Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
Meeting please join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. America one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Hi, Christy. Hello. Hi. Can you call the roll, please? Yes. Mr. Arens? Yeah. Mr. Berthold? Yeah. Mr. Garcia here, Dr. martyr. Miss Pierce here, Mrs. Ragland, here, Miss Seacrest here. Thank you, Christy, appreciate it. Were there any addendums or changes to the agenda this evening? No, there were not. Great. Thank you. I would like to welcome all of our visitors this evening. I appreciate you joining us. I hope everyone across the district had an opportunity to enjoy friends and family this summer. couple housekeeping items before we begin, if you can really quick just check your cell phones, make sure they’re not going to ring. I say that from personal experience. I do also want to remind everybody that this meeting is recorded and streamed live. If you want to go back and watch the recording, you can certainly access that via the district website. The start of school is right around the corner. Next week on Tuesday, our kindergarten students sixth graders and ninth graders will be kicking off the school year and then on Wednesday, the 18th the entire school district will go back to school. As the board reconvenes, we did not meet in July. I do want to remind everybody that the district’s mission statements is this board of Education’s and Dr. Had ads Northstar, we make all decisions within the context of educating each student in a safe learning environment so that they may develop to their highest potential and become contributing citizens. We do not take that mission lightly. Our focus is on each and every student having access to the very best opportunities in an environment that is inclusive of every child. I do also want to take a moment to express gratitude this evening. I’m sure that you all can remember back to last school year. And last school year started in a hybrid part of me and at home online environments. So I am grateful to share that kids are going to be in the buildings. There’ll be in the buildings five days a week, and they also have access to activities, athletics, CO and extracurricular activities. very fortunate that that is going to look different. I also want to note that since March of 2020, Dr. Haddad and the Board of Education have followed the recommendations and mandates set forth by cdphp and our local health departments. We are going to continue that practice this school year. While all of our communities and individuals we know this don’t agree on all issues, I do believe that we all agree on the importance of children being in school. And again, I am grateful that that is going to happen next week. One other item to note that the district’s statement regarding CRT is posted on the district website. The Board of Education and doctor had we have no intention of or plans of changing the fact that CRT is not part of our curriculum. All right, we don’t have any visitors this evening. So that’s a part of me. I’m a little bit out of order. We don’t have visitors this evening. But we are going to begin audience participation here shortly.
Unknown Speaker 4:06
I do want to recognize all the individuals we’ve the Board of Education and doctor had out have received many, many emails. And I just want to let you know that we do read all of those emails and we appreciate you sharing your concerns, your perspectives and your thoughts with us. We do welcome and value that that public comment on on district matters. By board policy, we do a lot 30 minutes for non agenda items and 30 minutes for agenda items. That is the amount of time that we designate for public comments. When we get to to public comment I will call your name and ask you to come to the podium. You have three minutes to comments. At the end of your three minutes. I will politely interrupt you so that we can move on to the next speaker. When I call your name if you can please come up to the podium. Please state your name and your address for the record. And then we’ll begin timing. Your comments, comments on individuals or personnel matters are not appropriate topics topics for public comments. If you have a concern about an individual or a personnel comment, personnel matter, please reach out to anybody on the board of education. Dr. Haddad or the HR department, and we’ll speak with you directly. have right to categories for public comments. If you’re here to speak on an agenda items, so that means an item that is on our on our agenda. Can you please raise your hands?
Unknown Speaker 5:46
All right. Christy, can you please note that there are no there will be no comments on no public comment for agenda items. Yes, thank you. Alright. Alrighty. We are good. So I’m just going to review everything you guys I just want to make sure that that we’re all on track. Alright. Non agenda items. This is where I hope I don’t confuse everybody. If you’re here to speak on a non agenda item and you signed up via the district website. Can you please raise your hand for me? Great. Thank you. Anybody show up this evening? Who has who would like to comment on a non agenda item that did not sign up on the district website. Okay, thank you for stated Did you sign up on the signup sheets? There is we’ll find it and we’ll get it to you. How’s that? Alright, thank you. Okay, perfect. All right. I think we’re ready to begin then. Thank you for your patience. Our first public speaker this evening is Kimberly. I’m gonna apologize in advance if I pronounced your name incorrectly. please correct me. Kimberly Mouat is Kimberly here this evening. Hello, Kimberly, welcome. We can go down. Everybody will be my height this evening is basically what that means. Oh, I’m okay. I think you can hear me I need to state my address still. Part of me. Give me my address. If you could please state your name and your address for the record. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 7:54
Kimberly mo at 1131 Petra street in Erie. Thank you for having me. tonight. I have four kids that attend St. Brian schools from preschool to seventh grade three of my children attend on IEPs. Stay that the last year and a half has been a struggle is an understatement. I know a lot of speakers here tonight are asking you not to worry about the mass mandate for our family. We were going to wear masks anyways due to my youngest child’s asthma issues. But I do believe it should be our parent’s right to choose. I don’t ask other people wear mask, I ask that you let us choose. My kids have not complained once about any protocol in the last year except the quarantine protocol. I do understand that that has changed now since the health department’s mandate. But I do also understand there’s still a risk for quarantine in the lunch room or anywhere where you’re unmask and we have experienced many quarantines in the last year and a half. And they were extremely traumatic for my children. My 10 year old especially spent hours at night crying for fear a quarantine was coming, and he wasn’t quarantined until April. So he went the entire school year. But for three months, he cried every night till 12, one two o’clock in the morning because he was terrified to wake up in the morning. And school would be taken from him again. He is seeing a therapist now to try and work through that we have spent the summer working with a therapist to undo all the damage that has been done over the past year and a half. So I’m asking that you’ve tried to find a way if there’s quarantine cases, to let the children go to school. Even if you find a quarantine classroom, find a way to let them attend the school, but separate from everybody else. I mean, that’s what it has to be but there’s got to be a way around, loving our children at home. If they don’t show any symptoms. It shouldn’t be locked at home. My child thrives off of routine and environment. He’s a different child at school, because that is there. If it hadn’t been for his principal, his teacher, his counselor for the past year and a half. I don’t know where we would be his principal will check in with me At 10 o’clock at night to see how he was, his teacher would text how he was doing. When this quarantine happened. They didn’t push school because they knew that it was better off to let him go at his pace. So that he didn’t we didn’t do further damage and that he could go as he needed to, instead of your reversible damage. I also ask that you only quarantine children for confirmed positive cases. I believe that all of my children’s case quarantines last year were for probable cases. Not a one of them was a positive confirmed case. And some of them were cases of family members. So the kid didn’t even have any symptoms. But a family member of the kid did and my children were quarantined. My husband had COVID We kept our children home from school while we awaited the testing. We didn’t enact the quarantine because we were careful and kept everybody home. My 10 year old also asked me to ask tonight, when are you going to bring back snow days? So he said, You know stories are rare in Colorado. You took them from us last year, because we now have online school. I’ve been our children lost enough. Kimberly Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 11:10
That’s your three minutes. Thank you. And Brian, just so that I I I wasn’t paying. So the buzzer is not working. Okay. Oh, we’ve got technical difficulty. Great. Just wave your arms. I can see. We’re flexible. Next public comment is Emily Evans. Hi, Emily.
