Jan 11th 2022 - Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] so [Music] please mr riddle president miss callahan wozniak president ms gonzalez president mr mcbride miss leguizamo president miss hannah president president ewing here so we did uh the board did vote to almost hannah to participate uh remotely um due to an allowable exception um for both the closed and open session so with that i'd like a motion to resume open session so moved motioned by mr riddle second by mr mcbride uh all in favor signify with i any opposed nay all right we're now in open session ms briscoe if you be so kind as to lead us in the pledge of allegiance [Music] all right so it is the president's report i am going to say that um believe it or not i don't think we will be here long tonight it has been

002a long break so the board has been off along with staff and we are getting back into the swing of things but we do not have a long agenda for those who are participating on the phone i mean online we thank you for joining us i do want to welcome everybody back i want to encourage everybody to remain safe to get vaccinated and there will be further information coming out during superintendent's report about our reopening but i did just want to very briefly at the top of the meeting just say thank you i know it's been a very uh scary time for all it's a lot of uncertainty uh in the world and we want to make sure that we are providing as much information as we can at this time um with that that

003concludes my president's report we have no special recognition and presentations we're not approving any minutes so we do have our opportunity for public comments so there was a sign up sheet that they are bringing to me now all right adjust the reminder when your name is called please come up to the front and stand at the podium if you need translation services translation services will be provided to you and you will get six minutes instead of everyone else will get three and that is to allow for the translation we do ask that you refrain from using student staff names in your remarks after you give your remarks i also do ask that you um allow for the microphone to be sanitized due to the uptick in um covet 19 that we are seeing in our

004community throughout the county and the state i am going to ask that you keep your microphone your mask on even while at the microphone just please try hard to pronounce uh pronounce your words because it may be hard to hear first name on the list is ray vukovich good evening i want to commend the board for your item 12a for increasing the substitute teachers pay it's a step in the right direction albeit really a tiny step uh because when you look at it that rate of 110 dollars a day that they've been getting has been in place for many many years so now you're going to to 120 and when you look at what's going on in the rest of the world with companies paying 18 20 22 an hour to people you can you're

005going to have people doing this here you know substitute teachers have the responsibility of close to 30 young people under their care you know just looking at your cost analysis here i i understand that part of it twenty dollars a day for the rest of the year if you had all 107 uh subs that are signed up you have a cost assigned to that but there's nothing there showing what your cost benefit would be by putting a sub in one of those classrooms that were in an elementary school where the class is split up between two or three teachers i think the cost is close to 450 a day when you do that so you might look at trying to raise that up even more because you want to try to get professional teachers licensed

006teachers to come back and do that kind of work that know what they're doing that the kids are going to learn something and 110 130 is not close to when teachers retire what their daily rate is you know just do the same as you do for principals what you're paying them when they come back to sub is far closer to their daily rate when they retired than what you're doing for for uh for teachers so if you could give that some thought and i noticed i don't know if it's an oversight or not but uh i noticed that there are no retirements resignations et cetera et cetera so it's not on the agenda so i hope that doesn't come up later so thank you thank you mr bookovich next name on the list uh and

007we'll wait for sanitation but it's lose granda and while lose comes up can we get six minutes on the clock please mr hewitt can you have them turn that microphone up a little bit uh yes ma'am okay can we do a test just with the translator so uh we can see if that's better for miss hannah famous hello is that better miss hannah can you hear me no okay so whenever you're ready um ms granda your time will start good evening to everyone um thank you very much for this opportunity for public comment [Music] um today i'm here to talk about some important topics for me i know that for the parents we come here and we present our um requests but i am here today to talk about the incredible work being done by

008the gap teachers in during covet is we notice that students they have gone down a lot but during this time they have really been working with my kids and they are doing the best they can to keep the students at their level and i would also like to request that if any of the teachers need any materials um so please provide that for them not just for the gap program croquet when so i think that when you provide the materials to enhance the learning um that can really be the learning can become excellent for the students i'm very grateful with all the teachers [Music] and i would like to see more support from you towards the teachers and another topic that i want to brings up today is that i'm also very grateful about is

009the theme of the school buses and but i also wanted to take the time to thank and appreciate the bus driver for route 7. esta senora mandeja missile asia john lewis so this lady she drives from my house to john lewis [Music] and she has been doing an excellent job has always been on time and i think it's important to recognize that so um as parents we might complain and request and provide requests towards you recognize but i think this is so important to recognize the individuals during this time of the pandemic as well and i think that the teachers are doing a wonderful job as well as the persons that drive the school buses thank you so much for listening to me today thank you next name on the list is christine lindsey thank

010you good evening board members and superintendent i'm a mother of three with two in the schools and i'm here today despite current recommendations because this seems to be the only avenue left i agree that in-person learning is the best for our students and three minutes has nagged me enough so i'll send an email after this however data tells us omicron is three times more contagious than delta which is two times more than that of the wild variant and some outlets are reporting it's 20 times more diabetes is a newly identified diagnosis post covent infections and our kids are 166 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes and that's even more so for our black and latino students other seasonal illnesses are compounded by omicron resulting in increased hospital visits and our hospitals are at

011capacity so if someone gets sick where do we go communication is paramount and in the views of parents teachers and staff this district lacks transparency we aren't updated fully nor in a timely manner via the data hub or emails we hear from other concerned parents about undisclosed cases contract tracing is elusive what does it look like how are parents supposed to feel comfortable with a classmate testing positive and only a small portion of the room is considered close contact this spreads within 15 minutes from person to person but we have no reasoning behind why that wouldn't travel to the whole class in the school day we weren't asked before returning from break in the midst of the surge what our thoughts were we weren't asked to anonymously anonymously disclose our children's vaccination status to gauge

012the impact this will have safety is another concern it was suggested to be tested those that are taking this seriously are reliant on everyone doing their part and following the guidelines we aren't seeing compliance in our schools my daughter's not three feet away from other students because her class is broken up into other classrooms visitors you can see on facebook are not wearing masks in the schools when they are required to screens are not being used so how can you tell me this is a safe return to the classroom the main goal is getting our students the best education with a domino of cases increase in our community we will also see it in our classrooms students have to stay home due to infection or close contact this impacts learning loss we have a shortage

013of teachers staff and bus drivers students are waiting 50 minutes for someone to pick them up this impacts learning loss how are we identifying the needs of each student and implementing interventions that are proven to work i have ideas but i don't have time neurodivergent students need additional supports that remote learning can inhibit this district needs to pivot providing remote instruction for a brief period for the surge to die down if possible students that require in-person supports should have access to the school building with a dramatically reduced population next name on the list is brother blanks brother blanks black abolition movement for the mind first and foremost i want to um on behalf of black evolution movement for the mind extend our condolences to one of our members of our community who lost his mom

014who made her transition this morning mr clyde mclemore of lake county black lives matter uh now now as far as on the education agenda uh as you all recall the last time i was here i uh have challenged one of your uh history teachers mr mccormick to a debate and uh since that time you know me and mr mccormick has had an opportunity to meet and we've gotten a chance to get to know each other uh for ourselves as opposed to public allegations and in the innuendos and we have had some productive and positive very positive conversation and on that note and the reason i'm speaking tonight i would like he agreed to the debate and uh i would like the school to consider uh in the best interest of educating investments of education on

015this issue of critical race theory so i would like for you all to consider and let us know what we need to do uh to consider the lake the uh brookside auditorium for such a debate uh with respect to whatever the policies and procedures are i think it's something that would be good for the community and i think it's a good educational piece as a whole uh with him bringing his perspective and he brings my perspective so i'm asking y'all to take that into consideration we have not we have not came up with a date yet uh with respect to the covet situation we have agreed that we do not want it to be a virtual debate we want it to be alive an in-person debate and so we have it in the air right

016now surrounding covert 19 and as we look at how things transpire with that we'd like to board to consider take that into consideration for the brookside campus as it relates to this uh very uh timely discussion and much needed discussion on critical race theory thank you thank you brother blakes thank you to all our public comment speakers i didn't state as i normally do is that this is the opportunity for the public to address the board so those who don't come often or watch a lot of public meetings it may seem jarring that we don't respond immediately to each question or concern but as i mentioned in my opening the superintendent we'll be discussing um the return to in-person uh during the superintendent time which is a little bit later in our agenda so again

017everyone is welcome to stay we also know that we are streaming live on youtube for those who feel that that is safer i do want to let the board in the community know that as long as our schools remain open the board will be meeting in person and so as i know other individuals have decided to go remote that was a discussion but my stance is the board president is while our schools remain open we remain in person for our meetings we will still stream live to youtube and i do encourage all of those who feel safer watching on youtube to do that using email is a great tool i know to reach board members as well as myself and so i really do appreciate those who did make the trip out and those who

018have something to say but may be participating um remotely due to their concerns all right first on our agenda or next up is our consent agenda as mentioned uh these items are routine in nature should be non-controversial and or are previously discussed they have been presented items a through f any board member can ask that any item be held over for any reason are there any board members who would like to hold over any of these items with that do i have to do that yes ma'am i don't want to hold anything over but i would like to um i would like to um make a statement um in reference to um the different staff members that are being slated to attend the these conferences in different parts of our country and in light of

019the increasing um variant and the covet i am concerned that um that that or should they uh at this time be going um be going on any conferences until uh the uh country can get a handle on this uh the this virus um that that's the first thing and then also on uh item f why are we why why is the school district um assuming the cost of of this conference when the individual is um when the individual is um with the lake county roe and how come roe can't uh pick up this cost and why should the district pick up this cost for this person to attend a conference and i do understand it is in relation with the eir grant um however that is not justification for the district to pick up uh

020this expense so then miss hannah for time are you okay can we take items a through e and then if you want to vote on f separately we can hold that over yes we can i would like to vote on that separately okay and then to your first uh go ahead mr uh riddle uh and that's what are you emotionally yes i was just gonna make a motion then that we are uh uh did the board approve the consented item uh consent agenda items a through e as uh presented here yeah and so uh i'm going to do that and then miss hannah i guess we'll just answer that question later on i mean um well no i'd like to i'd like someone to answer my question in terms of uh the thoughts of going

