September 20, 2021 KASD School Board Meeting

001live and we'll call the meeting to order dr meyers okay do we need my flag or a flag i have a flag if i can share um and dr meyers you will be sharing the agenda and the traveling art show he's not attacked mr hoffman just sent a chat for the art teachers to be able to present yes i'm going to allow them to be panelists and we are we are now live on youtube so we can begin okay with with that i'd like to call this meeting's order but everyone please take a moment of silent meditation and a pledge to the flag christian i think has flagged i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god [Music] is having

002a hard time getting in she may be as a an attendee and needs to be promoted to a panelist please okay i'm not sure if she's on there or not she's just having a hard time getting in if she's not there we can continue all i'll connect i don't see abby wood right now okay i'd like to to welcome everyone this evening um there will be an opportunity for public comment there should be a link that was associated with this meeting where you can sign up or there is an ability to raise your hand um being a one of the persons in the audience we will like to have people that would like to speak up by to speak excuse me for public comment by 7 45 so we can have that organized appropriately there

003will be an opportunity to speak for public comment on both agenda items and non-agenda items there was an executive session prior to the meeting to discuss legal and personnel items as well as there was an executive session of the policy and curriculum committee meeting on the previous monday on september 13th to discuss legal matters so with that roll call please ricky michelle batts here randy birch here darian here michael hess here cecilia holt here dennis ritter here eric johnson here carl nelty here charles sure here perfect would like to take a few moments to have some opening comments before we move to item number three to provide some background as to why this meeting is virtual and uh some of the things we'll be discussing later in the meeting so for everyone that's on the

004meeting on tuesday august 31st the pennsylvania acting secretary of health signed an order requiring face coverings to be worn in all school entities the order went into effect on september 7th of this year the order is clear that a school entity must require and enforce the requirements that all teachers children students staff and visitors submit the exemptions of section 3 of the order must wear a face covering indoors regardless of whether the order is reflected in the school's health and safety school entities health and safety plan the passing of this order superseded the health and safety plan that had been passed by the board of school directors for klitstown in august furthermore the pennsylvania department of education has detailed the following potential consequences if the school entity fails to comply with the order school officials

005who have failed to adhere the order will could lose their protection of sovereign immunity and may personally face lawsuits from those who may be affected by any official's attempt to ignore the order failing to implement or follow the control measures may expose individuals to personal liable liability under a pennsylvania code relating to willful misconduct as well as other remedies as provided by law failure to implement and follow the control measures under the order also subjects a person to the penalty provisions of the disease prevention and control law of 1955. on monday september 13th at the policy curriculum commuting meeting there were members of community attendance that were not wearing face coverings face coverings were provided by the district and community members would still not adhere to the to the order signed by the pennsylvania secretary

006of health ultimately the meeting was adjourned without any business being completed after consultation with the school district solicitors board leadership determined that the best course of action for high school were meeting was to hold a virtual meeting to allow the whole board to deliberate on this topic with public participation while adhering to the health order the order requiring face covering signed by the acting secretary of health is a legal order until it is proven otherwise the order signed by the governor superseded the ability of the local school board to implement their own health and safety plan regarding face coverings within a school entity the school district is legally required to force the face covering order i'd like to be clear the discussion for the board this evening is not regarding the mass regarding mask wearing

007and the effectiveness of masks to reduce the spread of coven 19 with a school building the discussion this evening for the board will be on the necessary steps required for compliance with the health order issued by the acting secretary of health for pennsylvania for upcoming school board meetings so hopefully that provides some background as to how as to why we are uh at a spot right now where there's a virtual meeting with that i'll move to item number three it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors per board policy zero zero three functions approved to suspend the application of board policy zero zero six point one attendance at meetings via electronic communications and authorize the use of a virtual meeting platform for the conduct of the current public board meeting

008which has been duly advertised and provide for required public participation in accordance with the pennsylvania sunshine act do we have a motion i have a motion i think from dr ritter and dr johnson i heard is that a second then we were talking over each other but yes any comments or questions or discussion around item three hearing none roll call please ricky was there something was there a comment yeah so so it's michelle so i just want to be very clear so when we say that the recommendation what we're voting on is that it is acceptable for us to have the meeting virtually tonight this is not discussion about anything future just one yeah this is just about tonight's meeting okay and yeah the decision on whether or not to uh revert to in person

009uh what will we be basing that on we've got i think two weeks to uh decide so under under item eight there's a discussion topic dr johnson which i think we should we should um we'll wait till then thank you i think it's a good place we if we're going to talk about what we want to consider at that point in time okay thank you any other comments hearing none roll call please ricky michelle bats yes randy birch yes darian yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes charles sure yes paul naughty yes so approved next is item four approval of minutes um for the september 7 7 2021 school board meeting do i have a motion a second mike i think i have a motion a second comments questions

010or corrections regarding the september 7th school board meeting minutes hearing none roll call please ricky randy birch yes aldarian present michael hass yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes donald sure yes michelle batts yes carl nolte yes so approved next is item five the treasurer's report respect to the general fund mr miller thank you mr nolte this is the treasurer's report for august 2021 the month began with a cash balance of three million five hundred sixty three thousand nine hundred eighty dollars and nineteen cents during the month we had receipts of six million seventy nine thousand eighty seven dollars and twenty six cents we paid bills and payroll of two million one hundred ninety four thousand four hundred nine dollars and ninety eight cents leaving us with a balance at month end

011of seven seven six hundred forty eight thousand six hundred fifty seven dollars and forty seven cents thank you mr miller is there a motion to uh approve and accept the treasures report second we have a motion a second any comments or questions regarding the the treasurer's report for the general fund yeah mr miller i actually have a question just under the list of um august cash receipts it says subsidies in the amount of 1.2 million dollars um and some other um digits there can you just help me understand better what that is all inclusive what the subsidies are yes um well i don't know specifically right off the top of my head what these are usually that's basic ed fund or it could be special ed or the transportation subsidy um those are generally subsidies

012we receive from the state from the state okay thank you any other questions hearing none roll call please ricky hi darian yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes joshua yes michelle batts yes randy birch yes carl nalty yes so approved next is item six approval of bill for for payments um ratification from the general account and including manual checks in the amount of one million nine hundred thirteen thousand two hundred eighty four dollars and seventeen cents do i have a motion are second motion a second comments or questions around rounding uh excuse me item 6a so i can't do questions and i don't know that the answers would come tonight but it's just some detail um that i pulled out so one in terms of um i noticed a

013bunch of checks for fuel and some of them significantly like large dollar amounts do we have any kind of fuel purchasing power through any entities that would enable us to have a a discount of any sort and i don't know that that's appropriate for this here but just raising it as a question for for the general discussion given that we're talking about the checks we do not the the fuel purchases you're seeing are probably our van drivers purchasing fuel to put in the vans for the students they deliver yeah well it was like 900 was one of them and there was one immediately after for another like 273 i believe it was i don't have it right here in front of me but that's what caught my eye is that it was giant fuels and

014it was such a significant amount okay well that's obviously not filling up the band's gas tank uh i can look into that further for you okay thank you it could it probably is uh a collection of several drivers filling up yeah potentially i'll get you the answer on that okay any other questions hearing none roll call please ricky michael hess yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes charles sure yes michelle bats yes randy birch yes aldarian yes carl nolte yes so approved next is item 6b approval of bills for payment from the general account in the amount of 896 thousand 101 dollars and 86 cents do we have a motion so moved motions are second second motion a second comments or questions regarding item 6b hearing none roll call please ricky cecilia

015holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes joshua yes michelle bats yes randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hess yes paul nulty yes so approved next is item 6c approval of bills for payment for the construction from the construction account would be an amount of 1 million 686 thousand 679 dollars and three cents do we have a motion go moved motions are second second motion a second comments or questions regarding item 6c hearing none roll call please ricky eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes charles sure yes michelle bats yes randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hass yes cecilia holt yes carl nalty yes so approved next we'll move to item seven communications and reports we'll start with the superintendent's report mr tim chattan [Music] for the superintendent's report this evening we're gonna hand over to

016um the fine arts department and welcome mr ben hoffman this is chris turk and sarah fiddler uh sarah fiddler a new teacher to quit center area school districts and elementary art and they are going to showcase some of the fantastic work of the artists throughout the district uh so i'm not sure who's taking the lead maybe mr hoffman as you were the first to unmute yes i want to thank the school board and mr tim chattan for having us here this evening on behalf of the arts department we're really happy to be here again and to showcase our traveling art show uh each year we're very fortunate each of the k through 12 students we select about four to five artworks from each building to put into our permanent collection that is funded by the

