our children vaccinate them teach them unethical sex education and provide them with more reasons to discriminate against each other you should want to show examples of how to unite and respect everyone's decision decisions with all due respect to all members of the board you have no right to make those decisions for us parents they are our children our responsibility my wife

075and i will be deciding on what is right and best for our children you are not medical professionals nor their parents to make these decisions as a board of education you should eliminate politics in your decisions and provide parents their choices thank you for your time thank you [Music] and i believe our next speaker is megan larson via zoom yes and i've unmuted you to speak miss larson hi can you hear me yes okay thank you the last 18 months have been hard we're all trying to navigate this new normal that continues to shift under our feet it's hard to accept that so many things are out of our control knowing that there aren't any quick or easy answers since the beginning of the pandemic over 1.4 million people in illinois have been diagnosed with

076covid and nearly 26 000 have died half of whom lived in u46 counties i'm not going to debate the science it's a fact that cases are on the rise again it's a fact that children and young adults get coveted it's a fact that even those who recover can have serious life-threatening permanent health conditions and it's a fact that the best approach to prevention is created by layers of protection students with medically fragile people in their lives are put in an impossible position forced to return to schools at or over full capacity trying to continue to learn in the face of very real life or death consequences making every layer of protection vitally important masks are a simple effective and accessible layer and they should not be optional the american academy of pediatrics released guidance that

077k-12 students should be masked in schools this is the very least the district can do to help protect students and their families i've been a parent and volunteer in this district for a long time now unfortunately because of the pandemic and you 46 policies we have to withdraw our student you're putting students and families at risk we can't gamble our lives on the fact that others will take the mo won't take the most basic precautions to keep each other safe we have to spend money set aside for college to safely get our student through eighth grade as i said before there aren't easy answers but i sincerely hope the board in this district decides to put student safety above politics and does more than the bare minimum because it's too difficult to do what's best

078we're all part of this community working together to build opportunities for our children to grow thrive and succeed hopefully more than our wildest dreams i hope we can all work together towards that goal in the future but right now u46 is putting my family at an unacceptable risk thank you thank you and i would ask if you've already spoken we will have people coming down so if the people who've spoken can move up to the overflow rooms we'd appreciate it thank you our next three speakers are melissa varner gloria duran and karina gomez so melissa okay go ahead when you're ready hello i have three students in this district my first concern is that our request to be addressed as a whole was denied by this board and whereas other surrounding districts respected that request

079for those not here there are about 80 people in the overflow rooms who want their children unmasked i am asking that mask be optional for all you 46 students my oldest had a brain tumor in 2019 when kobet hit a mom posted welcome to my world in our support group her child needed chemo the most vulnerable the vulnerable as you can be she was already masking disinfecting everything and avoiding crowds she never felt that other people living their lives was putting her child in danger it was her job alone to keep him safe that stuck with me did our district think about kids like this or others that are immunocompromised during flu season when shrup cases rose no you left it up to the parents and the medical professionals to determine what was best my

080daughter now has a new spot being watched if she ends up needing chemo i would ask for adjustments to her 504 request homebound tutoring i would not expect the entire school to mask for my daughter students need their normal back caring for students means caring for the all of them including their mental health the shot was approved for emergency use it is not and was not an emergency for our youth and all the vulnerable adults in their lives have had a chance to receive it chasing the endless moving goal post has been absolutely exhausting 100 vaccination will never happen zero cases will never happen so when can our kids be masculine when can they have their normal back with every benchmark achieved there is a new reason to keep our kids in masks last year

081restrictions varied by state now they are varying by merely miles guidelines set forth by isb and idph are merely guidelines not mandates if you could finish up that's great thank you sorry i'm just going to end it with this parents can enforce their advice or guidelines on their children not the school board and not the state of illinois i never signed up to co-parent with either thank you gloria okay my name is gloria duran i have two children who are you 46 students i believe it is in the best interest of our children for u46 to make masks wearing optional this is a policy many schools and districts across illinois have adopted for this upcoming school year masking needs to be left to the discretion of the parents and guardians this is a medical decision

082that shouldn't be in the hands of the school board and certainly not the cdc who has gotten things wrong time and time again today's the first time i'm hearing about the weekly testing and it sounds like a big waste of resources it defies all logic to assume that a child is covered could be coveted positive for a year and a half straight okay last school year my daughter came home from school every day with a dirty and moist mask our children are mandated to wear a mask for six hours straight including during recess in 80 degree weather sense tells me the safety measure isn't benefiting our children instead potentially endangering them how long will u-46 subject their students to this inhumane mass mandate the most vulnerable in our community have been vaccinated 56 percent of

083cook county residents are vaccinated and that's 51 for cane county how much longer will healthy asymptomatic children with capable immune systems be treated as a public health risk as a responsible critical thinking parent i have an obligation to advocate for not just my children but all the children in the district so i'm i'm eager to receive your feedback thank you thank you [Applause] my name is karina gomez my children are in second and seventh grade in u46 our kids left school on march 13 2020 and after this and their schooling has been disrupted ever since at first we were uncertain of what was ahead it started with 15 days to slow the spread maybe after easter no we will finish off the school year via zoom no goodbyes to friends and teachers start of the

08420 20 21 school year via zoom with the hopes of going into hybrid and eventually in person five days a week with a mask it went against everything that i believe health-wise but my children really wanted to go back to school and see their friends my husband and i agreed since mask would be temporary right i would never expect nor would i want another child or adult to have their breathing obstructed for the sake of my children's protection or safety that is what our immune systems are for how can we look back at the last 16 months and not want to make changes for our children we are human and we need fresh air we need to see other people's expressions we need to see smiles we as parents have a personal responsibility to keep

085our children home if they are sick we as parents also have a choice as to what medical interventions and devices we choose for our children mass or no mass vaccines or no vaccines this is not a one-size-fits-all decision it is a choice to be made within each family since most if not all teachers and staff are now fully vaccinated i feel it would be appropriate to have mass be optional for the 2021-2022 school year our children deserve to have some normalcy again thank you for your time thank you our next three speakers are ivan phipps corey duncan and linda sabo you can go ahead my name is ivan phipps i'm here because i love my son he's starting kindergarten starting kindergarten this year and i'm worried about his social and emotional health he needs to

086be able to look at other children and see them smile look at their face and read their emotion this isn't going to work with masks right up there your mission statement says a great place for students to learn teachers to teach employees to work this sucks these don't work you guys all know i've watched many of you guys here today grab your mask pull it down open your drink take a drink out of that thing you just used to pull down your mask that's supposed to be blocking all this the world's deadliest uh pandemic this is ridiculous you guys can't even do it how do you expect a five-year-old to do it these five-year-olds are going into school and then leaving school and playing in the play yard with all of these kids they're doing

087this they don't wear these masks this isn't doing anything for anybody masks should be optional if you believe they work then fine they work wear it if you believe they don't work don't wear it it's it's it should be a choice this is ridiculous don't subject our children to this let them learn i came into this as an educator i was working at a trade school teaching children when we went into this pandemic i literally left because you cannot properly teach i could barely tell which one of you guys were speaking today because you can't see your faces you can't see your expressions this is ridiculous this is not going to work unmask our kids thank you hello uh my name is corey duncan i am a concerned parent and taxpayer in the u-46 school

088district i would like to begin by addressing the fact that you as elected officials did not accommodate the taxpayers that requested we all be in the same room during this board meeting uh we see this for what it is a feeble attempt to divide us or make it appear that way and an intimidation tact took for those that have the courage to speak all the other districts here of late have accommodated all parents in one room so thank you for considering my remarks tonight uh first off i would like to ask you what is the data you need to return to normal we got some again very vague answers which we usually get most adults are not wearing masks anymore vaccines have been readily available to all that wanted for months the only ones still

