I'd like to call the January 24th 2022 meeting
of the Derry Township School District Board of Directors to order
and announce that this meeting is being live streamed and audio recorded.
This meeting is being conducted both in-person and virtually.
I'd like to request four board members to please state your name when speaking.
Mrs. AG Roll Call, please.
Mr. Bennett. President.
Dr. KERNAN.
She's on mute
here.
Ms.. Drew, here is many here.
Mr. RIZZO. Here. Mr. Schmidt.
Here.
Dr. Shore. Here.
Mrs. Decker.
Here. Mr. Singer.
Here. Nine present to our virtual.
Thank you.
Please rise if you are able, and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.
For. Allegiance.
To Ohio State
to which it stands.
One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice.
You don't do that to me.
May I have a motion
to approve the January 24th, 2022 Board of Directors agenda?
Summoned Cathy Seger second.
Lyndsey Drew.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I, by any one opposed
motion carries
Student of the month recognition.
We have Dr.
Smith via Zoom.
Good evening, everyone.
Can everyone hear me?
Yes, very good evening.
Board members, administrators, teachers, students, staff and our community members.
It's an absolute privilege to be here representing Hershey
High School to produce our January Students of the Month.
This is a very special program.
It's been around for quite some time, and it's sponsored by two community partners,
the Federated Women's Club of Hershey and the Hershey Rotary Club,
and would just like to thank them for their participation and continued support.
It is now my pleasure to introduce our first student of the month.
I believe this will be a video presentation.
I'd like to congratulate Ms.. Abigail York.
For. Hi everyone.
I am Rick.
I am the daughter of Donna and Eric and the recipient
of the January Student of the Month award.
I'd like to first start off by saying thank you to the Hershey
Rotary Club for honoring me with this award.
It is greatly appreciated.
And thank you so much.
I was very excited to receive it
and I can't thank you enough.
I'd also like to thank the students
and staff and teachers who have always
supported me throughout the way and have helped me get to this point.
Specifically, I would like to say thank you to my parents
and many of my friends for always supporting me
and pushing me to do
my best.
So throughout my high school career, I had been given the opportunity
to partake in many different extracurricular activities.
I was part of the Hershey High School Girls tennis team for four years.
For all four of these years, I played on the varsity level
and I have met so many fun and cool people along the way.
And I was also nominated team captain
and was given that position.
So I definitely had a lot
along attendance.
I also have done a lot of different clubs
such as Spanish Club, a young Democrats Club,
We Matter Club, the Club and HCA
or Hershey Community Lions Club.
And this last year, I have actually
been given the opportunity to be the vice president
of the senior class and a council representative
and educational level.
I am the secretary treasurer of the Spanish National Honor Society
and a member of National Honor Society and Alpha Theta National Honor Society.
I also like to take time to tutor a lot of different students and physics.
I have done a couple tutoring sessions
for math as well, so you really just enjoy that.
And it's it's really nice seeing
these students
get good grades and stuff after I helped them.
Actually, one of my favorite volunteer activities system this year,
I was able to help set up and organize the Hershey High School
homecoming dance, along with many other members of summer camp.
So I had a lot of fun volunteering my time in order
to make this night special for a lot of people.
I met a lot of really cool people
and helped make it a special night for many of the students, despite
the different circumstances that happened this year.
My favorite part was seeing all those students who attended the dance
have a really good time and just have fun
throughout the whole entire night.
In the future, I will continue my new service
and activities, and after graduation
I planned on attending college with an intended major of neuroscience.
I'm still undecided on the University of Pittsburgh and Northeastern
at the moment, but I'm excited to see what the future holds for me.
Thank you again for honoring me with this amazing award
and I hope you have a great day. Thank you.
Congratulations once again to Abigail.
And now I would. Like to introduce Mr.
Zachary Miller.
Hello.
My name is Zach
Miller and senior year Hershey High School.
And I'm very honored to be given this word.
A student amongst ourselves.
I thank my parents, Sharon and Matthew Miller, for all they've done
for me these past couple of years for Hershey School.
Next, I would like to thank the Hershey Rotary Club for the recognition
and the Hershey ministrations students, staff and teachers
for all they've done for me over this past couple of years here Hershey
next I would like to talk about all the clubs
services and activities I do in and out of school.
First I'm a member of the basketball team and I'm also
the captain as well, and I'm also captain of the football team as well.
This past season I was named first Team all conference lineman and I was also
this past summer named by Pennlive top 25 lineman in Pennsylvania.
Next, I would like to talk about some of the club's men.
First one is Link through
the club where we get to take incoming freshmen from the middle school.
We get to create a nice, safe environment where we get to show them
all around the school, all around Hershey High School, really.
And we get to show them classrooms, teachers, students, staff, everyone.
Next club is called Best Buddies.
Best Buddies only take some of the kids from special education classrooms.
After school, we get to create a nice, joyful area.
We wait to where we get to play sports activities and anything
they want to do for an hour or two after school.
Next, National Honor Society
and NHS.
I have to maintain a certain amount of service hours and GPA
in between each marking period and all throughout the summer.
It's a very honor and club to be in.
Whilst I've been a distinguished honor roll
all four years in high school, I'm very proud of and some of the hobbies
I do outside of school as I like to list, I like to hang out
with friends, I like to travel and I like list music.
Some of the service I do are Special Olympics.
Special Olympics is a thing we did this past fall
where we got to get all the kids from all around Hershey,
middle and elementary school to compete in the Special Olympics.
I got to, you know, be one of the leaders of that, and I was very proud to do it.
I also service the Englewood barn.
I help do projects before they opened up, and I was very happy to do so with them.
Also, during COVID, I helped some of the elderly people in my neighborhood.
I really enjoyed helping them out.
Whatever they had to do,
you know, feels, you know, taking the leaves, doing whatever they want.
I was very honored to do it for them.
That's how they talk about one of my favorite service projects,
which was actually Special Olympics.
There was a time where I got to help and bring joy
to all the special education students in our community.
I helped organize it and I helps ran it for all the events for the kids.
I'll tell you, made the students here and all with all the activities
and all the fun events that are part of the service really brings me happiness.
It means so much to me,
and that's why I do it, to put all the smiles on all those kids faces.
And so the next couple of years after high school,
I planned to attend college for the next four years and to continue
my academic and football career at the next level.
Thank you to everyone listening to this video and I'll consecrate nine.
Congratulations once again.
Zach and I just would like to thank the school board, the administration
for providing all these opportunities for our students and the continued support
without the support of the school board, the administration creating programs.
I mean,
we probably just heard about
15 different programs that are all based in the school, in the community.
So it's. Amazing. It's fabulous.
I just want to say thank you.
Thanks for the opportunity and have a wonderful evening.
Thank you.
I would like to announce the board met in executive session prior
to this meeting to discuss safety, legal matters
and personnel
recognition of citizens.
This is an opportunity for residents and taxpayers to address
the board on matters related to the agenda.
Citizens wishing to speak should come to the microphone
or raise their virtual hand once recognized are unmuted.
Please state your full name and address for the record
to provide equal opportunity.
Each speaker is limited to 3 minutes.
If necessary, the board may set a maximum time
for the public comment portion of any meeting.
Are there any residents or
taxpayers in the audience that would like to speak?
Mr. Davis. Oh.
Good evening.
Mike DAVIES 1524 Church Road here in Hershey.
Over the last few years, the public has done many things
to do its part to mitigate the risk of the spread of COVID 19.
As we learn more and more about this virus, we need to realize
the recommendations from the POUCE and CDC have turned out wrong.
Wearing a cloth mask was the order,
and some of us were very much against us saying Cloth masks don't prohibit
the spread of COVID or any other airborne illness.
This past week we have seen the CDC and Dr.
Fauci do a 180 again.
Now you have to wear an N95 mask in order to be protected.
My question for anyone wearing one,
how many of you take the proper training, how to fit,
sanitize and wear N95 masks
because that's actually taught in college courses.
Let's fast forward to today on the agenda.
We have a revised health and safety plan that requires these useless, useless
cloth cloth masks until school buildings individually hit 1% positivity rate.
This revised policy is something
that I would have expected last year, in 2020 and 2021 school year.
Not this year.
This district is currently falling behind the actual facts of COVID,
just like it did when we delayed to go back to full person learning
for all grade levels last year.
Our currently a top 20 district.
But how much is that in jeopardy?
How much learning have lost? Have we suffered?
And how
much suffering will continue if we continue the masking?
Majority of the school districts that surround us, even some sharing zip
codes with us are going mask optional because they realize the facts of COVID 19
that some people in this room
and in the community continue to push the fear agenda.
That's all they want us to hear.
I won't name names because I don't want to receive
another ill written, unprofessional, threatening letter from a lawyer filled
with falsities and a state attempt at intimidation.
It is time, though.
It's time for parents and the community to stand up and say enough is enough.
Kids need the option of breathing freely.
They need the option of seeing their teachers faces,
of seeing their friends faces of being able to learn
socially, emotionally and educationally through facial expressions.
Ladies and gentlemen of the board, enough's enough.
Tonight's the night they take the mask off.
Thank you.
My name is Kathy Burris.
I'm at 163 high point drive in Hummelstown
and I'm also just going to speak briefly
about the updated Esser plan and the mask,
the masking.
And you know me, I've been up here before and you know that I am against the mask.
Always have been for the children.
I looked at your updated plan and
this thing about the 1% makes absolutely no sense,
especially since it's
1% or less for two weeks as of today, I looked at your numbers.
You have 13 and the SCC cases, 38 cases
in the elementary, 64 in the middle school and 60 in the high school.
And in order to change this, there has to be 11
or fewer in the high school, eight or fewer cases in the middle school,
nine or
fewer in the elementary school and four fewer in the SCC.
And I just don't know
how we're ever going to get away from masking mandatory with this.
I also would like to say that
it's I've been
my son is on the varsity basketball team and I've been to all the away games
and pretty much every school is mask optional and I think it's embarrassing
to come here and see the big signs that you have to put your mask on.
It's ridiculous.
I also reviewed the
the pandemic team since they made the recommendations for this 1%
and what they had to say.
And I see that,
you know, a lot of the narrative that comes out.
Of the.
Discussion in this pandemic team committee.
You know, I know few.
People, but it just seems to be this ongoing fear narrative
and it just needs to end.
And I just think that if that is going to be the case,
these people should not be on this committee
because we're never going to move forward.
And I also would like to see that
there be some discussion of changes,
that there is treatment, early treatment that has been very effective for COVID.
And this never seems to come up ever.
Just on a side note, if you watched, there was a very important Senate
federal Senate hearing today
by Senator Ron Johnson
that went on for hours discussing second opinions and the very importance
of early treatment and COVID that is working and is effective.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Anyone else in the audience
that would like to speak?
Is there anyone online with their hand raised?
Yes, there are two participants with.
Their hands raised. Lauren.
You have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address.
For the record.
Hi, Lauren
Milliner, 26, near Road in Hershey.
I want to say that I actually
really appreciate the new health and safety plan.
I think by picking a number like 1%, it does show that we're not just going to
mask forever,
that you're being really thoughtful with when you know,
when it's safe for the community, for the kids to take the masks off.
I just had one comment.
It said
that if kids have been COVID positive, they can return to school after five days.
But I believe that the CDC recommendation
is after those five days, they should mask for five more days.
Right now, all I'm asking is mandatory.
That doesn't really make a difference.
But since the plan allows for masking optional in the future,
I thought it would be nice to detail
masking mandatory after five days or when that happens.
And just to address,
people talk about early early treatment for coughing up this stuff.
That's all wonderful.