017district and we are very appreciative of that artworks are put in these beautiful frames and for those who've been in the administration building have seen the hallway filled with the beautiful works um that are kept here as a permanent showcase so and i also want to highlight this evening that for anyone if we go through this too quickly our art showcase can be found on the district webpage under academics and we have a wonderful page showcasing the arts and the traveling art show so i wanted to highlight that this evening so anyone can go back and look on that so to start we want to introduce sarah fiddler again our newest elementary art teacher really excited to have her here and she's going to walk us through our elementary arts students work this year hello

018can you hear me am i on am i good yes sarah we can hear you oh great okay um the first work of art we have is ava adam and it is a wayne tebow inspired mixed media piece next we have elena schwoyer and this is another mixed media piece including some cartooning adriana walters and a salvador dali watercolor inspired piece um showing extension of the legs as kind of a funny play on salvador dali's artwork and last we have kaya burrell with a tessellation piece based on the artist m.c escher that's very nice and next we bring chris turk our fearless middle school art teacher okay what i'd like to um say uh that sarah is new this year the work that we just saw was under the direction of becky ziegler uh donna

019hill chaney had retired and then becky came in for one year so that's kind of a nice segue to bring sarah in um and also all of these works are last year's grade level that the students are in so i'm going to pick up on 6th grade these are oil pastel landscapes they're small and i take the students out back of the middle school and we look out over um toptin and lions so that's their rendition of of a landscape with oil pastels okay and that's clara schnorr is the top cheyenne fenstermaker is the middle and mckenna dietrich there were so many to pick from i had to do three in one frame they're small enough okay next we have mckenna schneck uh the first of the two pieces that are here the top one

020is the first project i run every year that's based off of the doodle um every i love to see how everybody's buying things so all of the kids were able to do doodles with adding some color if they so desire the bottom piece was based off of a self-directed art work that i tried to work with every student in the building when we were in the midst of back and forth back and forth virtual home i didn't quite know what to do with the students when they were at home and their artwork was at school especially when there's an 80-minute class so i was lucky enough to be able to instruct the kids pick what you would like to do and work through that so that's the one piece oh i'm so sorry okay did

021i just lose everybody no mister we can hear you hold on a minute uh justin i gotta hang up i'm in the middle of a meeting oh my god okay that's fine uh how do i get back did i did you guys lose me we can still see you and hear you and see the art okay i can't see anything anymore so um is elliott johnson of seventh grade all right thanks elliot johnson did a piece uh that was based off of trace three things this was done in uh between thanksgiving and christmas when we were home i decided what am i going to have uh 300 kids do when they don't have any art supplies at home so i instructed them to go into their homes and find three things in their home that

022they could trace um and i think in there is a glue bottle and there's also um a roll of tape i can't see i'm sorry so help me get a playing card and a playing card bingo okay and the next one we have is kyrie butts of eighth grade okay so kyrie was also in that self-directed piece and through my self-directed art i felt it very important that every student write about their own artwork i was able to have them create an artist's statement with specific guidelines so that every one of the students would have the same writing format introducing themselves introducing what media what material how they went about to create this art as well as their feelings reflections and then also the last paragraph is what did they learn from this situation so

023that's why it's framed um in the actual piece with the artist's statement this picture just has her artwork itself and i think that's it ben i think we can head over to you yes thank you chris thanks sorry about that not messed up people so this next artwork does uh this is the work of andy holman he's part of our life skills groups and he's an absolutely incredible talented artist we moved a lot of those students up to the high school this past year so that's why you'll see eighth grade listed uh this was a piece that andy had done in the top right we were practicing name of just other cultures subtracting his name in calligraphy traditional japanese writing and then we have the banzai cherry blossom tree here so just seeing the multitude

024of colors the layering really did a wonderful job with this piece and truly the picture goes no justice it's probably two feet almost three feet in length the next piece we have is by fiora schnell a 10th grader currently 11th grade and this was a beautiful black and white photography piece with self-made uh self-choice piece you can see this really great sense of depth uh looking at the work of ansel adams a traditional photographer who explored photography and thinking about the 13 layers of black and white so really capturing those dark tones lighter values and it really is just a strong composition all around and of course this was a scene that a lot of our students were seeing over the last year learning from home so just a really beautiful scene to have this

025next artwork was a really special one this is by christina guzman current 11th grader now this is a really spectacular piece this is not pen and ink or sharpie this is actually a print so this was done as a linoleum print uh so everything that you see here would have been carved away and it's flipped so this is the outcome of when it rolls through the printing press and this was a silver key recipient in the scholastic art and writing awards last year so that was highlighted at kutztown university's campus so a really spectacular print and is on display of course part of the show and in our current classroom and the last work i have this evening it's a really fun one it's one that kind of excites all of our intro photography students

026is alpha photography and the work of savannah delp uh ninth grade really just training the eye to look around the school and look around at things that we simply use and do every day and looking for you know the alphabet it's simple but it's really exciting for folks to take a second look take moments for granted that you see and really enjoy the process and this is uh done with a little bit of digital photoshop and that concludes our exhibition so i want to share that this show will now continue forth that everything has been framed and it will travel throughout the community to several places over the course of the year ending back in the district where we will put it and rotate it with the current artwork at the administration building so with

027that thank you mr tim chattan and the school board and i turn it back to all of you thank you mr hoffman uh thank you mrs fiddler and thank you ms turk for joining us this evening to highlight and showcase the amazing talent um throughout the district you know seeing it from that lens of from our youngest elementary students all the way through our high school students you know and how you inspire them um you know it it's we're fortunate we get to see it every day in our buildings you know it's hanging in the hallways to highlight it for the board and for the community just an unbelievable program that you've all have led your lent your talents and your abilities to to continue the great tradition of art and kutztown so congratulations to

028all of our highlighted showcased artists and thank you thank you to our teachers for inspiring definitely thank you it was great uh always something to look forward to every year i know the board member we do this it's uh great to see that the the the artwork that the students do pretty amazing uh there's lots of other great things going on in the district um throughout the fall sports but tonight is the tonight is for the arts and we'll continue to share those um future meetings does any any board members have any questions or comments before we move on to the board committee reports um i'm just going to say real quick this is one of my favorite parts of being on the board these past eight years and uh watching and also some of

029these artists uh i've been seeing their art progress over the last uh eight years uh as they've um remained outstanding artists uh as they've graduated up through the grades and again i know from my own kids we have a great arts faculty here at our schools and i'm very thankful to all of them anyone else again just acknowledging the great tradition we've had here in our district of very talented teachers and talented young artists may i jump in on that for a moment about tradition sure okay um helen irene keaney was one who i think started this and she just passed away this past couple months ago but i wanted to honor her because i think this has been going on for over 30 years i haven't been here i've only been here and i

030thought it was 12 years before i got here so um it's been a long time and i'm just so thankful that we have been able to continue that tradition thank you great uh that is all for my report and uh mr nolte i know abigail wood is joining us um via youtube this evening so there will be no student represented report but she is on okay all right thank you well with that we'll move to the board committee reports we will start uh with um policy and curriculum ms holtz okay as mentioned before by mr nolte the policy and curriculum committee meeting was adjourned to executive session for legal discussion we did come back and announce that feedback conversation has been posted to the district website so everyone can take a look at that um

031but that is there was no additional business conducted thank you miss holt um ecc and facilities mr burch yes mr nolte uh ecc and facilities was able to meet with respect to extracurricular we had a discussion regarding the ag department looking into a purchase for a new trailer there is a need with the ag department to have a trailer to haul different refuse and different things that they need to do with taking care of the animals at the at the barn so we'll have more information with respect to that at the committee level before anything would be presented to the uh board as a whole uh for purchase uh no i'm getting a look from christian uh because i didn't see it on our agenda tonight christian uh the egg trailer is on the agenda

032this evening um if you look the egg i see it yeah okay there's two items there was a version of the agenda that went out um a little earlier in the afternoon on friday and then it was followed by an updated agenda and it does have a trailer on there and then i was looking at the uh the old agenda okay so again uh we do have the updated information for the ag trailer then and it is on our agenda for us to consider uh for the ag department to get the new trailer we also received an update regarding uh stat stadium advertising fees the billboards or the signage around the stadium were under five-year agreements uh and some of those will be coming due so uh mr yapsuga is looking into renewing uh those