021across the country in light of the um the increased uh the increasing numbers of the virus and the covet okay and if we should actually be uh approving these uh attendance uh for the conferences superintendent what is their question and i want to make sure my answer now do why are we letting people go to conferences due to the current uh at this time miss hannah um as you know the conferences if i believe that the individual conferences that are in attendance if they felt that there was a need to cancel that they would start canceling them um as of now they are asking for vaccination cards etc the conference is still a go so at this time is why we are recommending that we allow our employees to attend so do you have a

022motion for mr riddle second for miss wozniak roll call vote please mr brittle yes miss callahan wozniak yes ms gonzalez yes mr mcbride yes miss laguezamo yes miss hannah fantastic and president ewing yes items approved motions carry i'm going to read them for the record 10a approval to attend national school child nutrition conference april 17 to 22 through the 22nd through 2022 b attendance of diverse learner high school coordinator diana butler at the council exceptional children convention on 116 through 1 1922 in orlando florida for an estimated three thousand dollars see attendance of district nurse coordinator andrea dobbs at the disc training and certification master class to be held virtually 124 22 through the 28th for 2625 d approval to attend aasa national conference in nashville just february 17th through the 19th e approval of

023emergency contract amendment request preferred meals next up is item 10 f approval to attend tca convention uh mr riddle i make a motion that we approve item f as presented uh motion by mr riddle second second by ms wozniak and miss hannah had a question which she said why would the district be covering that given that it's an roe um employee doctor now or miss son who's going to answer that question oh yes that's right hi good evening and i'm sorry ms don before you continue uh miss hannah are you able to hear my zan uh no if she can speak a little louder i'd appreciate it okay thank you um good evening members of the board superintendent it was a stipulation of the grant that we did outreach in order to actually win the

024grant we had to work with either a regional office of education or another entity in order to win the award so we wrote in lake roe an original grant proposal and it was a stipulation so they also have a budget for travel of as part of their of the grant award the budget for lake houry is actually very small for the grant i believe it comes out to about 52 000 a year 5 000 of which is designated for travel and um they have not used it we are on year three so this is their first use of it really quickly just to stand and explain how important it is to have outreach to other lake county communities that don't have the stem programs that waukegan has that is pretty big and i'm very fortunate

025and so is the rest of the department that we're able to do this but it turns out in this case in particular she is probably not going to actually attend the conference because of the spike in covit but she they may in the future so we left it on the price of attendance virtually is about a tenth of the price that's on today's docket so i think that's a good enough explanation did you have any other questions so she's going to attend this virtually yes so the price is going to change but at the time that this was submitted to us from roe which was a little while ago maybe a couple months ago the covet numbers were not as high but she has made a decision she sent us an email this week that

026she's going to attend it virtually however she does have the budget to attend that in the future and so we we kept it well then we should why why are we voting on this if this is not the actual item that um that that she's going to attend under that's paul why would we be approving it i think though um we are approving it in case because it is a it's in the future and in case that she could attend it i think that was the reason that we kept it on there um we were hoping as everybody that the numbers will um decline and that you know people will be able to attend that conference miss polk i don't know miss had she had i just if you wanted to add to is that

027it's up to correct so i mean we we approve up to if we if she doesn't go then we wouldn't expend those monies is that yes that is correct thank you and it is a part of her grant so why are we voting on it and the way that it's uh the way that it's wrote and once we approve it it's approved the way that it was presented which is up to as uh miss polk has explained and i believe uh miss zahn so um okay call for the vote roll call vote mr riddle yes miss callahan wozniak yes ms gonzalez yes mr mcbride yes ms leguizamo yes miss hannah no and president ewing yes item approved motion carries we are now on uh purchases and contracts so we have item 11a purchase of q4

028stem materials for k through five through the eir grant are you on a level 11a it is a recommendation of the administration it is a recommendation of the administration that the board of education authorized the superintendent to approve the purchase of little bit stem coding class packs for students in grade k through five to support the work of the err grant during quarter four in the amount of twenty nine thousand for a hundred and eight dollars and seventy one cents mr riddler i'll make a motion that we approve this uh action as recommended by the superintendent motion by mr riddle second by mr mcbride any comments or questions on the motion roll call vote please mr riddle yes ms callahan wozniak yes ms gonzalez yes mr mcbride yes ms leguizamo yes miss hannah yes president

029ewing yes i don't approve motion carries 11b follow destiny renault it is a recommendation of the superintendent that the board of education approved the proposed contract to renew the current fraud destiny resource manager and library manager for all sites within the district managing library and textbook resources contract totals sixty thousand seven hundred ninety one dollars and ninety three cents our motion to approve is presented and recommended motion by miss uh gonzalez second second by ms wozniak any comments or questions on the motion are we getting diversity uh in our um textbooks and uh the books that are going into the library dr cesario the question is are we getting diversity in the textbooks that are going into the library that's been a primary focus of the work that we've been doing with the curriculum writing

030is to ensure that we're diversifying the materials that students are using both in class and within classroom libraries so this has been an ongoing process for approximately the last three years thank you and and i don't know if this was your item deputy cesario but if you want to actually speak to what this is yeah it's really a technical manager it's a software management system i believe this is the software that helps to to to really manage the the inventory of the books yes so um the the question where uh you know are we doing that yes we are doing that this is is really on the logistical side of it to make sure that we're inventorying the books it's a software management system thank you i believe it was explained during the presentation in

031student achievement thank you deputy cesario and then uh miss uhm also had a question uh yes so i was trying to okay i did find it here it is also available for the high school campuses um i was trying to find if oh aoec um i don't remember if they have a library at their building or not but does this also include aoe it's a district-wide can you is this working i don't yes it is it's a district it's lozie i found it is it it is in there it's it's a district-wide system so if we need to see if we have a certain title um there are a couple times where you had you you yourself had requested certain titles be placed in and we were able to make sure that we ordered them

032but also that we had them in stock we were able to check very quickly so it's a system-wide a district-wide software program um i mean it's kind of in the similar subject here but i was wondering because i've seen other school districts have either committees or of a sort that goes through all the various books in our libraries is that something that we have in our school district that that they go through the books and they identify if it is um school appropriate right uh there's been some titles that are um questionable in some people's eyes and so i don't know if we have a committee that kind of goes through our books and and just identifies if this is something that's still okay to have in our school district i just want to make

033it clear that that is separate to what this is right so do we have that um we we work with the the curriculum writing team is actually looking at that and and the our our department the asap department reviews titles regularly so if there is controversy if there is concern we sit down and we discuss those that has nothing to do with this this is simply reading barcodes i just want to make that very clear yes yes this is more of like an inventory management i was that's correct because we were on the reading subject i just wanted to understand no problem i just wanted to i don't want to confuse people at home that this purchase is a software purchase to manage the logistics of inventorying books perfect thank you for that those are

034all my questions board president awesome roll call vote please mr riddle yes ms callahan wozniak yes ms gonzalez yes mr mcbride yes ms leguizamo yes miss hannah yes president ewing yes item approved motion carries we are now at personnel items which is to increase the substitute teacher pay and implementation of temporary incentive program it is a recommendation that the board of vacate board of education approved permanent twenty dollar increase in the daily pay rate for long-term and day-to-day substitute teachers and also prove a temporary incentive program for day-to-day subs that would pay additional money for working mondays and fridays and for working each day during a five-day week motion by mr mcbride second second by miss wozniak any comments or questions on the motion yes yeah i got mr mcbride miss hannah i noticed this

035the the idea of moving toward this direction it's not just with district 60 looking at the media uh saying chicago is doing it uh and i think that's because of covert and i think it's an initiative for uh for teachers uh subs as well to to come into the district because uh just to uh i guess an incentive but to your point ray i i totally agree with you it is a couple of pennies that we're giving them and uh i hope that uh your voice was heard that maybe somewhere along down the line we could consider and do more because i think uh when you compare that to the principles i don't know how you they was able to uh to deal with to deal with the difference but the principles definitely get their

036fair chair shared and treated right when they come in as sub so going forward i hope that we just kind of take a look at that but once again i can say this move that we're making is not just to move with district 60. i i just happen to be looking at the news and they're doing it in chicago now what to what degree i don't know in terms of this senate but that's something we might want to take a look at too and see how you know how they're treating uh uh those individuals western i mean uh south of us so with that uh i just thought i'd drop that as we're talking about this thank you mr mcbride board president uh mr riddle yes i would add that i would like to see

037the administration possibly advertise this or ask how they're going to advertise this to our subs and former subs so that maybe we could get a report possibly back as to whether indeed this helped at all if maybe you know at some point the future did did this encourage any of our former teachers or possible subs to come and work for us [Music] all right well i'll do mr riddle um i'm gonna go to miss hannah because she had asked and then i'm going to miss gonzalez i can't see you but i think i heard you okay miss uh hannah yes um this is uh this is a good move that the administration is recommending uh however i would have liked to see um the uh the increase to be a a little bit more competitive

038um and um you know with other districts here in the county and i did speak with um with the superintendent and um you know i i heard what was said to me but i just think that it needs to be um needs to be increased a little bit more for um to be competitive and i do agree with what mr mcbride said that hopefully um you know once we do this that um we'll be able to come back and look at it again at a future date at this time mr moulton um can you please um expound on how competitive how competitive our proposal is yes thank you superintendent good evening board members superintendent community and staff so that is an excellent point ms hannah and we did do an analysis for some other lake

039county school districts and what we saw for the short-term subs was that the daily rates were anywhere between 105 dollars and 120 currently the district waukegan is at 110 dollars per day for short-term subs and we're proposing increasing that by twenty dollars so we will be one of the more competitive in the county that we're aware of at this time as well as for our long-term subs the incentive plan which is linked to attendance is to ensure that our students have substitutes in front of them if their regular teacher is not available to them on a daily basis so we do think that we are setting a little bit of a trend with this from that regard and we want to make sure that it's clear to everybody here as well as those who are