089social distancing are children in schools we are out and about masculists in all other areas of our lives there is no logical reason to only mask at the schools children are not an at-risk population and have the lowest risk of complications let's talk about our children's health for a moment a group of parents sent six newer and recently washed masks to the university of florida mass spectrometry research and education center for analysis last year five of the mass were worn by children five of the six contained a host of bacteria 11 dangerous pathogens were found on the mass to include those that cause pneumonia tuberculosis meningitis and sepsis food poisoning from e coli diphtheria lyme disease and urinary tract infections so these children are sitting in these mass for an average of 6.7 hours a

090day with all that on them these were new masks washed there's more let's look at now at mental health trends in children suicide is the second leasing leading cause of deaths for ten to four twenty four-year-olds not covin kova's not number one it's it's not kobet is not number one either um this number has increased almost 60 percent from 2007 to 2018. if you could continue please yeah yeah um suicides also spike during mitigations if your decision is to make mass optional for only those of vaccination eligibility age you are segregating all children k-6 based on their personal medical history that's what this will be segregation this offers new opportunities for bullying and isolation you are separating the vaccinated from the unvaccinated this is medical discrimination what will this do to their to their mental

091health ending the mass mandate does not prohibit anyone from wearing a mask that chooses to we ask that you consider all of us even the families that do not want an experimental vaccine do not want to be discriminated against because of it we pay our taxes too we also elected you to represent all of us you need to do a better job of this i'll close please as of the second as the second largest district be a leader here be logical for a district that encompasses so many different nationalities and communities please continue to promote inclusion and not segregation you'll have never been about that before thank you for your time thank you [Applause] my name is linda sabo i'm from west chicago is this on that's good the cdc website said that in the

092year 2021 total deaths for zero to 17 year olds for coving was 377. compared with the flu deaths the year earlier for the same age group of 497 yet masks were not used for mitigation for the flu uh but suicides and overdose skyrocketed during covet uh the jama study outlined the health risk for wearing masks and the person right before me gave the gave also more information on that effective treatments were removed from public site and replaced with a vaccine push that is not fda approved and has shown serious side effects including heart inflammation and death in young people plus vaccines don't prevent you from getting it again so this talk about screening but don't screen the vaccine kids but screen the unboxing kids makes no sense we teach our kids to be critical thinkers

093and yet what's happening here does not make any sense at all dozens of districts in illinois have now gone mask optional and it's widely accepted that kids that have almost a zero risk of dying from cold bed and more chance of dying in an accident driving to school and we take those risks every day uh the other thing is i've been to a number of school boards in the last week or so and every school board has accommodated appearance for a larger room and we asked and you refused it doesn't sit well and it feels like suppression and it has nothing to do with cobit because i went to all those other school board meetings and there's everybody there massed on mass whatever you wanted to do and they did not prevent people from getting

094together and uh i went to a sean casten thing this weekend and our seats were next to each other without no distancing at all and there is people not that messed and yet you come here and it's like oppression just because you got to wear the mask don't bring a sign in all this other goofy stuff if you could finish up your time is up well this feels like intimidation because coming before a board when you have to come when you're one of the very few in the room with all of you feels like asking for courage for the wizard of oz but you know maybe it's you guys that need the courage to let the people come in and talk to you because they wanted to and they were here and there's a lot

095of things to talk about new 46 including sb 818 if that comes into play how that's going to work or the latinx program that you guys approved last month you know what did you ask the latino people because they're up there along with 88 thank you if you can conclude please there's a lot of people that overflow room there's a lot more people that think like this we need to end this stuff thank you our next few speakers are ian nelson jeanette wood and cheyenne wood my name is ann nelson i am going to be in second grade at spring trail elementary i am here to talk to you about why kids should not have to wear masks in the schools the masks make it a little hard to breathe also you are breathing you

096a little bit of drums in they are really annoying because sometimes they pinch your nose they are uncomfortable go to real old day i can't see anyone's smiles it makes me nervous and sad we live in america and it is all way to choose for ourselves i ask you i ask that you let kids make the choice if they want to wear masks so that we can stay sweefy approaches let's see smiles again thank you thank you good evening like many others my comments tonight center around mass policy i have two daughters and you 46 and as many of you know i served as a board member from 2015 to 2019. first of all thank you for making masks optional for those in secondary education but what about the smallest kids as i said on

097april 26 masks are entirely ineffective according to numerous studies basic common sense and now even mr fauci's emails masks don't prevent the spread of viruses and are equivalent to stopping a mosquito with a chain-link fence no matter what propaganda the american academy of pediatrics spews the only reason masks are worn in operating rooms and some surgeons don't even wear them is to prevent the spread of large particles into open body cavities and the majority of surgeons don't wear masks eight hours a day every day like we demanded of our children last year i'd like to remind everyone in the room that children are 300 times more likely to die on the way to school in a car or bus than from covid this scary disease has a greater than 99.5 percent survival rate and effective

098treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for charlotte's age group that's my daughter the survival rate is greater than 99.99 and now over 50 school districts in illinois have made masks optional including district 211 in the schomburg palatine area district 220 in barrington district 308 in oswego and district 200 in wheaton and you 46 for secondary i'm employing imploring you to make it optional for elementary school kids my child my choice my body my choice thank you [Applause] cheyenne wishes to thank the administration and the school board for making masks optional for her age group secondary ed thank you all right next week is our uh olivia bucaro i'm sorry i can't pronounce his name well agnes and carrie oldenburg this is not a matter of politics or privilege if masks were truly safe and effective there

099would be no debate there are not safe and they're not effective in fact there's now a magnitude of international peer-reviewed studies and irrefutable statistical data that clearly illustrates otherwise in children 6 to 17 studies confirm alarmingly elevated co2 levels headaches sadness fatigue difficulty concentrating rashes syncope nausea fainting heightened anxiety and stunted neurocognitive development some people may say it's just a mask it's not a big deal but this is a big deal now i have sympathy for those parents that may be here tonight that still live in fear and believe that forcing other children to wear masks will somehow protect their at-risk or immunocompromised child if masks were effective this argument may be relevant but again the data illustrates otherwise masks do not work furthermore this virus has an infection fatality rate of 0.04 percent are

100you sincerely justifying the physical and psychological damage for a fatality risk of 0.04 for those that will argue the common good should come before the individual good remember whose words those were adolf hitler said that we are not here today to ask permission to let our children thrive we are here today to remind you that the sovereignty of our children does not lie in your hands does not lie in the state's hands or even by the decree of the cdc we've all struggled to navigate the new normal i'm done with the new normal i'm done listening to the talking heads dictate what's safe and what's effective while they silence and censor doctors and genuine scientific studies i'm done abiding by the nonsensical recommendations and arbitrary mandates that ignore our constitutional dignities the choices we make

101whether it be regarding masks or vaccines and their supposed safety and efficacy lies solely in the individual we know our rights we know our children's rights and i pray you don't continue to try to impede us thank thank you thank you [Applause] good evening my name is agnes bajarek i'm a mother of three in u46 uh thank you for letting me to address the board with my concerns as a mask there is currently as far as i know there's currently no state law in illinois that requires any individual including students to wear face covering in order to prevent any illness the united states board of education school superintendents school boards are not medical professionals or licensed in state of illinois to perform my medical diagnosis on medical decisions for kids the illness department of public