If you can get into the hospital and get treated,
but someone affiliated with a medical center, there's weekly
emails about how they're turning random units and everything into beds,
you know, because there just isn't availability.
People are waiting in the E.R.
for 12 hours, 18 hours.
And so everything that everyone could do to mask
and to do that really helps
allow the hospitals to be available when people need it for COVID
and non-covid related reasons.
So I really appreciate and support the current health and safety plan
with maybe that one change. Thank you.
Thank you.
Stacey.
You have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address. For the record.
Hi, my name is Dr.
Stacey Maloney.
I'm at 113 West Granada Avenue, Hershey, P.A..
I also want to say that I've been very actually
very pleased to see all the thought that went into the decisions
about masking in the updated plan.
You know, I think that this is a really difficult decision
for a lot of people and that by putting it at 1%,
that sets a clear point at which we could remove masks
without kind of doing it irrationally while levels are very high.
I know there was a comment made earlier
that we would never see masks come off if we waited for 1%.
In fact, I went back and looked and there were times earlier
in the year where cases in individual schools were less than those cut off.
Not and there would have been times that masks could have been optional
earlier in this year, for example, in November or early December.
So I don't think that time is really as far off as some people may think.
So I think that's a very
reasonable way to kind of navigate this ever changing climate.
And it also gives us the opportunity to put universal masking back into place
if there would be another surge in the future, since it's pretty clear
we don't know what COVID is going to do going forward.
And I did have one question that hopefully can be addressed at some point.
It's just say that when transmission rates are 1% or lower,
that's the people would be allowed who are COVID exposed
but asymptomatic would be allowed to attend school.
And I wasn't sure why the quarantining would be removed at that point.
So that would be at the same time that universal masking would not be in place.
So I would think the risk of someone asymptomatic and exposed would transmit it
to others would be higher than compared to when universal masking is in place.
So I wasn't sure what the thought process was behind that.
And then just a comment on the accessibility of treatments.
It's true that we do have better treatments
and many of those are not available to children under the age of 12
just because of they haven't been tested.
There.
And at least in my experience, trying to obtain some of those treatments
for my patients, such as monoclonal antibodies
and Paxil, Ovid, one of the newer oral medications, the monoclonal
antibodies recently have been on shortage, so the center has not been able to
treat everyone that is referred for that treatment.
And I've not been able to obtain that slogan for any of my patients yet.
So while I'm hopeful in the future, those will be easier to access right now.
They're not always a reality for people that are sick with COVID.
Thank you. That's all that I wanted to say.
Thank you.
Kevin.
You've been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and.
Address for the record.
Good evening.
My name is Kevin Ferguson, 1338 Crow Hollow Road.
And before again.
Before I begin, I want to quickly thank the board for offering
this virtual option for the public to participate in your meetings.
You should be commended for that.
I want to talk about the future.
A lot of what I wanted to stay in already been said,
so I'm going to skip that and to make this very brief,
the two challenges these students are facing, Robert, is,
one, the virus itself and the other
the mandates, specifically the mask mandate.
What we know is that the virus itself
has very little effect on these kids.
The variant is
much different.
It's spreading like wildfire.
Probably everybody is going to get it.
But we know that it's very mild.
But it remains that children that get the virus
still is a very, very small percentage that develop
serious illness from the virus.
And what we do know what the mask
is, 100% of those kids are affected
by the negative consequences of wearing those
masks.
Putting a mask on is more difficult to breathe.
It's more difficult to do everything there.
Their learning experience is definitely
being negatively impacted by wearing these masks.
In addition, you have kids with learning disabilities.
Wearing a mask makes it even more difficult.
You have kids that have a difficult time speaking probably properly.
They have speech impediment.
Putting a mask on
complicates that problem.
These kids trying to communicate with their peers was difficult to begin with.
Now you put a mask on that
it's even more difficult.
My position is that I was hoping
at this point we could get to where the masks would be optional.
I think the 1% is is too low.
I don't think there's enough consideration being given to the effect
in, in my opinion, the harm that these masks are having on
these kids in their education because they don't live in a bubble.
When they leave school, they're going to dinner,
they're going to stores,
they're having parties, birthday parties.
You can go to a sporting event where there'd be
thousands of people on mask, no social distancing.
They're much more likely to get it outside of school.
I think I think it's really time.
I'm hoping that.
I was hoping we get there today.
But if not, I really would like to see us get there
very soon because I think that these kids are suffering, too.
Ferguson, your 5 seconds.
I think these kids are suffering too much with the mask mandate.
Thank you very much for the time.
Thank you, Mr. Ferguson.
Sir John Miller, you've been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address.
For the record.
Hello, John Miller, 329 Cocoa Avenue.
I wanted to mention about the mask mandate.
Listen, everybody in the room there.
You're there for education.
You're not there for health care.
And you're not there to make sure that my child
is in an environment that you you claim to be safe.
We do not
know what the implications of masking are.
That's a fact.
I don't care how many experts call in and this is just
I hate to break the news to everybody, but
expert opinion is the lowest
evidentiary weight you can have.
All right.
That's fantastic that we have experts and there's a lot of experts out there.
Congratulations.
You do not know
for a fact that the mask is safe for my child.
Period. End of story.
And by you going along with this,
you are abusing my child.
Child abuse is interfering with the breathing of a child.
It's in the district policy.
I don't understand how you can move forward like this.
You look like fools, to be completely honest with you.
I was just have Palmyra Middle School last night with my daughter.
They're playing.
There's.
Everybody's inside the building playing.
Sports without mask on.
And guess what?
We're okay. And Mr. Miller?
Mr. Miller. Mr.
Z, we're going to ask that you maintain appropriate decorum.
We're not going to name call.
And I'm not going to shout and talk over you.
I'm going to ask that you be respectful of students, okay?
Students observe these meetings.
So we asked you just Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly separation.
And then when you will, thank you for suffocating my daughter.
Again, sir, I'm going to remind you that you're responsible for.
Go ahead. Mute me that. Okay, Go ahead.
Okay.
Have a good evening.
Is there anyone else virtually
that would like to speak?
I see no hands raised.
At this time. Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
On to standing committee meeting reports.
The Finance and General Services Standing committees met today.
Mrs. Secker, do you have a finance report?
I do. Thank you.
We had a finance committee today.
We are the same
committee as the previous committee, even though we reorganized.
So that's good. We have the same members.
We had four items under new business.
We got our audit report from Boyer and Ritter. Mr.
Matt Well, the scene was there for about 35 minutes reviewing our 90
page document that is attached to the Finance Committee agenda.
If you would like to review it.
We got all good reviews with the audit.
There's no concerns.
We received the highest level opinion from the audit, no concerns on material
controls over financial reporting, no material weaknesses.
We did
review many of the accounts that the district has,
for example, our unassigned fund balance at 7.33%.
We want to get that back up to 8%, which is ideal.
We did take some money out of that for last school year.
We reviewed some of our different accounts,
the other parts of our fund balance and also our food services
and what money we had transferred over the years.
We did a review of the Milton Hershey Trust Fund.
Fulton Bank was there for our quarterly review at the end of 2021.
The trust was almost at 55 million
as you can, as you may remember,
this current school year, we are doing a 7% draw.
We did a review of the history of our draws.
Fulton took over the fund, the Trust as our trustee.
In 2012.
We were at 5% there with a three year
at 5% of the fund, but it was a three year average market value
From 2012 to 2015.
We worked to go to 4%.
In 2015, we were at 4.7% and then we moved back to 4%.
So the debate now is
it would be ideal to return back to 4%,
but would we consider a11 time
draw for next year of 5% or return back to 4%?
So the Finance Committee will be working through that.
Those details in February and March with Fulton Bank.
They will be providing,
what do we call it
here, a stress test on the portfolio for us.
And we did that in the past to decide what how to increase our draw.
It's basically a stress test to look at what would 4% do and what would 5% due to
the future of the fund, because obviously we do want to be fiscally responsible.
Previous boards have been
very fiscally responsible to give us what we have today.
So we would also want to consider that as well for the future of the district.
The other thing too, is that
even though the fund started at 5%, a three year average market value,
the current draws are a five year average market value.
We plan to review the stress
test on a portfolio in March.
Those two items took up the entire hour, the Finance Committee.
So we did a very quick review of the quarterly review of the Food
Service Fund, and I'm happy to report that that's currently
in the black.
We did a monthly review of our general fund revenues and expenses.
It was a very quick review.
So I think we could do
maybe a deeper dive in our next committee meeting in February.
Does anyone have any questions?
It's all good information.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Mrs.
Zucker and General Services.
We met today as well.
Mr. Brazeau, do you have a report from that?
I do miss Mimi.
So today there
was a reorganization in the General Services Committee.
First of all, we welcome Robert Bennett to the committee as a new member.
Second, I was appointed or whatever
you want to call it, to the new chair as the General Services Committee.
So I will be, you know,
working through the General Services Committee as a chairperson.
We started out the meeting with Dr.
Winslow, giving us an update on and reviewing the
general services rolls on information that was provided by Mr.
Singer and which is currently from the website.
Information that we Have.
So nothing new, just reiterating what the roles were in
the General Services team.
Second, we did an update on the ad Hoc committee.
There was some information from Dr.
Winslow stating that our last meeting was at the end of November 1130
and we have a pause right now
with the Ad Hoc Facilities Committee for several reasons.
One, due to the holiday
in the break in the school, and also to allow Miss Purcell to
come on board and understand
the finances related to that that ad hoc committee.
So our next meeting will be in February and we will pick up
where we were at the end of 2021.
The third issue that we talked about
was an update on the roller rink project.
Dr. Winslow explained that the total estimate at this point
is about $63,000, which was much higher than originally determined.
And we were working with the junior Sports
to understand the the total cost after a stormwater assessment
so that we can look at how we go about
getting the funding
both from a school perspective and the joy of sports.
There was a proposal for donor recognition
for those that have already donated
and may donate in the future to the roller rink.
Those options were to have a signage near the the roller rink
with no advertisement on the rink itself, just listing out the
the the donors or also
some form of like a stone recognition where there was a plaque on the stone.
But because these were new,
we took we tabled that vote to the next meeting.
So we have an opportunity to make sure those are the best options
to present donor recognition.
So we will vote on that the next time after
we have some further recommendations.
Mr. Anderson then proceeded to talk about the padding
on 322 field notices, protective padding on the walls on the 322 field.
Apparently they have a wood backing in them.
You're starting to see some some rot from just being out in the weather.
His proposal right now, the estimate of about $18,500 to replace this.
We did have a discussion on potential liability or injury
from not having protective padding on these surfaces.
We do feel Mr.
Anderson do fit does feel that the risk is low
and we are working through remediation at this time, but that.
Might.
Yeah.
Okay. Sorry about that.
We are there working through
remediation at this point to
oh, someone has okay
at some point where
they're going to remediate this in
and look at the design to prevent this from happening in the future.
But at this point in time that was just a just an update.
No vote at this point coming to the board
in in the there was an update from Mr.
Anderson on this.
The middle school void underneath the cafeteria.
That work is complete and from the engineering perspective is approved.
We do have to go to the Derry Township
for built for a building permit process.
Now, this was waived due to emergency repair
in the severity of what was happening at the middle school.
So this is really a formality just to make sure that
they have their inspectors go through that as well.
But we don't feel that
there is any major concerns at this point in time because they've been
kept up to
speed the entire time just to bring it into magnitude.
The beam that was placed inside the school was 34
feet long and weighed about £3,000.
It was a steel beam that they had to cut a hole into the wall
and then slide in underneath the the supports for the middle school.