040listening and who we advertise to that this is not a temporary change for the daily rate the incentive program is through the rest of the school year the daily rate change is going to be permanent so i do uh i'll go to miss gonzales before i make comments go ahead as gonzalez yeah and i'll just add a a a brief appreciation to mr moan for saying that because i i also wanted just to emphasize the fact that it is permanent um i i also wanted to say that i don't want us to get comfortable normalizing having subs in our classes so i mean this is a small step toward attracting people here and getting people in front of the students but at the same time you know we need our teachers to stay with the

041students as they continue their academic year and i and i think you know kudos to the team um the superintendent and her um you know every everyone involved in making this uh become an item um i think i think we're getting there but i i just want to emphasize that this is a small step like um some people have already mentioned and i want to prioritize the people who do stay with us to have reason to stay with us right so so thank you for that mr mountain i think that this was a really really good thing and mr president go ahead miss hannah um maybe you can uh explain why there's no personnel items i'm getting a couple questions about that yeah we can do that after this item so i do want to

042again commend the team also for looking at what's going on throughout lake county and making this adjustment i think it's a step in the right direction um i did have a question but i do apologize it has evaded me uh but i i did think that glad to see this so i won't belabor the point we have a first and the second roll call vote please mr riddle yes miss callahan wozniak yes ms gonzalez yes mr mcbride yes ms laguezamo yes miss hannah yes president ewing yes and then i do just want to briefly it came back to you that's how it works um with this is we also want to talk about access for the substitutes and along with ms hannah's uh continual um conversation is training so providing them so that they have

043access to our district resources um as well as training before going in there is because we want to make sure that they not people will go where they like to be and so you can give all the money in the world but if we're not an attractive district for substitutes we still want to track them so i did want to add that is the pay is great but i know a lot of people are saying hey if i'm going to be there for extended time give me a laptop i need to have a access to email to be able to communicate um if i had discipline issues who do i talk to and that has been a consistent refrain from our substitutes and so we not only want to be competitive on pay but also

044environment so thank you to all those who work with that and i did just want to add that um next up um i'll speak to the personnel uh mr figueroa is in the back there are no post personnel items we met as a team um as a board team the tuesday before we went on break and we came back last thursday and so as of right now there weren't nobody was here to process anything and they'll be on the next agenda any hires resignations retirements at that time so we are now going down to item 15a financial reports ratification of the first processing of board bills for january 2022 and manual check request payments enforcement west insurance payments for the period of december 8 2021 through january 5th 2022 it is a recommendation of the

045administration at the board of education ratified the first processing award bills for january 2022 and manual check request payments and first midwest insurance payment for the period of december 8 2021 through january 5th 2022. the accounts payable board december 8 2021 through january 5th 2022 payments total 1 million 240 974.83 the mario check request payments for the period of december 8 2021 through january 5th 2022 total 2 million 335 415.28 the first midwest insurance payments for the period of december 8 2021 through january 5th 2022 total 571 dollars and four cents mr riddle i so move that we accept the recommendations of the superintendent and approve this motion motion by mr riddle second by mr mcbride any comments or questions on the motion roll call vote mr riddle yes ms callahan wozniak yes ms gonzalez

046yes mr mcbride yes miss leguizamo yes miss hannah yeah president ewing yes motion approved item carries we are now at committee reports are there any i can report out go ahead miss uh gonzalez um so i just wanted to remind folks who are interested in the ptac the parent teacher advisory committee that there's a subcommittee meeting on thursday at 6 pm i believe dr hillary leads that committee all are welcome um they focus on behavior and conduct and i uh yesterday i had a meeting with the equity advisory council specifically for my policy committee team we're looking at the graduation requirements and i know miss fields had different committees split out for different policies that include curriculum discipline really religious holiday observation observation and i think that they're doing really good work so expect to

047see more of an introduction to that team working on those things and some recommendations in the coming months about some policy revisions or recommendations to the board um so i'm really excited for both of the teams um or both of the groups that's it unless lucy you want to add something for the pizza nope it was great perfect thank you all right we have our student board member who is here um and we he's not going yet but we have started voting on our new stupor or they have started voting for our new student board member but we appreciate mr giusani and everything that he's brought to the role it continues to grow with each new student board member and so he's elevated it and set such a hard high bar but i want to

048give him this time for his student board member report all right uh so good evening everyone uh so today i kind of just had two things i wanted to talk about um obviously uh i do want to mention kovit and how coveted cases are rising uh and i did talk with friends i did talk with a board member about this over winter break about you know how my friends were specifically feeling about this um mostly or i would say some were saying that they would rather go virtual or hybrid now um so they said that they would do that now because then it would calm down then it would calm down and then we could be back in person sooner rather than later and we wouldn't have to worry about uh covet cases being around

049so similar to i know colleges they had you know two weeks virtual or three weeks virtual uh i know for example my older brother he i believe he's back on campus but um i believe he's still in his dorm and he's doing classes through virtually i know even i think uic i believe as well so uh by doing so students will be more safe and then we can still we can conduct uh regular school in person and have the events that needed to be happen um rather than being in person now and then you know all of a sudden cover cases start rising even more and more and then we have to close in again and then we don't know what's going to happen afterwards so that was just some things that my friends were

050saying uh one specific thing that my friend said that maybe having it optional because my friend mentioned that she wasn't able to learn virtually versus in person and obviously i can agree to that in person learning is way much more better and um you you learn easily hands-on versus if you're just sitting at home in an environment where um you're not surrounded by your peers your peers and you don't teachers um and it's you know it's it's just more engaging when you're in person uh and then of course um when we do when as of right now obviously now that we are in person we are staying in person um it's just a matter of making sure that we do it safely and i think that you know providing the safe materials and providing the

051opportunities to get tested for students and families making sure that we are able to stay we are able to still stay in person uh and hopefully not go back virtually and these cold cases do go down the second thing i wanted to mention and i guess ending on a good note and it's about valentine's for veterans so i have started kind of planning it i did briefly talk to texas texas miss luxamo about it and obviously she's kind she's been involved since the beginning and this is our third year conducting it um so that's going to be occurring this year and hopefully for the upcoming years as well uh we have the i believe the brookside campus gym reserved for february 6 so that isn't that is a day to keep in mind hopefully for

052some type of in person whether it's limited to people um you know in some capacity and then maybe even have kits like we did last year and we have a virtual option uh so that's just something that i am figuring out with um that i will probably talk to miss lazamo about and then my team about um how we want to conduct this but uh that is just something that i wanted to mention so i hope i do hope for the board support again the community's support and participating i know i remember mrs wozniak came to pick up a kit and she supported that so um that's just something that i wanted to mention and then of course for uh throughout the whole year my turn i know that i'll probably say some last words

053i guess uh when the new student board member does come in but i again i do want to say thank you for the opportunity and um allowing me to be the voice for students um and i do hope that the next student board member like mr ewing the president ewing said you know can live up to my expectations um just kidding uh but um i will definitely still be there and i actually know some of the people that are running so whoever they are i will definitely be there for them if they have uh and i will help them out uh but other than that uh thank you so much and have a great evening great job thank you mr sunny we appreciate your time your service and your student board member report next up

054is delegates report is there any um yeah uh mr president i would like to um make uh the board members aware of the uh the status of the national conferences and according to the state president he sent out a [Music] he sent out a notice to all the uh the membering uh district regarding the uh status of the national school board association and conferences and if the registrations were completed before december 1st then you will be able to attend if the registrations were not done before december 1st then we cannot go to any of the national conferences however he did uh he did state that they are looking at trying to establish another national school board uh association um that is not linked to the current one and that they are planning on getting all

055of the um the conferences that we are used to going to for example our cube conference the advocacy conference all of those in uh in the future so that we will be able to continue to attend those valuable conferences so if any board member has registered and if it wasn't before december 1st please check that and i'm sure that miss miss cassandra will be able to help you because i've been keeping her abreast of this issue as well that's it thank you can i have a quick question go ahead miss uh uh miss hannah in regards to to that um is it just so that we can receive credit for attending these conferences because like i'd still like to attend some of the national conferences even though we're not part of uh the state of

056illinois that is i yeah and i asked that question as well and it is not uh it is not the state that is saying we cannot go it is the national uh school board association that is um that is saying that if we're not uh if because we're not a membering in membership we cannot attend it's not the state saying no it is the national saying no thanks for that clarification thank you all right we are at superintendent's report it is 806 and we do have uh two conversations uh go ahead superintendent good evening everyone i'm going to ask my team are you guys just going to stay back there because we're going to all present so we're going to talk about the rationale of why we are back in person what we are doing

057to mitigate covid and what instruction looks like in our buildings so on january 6 classes resumed following winter break amidst a spike in coven not only locally but nationally we understand that people have many varying opinions on whether we should be back or should we offer remote etc resuming in-person instruction was not a decision we took lightly we know and we've seen that students do best when they're being instructed within our classrooms and as a district we are taking steps to ensure all stakeholders safety at this time i'm going to ask dr cesario good evening board president members of the board uh community members so um i just want to again reiterate that this was not a decision that was taken lightly and as we've been doing throughout the pandemic we've been looking at what

058the cdc has said uh in in this recent instance uh and and currently the cdc is saying that they're safe and particularly when enhanced mitigation is fragmented i'm on the microphone no problem so again as i was saying the cdc has said that schools are safe environments purchases are implemented students benefit from in-person learning and safety in safely returning to in-person instruction continues to be a priority with few exceptions local school districts have returned to in-person instruction following the break in-person instruction is best for our students and families and data shows that our students learn better and are better supported when they are learning in person versus at home during our year of remote learning we saw students struggle we saw them struggle with academics and we saw them struggle with mental health additionally we

059know that remote learning has caused hardships for many of our working families who struggle to find child care and who have struggled to assist students both with with their academics and with their mental health as well having the schools open provides resources not only to students but also to families and community members the availability of vaccines for individuals five and older make schools safer than they were a year ago thank you dr cesario and we also know that at this time we're not quarantining at home our society is up and running people are you know going to work now so keeping our students at home would not mitigate access to other individuals that may be carrying the the virus or not curing the virus so we feel the best place for our students is in