102health does not have lawful or legal authority to mandate face covering same with the cdc those agencies do not possess rule making authority kids have 99.99 recovery rate from covet that percentage is slightly lower for adults who now have a chance to get vaccinated if they are afraid of covet parents that are concerned about carbon infection can decide for the kids to wearing a mask without requiring everyone else to to wear one making a musk wearing a general rule for everyone without evaluating them first is not right there are no no long uh safety data on such practices like mask wearing done on kids for who wear them the mask for six eight hours a day so i'm against the mask at school even if uh my child my child who is immunocompromised can get

103covered but it should be my decision if you could thank you please thank you very much thank you [Applause] thank you for the opportunity to speak with you regarding this and i wish i could say under better circumstances you see as an asthmatic i have been very anxious to come here and see how i will be treated for opting out of having an asthma attack to enter this building my name is carrie and i have three children who will likely be beginning their third year in the u-46 district that is if you come to the resolution to not medically torture my children and others with forced masking please allow me to explain where i am coming from on this issue i would like to share with you what i have experienced this past year when

104having an asthma attack from forest mask wearing something i wholeheartedly believe that there are many students in the district who experience some or all of the same symptoms it is pretty quickly within a minute that i get this hazy dizziness once it's on if seated and wearing a mask within 10 minutes i start to get an asthma attack it feels like i'm breathing fire and my chest is really tight i have a pulse oximeter a pulse oximeter and my oxygen level will go under 95 maybe maybe to 93. my heart rate goes up and into the 150s the really scary part is that once i have reached this point even after i remove the mask my heart rate will keep spiking into the 150s for one or two hours i am uncertain how much of

105this is apparent to those around me if i am not speaking about it would a teacher in a classroom be able to identify any of these symptoms in a masked student i would also like to add that last year in may and june when taking my children to medical offices i used the pulse oximeter to take their readings before during and immediately after their appointments well seated and they're they're all for all three of them there they had lower blood oxygen and higher heart rates during and after removing the masks my children attended virtually last year as the science was already apparent to me that masks are harmful and can increase the spread of covid i did ask various neighborhood kids that would play with my children who had returned about what they experienced in

106the classroom if you could conclude please yes um and they said that many students would share with their peers that they felt like they could not breathe into masks but were not comfortable letting the teachers know they were scared that they would get in trouble for informing the teachers of this i ask that you please consider what i'm going through and others other students might be going through the same thing as me and make them optional please thank you our next three speakers are andrew puccaro lincoln murunde and brock friedman andrew you can go ahead hello um i brought with a box of mask i bought from walgreens on the way here warning the mask is not a respirator and is intended for general purpose practices when properly worn it reduces potential contact by the

107wear to fluids but does not eliminate the risk of contracting any virus disease or infection change mask immediately if contaminated with blood or bodily fluids this is a disposable single use item i think that would pretty much sum up what the masks are worth as far as the vaccines you guys are trying to push push these experimental vaccines on people and it's really crazy i don't hear anyone talking about the veers website which either the news the government anybody it's the vaccine adverse event reporting system there are 11 to 12 systems around the country that report to this site a harvard study estimates only one to ten percent of debts and adverse reactions make it to this site over 20 years for all vaccines produced there was roughly 000 deaths posted to this site keep

108in mind one to ten percent in six months of covet vaccines there are currently 11 000 deaths on the website this is the deadliest vaccine ever made normally a drug fda approved is pulled any honest doctor or scientist will tell you at 25 deaths the swine flu was pulled at under 100 deaths what is going on something insidious is happening in our country and around the world the government the cdc the mainstream media are all corrupt and lying about almost everything no kid should get this vaccine no one should get this vaccine this is an evil experiment and it's time it should end because it's killing a lot of people thank you thank you lincoln hi i'm lincoln the father of a new student at u46 i'm a data analyst and engineer firstly i want

109to thank everyone on the board for your diligent effort during this turbulent time basically i'm here to advocate for masks i have a student going in that can't get vaccinated basically oxygen co2 levels are not affected by wearing a mask countless studies have proven this i don't know what data these people are citing but none of it is true all these numbers are are nonsense to me um you know talk about ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine seven percent adverse reaction to the billions of vaccine doses given worldwide four million people have died from covid around the world and counting my child cannot get vaccinated she's not protected unless she and other people are wearing a mask please please stand fast and please do the right thing for the kids

110because they can breathe they can breathe my five-year-old can breathe fine she meets new friends she's happy she's healthy everything's good you know you you don't need to see a smile to see somebody happy you smile with your eyes so i don't know i'm i'm at a loss here 20 to one i'm outnumbered but i'm still gonna say what i gotta say i this it's it's a scary time it's a a weird time but i don't know why this is politicized it's a global health epidemic and we just need to to get through it and we're not getting through it because a lot of people just don't want to do what they're supposed to do um thank you for your time thank you please respect everyone's point and then you'll see it doesn't come from

111okay yeah the problem excuse me excuse me uh next speaker is going to speak brock is it okay to speak yep go ahead all right my name is brock friedman is a son can you hear me yes my name is brac freeman i want to say a few words about why you should allow children and their parents to choose whether to mask or not i have some expertise in wearing masks because that was my specialty in the army i was trained in it as a nuclear biological and chemical operations specialist i know masks my job was as a science recon leader to go into hot zones and including terrorist zones where the worst things that had ever been created by man by man to kill other men uh had been released that was my training

112i know about masks and and i'm also ha i'm also hazmat certified they've been brought the book with the certification if any of you want to see it unless unless you're going to put actual m95 masks on everybody there's no point in making children wear these worthless badly fitting pieces of paper and cloth they are by and large meaningless against viruses if you can smell anything while wearing one worthless if you're fogging up your glasses worthless if you have to constantly touch them as most of you on up here have been doing and i've been counting all night long if you have to touch them they're worthless if you have to take them off the drink they're worthless i hope you're listening because i've been watching and all of you have broken the most basic

113protocols of wearing a mask all of you in my background expertise have failed in my line of work all of you would be dead that's how it works so you've all failed and now you're gonna expect these children to live up to some higher standard that you right here cannot even uphold the lack of social distancing that's going to happen even and for the younger kids makes all this stuff irrelevant anyway they're all going to be next to each other you know children you know how they are you can't unless you want to try to engineer that out of them conversely making skilled children wear them may be physically and mentally harmful a recent peer-reviewed study in europe found many children's masks contained deadly air pockets that trap co2 in quantities that greatly exceed minimum

114safe thresholds for environmental exposure if you could the book says it's poison uh that means that um your children have and they're touching it they're at a greater risk every time they touch for picking things up you're wearing something that's literally picking up the virus you're scared of and they're touching it you know what children do with their hands many children are claustrophobic they have a strong gag reflex making children wear a mask for eight hours is literally torture are you gonna are you gonna put up with the bullying that comes when the children actually pulls down their mask are you going to put a big m if you if you could conclude please your time is up i would ask you to consider strongly that giving children and their families the choice of whether

115they can wear a mask or not because if you can't handle it then you make a mockery of those children what you're putting through thank you thank you [Applause] okay we have four more speakers for this part of public comment the remaining speakers will move to the end of the meeting because they are discussing subjects that are not part of the board agenda so james sharkin joseph keelar and mary stegelson james you can go ahead when you're ready thank you uh i've been asked to uh read a letter from a u-46 teacher who has asked romanian anonymous schools provide academic instruction they are not health care providers i will not be working with a mask on and will not be subjected to any coveted response recommendations such as and not limited to masks contact tracing