And I didn't catch the number of square or cubic feet of concrete.
It had to go into the basement to fill that.
But it was pretty significant based upon the work that they did.
They did this all in five weeks.
So kudos to Mr.
Anderson and his team for the quick turnaround and making sure
that everything was safe for the students and the staff at the middle school.
And we there was a discussion.
Ms.. Purcell will be investigating
or talking with the insurance carrier to determine
if there will be anything that we can we can claim from this issue.
The concern is there really wasn't any damage per se,
but we did remediate to prevent any further concerns with the school.
So and in the last piece we talked about was a partial
this was just an update in a considerable in a partial removal
of the macadam at Memorial Field where the old basketball court was,
we would remain we would keep some of that
in place for materials storage,
like the
diamond tech for the baseball field and such.
But really to help give back some square footage
for groundwater credits that Dr.
Winslow had mentioned it may be able to use for hammer handicap parking spaces.
So these are the things that are trying to get back
with all the issues with groundwater
or groundwater calculation.
So that's all I have.
Anybody have any questions for Mr.
Izzo?
Thank you very much.
On to our student representatives.
She's going to go first. Misspoke, right?
Yeah, I'll go first. Thank you.
So as many of you know, Abbie Urich and Zack Miller, we're honored today
to give our heartfelt congratulations to them on winning students of the Month.
In other news, Friday was the last day of the second marking period
in the first semester, and Tuesday will be
the first day of the second semester and the third marking period.
Winter sports are in
the final weeks of their seasons and we're looking forward
to the postseason opportunities for the winter sports at the high school.
And plans for Mini Thorne which is on the 18th of March and the walk
for clean water, are moving forward and everything looks good there.
So the passage of.
This.
Good evening.
So I'm just excited to announce some senior events that are coming up in May.
Senior prom has been decided for May 28.
That will be on a Friday.
All the senior walk in picnic are back.
Very excited to announce that that will be on May 27.
The seniors will have their food truck dinner on May 25th.
$10 vouchers will be given to each senior.
And then that will also be the night the senior superlatives are announced.
The senior awards will be on June 1st and the commencement will follow on June 8th.
Thank you.
Is that everything?
Thank you.
Thank you both.
On to
unfinished business
that anticipated agenda items.
Listed items are on the anticipated February
14th, 2022, Board of Directors meeting Agenda set.
Okay.
Now on to unfinished business, Dr. Winslow.
Thank you. Mrs. Miami.
Wanted to give everyone a pandemic team update.
It was a very busy week last week working through some of the
pieces of. The.
Potential revised health and safety plan.
The pandemic team did me on Tuesday, as promised.
It was two weeks after the the previous meeting to continue what we had started.
There were some additional changes, as there have been
almost every week for the last several weeks.
And Dr. Rose Snyder let the team know
some of those quarantine changes from 15 to 10 days.
Also reviewed some details about quarantine times and questions from
team members.
There were some question about the legality of asking
for vaccination status, and it was explained that
we can ask for status from families, but they do not have to reveal it to us.
And some do and some don't.
And it can be helpful if we know.
But it's if.
The if people choose not to tell us, then they just treated as though
they are unvaccinated, that their length of time for quarantine.
At that point, we broke into five groups
to discuss a proposed change
to the health and safety plan.
There was a lot of robust discussion.
Ah, we did schedule
this meeting for an hour and a half because we've been having a hard time
staying to an hour in the meeting. Went for 2 hours.
There was
a lot of concern about making changes.
There was a lot of concern about not making changes.
At the end of the meeting, we had not come to a conclusion
for what should be proposed, though we had some pretty extensive notes
from each group and notes that I had taken from going in and out
of each of the groups and listening to the whole group discussion.
From those notes,
I put together a proposed
health and safety plan revision and then sent that out
to the pandemic team with the understanding that they had the
opportunity to vote on it.
And I will tell you, was a very fast turnaround.
It was it was a very I had two nights to work on
putting the plan together, promised the team
I would have it out to them by noon on Thursday.
I think I sent it out around ten
and then they had
until noon on Friday to respond.
So we did have I did not vote.
I, I just remove myself from the voting on that.
We did have.
27 responses to the and we have 30 members of the team.
So taking out my vote, there were only two votes.
We didn't hear from
team members or ask if the revisions of the health
and safety plan were clear and easy to understand.
80% of the team said yes, 20% of the team said no.
And then the team was asked if they were comfortable
with this draft version of the plan being sent
to the board of school directors for possible approval.
60% of that about 61% of the team
said yes, about 38% of the team said no.
I know from some individual
email responses that the no's were not all for the same reason.
They were for different reasons.
Then folks were asked
if there were other parts of the plan that still needed
revision.
There were questions
that were asked in that feedback from from folks that I then went back
through and sent responses to those questions.
Among them was questions about the 1%,
and that 1% came from neighboring school districts.
And what doing some, some are doing 2%, some are doing 1%.
Knowing what our buildings look like went with 1%.
And looking at data from the fall there
we had the high schools would have been mask optional
from September 10th to December 3rd.
Given our numbers in the fall, the middle school would have been mask
optional from October.
Eighth to.
December 17th.
The elementary would have been mask optional November 5th
to December 31st.
I think you can kind of track vaccination here too.
And when boosters were available for when this was available,
the SCC only had.
From.
November 26th.
To November 3rd.
I'm sorry to.
Getting it wrong.
November 26th to December 12th that they probably would have been mask optional.
They were just back and forth a lot throughout the fall.
So there were quite a few times and quite a few stretches.
Now of course, that was 1% with masks on.
I don't know what that would look like with masks. Off.
And so pulled that data, shared
that answered questions, shared that back out with the team.
The team did not have any opportunity to come back together to discuss
any of the feedback that they gave nor the questions and answers that I provided.
So I just want to make
that that clear that this was a meeting on Tuesday.
The rest of this business was conducted via email
with no further opportunity for discussion.
The same data that was shared with the pandemic team was then shared
with the full school board on Friday night as an agenda
so that they would have all the different pieces that the pandemic team had
and would be able to see what was being recommended
and how many members of the team percentagewise not by individuals.
Of course we're recommending it and how many were not.
And so that is that is where we are, the team.
There was a lot of, again, very robust discussion,
a lot of really good questions and a lot of
a lot of differing opinions to work through.
And as an administration, tried very hard to come up
with a document that
provided some level of compromise.
Given what I was hearing, so that we could show that
there is a space in time where masks to be optional
without rushing to that space and time
to make sure that everybody feels comfortable moving that direction.
So that is that is my pandemic team update.
I'm happy to take questions now or to wait
until we get to new business, whichever the board prefers.
Usually we do a little bit of discussion now at least.
Have time for questions.
So anybody have any questions?
Comments?
Dr. Enzo, I have a question. Thank you.
And I want to start by thanking the you and
your team
and the pandemic team, because that is a really tight turnaround.
And I know that you've put a lot of time and effort and thought into this.
Just I have a few plans, specific questions
about the information inside of it,
but just as overarching, I was curious why
if there was conversation with the pandemic team around the decision
to focus on
solely the building, individual building levels versus community
rate of transmission,
there was a lot of discussion around the fact
that our building transmission rates have been considerably lower
than community transmission rates all along, and that transmission
rates and infection rates among children is less than among adults.
Now on the ground is maybe showing a little bit different in that.
But there was a sense that we wanted to dial in. To.
Very specific local data versus the greater community data.
Okay.
Then looking at
the section A for the masking,
I'm not
I think that having an exit strategy
and starting to look forward and having a path there is is smart.
And, you know, the responsible thing to do is as we look ahead so that we are
equipped to be able to respond
that way.
I do have some concerns
just about some information that I feel is missing from this.
And part of that is addressing
the the plan states when building transmission rates
would drop into that
mass would become strongly encouraged.
At that time, it doesn't discuss
whether that is during school hours, if it applies to facility
use requests for the public athletic sporting events with spectators,
extracurriculars, any type of large group gathering.
It also doesn't address
employees or members who go in and out of multiple buildings
or the district office as a whole, the board,
you know, and any public meetings that we hold.
So I was curious if you could address that.
I would.
That is that is a piece that had the pandemic team come back together.
I think we probably would have gotten to I hesitate to address that and speak
for everybody right here and now in what I would imagine.
Would.
Be that whatever building you are in, it would apply
for that building's use during that time.
And at the district office, we would
we would just have to make some decisions about the expectations over here.
My guess is that we would just remain masked so that we were not
outside of whatever one of the buildings was doing.
I don't think it's fair that if one building
is wearing masks, people over here don't have to.
So we will just continue wearing them.
Thank you.
Then in the contact tracing and isolation
quarantine section E,
it addresses the things that would happen,
the, you know, the procedures and protocol
for when transmission rates are 1% or lower with mask encouraged.
But all of the language was removed
about what would happen when the buildings are universally masked.
And so you know everything about how contact tracing is done.
You know what the requirements are for coming back.
It doesn't reference anything about symptomatic students,
staff who have not tested positive, which is obviously,
you know, one pretty specific group.
I know we have the the flow chart, which shows that a physician's note
or a proof of a negative test is presently required in order
for symptomatic but not a positive test in students to be able to return.
So that was missing
notification about
procedures for close contacts
and whether how individuals would find that out.
If masks were not required.
And also the no reference to continued
mask use for the additional five days following day.
Five of isolation.
I think one of the things that I would have concern with is
if a building were mask
optional or encouraged that a
COVID or a close contact who was exposed
would be could be asymptomatically positive
with no testing requirements and no mask requirements, you know, moving
throughout the school building without any mitigation effort in place
or if a student
were returning after five days.
Obviously, the guidelines for the quarantine state
that they would be able to continue for five days with a mask on.
But there is nothing, you know, speaking to that in this plan.
It also
doesn't address anything with household contacts.
And that guidance, you know, recommend masking for household contacts.
There. So
those are some of my concerns that kind of flow
into the testing part of it as well, because some of that language changed
rather
such as
the new plan states
that the district will provide when universal masking is in place.
When available, the district will provide rapid antigen tests for students
and staff who arrive and students identified as close
contacts wishing to have a negative test to return to school.
But if we are not requiring quarantine
or identifying close contacts, I'm not sure you know how that applies.
It also no longer provides the opportunity
for a positive tested student to receive testing
at the end of their five day isolation before they would return to school.
So I know those.
I just threw a lot of questions to.
I guess one of my concerns is that there are a lot of things that are not
addressed inside of here and that I think
are important to be in there because
the last thing we want to do is create
any more confusion or leave ambiguity
as to how to address that, because I think that would
put an undue burden on families as well as the administration
trying to answer all of those questions or the, you know, nursing staff.
Thank you.
I'll just the language
for the universal masking procedures is very easy to put back in there.
I actually didn't notice it wasn't there.
And what you just.
Said.
That I think it popped into a wrong spot and I meant to put it back.
In and it didn't go.
This is Donna Cronin.
Can I just jump in real quickly because I want to you know,
I know there there might be some issues like that,
but I think in general, in prior versions of this, I believe there was
there was purposely things left, general, in terms of following guidelines, like it
says in part E following recommendations because things change so quickly.
The more specific we get in here, the more trouble we're gonna get into.
And we want to provide communications that clarify details.
But we still need to keep some semblance of general guidelines
in here, which I think is consistent with previous versions.
You know, obviously,
I think I think that's where one of the problems is with us
as a district will follow the recommendations of local
and state health officials, determine when students can discontinue.
There's just that.
Our plan is actually not following those.
There's a kind of missing from there with universal masking.
That's that sentence doesn't make sense because that piece isn't there.
