10th 2022, a
meeting of the Derry Township School District Board of Directors
to order and announce this meeting is being livestreamed 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.
This is a roll call.
Mr. Bennett.
President.
Dr. Cronan.
You're Ms.. Drew.
You're
Mrs. Many.
You're Mr. Riso.
Here. Mr. Schmidt.
Dr. Shore.
Here.
Mrs. Seger Here.
Mr. Singer. Here.
Nine present.
One virtually.
Please rise if you're able and join me
for the Pledge of Allegiance
and allegiance.
To the United States of America and
Resistance.
One Nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all.
May I have a motion to approve
the January ten, 2022 Board of Directors Agenda?
So move. Lindsey Drew.
Second.
Mike Rizzo.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All in favor. Say I. Or.
Any opposed? Say no.
Motion carries.
I would like to announce that the board met in executive session
prior to this meeting to discuss safety and to consult with an attorney
for professional advice.
This is an opportunity now 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.
One Rick once recognized or 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 who would like to comment at this time?
Please come to life.
Well, John Miller, 329 Cocoa Avenue.
I'm a little concerned with the pandemic response team.
Their response to just
listening to whatever the CDC has to say.
I want everybody to search engine,
CDC, Green Zone.
It's terrifying.
It is pretty much a situation
like they've just introduced in Washington state.
That for no reason, for any reason
they can put you in to quarantine
and whoever that is, whoever's in power.
That changes over time.
Our principles of freedom,
individual responsibility and individual rights,
I believe, are being eroded
when we bow down to the CDC.
So I would just urge everybody to think logically, think about the big picture
and not absolute risk,
not relative risk,
but absolute risk when we're talking percentages.
Absolute risk, not relative risk.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
I'm not able to get logged in yet, so I can't see if we have any
anyone raising their hands yet.
There is one.
Sorry, There is one.
Virtual attendant.
Angela Rubinek.
You have been unmuted.
Please state your name and address for the record.
And interact with at least one avenue.
I just want to address issues we have here in the hospital.
I'm a nurse.
We're completely at capacity
almost every day, over 110%.
And I just wanted everybody to consider this
as a community, consider our pandemic response.
And a lot of times, situations of low staffing,
facing something care, whether you have it or not.
I agree.
Kids generally do better in COVID situations, but they do have it.
And I just wanted to bring to the table that we are having.
Excuse me. We're having difficulty hearing you.
I don't know if you're speaking to speakers or too close to your
microphone or whatnot, but
could you try
talking into your phone directly or or not use your headphones?
I'm not sure what the problem is, but you're sounding very muffled.
Is she still on there?
I here she is not.
She has put her hand down.
She may try to log in. Yes.
She might be trying to log in on a different device.
I do have an additional two additional hands raised.
Stacey Melnick, you have been given permission to unmute.
Please state your name and address for the record.
Hi, my name is Dr.
Stacey Maloney.
I'm at 113 West Grenada Avenue,
and I just wanted to say that I think the current
procedures that we're using, including the universal masking
and also the, you know, quarantining or isolating people at home that have been
either exposed or are sick
with potential COVID symptoms is very appropriate.
I know that even though many children
do not become severely ill with COVID,
there are a lot of family members that they're exposed
to as well as teachers and in some cases,
younger students that maybe have immune compromised conditions.
And so this isn't just about individual students.
It's about the whole community.
And to back up what the previous
speaker was saying, our hospitals are overflowing.
We're having difficulty
running our offices because so many people are out with COVID.
So I think we need to keep the big picture in mind
when we are discussing how we're going to manage this in our schools.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Kimberly Zuck.
You have been given permission to unmute.
Please state your name and address for the record.
Hello.
Kimberly Zuck, 41 Clark Road, Hershey.
I'm asking the board to please continue requiring masks within our schools.
We have record number of COVID cases, and over the New Year weekend,
Hershey's more was full.
Our health care workers and hospitals are being pushed, too,
and in some cases beyond their limits.
Masks work.
At last month's meeting, several people say
that masks don't work or ask for proof that masks work.