116covet testing or quarantine i will not be denied my job and i will not be discriminated against the school district has been in violation of the law students and staff both have been scared into submission by those in charge the district instructed staff to lie to students all year the school district has demonstrated they care more about politics than the students and the staff in the school district has demonstrated and the union doesn't even support the staff who want medical freedom the students and the staff are being used as political pawns i will not be subjected to tyranny and will not let my students be subjected to tyranny any longer why is it we can go to a concert or professional ball game with thousands of strangers without a mask on but can't go to

117work or school without one on it doesn't make any sense the school district is in direct violation of the nuremberg codes which were enacted to protect people from unwanted medical experiments or procedures done to them god has given me dominion over my own body and the right to make decisions for the safety of myself no person or entity can tell a person what to do to their body we are protected against this in the first amendment of the united states constitution under religious freedom and again in the 14th amendment under the right of personal autonomy school district 46 u-46 has been participating in a worldwide medical and psychological experiment as the ones who make decisions for the district you've been implementers and co-conspirators of this wickedness do the right thing the lawful thing and make

118masks optional thank you thank you [Applause] joseph hello my name is joseph kyler i'm a resident uh in bartlett uh my my residence has u-46 is one of the the the roles that needs to be filled for taxes uh i am volunteering uh for to read uh for a uh u-46 educator and i'll read her statement or his statement hello i'm a teacher for school district u46 i'd like to share a statement in regards to math squaring for the upcoming school year i strongly believe school staff students and parents should have the choice to decide to vaccinate their children and if children should wear masks the government has overstepped their bounds a lot this past year the schools are part of the government we we have to learn from our mistakes instead of continuing to

119make them we know a lot more now than we did at the start of this the district sided with caution and students missed out on a valuable and personal learning for a lot of the year when other districts were in personal year children will be playing will be paying for this years to come mass inhibit adults and children's learning and there is no evidence that this is dangerous to not wear them children are at most are almost at no risk to coven 19. what are we trying to protect them from the question mark staff have access to vaccines and they can decide for what's best for them we all take risks every day let parents and families decide what's best for their children the pressure to get vaccines to is is abominable and i will

120and i'm disgusted with the government and schools bribing children to get them this is not on taking any important consideration including but not limited to personal health religious beliefs whether you're you've had a covet already and this is an emergency vaccine that significant injuries and deaths related to it so far please allow choices for the staff and students mass mandates are not appropriate and necessary there are many educators and people that feel the same way and are afraid to speak out i know there are more and more that are speaking out and i hope you will listen we no longer need to decide and caution we need to decide on what's right for our children on behalf of you 46 educator thank you thank you [Applause] hi there i'm mary steigelman a mom and a

121grandma of uh students and i don't have any big fancy speech to tell you all the different things that a lot of people have clearly stated as far as the this medical thing and that medical thing uh related to allowing our children to uh the parents to be able to say you know if they should be masked or not masked i just poor wanted to come and make an appeal knowing that you know all of you were in school at some point i'm sure you were educated and just thinking back you know what was it like to go to school and some of the things that you you know loved some of the things you didn't love and just kind of coupling that with okay what i've really enjoyed wearing a mask or not how

122would it help me you know being able to see a face being able to play with the kids um you know be at the playground that type of thing and then you you know you see so many things on the news and you read and this child you know passed out because they had a mask on you know just different situations so i just more wanted to appeal to each of you to just really look at the information and look at the science not just the feelings because obviously there's people that are on one side of the fence and people on the other side of the fence but just to really look and take the the information for what it is versus just the um well you know we believe this we're gonna you know

123stick by no really look at what it is and and think through uh where you're at with with everything and i appreciate that uh you're trying hard i really do i see that each of you are trying to make the right decision but i just again appeal to you to look at the science look at what's going on and just think back to you know when you were in school and what you would have liked or not liked to make it better and you know if mass made it better great if that was to help but i truly don't believe they did and i don't uh really believe the science really shows that it points that direction thank you for your time thank you and our last person for this part of public comment is

124sofia obrari hello how are you um i am sophia and i have three young children in u46 school district um i would really ask you guys to reconsider the masks being optional the reason being is because there are neighboring districts and neighboring cities for that matter that are opting to have optional masks for our children my son he came home last year several times with blood on his shirt and on his masks because of the fact that he had nosebleeds and i can guarantee you that they're probably from math wearing and as far as i have one question big question because i just learned this today are the tests being that the tests that are given to the children at school are they going to have consent forms brought home to the children typically you

125don't answer questions but yes we we are asking families you have to we have to have family's permission or do the testing yes okay and how do we know that if our child if we opt not to have our children being tested how do we know that our children are not going to be pulled by mistake by one of the other people who will be doing these tests how will we know and be guaranteed that our children will not be getting tested because this is just for in my opinion this is just our children our little guinea pigs in all these tests that are being done the pcr the shield company that you guys are going to be using for spit tests they use once the once the saliva gets to the testing center they

126use a pcr test the pcr test has been the studies have shown that like 80 are false positives so how do we know that these tests will be positive positive do can anybody guarantee us that our children will be positive positive or negative negative we can we can't ask questions but if you'd like to know more i would say on your comment card to ask for information from the uh from the district do all that one more question then i'll be done do all parents in u46 know that their children will be getting tested daily again we're not testing every kid daily it depends you have to have we have to have family permission parent permission in order to do the testing and it's only for unvaccinated students but vaccinated students can still carry and

127transmit the virus so why wouldn't they be getting tested either again i would recommend you guys contact the idph look at their website and see all the but this is u46 and our children are in u46 and that's why we're asking the board who are in charge of our children because apparently parents don't have a choice anymore okay i would suggest you talk to idph look at some of their guidance and we'll see if we get additional guidance from them thank you thank you all right i know we have seven additional speakers but they are are speaking on topics that are not covered in the board agenda so we will move them to the end of the board the public comment at the end of the board meeting okay next on next on the agenda

128uh additional information from the board or right now that's been uh no one says what okay um for your request mr senators there are ten freedom freedom of information act requests that we've responded to since the last board meeting they've been uh they're available on the board docs and the responses to these will all be posted on the district website in the coming week i'm available to answer any four questions are there any questions about the foia documents okay consent agenda mr sanders on the consent agenda we have personnel reporting workers compensation cases minutes of the board meeting june 21st termination of claudia arduna food service technician the list of authorized depositories a resolution requesting approval of hazardous transportation area designations a resolution for the display in public hearing on school district 246 budget for

129the 2021 2022 school year a contract for the deputy superintendent of operations for projection staffing and mapping software a contract renewal from human for human resources with jelly vision but from plant operations for contract cleaning services approval of a mediation settlement agreement resignation agreement and general release in the matter of miss karen lopez and school district u-46 and two building permits including parkwood elementary school's universe replacement project number 1330 and bartlett high school water cooled chiller replacement project number 208 are there any items board members would like removed from the consent agenda okay could i have a motion to approve the consent agenda so this is veronica oh yeah give veronica the first i'll take and think a second okay any comments questions roll call please mr deveraux yes ms martin yes ms nolan yes

130ms owens yes ms porter yes ms thomas yes and president kerr yes motion passes discussion action mr sanders our first edinburgh uh discussion action or itemized bills mr bernard is here if the board has questions administration recommends the board of education approve the list of bills in the amount of twenty four million three hundred and fifty eight thousand three hundred and eighty three dollars and thirty two cents could i have a motion to approve the list of bills in the amount of twenty four million three hundred fifty eight thousand three hundred eighty three dollars and thirty two cents some of this is monica veronica second this is kate any questions for mr bernice hey roll call please mr deborah yes ms martin yes ms nolan yes ms owen yes ms porter yes ms thomas yes