So there is one piece that was in the previous plan, Dr.
Cronin that's not here that should be in there about universal masking.
Yeah, no, I see that. I see where it went. Yeah.
And then as far as the mask use for the additional five days
after a student can come back, that is another place
where I would really like to have had more team discussion, because in
some of our neighboring schools, some of them are just going.
They tell people and kids, you need to wear a mask
for another five days, but nobody's tracking it
because it's impossible to do so on an optional environment.
Others have decided just to keep them home for ten days.
So that would be a decision that we would have to make.
To think which.
Way would we want to go with that ultimately?
And then as far as the testing is concerned,
the again,
this is the more details on the testing are in the communications that Dr.
Refsnyder has sent out.
The previous one had just this first paragraph in here.
We added the second paragraph simply because we're
pretty sure we will not be able to keep tests in place.
If. We're doing all of the testing that we're doing
now for symptomatic or exposed students.
We we're already nearly out of tests and hoping for a new shipment.
So we did not want to commit to being able to do something
that we're not sure we can do.
Good questions.
Thank you. Thanks.
I guess my overarching is just, you know, the
lack of any reference
to, you know, community levels of transmission.
I know other districts that have gone to mask optional and have some
restrictions around building percentage thresholds
also have language that addresses, you know, rate of community transmission.
And while it may not be specific, it does that.
And one of the things I really struggle with is
I think, the Department of Health
P.D., the CDC, haven't done us any favors.
Right.
They really have left it vague and have said
if you have a county health department to refer to their guidance.
But we don't we're not one of the counties that have those.
If you go to those counties, those consistently recommend very specifics
for mask guidance, depending on the rate of community transmission.
You know, we don't have that, but we have those to be able to look at.
And then I think the absence of health
department in the county is somewhat
mitigated for us by the fact
that we have a medical community and, you know, are hearing a lot from there.
When I look at
I'm not a scientist, but when I look at the masking
and when we would have been optional and there's obviously a case for masks
working to some extent here based on the rise of community
transmission and the
the case being able to control the case and the spread there.
When I look at the average time
that the school buildings across the board,
with the exception of the SCC, which as you mentioned, fluctuated,
the average 14 day community incidence
rate was around 209 out of 100,000.
That's still in the high inter category.
We haven't been out of the high category since before school started,
but it was that was the average in the time
that we seemed to be able to hold on the most before the last surge came.
I know personally I would feel more comfortable
putting in the option for moving to a building level
if we had some start point, you know, as to where we are.
I think we've been somewhere around,
I think at the end of last week is around 800 per 1000.
And so I'd like I don't think that we need to get to low or moderate
as it's defined by the community transmission levels of, you know, zero
50 per 100,000 because that's a long ways off.
And not likely to do that.
But I do think that there should be some threshold
so that when we are at 800 per 100,000,
regardless of what our mitigation efforts that are successful
are in the building, we are still holding some level of,
you know,
responsibility and accountability to the community at large
and the commitment to keeping kids in school and not exposed
and out in quarantine unnecessarily.
Thank you.
Thank.
This is Kevin Segar.
If we move to as approved this plan tonight, the pandemic team in two weeks
could potentially review more details as well, correct?
Absolutely. Yeah.
So it could pass tonight and then still go back
to the pandemic team for another edition of anything that we thought we'd
or it could fail tonight and go back to page 17 for another either one
or it can be tabled and go back to the pandemic team to keep working on
with some of these pieces to if we were to table it,
then it would
put a hold on it until the next meeting
in which we would have to take action or else it died.
But that would provide opportunity for the pandemic team to fill
in, to have a more robust conversation around
some of the
things, you know, the questions that there were on either end of it.
Is that something that you would be comfortable with?
Dr. Renslow. I serve at the pleasure.
I do.
Is Erica Schmidt.
I have a few things to say.
So I understand that
everybody is a little apprehensive
about moving forward.
I think
if we're looking at
if we're constantly looking at community
spread,
we are never going to get out of this.
I think we have to be responsible for the school
and the kids and what the transmission rate in the buildings are.
I personally think 1% is too low.
You know, we have 11 and seven with.
Does that include Dr.
Winslow, the the children or does it include staff?
And that is focused around the children. Okay.
So if you are looking at 11 people in the high school,
I mean, I, I anticipate
having 1% clear into next year.
Honestly, this is a virus. It's going to change.
People are going to come down with this.
But again, it's going to get less virulent.
And this is not
to say that I don't think, you know.
As a whole we don't.
You know, disregard the community.
However, there is no mandate in the community.
There you can go where you want.
It is mask optional.
And so therefore,
how can we just keep taking them into consideration when
in fact they're not taking us into consideration.
So at this point in the game
two years later, I really think we need to move forward.
The other schools are mask optional.
We are doing a
a slow crawl to get masks off all of our kids.
And I understand
that for some people, for some kids,
masks are perfectly comfortable and perfectly fine.
But we have a lot of other kids
families that they are not helping
them socially, academically.
They they need
to thrive and they need to get they cannot wear these masks any longer.
So there is a whole other group that is not doing well with them.
With that said, I would like to see
a percentage higher than just the 1%.
I think we can safely go a little bit higher.
Mrs. Donna Cronin
I just ask Erica one question about that.
I was going to say this discussion
probably should be during our during the new business.
This is just a this was just Stacy's pandemic update.
And maybe I'm just asking maybe this is more appropriate
for the new business section where we're actually discussing.
This.
And I think we're getting ahead of ourselves.
But I could be wrong.
This is the appropriate place to have the discussion, Donna, but thank you.
All right. Thank you.
Just Lindsay, here is what
if you are giving consideration to what level?
Because I looked at,
you know, out of what we provided out of the 20 weeks that we've been
in school so far, 14 of those, the high school would have been under 1%.
Yeah.
And, you know, with that being said, that is
it's it's not bad, but I think we could
at the very least safely go to 2%
without.
I mean, that that brings you back to what, 20, 22 people.
It's still not a lot of people out of 1100
and some 136 students.
And that's just that's.
How I'm looking at it right now.
Yeah.
Robert Bennett, My concern is also around the 1%.
I think it's low and I think it also puts us in a position
where we're going to have to potentially with these low numbers, you know, be mask
on, mask off special we're talking about for in a schools like a pretty much a
like a psychological
letdown when the kids are like I'm in mass this week now I'm not
and it going back and forth at some point I think we need to make a decision
as a school district if we're going to be mask or no mask.
The low numbers are, I think, going to cause more problems and confusion.
And the other question I have for Dr.
Winslow, the longer situation, Joe, with it being cold, like I'm watching
the kids go past my house with no coats on and the kind of risk
of making the decision, do I wear a coat or do I carry it around?
Is there some reason the lockers can't be a utilize at this point?
So at the middle school, in order to keep the lunches
six feet apart, their desks are in front of the lockers.
They can't. We can't get to them.
But students are allowed to keep their coats in their home rooms,
and that's across the board
at the high school.
Also, we have always, in the middle of winter,
seeing kids come to school in shorts without coats on.
It makes me crazy as a mother watching that
go down, but there always will be some doing that.
But as far as
is there a place them to store their coats,
they're allowed to leave them in their home rooms and they leave.
I mean, you should see all the stuff that they leave
in their home rooms already, like there's sports bags and.
Sticks and.
Those that I was at the middle school this weekend for a basketball game.
So I can't take a quick look because it's by the gym and oversee.
Yeah, we talked about the one hallway.
They looked like there was a desk going down two hallways that run parallel.
They're not the only places that desperate or their other hallways are.
Well.
There's a hallway that you wouldn't be able to see.
That. That there. And
if we would go masks
optional, then those desks like then that is over gas or now.
Well to Mr.
Bennett's point, if if we're back and forth, we wait, wait
just a little bit to see to make sure
we're going to stay because we can't
we can't keep moving the lunches back and forth.
Well, I think one thing we saw was that when they weren't distanced
without masks on eating lunch, the cases exploded.
So to take that layer away, we would be left with
just ventilation as the only mitigation effort.
Can I address that?
I think, too, we have to remember that the elementary
there was a there was a surge in Delta at that point and there were not
vaccinations available for a lot of those kids.
Now, everybody has had that opportunity.
So it will be interesting to see if that does help.
And another follow up question to Mr.
Bennett, where he was saying about like kind of going back and forth.
So how do we tell parents, how is it
communicated out if we go from one day and is it from one day to the next?
Like how?
I don't think that's I don't think that would be manageable.
I think we'd have to pick this is our start day
and then go for two weeks and like send out notifications on a weekend
so that people would know on Monday, this is what you're coming in.
Okay, okay.
I'm just imagining, like every other day, like, I now know we're looking at
two weeks span their time so we wouldn't to sticking to that 14 day period
so that there is some level of consistency happening.
And I do agree that that is a big concern.
The the back and forth and the stability of routine.
Is. Definitely an issue.
I also have concerns about.
You know.
Students or families who have students in multiple buildings where maybe
in one building you don't have to wear one and in the other building you do.
That's
seems odd.
And it wouldn't potentially be a mass back and forth of contact
tracing, back and forth, quarantine, back and forth.
This is Terry Singer.
This question, maybe some somewhat relates to Mr.
Smith's observations, but what has the Pandemic Committee said
about community spread and its relationship
to what's happening at the school and in one respect
I can understand them being distinct and separate from one another.
But then, as was mentioned earlier, and it's been mentioned before,
when the kids school for the most part they're unmasked
and then they're in the community
that we're talking about has some level of community spread.
So I'm just wondering, I
don't have a.
Know it's a good question, and I'm not sure where each individual
is on that, quite honestly.
And The committee, because there were so much different conversation happening.
I will say from my point of view, there's no place else in the community
that you go that you are with anywhere
from 900 to 1400 other people.
And if you go to the grocery store unmasked, that's your choice.
And it's your choice to go to the grocery store.
It's your choice to go to a large sporting event.
It's your choice to go to any venue where there's lots of people.
You don't have a choice to come to. School.
And. There.
Just aren't other places where you're exposed to that many people
in a day or potentially exposed to that many people in a day.
And we're
not using mitigation strategies like potting or,
you know, trying to keep kids in certain hallways or,
you know, things like that, because we've gone back to our best
educational practices, which is being able to use all of our programing.
So so in that perspective,
the thought I guess is we don't know what they're going to be exposed to.
They're not in school, but until we can reach certain levels
of, you know, of spread at each
or a number of cases that each school, we're going to keep
masks on.
That's what this proposal is.
Yeah, Whatever they're picking up in the community
isn't coming into the classroom, right? Yeah.
And we can keep the schools open. Right.
And that's been our focus is to keep kids in school.
Yeah. And I would continue to argue. That.
Interop, updating that schooling.
You know.
Back and forth, home, virtual back and so forth,
or worse yet, having schools shut down and having greater
social isolation is a far greater price to pay than masks.
This is Donna Cronin.
I just wanted to make a comment regarding one aspect of the health
and safety plan that I think the 14 day tallying,
I think with the new CDC guidelines that kids would only need to be
quarantined or people only be quarantined for five days instead of ten.
I think the counting the previous two weeks actually is results
in some duplicity so that I think it's more appropriate to go with the one.
We count because in a two week period, you're kids are already back in school
as being positive and adding to that number.
So I would that's one of the aspects I know that we discussed
in our pandemic group that this the five day
a one week counting is more realistic than counting two weeks.
You I have a
question regarding current so if a student tests positive currently
the CDC guidelines are five
isolation and then they would be able to come back
if symptoms if their symptoms resolving with wearing a mask.