Unknown Speaker 11:38
Hi. My name is Emily Evans. My address is 6432 Saratoga trail in Frederick. Thank you for the chance to speak tonight. my four children have all gone to schools in the safe rain School District. Three have already graduated and my fourth is currently in middle school. I’m worried about the mandate for masks for all. This mandate forces my daughter to wear a mask. My daughter has a physical health challenge. It is made worse by the mask that resulted in two hospitalizations last year. Yes, I know I can file the exemption. But with this exemption comes the risk of quarantine. Many will tell me then keep her home with the mask as a problem. as mine and other families learned over the previous school year. The quarantines and online learning created extreme mental health challenges. The exemption form leaves a risk of quarantines and me fearing further mental health challenges for my daughter. So now as a mother, I’m left to choose between which is worse, the mental health challenges my daughter will face if quarantined because she cannot wear a mask full time, or risk her physical health to wear a mask full time. You’re asking us to choose between these two options. Neither will result in my child or anyone else’s with success in their physical or mental health. Not to mention the continued impact of the kids education. You say multiple mass breaks, outside learning and other things to reduce time and masks. If masks are not damaging, why are these needed? How much more time and learning must our kids lose because of these mandates? If we don’t remove the mandate now, when will we when and how will you determine that parents can be trusted again, masking cannot be forever and we need to see a clear and consistent metric put in place to allow parents back in the role of mask of making the better choices for their children. If this is not up to you, it is up to you to push the Board of Health to be transparent with us on this information. Our district maintains a world class standard of education and I continue to be amazed by the quality and effort of the educators and staff in this district. questioning the choices and good intentions of moms and dads will erode the trust between families and the district, damaging overnight the safe environment that district has built over many years. You all hold a position of public trust and will hear the opinions of many groups and individuals. Please do not bow to pressure from one group that will create divisions between all groups. Respect parents respect science and trust the community allow us as parents to make these health related decisions individually as we need for our children. Thank you. Next up this evening is Melissa martyr. Hi Melissa Melissa martyr Firestone
Unknown Speaker 14:17
over the last several weeks, our superintendent Don and our school board and have really come through for our children and community. First, they removed sponsorship and funding from the a queer endeavor event, once they realized what the content of the session was. Secondly, they have offered an exemption form for those households who do not want their children to wear masks in school. I consider these two specific occurances victories and I think all of you if parents have never heard about this a queer endeavor event, I urge you to do your own research. I will be happy to discuss the sessions in person. If you are concerned about your children, learning life lessons and sensitive subjects in the classroom. Just a session names alone are very troublesome. You’ll hear more about them tonight. Some teachers in our school district attended this event. Were they there for content specifically? Were they there for the few legitimate sessions available? Were they Spies Like I was wanting to gain information from behind the scenes. My advice to parents is to learn about your kids, teachers, find out who they are, vet them, set up meetings with them. audit your kids classes. Look through your classroom materials and the books your kids bring, bring home. Listen to the words and questions your kids say and ask. I do ask parents to keep an open mind when speaking with the teachers. Because I know firsthand, a lot of teachers do not want these teachings in their classroom. I understand my views on these subjects, including the COVID vaccine is not shared with everyone in this room, outside or those who will watch this now and watch this later. differences on these subjects have been on the forefront for the last 18 months in everyone’s minds on social media, mainstream media commercials, coercion, ads, pressured propaganda, and on signs manners, vehicle bumpers, and a newspaper articles and podcasts. Every breath we take is saturated with all of this. But at the end of the day, who are we here for we’re here for our children and our children alone. Quoting my friend from this morning, this constant back and forth is like the longest tug of war game in the history of all the world. This has truly been the longest two weeks to slow the spread we have been faced with. It’s amazing how in the Dead of Summer, we can have an all star game and a surge of tourists and have no required math mandates. But when it comes to discussions about our children being in school, we all of a sudden have to be concerned with political setbacks such as these. Such as these variants in math in rich kids for nearly 30 hours a week. Our children are feeling the effects of this with the largest targets on their back. Have we forgotten that the America we know and love was created and founded by normal citizens who were tired of tyranny. I would encourage those in our community to really think about what is best for their own household and do that. Take your head out of the sand. Do your own bipartisan research. Use your eyes to look around, use your ears to listen and your brains to put together a logical plan for your own children. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 17:22
Next this evening is Melanie bhimsen. Hello Melanie.