033uh advertisements uh so that we can continue to make some extra income for the district and do some advertising with the local businesses and that's something that they'll continue to look at and hopefully we can continue to have advertising at the stadium with the signs with respect to facilities we received information regarding uh thermography and switchgear cleaning uh that is uh something that uh we are still waiting to get some uh pricing on uh before that would move forward but that is a uh a service or a maintenance that would be uh needed for the district uh to make sure the equipment is uh working properly and and efficiently so we'll be getting more information on that and hopefully being able to proceed with those cleaning uh the cleaning that it would be needed also

034we received an update regarding a high school driveway drain the one area towards the back with the parking lot when when the new uh pavement was done there was a low lying area towards the back by the stadium where some puddling occurred where we had some of the recent uh heavy rains so that the maintenance uh did some work with respect to a drain there and that did seem to alleviate that issue with the uh the pooling of the water also we received uh some information concerning tennis court retaining wall this would be a retaining wall constructed between the upper level and lower level courts and i believe that is item e on our agenda tonight uh for new business uh tennis court uh landscaping and that is just part of the project we are

035doing to uh rehabilitate the tennis courts and refurbish them and the retaining wall is something that was presented in order to continue with that project and making sure everything uh looks good when it's done and that makes up the balance of my report mr nolte thank you mr birch bctc mr sure uh we have not met our next meeting is this coming wednesday evening i plan to attend great thank you bciu dr ritter i'm i was i was at a different location um it was a virtual meeting last week last thursday and uh for whatever reason the wi-fi where i was located would not support apparently support getting out on zoom so i could not attend i apologize no worries thank you dr ritter berks county tax collector mr miller uh there was not a

036meeting this month we meet once a quarter and we are meeting this thursday evening and psba ms holt first thing that i wanted to mention is that the pennsylvania department of ed has proposed new regulations for charter and cyber charter schools um and that that's been published and there is it's open for public comment through october 18th and then the other note is that the annual school leadership conference is now going to be virtual and no charge to board members you are you do still need to register to be able to access any of that and the majority of the sessions will be available live but also recorded for later viewing and that concludes my report thank you miss holt any comments or questions from board members on the reports okay great thank you for

037everyone reporting out and thank you again to traveling art show great great reports tonight with that we'll move to item eight which is a discussion a particular discussion for the how the october board meeting platform in consideration of the pennsylvania department of health order so open that up to conversation by board members on conversation discussion on how board members would like to proceed with board met with board meetings um for the foreseeable future based on uh where we are with the department of health order so i'll open it up to the floor well mr nolte i think you made it clear that the department of health order is a department of health order and um from everything i've understood from everything that's been said and told to me we have no room to maneuver uh

038within that order you said it's a legally binding order and um i think our starting point needs to be that we must um comply with that order um as long as it's in place so um i think the problem is uh we don't seem to have a good way forward to achieve compliance if um if uh there are people who just outright refuse to comply with that order so i i think we're already in the situation where we're kind of stuck here on zoom until either that order is no longer in place or we have a uh we can achieve a compliance and i'm reluctant to try to have another in-person meeting and then have another confrontation and waste another opportunity to get the school board's business done um and so i you know i

039i think we're just in a situation as long as we cannot comply with that order and that order is there uh we have to stay on zoom so the only thing that can change is the order is removed or we can achieve compliance with it and i don't know how we would do the second i would agree with everything dr johnson just said but i would add to that that potentially uh as it goes through the courts the order could be overthrown overturned uh rescinded uh and that would return us to our uh previous plan and my preference is that even if just as an example of nothing else whatever requirements we have for our kids while they're in school should be required of visitors at any point and so i would like to even

040if the order is overturned they wouldn't want to rely on that as long as we require our kids to be wearing masks i think that people in the building should be wearing masks and so given the circumstances we would be continuing a virtual meeting given the difficulty of enforcing that so basically i'm agreeing we should continue with virtual other comments yeah so i i think that there's right there's definitely a disadvantage to being virtual because it's harder to have some of the dialogue that that we necessarily need to have it's i think i don't know if others feel it but definitely some zoom fatigue because i'm on zooms all day long with work um it just becomes nice to be able to have those in-person uh dialogues so i think if there is a way

041for us to move forward at doesn't put liability risk on the district we need to figure out what that way is um because i think being in person is certainly the more favorable way for meeting oh i i agree with michelle and that i would much prefer to have in-person meeting as well um i i just think it's a better i think it's a better forum i think it's um i think it provides for additional interaction that it's very difficult to do through zoom um but given the current situation we're in in the current order um i think we're sort of stuck with moving forward with you know zoom meetings you know unless there would be a change in that order which there very well may be i mean i think there is some litigation

042that's pending regarding the enforcement of it um i think we could see some changes to it um but at the at the present time i i i feel like uh you know i think i think it would be irresponsible to expose us to like potential liability or potential claims um so i i think the the best way would just be to continue with zoom at this point so so thanks thanks chuck i guess i would i would lean i would like to i think uh go back to in person i think in person does provide for more interaction i'm hopeful that maybe the explanation tonight uh in the meeting um helped on people to understand where it is right this is not this is not a debate about the effectiveness of mass this is not

043a debate about um you know the this is not a debate about whether or not the this this mandate or this disorder makes sense this is really just something we are forced to force to do by the by the the state department of health and um i would be hopeful that uh folks who understand that realize that and we could get back to to live meetings and not punish um i should not try to punish but not have uh not allow for you know an access to community involvement for a few folks that may not decide they want to they want to wear a mask right so i believe that we we should we should attempt it again and move forward and and educate people and hope that we start um live a second time

044and and hope for a different outcome i'm all for that carl um uh the worst that would happen is if we attempt to have another live meeting and uh we get a few individuals showing up in order to make a confrontation and i guess we would just have to adjourn again and start where we are now yeah i think we have to be prepared for that right um but what the alternatives would be yeah i'd like to go back in person too i certainly would like to be back in person um but i'm not willing to uh move forward uh as long as the order is in place and and waste uh meeting night and the important business that has to get done at those meetings uh because we'd have to go back re advertis

045re-advertise and at this point i just don't trust folks to be forthright about whether they're going to wear masks or not i was very very disheartened at the behavior at our last meeting and the failure to even try to understand the situation we are in as members of the board and our families by extension i also would very much like to see us able to meet in person but do not want to continue to waste time and not be able to conduct our business we've already sacrificed a fair amount of time for various reasons so i would support remaining virtual until something changes with the order and i'd say i pretty much agree with what you know everyone else is saying i would like to go back to in person my concern would be if

046people decide not to wear masks we constantly in this battle of escalation and i just don't want to see us escalating issues any further because it doesn't help anybody um so i think the best way to kind of de-escalate the situation is to be on zoom even if it's for a limited amount of meetings um just to get through these next few meetings and hopefully everybody understands that we're under the mandates and that we're going to be following them and then maybe at that point trying another in-person media again just doing our best as a school board to de-escalate things as much as we can and hope that we can move forward in a better place with the majority of the community um i'd just like to add real quick i i already heard from

047some parents of some of our young artists whose work that we saw this evening and some of these young people some of our students are actually feeling uh rather disappointed because as one of the teachers said this this is a tradition and um some of these students have really been looking forward uh to the opportunity for this public recognition and um i think uh you know i i think we as the grown-ups all of us uh need to realize that the purpose that these school board meetings happen is for the schools and and for the students and um it's not really a place for people that jump up and start posturing their their personal political agendas and you know we had a disruptive year last year uh for lots of other reasons but you know

048this is getting to the point where it really is uh holding the board back from doing the normal day-to-day business uh of of of the school district um so i think i mean we need to comply but um you know maybe there's a way we can get an agreement or something um from from some of the individuals who caused the meeting to be uh closed down last time i mean can we get some sort of you know and in order to make it possible to meet in person next time i know they're having questions like can people sign a waiver is there an option to opt out of the mandate and um reduce the liability of the the attendees that choose not to mask is that is that even an option on the table based

049on the solicitor's feedback not how i write the feedback but it's also like the people who don't want to wear a mask signing a waiver we can all we also need to think about the people who do want masks and our liability to them if one of them becomes sick and thinks that they may have gotten from our meeting you don't wear a mask to protect yourself you wear a mask to protect other people so their waiver is meaningless you'd have to get a waiver from every single person sitting in the audience but that would be if we could maintain the six foot of distance and there wasn't you know that separation right like that increasing is based on 15 minutes of six foot so within six feet but that isn't what the governor's order