But If someone would opt to stay in the full quarantine
for ten days, you know, because they did not want to risk spread
or, you know, they just weren't feeling 100 back to 100%.
Are we still currently permitting Zoom to continue through that
or is that only permitted until they're eligible to come back?
You know, it's permitted through the full ten days.
Thank you.
This is Cathy Seger.
My thoughts.
I was on the pandemic team.
I was able to participate in one of the breakout rooms
and my my thought on this plan is that
I do like the 1% because I think it's very conservative.
If you look back on our numbers, there were options in the fall
that we could have been optional.
And perhaps once this we get to this peak, we could see
our numbers drop in March and April.
And with the two week look like the numbers that were reported on Friday,
we don't have 14 days right now in those numbers,
so we're not going optional at any time soon.
So I would I would approve approving the plan tonight
so that we can get this 1% written in there
and also sending it back to the pandemic team to flesh out
any of the details that were confusing, that were discussed in the questions
and tied up to at tonight's board meeting.
That's just me personally.
I guess I'm just curious as to why we would want to
potentially approve something and have it
if it's going to come back with changes in two weeks.
Like I got from the 1% rate.
But we know looking at the numbers, we know
well the like filling in the things on the details.
So like the quarantine for what would happen
when masks were required, those types of things would have to come back.
And the pandemic team has, you know, the discussion
to have around the questions and those types of things.
So I guess they look at it from
why would we implement something
when we know that the building case counts right now
are not going to drop below 1% based on where they are right now
because you send it back, it could come back with a 7%.
I think it provides some good direction, like a starting point
to getting working in that down road I get, which I get what you're saying.
It's a valid point.
I also think this is like, okay, this is a decision that we made here.
Turn it back and let them that out.
All the details.
I just think it seems confusing for.
But nothing's going to happen
in the next two weeks because the numbers are too high.
This is done and grown and I think that we can't just keep talking about it.
We need
to make some action.
We need to we need to make need to move forward
and keep having the pandemic team keep meeting and keep giving us
adjustments and be as realistic as we can for what's best for our students.
I personally believe that they were original recommend nation,
that that had 2%, although the less than and there was a gap in the numbers.
I still believe the 2% was was was more appropriate than the 1%.
But I think we need to get something improved, realizing
the pandemic team has to keep, you know, keep meeting and keep adjusting
as things adjust because we know things are changing quickly
and I just don't want to do nothing again for another another meeting.
My personal opinion,
I guess
I'll just say I'm uncomfortable with that because we're still going to be
in a master required situation and our plan will not have any quarantine
or reference for what we do in a mask required situation.
So I can't approve a plan that doesn't address the state
that we're in currently.
Do we have we have this is terrorizing
or we have another member of our board that's on the Pandemic Committee,
Dr. Schor is still on the committee, correct?
Yes, he is.
Dr. Schroeder, do you have anything any any thoughts on this?
Is the discussion so far?
I do, Mr.
Singer, but I was going to wait until we got down
to five C regarding the revision
to the Health Health and Safety plan and make my comments.
Okay. Thank you,
Erika.
You're on the committee, right?
Yeah.
Does anybody else have any further discussion
questions, sir?
Thank you, everyone.
Okay,
here.
We go to consent agenda items.
Is that correct?
Okay.
Moving on.
The consent consent agenda contains routinely adopted items and items
that normally do not require public deliberations on the part of the board.
A board member may pull items which will then be discussed and voted on separately.
May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items
as listed so moved Lindsey drew this second.
Mike Rizzo.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor. By.
Anyone opposed.
Some.
Consent of Janice.
Okay, moving on.
Sorry to new business is trying to find the words for consent agenda.
Perhaps that's.
Okay.
Moving on to new business, Dr. Winslow,
the administration recommends the approval of the iPad lease for 1650
iPads and the amount of $601,267.50
with Apple effective March 30th, 2022.
But the first lease payment of 150,003 and $16.88
due after July 1st, 2022.
May I have a motion to approve the iPad lease?
So move Lindsay to second.
Kathy Zucker Is there any discussion?
I'm sorry, I do have a quick question on that.
Is this something we pay yearly?
Yes, it is.
Okay.
And that's just
that was for the elementary.
I'm sorry I missed that.
Yes, elementary.
Okay.
So each.
Each school, we pay approximately that same amount to.
No, No.
Do you want to address that, Mrs. Purcell.
Sure. Okay.
So now that that's a total for a three year lease,
so it will be portioned out over in three years. Okay.
And then we keep them generally after the three years.
Okay.
Thank you.
Is there any other questions?
The standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I, i any opposed
motion carries
physician of record agreement of assignment.
The administration recommends the approval
of the assignment agreement with, Pinnacle Health Medical Services and Dr.
Denise Duran to serve as the school district's
physician of record for the 2021 2022 school year.
May I have a motion to?
Approve the assignment agreement.
So move. Lindsay Drew
second.
Kathy Singer, is there any discussion?
I just want to.
Cronan I just wanted to thank Dr.
Duong and she's been a member of the pandemic team.
I've been in several breakouts with her and she always brings just wonderful
insight and just appreciate her the time that she has given to our district.
Thank you.
Thank you, Donna.
This is Lindsay Drew.
I also would like to thank Dr. Joanne.
And I just want to clarify, is this just a modification to the previously approved
because of the change to clinical health being part of Dr.
Dunn's practice now? Yes, exactly. Thank you.
Okay. Okay.
That was my question. Thank you.
Anyone else?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I, i any one opposed
motion carries
revised health and safety plan. Dr.
Winslow Administration proposes the approval of the revised Health
and Safety Plan Guidance and template.
May I have a motion to approve
the revised Health and Safety Plan Guidance and template?
So moved Kathy Stricker.
Second, Terri Singer.
Is there any discussion?
Can we acknowledge that there is a paragraph missing in this
that you need to are back in? It was accidentally left off?
Absolutely, Yes,
I do apologize,
but we would be approving with that with that paragraph put back in.
Okay.
Does that have to be formally amended?
I think
I could get the language for that very quickly.
Yesterday,
as many copies.
Of this
script
with.
It would read something along the lines of staff
and families will be notified that they are
their children should not come to school and to notify school officials if they
or their child becomes sick with COVID 19 symptoms or test positive for COVID. 19.
Staff and families will be notified that they or their children
have been exposed to someone.
You're looking for the quarantine?
When I. Was one. I mean, I'm sorry.
I would think everything in Section E on the present plan.
So yes.
Those pieces will.
Go back in
and then under masking, it would be Derry Township School District.
We'll follow the CDC recommendations for universal indoor
masking for all teachers, staff and students and visitors.
District wide regardless of vaccination status.
So you're adding back under E our current
isolation and quarantine plan that was accidentally removed.
Then you would add in when cases fall below 1%.
Yep. Okay.
Okay.
That makes sense.
So this is Kip Shore
and I proposed the OR I move that the following amendment
be made to the proposed revisions to the Health and Safety plan.
Three A will read as follows.
According to this proposed amendment Derry Township School District
will follow CDC recommendations for universal indoor
masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors
regardless of vaccination status.
When the building transmission rates of COVID 19
are above 2%,
when building transmission rates of COVID 19
drop to 2% or below for one week
based on new cases in the previous week,
masks will be strongly encouraged
for all teachers, staff, students and visitors,
regardless of vaccination status, because then the numbers exceed 2%
eight or fewer cases Elementary 2%, 18 or fewer cases.
Middle school 2%. Six or fewer cases.
High school 2% or 22
or fewer cases in accordance with federal mandate,
all students and drivers must wear masks during transport
of students to and from school and to and from school events.
Drivers do not have to wear masks when driving alone,
and then three
adding back in that paragraph, the district will
the recommendations of state health officials to determine when students
can discontinue home isolation,
when transmission rates are 2% or lower?
With masks strongly encouraged recommendations,
the district will allow COVID 19 exposure, but asymptomatic individuals
or asymptomatic students and staff to continue attending school in-person.
Do you age and CDC recommend recommendations
will be shared regarding masking in what to do
if they become symptomatic for isolation and confirmed cases?
Individual Those who have tested positive will isolate for five days
and will be allowed to return
to school if they are symptomatic
or their symptoms are resolving fever without 20 and without fear for 24 hours
and continue to mask for five additional days
after return to school, the district pandemic coordinator or designee
will notify state health officials, staff and families immediately
of any case of COVID 19 in accordance
with protocol maintaining confidentiality in accordance
with the Americans with Disabilities Act 88.
And that's the end of my proposed
amendment to the proposed revisions of the Health and Safety Plan.
So I just want to say,
from the perspective of the administration and the pandemic team,
that if the board is going to make and vote for amendments,
then I'm not pulling the pandemic team together anymore.
It's a waste of people's time.
I just.
This is Terry Singer.
Can you hold on one second?
Sorry.
You're
we need a second
for Kip's amendment before we can discuss his amendment.
Robert Bennett. I second it.
Okay. Sorry.
Go ahead, Terry.
Yeah, this is Terry Singer.
Just a one question.
Primarily the five day reporting period instead of ten.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Meaning every days we would recalculate
and based on where we were, we could potentially go.
May I strongly encourage, encourage or Ms..
Required?
Is that what I'm hearing in terms of the.
No Terry it's it's one week
the there have been changes a lot of changes with the CDC
and they've moved away from testing the stay to masking the stay
and so they've got the five and five
but we would still use one week
now I would point out
regarding these percentages and these amendments,
I would point out that the 1% was chosen
after the pandemic team meeting.
So I'm not sure how
that's any different than
proposing an amendment,
which certainly can be seconded or not seconded, discussed, voted up or down,
and to threaten to cancel future meetings because and then was proposed
when the threshold was was assigned or developed
after the meeting, there was no chance to discuss it.
You're you're absolutely right about that kept.
And so in my thinking, we would want to send this back to the pandemic team.
To. To debate and discuss since they did not have that opportunity.
But if the board is going to make an amendment and vote on it
and put it in place, then that's what the vote has.
The board has approved and that's what we'll move forward with.
There's no sense in continuing to call people together and work on it
if if it the decision is going to be made in this room that way.
Well, this is not a quote.
And I think that's the way the 1% came from looking for or under
a compromise is between some of the higher numbers
that were suggested and those who didn't want to do anything.
And then I
talked to one person.
I want to respectfully state that I think the pandemic team
meeting still
provides a lot of discussion and a lot of a lot of facts.
There is never, you know, one line of thinking.
So I think keeping the pandemic team meeting to provide insight
is still important.
I still think that the board voting one way or another is also
a component of that.
Otherwise it would need to come to a vote.
We would just do whatever is said.
So I think the group, the and combination of thought processes
with the pandemic team and the board will continue to keep going.
And I think that's I think it's personal.
I think it's an important piece and would not want
to stop having the pandemic team bring its its insight
regardless of board.
I do want to point out that the whole entire pandemic team did
get opportunity to vote on the 1% in the proposal.
I just like to make
an observation for my own personal peace of mind.
If you run the numbers from 1% to 2%
based on this information that you gave at the back, the scrap,
there's not that much like one person.
Two percent's not really moving this graph around much.
More.
Now. So the elementary school would have not been in masks
when we came back from break as this variant was surging
and the next week we jumped almost double cases.
So that's something to consider.
Like that number would have allowed the elementary to be mask
optional two weeks ago with with a transmission
rate over a thousand per 100,000 and like 35% positivity.
I just want to ask one question, though. Dr.
Winslow in the pandemic team notes that are posted online for the breakout groups.
I'm saying three of the five groups
were recommending no plan change at all.
Currently, per these notes. That's correct.
So if
three out of the five
groups were not recommending, how did this how are we here?