Unknown Speaker 17:30
My name is Melanie bhimsen I live at 1628 Naples lane in Longmont. I was actually nervous to speak here. But I’ve thought about addressing the school board many times over the past year. I’ve even hadn’t said second thoughts last night. And then I saw a few videos of some of my colleagues in the real estate industry and decided they were done being silent and so was I. To be honest with you, I prefer no one knowing where I stand on any issue. And in fact, some of my former clients in here have heard me say, I have no opinion on that, which definitely means I have an opinion. Many times doing nothing has been the best course of action and things work themselves out. But I don’t think this is one of those times. I do have friends on both sides of this mask issue. And hopefully they’ll all be my friends tomorrow. But if they don’t, I think it says more about who they are than who I am. I have a child who is a cancer survivor. I know what it’s like to send your kid to school. In a highly unvaccinated County. I know what it’s like to have people tell you to stay home if you’re worried. And it is those same people who have that lack of empathy that are now telling me I need to protect their children. I have lived with a severely immunocompromised child during a pandemic, the scariest one to me was h1 and one when I had an active child actively taking chemo, and there were no mask requirements, and nobody was making concessions for us. I’m not an anti masker I’m not an anti vaccinator I am for advocating for your family and doing what is right for your family. There are plenty of studies that show harmful side effects and impacts when wearing a mask all day. Can our children do it? Sure, should they? I’m not convinced and neither as Dr. Fauci who recently said, hopefully this will be a temporary thing that doesn’t have lasting negative impacts. Last summer, the CDC said cloth masks do not catch small harmful particles and smoke that can harm your health. This us Surgeon General warn people to stop buying masks. And Johns Hopkins has said the final and least effective control strategy is personal protective equipment because it relies on adequate supplies and proper and continuous use and I really struggle to believe kids have proper and continuous use. The question of whether or not in increases carbon dioxide inhaled is crucial. Germany has many studies if you’re interested in that, and no matter what you decide there will be unintended consequences. During the time period when schools were open and students were allowed to attend in person last year, one of my kids fully masked, very distanced, was greeted with a question from a tee How does it feel knowing your parents don’t care if you live or die, because they are sending you to school in the middle of a pandemic. I have shared this experience with a few people in your administration. And I have also said, I will not tell anyone who said this to my child. I have no interest in seeing people disciplined for this because I’m reasonable. And I understand people were and are under stress, people were scared. And Heck, sometimes we all say things that we wish we could retract. I’ve been guilty more than once myself. Please do not mandate masks. And if you decide to, and you selectively force masks based on some random criteria, it will lead to children and teens being treated differently based on my experience,
Unknown Speaker 20:44
oh, sorry. Thank you. Marissa Barton. Hi, I’m Marissa and Laura Barton 2596. County Road 10. Erie. Good evening. I’m a parent of two in your district. Thank you for taking every effort to maximize in school learning and trusting parents to balance risk. I stand strong and supportive personal choice and privacy for families. I appreciate the olive branch of medical exemption. Parents are primarily responsible for their child’s health. Some parents feel a sense of safety when their children are wearing a mask and that’s fine. Those who are uncomfortable with the risk are welcome to wear a mask. My son with asthma found it harder to breathe throughout the school day and my daughter experienced increased anxiety with a mask. I’m not fighting against a vaccine or against masks. I’m fighting for the right to choose what’s best for my children. I ask that you continue to play. I ask that you continue fighting to put the decision back into the hands of parents. When boulder health had their meeting two nights ago, they quoted a large percentage of ICU beds being filled. However, they left out the fact that only 10 people in good Sam Medical Center were there due to COVID. It’s hard to support. It’s really hard to support requirements on an incomplete picture. Children are not at high risk for COVID. Our kids are not the primary vectors for transmission. Get they are the ones bearing the burden of protecting adults from this illness. with children under the age of 18. Being in the smallest percentage of people contracting COVID. The risk of spread inside school from then is minimal. Please allow parents to research and decide what is the best avenue for keeping their children safe. These are our children and we should be allowed to assess the risks and decide what is best for a family. Thank you for the options you’ve given us and trust and thank you for your time.
Unknown Speaker 22:52
Melissa pop Okay, Melissa, pop your and green. You said I can’t see you, Melissa. Where are you? Oh, there, you’re right in the front. looking behind you. Thank you very much. I’m okay. And if you could, please, you heard me Go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 23:14
Thank you. Yeah, I live in Erie, Colorado, or I live in Erie. And thank you for letting me speak. I’m here tonight because I’m concerned about the future of our schools and of our country. As we move away from valuing truth and academic integrity and instead embrace social justice ideology. You say our district is 100% in favor of diversity, equity and inclusion. But what evidence justifies this commitment, schools have never shied away from teaching the ugly aspects of our history, but it’s equally important to teach what’s beautiful and unique about it. Our children should understand why people who protest against authoritarian regimes from Hong Kong to Cuba, wave the American flag as a symbol of freedom. I love that we’re in the most ethnically diverse country in the world. And I’ve looked for cross country cross cultural experiences in my own life, which include working in a remote West African village as a Peace Corps volunteer, learning foreign languages and adopting children from Asia. But to paraphrase Dr. Thomas Sol, diversity is not our strength. It’s our ability to overcome the problems inherent in diversity and act together as Americans, that has been our strength. If schools continue to sow division, our ability to act together is threatened. More than half of the books on the diversify our narrative, recommended book list, focus on racism toward black Americans, most of them sorry. Most of them are by authors who present moral persons as if they’re facts and advocate for political and social policy changes that include defunding the police, restricting free speech, and remedying past discrimination with current discrimination. I don’t care what words you use to describe this kind of teaching. It doesn’t belong in our schools and Certainly not under the pretense of diversity. equity is defined on the district website as all students having access to what they need to graduate prepared for success. We can look to schools in California and the DC area where they’ve been engaging in this ideology engaging with this ideology longer than we have to know what the next steps will be. There AP classes and higher level math courses are being eliminated over concern concerns of perpich perpetuating inequities. And teachers are being advised to connect math to social justice concepts. inclusion and social justice parlance doesn’t mean just treating others with dignity and respect, but restricting our speech and policing the speech of others with the impossible goal of never offending anyone. I was appalled when my son described the microaggression training to which his class was subjected in the seventh grade in this district. If we continue down this path next step steps will include segregating people into affinity groups, demoralizing those with supposed privilege, and instilling a victim mentality and those deemed oppressed and maintaining list of bias incidences to shame anyone who dares step out of bounds or question the dominant moral orthodoxy. Thank you for pulling our tax dollars from the aptly named twisted foundation when some of their more egregious professional development content was brought to your attention. Many from our district attended anyway and participated in sessions that included the following social justice in the elementary mathematics classroom and intersectional approach. Thanks, Brian.