There are so many studies proving their efficacy,
but here in Hershey, we have anecdotal evidence.
At school, at the start of this year,
students wear masks everywhere except for masks.
Excuse me, except for lunch.
And they were sitting together at tables when numbers rose.
The students were moved to desks spaced six feet apart,
and that stopped the rise and allowed students to remain in school.
Whether you are for or
against masks, we all want students in school.
With the way Macron has spent excuse me, spreading so quickly.
If masks are removed, the chance for a return to virtual school is very high.
The scientists expect the Macron to burn itself out in a month or two.
Why not at least wait till then to revisit this issue?
Thank you.
Dr. Cronin.
There are two in-person.
Breaks on the books online.
Yes, please come forward.
Hi, Melinda.
Current 2046 Joann Avenue, HUMMELSTOWN.
Good evening.
I'd like to just address some concerns about decisions
that will be made personally this evening, but definitely in the future
regarding the pandemic and masking our students.
There's a large discrepancy in public opinion as to whether or not masks work.
Rather than focus on their efficacy.
I'd like to focus on the effect wearing mask wearing has on keeping schools open
and keeping students in school.
The fact of the matter is that whether the students wear
masks or not, the district is still responsible
to follow guidelines for contact tracing, quarantining and isolation.
It's my understanding that when all of the students are wearing
masks, there's less contact tracing that needs to take place.
Therefore, less quarantining and isolation,
increased contact tracing due to lack of mask wearing results,
and students missing out on in-person instruction and possibly school closures
of too many staff or students are out due to COVID.
I'm confident that I speak for a large majority of parents
in the district when I say that we desperately
do not want our kiddos to miss out on in-person learning.
They want to be in school and we want them in school.
While there certainly were some advantages to being home with my children
last year, they're doing significantly better this year with the consistency
of structure and socialization that being in-person offers.
This rings true for many parents that I talk to.
Additionally, our community is made up of many
medical professionals that are completely and utterly exhausted right now.
The med center has been at 100 to 110% capacity or more for over a month now.
Our transmission rates are higher than they have been before.
The school locally, the school numbers
have almost tripled since before break.
I haven't confirmed it, but I've heard
several reports that the morgue at the center is full.
My social media feed is filled with dozens of people
asking where they can find COVID tests.
With all
that said, I was thinking about our status as a district.
We are consistently named one of the top 20 out of almost 500 districts
in the state of Pennsylvania.
It got me wondering what those other top 19 districts are doing.
So Google and I spent a little time together last week.
Of the top 20 districts,
only one of those districts has optional masking that district.
Central Bucks was closed at least one day last week due
to not having enough staff to operate safely
because they were out for COVID related reasons.
That's according to the Philadelphia Inquire.
About.
Five of the top 20 districts
require masking based on the level of local transmission,
and the other 14 all require masking regardless of transmission rates.
I thought it was interesting that the best districts in the state
are all pretty much on the same page in regards to masking.
In closing,
I do think it's important that we begin to look to the future as far as masks go.
However, rather than setting a completely arbitrary date for removal of masks,
I believe it would be in the best interest of the district, our students
and our community to use the model that some other districts have used
and make the mask use dependent on local COVID statistics and data.
For example, moderate and high transmission rates would require masks.
Low transmission rates would make masks optional.
This reduces the risks of schools closing,
keeps students and teachers in-person where they perform best,
keeps parents at work so we can provide for our families
and helps our medical community all at the same time.
In the fall, when a school board position was open,
one of the questions asked to those of us that applied was if we would be willing
to put our family's needs aside to do what is best for the district as a whole.
I hope you will all take into consideration
what is best for this district and community as a whole, and not just
what is best for your individual family when voting on this matter.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Yes. When things do remind me.
Walter Zidansek, 62 boxwood drive.
I do hope that the individual that that said
that there was a plethora of studies proving
the efficacy of mass is still on.
So I am.
I've come here a number of times now, and I am offering to pay
for the school lunch for one homeless child for the entire school year.
That's probably $900.
If someone can provide me a study or experiment
showing that masks reduce community
spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus
with a 90% confidence interval, that very, very easy to do.