060the classrooms at this time they have been off for a year and a half they have lost much instructional time yes we are still in the midst of the pandemic and don't know when it's going to be over but we know based off the data that we've seen in the instructional loss that the best place for them is within the classroom and at this time mr moulton will speak about mitigation efforts thank you superintendent so we have several mitigation efforts that we've reimplemented as most of you all are aware when we came back to hybrid instruction last spring we instituted a policy we had several items that we wanted to implement where we were addressing classroom classroom classroom how we were doing things on a daily basis some of the strategies that we've re-implemented and

061we're going to be ongoing in our evaluation is testing so we do weekly testing for unvaccinated staff last week and i want to thank all the staff that participated and volunteered we did 2000 tests monday and tuesday last week at brookside campus that was with our partners at chicago kova control we want to continue to provide that service we do have a testing site on franklin street in partnership that's open seven days a week but we're going to continue to look at testing options for staff students and families outside of just our regular unvaccinated staff member requirements on a weekly basis also we have several pallets brookside campus was filled with about 40 pallets of ppe sanitizing wipes hand soap hand sanitizer face masks gloves etc that we had the volunteers come and bag the

062week prior to give out to those who came and got a test and if you all recall the chicago cove control testing agency came and presented to the board of education and everybody got a cardboard box of these items those are the materials that we gave out we have several donated items that are similar to that that we're going to continue to give out in an effort to support our staff and students whether they're in district or at home we also hosted a pediatric vaccine clinic last week at whittier elementary school last friday we're currently in discussions a cohort of the pandemic team in district to continue those vaccination opportunities for anybody over the age of five not just for telling students but also community we want to make sure that we're providing every opportunity

063available for those that reside in waukegan we are maintaining inventory levels of the 1200 uh ppe kits for emergency use for staffing classrooms and also the sanitizing dispensers there's one right there at the front of the room that we put by every classroom and every entry and exit to the building particularly by the playgrounds our custodial staff is maintaining those inventories we're making desktop dividers available for staff and students who need them based on social distancing requirements classroom to classroom office to office and that's the inventory that we purchased in 2020 now one thing that we did pause was our elementary middle school athletic programs we're maintaining our schedules for high school athletics but elementary and middle school we put that on pause through next tuesday for our high school athletic programs we're restricting spectators

064to two individuals per athlete which is a mitigation strategy we had in place last year the site-based safety teams have been reactivated and this has been in collaboration with our bargaining units all of the principals at the school level and myself here for lincoln center mr christensen from welcome center have brought these teams together to inspect compliance of our policies health safety policies at the school level do building inspections on a routine basis inspect inventory levels of a lot of the sanitation supplies that we've provided to staff and then we report that back to the unions and the leadership team that's going to be ongoing for the rest of the school year and into summer and then lastly we want to stick with essential visitors into the school setting we know parents have needs to

065come for their children obviously staff need to go in and out of buildings to do their daily responsibilities but we obviously want to restrict access as best as possible or provide appointments at the building level for individuals that need to come to the building to conduct district business whenever possible so next week we want to talk about some quarantine supports and mr alexakis is going to speak to that thank you mr melton appreciate the information you were able to provide in terms of quarantine supports um and quarantine itself so as many people are aware a few days back the cdc actually was a little longer that the cdc adopted new quarantine rules and late last week the idph announced that they were going to be following those guidelines and that schools would be following the

066guidelines as well uh this information was brought to us the guidelines essentially shortened the quarantine time so it essentially goes to five days in mo for the most part if you're um covet positive also if you're unvaccinated and you are close contact or if you're obviously vaccinated close contact with symptoms we our pandemic preparing this team looked at this and we made the determination as a team in the recommendation to stick with our current quarantine guidelines which uh are essentially around 10 days and they vary based on your vaccination status and different factors and we just felt that at this time we weren't prepared to make the recommendation to follow the uh loosen guidelines which essentially would have people back in the building sooner following a positive uh cova diagnosis we're going to be we're

067going to be reviewing those after the mlk holiday we're going to be looking at them again and determining based on what uh covet numbers are looking like based on what our schools are looking like is that something we're comfortable doing because we know um this you know resolution is something that's important to our families uh additionally you know we've discussed this before back in the fall we announced you know our quarantine support plan so that is something that is still being offered uh or quarantine instruction as people say so if you're a close contact if you've been tested positive for covert and your student there are opportunities to receive those supports we're seeing those numbers kind of they ebb and flow a bit during the course of the week right now we're seeing the highest

068numbers we've seen during the course of the year and that's not unexpected we expected the numbers to kind of get a little higher after break so we continue to monitor those um as you know at every building principals do have uh tracking systems to be able to monitor when they receive reports of a student either on that's on quarantine so they'll communicate to uh classroom teachers to ensure that they're aware of a specific student status and then the teachers work to contact the students parents to make sure that they have access to the instructional materials that and lessons that are necessary and so to talk a little bit more about monitoring dr cesaro's going to close us out all right thank you nick so in terms of monitoring our what i'm referring to here is

069our staffing levels to make sure that we have the appropriate staffing levels to support our students so daily my team would meet to review the attendance the student attendance staff attendance and administrator attendance we we started doing this the day we returned and we continue to do it and we'll continue to do it through throughout the week and if necessary we'll extend this practice what we're doing is deploying personnel as needed if there happened to be an admin out then we're sending someone from lincoln center who has a general administrative certificate to assist we're also placing people in classrooms if necessary but we want to make sure that we're doing this so that we can continue to support our schools support our staff members support our administrators our teachers and our students so again we're

070monitoring our attendance levels and those those numbers of students who are also on quarantine recently it's come to my attention that the quarantine plan that we have in process the the plan that we utilize to provide instruction to students and supports academic supports to students who are on quarantine that not all students are receiving those supports or that those supports are not that they're possibly inconsistent from building the building so we are reviewing those practices we are investigating um to ensure that we are providing the services that we we set out and planned to provide while students were in quarantine this afternoon there was a meeting with our principals so where the area superintendents reviewed the expectations that teachers have regarding our quarantine instructional plan and support plan so that was reviewed and discussed and

071the admin was sent away with uh they were asked to review where we're at and to assess if there are areas of needed improvement or support so we we hope to ensure that any any kind of issue with students and parents not receiving the supports that they that they are needed while they're in quarantine can be rectified and and done so in a timely manner yes um your first point of contact of course if parents have any questions is pleased to direct them towards your principal please know you can always email me the superintendent but your principal should be your first point of contact and of course this is still a very fluid situation right now the decision is to stay in person depending on you know this changed rapidly right i mean we would

072not think that were three i believe three variants in now um and so decision tomorrow can change but we do know and feel that in-person instruction um just socially emotionally and academically is the best place for our students safety is our top priority if our staff needs supplies please know there are plenty supplies at our school disinfectant masks are available if anything is needed please direct those questions or needs or wants to your um building principle thank you um would it be possible for us to get student attendance reports as well as um uh teacher attendance reports and whether they're virtual and um we monitoring that daily and that's one of the things we go over right so we actually have a spreadsheet um i can have i can share that with you we can

073um actually dr knoll can you ask eric to share that spreadsheet that we use with the with the board members please teachers as well as teachers uh i believe that the the teachers it's teachers admin and students yeah so um we have that i mean what we're using is a little bit different than different reports that might be pulled from eric that are we're looking at it at twice a day actually because of the late start and so then we look at it again afternoon so we look at it every day at 9 15 we get a general idea we have some of those late start schools so we work with the the area superintendents we're in constant contact throughout the day as well as with blue baron's team to to ensure that whatever we

074need to do we're trying to to address it immediately rather than waiting um but i do have to give kudos to the area superintendents and to the rest of uh you know my team and and lebron's team for being very responsive over the course of the last week uh the pandemic team all those folks who are involved with that have been very responsive and have been we've been meeting multiple times throughout the day uh i will say that this is daily multiple times throughout the day just to ensure that we are providing services to our students to our our our parents uh our teachers uh and on our admin as as best we can given the current circumstances uh miss president i've got a couple questions go ahead miss hannah okay um thank you for

075the um for that update um uh but uh i got a couple questions the first question is what is considered an outbreak um and um are we looking at when we get to that uh number that um indicates there's an outbreak in um in a building uh what is the plan for um before to address that that's number one may not be able to answer it right now can you let them answer that before you move on to the second one miss hannah sure so i don't want to speak for the entire pandemic team but i do want to say that what we considered where we're at last year where we're at in march of 20 is quite different than where we're at right now one of the things i mentioned during my presentation was

076the fact that we have we have a lot more people that have been vaccinated now we also know that one of the things that was a key factor in decision in order to be consistent with the 10 days whereas people have reduced it to 5 we continued with the 10 we wanted to be consistent with that we wanted to be as safe as possible the other factor though was a big concern was that we know that if students are in school we have mitigations in place whether or not they are followed as closely as people think or if they could be better followed in certain instances we have them in place we don't know what those are when students are not in school it's a we know that we we have a safe haven for

077students and that was our primary concern ensuring that we could have a place where students could have shelter food and support both academically and as well as mentally we want that we wanted to focus on that social emotional well-being again the daily monitoring that we're doing is to make sure that we're looking at the data and and also making decisions when they need to be made this isn't as simple as and i can let the superintendent speak to this afterwards or please whatever whenever you want to jump in but i think it's really important that we're using the data that we have at hand on a daily basis to make informed decisions and as i had mentioned earlier prior to the question we are meeting in multiple groups daily um throughout the day so even

078today the the deputies met along with with nick the superintendent we met today we met yesterday today we met for two hours yesterday we we met for an additional two hours we're also meeting with our individual team members with our group team with our with our larger teams we're meeting daily to address this it's not something that we're taking lightly we're monitoring the numbers we're we're following what the guidance has been um that's the that's that's the answer that i can give best right now in terms of an outbreak i think it would be dependent on how best we can or cannot support a school or schools i appreciate that dr cesario but i just simply asked what is considered an outbreak and we are following cdc guidelines and what does cdc guidelines say about

079what is considered an outbreak in a building miss hannah um i would think that our medical experts are better to answer that question um rather than dr cesario myself so we can have ms dobbs um come back and define out okay my next question my next question is um i appreciate all everything that we're doing um in terms of mitigation but the biggest mitigation that i believe that we can do in our high school and superintendent you and i had this conversation in reference to the um the uh movement of students uh and passing periods and at lunch and uh the staggering of the uh passing period uh staggering of the lunch period how to uh reduce the movement the congestion in the hallways particularly at our high schools where all of the students are