Unknown Speaker 26:27
Thank you, and we appreciate you being here this evening. Thank you. Yes. Dan. Malloy. Hi, Dan. I caught you off guard happens from
Unknown Speaker 26:46
time to time. Is the time we’re gonna work tonight. This sweet Dan Malloy from Erie, Colorado, live on pop up lane. And I appreciate you guys having me again tonight. We’ve heard tonight from people with speaking about masks, personal choice, full time in person learning, critical race theory, and keeping our district as one of the forefront not just in the country, but in the world. And I think that all of that matters. What this district has done over the last several decades to build what we have is unparalleled. It’s amazing what we have here, the policies that we’ve put in trying to work around what Boulder County Health has said, to give parents some choices to allow our kids to have the freedom to get back to full time in person learning is important as well. And I appreciate what everybody has done here for that. And the community has come together, there are different aspects to our community that are sometimes disagreeing with each other. But we can all agree that we should stop having to say full time in person learning, and just say school starts next week. Thankfully, it is something that I’ve learned this year as well, I might be a fairly decent instructor at some things. I am not an elementary school teacher. And I’ve had to try it as much as I can at home. That’s why it matters that we have a district that grows its own teachers that believes teachers should be well paid, well funded, well educated and professional, that we have an education that’s focused on academics, literacy, math, the scientific method and learning our history, the good and the bad. I’ve been to other parts of the world where our flag stands for something I’ve cried like a baby, when I saw it get raised at one point in my life, for a very good reason. I was very hungry and hadn’t slept in about four days. And it matters and saying that we are a terrible country takes away from that teaching little ideas, takes away from that if we want to build a community that believes in itself and believes in each other and actually overcomes the hate and division that is out there that Israel, we need to move past that we need to start looking at an academic, non dogmatic education again, looking all the way back to the beginning of public education in this country. What Horace Mann said, what the initial founders of public education said so that we could get towards a point in our country where everybody can read, everybody can think for themselves and everybody can work through a problem. And that’s how we start to overcome any sort of issues that we have with equality, with equity, and with the inability to push back on propaganda as it comes out. Right now, as we say, we need to have full masking we need to keep quarantines draconian, and hurt kids and send them home and the only acceptable vaccination rate is 100%. The only thing that I can think is a well educated population from a district such as this, look at them and say check your boulder privilege and walk back over town.
Unknown Speaker 29:54
All right, we have three other individuals who signed up to speak by the district website. Sign up at the last minute they’re unable to attend. And so john, Mr. Arens is going to read their comments for them. Brian, can you still please time this? Yes. Great. Thank you. JOHN, why don’t you go ahead and read the comments. First from a Sarah? Sarah souci Sarah Wilson souci I believe so. Okay. Yes, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 30:21
She’s she states dear St. Ryan, school board members and Superintendent dad, thank you for following the guidance of Boulder County Public Health and requiring mass for all students and teachers regardless of vaccination status. I’m very reassured by the school board’s diligent adherence to the guidelines from BC Ph. I want to address two important points about the school district’s approach to COVID safety mask exemptions and eating lunch outside. First masks exemption should require medical documentation to prevent the abuse of the rule. The current SV VSD policy does not appear to be in complying with the updated BCP h guidance. bcpa says the medical exemption is not a personal exemption, or a religious exemption and schools childcare facilities are expected to implement adequate process to evaluate the applicability of the exemption to each individual as provided by law. Some children have genuine medical conditions which worn a mask exemption, these vulnerable children should not be put at further risk by frivolous requests for mass exemptions that are not based on medical conditions. It is already apparent that parents who pose to mass are coordinating sharing on social media about obtaining exemptions. For Non medical reasons the school board should send along a strong message that request for masked exemptions without medical documentation will not be approved. If students are granted a mass exemption, it would be wise to consider asking these students to regularly test for COVID as as they are more or less,
Unknown Speaker 32:13
excuse me. We were all very respectful when you made your comments. Please be respectful. This is john This is reading a parent’s comment. Please be quiet and listen. Thank you. Understand. Yeah, thank you. But if we can just we’re just taking up time now. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 32:32
If students are granted a mass exemption, it would be wise to consider asking these students to be regularly tested for COVID as they were more likely to spread it or to consider alternate accommodations be CPH states that make an application for medical exemption is not a guarantee that an individual will be permitted to enter a building without the mask, particularly if other accommodations such as remote learning. Alternative activities, substituting equipment or other options are available. Second, eating lunch outside whenever possible should be a priority. Research from November 2020 in the Journal of infectious disease, has shown that permission transmission of COVID is as much as 18 times lower outdoor This means that lunch may be the highest risk daily event for K six students who are unmasked to be the CDC says eating meals outside is best for lowering transmission risk. Thanks, john. It’s time Okay.
Unknown Speaker 33:37
Thanks, Brian. I have lots of time helpers this evening. All right, john, can you please read from Lindsay diamond?