131president kerr yes motion passes all right next is the freshman seminar curriculum proposal this was a work session item at the last board meeting and returns tonight under discussion action for approval administration recommends the board of education approve the freshman seminar curriculum proposal did i have a motion to approve the freshman seminar curriculum proposal so moved second this is veronica any questions discussion yes go ahead don so i mean i listened to the proposal i've read the presentation several times i've um asked for questions i guess looking for clarification trying to differentiate what this class would be in comparison to both um the avid program which i can understand the differences and then kind of like we have the um i guess an updated counseling framework proposal that we're also looking at and i'm struggling

132with what the students are going to get out of this class that different differentiates itself from probably more of the counseling proposal and the work that our counselors do with the students to kind of get them ready for what classes they should take and how they move forward um i know moving forward we're looking at the pathways program where we're having students kind of pick at least an area of interest so that they can have a more detailed curriculum similar to what we do with our magnet schools and i'm i'm struggling with giving up a semester of high school which it's so limited what the kids have class wise and time wise to take things like band and foreign language and the arts and have a class that is solely structured to deciding or helping

133a student decide what classes to take over the next three and a half years and i just and i guess i don't have a question but i guess for me it's it's i'm struggling with the concept of giving up such we have such limited space in a high school schedule especially since we still encourage freshmen to take a year of study hall if doing a class where the whole idea is what are your interests versus just letting the student take a class of their interest whether it's psychology or you know a 2d or 3d arts class or their first you know year of choir and then just working with their counselors with the updated framework proposal that we have to then fine-tune where they want to be so that later on you know they're more

134specific and their goals so i know there's not a question there i just wanted to put my concerns out that while i can see the benefits and helping the students it's we have so many mandates for high school and i know there's more coming from the state that are going to take up the limited amount of time that high schoolers have i just uh my son is just finishing up he's starting his senior year in the magnet academy at bartlett and having done that path with him and knowing how rigid the pathways courses can be and how much it limits the students it's a struggle for me as a parent to think that you know using a class section to do something that i know that we can do through counseling and especially because we're

135starting in seventh and eighth grade now with helping students through naviance and the things that they do um you know the uh and i'm just gonna oh the i just forgot explore thank you we do the explorer class for the eighth graders so i just i just want to put out there that i i'm i'm struggling with the concept of how how this better is what we already have while not taking up time that the high school students don't really have to give up maybe mr master ms roberts could address that it's going to say miss roberts or and even michelle chapman regarding some of the counseling frameworks but um mr roberts you want to sure um so the well one difference is when you look at the um magnet program at bartlett that's a

136very tight-fitted program it takes up a lot of time in their day and so that's something that's known when you look at the way that the pathways are going to be developed as they come up that's not going to be as time consuming as students day as the magnet programs are so that's that's one difference the freshman seminar course is designed to follow what um what is in the pwr act from the state and the pace framework so the frame the counseling framework is a guideline for the counselors to follow in each of the schools it's not necessarily a curriculum and i'm sure that um mrs chapman will correct me if i'm wrong but it's not it's not a curriculum that the counselors follow so each each school is going to have to find the

137spaces where those things fit in and as curriculums are written moving forward they'll have to look at how to fit some of that into the curriculum as it's being written so freshman seminar is an example of how we did that we took some of those recommendations that are in that counseling framework and put it into that course students are starting to do some of that exploration in the middle school about careers um but it's it's an introduction and so this goes deeper into that it's to looking at what careers are and then when they are choosing their courses for their sophomore year they can look to see if there is an interest in a certain area and start selecting some of those pathway courses so it's not separate from anything um that they're doing in

138the counseling framework it's not separate from anything they're doing with their counselors i don't know about you with your student in high school but i also have two students who have already completed high school and one entering high school and they um they do meet with their counselors but there's a lot of time where they could use some of that extra guidance and i i really think that if they had had that experience with freshman seminar they could have made some of those decisions a lot earlier um about what their what their interests are to help guide them a little bit more thank you uh miss roberts i'm just going to follow up and and agree the counseling framework um all the high schools are going to ensure that those components um happen in different

139classrooms with their students all the counselors are going to make certain um but as doreen said so students are going to see their counselor you know anywhere from you know three to eight times a school year uh depending on the program whereas freshman seminar allows those students to have different supports for the entire semester and have them make some decisions and then have a good conversation that then they can take that conversation and then talk with their counselor when they're picking their courses um so it's just another way for students to make really good decisions thank you other questions comments eva when i read through it i saw it as a positive for students coming in to give them a road map and an opportunity to have more guidance as to know what type of

140courses and what they want it to do so uh i will think about what you said don and go back and re-examine that because i don't have kids in school right now to know that this might be something that takes up more time but i thought it was a positive and i was excited about it i thought it would just be good for students to be able to uh have some guidance i know they go to a guidance counselor but many students don't go to the guidance counselor three or eight times a year you know they're overlooked or for whatever reason they don't make that appointment and i thought something like this would be great for them for all students anyone else okay roll call please mr deborah yes ms martin no ms nolan yes

141ms owens yes miss porter yes miss thomas yes president curt yes motion passes our next proposal is the dream academy school connect resource proposal this was presented again at the work session at the last meeting and returns tonight for final adoption administration recommends the board of education approve the dream academy school connect resource proposal could i have a motion to approve the dream academy school connect resource proposal so move to mrs martin second this is veronica any questions or discussion call please mr deveraux yes ms martin yes ms nolan yes ms owen yes ms porter yes ms thomas yes president kerr yes motion our passes is the excuse me our next is the counseling framework proposal um this again was at the workstation last time in return tonight for final approval administration recommends the board

142approve the counseling framework proposal could i have a motion to approve the counseling framework proposal so move this is veronica second eva porter are there any questions or comments okay roll call please mr deborah yes ms martin yes ms nolan yes ms owens yes miss porter yes ms thomas yes president kerr yes motion passes our next is a contract for district wide a district-wide amendment to the service agreements with right at school and the boys and girls club of elgin uh mr phelps is here with us this evening hi mr phelps good to see you in person here how are you doing wonderful um mr lindholm chief of staff and uh miss mostrowicz is unable to be here with us tonight but i'm sure mr lindholm and mr phelps will have all the answers administration

143recommends approval of the contract with right at school in the amount not to exceed 1 million 108 800 and the boys and girls club of belgium in the amount not to exceed one million nine hundred and fifteen thousand three hundred and five dollars for a total of three million twenty four thousand one hundred and five dollars and requests authorization for administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged the educational fund and will be reimbursed by funds from the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund and the american recovery act and this cost will be included in the budget for the fiscal year could i have a motion to approve the contracts for right at school in the boys and girls clubs of elgin solo eva porter seconded this is dawn any questions or

144comments okay yeah i just have one quick question i missed the meeting on the 21st because i was out of town did something change with right at school it's still available at every elementary school correct this is just some that we're paying for it's available at some elementary schools if there's enough of a demand at the school this is for the schools that are the five schools for rigor and equity they're moving forward where we're going to provide um additional before and after school support for the students at those schools okay so the schools were right at school is not available that aren't part of this rigor and equity if it's not available there wasn't enough interest is that those those still run yeah those can still run as well oh it is still okay

145this is us paying on behalf of families for those schools that are in the schools for rigor and equity so that it gives additional learning time and times for time for teachers to collaborate before and after school okay all right thank you and in some areas boys and girls club is is better suited to handle than in other areas right at school is better suited to handle so in bartlett i believe is more right at school correct mr phelps yeah three of the schools are in the lower income areas which the boys and girls club is handling their more specialty is that type of area correct mr sanders if i could add all 40 of the elementary schools will either have reddit school or boys girls club running assuming that there's sufficient demand to run