If what you say is in fact true,
my number is area code 3107558911.
Again, I'm at 62 boxwood drive.
If there are so many studies out there, something that can show that
cloth or paper mask reduce
not not k95 but cloth or paper masks reduce
community spread of SARS-CoV-2 with the 90% confidence interval.
Then I will pay for the school lunch for one homeless child.
I hope that you take me up on that,
but I do not believe that that study exists
because simply masks are not effective.
Have you ever thought for a moment what what
we need to do as a society in order to reduce social ills?
I'm talking about drug use, crime, that sort of thing.
What do we need to do?
And I would argue that the first thing that you need to do
is you need to reduce child abuse.
If you want to reduce assault,
you tomorrow, you have to reduce child abuse.
Today, you want to reduce murder.
Tomorrow, you have to reduce child abuse.
Today, if you want to reduce rape, sexual assault, drug use, you name it,
tomorrow, you have to reduce child abuse today.
You know, there was a time when physical abuse in school, It did happen.
My my grandfather was left handed
and the nuns used to take take a ruler.
And, you know, they hit his hand every time that he wrote
with his left hand.
And there was other forms of abuse.
Kids were spanked in school.
It really wasn't that long.
Goes by a couple of generations ago that that happened.
But now we realize, hey, that one, it's
not ethical to it doesn't work.
So we're going to stop doing it.
I want to remind you, that's just for agenda items.
So if you can get back. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay.
I'm sorry. Your passion is coming through. That's fine. Okay.
All right.
The fact is, masks don't work.
And if someone can't provide me that study, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Masks are a form of childhood abuse.
It's a form of child abuse.
Just like we had physical abuse
a while ago.
We're doing this form of this form of abuse today.
It's a form of emotional abuse.
It's not acceptable.
It needs to end immediately.
Thank you.
I see another hand virtually.
We we have one additional hand raised.
Imam Ali, you have been given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address for the record.
Good evening, Imam Ali,
2472, Rally Road, Thomastown, Pete Hamill, South.
I want to thank the school board.
Member.
Members and administration for giving me this opportunity to speak tonight.
This is regarding the pandemic and
the request for consideration of masking to become optional.
You may or may not be voting this week regardless.
Just to remind everyone,
our pandemic team, which is composed of designated
physicians, an infectious disease specialist, in addition to
some of the school board members and members from the community,
had recommended masking even prior to the state mandate.
So we are never affected by that.
Currently remain in a high transmission area
based on the zip codes for Derry Township.
Mullins has already referred to this.
The cases
on the school district dashboard have tripled
since December 31st compared to that of January 7th.
While these still reflect about the 14 day.
It's clear that there is an uptick of cases
and that was anticipated after the holidays.
The CDC has
updated guidelines on January six, 22nd, continues to recommend
indoor masking regardless of vaccination status.
Just a comment
regarding masking is not a form of abuse.
I hope the district continues to follow the science
and the recommendations of its health specialist for us
just a bit to mask at this particular time
and give you an arbitrary timeline.
Regardless of the transmission rate
is is very, very concerning.
Our hope I hope our goal
as as a community is to continue to be providing a safe, in-person
environment for our school students.
I speaking as an internist, a cardiologist
with patients here in the community,
not just as a parent of two children in elementary.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
I have one additional hand raised.
Angela Wieder Oh, the hand was lowered.
So I guess
they do not want to speak at this time, but it's raised again.
Angela Wieder, you have permission to speak.
Please state your name and address for the record.
Angela Wieder, 1778.
I wrote Hershey. I apologize for that.
I'm not sure why it went up and then back down.
Just a quick comment.
You know, the CDC guidelines are constantly changing.
And most recently it was the CDC that acknowledged
that most of the masks that are being worn, the cloth masks,
the blue masks, basically all the masks that I can
kind of see everyone wearing here on my screen,
those aren't really effective in preventing the transmission of COVID.
That being said, I do think they provide a little bit of protection.
And because of the high transmission going on right now
in the communities, perhaps they're at least somewhat helpful.