050says i understand that i'm talking we go to our own plan if we go to our own plan that would be a different story and then we'd have to make sure people complied with this i would want us to make sure that at the meeting the public had to comply with the same requirements that we had for our kids and if six feet apart did not require a mask if we were in that strategic masking phase then uh fine but if we're in the the universal masking phase then they would have to wear masks again you don't protect yourself you protect other people and uh i'd love to have personal meetings uh face to face the the the thing i would like to see before we would do that i think carl even alluded to

051this is a plan if we come up with a plan in place for what we will do should people not comply if we have that in place and we can have a way to continue with our business then fine let's give it a try but without such a plan so we end up going to executive session then adjourning that makes no sense i wonder if part of that plan could be not to open the meeting until there's the mask compliance so that way we don't have to worry about going into executive and then voting to adjourn and if the meeting's not open then it doesn't need to be closed and if we do have to suddenly adjourn it'll be a lot easier i don't know how we can not have an open meeting the meeting

052isn't no what i'm saying is not open the meeting like not click the gavel until the mask we're meeting the the state's orders with the mass requirement not click the gavel the meeting's not been brought into session if it's not in session then we uh we we don't have to adjourn we don't have to go into executive compliance we cancel we adjourn the meeting or just leave and then we then we lose that date well we're going to lose it anyways if we got to go to executive i'm just talking about you know as part of the plan um i i think the only way forward uh is just not to hold the meeting if we can't get compliance and if that compliance i'm just saying that it might take a lot shorter to not

053have the meeting then open the meeting ask for compliance not get it go into executive decide what to do if we're not going to have compliance and we're not going to have the meeting i'd rather get the whole thing done in five minutes rather than 30 45. but then what happens if we start the meeting and in the middle of the meeting people do as they often do pull it down to their chin or we take it below the nose yeah you know same thing we're gonna have to i mean it's gonna result in a meeting being cancelled but i would argue at least we tried and and that's you know if if and and then if if this cannot be done if we cannot hold a meeting the way that the state is mandating

054as long as the state is mandating then you know we just go back to zoom i i think we know how quickly we can do that so i'm open to trying and if there's any trouble we have no control over whether or not the meeting's gonna have to be canceled it's gonna be canceled and then we just go to zoom and stay there until something uh something uh changes at the state level if if we could see a plan that in that we could immediately adjourn or recess perhaps and then reconvene under zoom the same night if we could have a plan in place to do that then i i might agree that we should at least give it a try well i'm i'm i'm interested in exploring options i guess i would like to

055understand you know what what the intentions would be with regard to enforcement because i think that's uh you know a scenario we need to really think through but i don't think waivers are an option i don't see anything in the order that talks at all about well this is you know this is an order unless everybody there waves you know signs of waiver i i don't see that as i don't see that as an option here that's that's been given to us yeah chuck the the waiver is not an option it's not an option on the when you read the when you read the order and you read the read the frequently asked questions it's not an option right so um it is it is comply or or not be part of the meeting pretty

056much is what it is what is is how it's it's laid out and members of the public have the option to attend via zoom or youtube if they don't want to wear a mask in the building so i i believe that there's enough people that um [Music] you know there's some important issues in the district that even though they would would not in favor of wearing a face covering would do it to be able to have a live meeting again i think that you know this was a policy and curriculum meeting meeting not at not a full board meeting and i would hope that we could get uh well took my piece before right we could give it a shot and see based on some of the the explanations as to where we really are

057as as a as an order and again as a legal you know as a legal order that is that way until until it's proven otherwise right that is that is our direction this is a legal order that we need to follow i i would just like to i i'm with you calling a lot of that i just like to see some sort of uh procedure that we would follow as opposed to just let's give it a shot see what happens and adjourn if we don't get compliance uh if there would be some and i'm not even i'm not suggesting removal i'm just saying okay people aren't wearing a mask they're taking them off they won't put them on what do we do next what exactly is is the plan that would allow us to continue

058that meeting and if such a plan could be put in place fine let's give it a shot yeah i guess i'm a little concerned about just looking at adjourning the meeting or recessing the meeting if we have folks that show up comply and then choose not to comply at some point i mean you're you know you're you're at now you're at the mercy of you know someone you know just not wanting to wear a mask and you know there goes the meeting um that just doesn't seem you know that doesn't seem you know fair to everybody else that's that's been there you know and is complying and you know the important business of the board has to get done and and now you know because somebody doesn't want to wear a mask anymore they there

059goes the meeting and that doesn't i'm not sure it's kind of i think it's got to be something other than that i think that's part of the problem there chuck too is it doesn't take that many people to do that i i think the portion that was uh disrupting the meeting last week was was a really small percentage of the overall group you know it just takes one person to refuse for it to make it impossible for us to hold the meeting i think i think we should consider doing the october 4th meeting by zoom and then we re-evaluate at that time to see where we stand uh the mandate is clear we have to comply with it as a board and as a district if someone elects not to wear a mask at a

060meeting then we're put in a very difficult position of having to either cancel and adjourn the meeting or have that person declare to trespass been removed and that's something i don't think we want to do as a district if we don't have to or do as a board [Music] the zoom option lets us conduct business to make sure things are being done and things are getting done for the kids which is what we need to do so i would be in favor of at least doing the uh workshop for the fourth by zoom and then we re-evaluate at that time with again the goal would be to bring everything back to live meetings that's where we want to be obviously but from what i witnessed at the policy and curriculum i think we need some

061more time and i think we should do one more zoom and reevaluate at that time there there is an expectation just that there would be a um decision on the current um lawsuit stating that the order is not legal those briefs are due on september 23rd the expectation is that in a week or so after that that there should be a ruling uh you know so that we would likely have additional information as far as legality um that's that's the one thing that could change in the meantime but right but i think as things are now i i am with everyone who is ready to get rid of masks i am tired of it as well but it is where we are and it is appropriate at this point in time given the situation of

062the spread of the disease at this point and the order that we're under particularly as a school entity and i don't have any intentions of risking my family's well-being and future because some folks choose not to be understanding of that situation that we are in as a school entity so i am very much in favor of continuing for october uh the the zoom and uh either the spread will subside by then or shortly after and or the order will be determined by a court to be inappropriate or whatever and we can move to another form as far preferable i agree but where we're at as a community right now the community some members of the community have indicated a lack of trust of the district at this point i have some lack of trust of

063them some of those folks so i think it's um like to keep the conversation to just around the order um is there anyone that has uh any board members have any motions they'd like to make if they feel um to determine what some of the next steps might be i will move that the october meeting be virtual october third or fourth be virtual pending any changes in the mandate that the department of health and department of education have are currently under oh i'll second the motion but i'd also like to amend it to amend the motion to say that the president vice president of the board should have the ability to uh pull the board al you're very difficult for me to hear is anybody else having trouble well my internet here maybe might be

064great i would second the motion and asked dennis if he would consider uh amending that to uh add that the president and vice president of the board have the ability to pull the board prior to the meeting to see if we want to make a change i will go with that al thank you okay so i have a motion and a second and an amen amended motion to uh to be able to have the board president and vice president pull the board prior to the meeting to determine if we'd want to make a change it's all one motion which is the way dennis yeah it really isn't amended because i agreed to it yep any comments questions discussion regarding the motion i you know i guess i would be okay with the next meeting on

065zoom i mean i i i am very much in favor of of in person you know having the meetings in person and i guess in the meantime i would really like us to try to explore you know how we can deal with the issue of non-compliance i guess how best to deal with that issue so that we can look at hopefully you know how you know resuming in-person meetings as soon as possible honestly i think there's probably going to be some changes in the order based on the present litigation but in the event there is and i'm you know i think we need to you know assume you know provide for the possibility there won't be and it's going to be back on us anyway even if there are changes so um i guess i

066would just want us to continue to to look at you know how can we get uh in-person meetings and and address the issue of of non-compliance um at any point during the meeting i think that in our favor we've got about two weeks and you know i i don't think we're going to be having the same conditions in any sense whatsoever two weeks from now um i think we're it's a safe bet to uh pass this and uh you will we'll have a better picture of how to proceed two weeks from now two weeks from now and uh it's probably going to change again before january but i think this is a good way to move forward other board members so again we have a motion to keep the up to have the october 4th