080not in the hallways at the same time that's one of the biggest mitigations that i um that i'm concerned about and i do have um i do have students that attend both campuses so i am concerned about uh about that and um i'm going to uh trust that the superintendent is uh looking into uh into that um as she stated when we were talking yes hannah that's noted and then finally um there are um are we running out of tests and can we get um can can we get more uh testing uh for the students are we going to um are we going to uh um what can i say start screening again at least taking temperatures uh when uh students staff come into our building uh i think that uh we really need to

081do that and then finally i just was watching the um the cdc and they were talking about the n95 mass and how they are how they maximize uh the um the listening uh of the transmission with the n95 max and is there any way that we can purchase the n95 mass for our student body and our staff miss hannah the conversation on the n95 mask is coming up um and it's under um discussion topics so i believe that question and will be addressed then okay and also about the if we could get more tested so oh go ahead go ahead i i had two questions with dr uh cesario and mr moulton want to take a moment to answer it it's mitigation effort so it's relevant hopefully um mr gonzalez if i could just speak

082to one of miss hannah's questions regarding the testing so um as i mentioned earlier we are doing weekly testing we do through our third party have a testing site available seven days a week now we are currently in negotiations and discussions about adding another seven day a week testing site in another part of waukegan which would be more towards the south side of waukee even keegan that would be open to the public but prioritize our students staff and their families and then we're obviously looking as we receive donations if we get testing kits from organizations we're going to issue those out so that parents can have ready readily access those tests at home and not wait for our testing program can i ask my questions my first question was uh kind of kind of pertaining

083to the testing because i know that you have been reaching out to some folks and i've i've heard other parents who went to the testing site which you know i absolutely appreciate it and i thought all the volunteers did an amazing job i i i'm really appreciative of our partners you know superintendent everyone who was there trying to get people through in and out um i i worry though even for the testing that some some people have not uh received any results yet and i don't know if that's a further conversation that we need to be having with our partners or the labs even that they um that they uh send the uh samples to to get you know reviewed but i feel like they're you know if we need to apply pressure at any

084point in that process how where where do we best put that pressure and how do we help that partner get the results quick like more quickly to the parents because some some people still haven't sent their kids to school because they they just don't know um and they're afraid to and i you know i see those parents but um so so that's my my first thing that you don't have to answer that for right now because you're obviously not the lab um but you know give us some sort of update hopefully as to when people can expect that and and you know what the conversation looks like with that um with that partner and with the labs that they're working with um the second thing though i wanted to ask um you know and and

085i know we had talked about it because there is some sort of system that we that we approved not too long ago um that had the i guess the data hub for it but do we know what percentage of our student body is vaccinated do we have that data yeah so thank you so the um the program that you are referring to i believe is crisis go that we've utilized and leveraged for staff to get their vaccination status we are building a campaign right now to roll it out for students as we have the students integrated through infinite campus in the crisis go we can track attendance and other things like that but we are currently working in the the pandemic team and the operations team and everybody involved to really push to transition students

086to that process and i know the superintendent and i have had conversations about really pushing that campaign for this spring semester obviously we know we have a lot more students in the system than we have staff but that'll be a way where we can maybe have a little we'll have a little more of an automated system to track vaccination status testing compliance with testing non-compliance with testing etc not just for staff but as well as students so there's going to be more info to come on that we're seeing that that's a rather large endeavor but we also want to make it as automated as possible so that it is an ease of use for the students or for parents who are assisting younger students so i just have a couple things i know you guys

087spoke to them but i have to be very very clear um as a parent and to those who are watching on uh youtube so we sent out the letter there a lot of conversations we encourage parents to test monday my wife went to three testing sites all of them the wait was over three hours so she had to leave we went again i went on tuesday i came to the school site five degrees or whatever temperature was 10 degrees we had people that were lined up outside in the cold and that was all the way down the brookside uh parking lot drive so then i went to the downs towns testing center at 7 35 they didn't open until 8 a.m i was the 19th person in line took me two and a half hours

088to end car with my kids in order to get them tested school started on thursday i got my results back sunday night those who went to the testing facility as ms gonzalez is mentioning still have not gotten their results so as miss hannah and you heard from the board and you even heard from public comment we want testing has to be a part of the equation but we can't tell parents to test if we're not going to be able to get the feedback in time to even make an informed decision so i would like us to reach out to i know abbott labs or some of our previous partners to see what we can do in order to encourage additional testing facilities and what we can do from an advocacy position in order to see

089are there additional labs or testing in order when we get these spikes that people can actually get information in order to help stop the spread we mentioned mr mr president can i uh just give give you some information the testing site on grand avenue that is closer to 41 they have a very good system and they're allowing uh they're just passing out the uh the test uh kit you um you uh they give it to you you go to the parking lot you fill out the information on your phone you do your test yourself and then you bring the test back and you'll get that um within uh some hours however the only bad thing about that is is that they're only doing that rapid test and that is really not a pcr test and

090so it really it may defeat the purpose okay can can i chime in or were you not talking about it let me like that i'm sorry president and um the the second one was which is that'll be addressed tonight um but i do know uh there was a large number of students that were out and i'm hearing constantly from parents as deputy cesario mentioned in his remarks i just want to make it crystal clear is that we do have a plan and the board approved upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to implement a plan in order to make sure that students are quarantining have access to resources so that they can continue their education while they're at home brother blanks talked about at the beginning of the year we uh know that

091students will quarantine so we want to make sure that as parents they should know the process and if we need to do better and letting parents know what they need to do and then making sure that staff members and students know what they need to do in order to make sure that when students are quarantining because it's going to happen that they know what the expectation is and that everybody is following our expectations and then we've spent millions millions millions of dollars in ppe and supplies and inventory and i personally don't want to hear from teachers or staff who are saying that they don't have access to supplies and so i appreciate deputy cesario for jumping on it making sure that the entire district received an email as far as how they can request supplies

092but i want to make it very very clear we we are talking about building another warehouse because we have so much inventory so we need to move the inventory from the warehouse into the classrooms in order to make sure that's getting to the people who need it and so i appreciate you guys speaking to that in your presentation but sometimes they get lost in the words so i just wanted to make it crystal clear for all those that are listening that you all are aware and that we are aware and that um not only are you working on it but there have been some things that have already been implemented but that testing is a big one and then if we're going to have people test they got to get the results can i speak

093to that i'd be remiss and please know i'm going to state this with all due respect we are in the business of education with the onset of the pandemic we have provided vaccination opportunities and testing opportunities we personally do not test so we the district is not holding any test results we partner with outside agencies who come in and we volunteer our time at these events to ensure that testing can take place for our community now the turnaround time that is based off of our outside agency that we partner with so we will contact our outside agency to see if they can do to talk about their turnaround time mr moulton and see if that can be quicker but i do want people who are watching to know that we do not control the tests

094we are not testing this is an an initiative that we know is so crucial for the safety of our community and our district um and i want to thank all the volunteers that came out that day because there was two days of volunteers and it was during the holidays and all these opportunities that are on the weekends they're really led by our staff and volunteering so we well reach out i do believe president ewing has a great idea of reaching back out to abbott and other vendors the reality is that we're not the only district reaching out every district is reaching out to partner with different organizations as a result it's very minimum on the agencies that will come and partner with you i believe our staff has done a great job when we did

095it with walgreens etc but i do know that mr moulton has had been hitting a brick wall when it comes to working with agencies that will just come and partner with us for this testing if we can get agencies to test if anyone knows of an agency that will test we will provide the volunteers and the space to do so and hopefully mr moulton you can contact them about the volunteer i mean about the turnaround time with the testing i just want to make sure that our parents know that we're not the ones testing and holding the results and that is coming from the agency itself and so as we look at partnerships again that would be one of the questions what uh you know because they're popping up every day and there was just

096a article in the new sun about phony testing sites and so we want to make sure that whoever we're partnering with we're a district of 17 000 over 2000 staff members 19 000 people um that they have the capacity and the bandwidth in order to be able to test in the way that we would need so um i did see your hand mrs gonzalez go um i i just wanted to say that um it i wanted to go back to something that dr cesario said that makes schools the safest place to be for the students right we we give the food we're the shelter for most of the day we're we're where they have their their support group right so if we wanna you know and that's and that's unfair right the reality is that

097that's unfair that that that has lied and rested on school districts nationwide that should not be the case but this is where we're at because at other levels the money is going elsewhere for whatever reason and i think if we want to hold true to that yeah we we pick up other people's slack and that's not that's not to diminish the work that other people are doing at different levels of government or where they might be focusing on but you know if i i i feel like if we're gonna be a good partner like let's be a good partner and and that's why i said where do we apply the pressure right let us know because mr molten doesn't have the the samples and he's not analyzing them and we're not asking our team to

098do that but where can we best ask those questions so that when parents come to us with those answers or with those questions we have some kinds of answers um the other thing that i wanted to mention was you know i and and this is just to be transparent i i i'm i've always been transparent with the people who reach out to me and this is my expectation and i know it's not the most popular thing but i would 100 support a vaccine mandate for our students we expected that for our staff and our teachers and they'd have mandatory testing if they have some other reason why they wouldn't want to get the vaccine or can get the vaccine but i believe that that's the best possible solution for our students and again not everyone

099agrees with it i i totally get that but that you know the reality is that we're in this position because not as many people got the vaccine who would have wanted to get the vaccine so that we wouldn't be at this phase of the pandemic that's just the reality and we have power to do that sorry go ahead and on that note you have the opportunity so even if the district doesn't mandate it um at this point my stance is still that the vaccine is the best tool that we have to combat this and i encourage everyone in our community who can do so to get the vaccine the district will continue its efforts to find partners in order to host more vaccination clinics um but that is where we are go ahead mr mcbride

100uh after listening to uh everybody's comments going back to the uh issue of uh the testing and not them turning around as fast as we'd like them to uh we're not the only district that's dealing with that i can tell you that right now and uh not only that uh if you go downtown uh for testing you uh it's almost like a parade you got cars wrapped around trying to uh as brandon said he had to sit in there two hours so you can imagine if he had to sit in that two hours uh when it come to turnaround time for the test uh you got of course i heard you mentioned uh abbott you got backstage you got quests and all of them you would think that uh with uh with those three little