Unknown Speaker 33:46
The second one is from Lindsay diamond dear Board of Education members. Thank you for the opportunity to address the board this evening. I am Dr. Lindsay diamond as a parent of incoming sixth graders second grader in the district. I am grateful that SV SD will be following the recent approval, approved public health order 2021 dash oh seven. Regarding facial coverings. However, I am greatly concerned by the wholly inadequate form and process currently in place for requesting the medical exam exemption. The medical exemption process should be rigorous and limited to families with students have legitimate health circumstances that make them medically unable to tolerate a face covering. Boulder County Health public health makes it very clear that the medical examination is not a personal exemption nor a religious exemption. And schools childcare facilities are expected to implement an adequate process to evaluate the application of the exemption of each individual as provided by law. I want to emphasize that the evaluation piece as this was not addressed in letter we received on Monday evening. I understand Introducing an additional evaluation and implementation strategy adds undue burden on schools administration’s. However, if families are permitted to send their children to school without a mask under the guise of medical exemptions because they’re inconvenienced by a mask, or because they do not understand the science underlying mask where you endanger the lives of most value of vulnerable among us. For Boulder County Health guidelines mass provided in replaceable reduction in the respiratory droplets and aerosols exposure. Schools, sports clubs must strongly consider what accommodations are possible, which would not place an undue burden on excess disease risk by other participants in the activity. There may be circumstances in which a school
Unknown Speaker 35:46
said john, thank you. And then all right, john, if you could read amantadine now please. Man again Yes. Another side
Unknown Speaker 36:03
okay, this is Amanda Dean another spvs parent Hello First I want to thank everyone for allowing me to submit my concerns in writing I’m uncomfortable in person due to being immune compromised I know others share my concerns below and I’m hoping this letter will voice of several parents not just myself. It my understanding is Boulder County Health public health passed a mass mandate for schools of the meaning of eight slash nine in the communication sent out by dawn had dad following the meeting he indicated that there was an option for families to apply for massive exemptions if their students has medical reasons that would make wearing a mask difficult or harmful to the student. Can the board please explain why the exemption being allowed now, when it was not allowed last year. Based on the information presented by BCP h meeting. There is much more evidence of the new variants affecting children’s health more this year than the previous year. allowing an exemption now seems to be an indirect Conference of the data presented by the BCP h meeting by the CDC and by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other health agencies as for as for bcpa schools, child cares and other facilities must be responsible for establishing the process that accepts evaluating implementing and reasonable accommodations for medical exemptions. What’s the process and who’s overseeing it, in addition, BCP h says the medical exemption is not a personal exemption nor religious exemption. Schools childcare facilities are expected to implement adequate procedures and evaluate the application by the exemption to each individual as provided by law. Can the board clarify what that means? In the bch guidelines medical exemptions allows individuals to seek a reasonable accommodation for their schools, childcare and other facilities if they are not medically able to tolerate a face covering. We do have launch it options available. Will schools be encouraging families with mask exemptions to enroll online as a combination is already in place and will not affect quarantine? After all, one of the reasons given for masking was the prevention of classes from having quarantine frequencies, especially when a hybrid option will not be available. If there are massively children in the class. How will this affect quarantine? What will be done for class children that need to be quarantined to ensure their educational needs are met? Thank you for continued work parents, teachers, students and administrators to ensure we as community can safely get as many kids back in person learning as possible. This has been a rough time for all your dedication to health and education of our children is greatly appreciated. Kind regards amantadine
Unknown Speaker 38:47
Sorry about that. Thank you, john. Appreciate it. Brian, thanks for Go ahead. There was one more person that wanted to put their name on. It’s a little unorthodox. But there’s a room for that. We’ve actually just exceeded our 30 minutes for public comment. So I do have some other people that that have signed up to speak this evening, we have exceeded our 30 minutes. If you weren’t able to make a comment this evening, you’re welcome to sign up on the district website to speak at our next regular meeting. Or you may email the Board of Education. We also had several people who wanted to speak and opted to send an email instead, those individuals have sent those emails and those emails will be part of the permanent public record that will be attached to the Board of Education minutes if you have a desire to read those. I do want to thank everyone that showed up this evening to speak. We appreciate your your input and we appreciate your advocacy for the children of St vrain. Thank you very much. Dan superintendents report please. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 40:04
All right, thank you. Well, first of all, thank you for being here tonight. I appreciate it. You know, one of the things that I have really understood about this particular issue is that sometimes there are solutions that we can find where across the board, you get some type of consensus. In this situation, it’s one of those things where, regardless of a decision that’s made, we know that it’s not going to be a decision that everyone agrees with. And we’ve come to terms with that. But we’re going to continue to try to at least listen to everyone, anybody who has any interest in having a conversation, we will always make ourselves available. So yep, so let me let me go over some of the questions that have been asked, because I want to make sure and then if there are questions after that, I’ll be glad to stick around and answer them. The first thing that Joey had mentioned earlier that I want to talk about when we were in this space last year, some of the differences are the five day a week, and I agree with what you said, Dan, we need to stop talking about that. The the reality in Colorado, which I have expressed extreme concern over to the Colorado Department of Education and to the governor directly, is that the majority of school districts in Colorado are on a four day school week. And that was before COVID. And I am completely opposed to that I think it begins to erode the opportunities for our children. And so one thing that hopefully will come from this is an awareness that over time our education system has been and continues to be eroded by policies that are being made in the legislature. And so I think it’s important and I want to one thing that has really evolved from this is I’ve had some really good conversations with members of our community that I hadn’t really had the opportunity. And I’ve been able to listen, and I’ve been able to share. And I appreciate that. And I will always make myself available to any parent or community member in this community. But there are a lot of things about our education system that I think need to be looked at. And so we’ll have those conversations as we move on. Our athletics programs are moving forward, our h vac system is in place and ready to go, the air handlers will open every 15 minutes. So it’s a very safe environment, our custodial staff will be cleaning. During the days in the evenings. We have all of the protective gear that we need. We have our hand sanitizers, our hand washing stations, we have familiarity with this, because we’ve been through it. This is actually the third school year, the third school year that we will be dealing with. I remember when we first started, and it was around spring break. And we were hoping that it would evolve and come to an end around summer. But it didn’t. And then we were geared up in that summer. And we were all ready to come back. And at the last minute the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, put forward new restrictions that caused us to have to shift to online. And then it was back and forth throughout the year. And we went through all of last year. And now we’re starting another year. And it was a surprise to me because as some of you have said, I too have watched throughout the summer, where restaurants and churches and malls and the rec center where people exercise. Everywhere you go, there are people and some are wearing masks, many are not wearing masks. And one of the concerns that we have expressed and I will get into this part a little bit later, is some of the in congruence that we see in the application of policies. And so I’m going to talk a little bit about that as well. I also believe that we will see a significant decrease in quarantining. That’s an issue I’m going to share again in just a few minutes because it’s a critical one for me and I know for all of you. I want to share with you my conversations with Boulder County Health, and I have had conversations with weld county health. We also serve Broomfield county and Larimer County.