067meeting be zoomed with the ability that's the president and vice president to pull the board prior to the meeting to change um that that uh media i'll say it depending on if there's a change in the in the uh circumstances in the circumstances any other comments i do think that the two-week window is is adequate to be able to come up with some kind of um plan for dealing with compliance and having a position um so i i think i strongly believe that being in person is the best option just to be able to have those conversations organically that happen when you're able to meet face-to-face versus over-assume uh yes well i think i think the messages will be the message is important to there's not strong messages in the district right now enough people

068who want to speak that don't wear a mask to comply i i you know and i don't know who will be a part of the conversations around how we would enforce um so any masking responsibility if we go back uh to in person i just request that we do not put any of our staff in a dif in that difficult position we need to figure out another way if we're going to do that okay roll call please ricky ricky you're a mute sorry about that dennis ritter yes joshua yes michelle batts no randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hass yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes carl nolte motion carries what was that i'm sorry carl no but no but the motion carries with that we will move to public comments uh particular public comment

069on agenda items i'm not sure mr tim chattan if there's a way that that is uh organized yeah uh dr meyers do you need me to read out names you could find them in the the chat uh do you have it right there i i have it jennifer hatch i'm going to promote to my panelists i'd like to just remind everyone where we're going to follow the rules of public comment that is five minutes um please state your name state where you live uh and then the rules of public comment around five minutes um time limit so we'll we'll go through this so um miss hatch um this hats on hatches on mute she's off mute okay i'm offbeat right we can hear you oh [Music] hi there am i the first person to speak

070yes you are oh my goodness let me let me see if i can get can you see me no okay let me try to fix that ellie can you help me [Music] um start video maybe oh okay yes hi hi everybody okay geez i'm the first person to speak i just want to say thank you to everyone for listening and and giving me some time um okay i'm just gonna do this in our current political climate the word equity is astonishingly provocative some of the most common criticisms that i hear are we already have an equity policy in place equity programs divide our students and create racism our children are being indoctrinated or the perception that equity is cleverly disguised as an effort to discriminate against the status quo and i would like to speak

071to those opinions and hopefully persuade the board to adopt policy 809 and subsequent policies that are relevant for a safe fair and mindful environment for our children yes we already have policies in place and while that's correct it ignores the achievements of numerous marginalized students and current policies and the need for school districts to re-examine and change the policies when our society and communities deem it relevant these programs in our schools seek to provide a better learning environment for all students a safe fair and mindful education is the goal and although equity programs have a long history they are slow to progress and provide support and often need to be amended we're all familiar with the civil rights act of 1964 which prohibited discrimination and public accommodations federally funded programs but it did nothing to

072address discrimination in schools it took 10 additional years to pass the equal education opportunities act in and that was 11 years after martin luther king's famous i have a dream speech and to quote his infamous words i have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they may be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character most of his four children would have been close to the end of their grade school education by that time think about that speaking again to the slow progression of equity women's suffrage ended in the 1920s was amended in the 1960s with the equal pay act yet women still struggle to receive equal pay for equal work section 504 of the 1973 rehabilitation act banned discrimination against people

073with disabilities but the american americans with disabilities act was amended in july of 1990 this act 17 years later brought attention to the societal inequalities of people with disabilities in schools occupations and public and private access in consideration of time i would like to briefly remind everyone what the stigma and history of mental illness has had in our country my eldest daughter benefits directly from a 504. a five 504s were were part of the ada in 1974. i think we can all agree these programs were adopted and amended to benefit our youth in regard to gender equality gender equality dates back to the 1920s with women's suffrage and today with the misunderstanding of gender as a whole gender has been societally considered as binary and it's just not i need people to finish up it's

074been five minutes has it five minutes yes i need you to finish oh okay um gender is not binary many people are born intersex they have to choose what their gender they they have chosen gender when they're born i need i i need to thank you for your comments miss hatch okay one last thing although there's no such thing as a perfect piece of legislation or a perfect policy i believe and i'm certain that 809 is a step in the right direction thank you for your time mr chattanooga chad who is next on the list here aaron fenstermacher is now being promoted to panelists democrat can you hear us yes i can can you hear me yes sorry it took a second it said rejoining um i just have a question to start if that's

075okay um since the curriculum policy meeting was disrupted what is the plan for the equity policy 809 at this point it will need to go back to the it would need to go back to the same place it was at a policy and curriculum committee um for review and will the decision about the full board meetings apply to that meeting as well that it'll be held virtually so it can't be disrupted again i think we will decide that at the october 2nd is it second or fourth board meeting the first meeting in october i think we will make a dis we will make a decision as to board as to what the next meetings will look like this this this meeting uh motion this evening was just for the first board meeting in in october

076but if we've already seen what happened at the previous curriculum and policy meeting why wouldn't we be able to make a determination for the next meeting for that as well because we voted as a board to decide just for the next meeting and we will handle the next that meeting subsequent to that at the meeting on october 2nd or 4th that date is fourth the fourth fourth yes okay thank you so unfortunately that delays the work of the equity policy and and go ahead dr ritter um carl may i share a clarification i think sure there is going to be some work and that was going to probably happen anyway between here and there trying to look at all of the suggestions that people gave so there may be some minor revisions to that policy

077by the you know policy and curriculum so things will move forward um as had been planned anyway after discussion last week there were there were some plans to move ahead and and create some writing groups to work on uh adjusting portions of the policy if there needs to be regardless so dr ritter that that policy needs to go through you know approved for a second reading through policy and curriculum nothing you said was incorrect i just added that as some additional information sure so it will now be delayed until after the october full board meeting um when it could have been already reviewed and approved for a second read at that meeting so i just wanted to be clear about that but probably would not have been with all the suggestions we wouldn't have gotten

078through all of them that night anyway okay we were looking at this timeline i just want to um communicate that i can't believe that it's taking us this long to work on or approve something that seems this important and like a non-issue to most of us um but i do want to thank all the board members who have been trying to do the right thing despite all the recent chaos um i don't know if any of you have seen because we were in the meeting but all the anti-equity community members had a silent protest at the middle school which i'm sure is why you decided to take part in zoom from your homes and that was a smart decision they have left their signs outside the school for our children to see so as much

079as they want to talk about masking as abuse i would say that the chaos and the um the disruption and the hard feelings that they're bringing about might be more abuse to our children when they come to school tomorrow morning and see all of those signs that say i can't breathe with a picture of a mask please let's all remember the happenings of the last year um george floyd and many others that i could comment on i think it's completely ignorant um and insensitive for them to use sayings like that but that's no surprise to me um i also want to tell you that i had a whole i i had not planned and planned remarks and i don't know where to go with them at this point and that's the trouble of saying you'll

080speak before you hear what's going to happen at a meeting but i want to say that i do believe that critical race theory is a concept that is worth exploring because there are systemic racist things happening in our country i also agree with those crazy people who have been screaming at the meetings that it is way too complicated and way too advanced for elementary children and i agree that it should not be taught in the classroom nor do i think it is being taught in the classroom and if it is i think we have a bigger problem than we all realize um crt is not diversity it is not equity it is not inclusion um i think people took an isolated incident the announcements at greenwich and completely blew it out of proportion um what

081we need to remember is that our kids are going to leave the bubble of kutztown and encounter people who look and speak and live differently than them and i don't understand why it's such a difficult concept to want to prepare them to be as successful as they can in every aspect of life including by providing them the tools and resources in areas like tolerance acceptance and inclusion i also feel that we're completely behind the eight ball already um organizations and institutions across the country are into an implementation stage and we're still arguing whether or not we should have a policy i apologize for the train i live in lions if you can hear that um i would mute if i was at work but uh i honestly we're still arguing if this is something that

082should happen and the rest of the country is moving forward that's concerning um a few things in the recent meeting stuck out to me um when we were doing the community conversations which i appreciate the district doing but honestly they were pretty poorly run um i won't call you know individuals out but i was really surprised that some of the lack of integrity and whatever that was going on in some of the meetings and we had about five minutes to digest the information and know what we were supposed to do but i do appreciate the attempt to you know get people talking somebody said when i explained that i thought diversity experts should be incorporated and contracted from the start not from time to time because they know what they're doing and this is very