101entities that the testers would be uh getting back as soon as we would like going to be but you got everybody uh around us in all districts are going to get tested looking for results now i i would beg to i would make a difference there but there are some districts the the should i say the have and the have-nots are getting those tests back in uh uh uh a a pace that that we would all like to see here so it does happen so i'm not saying it's not impossible but all districts are different and like i say some district has a little bit more than some other districts and it does happen but uh i i i want to say i appreciate the team uh what you're doing and trying to keep our

102kids safe and uh i do know that uh it's been said a thousand different times but from a mental standpoint educational standpoint it's best that our kids be in school i totally uh uh a agree with that and uh and i'm i'm just miss hannah was saying if there is outbreak i hope there is a plan for us to actually uh uh get ready in gear but whether it be remote i hope that that's in place and and if that's if it is in place we we're we're doing the right thing but right now uh we're not the only district that's uh in remote learn that's it that's in personal learning and i think they all believe in the idea of what we all keep saying it's best that our kids be in school you

103know and as adriana said as i thank you as i thought about that i started thinking about the black panthers and how that even got started with the idea of free and reduced lunch and they were thinking about that during that time because the kids uh was at home uh didn't have what they needed and i hate to say we are a daycare the school district we got the kids eight hours a day and we got them eight hours a day what are we doing with it we're teaching them we're nursing them we're doing everything we can just like we are acting as parents and that's the bottom line to it board president go ahead mr etto thank you i i just wanted to say uh thank you for the to the team that is

104working with us because you are charting uncharted waters we everyone is trying something to to get everyone safely through this pandemic if somebody had the answer we'd all be doing it so you know it as you said as a superintendent said it is daily it is even many times a day assessing what is happening we have to remember that there's no easy answers we don't have the rapid tests available to everybody we're hoping those will be coming soon that everybody will get eight of them for a month per person the president is promising that it's not available yet it will be soon they keep saying but we don't have any way easily to navigate through this process and it may come to the point where we have to close some of our schools uh in

105order to keep staff safe and keeps it kids safe we have as as board president mentioned we have options available to our children to keep learning while they're home and quarantined so there's a lot of things this is a very fluid situation um we've got one of the catchiest uh cove advent you know omicron uh variants that's come around we're not as the superintendent has said many times we're not through this pandemic not by a long shot so we're going to be working with it even though we don't have the testing i would remind people if your child is sick and you think maybe it's just a cold considerate covet and don't send them to school because it is a virus whether it's a cold or whether it's omicron keep them home until they're fine

106and we and we know that you know this this uh this thing it may cause us to have to call close some of our schools either due to staff shortages the airlines have had to shut down some things businesses have had to shut down um so we may have to um to keep everybody safe but we will be back and we'll get those people back in so just want to remind people we are you know in uncharted waters but as everybody on the board has said we want to keep our our children our students in school that's where they need to be and we thank everyone who's working hard to continue to do that our teachers our support staff everyone thank you and we cannot forget that we have a we have a staff of

107teachers that are dealing with this as well and they're under stress very much so and they also need breaks as well absolutely you are so right miss hannah that's that's that's what you know our teachers need support our everyone needs support and we need to as we said encourage our subs to come in and help us out and i think our our teams that are working on this um thank you very much princess lucy and then uh ms legozamo then i have a final comment that we do need to move on i have uh three things uh so first question for you uh as you looked at the staff and student attendance um yeah i think it was you uh mr cesario that with those attendance rates are you seeing any sort of concern at

108this moment no actually it is it's improved i mean like um mr riddle said you know if we discuss this if we have to go case-by-case school by school and each situation is different because of the size of the school um and and it's the situation so what's what's the context within that that particular school uh how many rooms are quarantined we're going over all these questions on a daily basis we've we've um there was one instance um last thursday no last friday where we had a little concern we were able to um make the adjustments and then as i had said to miss callahan wozniak that what we looked at we looked at uh at the beginning of the day and then about an hour and a half later because there are so few

109students that day we were able to keep the school open because we were able to manage the numbers there so we're looking at that again on a daily basis multiple times per day to ensure that if we need if we needed to to act on the um on the on the behalf of students and and uh teachers and staff members and what's in their best interest as well as our administrators then that's what we're going to do but again as has been uh reiterated uh from the board members from all of you our primary focus is to make sure that we can continue to provide services and a safe haven for our students that's that's first and foremost from a mental health standpoint i would argue from that standpoint first and from a health standpoint

110a physical health standpoint second uh as well as providing academics um you know to all of our students so long story short we're monitoring this daily um superintendent placencia is constantly in on those conversations she's aware of what's happening we're looking at the numbers on a uh again daily these are meetings that are happening regularly and we're just going through those as i said number of students number of teachers number of admin and then deploying our team my team uh into the schools uh primarily my team because they have the the certificates to go into classrooms or to oversee the school if necessary so um and we've done it we've had to do it this week several times and we're going to continue to do what we have to do as well as plan for

111the future and now this question would be for mr moulton so from mr moton you talked about the dividers being put up in the classrooms have all of the schools implemented the dividers i'm hearing reports from students indicating especially at the washington campus that the dividers are not fully installed in classrooms sure thank you for the question so we're making them available we didn't make a requirement for all classrooms to implement them what we did was we had a three foot social distance metric uh floor plans that we did for every single classroom at the start of the year that we issued out the schools we asked them to maintain that distance and if they couldn't we have the dividers available to them the board originally purchased several dividers over fourteen thousand as well as

112thirteen hundred for staff that we issued out to school so we're we're bringing them back out and as the schools are seeing a need for them or they're being requested we're deploying them so how does a teacher for example in a classroom identify is it a teacher's identifies that they need dividers in their classrooms and request it or is it as the uh the team that goes around and checks the the buildings they're saying oh that classroom should have dividers yeah so a majority of it is at the teacher request based on the logistics of the classroom and then they would let the building principal or the site-based safety team member know and the custodian who in most buildings is part of the site-based safety team would set them up okay and the other thing

113in regards to the washington campus students have been reporting that some of the hallways have been shut down particularly two hallways and that of course creates more overcrowding in the hallways or more bottlenecking right so do you know anything about those why why that's a current occurring or maybe you just need to investigate a little bit yeah thank you we would need to investigate and follow up on that at the washington campus thank you for bringing that forward those were my three points thank you for president so board president if i could say um as the superintendent mentioned earlier we're going to continue to follow up with our testing vendor we will provide feedback to the the district staff and the board of education as well as contacting new vendors mr president we want to

114make sure the experience is somewhat positive even though we're in a pandemic our vaccination clinics right now we have a really good program growing they're basically on autopilot as we're working with those vendors we want to mirror that or a form of that with our testing options because what happens when individuals stay for hours and hours in a testing line they don't stay they leave and we don't want that we want to make sure we can stream like that and provide more options and logistically we're going to be making some modifications along with leaning and contacting additional vendors for other opportunities so we'll bring that information back and i appreciate the the feedback tonight thank you um do appreciate the information and the presentation brandon said he didn't want to stand out there he got

115in his car and i had that luxury i mean i i had the option as a branch manager to take two hours off of work take my kids and keep them in the car i felt bad for our families i texted superintendent and then she went right so i'm i never shy away from that i understand my privilege and i know that i had that option but i also know like mr mullen says i gotta go to work and it's gonna take more than an hour hour and a half or my and we saw six-year-olds you know my six-year-old would not have stood out in 10 degree weather for an hour and a half to get tested and then we couldn't we ran out because the demand was so high right and so i don't

116say that to as the superintendent said that's not necessarily the job of education but again we're being put in this situation and i want to make sure that we're putting our names on it they're contacting deputy molten about the test results because again it says joaquin public schools they when we have those vaccination clinics that's why they've been so successful is because they trust that w regardless of what people say when they see that walking in public schools they say i'm going there because i trust what they're doing and so we just want to make sure that as we partner we pick partners who are committed to providing our services as well so can i just add a little bit more to that because i know on those at the brookside testing event that we

117had for those two days they didn't usually they didn't utilize the full gym space because the other half was also being used by um a group of students um the cheerleading team right so i mean the other concern that was talked about in the community was try to at least coordinate the locations so that there isn't a student activity and a testing per se um because you know you just don't know of the people coming in and out that are testing are they positive they not and it just kind of creates a more exposed um situation so i mean that was just i just wanted to add that on b because of that that testing situation and the coordination of our facilities being used for that thank you for president thank you i appreciate you

118guys attention and dedication um and our stance from the beginning is you know as as we are we do believe that this is the best way that our students learn but i also want to reiterate to the community staff members even the board of education that the superintendent is the one who determines so i know there's a lot of questions and are we going to vote are we not going to vote what is the board going to do the board does not make the decision of opening or closing we do advise we do give information we do ask questions but at the end of the day the decision will remain with the superintendent so i did want to as a wrap up to do we open do we close it's not a formal vote there's

119not going to be a yes or no the superintendent will decide based on the information what the community is asking and i know it may be premature at this point but what are the metrics we had metrics that we use we understand that things have changed but what are those adjusted metrics so then we're not having to make you know on the spot decisions 10 percent 14 percent 12 vaccine and that's why it's important for us to know what our current vaccination levels are which will help in making those decisions so um thank you to all those and for the report and for the conversation um the information item is the foia report we have new business um i'm going to hit the new business i'm going to ask for the relevant individuals who ask

120that they be agenda items to state what it is that they kind of want it um and then we can give each board member an opportunity to speak to it um and then if there's a consensus we will give direction to the staff in order to either research or questions on implementation um if there's not a consensus we will move on but it is now 9 00 pm so uh first item 19a is cell phones and schools so ms hannah i will ask you to briefly describe what it is you would like to do i'm sorry mr president could you say again i my grandbaby is sick anyway tell me what you said again so we are at discussion items there were two board members who contacted me to put items on the agenda one