But at the end of the day, I don't think that it's a good idea
for our student body to constantly feel the pressures of being responsible
for the transmission of a virus that could potentially impact and kill somebody
in their family or somebody else's family based on a flimsy mask.
And so my concern isn't
that I'm curious on how you're going to vote with this mask mandate.
I do think we need to take the considerations of the community
and, you know, the opinions of the majority
of the community into consideration.
And again, given the while transmission rates at the moment,
populations in some of the hospitals and health systems, of course,
and certainly even just the temperature of COVID going on right now.
Whether it's a good idea
to vote masks mandatory or optional right now is one issue.
But, you know, I like to think ahead.
And although I don't think necessarily that masking is officially child abuse,
I do think there's serious ramifications for mandating masks
to an entire student body who the second they leave the school doors
chooses and doesn't see masks anywhere.
I've been at dozens of sport tournaments over the last month,
hundreds of people in gyms completely unmasked.
And there's been no trace of any type of outbreaks of COVID or anything else.
So I think my concern is to be put on these kids.
Mask, mandate, mask, mandate, mask mandate. Okay.
How do we explain this to these kids and walk them from the edge of despair to
if they don't wear a mask in a few weeks from now or a few months, who are crippled
with fear of COVID off of a flimsy mask?
How are we going to explain to them in a few weeks or a few months from now,
it's okay. You can take that mask off.
And it helped.
Not a lot,
but you know, every little bit helps and I can certainly appreciate that.
But, you know, what are we going to do with these kids
who have been adversely affected, maybe not by COVID, but by the fear
and the constant dread of the black cloud
hanging over them the last, you know, 20 months or so.
Thank you. Thank you.
I have one additional speaker, virtually.
Liane, you're being given permission to speak.
Please state your name and address.
For the record.
She either hung up.
It looks like she lowered her hand.
Okay.
All right, Well, we do have another another time period for her to speak.
If she comes back.
I don't see anybody else.
I don't see anybody here.
Okay. Time for standing committee reports.
The Curriculum council did meet today
and we had four high school course proposals for either revisions
or additions.
And they have been posted since our last meeting in mid-December, the first.
So all of these were approved today by the curriculum council.
So they will go to full board approval at our next meeting.
The first course is a new course called Modern Innovation.
It will be a half credit course for one semester.
The premise of the course is a shark tank
based project management course experience for the students.
The second new course proposal is English
11, which is one credit for an entire year
called
EPICS Myths, Legends in Literature.
And this would be an elective course for 11th graders.
The third
course is actually revision of SWAC, which is the
the World Action Committee meeting committee.
That course will be divided into two.
One course will be called learning through community service,
a half credit course for one semester for freshmen and sophomores.
The other course will be called Leading through community service for juniors
and seniors.
The junior and senior course is a half credit for a full year.
The freshman sophomore
course is a half credit for a semester and that one will be live.
The older kids students will be virtual.
And then the fourth is a new course called Hack Intro to Business.
It's a half credit course for a semester, and it's taught by a Hershey
staff member who
has been accredited by Hack to provide a college course.
Students can take it for regular half credit for the high school credit,
or they can pay the $230 reduced credit fee for three college credits.
All four of these, as I said,
will go to full board approval at the next meeting.
The Curriculum council will meet again on February 14th at 4 p.m..
And that's it for Curriculum Council.
Mrs. Karp, how do you have a community correspondence report?
I do. Thank you.
For the month of December, the district received 58 community correspondence.
The mission 45 of these missions were regarding the COVID 19 pandemic.
Some other comments and questions
from this month include two questions about high school safety.
Two comments regarding the middle school
and additional concern regarding middle school safety.
One question about mentoring School staffing.
A comment regarding the last board meeting.
One question about crossing guards.
A request for information about the roller hockey rink complement
to an arm entry to the elementary winter
Music performance and a question about high school student work permit.
And that's it. Excellent. Thank you.
Recognition of new extracurricular activities or school clubs.
Dr. Winslow
in compliance with Policy 122 Extracurricular activities.
The listed additions of a high school student clubs are recognized.