I think just looking for that compromise, because two of the groups
were recommending and one group didn't have a whole lot of notes to share.
And so it was looking kind of even for where this was the
this was the most divided I have seen the pandemic team
in our discussions thus far this year.
And so looking for an opportunity to be able to move us forward
to demonstrate that we really are trying to have a plan
to get us to a place where mask should be optional without creating
a great deal of discomfort for people who are not ready
and are concerned about the community transmission transmission rate right now
and wanted to see us wait for a while.
So looking for truly just a compromise.
And this is Donna Cronin.
I know in my in my group we did have a physician recommendation
that said that the number that would with with this current variant and I'm trying
to paraphrase without being incorrect, that the numbers are very different.
So a high number with the overall variant within the student body
is much less of a concern from a from. A.
Physician standpoint compared to previous, you know, maybe a year ago.
And, and there was comfort level
with using a reasonable percentage.
And I and it was above 1% to be able to go
mask encouraged
and that's why I was supportive of,
you know, the 2% number that came out of originally, even though
there was a gap between one or two which then got corrected.
But I still was happy with the 2% and that's where I still feel
is a reasonable and and
reasonable measure to use.
So in any case that's that was I think that was our group.
But every group I'm sure is different
and we're trying to do what's what we each think is is best.
And I don't think there is a true right or wrong and I just think that,
you know, as we vote, we're all doing what we think is best for the students.
Are we we're are we in the
procedural part of dealing with Dr.
Shaw's proposed amendment?
We're in discussion when discussion. Okay.
We're discussing it, and then we would vote on this amendment.
Is that correct?
So I made the motion to amend.
So we're discussing amendments specifically.
We got to second to that. So we're discussing it.
So we're going to be voting on whether we adopt his amendment
or not.
I just need to point out to that is not only is it
a double in the numbers, but it's a one week turnaround.
So you're going to be very quickly dropping the masks.
Doing exactly the opposite of what we wanted to do
was wait to see if there was even a trend in it potentially
going back and forth even quicker with this plan than you were e with.
You complained about the other plan.
Well, that's the question I was trying to ask Dr.
Shaw that it sounded like we were having a five day count time instead of a ten day
count time, but it sounded like he was saying no, I don't know.
One week versus two weeks,
Five and ten is about quarantine and isolation.
Okay.
So why don't we look at each Friday?
We've put out the new numbers.
So at that point, we should know, if you look at those numbers
and it's 60 people, again, I'm using the high school
will know on Monday you wear a mask. Correct.
And if you move it up to 2%, the chances of you,
you know, dropping
to a lower number will be less.
You know, you get a little bit of a cushion.
Just just one quick note, Dr.
Winslow is sending all of you via your district email
the verbiage from Kip's amendment in case you want to look at it
so you know exactly what it is you're agreeing to, are not agreeing to.
You can just be wrong.
Sorry.
Based on my notes, Kip, I just wanna make sure the major changes.
I know we're getting it all in writing,
but the notes, I should make sure I'm correct.
The major changes your make your proposing is that in section
A that we go to a 2% level instead of a 1%.
And we use the one week of New cases in the previous week rather than two weeks.
And then in Section E, I was also using the 2% number and then
adding in the isolation piece
where you continue to mask for five additional days after
after your initial nice isolation.
Was that the heart of the changes?
Yeah.
Yes, that's correct.
I mean, if the if the one week
versus two weeks is a showstopper, I will certainly welcome
a friendly amendment to go to two weeks on that.
I was thinking that the one week will provide us a closer
to real time sense of what is happening.
But and I believe the one week matches point that we're sending
since we're
only keeping kids home for five days, we would be counting their positivity
for longer than they're even out of school,
which I think is a false a false of looking at the numbers.
That's how we
played it to make up.
We don't keep them on for for another week.
Just the bills are they.
Come on it's really
it's a rolling count over two weeks
if I'm positive on day one I'm counted for 14 days in that positive count,
even though the second week I'm back in school.
But I'm still being counted for that.
That was not my understanding.
Robert Brown, in regard to this one week to week
when he returned with the two weeks
previously, I was thinking that we're going to end up
chasing like historical data at that point.
Like so, you know, if we're looking at data from two weeks ago,
you could starting into the third week, you could know if that real time.
In there is going to explain how it's done.
Just really briefly.
It's a new number every day, new positives that day.
So we're adding up how many of those three yesterday
to today and so on and so forth is a new number every day.
So there's not as a rolling number, it's a brand new number.
It doesn't make sense. Right.
But if I'm positive on a monday, when you count for two weeks,
two weeks later, that Monday is still in the two week
count, even though I've been back in school for a week, correct? Yes.
If we're looking at 14 days, if you look at the graph on our website
and that's that was the sum of all those days per building.
Right. I don't think that we're at to be brown.
We're proposing that on daily basis for two weeks.
We're seeing numbers at 1% or less.
Not the rolling average, right?
No, that's what I mean.
But what I'm saying is, on day one, if I am positive,
I continue to be in that count for a full two weeks, even though the second week
now I am back at school.
No, there's just counting each day, looking at each day to see if it's 1% or less.
So how do you get that
number like on the ones you post Friday, like the 60?
How does Friday's numbers only will determine Mondays?
We'd have to look at it on it added on a day for two weeks,
look at each day to make sure that we were staying
consistently below 1% on each day.
It's not the rolling average,
but this is why to me it feels like
no one like we don't even know who's on first.
Yeah, this is Terry Singer.
Our pandemic committee met a week ago.
Right?
We met.
We met last Tuesday, so last Tuesday.
And obviously
much work was done between now and then to try sum up all the discussions that
occurred, transmit summaries of that out to everybody, get their feedback,
and then present to us some sense of how that feedback fell out.
It seems like what we're trying to do now is we're trying to do way too soon.
It's just not quite.
It seems like it needs to go back to the Pandemic Committee,
which is what I think you suggest. Dr.
Winslow, If people aren't happy with what we're talking about tonight
rather than us, to essentially doctor
and modify the plan
in bits and pieces without the full picture
that the pandemic Committee has and carries
from meeting to meeting, at least that's the way it's feeling to me.
I'm going to piggyback on what Terry saying and
based on the discussion that we're having tonight,
the 1%, the numbers,
they seem very reasonable and it is a good starting place.
And I think at this point, based on the discussion, I'd have a very tough time
going against the administration.
I'd like to move to table first, Stacy, because now I'm completely confused
when I read the recommendations, says when building transmission rates
drop into the 1% less for two weeks, then masks will be strongly encouraged.
How does that is that 1% calculate?
Because I thought it was you took the previous two weeks,
every single day's number and see if that overall number is 1%.
But now I'm hearing that you're saying every single day
it has to be less than 1%.
So it is 1%, 1%, 1% 2%, 1%, 1%.
It will not we will not then be able to go mask encouraged if there's even
one day
where it goes above 1%, I think we'd be at.
That's a really good question, Donna, and that's another one
that I'd really like to work through with the pandemic team.
How have we been doing it? That's what I missed it.
I think. I thought that's how we were doing.
We have been doing it with the 14 days, the way that you're describing it.
But I don't I don't think going forward that would necessarily be
as productive for us.
I think to call the question on the amendment on the floor
so that I can move to table this discussion
and send it back to the pandemic team so that we can have clarification
on all of these things, because this is a lot of changes
being thrown together that no one seems to get.
And we need to do a roll call vote on Kipps, a motion
to amend as it's sitting out there right now.
So we need to do a roll call vote to see if
you are in agreement to pass it.
As Kip has proposed
to consider.
Sorry to consider it as exactly as Kip has proposed it.
The amendment Kip specific amendment.
We're going to vote on this and depending on how this goes,
then we're going back to the original.
Item.
Michel.
Mr. Bennett. Yes.
Dr.. CRONAN Yes.
Mr.. Now.
Mrs. Manning Now.
Mr.. RISO No.
Mr.. SCHMITT Yes.
Dr. Shore.
Yes Mrs.
Seger No.
Mr. Singer? No.
Five. No.
Four. Yes.
Okay.
So let's make a motion to table this item of discussion
so that the pandemic team may flush this out, hopefully
meet sooner than what is already done so that we have longer time for the board
to be able to read the updated plan and ask questions prior to the next meeting.
So you
want to table the event, you want to go back and table?
Yes, I'd like to table
the vote on the health and safety plan until the next meeting.
Does she have a second
I second Eric Schmitt,
is there any discussion?
Just a question. On the table.
Oh, to table it.
I'm sorry, did I Mr.
understand that. You said that.
Okay, so we're now taking a vote.
I thought we're having a discussion first. You don't know.
That's a table.
Oh, really?
Are you.
Are you clear?
What Are we clear?
What? We're voting on?
Yeah, we're voting to table the discussion or not.
Whether or not to table discussion.
Correct the table, the vote to table the the whole.
Yes, I'm at a table to vote. I'm sorry.
Voting to table.
We can have a discussion. Can I ask a question?
And I accept that as the
as the table in motion make or I accept that point of discussion.
Versus.
The question is if we table it,
we stay with the current plan that's in place until we decide otherwise.
That's the. Question. Yeah. Okay.
Thank you.
Okay, here's.
So if we.
Vote for the plan.
Then is it able to be amended again?
You mean tonight? No.
No. In the future, by the meeting,
If we vote to table, then the plan does does not change.
If we vote to not table, then we then vote to accept or not accept the plan.
Is that correct? Correct.
However, the PAN the pandemic team could recommend
a change to the proposed provision.
If they could.
They could forward their own amendment to the proposed revision.
Sure.
Right.
Do I have to reread it?
No. We're just voting on the table.
Voting on the tabling.
Okay.
MSG, roll call, please.
Dr. Cronan? No.
Ms.. Drew. Yes,
Mrs. Mimi?
No. Mr.
Rizzo. Yes.
Mr. Schmitt? No.
Dr. Shaw? Yes.
Mr. Sicker? No.
Mr. Singer? No.
Mr. Bennett. No.
Three. Yes.
Five now, Sorry.
So we're back in discussion.
We're
we're back to the we're back to the one
that the administration recommends Administration proposed
right now,
proposed with those couple of paragraphs that were accidentally deleted off.
But we had read into the record.
That.
Okay, so now we're going to take a vote.
Okay,
roll call. Vote
quick.
With the
I'm sorry, is this with the understanding that the pandemic team is meeting again
in the next two weeks.
To reassess this? Yes.
Okay.
Well, we don't know that they'll raise it the way they're going to talk about it.
You're voting on it, right?
This is Mike Rizzo.
You're voting on the health and safety plan as proposed, correct?
That's what we're voting on right now.
The pandemic team. Could.
Proposed changes in any direction or none at all for the next meeting.
It's what's currently before us today that we're voting on.
And that's and Terry, just as a reminder, that's always been the ongoing plan.
Okay.
If we need to change the plan every two weeks
because of whatever, okay.
And no one can list off all the potential scenarios,
but If we need to change the plan for whatever,
then that's why the pandemic needs to meet frequently
so that those changes can be recommended and implemented quickly.
Correct. I got it.
And this is Mike Rizzo, again,
that some of the challenges I have listening to the discussion
tonight has been frustrating because we come back
with a recommendation that we're going to make motion on over and over again.
We don't come up with the actual plan
and the decision on we're going to move forward.
We should be together if we're going to move this thing forward
or don't make a proposal.
That's just the way I look at it. Right?
We have to come together to make a decision to move
forward for the district instead of just coming here and,
you know, proposing one thing and motioning it
and then it just fades away and nothing happens again.