121was miss hannah 19a which is cell phones i'm asking you to briefly describe what it is you're asking from the board then i'll give each board member an opportunity to respond or weigh in on a topic if there is a consensus we can give either direction or seek information from the administration if there is not consensus then we move on and so i asked because you reached out and the first item 19a is yours what are you asking um i am asking and i know that this is not popular but it is smart and uh there comes a time when we have to say enough of the disruption distraction of those cell phones in our schools i looked at the um at the survey that we did back in 2017 that tells the story um

122in my opinion that uh of course students are not going to say they they want their phones taken away and of course they're not going to say that some of the parents are not going to say yes take the phones away but in um in consideration of what we have been going through with those cell phones in our schools and it's all the way from the middle school up to the high school with the um with the disruption the fighting the um the the uh the lewd videotaping of of inappropriate uh behaviors of students in our in our schools um we need to think about banning the cell faults and we are not going to be the only school district that has done that um that our students are um are misusing uh the the

123cell phones the in the classroom they're not supposed to have them in the classrooms they disregard the policies there's confrontation when teachers say put put the phones away the students disregard disrespect uh the the teachers the adults and it's not they're not using them for educational purposes so why are they uh being allowed to have the cell phones in our school and um uh this was my stance uh before and i am still there uh the the the more the more that i look at this issue it's more important now um that we uh we consider removing the cell phones out of this out of the schools and in the survey the uh the question was if we banned the phones would they bring them anyway the student said of course yes well if it's

124going to be hard but we need to do something so miss hannah you're asking what you the question on the floor is you would like us to ban cell phones yeah ms wiseman no i didn't oh i'd say each board member has the opportunity to respond oh you're asking for a response and i mean you agree with it you think we should pursue something or you know concept sorry i'm missing i don't believe it's something that we could could have make happen control i don't think we can stop the kids from having a cell phone ms legozamo um so my my stance on this one is that we should allow our cell phones in school buildings however i would like to see our cell phones incorporated more into our educational setting um i i agree

125with miss wozniak i think it's going to be a hard pressing um it's going to take several years for us to control the concept of students not bringing cell phones to school first and foremost parents perspective is that they need to get a hold of their students sometimes there are some emergency cases and we have her time and time anytime they call the the school building offices no one is answering so if we're going to be taking away the phones then are we now going to provide additional supports at the office area so that our parents can get in contact with their students in a timely fashion and i'm saying timely fashion sometime within a 10 minute to 20 minute turnaround time and that's that's a big ask if you think about it when you

126leave when you see the students and they they leave the the schools at the end of the year at the end of the school day most of them are on their phones either calling somebody saying i'm getting off going on the bus or what's going on uh you know whatever all of that calling an uber whatever that may be um calling a taxi um and so by them not bringing a phone to school i don't think that's gonna be a feasible concept because of those types of pick up and drop off um stuff but you know to my part my what it was interesting to me because when i was looking at this uh three days ago there was another post on facebook and it's it's principals and teachers across the nation and there was

127maybe 3 000 comments in there and i read every single one of them and i'll tell you there was a trending conversation in there that talked about teachers were more successful in their classroom if they were able to set the expectation around phone policy in the beginning of the classroom so um there's a and it just made me think about okay you set the expectation in the beginning so what does that look like is there may be potential ways that we can utilize our video service and have our instructional team create canned videos that can be pushed out to our students about what's the phone expectation in a classroom or the teachers can create their own customized videos to set that expectation and also putting that as a line item in their grade book that

128the students are required to listen to those videos and understand and they acknowledge that they have received that type of training about that so it's about really setting the expectations in the classroom and then just reiterating it um throughout the the classroom time some teachers have talked about that they have sleeves um or charging stations that they ask the students to uh say you know now is instructional time i need to put the i need for you guys to put your phones in this location and they had said that there was a lot of success with that in their classrooms but if we're going to go in that route i think that we as a board also need to make sure that we are helping with those types of materials we just had a parent

129here earlier talk about um if the teachers are requiring type of materials we should be buying it for them right so if our teachers need you know charging stations to mitigate these cell phone issues during instructional time uh i think we need to put in some of the the resources into that so i i have a lot more to say but you know my perspective i have a lot of ideas of how we can hopefully help mitigate this but the thing is that phones are not going to go away phones is technology of now and into the future and we really need to teach our children how to be active members of the community with cell phones in their hand and how to um and when to use it appropriately thank you for president thank

130you mr well i guess very clearly so are you still undecided on the topic or i i i'm i'm okay with the current policy there are a few things i would like to you know add on to it you know if we do do that my thing would be about adding in student um training on there as a policy so that there's a yearly student training and that would force those videos to go out about what that looks like even though the survey does say the students know what the policy is i think a more a quick video one minute video is something that's going to get it quick to them you know and and they'll understand that better the other thing is um i'd like to see it more implemented into an educational setting

131from our survey of the teachers only about 30 percent of them incorporated in an educational setting cell phones can be utilized as a tool or as an incentive in a classroom so i just think we need to think about that a little bit more and and it i think it looks different for um high school students versus middle school students versus the fifth graders you know and sixth grade right no i think that's a good point mr mcbride lucy you're all right with me i like your therapeutic approach and i'm going to say what you just what you just really what you just reiterated to us was if i walk down this if i drive my car down the street and i look up at the billboard sign and i see this young lady smoking

132virginia slims that's telling me to buy and so verbal visual information is real good not only do we need it for the cell phones i think i've been talking about this for a while and uh we have a young lady that's back there that runs our uh video system that uh that information that you're talking about can be done through her very easy not only just not only just with the cell phones behavior issues and stuff too that we deal with uh from the uh vaping from the disrespect to cutting the teachers out from the fighting all that information could be put on a uh in a video perspective where the kids can see what they're doing and maybe sometime if you see what's going on it gives you a suggestion to say this is

133what i'm doing i shouldn't be doing that so i i just that that was perfect i i really enjoy what you see it now uh and i think that's that would be the route to go and just suppose abandoned phones that's just not going to happen but i think what we can need to do is look at our policies a little bit more and our policies should say well if you ask me for your phone and i tell you i'm not going to give it to you there should be a policy to say well we're going to take that cell phone and the parents should automatically understand that uh if a teacher asks a teacher or a staff member asked a student for a phone because of the fact they were doing something wrong with

134it and it be took him and it should be not only is it taken they should say well now we can ban it but i don't think we have that kind of policy in place i think what we have now like we have so many other policies and places it's a tap on the shoulder and that's it yeah i think that we need to do a little bit more better to your point i mean there was a discussion around that and it the policy needed to be very clear about um if you're not you know um if you're not using your cell phone properly right the the tier system of punishment or um and some people have gone straight to like insubordination so and we don't have that outline very well in our policy and

135you know and you're right about that and you shouldn't be having your phones out while classes are but when periods are changing well looking at your phone you're not calling no parents walking down the hallway or to another class and again like i said and i'm gonna say it again i'm gonna try to make sure i make that you hear the board hears this if i ask for the phone and you tell me i ain't giving you nothing come on now you did more than two you did more than one thing you you disrespected me and you also tell you also just denied giving me the telephone and most of the time uh when a staffer member asked a kid for a phone just because of the fact he was doing something with the phone

136and had nobody and therefore that we need to have it in writing and we're going to take it and the parents need to see it too where the parents don't understand that thank you mr mcbride mr riddle yes the hour is late um uh your question was miss hannah wants to uh is asking that that we ban cell phones i like the policy as it stands currently uh there's it could be tweaked as board members have said um but it does address the issue and yes i favor the policy as it is i do not want to see phones banned i think it's unenforceable as some of the board members have said so that's my point ms gonzalez uh yeah i i don't want to ban phones um and i i think i i always

137say i'm younger than some of the folks on here and and some of our teachers so i i'm gonna be that person to advocate for the students because um you know phones are some of the first things that people actually like as a young person it's some of the first things that you have as property that you could call your own that you could use in emergencies that you contact family and friends with um you know emergencies happen and i feel like it's up to the discretion of the teachers how they want to set up that policy on on a day-to-day basis in their classrooms um i think that you know building trust with students at the beginning of the year like lucy had mentioned really starts to create that relationship uh process like that

138relationship building with the students and you know taking that opportunity away from teachers and students to sort of talk about that and and flesh that out for themselves um i i i think we we take away from from that kind of uh that environment building in the classroom um i also think that you know just like reflecting on my own experience uh and some of the students who i know are probably the kinds of students that annoy some of the teachers with these things um people learn in different ways so i'm a strong advocate of like individualized learning if in during instruction time you know you pay attention to the teacher and then after instruction time if you if if it helps you and motivates you to get through work to listen to music you

139should be able to do that because we're we're preparing students for college and the real world and i i can send an email and be on instagram i can send you know i can set a a scheduled appointment and set a a meeting time and then contact somebody who's been trying to get me to answer a question like we we should not see those as deficiencies in our students we should be looking at that as like a positive multitasking um thing that they're able to do because they are now in the age of information and technology so yeah i i know that's not you know how everyone thinks but i really feel like if we change our perspective on that and figure out a way to set boundaries without being like totally against why they

140why they are in uh or available anyway i feel like that conversation could be better had yeah my stance is just it cuts down the same thing than when we had it three years ago there's nothing is wrong with the policy in my opinion uh it's the implementation so we talked about um phones so first paragraph is portable electronic devices can be in school buildings however they shall not be used during the school day except for by authorized in this policy um or whenever school staff is attempting to communicate with a student so you can have them there don't use them during the class unless you're allowed so that's what the current policy states it also says prohibited use so what things the cell phones can't be used and then confiscation and discipline i all

141found out in the policy as far as that you can take the phone already so if you are not doing what you're supposed to do confiscation we can take your phone and then you can lose your privilege so i go back to nothing is wrong with the policy unless there's somebody who has a proposal i can say that our takeaway is a board is to read the current policy and if there are suggestions i would ask that you email kathy and myself and then we can see if we want to incorporate those into a policy overhaul because that is the work of the board but right now everything that we talked about and support nation loss of privileges comment of offenses so those kids that are habitual offenders and uh sexting that all of those