Unknown Speaker 44:16
My conversations last week, we had three consecutive days of meetings without break with the executive director and her team, and then also our team. And I want to share with you the content of that communication that took place. The first thing that I wanted to understand was, what data they were looking at. They shared with me that the data from zero to nine year old, they saw increasing rates of COVID 10 to 14, they saw a flatline and 15 to 19 years of age was dropping. And so that was helpful for me to understand they shared with me that the vaccination rate in Boulder County was a problem. At 80%, for those eligible somewhere on don’t, I mean, this is always moving. But these are general numbers 64% total rate for everyone, the 80% was for those eligible. And we had about 62 plus percent of kids 12 to 19, who have received a vaccination. There’s no judgment. They’re not saying that’s good, or that’s bad. I’m just giving facts. I also asked about the hospitalization rates and the death rates. And I learned that there were 20 hospitalizations and seven death rates over a period of time. I also asked questions, are you are you paying as close attention to the to the mental health issues and the needs of children as you are to the physical health? And and the reason I asked that question is because when we were quarantining students last year, we were very clear about our opposition to doing so not because we were wanting to create an unsafe environment, but because we weren’t seeing that students who were being quarantined. Were coming down with COVID. And so we were wanting to know then. And what shifted is we then began to get a lot of communication from our health departments, that what are you going to do as a school district, and I am not trying to criticize anybody here or throw anybody that I am just speaking, factually. When we started to hear from them, what are you doing about students who are struggling with anxiety and depression, etc, etc, etc. My response was, we have been trying to talk to you about that for a long time. And that’s why we were opposed to the quarantining process. So that was the other conversation we had. The other thing that I wanted to understand clearly was the congruence or lack thereof with other policies. So when I asked the question about how do I reconcile when I go into a grocery store, and people aren’t wearing masks, and there are children in there, and they have a sign, but there’s nobody enforcing that. And then when I go, on the weekends, to the Rec Center, or when I go to the mall, or when I go to a restaurant with my family, I’m not seeing the same application of policy, as I’m seeing in our schools. And what I want to make sure of is that our schools aren’t being asked to do things that others aren’t, because we will simply comply. And I asked that question, when will you be making a decision? And it was also asked, if you go back and listen to the recording from the recent meeting that the board had for Boulder County, one of their board members said, when does this and what is the benchmark? And the response was we don’t know. And, and we will address that. And we having a conversation with that next week. That was also our request, as a team that can we have some idea of what those benchmarks and we understand that they’re going to tip this way, and then back this way, and so we’re not going to move people back and forth. But can we at least have something to look at something to track. The other thing that, you know, I talked about a little bit because I had recently seen that a mass creates 99.9% protection against serious illness. I saw that out of the CDC. And then I saw that, I saw that also, you have the option to get vaccinated. So I asked the question, if that’s the case, is a high school student and or a student at 12 years old or older at risk? If someone went is not wearing a mask, if they have the option themselves to wear a mask and get vaccinated, and the question was met with some ambiguity, we don’t know enough about it, but we’re still going to be gathering data. These are the answers that I have been given and the conversations while they’re always respectful and professional, they become heated. Because I am asking for specificity in writing. What benchmarks The other thing
Unknown Speaker 49:17
that we talked about was the inconsistent application from school district to school district. And if I think about it, and I if I get any of this wrong, I want you to just bear with me but Denver is requiring masks. Jefferson County is requiring masks for elementary but not for middle and are not for 12 and older. Then you have Douglas County is optional. Then you have Greeley is optional. Brighton is optional. Cherry Creek is optional. Then you have Thompson is optional, then you have cooter is required and then you have now boulder and st reign required because of the recent order. My Adam’s 12 is optional. And my response to them was we are all neighboring districts. And we cross over boundaries. And we went in, you know, we interact with each other on the weekends and stuff. So can you explain to me why that is? And it was the response was it’s the the authority was delegated by cdphp, and the governor to local school, or local county health departments. I said, I understand that. But I need an answer to that question. Because we have an extremely involved intelligent community, and I need to be able to tell them something besides it’s just county by county, I need to understand that. So that was the other conversation that we had. And then I’m going to shift now and get into the quarantining protocols. If you followed the process last year, you’ll know that I had been publicly pretty clear about my position on quarantining, I never wanted to put anybody at risk. And so I wasn’t going to step out in front of the health department. The quarantine is 100%, the jurisdiction of the health department, we as a school district do not have any authority to decide who gets quarantine and who doesn’t. And we haven’t since this process began. But we were very clear, that we were concerned about literally as I was tracking on our own website. And when I get a call, you know, Johnny Terrelle, our Assistant Superintendent would notify me every single time a group of students was quarantined. And it was a daily convert, daily contact. And so my conversations were over and over and over. We had athletic teams that were poised and ready to go to state tournaments, and entirely quarantined. And I and I kept asking, and we kept as a board asking, we need to understand this, but at the same time, and this is important, at the same time, I have no interest in jeopardizing a child, I won’t do it. And if you’re the health department, I cannot step out side of that I don’t have the expertise to say to the health department. I’m going to take other people’s children and make decisions that supersede yours. Because I don’t have that kind of knowledge, nor do I have that kind of authority. So that’s that’s, I know, but I know, but let me let me finish. And then I will absolutely stay as long as people want to stay to have these conversations, because I think they’re really important. The other thing that I talked about with with them was we need a commitment that we can stay in school for four or five days a week.