The E, C, e.
C Club, the Film Club and the Cookie Fans.
Club.
And recognition of a club Name change. Dr.
Winslow, The listed high school student club name change is recognized.
No limited service contract associated with this club.
The club does have a student activity account.
The Cam Med Club name is changing
to the science for all club.
Excellent.
Student Representatives report Ms..
Oladipo or.
And Mr. Pawlikowski.
Do you guys have a report?
Yes, we do.
On Friday, January 7th, the district held its first snow day of winter.
Starting tomorrow, winter keystones on begin the subjects test.
It will be algebra, biology and literature.
This test will be to make up for this density, not test last spring, May 2021,
and to allow those who did not score proficient or harder to retest
as these test are occurring.
Students will not be who are not tested or who are not being
tested will follow a two hour delay schedule.
Tuesday and Wednesday will be Algebra one.
Testing and biology and literature will follow on.
Thursday and Friday.
The high school held a successful spirit week on December
28th to the 23rd, those to celebrate the upcoming winter break.
Monday was long, winter is now and the students were pajamas.
Tuesday was deck the halls and the students deck the halls
with their holiday gear, including hats, socks and shirts and more.
Wednesday was final family photo and the students and staff wore flannel.
Finally, Thursday was ugly.
Saturday, the uglier the better.
On Thursday, the High School Musical Department also performed
a riveting collection for the school's.
Good evening, everyone.
Furthermore, right before our winter break, our high school
musical Beauty and the Beast began practicing.
All those participating have been working on blocking, staging scenes,
dance rehearsals, costume measurements and vocal rehearsals.
And the entire cast is very excited to showcase their hard work in early March.
The high
school is getting into the thick of the winter sports season.
Over the weekend, our indoor track team went to the Penn State University
to participate in the Kevin Dare Indoor Track Invitational,
which happens to be one of the state's most prestigious track events.
The boys
basketball team has a very big game tomorrow against Lower Dauphin at home,
so we would love to encourage the community to come together
and support our Hershey Trojans, along with our many other sporting events
we have throughout this week.
This weekend, the Youth and Government Club
is going to be traveling to Springfield High School
for the Statewide Election Conduct Convention.
Students running for positions will give speeches
about their candidacy to delegates all over the state in hopes to earn a spot
as a youth government leader.
And that's all we have. Thank you very much.
Excellent. Thank you. We appreciate that.
The listed items are on the anticipated January
24th, 2022 Board of Directors Meeting Agenda.
The consent agenda contains routinely adopted items and items
that normally do not require public deliberation on the part of the board.
Oh. Did I miss a speech?
That's all we have.
Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry.
Unfinished business.
Fixing things.
Thank you, Dr.
Cronin.
I did want to give a pandemic team update,
as has been our practice for the last several months.
We met on January 3rd at 4:00,
so our first day back to school after break
and had excellent attendance at that meeting,
which I continue to appreciate immensely.
We started out looking at community correspondence
surrounding the masking issue and sharing.
For those of you who know, who do send in community
correspondence, we keep track of all of those.
It's a really important piece of our our data that we share
with identifying
information removed, of course.
We looked at surrounding districts.
They're positive and quarantine numbers compared them to ours,
specifically looked at lower dolphin and Palmyra for those numbers
and just kind of tracking where folks are who have done
some mask optional compared to to where we were at.
Dr. Rice Snyder presented the changes from the CDC
that came in over the winter break.
And of course, several of those things have changed again already.
But we walked through what our guidelines were on that day
and reviewed the new symptom flow chart,
which it has been all updated and is available on our website.
Our school solicitor that Mr.
Xzibit, Mr.
Walker, joined us and spoke to the legality of contact tracing changes
recommended by the CDC and alterations made by individual districts.
He did state that we have the best liability protection
if we follow the CDC recommendations closely because it ensures
that we've done all that's possible to keep students safe at school.
We did
talk about our current transmission rates in our zip codes
and that we are in high transmission period for both positivity rate
and incident rate over the last seven days.
At that time, that continues to be the case today as well.