142things aren't allowed so all of that is already in the current policy so the issue in my opinion is not the policy it's the implementation so what i hear ms hannah is is the from the board is that there is not a majority who agree with banning phones outright but that we are open to reviewing the policy um and so if there are any suggestions then that is what my takeaway is is that the board would read the current policy make any revisions or suggestions and send those to myself and kathy and we can maybe in two weeks um you know if there are any changes have a first reading if i don't receive anything i will consider this issue dead and we will continue with the policy as it stands okay brandon the power

143right and can i just say one last thing mr president go ahead um everything that everything that you said uh read in our policy the the policy is not being um adhered to the policy is being disregarded by our students depart they they say they know the policy but it it's not being followed and in terms of um of putting um putting the um the responsibility on the teachers i don't think that the teachers should have to deal with it we're in we're in the business of educating kids it's not like we are taking the phones away from the children um forever it's just during the school day because the the students cannot and will not and have not respected the policy up to this point and so it's that that that that that's the

144you just spoke you just said everything that they are doing that the policy said that they shouldn't do so um okay and yeah you know i i i saved my feet thank you miss hannah next up um okay so i was obviously thinking some things um so uh this is from my perspective and so obviously from my perspective and from what i see from my class periods even throughout just all over high school in general so one example i can give is that freshman year i remember my physics teacher he made this rule and did something that mr kazamo did mention that is specifically when we do have tests he made us put our phones in these um they're technically calculator pockets but we would basically put them in there and he would watch us

145put them in there so obviously uh we would honor the honor code in terms of taking the test so obviously there would be no kind of cheating um that's just one example um and i think that when it comes to phones phones are definitely essential because um obviously it is sad to say but when it comes to these events that we did have the past few months about hard lockdowns okay what do kids do right away including me i text my parents you know you text your dad you text your mom um about hey this is happening just letting you know i'm safe you know so when it comes to that i think that is very very important uh when it comes to um you know being dropped off or specifically actually being picked up

146uh for me when i was um a freshman i actually just got in my phone because that's how you know it kind of was with my dad my dad said that i wouldn't get my phone or especially specifically serviced until i was a freshman in high school so in that first few weeks i didn't have service so i didn't know where my mom was picking me up from we she actually had to tell me hey i'm gonna be right here just come there and um and that's what i would have to do but obviously with traffic it's crazy sometimes things happen you know if they're running late what you know what are you gonna what are you gonna think oh like where's my mom where's my dad where are they you know you're just waiting

147around so that's what i'll have to do so i would text my mom i'll call my mom hey are you here yet are you gonna be late or she would tell me so that communication is very very important uh i don't think i i obviously don't think banning is the right way and i don't think it will happen i think that it the implementation part is very very important i think that teachers um if they have their set of rules implemented in the beginning like they lay them out uh you know they usually get their syllabus and they have their set of rules they have their set of um things that they wanna they want the students to accomplish in the class et cetera so making sure that's implemented in the beginning depending on the

148teacher and what they think uh i think it's very important like for example this year my ap psychology teacher she mentioned she i remember she said that um whenever i give you guys individual work time you guys can listen to music you guys can work on your phone but right at the beginning class and she says this every day even from the from the start of the year she says okay guys put your phones away um and she has she has had to repeat it multiple times 100 percent uh because sometimes students obviously do go on their phones it is tempting i'm not gonna lie but um it's not like we don't listen to it 100 we listen to her um and we put our phones away and we we pay attention in class um

149but again i don't think the banning is going to work i don't think students will listen uh that's one thing and then just the main part is that the communication i think uh phones are definitely essential uh and i know uh miss miss adriana gonzalez mentioned about uh listening music and i think that definitely helps me that definitely helps a lot of other students when doing individual work um and i think that even in lunch time or other cases as well just music or just going on your phone socializing from a different uh point of view or different standpoint um so those are those are my thoughts uh i def again the imp the implement part i think that could be looked at maybe uh or i think i honestly i think that's happening right

150now it just depends on the teacher i think that's all that's all that matters is how the teacher implements it in the beginning or making sure they emphasize it in the beginning of the school year about their specific own personal policies for their classroom and their teaching thank you thank you thank you mr sani um and so again there's no further information needed there's not a sufficient support to ban cell phones and any board members that would like to give feedback on the current policy have two weeks to do so all right uh now next up is item 19b mask option discussion so i'm going to let miss gonzalez uh state what it is that she's looking to do uh yeah so over the course of the last couple weeks um a lot of people

151obviously staff teachers have reached out and they are very hesitant and um some you know some of them feel like returning to in person wasn't the best uh outright decision returning from break and i i feel both sides of that conversation knowing that in-person learning is more effective it's it's a way to engage students a little bit better and not every home is is the same kind of safe environment for learning that you know we would hope every student has but also knowing that omicron and all the variants have increased cases um and obviously i want to ask for the moon and the stars and and all of these resources to come from different angles toward us but uh one thing that i think we we could make a decision on um is focusing on

152those uh and ms hannah had already mentioned it the k95 kn 95 and n95 masks which are you know studies have shown that they're a little more effective in preventing airborne particles um i i would really love for us to commit a certain allocation of money to just dedicate and and distribute that uh those masks for all of our classrooms even if it's just like one box of 50 or or however many masks um because they are reusable if you take care of them put them in a bag um you know they they can last a while i i initially and it doesn't have to be tied to a specific amount but i would love for us to you know be thinking into the next school year so i was thinking okay 125 000 maybe

153for every semester it would probably be less than that given that enrollment in the summer period is is a lot less than what we would expect during a regular semester of school but you know some commitment to focus on purchasing those masks and just making sure that there's at least one box for every staff member every teacher every student who may need a mask that day um and to and to have that be routine because i understand that we're giving um supplies out i understand that we're giving masks out but even in the you know i went to the vaccine event and i saw what they were putting in the boxes and i was like i love that we have hand sanitizers i love that we're you know we're passing out soap but we also

154need to sort of help cover people's faces and and sometimes the masks can be expensive so um i wanted to introduce that because i know it would give some of our teachers peace of mind um going into the next you know next couple months and it would be a way for us to for sure know that they're somewhat protective being in person teaching the students so ms gonzalez is asking that the board asks the administration to research the time and cost associated with purchasing the okay i know and the certified masks and mr moden has already started to look at this but before we did any um thing we want to make sure that this was the concurrence of the board so mr uh riddle i think it's certainly a good idea uh if if

155mr molton researches this and comes back and and lets us know that he can get those uh masks one of my concerns is some of the kn 95s i have some that look pretty bad i don't like wearing them especially the ones that go around your head some of them look kind of pointy like a penguin yeah it's kind of like what you have i think some of our students might not want to wear those you know people it's a mask is a pretty personal thing but i'd like to you know see the administration i certainly would support if we can find some at a good price and they're you know they hook on the ears and we wanted to pass some out but i don't think it's something that we'd want to keep passing

156out every week to students you know they don't last that long either the washable ones last a lot longer so maybe he could research those as well we have bunches of maybe not the washable but we have the face mask and i know yeah those those are pretty thin ones the the waukegan public bulldogs one those are pretty skinny ones yeah go ahead uh w molding and then i'm gonna keep going down the line for sake of time thank you mr ewing uh yeah we we have quite a few masks um on hand right now yes we do have the cloth mats we also have the three ply disposable similar to what the superintendent is wearing right now and we also have a variety of sizes a majority is adult but what we've experienced particularly

157at the elementary level is they have some masks that are suitable for six to twelve year old and then under six and that's really what we've been ordering more frequently the adult mask we have plenty on inventory but we will certainly research this with the consensus of the board and approval of superintendent and come back to the board of education with some options um fda approved kn95 mass because we have seen some are not you know legitimate i'll say and then also kind of look at the frequency of how often we're replacing these sending them out to schools proper care instruction so somebody's not wearing the same mask you know for three weeks in a row without replacing it because these are they're not washable but they can be reused and we want to make

158sure they're taking the proper care when they're wearing them to school thank you for that stephanie miss mcbride one of my comments is do whatever you got to do that's going to uh cause some intervention and keep our kids safe thank you miss hannah um of course yeah i um as i was saying earlier there was um a report regarding the n95 mask and they are um they they are better at lessening the transmission of the virus uh it takes like an hour uh or more when you're in contact with someone that is that is positive positive so yes i am uh in favor of that thank you miss anna miss leguizamo uh thank you board president um in my my personal opinion i do believe that the first line of defense um for vaccinated

159and unvaccinated people is the type of mass that you wear so i i definitely support us taking the initiative at looking at the cost of transitioning our mass to kn 95 masks especially for our staff and then filtering down to our students i'd like to see that more in our school setting versus us um giving away at the community events that we have um because i'd like to make sure that our school setting is set up in that more um first barrier right that first line of defense um i feel that that's the mask is better than um the dividers right you guys know my opinion on dividers um but uh i just want to say i support this so thank you thank you mrs miss uh as you know i always like to look

160at numbers so i'm i'm interested in seeing how much it would cost us um i also am double masking tonight myself because we have had coveted cases within our community at work and we're only eight people to begin with so it's uh it's one of those things you just you have to be prepared and practice safe protocols so me i 100 support this would like to see the numbers but again we have to we've been given a tremendous amount of money and i know uh this is an unbudgeted item [Laughter] it's always folk doesn't love or unbudgeted items but i do think that um it's important and again that she says that's what the budget is for so if the board says it so it will be uh and just know that there may be

161some other things that we need to shift around um but i do believe that this is a commitment that we need to make uh the supplies that we have get them into the classrooms and then let's look at uh what it would take to get better equipment and types of masks as looks i have my cloth mask on but that's because i'm waiting for mine to come in with that so there is sufficient support so we have more than four that are saying uh it's actually unanimous that they would like to see quotes on uh the more secure mass so we will have administration research that and if possible i don't want to put on the timeline but if possible uh operations if not student operations then um [Music] the next board meeting with that

162i will say that i will be bypassing board member time it is 9 36 so i'd like a motion to adjourn motion motion by miss gonzalo's second bob mr mcbride all in favor signify what i i any opposed nate all right meeting is now adjourned thank you all so much and if anybody gets a chance stop by greenwood school the windows look wonderful [Music] the windows look wonderful they make you