So my personal opinion, I think that with what's proposed today,
we, I, I
very much in favor of keeping the children in school.
That's the primary directive.
However, we've got to start moving forward.
And at some level we've got to move forward
together in this.
This constant round and round is very frustrating.
Thank you.
I feel like this proposal that we have, even though it needs tightened up,
I feel like this is a good step in that direction.
That's my personal opinion.
I feel like we are starting to conservatively
move forward because back to your point, we're here to keep kids in school.
And when we're talking about ten day quarantines, I mean, just
nobody wants to go back down that road.
This is Donna quote, I don't agree
with every part of this proposal, but at least it's a step forward
and the pandemic team can can tweak it as need be.
But I don't want to be stagnant.
And yes, so I'll be supporting this.
Just to clarify, we're not currently ten day quarantine and correct.
No know, but that was part of the discussion
we were having as we were digging around through all of the different scenarios.
I'm just saying it came up in the discussion now, Right.
So we are going back to that.
If this doesn't if this wouldn't pass, I think we're not going back to that.
We we're following the current guidelines, which it's not ten days
if you testing and come out.
No, but there are different there's so many different scenarios.
You follow the flow chart. Yes.
So household contacts are different than sports team contacts, which are different.
And it's. Not.
And if this changes, then it all goes to one uniform way of doing it.
No, not necessarily.
That we would.
Still have the flow chart
that would give that definition for those different pieces.
But if a building were to be mask optional,
a covered
if a building becomes mask optional
and someone is a close contact school,
we would send out a notification that you were a close contact.
And these are the precautions
that you should take in the symptoms you should look for.
But we would not be quarantined.
Students and those students would not be required
to wear masks in line with the CDC guidelines because we
would be mask optional and logistically can't manage.
It would strongly encouraged but correct.
And the same for a
COVID positive student who returns on day six.
There's nothing in place that would be able to make sure they're wearing a mask.
Correct. And there's no test requirement.
So we wouldn't know
if they were still testing positive or actually still contagious.
And so they could be eating lunch and walking around
without a mask on while still COVID positive and contagious.
Correct. For
Mr. Ruiz's point, I agree.
I'm not against having
the threat thresholds in place to be able to to start getting there.
As you know, because I think that there's a correlation between the case count
and the community rate.
As that comes down, the numbers are going to come back down.
We saw it happen last year.
We have the vaccinations in place now.
There are a lot of other things that are positive.
So I want to stress like as firmly as I can
stress that I'm not opposed to that
not having language and not addressing
kids coming back kids or adults coming back to school without knowing,
you know, that that there's any reassurance
of them following the guidelines or wearing a mask or at least
finding out if they're still
positive on a rapid test.
Unfortunately, I just can't support this.
Well, I just this is Donna Cronin.
I just want
remind everyone that we first started the this this whole COBRA discussion.
There were sentiments that we should be having.
We should be setting up temperature checks at the gate, at the doorways
when kids enter the building, because one of the major guidelines
that you cannot come
you if you have a fever, you should not be coming to school.
We realize as a district that that was beyond our control and was not possible.
So we have told parents Check, we're counting on parents
to check fevers on their own temperature just on their own.
And if their symptoms are fevers do not come to school.
We are not playing police.
We don't have the nurse double checking that. We just can't.
There are
only so many things that we can do and we have to put faith in our community
that we, when we share guidelines that they will that,
you know, majority of people or everybody will comply.
So that's just my piece.
There are things that we can there are things that we are able to do,
and some things are just not possible, such as temperature
for every student coming into the building. We're not doing it.
Yeah, I hear that.
Unfortunately, I don't think that fevers are associated with all of them.
And that's one of the problems with school.
You know, that's not.
And so we have it in our safety plan
that parents conduct those daily health checks.
We can't put in there that parents are going
to conduct the checks to make sure a kid's wearing a mask
if they're returning on day six of a COVID positive.
Well, yes, I'd like to I'd like to
call question.
A. Roll call.
Sorry, Mrs.
AJ, Roll call,
Ms.. Drew. Okay.
I'm saying no, but I will vote on future amendments with update.
Mrs. Manning. Yes.
Mr. RIZZO. Yes.
Mr.. SCHMITT. Yes.
Dr. Shaw. Yes.
Mrs. Sicker. Yes.
Mr. Singer? Yes.
Mr. Bennett.
Yes, But under the guidelines, because this is only better
than the current plan of universal masking.
So it's a step forward. That's the reason voting yes for this.
But as a whole, I don't care for it.
Dr.. CURRAN Yes.
Eight Yes.
One No,
thank you.
Do you mind sending us the updated plan
whenever you get a chance, just with the new stuff?
Thank you.
Yeah.
Give me about 48 hours, okay?
Please.
Thank you.
Okay.
Personnel, resignations. Dr.
Winslow. All right, we're not done talking.
Sorry, ma'am.
I was going to make a note to my staff to do that job.
Thank you.
Apologize.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you. Personnel, resignations. Dr.
Winslow, The administration recommends the approval of the personnel.
Resignations may have a motion to approve the personnel resignations.
Moves.
Kathy shook her second.
Lindsay Drew, is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor.
I are.
Any opposed?
Motion carries.
Thank you,
Personnel. General. Dr.
Winslow, the administration recommends
the approval of the list of personnel and recognition of any list of transfers.
May I have a motion to approve the listed personnel
and recognition of any list of transfers?
Some of Kathy Seger second. Mike Rizzo.
Is. Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice voice vote.
All those in favor say I, I, i.
Any opposed
motion carries.
It's moving on to delegate reports.
The PSB report is attached. Dr.
Cronin. Do you have anything you'd like to add?
No, thank you.
Thank you. Dr. CRONIN.
Are there any board members who would like to give a report?
This is Kathy Seger.
We all got the email from Mr.
Blades about the videos. Yes, I did mine today.
It was very, very easy.
So if you need help or you want to see what I did.
I can show you, it doesn't take long at all to get your phone,
answer the questions and email them off.
Thank you, Cathy.
Cathy, can you, can you send to me in the district team?
Are you able to do that?
I mean, you can see them if you want.
They're kind of goofy. Well.
Yeah, I'll send them to you.
You got to know I always appreciate goofy.
Okay,
Superintendent's report,
but is there anybody else you'd like to give a board members report?
Sorry. Okay.
Dr. Winslow, do you have a superintendent report?
I just want to say thank you to the pandemic team.
Last week was a very hectic week.
It was a lot of work.
And also thank you to this board.
This a tremendous amount of discussion and deliberation to try to move us forward.
And I know it's not perfect
and we're going to keep working on it, but I really appreciate the dialog
and the opportunity to to work with all of you.
That's all I have tonight. Thank you.
Thank you.
Doctor Winslow.
Dr. Cronan, do you have board president's report?
I'm I
want to be duplicative, but I know that everyone on this board,
everyone on the pandemic team, people in the community, like I said last week,
we're all trying to do what's best for our students.
And I appreciate the dialog whether agree or not agree.
I'm glad that we're respectful of each other
and that we will work this through
and once again do what we think is best for the students.
So thank you. All.
Thank you, Dr. Winslow.
Moving on to
Dr. Cronin.
It's getting late.
It's okay.
Recognition of citizens.
This is an opportunity for residents and taxpayers
to address the board on matters related to the agenda
or matters of district governments, not on the agenda.
Those who speak are asked to follow the same guidelines
outlined in the initial public comment portion of our meeting.
As a friendly
reminder, public comment is not a forum for personal attacks
and antagonistic behavior or harassment.
Be advised that you are accountable for any legal ramifications
and liability that results from statements that misrepresent the truth,
defame individuals,
or discloses personal information that is not of public concern.
That being said, is there anyone in the audience that like,
please come forward?
Walter Zirinsky,
62, bus driver I just like to take a moment to go
over the points that the PROMAX group has
and hopefully try to counter this
one to keep schools open.
If we remove the mandate and that's going to lead to increased case numbers,
which will then forced the closure of school
and then we won't have kids in school.
Well, that's not true,
because what you're using is a one factor analysis and you're assuming
that the children in the school district live in a bubble
and that bubble is the school
and that they do not go anywhere else outside of the school.
They don't go to the store.
They don't go to the movie theater. They don't go here.
They don't go there. Therefore, that, of course, is not true.
We also know from the past two years that schools have not been primary vectors
of transmission.
And the
other thing that might shock a lot of you
is that it's not the number of cases that really matters.
All of you are all focused so intently on the number of cases.
Really, what matters in a pandemic is what is the death rate?
What are the number of hospitalizations?
The number of cases,
especially with the massive amount of testing that's going on right now.
If you have more testing, you will have more cases.
I have never tested positive for COVID.
I'm sure I've had it.
I've also never
tested myself for COVID other, which is why I've never tested positive.
The more tests, the more cases.
So it's really deaths and hospitalizations.
You really focused on the wrong thing.
Secondly, say we have to protect the community.
So you you acknowledge that
that COVID 19 does not pose a significant risk to kids, which is good.
That's correct.
But you say, well,
there are these people in the community that their immune system is compromised.
Well, here's the solution.
There's a vaccine.
There are vaccines available. There are booster shots.
You have all sorts of vaccines. They are free.
They've been available for like a year now, just over year now.
So people that are in that position that are at risk
based on the guidance of their doctor should go and they should get vaccinated.
And I would hate to think that our school board is anti-vax and
thinks that the vaccine is not effective, which it is highly effective.
You say, well, the case numbers are high.
Well, yeah, but let's go back here.
You say that in September, August, that there were a very high school or whatever.
14 of 20 weeks, the cases have been at 1%.
The the transmission, the in-building transmission rate has been at 1%.
Well, now it's not. Now it's above that.
But you've been wearing masks.
So, again, these mass have not been effective.
The one that I like, I think is your best case is you say, well,
our attorney advises us that the best way to protect against civil
liability is to adhere to CDC recommendations.
That's a really good one, because you always how you really should
listen to your attorney or you should not have them as your attorney.
But the thing is, is that legal advice really needs to be updated
because there are there really are there any instances out there
that an organization has been held liable for transmission?
10 seconds.
Okay.
Well, I have one document here.
I've done some research.
I think that you think I'm not doing research.
I'm going to share. This Time is up. Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the audience present?
I would like to speak
to? Hi.
Thank you.
Katherine English By Quirk of Health Church Road.
I just wanted to address a couple factual errors that were stated tonight.
Dr. Winslow, you stated that there's no other place in the community
where we're having contact with 900 to 1400 people.
And I just wanted to bring to your attention the Hershey
Theater has spaces for 1900 people.
The recent Bears game was 10,000 people at Spooky Nook where I was.
I just wanted to say that I said that that's a choice to go to those places.
It's not a choice to come to school. Sure.
That's just for context.
We're aware of what's going on in the community as far as contact
at the Penn State Beaver Stadium is 100,000 people.
I mean, the things that we're regularly exposed to in the community,
just so we can have some context because we're going to lose absolute credibility
with the kids with that juxtaposition of freedom one place, but not at school.
And also, I would just encourage the district
to look into an industrial hygienist who are professionals in PPE
and hygiene in their ventilation systems and the school at large.
Thank you.
Is there anyone online
with their hands raised?
Yes, there are two or three.
Kevin Ferguson, you have given given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address the record.
Thank you.
Kevin Ferguson, 1338 Crow Hollow Road.
Quickly,
if you truly believe that your policy,
your health and safety plan is in the best interest
of the students,
why does the policy not address
the type of masks that are being worn by the students?
If you really want to prevent the spread
and you're following CDC guidelines,
see the guidelines
specific about the type of masks
that would be effective.