146the program thank you thank you mr lindhelm what what is the the the number we want to see to run them do we have a is it 50 kids 100 kids no i think uh ms curry i think they go quite a bit lower than that i think it's more like as long as they have at least like 20 or 25 kids thank you any other questions okay roll call please mr deveraux yes ms martin yes mrs nolan yes ms owen yes ms porter yes it's thomas yes president kerr yes motion passes our next is a proposal from plant operations for streamwood high school emergency vendor award revision to painting phase project number four m0064 mr phelps is here miss downes is on zoom with us uh now at this point this evening administration recommends

147the approval of the proposal from certapro painters of the north shore inc in the amount of 159 449 and request authorization for administration to execute related documents this will be charged the operation maintenance fund and is included in the budget could i have a motion to approve the proposal from certapro painters of the north shore inc so move second this is veronica any questions i have one question we're doing this because our original person we signed the contract to couldn't meet the contractors that is correct does that pro that does that company now get can we blacklist them or just say you know you know i don't mean it that way but could we do would we have questions even if they came in as a little bit in future products yes we could okay

148you can't do that okay thank you and will i see sheila shaking your head yes any other questions you will call please mr deborah yes ms martin yes ms nolan yes ms owen yes mrs porter yes ms thomas yes president kerr yes motion passes our next discussion action item are minutes of the board committee meetings we have two before the board of education the may 17 2021 board of education finance committee committee minutes and the june 21st 2021 board of education finance committee minutes administration recommends the board of education accept the minutes can i have a motion to accept the minutes of the board of finance committee for may 17 2021 and june 21st 2021 so moved this was dawn and the second was miss porter yes thank you any questions we'll call please mr

149deveraux yes ms martin yes ms nolan yes ms owens yes ms porter yes miss thomas yes and president kerr yes motion passes our next is the rsm uslp arrangement letter this is in regards to our annual audit procedures mr burns is available to answer any board of education questions administration recommends the board of education allow the board president to sign the rsm us llp arrangement letter could i have a motion to allow me to sign the rsm sorry our rsm uslp arrangement letter solo viva porter second this is kate any questions mr burnish would you we'll do a single audit again is that going to be in our federal funds or have we not decided yet yes that will be uh it's always on federal funds but they do have to look at which funds

150we spent the most money and they kind of rotate uh through the funds they have to have a certain amount of coverage that that's the federal funds so they can rotate through the different programs okay okay thank you any other questions roll call please mr devereaux yes is martin yes ms nolan yes ms owen yes ms porter yes ms thomas yes and president kerr yes motion passes okay moving on to other business cac update under president i do not see anybody from cac in attendance at least not as an attendee from executive committee okay thank you i know they're probably on vacation this this summer all right work session items contracts over actually very sorry for the business investment report dale will be really disappointed if he can't do his investment report so do the

151investment report for the fourth quarter i will do that i'll keep it brief uh just a quick summary our total portfolio of invested funds at the end of june was 392 million twenty two thousand five hundred and thirty five dollars uh our current yield on the portfolio is zero point five percent and the accrued interest for the fourth quarter is eighty two thousand six hundred and eighteen dollars and if there's any questions i can answer them at this time are there any questions for mr burnick thank you thanks dale now now work session our first or contract's over 25 thousand dollars mr phelps is here again for the remainder uh the first is a contract renewal for the assessment office and the english language learners department for las linx assessment for dual language students in

152addition to mr phelps we have miss laura hill joining us tonight via zoom hello laura hill she's our director of assessment and accountability the administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with data recognition corporation in the amount of thousand four hundred and thirty dollars and request authorization for district administration to execute related documents this will be charged the title three fund and the educational fund and is included in the budget are there any questions about this proposal okay thank you our next is a contract renewal from the assessment office for the ap exam for 9th through 12th grade eligible students again mrs hill and mr phelps are here to answer any questions administration recommends approval of the contract with college board in the amount of two hundred and thirty two thousand thirty two dollars and

153request authorization for administration to execute related documents administration recommends that the board of education approve one free ap exam for each student who selects to sit for an exam this expenditure will be charged the educational fund and is included in the budget are there any questions about this go ahead miss martin so i'm noticing that so two things so one our cost is down from the previous year are we uh is it a number of students in the buildings are we seeing declining like enrollment in the ap testing that the cost would be down or is that the rationale is it are we seeing fewer students take ap is that the reason it's going down it would be a little bit um just because again with with dual credit as as well um again we

154we generally are still at a you know at a high threshold of delivery of these ap exams to students that want them and again our counselors and our teachers go out and you know really sell the the idea that students really should be sitting for these assessments so again i i believe we're not concerned about that because again we are offering dual credit as well as ap um exams for students so we have multiple opportunities for them and then my second question was i know that having having a kid in high school so i know that basically it's one ap exam for every student who signs up is there also any sort of program in place for low-income students when it comes to paying for ap tests i'm just not sure on that there is

155some of our um some of our high schools have put that program in place for um for their particular students that is up to each high school the district puts forward one free ap exam for every student that is the district initiative okay any other question all right next item our next is a contract renewal from the assessment office for the american council of teachers of foreign languages the aappl test for this one we have dr carpenter mrs hill and jacob van de mortel our coordinator k-12 social studies and world languages administration recommends approval of the proposal from lti uh the actual language testing office not to exceed 36 thousand dollars and request authorization for administration to execute related documents this will be charged the educational fund and is in the budget are there any

156questions okay next item our next is the contract renewal for this from the assessment office for the cognitive abilities test the cogat joining mr phelps and dr carpenter miss hill is also miss as well as gifted coordinator administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with riverside insights in the amount of thirty six thousand forty dollars and request authorization for district administration to execute related documents this will be charged the educational fund and is included in the budget are there any questions our next is a contract renewal from the assessment office for co for college board national merit scholarship qualifying test the psat for 10th and 11th grade administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with college board in the amount of eighty thousand fifteen dollars and request authorization for administration execute related documents this charge

157we will be charging the educational fund and is included in the budget are there any questions go ahead don't so i know in um and it wasn't last year it may have been two or three years ago at this point um the coveteer has been thrown off but i know that we used to offer the pse psat test the eight nine version to both our eighth graders and ninth graders are we no longer doing that or is that a different contract um no for this upcoming year we decided not to go forward with the eighth and the ninth grade do you um again give our system a little bit of um a chance to to come back from having this you know this covidier and to actually see the actual use of the data right

158so again when i look at eighth grade students i can say our eighth grade students have a map assessment and they were also having a psat assessment right so which which assessment is giving us the greatest value and then how does that get inter uh woven with our local assessment so we're really taking a year to to evaluate um how these norm assessments are actually providing additional data for the district and the idea is is the psat 8 and 9 actually does not qualify it's not the national merit scholarship exam that's the exam that's for 10th and 11th graders so we are you know making sure that our 10th and 11th graders do have that opportunity okay thank you any other questions okay let's start our next is the contract renewal for assessment from the

159assessment office for northwest evaluation association nwea for the map map test administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with northwest evaluation association nwea in the amount of 241 thousand five hundred dollars and request authorization for administration to execute related documents this will be charged the educational fund and will be in the budget for the 2021-2022 school year are there any questions on this proposal okay next item our next is a contract renewal for career and technical education for our k-12 science and planetarium project lead the way mr phelps is with us as well as mr breesmeister director of educational pathways and ms mcmullen coordinator of k-12 science and planetarium administration recommends approval of the contract with project lead the way and the amount not to exceed thirty four thousand six hundred dollars and request authorization