Unknown Speaker 52:54
We we need that commitment. And so I requested a meeting with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, because oftentimes I was told that this is the Colorado Department. And so I said I want to speak to them. And the first month went by, I didn’t hear anything back. I called again, I called again, and I called again, and I finally had a meeting with the head of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. And I said, I would like in writing, that you will not be quarantining kids and classroom exposure, because of this mask rule, because what I’m hearing is the mask rule will decrease significantly, the quarantining and that is my top priority to keep our kids in school. And they assured me that they would provide that in writing. And in that conversation was also the leadership of the county health department who heard that. And we pressed and we were given, and we have been given assurance, that this type of quarantining will be very different than what we have experienced in the past. And that was a non negotiable, at least in terms of our advocacy at the end of the day. It is their decision, they have that authority, we do not have that authority. So that’s the part about quarantining. And that’s the part we are going to track very closely to keep our children in school. I want to talk a little bit about the exemptions for the mass process. I always start with the premise that I can trust parents. When we say a medical reason, you fill out the form. I am going to start from the premise that you are telling me the truth. I’m not going to start from the premise that you are going to make something up. That’s always been my practice. I have never known this community not to be truthful with me. And so that’s why we’re not asking for a doctor’s note. I also checked with Legal Counsel. I also checked with Boulder County Public Health, to get assurance that the process is the jurisdiction of the school district in terms of that waiver. And here is the process. You access a form from the principal’s office or from an online, the principal will call you and talk to you about your request, not as an inquisition or any kind of in just simply to say, I got your request, I want to acknowledge that I want to check and see if there’s anything that your son or your daughter needs, is there anything you need to tell? Now if there’s something in there where somebody writes, I’m not doing it just because, well, that, then we’ll have the conversation. And the assistant superintendents will know and be there. We also have many nurses that are assigned to our schools, and we have health clerks in every school. So that is a confidential conversation that can take place between a parent and our staff. It’s not something that needs to be a conversation with everyone else. It’s between the parent and our staff. And I have also gotten from our human resources department, and from legal counsel, the definition of what would constitute a medical reason. And so we feel very comfortable about that. And we will implement that with fidelity, keeping our kids safety in mind first, that safety from COVID. And that safety mentally and emotionally. Those are the things that we’re looking at. We have many other school districts in this state, because of their county health orders are not requiring masks. And so our requirement is more rigorous than many others, there are others who are. But I think that gives our latitude to look at a child and see Is there a medical reason why they are being adversely affected in a way that could even be more harmful. And we need to be able to have that conversation. Without people assuming that someone is not going to be forthright, we are always going to operate from the perception and the premise that we’re having an honest conversation until somebody demonstrates different so Pardon me. Shared Yeah, Mark, I will I will, yeah. Yeah, no, I will get I will get to all that details and stuff, we will we will be storing those, but they will be completely confidential. But I will stay after mark and visit with you and and share all that with you. The other the other thing,
Unknown Speaker 57:42
we have numerous mitigating strategies in place. And when we have a really high functioning h vac system, we have double duty cleaning with our custodial staff, we have the majority of our staff has been vaccinated, overwhelming majority. We have all week with you guys, please let me just finish. And then again, I will stay as long as you want to stay and have these conversations. These are the things that these these are the things that we are doing. My point is, if a student is exempt, it does not mean that the environment will then become unsafe. So the next thing that I want to share with you is the no ask on the ban on the vaccination and the no ask on why you’re not wearing a mask, etc. I have provided in writing to all of our staff that it is not acceptable to inquire about another individual’s vaccination status. Nor is it acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to ask about why are you wearing a mask? or Why aren’t you wearing a mask and have been stated very clearly. And if you know teachers, and they feel comfortable sharing with you my communication, it’s certainly open for you to read what I gave to them, it’s their choice to share that with you that we are going to have zero tolerance for people making fun, bullying, harassing, you know, asking questions, causing discomfort, and our teachers and our principals understand clearly that they will need to monitor that that we are not going to allow for environments to become divided. Our children’s education is going to be focused on the learning and it’s not going to be distracted because we have kids that are questioning each other’s beliefs or ideas or the science here the science there. The thing that I would share with you and these are tough conversations because I know as soon as I’m done speaking people will parse my words. And they will take some things in context and take some things out of context. And so when I repeat things, I want to be clear that I am In no way shape or form, would I ever knowingly compromise the safety and well being of a child, or of a teacher or an adult? Never, never would I do that. But my point in saying these things to you is, our children need to be able to get to school now. And our parents are the best vehicle for making sure that that happens, that they are not coming to school, and carrying out the same divide that we are seeing across our state and our country. They need to come to school and be happy, and they need to come to school and learn. And they need to not be bogged down and stressed with the divide that is happening. And that is absolutely I want, I want them to be able to go to school with peace of mind. And I understand that people have different definitions of that. But we as a community, we can still have differences of opinion, and we can still get along, we a difference of opinion does not mean that we have to not like each other. Or that we have to assume that somebody is coming from a place of bad intent. It’s just that people see things differently. Science even says things differently. And so we have to rise above that, and be willing, and that’s why I’m glad you’re here tonight, we have to be willing to have these conversations. You know, if you call me I’m gonna call you back. You know, if you email me, I’m going to email you back. And I will tell you what I think whether we agree or not, you will always have my respect and my time. And you can count on that. And sometimes getting more information is helpful for me. And sometimes it I think it can be helpful for others. So that’s the thing that I wanted to say about creating the safe environment, doing all the things. And you guys, you know, every year, I get really excited about school. I love to go out into the schools, I love to see our kids when you know, I follow Twitter and I see the accomplishments. And I sometimes you know, my wife will say put that thing down my iPhone because I see it and I then I tweet st brainstorm, because I’m excited to see what the kids are doing. And you know what, the kids are hitting it out of the park in so many ways. We’re seeing our graduation rate go and I’m going to share with you some of these things.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:28