And the only way to ensure
that would be for the school district themselves to distribute the masks.
We know that there's a lot of mask out there being warned that are completely.
But if you're truly concerned about
the interest of the students,
I think your policy should address the type of masks to be, one,
make sure that they're the proper mask effectively worn.
The only way to control that would be for the district to supply those masks.
Thank you.
Thank Mr. Ferguson.
Kim O'Connell, you have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address for the record.
Yes. Hi.
My name is Kim O'Connell.
My address is 2405 Raleigh Road Town.
I just wanted to state that we all voted for
you as the board members, not for the pandemic team.
I do appreciate the work that they're putting in to,
you know,
the plans that they're advising and coming up with.
But I feel as a community, we need to to follow
what the parents want to do and what the board is suggesting.
I am for the 2% cases, not 1%.
That is it's it's unrealistic.
We will never be at 1% with the amount of testing.
The tests are not reliable.
People are getting tested whether they're symptomatic or asymptomatic.
We really, really need to get away from just just looking
at the number of positive cases.
Please, let's just reconsider what Kip said.
And we once again, we voted
for the board members, not the pandemic team.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Robert Black.
Bill, you have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address. For the record.
Robert, you'll need to unmute.
We'll come back to you.
Michelle DAVIES, you have been given.
Permission to speak.
Please state your name and address.
For the record.
Michelle DAVIES.
1524 Church Road, Hershey.
You guys, most of you know my stance.
I am not for an ass.
I want them optional.
100%.
No threshold.
So I know that
are my kids aren't there.
We put them into cyber school so
we didn't have to deal with this.
I want to know what you guys
are going to do by next year.
I know that seems a long ways off, but decisions are going to be need to be made.
And I really hope that this is a step in the direction of getting mass optional.
Kids can be vaccinated if they if their parents want them to be.
They in 95 can be purchased
to where they can learn how to wear them correctly.
And anyway,
those are more effective than cloth masks anyway.
Cloth masks do nothing.
The CDC has said so themselves.
I know
I haven't been saying a lot to you guys because I don't have a lot to say anymore.
It's circling around and around and around and around just we saw here tonight.
They went around and around in circles over you kind of sort of
finally came to a decision.
You, as the board,
are the ones that make the decision, not the pandemic team.
They make a proposal.
They help Stacey Winslow come up with that proposal.
We do not vote for them.
They're not the ones that make the decision.
They say, okay, this is what we think you should
do, but you guys are the ones that implement it.
And I just hope that
you guys can be of your own mind and not just go with the flow.
That's all.
Thank you.
Robert Reich, you have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address.
For the record.
Robert Bradfield, 1244
Walton Toll Road Hummelstown, P.A..
I just listen to your guys meeting so I can be there tonight.
A lot of the same thing that parents are saying.
The arbitrary 1% or 2% numbers are pretty much laughable at best.
And I know I heard your little disclaimer about,
you know, not hurting anybody's feelings.
Well, think about the parents and the frustration over the last couple
of years, the infighting of listening to you guys.
I wish you guys would just state
how you actually instead of beating around the bush about everything.
Stacey Wenzel, obviously you want the kids to stay in mask.
That's more than a parent listening to you talk to my.
It is good to see neighboring districts stepping up and leading from the front
and actually allowing parents and children the opportunity to make health decisions
for themselves.
I think you all know the 1% is put there
so these children will stay in masks predominantly.
And then the anxiety of, oh, do I wear a mask?
Do I not wear a mask? And
guys talking about this, I'm 95 mask.
Have you ever worn an N95 mask all day.
Outside of medical professionals, put one on.
It is not easy to do all day and function.
It's not something that should even be thought about.
The cloth masks are bad enough and restrictive enough
for students, parents and anybody else in the district.
I can't, man.
It's so frustrating to sit here and watch and listen to these meetings
about arbitrary numbers like you guys are talking about.
And like I said, I don't know.
Some of you, you know, you're pro. Masks.
Then wear a. Mask. It's that simple.
Here we are almost three years into this and we just continue
to do the same thing with the same results, apparently.
It's very frustrating.
I wish you guys would get something together here.
And let's move on.
I've said it before, but you said you probably think, oh,
this guy keeps repeating himself where you guys do the same thing.
Just keep repeating yourselves.
Look at the other districts.
Watch them what they're doing.
Thank you.
Math capitals.
You have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address for the record.
Hi, I'm Matt Cables 45 Elm Avenue.
It's been a very interesting meeting.
I'd like to thank everybody for their hard work, especially the pandemic team.
Sounds like you did a lot last week.
I just don't understand why it has to be so rushed.
It's a little surprising to me that eight people voted yes on a proposal
where 5 minutes were spent discussing trying to figure out how the
numbers were counted.
Seems like something that should be discussed beforehand,
but it seems like we're forward with this proposal.
But they have better teams, more work to do to fill it out with
some of the protocols to move forward.
One thing I'd like to suggest is if we are going to go to a mask, optional
or mask.
I've got the word you guys keep using but are encouraged.
I'm not sure what that means, what the encouragement is, but
I think that the classrooms would do well to
split into groups of people that are groups of students
that will be wearing a mask
and groups of student that will not be wearing a mask in that environment.
So we know that masks protect others as much as they protect ourselves.
So mixing students that are wearing masks
for students that aren't wearing masks will somewhat defeat the purpose.
So I like the pandemic team to consider that as you move forward to
amend the proposal that was
approved today, to hopefully make it a little bit more comprehensive.
But again, thanks.
I know this is hard for all of you.
It was interesting conversation to listen to and I look forward
to two weeks from now when we hear what else you have come up with.
Thank you.
Angela Wieder.
You have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name.
And address for the record.
Angela Reeder, 17 eight RW Road.
Thanks, everybody, for your time.
And many of the comments that were made tonight, an attempt to not be redundant.
I simply want additionally point out that not only can masks be optional,
but the decision
to attend school in person or do it virtually is also an option for people
who feel that being in school could potentially be a very serious
consequence for
them if they're around people who don't wear their mask properly
or potentially would opt to go mask optional.
So I thought this school year kids have the option all along that
if they felt being in-person in school, the Derry Township provided the resources.
I'm not sure if it's something that we source out or however it works,
but there is a very real virtual option for Derry Township school districts
to use.
If they didn't feel comfortable coming to in-person school.
And to the best of my understanding, that option is made available once again
at the beginning of every single semester to people.
Today being the first day of this semester and maybe that ship has already sailed.
But it's not just masks that are optional.
But if people don't feel safe coming into school or sending their kids into school,
wear masks potentially, as I said, might not be worn at all,
or maybe just might not be worn properly
if it's truly that serious of a medical situation
that perhaps a virtual option might be the best option for these families.
There have been many families of this district
in the last year that have moved out of Derry Township
to, secure spots in other districts that they
liked how they were handling the pandemic better.
That was their option.
There were many families that stayed in Derry Township
and are paying out the wazoo for private schooling.
That was their option.
There were plenty of parents that stayed in the district
and are doing charter schools.
That's their option.
No, no, I don't remember anywhere that it says
you must come to in-person school at Derry Township
and suck in the air of unmasked or on properly masked kids.
And I've said it all along.
I have family members that are medically compromised for them.
They need to be very, very vigilant. They truly do.
This virus is a little is definitely wonky,
but overall, as a community and certainly as leaders
in this community, I do think it's not just time, but it's
well past the appropriate time for decisions to be made.
The can has been kicked long enough,
and although this was one step forward, it was a tiny step.
And I'm very encouraged to see the momentum behind the mask
optional situation continue to move forward.
Thank you.
John Miller, you have been given.
Permission to speak.
Please state your name and address.
For the record.
John Miller 329 Cocoa Avenue.
One comment very quick is resource allocation.
We've spent and I say we as a district administration
board members, a collective effort, people in the community.
Can you imagine what good we could do as a community
if we pooled our resources and name name the thing
whether I don't know, call it raking leaves, call it handing out,
you know, flowers to people, cheer their day up.
I don't know.
There's there's an infinite an infinite amount
of things that we could do as a community if we all put that much effort into this.
One thing.
Now, that's just that's just in context.
But from the standpoint of the school, unless we are replacing
let's how many hours a day
is our administration and leaders putting towards COVID, putting towards
evaluating these numbers and trackers and all kinds of stuff.
If it's one hour, that's one hour that you're not doing something else.
If it's 2 hours, it compounds on itself
and there are things that are not getting done
and that's not a dig on the administration.
I'm saying that from a standpoint, it's also not fair to you
to be completely honest with you, because your job
is to educate, to open the doors up for education.
You're in between a rock and a hard place because it's the way it's intended to be.
Somebody else mentioned earlier about 1% appearing to be unattainable.
I would say yes.
I don't know what what's the false positivity rate of the rapid antigen?
I don't know. It's up.
We actually again, no one can really tell you.
So there could be a higher
than 1% false positive rate.
You know, someone's going to pull a study out and say, no, no, no.
Look, it's it's it's like 0.0001.
It's, you know, it's 100%.
Trust us.
No, you don't know that right now because it's.
So we're
blindly putting our faith in something that we can't verify,
and we're just going to keep going down the road again.
It's it's an operational thing
as well with resource allocation across the whole district all year.
There are things that are not getting done
because we're we're reallocating our resources and appropriately.
Thank you.
Kelly.
Health, you've been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and.
Address for the record.
Kelly, how's 1040 filled up fair Dell Drive.
I'm going to save my comments because I don't
feel that.
And anything.
I just wanted to say thank you for the job that you do
and for remaining polite and setting a good example for our community.
Thank you.
At this time, there are no additional hands raised.
Okay.
Thank you.
Is there anything else for the good of the order?
Mrs. Mary, I would just like to add for the
in response to some of the comments,
one of the things I really appreciate about this board
is that we don't agree on everything and we are finding our way.
I know that we have had contentious times, but
I think tonight's discussion showed that we can have these conversations
and that there are dynamics being built and understanding that
one of the things that I find hardest sometimes about being a school board
director over this period of time, which I can guarantee you no one here
like decided that they wanted well, some folks ran during the pandemic,
but at the beginning of this, we didn't think we're to have to try
to make these decisions like that.
Wasn't why anyone here, you know, ran for school board.
And so we have really,
truly, I believe everyone, has tried the best that they can to understand.
And one of the things
that's really challenging is that there are still so many things going on
and we do have so much other information that we're processing.
We're making a lot of other decisions
about a lot of other things at the same time.
One of the things we heard a couple of times tonight during public comment was
you voted for us and not the pandemic team.
And I hear you and I appreciate that.
But if I rewind almost 12 months,
we were continually told you have a pandemic team
and listen to them, don't just vote as a board member.
Use the resources.
And that's one of the things sometimes I think is hard,
because over time, so many things change. And
I understand that as the public,
it could be easy to to not the continuity of all of it.
And so I guess I'm just asking whether you agree.
You know, we did a survey, 50% wanted
masks, 30% didn't.
I would just ask that you do put some faith in the fact
that we are continually evolving and having these conversations
and everyone, even there's a different way they get to it for each of us.
Everyone here is trying to do what they believe is best for the children
and the residents and taxpayers of this district. And
thank you.
Thank you, Miss. That's true.
Anyone else have anything to add?
Okay.
The next public Board of Directors meeting will be held
February 14th, 2022, starting at 7 p.m..
It's not Valentine's Day. Mm hmm.
All right.
Please refer to the district website to register.
As the meeting draws closer.
May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting?
Cathy Schaeffer.
Second, Mike Rizzo.
All those in favor? I Anyone?
Anyone opposed.
This meeting adjourned at 9:29 p.m..