160for administration to execute the documents this will be charged the educational fund and is in the budget are there any questions okay next item next is a contract renewal for curriculum instruction with one hope united mr phelps mr dr carpenter and mrs cox director of the learners initiatives is with us for this proposal administration recommends approval of the contract with one hope united in the amount of three hundred and fifty seven thousand five hundred dollars and request authorization for administration to execute the documents this will be charged to the pre the fy preschool for all grant and the cost is included in the budget are there any questions hey next item our next is a contractor note for human resources and business services for risk management policies mr phelps and miss berg are here to

161answer any board questions administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with cna for a property insurance policy and star insurance company for an excess workers compensation policy in the amount of five hundred and forty three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars for the property coverage and three hundred twenty five thousand ninety five dollars for the excess workers compensation coverage and request authorization for administration to execute related documents this expenditure will be charged to the tort fund and is included in the budget are there any questions okay next item our next is the contract renewal for office and schools athletic training uh i'm sorry a contract note from the office of schools for athletic training mr phelps is here and we also have uh ethan here's i believe also helping to represent on this one aren't

162you not for this one we're going to make you do it for tony oh well he wants to handle this one too so if there's questions you can ask ethan administration recommends approve the contract you know with atletico for five years in the amount of 1 million six hundred and fifty four thousand four hundred twenty two dollars and request authorization for administration to execute related documents this will be charged the educational fund and is included in the cost uh and the budgets for the 2021 to 2026 fiscal years are there any questions i have one question are there other companies that do this as well i know is this sort of an unusual thing that there are other companies out there that do this kind of work but we have found that since we've worked

163with them the the athletic training uh the athletic department is comfortable with them and the fact is that they they haven't increased their pricing the only reason that you're seeing a price increase at this time is because we're adding an additional uh layer of help with them with that rolling roving trainer right right you know i imagine they have a lot of work with the fight also due to the fact that you some of this is somewhat of a price increase based on the fact that they have to increase their uh coverage for health care coverage for their workers and their benefits also yeah okay thank you we also have a good capacity to handle a district our size they yes they have facilities all in the area right thank you any other questions okay

164our next is the contract renewal for specialized student services for behavioral consultant mr phelps will remain as well as dr satterwhite director of specialized student services administration recommends approval of the contractor remote renewal with richard van acker edd in the amount of fifty eight thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars and request authorization for administration to execute the documents this will be charged at the federal idea grant and is included in the budget are there any questions okay next statement our next is a contract renewal for specialized student services with geneva hearing services again dr satter white is here to answer any board questions administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with geneva hearing services in the amount of 197 thousand dollars and requests authorization for administration to execute the documents this also be charged the

165federal idea grant and is included in the budget are there any questions okay next item our next item also from specialized student services is for gourbold behavioral consulting administration recommends approval of the contract renewal with gourbold behavioral consulting inc in the amount of eighty five thousand dollars and request authorization for administration to execute the documents this will be charged the federal idea grant and is included in the budget are there any questions hey next time our next work session items are bids and proposals the first is a bid from business services for ethan's now at the dais but if you'd like to go back to the atletico i'm sure he'll be glad to answer our first is a bit from business services for larkin high school scoreboard replacement and timing system purchase administration recommends approval

166of the low bid meeting specification to correct digital displays inc that's for the basketball scoreboard and installation in the amount of thirty thousand two hundred and seventeen dollars and sievert electric service and sale company for the pool scoreboard and timing system in installation uh in the amount of twenty eight thousand seven hundred and thirteen dollars and fifty cents for a total of fifty eight thousand nine hundred and thirty dollars and fifty cents and requests authorization for administration to ex execute related documents this we charge you the educational fund and is in the budget are there any questions and since you're here i'll ask you a question first of all i'm glad to see larkin getting swimming back that's great thank you we're really excited about it we started the boys program up again two years

167ago and this year we are restarting the girls program as well that's great um the the technology for the swimming i when i'm in the pool here it always seems really humid do these things have a what's the life expectancy of a scoreboard or something like that well uh you're right the humidity can impact it and that's why it will not be stored the the model that we're getting the touch pads are on a it's a lip and they hook on the lip and they're removed and put in a cart and they'll be stored in our coaches office which is climate controlled oh okay the coach's office that is attached to the pool right right okay great thank you yeah any other questions on this good okay thank you thank you thank you ethan you're

168doing such a good job you sure you i'll i'll stay no that's all right no go go have a good evening uh our next uh bid is a proposal from business services for the distribution center truck replacement uh mr phelps is here along with mr farrell assistant buyer in the distribution center and manager to answer any board questions administration recommends approval of the proposal from morgan corporation in the amount of seventy eight thousand nine hundred and forty dollars for the box and liftgate and illinois auto central in the amount of hundred and thirty two 46932 for the refrigeration units for a total of one hundred and twenty five thousand eight hundred and seventy two dollars and request authorization for administration to execute related documents this will be charged the educational fund and is in the

169budget are there any questions has there been any improvement i know they've been having trouble getting vehicles out because of the chips i can't get has there been any improvement on that scene no no okay thank you i'm afraid not any other questions we're still waiting on the electric cars okay oh okay if you drive by the dealers down there anything between here and on chicago street they're they're almost empty in the car lots yes can can we still function okay i know we needed to replace things are the things that we're replacing still okay until we get the new stuff okay okay okay good and these are due to be purchased now correct i mean we were able to get the the chassis last year under the last fiscal year budget and then add

170the refrigeration trucks so these are now accessible or will will be more readily available now okay to the uh from manufacturing now that once we get approval from the board justin will make sure that these things are married up at the manufacturer and then we'll take delivery got it thank you thank you any other questions okay next day our next is a bit from educational pathways for automotive technology equipment uh joining mr phelps is mr breesmeister administration recommends awarded the low bid meeting specification to automotive equipment specialists in the amount of sixty two thousand nine hundred and eighteen and request authorization for administration to execute related documents this will be charged the perkins cte grant fund and is included in the budget are there any questions melissa so the reason why we're not going with

171the low bid is because the the lowest bidder did not um have a component in their bid right so they didn't offer the certification cost within their proposal that certification is is the certification for the students taking i'll let you actually go ahead mitchell if you want to go ahead and cover that sure thank you yeah correct um when we are engaging in the bid process one of the largest pieces is just how we can measure our student outcomes when they're we want our purchases to really drive their positive outcomes so um when we reviewed this bid we we saw that the curriculum resources were the most robust did the largest video library that offered resources that would support our instructors um hunter engineering will actually come to the site train our instructors and then

172our instructors will be able to offer our students certifications on this exact equipment as we work with our local advisory boards this is the same equipment that they have in their dealerships tire changing shops other things like that so what our students will leave our program with the certification that says they know how to run state-of-the-art industry equipment and they will be able to enter the job market at a higher pay grade with more experience or pursue a post-secondary education with more experience as well okay great thank you that i said you said that's really exciting um some of these kids can start from school with a um you know a degree or a usable skill certification thank you mr phelps um do we know how many students are going to be signing up in

173these classes i'll have to defer to mitchell on that correct our automotive programs have very uh strong participation so this equipment is going to be serving streamwood elgin um and south elgin in supporting their programs so uh very strong we fill up the pull up those entry level classes every year uh and then we continue working to build that third level course where they're earning the majority of their certifications yeah so they're definitely they're starting to get students and get excitement yes yeah great very exciting any other questions thank you that's good all right next is a bit from plant operations we're drinking fountain installation at 14 elementary schools sheila downs joins to answer any additional board questions on this particular matter administration recommends award of the low bid meeting specification to um habitual sewer