We did discuss giving people an option
and an appropriate timeline for families to choose a virtual option.
Should we go mask optional for students, particularly for students
who might be medically fragile or have family members
who are immunocompromised in particular, and what that timeline might look like?
We had discussion regarding a possible exit strategy around transmission rates
and how to leverage our community rates to make decisions for Derry Township
School District students.
Our discussion was lengthy and robust.
We had extended we had already planned for an extended meeting
and went beyond that time as well.
And there was
favor from the team to move in that direction, though
we did not get to a final recommendation at that point.
At that point I proposed another meeting on January 18th.
Instead of waiting a full month to come back together in two weeks,
which will be next Tuesday.
Now to continue to flesh out the details that could be taken
to the school board for consideration at the January 24th meeting.
So our next meeting will be January 18th at 4 p.m..
I would anticipate that also being an hour and a half long meeting
and at that time we will work really hard to come up with a recommendation
that is based upon some
strategy for getting us to a space
where masks can become optional based on either a combination or
one or the other of
building transmission rates or community transmission rates.
So those will all be brought forward for discussion.
And I would expect that would be, again,
very robust discussion.
So any questions?
I'll be happy to answer them.
Okay.
Thank you. Thank you very much. My pleasure.
Now to the consent agenda items.
The 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 pool items which will then be discussed and voted on separately,
may have a motion to approve the consent agenda items as listed.
So moved.
Maria Mimi Second Lindsey Drew, is there any discussion
standard?
This is a standard voice vote on favor.
Say I oppose. Say no.
Motion carries.
Thank you.
Sorry.
They're
new Business Committee delegate assignments.
As president, I hereby invite the noted board members
to serve in the capacities as listed.
May have a motion to approve the list at 2022 committee and delegate assignments.
So moved Maria Mimi
second.
Mike Rizzo.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All in favor.
Say I any opposed say no.
The motion carries.
Approval. Of air agreement. Dr.
Winslow The administration recommends the board approve the services
and Consulting agreement with Air Air Group as Health and Benefits
Insurance broker effective January 1st, 2022,
retroactive through June 30th, 2025.
They have a motion to approve the Air Services and Consulting Agreement.
So move Lindsey drew second.
Maria Mimi, is there any discussion?
This is your.
Standard voice vote
favor say I oppose say no
motion carries
personnel resignations. Dr.
Winslow The administration recommends the approval.
The personnel resignations
may have a motion to approve the personnel resignations.
So move to Miami.
Second, Mike Rizzo.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote. All in favor.
Say I any opposed, say no, and the motion.
Carries.
Personnel.
General Dr.
Winslow, the administration recommends the approval
of the list of personnel and recognition of any of those two transfers
may have a motion to approve
the listed personnel and recognition of any list of transfers.
So moved.
Maria Mimi.
Second. Mike Rizzo.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote, all in favor.
Say I any oppose, say no.
Motion carries
delegate reports.
Are there any board members who would like to give an actual
go individually the SIU to have a delegate report for the SIU?
Yeah.
Nothing.
All things diversity.
Hi, this is Cathy Secker.
I just wanted to alert the community
and the board that this Wednesday night the All Things Diversity Committee
has a virtual presentation Wednesday night from 7 to 830.
There's a link there for you to register.
Joseph Robinson, the executive director of the Martin
Luther King Junior Leadership Development Institute, presents Dr.
King a man or a myth.
And I'm very proud that our student representatives
will be participating in the event by asking questions.
And we also have some students from Milton
Hershey High School as well are participating.
So thank you very much for joining the event.
Thank you.
SBA report should be attached
and special reports.
Are there any board members who would like to give a report?
Dr. Winslow, do you have a superintendents report?
I do. Thank you, Dr. Cronan.
Friday was our first snow day,
and as promised, the first snow day was a true snow day.
So I just wanted to remind everyone that from here on out, unless there are
predicted widespread power outages, please be prepared for FID days,
which means that you'll have
a virtual schedule and we'll have consistency of learning from home.
So that's what we'll be doing from here on out.
It Is School Board Member Appreciation Month.
You should all find a dessert at your place.