083hard stuff and we even the most well-intentioned people you know could get astray and they said well you better bring experts from the other side too so i looked up what the antonyms of equity were that is the marker that's been five minutes that's fine i'll finish up so the antonyms for buy it for equity are bias favor favoritism one-sidedness partiality partisanship and prejudice so i hope that you will listen to the people who are more interested in working and on and trying for diversity and equity than people who are interested in those thank you mr tim chattan who is next on the list uh dr meyers i think we have uh jennifer kauffinger yes correct i'm going to promote jennifer right now hi um can you hear me yes okay um what i want

084to talk about is um doesn't have to do with mass it doesn't have to do with equity what i'd like to talk about is the situation of the kids who are healthy yet quarantined with their education okay these kids are going to be missing anywhere from a week to 10 days of school the only available educational option for them in your plan is via canvas and emails back and forth with their teachers okay i hate to break it to you but not every teacher is um up to date or current or stays that way on canvas and not all of your teachers are good at getting back and forth with their students um some canvas pages are weak behind and some emails with teachers do don't get answered for dates this is unacceptable you were

085a blue ribbon school and those students who are healthy and are quarantined and i'm not arguing about that either um not only are they losing the education the in-person education the instruction the explanation from their teachers for that week that they're out when they come back they're losing that time as well because as we all know your education is built on what you've previously learned those things haven't been learned because they have not had the option for instruction so now they're playing catch-up and they're still losing for weeks if not months during that quarantine time it was very short-sighted of the administration and the board to set up your safety plan the way you have for those healthy quarantined students you guys need to come up with something else at the high school level which

086is where my child is um these kids are members of the honor society they're um members of this that and the other thing which they need to keep their grades up they can't necessarily do that if they're missing weeks or more of education and it's not on them it's on you so you need to revisit your health and safety plan and um the simplest solution that i have is for teachers that have quarantined students um it doesn't have to be every teacher all day long i know in the grade school that might be a different uh question but at least in middle school and in high school um teachers probably will not have to be on zoom all day long um they might have one student or two that they will need to open up

087their classes to zoom for so that those students who are required to be at home do not miss the education that they are entitled to okay you are in they are entitled to get an education from kutztown school district provide that education for them canvas and emails is not an education so you guys need to do work do it quickly because there are an awful lot of healthy quarantined students out of kutztown at the moment all of them are behind the eight ball and they will be for as long as this part of your policy is in effect so fix it now as to the equity crt and um what the rest of the country is doing i caution you to look at loudoun county in virginia um they're pressing forward with their equity and

088they're a powder keg and quite frankly just because everybody's jumping off the bridge doesn't mean we have to i'm done thank you thank you it's my finger christian dr meyer i think we have one last um speaker and it is kerry westner although i think she's listed as kendra in the chat if uh okay yep it's carrie listen as kendra there you go carrie you're on mute okay oh okay all right can you hear me now yes all right it's a little dark um i'm in my car sorry it was a little loud in my house um okay so um i just wanted to say i mean unfortunately you guys already voted so i kind of thought that was um productive to not let anybody speak but like before you voted but um you know

089i i wasn't actually at the last meeting um but i know a lot of us like we don't want the masks we're you know but it's it would be worn they would be worn by the majority of us because we would like to have our voices heard at the meetings face-to-face with you guys so and i think it was like a i don't know like a pushing match you know again i wasn't there and i heard it got a little rough but a lot of you know the people that weren't wearing masks they handed them out and they did put them on there was a few that didn't put them on but we've actually you know it was just kind of like they thought okay how far can we push this board the board thought

090how come we how far can we push them let's threaten to shut it down let's see if they put them on they were like let's see if they actually shut it down so i mean all summer long and you know for a long time even last year we all came to the meetings with masks on so you like you know that we will do it if needed so um you know i just really think i mean you already voted for the next meeting to be virtual which sucks but i really hope that you go forward with um allowing the people that will actually put the masks on to come to the meeting and that's for the other people on the you know the people who are for the mass too like they what about them

091they they would come to the meetings with a mask on no questions asked so that's kind of limiting them to be able to come too so um and you know and the other thing um i just i don't know i just wanted to also make a comment about the um uh you know the protesting or whatever no no masks and stuff like that um we you know we didn't know if like anybody would be at the middle school we were hoping that things would you know change that like you know we're like okay are they really not going to let anybody in we didn't know um and those you know some of those signs were you know made the the sign that said i don't i'm pretty sure they were not left at the middle

092school they were taken home but um the sign that said you know i can't breathe was literally made by a fourth grader so they had no um pre-consumed notion or whatever like relating it to jordan floyd or anything like that they just strictly were like i can't breathe in this mask i'm gonna write a sign so i don't like that people are you know insinuating that we are implying anything that has to do with anything other than just our children cannot breathe in school so that's all thank you thank you ms wessner mr tim chattan is there anyone else that is that is all for speakers of a few comments that were put into the forum that i could just read off the form i suppose with the names of the people there um one

093comment from aaron fence democrat if the board votes to resume in-person meetings will they consider requesting police presence at meetings to ensure the safety of themselves and community members in attendance people refuse to abide by state mandates where masks indoors should be asked to leave if they refuse they should be cited for trespassing um from robin underwood regarding policy 809 can you please explain how this policy is different from other policies that already in place i know this question has been asked many times but the answer has not been detailed enough to satisfy my desire to ensure that we are using data-driven information to improve our schools in addition i feel that professional development regarding equity is a critical critical component of the policy along with the creation of an equity team the bottom line

094is will policy 809 result in changes for our schools also from robin underwood i appreciate the effort to the board to collect community input i wonder though if you have also gotten input from teachers staff and administrators it is my gut feeling that they are afraid to voice their opinions for fear of backlash from parents i hope they have been able to participate fully in developmental policy um from jeremiah light why does the school board insist on this meeting and potentially future meetings being virtual making kids wear masks indoors that allow people to be on top of each other at a football game without masks and an alumni tent without masks i guess when money is involved that's what makes your decisions for you and then five questions from jerry sievert um when are the

095people responsible for morning announcements going to be held accountable why are students forced to run laps in sorry about that why are students forced to run laps in gym with masks on um in clear violation of the mandate keep in mind that people have medical exemptions so you can't force masks on all community members so you will be violating the mandate what year are we in nazi germany 1939 and why did you disable the chat they were all the last five questions were from jerry sievert um also there was another chat um jackie bridges uh posed a question and it wasn't on the list that you were i just wanted to make sure that it was uh read into the record so this is the q and a part of the zoom meeting yep uh

096do you want me to read it or have you found it i have it up i'll copy and paste it into the other one and this is from jackie bridges why are we not having a traditional homecoming dance as as this year isn't hard enough for students have it outside tailgating event is not the same even as fun as it would be i would start discussing the prom they had it last year this year more people are vaccinated people keep our children's mental emotional health in mind when discussing a virus with 99.9 recovery rate the mental and emotional damage has much more long-term consequences that is all of the comments and speakers okay um i know we have public comment we have an opportunity for public comment again i think we can probably move to

097the to the new business and then um we can uh open it up again if there's any public comment uh at the end of the meeting from there so thank you for sharing the the agenda mr tim chattan let's start with um the new business section let's start with item a personnel there are one through seven on item a so looking for a motion regarding item a personnel ritter moves emotions are a second second motion a second comments or questions regarding item a personnel i think uh before we vote i'd like to first of all acknowledge uh the the first the first item there there on you know except regret the retirement of diane quinn our director of curriculum been with us for many years and certainly will be missed her input to the district

098i would just echo those comments uh carl uh dr quinn has done a lot for the district in the time that she's been here and it's uh with regret that we do accept her resignation due to retirement yeah no i was just gonna say i'm i know when somebody retires that's it and it's just a a pro forma thing for us to accept it but um i'm accepting this particular retirement very reluctantly tonight um i was like and dr quinn i mean well i'm sad to see her go as a colleague and as a friend from the district because she is an invaluable part of our team and has moved the district forward in so many different areas of curriculum assessment professional development observation evaluation um happy for her personally um to make the decision

099to retire kind of move on to the next next stages of life and excited to uh hear about what that brings for for diane um both with regret but also happy for at the same time so thank you dr quinn would would it be appropriate to invite her to share a comment or two after we take our action we certainly can't if she'd be willing to sure any other comments that roll call please ricky charles sure yes michelle bats yes randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hass yes celia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes carl nolte yes so approved next is item b the 21 22 2021-22 coveted leave administrative regulation it is a recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve and adopt administrative regulation 334 coven 19 related