174water and plumbing inc in the amount of 1 million four hundred and twenty three thousand seven hundred and one dollars and requests authorization for administration to execute related documents this we charge the operation maintenance fund and is included in the budget i have any questions okay thank you our next work session items are change orders our first is a change order from plant operations for hay gifford elementary school mechanical systems replacement project number 831 ms downs is here to answer any board questions administration recommends the board of education approve the change order from mechanical inc in the amount of minus 185.58 any questions next step our next is a change order from plant operations for washington elementary school sidewalk and drainage improvements project number 1544. administration recommends the board of education approved the change order

175from landmark contractors inc in the amount of minus eight thousand two hundred and sixty seven dollars and fifty cents are there any questions okay so now we're at the second public comments section um could we have the i copied the names down because we have the list of speakers put back up on the screen again great thank you okay so our first speaker is ana santorio [Music] we also need the clock please talk to two minutes please hold on for a minute we're gonna get our cloth okay go ahead hello thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to express what i believe is best for the four children i have envisioned you for it i appreciate that as you know 55 of the students in the u466 district are hispanic many of the

176parents of these students do not speak english therefore i am going to speak in spanish so they can understand what we are talking about if you could finish up please thank you excuse me if i could ask you to send the district a copy of that so it could be translated for the board okay thank you and i was i was trying to get the translator down for us as well you can just send it to me if you can send it to me i'll make sure the whole board gets it absolutely great thank you our next speaker is eurydia valdive valdivia good evening my name is yuriya valivia i have four children in the school district you're 46 ages 16 12 8 and 7. through the years of having my children involved in the

177school district i have experienced many positive feedback especially through all these difficult times we have gone through during the pandemic i want to thank each one of you for all the work you had sustained for their safety and well-being including the staff in the schools for our communication that was provided with emails calls as well as the food that was tributed to the students i know this past year has been very difficult for all of us and please know that you are all in my thoughts and prayers i want to thank you for this opportunity to give me and all my colleagues a time and space of expressing our comments regarding everything that will be shared to the students in this school new year we should have one main focus this school year which is

178having our children feel welcome back excited to start school with no fear and focus on all principal education courses math science reading and writing going forward in addition i am here to state that i am opposed to the law esp818 regarding the mandated sexual education courses i suspect that the aegis plan in the sexual education quarters will bring very much completion to students that will put them in a very uncomfortable position with high-risk behaviors around their peers and teachers i think that we as parents decide what information should be provided or are appropriate to share with our children individually give them our own sexual education be open to listen to their questions and concerns i believe that this or any type of sexual education course should be provided to to only the parents primarily and

179involve them in everything that pertains to protecting the child's ideology and moral values i reviewed the details of this course and i consider the statistics there are provided for and are not appropriate to share to families who have certain beliefs principles and values i consider that we as parents have the right to raise and educate our children in a matter to which they understand their process of maturity and development thank you for your time thank you and our next speaker is via zoom herb porter mr porter you should be able to speak now can you uh yes i can hear you all right great great we can we can hear you too okay all right uh thank you superintendent sanders and the board for allowing me to speak tonight uh i wish to convey my

180deepest appreciation for the fine job you're doing in creating an inclusive learning environment for all of our u46 students the curriculums that you are putting forth uh reflect the finest best practices and are the results of a highly professional staff of administrators your focus on diversity and learning and equity and planning is a welcome development please know that unsubstantiated charges related to the teaching of critical race theory are unfounded and understood by most in the community to be false red flags by the radical right and do not represent the strong and silent majority of your constituents i also want to convey uh my appreciation for you following the science on mass and vaccinations i think that it's important that when the smoke has subsided and we look at the facts that we allow science to

181be a guide so thank you for being informative and being on top of that subject thank you for the fine job that you're doing thank you okay our next speaker is raquel arasa good evening my name is speaking in spanish is there a translator available no we have the district we i i believe that hillary also an okay okay if we could do that i believe our translator but i think that for the video the spanish is good for you to read it proceed yeah wait we can if you can give me this the version in english i'll make sure the board gets it come on you could get us the english version as well and we could we also have posting public comments we have written public comments posted on our on the voter

182jet on the blood docks and we can add yours in the english version so people can see it so thank you uh next week it is moises contreras hi good night to everybody here so i am glad to be here to speak in uh on behalf of my my friends my community so uh the reason i am here is because i am a father of four beautiful girls and they are ten six high and one year old so every time when i come home the most beautiful thing i i i have ever feel is when i see them waiting for me when i see them today to their eyes and watching that innocence in my beautiful kids it's beautiful the innocence that the little kids are having so i am afraid of this no bill

183the a1a about sexualizing our kids i don't think a kid is anything to learn at this seat seven or ten year old about sexuality you cannot split sexuality and love we need to teach them that sexuality is is a part of a law and this is another topic no a kid you cannot speak those things we need to look to teach them that these two things are together it's not a physical sport or something like that to perform for the kids this is totally wrong so we are going to make a big mistake we try to do that with our kids so we are going to pervert them i don't want to use those words that the my my friend used at the beginning explaining the page number 20 in the books of this sexuality

184like making a tip to explain the emotions that they feel when they make pleasure by themselves this is not a topic for a kid this is not even a topic for an adult so i i don't think this is the right thing in this beautiful nation that was founded in the in the moral and in the good rights of the people so i just wanted to say that that we need to think about it and avoid those expenses on those kind of i don't want to say the word but it's a horrible horrible uh bill that they are trying to implement in our in our kids in our in our loves so just please please stop this this education bill centralizing our kids that's all thank you [Music] i'm here my first time ever meeting

185uh i'm just another conservative parent raising my voice and raising uh the boys all the parents in the office um we are we came out this night because tonight because we are turning against uh 246 adopting uh as a parent as a household having three kids i just cannot think of well i have two kids or three kids uh sixteen twelve and four and i just cannot think of my four-year-old kid when he makes it to the fifth grade and being taught what this law wants to change one star or district of this this law i watched the video on youtube when uh when this law was being bother him he was he was bad he was i mean the person who was promoting this law did not have the right answers it's i really

186encourage everyone in this room to watch this video it's a one hour but it's very worth watching and the facts of the that there are no medical effects is this is totally something i guess he's not committing but he's saying things a lot turn against our minds or children um of course this is law this law is taught against the interests of our kids it's uh this law it's traumatizing i mean big words i'm gonna say because that's what it really means to me it's traumatizing deserving inappropriate for kids uh like i said i'm gonna mention again very poor uh medical attacks were provided when this law was wedded in i came to the conclusion that this law would cause irreversible damage to their self-esteem of our kids this this law is taken away i

187feel it it's taken away my rights apparently to teach my kid to the age we consider i consider is appropriate to teach sexual teachings are raising sexually right there is no common sense we all know about it no one of uh in this room nowhere in the community know my kids better than me therefore i totally totally against sb seven okay um if you could just conclude your time is up so thank you as uh something else i want to add to mr sanders uh say uh our my latino community like we were 75 of the school district students i really like i strongly like to suggest if in future for member meetings we will have a translator we want to be included we want to definitely be part of all this we all we

188would ever want it most of our uh uh friends parents are latinos they are they feel excluded from this because of our language their fields are regretted they they're most of the comments say are because they'll show up because they don't understand not even beautiful channels so please think about it yeah thank you for the feedback thank you thank you we typically have a we typically have a translator here for speakers okay since i believe that was the last item so could i have a motion to adjourn please so moved this is kate second this is veronica will call please mr deborah yes there's martin yes and nolan yes owen yes miss porter yes that's thomas yes president yes motion passes we are adjourned