That I would love to say is for me, but is not.
It is from our delightful elementary PTO
who made a point in coming over and making sure that you had that.
So they are wonderful as well.
And they wanted to thank you for all of the time and work that you in.
I've always admired the commitment to community service
that it takes to be a school board member.
It was also thought that you're a little crazy
because it is often a
thankless job and someone is always mad at you
for something and never more so than in the last two years.
I know it's been very challenging.
I thought it would be just a nice to remind you of some of the great things
that have been done.
I'm not going to do an extensive list by any means, but
you might remember full day kindergarten, which is something that this board helped
to implement and is huge and is something that we had wanted for a very long time
and took a a monster commitment and a lot of planning to put into place.
And I'm so grateful and thankful for it.
1 to 1 technology
we we started with the middle school
weirdly, and then went to the high school
and worked our way up through the grades and and then
looking at the elementary school and the support that you gave for 1 to 1
to make sure that we could continue education throughout this whole
crazy pandemic time is huge.
It's been invaluable.
The implementation of
instructional coaches is something that not every district will support and.
Not every board will support
because they don't understand the power of professional learning.
And having instructional coaches is such a powerful tool
with day to day job embedded just in time professional learning
for our teachers and our school coaches who work with not only our teachers
but also with our students and are making powerful changes in our buildings.
The implementation of open court reading for elementary K through
five implementation of a full reading program
is not a small thing and it is very expensive.
And we have a really high level program that's doing
wonderful things for our students.
So not an exhaustive list by any means, but thought it would be really
important to remind you that there are some really great things
that you've been a part of that you have supported,
and it's part of what makes this district great. And
despite all of the things that have been difficult,
your time is appreciated, your dedication is appreciated.
And we thank you for the guidance that you give to all of us.
Happy School Board Appreciation Day.
Thank you. Thank you.
And finally, we held our second community forum today.
It was at noon.
The topic was social emotional learning.
We had about 15 community members who attended.
There were so many good questions and such good conversation
that our 45 minute session turned into an hour or so.
I lost complete track of time because the dialog was so excellent.
So I could have definitely continued talking for longer
and really appreciated those folks who came out and participated in that.
Our next forum is April 4th at 5 p.m., and just like we've been doing
about a month ahead of time, a a district topic will be shared,
but people can bring whatever questions they wish.
So that's that's been a vibrant piece and we got some good feedback today
that people appreciated having it on Zoom because it's so easy to participate
than from work.
Someone doesn't have to take off time in order to participate. So
that is my report.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Board Presence Report.
I just want to say I obviously did a what Stacey said regarding the pandemic
team, the hours that have been put into into that.
But I also wanted to especially thank the community.
The involvement of citizens not only here at live meetings,
but attending virtually, and those that are submitting correspondence,
reports, sharing their ideas and their opinions is is invaluable to us.
We love hearing from you.
And just as a reminder, you know, our goal here as board members,
we want to keep our kids in school.
We want to keep them safe.
And we do want to try to return to normalcy whenever that's possible.
And that includes getting rid of masks.
So where I think we all have the same objective, we don't have a timeline.
And that is something that we're working through
depending on what happens with COVID.
But thank you all for your participation and involvement in our district.
That's what makes Derry Township so great.
Recognition, 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 governance, not on the agenda.
Those who speak are asked
to follow the same guidelines
outlined at the initial public comment portion of the meeting.
Are there any residents and or taxpayers that would like to comment
at this time?
Yes. Please call Mike.
Walter Zidansek at 62 Boxwood drive.
I'll just continue on what I was speaking about earlier
that maybe the board might not have picked up
as being related to masks, but you have to reduce.
If you want to reduce social ills of the future,
you have to reduce child abuse today.
And physical abuse, as I was
mentioning, was something that did happen, happen in schools.
The spanking of children
was was definitely much, much more common a generations ago.
It certainly happened when I was a kid,
definitely happened when my parents were kids even more.
And I don't even think that's really that common now.
I think that a lot a lot more people are picking up
on the idea of peaceful parenting, which I think is great.