100leave do we have a motion no moved with emotions there are second talking okay of a second any comments or questions regarding item b hearing none roll call please ricky michelle bats yes randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hass yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes charles sher yes carl nolte yes so approved next is item c the bciu special education agreement is the recommendation administration at the board of school directors approved the special education agreement with the berks county intermediate unit for the 2021-2022 school year per the attached do we have a motion so moved motions are second second second motion a second any comments or questions regarding item c hearing none roll call please ricky randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis

101ritter yes joshua yes michelle batz yes carl nolte yes so approved next is item item d the cciu brandywine virtual academy agreement it is a recommendation administration that the board of school directors approved the groom with chester county intermediate unit for brandywine virtual academy full-service online courses for the attached contract and rate sheet to have a motion so moved motions are second second or second motion second any comments or questions regarding item d and again uh mr tim chattan my understanding is this is a better situation because they have some actual staff identified to work in that setting administrative staff it's a full functioning you know program that partners with many different school districts um for right now this is a limited agreement that we are um trialing in a specific situation and we could

102but the contract is open so that we can use it going forward i know dr meyers and his team are going to evaluate um how it works in the limited interim and then you know see if that's something we want to do on a larger scale in collaboration with our kva but you're correct they have a there's a principal and a guidance team and some mentors that go along with it um rather than you know when we do kva it's ours so there's just a different approach okay thank you any other comments or questions hearing none roll call please ricky aldarian yes michael hass yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes talsha yes michelle batts yes randy birch yes carl nalty yes so approved next is item e the tennis court landscaping

103escaping excuse me it is a recommendation administration that the board of school directors approved kohler landscape llc to construct the paris wall between the tennis courts at the high school at a cost of seventeen thousand two hundred and thirty dollars we have a motion so moved motion is our second second motion a second comments or questions regarding item e i know this will be utilizing block and landscaping stone that we have already have as part of the districts that will be just reallocation of items that we already own this has ball saved a lot of things for a long time this is one that will be being used for uh yeah excuse me this this came as a recommendation from the administration but this is something that the facilities committee reviewed i believe as well

104correct yeah it did come out of the facilities committee correct last week okay any other comments hearing none roll call please ricky michael hass yes cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes joshua yes michelle bats yes randy birch yes aldarian yes carl nalty yes so approved next is item f the ag trailer it is a recommendation of the administration the border school of tractors approved the purchase of a trailer for the high school ag program from best choice trailers at a cost of and seventy 4169.70 to have a motion second motion a second comments or questions regarding item f hearing none roll call please ricky cecilia holt yes eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes charles sure yes joe bats yes randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hass yes carl nalty yes so approved

105um i apologize in my haste to move forward on new business i actually passed over the opportunity for dr quinn to provide any comments dr quinn i believe you're on if you have a moment uh great to hear from you i am thank you mr nolte um i i just want to take the opportunity to thank the board uh for the opportunity you've given me to serve the district for uh mr tim chen dr lever for their leadership the principals all the administration team um the best i've worked with and uh in their tireless efforts to improve every year and i wanted to thank the teachers are incredible support staff our para educators our custodians our food service workers our transportation department business office all those who are committed every day to serving the students

106in the district it has been my honor it's been my pleasure to to be here for the past eight and so many months years and i wish district all involved very best and again with my greatest gratitude for um eight wonderful years so thank you thank you dr clinton with that we'll move to uh item e i'm sorry item g any introduction of new business by board members anyone like to bring something forward i would mr president uh first question last meeting did anyone comment about jerry hartle was there any mention of him no it's not i don't i don't believe so no at least for uh maybe eulogize uh pass something another one of our remarkable teachers most of the kids uh sixth grade in elementary school uh went through his class the other

107he passed away a couple weeks ago for better or ill uh starting with right after the passage of act 195 he is the architect of our salary schedule so uh you have him to blame or to praise for producing that uh but it's just uh we're losing them but he was a remarkable teacher a couple other things one i would like to ask the administration i don't think we need to discuss it i just like to ask them to reconsider how we would deal with the quarantine students uh particularly uh thinking about going to a synchronous online for them at the secondary level as we did last year i realize they will have there's difficulties with that but i would like it reconsidered at least i think it's a valid complaint that we heard finally

108if i understood your remarks earlier mr tim chattan to have an actual action taken it needs to be on the agenda ahead of time a week ahead of time or can we take action without i don't know what my motion should be to take action or to put it on the next agenda um you know it's the any depends it there's some qualification qualifications that doesn't require spending any money or entering into contracts um if it does not then items can be added to the agenda i i've reached the point where i believe all paid employees of the district and adults with substantial contact with children need to be vaccinated i think that's the only way we can protect our uh under-12s uh and so i would be making that motion or i would be

109making a motion to put it on the next agenda i would i mean although that's not a contract or it's not necessarily committing to the expenditure too many money it's a pretty big um motion item and i think that that would be best if we advertise that for the next you know that i think that would be a better motion to for it to be a discussion piece but i will so move i'd like to move that we uh the next agenda we have action to require uh paid step employees and adults with content volunteer adults with contact with children to be vaccinated so i'd like that on the next uh that's my motion motion from dr darian is there a second second motion second comments or questions regarding dr darian's motion to have on

110the next agenda that all teachers anyone who comes in contact basically with students you're doctor darren that would be that's actually well there may be some yeah yeah there may be some employees who you know might not have that direct contact all the time but they're in the buildings i would like them all vaccinated but again it's just to put on the agenda the details can be discussed at the next meeting um by employees do we mean people that are being paid to be in the building uh or are we still having volunteers come into the building we have volunteers it's on a it's on a more limited basis and it was pre-coped but we certainly haven't been too i i mean i i would i'm not in favor of that motion i believe that's

111a that's a decision a person needs to have in the discussion with with their doctor i am not comfortable saying that we are requiring people to do this um there are certain things that can can occur so i'll be voting no to having it on the next the next agenda if we discuss it in more detail i would i would be in favor of medical exemptions provided they went through a testing regime but a regimen but the my point is choosing to not get vaccinated is not truly a personal choice people who come into a school building who are not vaccinated have also made that choice for every kid that they have contact with and again that would be part of the discussion at the next meeting if it passes any other comments from board

112members i'm just gonna say that i'm gonna vote yes only to continue the discussion uh but if this uh if if this was cold called on us i'm not sure how i would vote on the moment i i appreciate the opportunity to think about it and have further discussion over two weeks but um let's have the discussion but yes or no right now doesn't mean that uh we're in support of the idea behind the motion yeah i guess i sort of feel similar really strong reservations about such you know mandates and but i also recognize that we're dealing with a very large um you know unvaccinated population in our schools um and you know you know i've got some concerns in that regard too so i i'm i'm okay continuing the discussion but just because

113you know we continue the discussion doesn't mean i'm and necessarily end up in favor of of it i suppose so yeah so i'm i'm gonna have to vote no on this as well just because there's a lot of evidence that even when you're vaccinated you can still carry and infect people so i think making the mandate puts some people in a situation where they need to make a decision medically for their own bodies what is best and unfortunately i think that it's not our business to decide what people choose to inject especially because this is not in the same situation as a polio vaccine or an mmr or any of those that have been around for a really long time there's a lot of unknowns and so i just i feel like that's not our

114decision to make for people i'll just uh join in the sentiments of dr johnson and chuck i think it's worthy of a discussion my vote is in no way indicating how i would vote for that but i do think it's worthy of discussion and thought anyone else hearing none roll call please ricky will be on the motion to have on the next meeting that basically the words or anyone that comes in contact with with students needs to be vaccinated roll call please ricky eric johnson yes dennis ritter yes charles sure yes michelle bats no randy birch yes aldarian yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes call nulty no the motion does carry so it'll be on the agenda for the next meeting any anything else anyone like to bring forward yes i have an item

115mr nolte sure so i'd like to um just provide some perspective based on feedback that i've received from students regarding the homecoming dance um it was communicated to me that it was a discussion with students and there was you know agreement that it wasn't the best time to have a dance and yet i hear from a lot of kids that they really want it and they don't understand how we could have had prom last year and yet you know we can't bring back the homecoming dance we've got the tent set up for that weekend for the alumni reception there's going to be you know opportunity for people to be mingling that way they're attending football games they're sitting in the stands together it i would really like the administration to reconsider what our options are