One thing about physical abuse
that kind of differentiates it from other types of abuse
is you can look back on it and you can say, I didn't deserve that.
I didn't deserve to be hit.
That other person was wrong,
and that it makes it easier
for for a victim of that to move beyond that.
Whereas sexual abuse
are oftentimes it's unfortunate that victims of that for their entire
or perhaps their entire lives, they can think that they deserved it
or that somehow, some way what happened to them was their fault.
And that's absolutely it's that's disgusting to me.
And I would say emotional abuse is much the same way in that
it's even
it's more perverse in one aspect in that with emotional abuse,
sometimes you don't even know it's going on.
And when we have a kindergartner or even a 12th grader
being exposed to the idea
that everyone around them is a bag of germs, not a fellow human being,
but someone that is an ever present risk
to their livelihood, and that everyone there is a risk
and that there's this ever present risk and that, you know,
we have to shelter in place and, you know,
we can't get the cold, we can't we can't do anything.
We can't live our lives.
We have to constantly be in fear of a virus
that is emotional abuse.
And what this not obviously
not only this school district and this community,
but obviously it's going on across the country and across the world.
But we have to stop it somewhere.
Why can't we stop it here?
This is a form of child abuse.
And I love for someone.
I love for someone to convince me otherwise.
But you can't even convince me that masks work
not one person has even tried.
So because they don't work.
If they don't work, stop using them.
Thank you very much. Thank you for listening.
Thank you.
Yes, It's
John Miller again, 329 Cocoa Avenue.
All right.
So there's a lot of misconceptions that we are so different.
There's a lot of things that make us different.
But if we think about just
just the fact that we're in this room together at the same time, consider
how many people came through Derry Township School District in the past.
Beyond that, consider the fact that
in time, how many people have ever existed on the face of the earth.
The time component alone makes it incredible
that we're we're so much alike.
It's you can't even fathom it.
And we're in a situation where we have
a bunch of
disjointed mandates coming down without a pattern.
The behavior is unprecedented.
I mean, I think we could all agree to that.
So for me,
when I'm looking into the future,
you have to scenario different.
I am a project manager.
That's what I do. So throughout the project,
multiple projects, I have to anticipate certain things.
If we run into rock here,
not if we damage too much pavement, you're it's going to blow the budget here
and it's just kind of this fluid thing that changes throughout depending on what
stressors or impacts I have on the project.
I'm sure some of you are aware
there are very large organizations,
very powerful people, people that you couldn't imagine.
They control monetary policy, multinational corporate control.
They wargame different scenarios into the future
and depending on what impacts they experience along the way,
they'll shift they'll shift gears,
it dries out everything
I've been saying this stuff, but seriously.
And so right now, looking into the future,
this isn't going to go away.
It's not going to go away.
So logically I'm thinking, why can't we as a people
that are very alike, we have a lot in common enough
that we're here in this room or listening
and we care about our children and community.
Just explore some alternative options,
but just get the ideas in the room
and see what what's feasible.
Listen, children are so there.
So the potential is unlimited.
And when you see a child struggling,
not excited to go to school, not inspired,
that really concerns me long term.
And just concepts like entrepreneurial learning, teaching kids, getting that
spark of of pitching a business plan
and making money project based learning,
you know, getting just just alternative concepts.
And maybe we could partner with other
like minded school districts in the area to create a magnet school or something.
Don't know, just something different because this situation,
I can tell you it's it's going to turn the children off,
that they're not going to want to come anywhere close to this facility.
And that's the last thing we want for education.
I think we can all agree to that. So thank you.
Thank you.
At this time, I
don't see any virtual hands raised
unless I'm missing.
I do not see any virtual hands as well.
Okay, excellent.
Is there anything else for the good of the order?
Okay.
The next public board of Directors meeting will be held January
24th, 2022, starting at 7 p.m..
Please refer to the district website to register as the meeting draws closer.
May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting?
So moved Maria My.
Second Mike Rizzo.
All in favor say I any opposed say no
version of the motion to reach a meeting is adjourned.
7:55 p.m.
Don't forget to go.