116for this event um i think that if we rally together there's probably adequate support within the community that we could do something to bring these kids into a more normal situation just like they had prom last year right it was different but it was something that gave those kids an opportunity to feel normal in a social situation with their school community so i would like to ask the administration to reconsider the decisions regarding the homecoming dance and um i would certainly support any any events that that we would want to be able to pull together you know i think like i said we could get a lot of parent support and community support to find both the funding and the volunteers to to help make it a success thank you miss bats mr tim chat

117and you'll take under advisement yeah we will um and i just don't i don't think that like even what the planned event was was really in an attempt of saying we couldn't have some type of dance outside it was just a different approach that was that was brought up once it was feeling it needed to go outside but um we'll talk to uh you know talk to the administration and see if there's there's another approach we can have um kind of report back on that so that yeah yeah everybody you know i've heard from several people it's probably a handful and it's always you know why can't you do it i don't think that we were ever looking at like we couldn't do it because we are there is a plan for an event outside

118it was just that it had to be outside so what could it look like outside um that's that really was the idea behind that i think for the students though the opportunity to dress up and participate in that type of social event is very different than a tailgate right and so for some of the underclassmen that may not be going to prom like it's just that opportunity to to celebrate the school in a different way and so i think that that's something that that we should really consider um providing to them given that we've had success we had success with prom back you know last may right so i think there's ways to to go about doing that type of thing that that maybe we can provide that for our students um could i ask

119a quick question um i i don't have a a kid that's directly involved in the prom planning so what is the current idea of having it outside is it the for the homecoming um i mean where is it where where where is it going to be outside they were looking to set up um just outside the high school on the campus to have a tailgate with music and games um you know looking at more less of a formal you know uh event in terms of kids getting dressed up and going to an event but more you know it was really a more of a tailgate atmosphere where students would be able to be outside you know the inside piece was what we were originally trying to avoid because you know this time of the year

120it could wreak havoc on contact tracing etc um you know so that's what was communicated with the students was the the plan would be a tailgate with music and food and games on the high school campus the starting i believe at four o'clock without pulling up my notes on the day of the homecoming game which is october 1st okay um yeah because i ca i i think the district should do a little bit more to have um yeah i think the kids deserve this uh little taste of normalcy and um what would it take to get the district to pay for some some tents and uh some of the flooring and stuff to have a uh outdoor event that they might be able to dress up for and uh have something close to a homecoming

121dance i mean we set to gather information on what that would cost um the you know one of the ideas was that the also a tailgate style might actually be better attended than the dances have been kind of in recent years but um you know it's that's you know you're tapping into kind of guessing on what would generate more interest from students so i'm not even sure an outdoor dance was really entertained initially because it was just what kind of event can we have outside that would be fun for kids you know to celebrate homecoming um but well maybe they didn't weren't aware that they might have a small budget can we oh we there's there's a budget we don't know i mean if we have to look for funding we could we could figure

122that out but we'd have to figure out what that would cost first and we had one site is it correct is is the current plan was that generated from the students was that their idea of how to adapt to this or was it um like a top-down thing well i can't honestly generated the idea i know that a few weeks ago it was actually just before one of our previous meetings it was mentioned then that the high school administration had met with the council uh the student representatives to talk about it uh i can't i can't speak firsthand off you know whose idea it was when it came back and said we run an outdoor event i said that's great outdoor events you know our we want to have outdoor events and what we've done

123over the course the last two years is we have outdoor events they look a little bit different in the end i think people are generally happy and pleased with what they end up um becoming so um we take you know take the thoughts this evening and you know apply them to what the current thought was and see see we can come up with my my hope would be since this will be revisited that we do what we've been doing with since covid we've reinvented some things and i like the tailgate tailgating idea i think you're right there'll be a lot quite a few students that will probably will enjoy that and would not go to a dance and why not do both if we can so i hope it's a both and rather than an

124either or solution yeah the concept of a tailgate is a lot of fun right before the football game i get that but like that the dance is something different and like i said it it really opened it up to to the broader population so i think that there's just a lot of appetite for it based on what i'm hearing and again this is what i'm just hearing in the student population but you know i i definitely think that um there are also some parents that would be more than willing to contribute or help to plan or you know take some of that burden if we're going to throw this together pretty quickly in order to to make it happen for the kids this point right that's my point of the both and solution i i

125agree with uh pastor ritter this this might be a great opportunity for us to come together as a community and do something great for our students through our own efforts um outside where you know all of these restrictions with the laws and everything that we've been having um i'm kind of getting excited about the idea of doing a both and and uh perhaps creating a brand new tradition just for our school district uh just based on the conditions that we're in and and the limitations we have and we can innovate and do something something even better than an ordinary homecoming dance yeah so i'll also add so since abby wood as a student rep wasn't able to join she's actually texting me i do have her contact and she's um asking me to share that

126she's saying that the kids are wanting so much to be getting back to normal that the dance could be more highly attended too this year and also some students would most definitely be willing to help out more to in the planning and execution as well those are just comments from abby thank you abby how could you do that oh great i think mr tim chad and you can take that back to that feedback right back to the yourself and the high school administration right now and we can see if there's a way to to work with the students and come to an agreement or a path forward it's only a few weeks away until homecoming we will we'll discuss it tomorrow any any other um board members with any like to bring forward okay there

127is one more section of public comment mr tim tam you said it was someone that raised their hand and someone raised their hand like to speak yes um i'm not seeing the name in the chat though i was told um so mr bureau had raises him but i don't see him as an attendee so unless i'm missing it i think he's left okay he's left all right i guess i would just ask anyone no other hands raised at this moment okay that's a that's a facial shaking head i can see that's a no looking around there's nobo there's no one else who raised their hand or put in uh to speak okay great um if i could um there was apparently a google forms thing to add questions and i got some messages about some

128confusion about how that fits into the dynamic of the meeting yeah that's what i read off of when after we had the public comment i read the questions off of there um oh and there are two more questions in there one from sherry coogler will questions read earlier as comments be answered specifically why are children required to wear a mask while running laps in the gym this is going against men they place clearly states under limited exceptions participating in high intensity aerobic or anaerobic activities that's something we'll kind of we'll have to look into i think it comes down into what is considered a high intensity aerobic versus non-high intensity aerobic and then the second question was since vaccine mandates are being discussed i'd like to know the district stands on pool testing and vaccine

129clinics within our districts for kids um you know we're not currently answer those we're not currently planning any pool testing there are state programs available i've been on a few information meetings will be on another one i believe this week and it is something we could implement but it's not something the district is looking at right now as far as vaccine clinics on site we have we've had many offers for vaccine clinics on site but they're the there's so many run at kutztown university you know just right here in town that i i we haven't signed up for any of the vaccine clinics we certainly could but there are frequent vaccine clinics up at the university as well as other places um certainly if anybody in the public needs assistance getting access to a vaccine

130clinic if you want to reach out we can we can help connect you with a vaccine clinic and if there was enough of a demand we could certainly host one but they're already being hosted right in town so it seemed redundant mr tim chattan would you mind real quick uh refreshing the google form on your screen um either questions have been submitted to the wrong place and we need to work on our system for submitting questions if we plan to move ahead or um uh the they're in your buffer right now or they got lost in the ethernet yeah i mean that's all the questions i have i don't know if i announced who the last question was from it was from amy friday that was the vaccine okay all right um i apologize if

131i didn't say the name but they are all of the questions that are in our yeah we we use the google forms for questions and comments correct yep there's also been some some people who submitted questions as we said in the uh q and a um but i think we i think we've covered them all at this point okay thanks for uh for checking back okay with that we'll move to item 12 information items folks have the condensed board summary report as well as the cafeteria fund report in their informational items and uh next would be item 13 which would be upcoming meetings the october 5th workshop school board meeting will be at 7 30 p.m and it will only be a zoom meeting at this point in time as as it has been uh

132uh determined if something changes we will advertise appropriately um that it would be live as well but it was up right now it will be a zoom meeting on october 12th there is a policy and curriculum committee meeting that's at 6 00 pm and the and right now is scheduled to be in the middle in the middle school commons as well as via zoom 11th curl and it says i'm sorry although i'm looking off the sheet this is october 5th so let's shoot correct it's october 4th this is the workshop board meeting and october 11th is the policy and curriculum committee meeting as well as october 11th there's a facilities extracurricular committee meeting at 7pm in the middle school commons as well as via zoom with that we'll move to item 14 adjournment looking for

133a motion to adjourn some moved emotion all in favor say aye aye any opposed meeting adjourned good night everybody please stay safe