And I wrote them down because first of all, we’re opening up new schools Highlands, it’s a beautiful school, I just toured it, we just opened up a new school at Mead, we’re getting ready to open up our first swimming pool, where we’re starting to talk about plans to open one up in the weld county schools. We have all kinds of great renovation, Frederick high schools adding a brand new beautiful wing, the programming is stellar and second to none. In this district, you will get an education second to none, our graduation rate is going to breach 90% for the first time ever, and probably be around 91 plus percent with among the highest graduation requirements in the state. And that mean and that’s a four year rate. When you go to four and a half years and five years and five and a half years, you will see that get closer because our dropout rate is less than 1%. That means our kids are going to finish school. And they’re going to have options. Our LSAT scores have gone up again this year. And once they become public, you will see that and that’s after a year of a pandemic. That’s the kind of work our teachers did. That’s the kind of work your children did. And that’s the kind of work you did as parents. That’s the kind of thing we want more state championships as a district, individual and team than all the other school districts, any other individual schools and not only in athletics but in music. We were winning national awards. Our kids are flourishing. They are knocking it out of the park. Our mobile lab traveled all around the district all summer. focused on literacy and math and technology. We had project launch where our kids K through eight we had 1000s of kids 1000s of kids enrolled in school for four days a week, throughout the entire month of June. And we started school two weeks early with our jumpstart. I was over at Longmont high school the other day eating lunch with the incoming freshmen. And they’re excited getting their extra work around math and language arts and all of these things. And we had a recovery for high school kids and the normal summer school programs and all of the stem camps and all of the athletic camps and all of the music camps. All of these things are powerful for our children. This year, we have our triple A program advancing academic achievement after school in person. Our kids can stay at the elementary level with their teachers and get extra help throughout the entire year. So they’re not only going to get their five days but they can get help after School. Our enrollment is we’re seeing it peak again, kids are coming back in the droves, we lost about 1000 Kids last year, the enrollment is coming back hard. Dr. capetian just allocated another set of FTP. That’s a teacher full time equivalent. Our schools are getting packed. And we love that. That’s exciting to me. And our hiring pools are plentiful. We’re having hundreds of people apply for the jobs. And that’s not the case everywhere. I know that this issue of masks has been hard, because we’re talking about our children. I get that you guys, I get it. I don’t have all the answers. But I’m going to stay in the conversation with you until we find them. The thing I know about it is no matter what we decide, there will be someone who disagrees. And right now it is right down the middle. It is right down the middle. You know, I was watching Cherry Creek people said they were optional. How come you’re not optional? Well, then I watched their board meeting and went Oh, why didn’t watch it. I heard about it from someone who has a family member I listened to, they went to like midnight. And then 100 doctors wrote in to say they want masks required. And so the back and forth begins. And it’s impossible to be caught in the middle. Because no matter what you decide, you’re going to get pushed back. And so we have, we have to bring the temperature down and be able to just refocus on our children. And let parents have that say as to what they know about their child, if a parent tells me their child is experiencing extreme anxiety, I am not going to ask them for proof. I’m not going to do that, unless I find out that somebody is not being truthful. And in this case, I haven’t seen that in this community. Now, I also want to share with you some data that I’ve collected. In regards to the exemptions, we have less than 1/10 of 1% who have requested an exemption. So while I am receiving emails from a number of people saying your exemption process is flawed, I respect that. And I will have a conversation with you about that. But I also want them to know there is a process, it’s not as simple as just filling out a form and turning it in the conversation will happen with the principal, the conversation will happen with the nurse, if need be and the conversation will happen with the assistant superintendent. And I have vetted this process with Boulder County Public Health. And I have vetted this process with our legal counsel. And I understand very clearly the difference between a medical reason and somebody’s preference. And we will implement this with fidelity. But we have less than 1/10 of 1%
Unknown Speaker 1:08:03
of our teachers and students who are requesting this. Now there will be more. Because I know there are more students who have medical reasons, because we already know a lot of our children that have medical reasons. And so I’m not saying that this is the final number. But what I am saying is I believe that parents are looking at this with a sincere eye and letting us know if there is a reason to take a look at this. So I guess what I’m asking for from all of you is to know that whether you like the approach, or whether you like what I say or you don’t like what I say or you agree with what I say or you don’t agree with what I say that you will stay in the conversation. And the conversation can stay civil and decent. Because I respect you. I’ve been in this community for 21 years. And I love this community. And I know this is hard on you, I understand that it is extremely hard on you and your children. And it is at times broken our hearts. But we are going to stay in the fight. And we are going to make this a great year for our children. And we’re going to disagree on some things. But we’re going to agree on more. Because we have the same common objective. And you guys it’s important that we come together. I respect people who believe everyone should be masked. I respect people who believe it should be a parent’s choice. I am not going to block out conversations from either perspective. I’m going to stay in the conversation with you as long as it takes to make sure you feel your child is safe physically and emotionally. But it has to be focused on that. It cannot be I didn’t like what you said or when you said this that made me mad or I don’t believe this. I am not Perfect, our board is not perfect, our teachers are not perfect, and neither is our community. But we are all working very hard for our children. And I, the fact that you’re here gives me hope that you are opening the door for the conversations. And there are several of you that I see in the audience who I’ve had conversations with, and I have learned from you, I will continue to learn from you. I have no ego in this at all, my focus is on our children, and doing what’s best for this community. And sometimes we will make a decision that you don’t agree with. But I hope that we can stay in that place where we can always communicate, I am going to stay afterwards. As long as you would like for me to to have whatever conversation you want to have. And if you feel like well, I just want to go home to my family, you pick up the phone, you call me tomorrow, you email me and you will get a call, you will get a call within 24 hours and we will sit down. If you want to sit down and talk on the phone, we’ll do that you want to sit down in my office, we’ll do that you want to go to lunch, we’ll do that. We will have the conversations until we get to a place where you feel comfortable. And this is to the people that are here, and also to the people who are in the audience. So I’m going to stop. I appreciate you listening. And again, whatever you would like to talk about afterwards. I will enjoy that conversation. And we’ll continue it as long as it takes. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:28
Thank you, Don ppreciate it. Did board members have any clarifying questions? Are we good to move on to the business of the meeting? All right, Don, the board will join you in staying after the meeting as well for anybody who would like to have a conversation. All right. Where are we so superintendents reports. Before we thank you actually before we do the fourth quarter gifts, Don, I’m going to go ahead and jump if Todd is available. Todd, are you there? We’ll give him a second. If not, we’ll go ahead and move forward. I see Tony is there. Alright, Tony, if you’re there, why don’t we go ahead and do fourth quarter gifts to schools, please? Sure. Yes, I am here. Great. Thanks, Tony. Welcome. It’s nice to see you.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:28
You too. You too. Sorry. Greg was unable to attend tonight. So I’m here in this bed. And I’m happy to provide this report to the board. As per our board policy kcd, which addresses public gifts to schools. The finance department compiles the attached listing of donations to provide a quarterly report on the outstanding support of our community, the caption other in kind donations to the district. This is the report for the final quarter of the last school year. And I’m happy to acknowledge and thank the community for donations worth more than $100,000 in that quarter, bringing the total for the year the 2020 2021 year to over three quarters of a million dollars in donations and support. Donors this quarter included some businesses and foundations such as the Education Foundation
Unknown Speaker 1:13:23
for fencing, Green Valley, Albertsons, culvers, and the Elven Investment Group, as well as a wide variety of school groups and individual donors as listed in the board packet. Aside from cash donations, we’ve received instruments, pianos, youth vehicles, books, supplies, food and other resources that are put to great use and helping better support the education and well being of our students. With that, I’m happy to answer any questions that the board might have at this time. Thank you, Tony. BOARD MEMBER questions, comments? No,
Unknown Speaker 1:13:58
no. All right, Tony. Thank you. You’re welcome. Appreciate it. All right. That brings us to our consent items this evening, which is agenda item number seven. Do board members wish to pull any of the consent items? Joey? I deck. Yes, sir.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:19
We pull.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:22
seven point 14 7.14. Yes, absolutely. So dick, we’ll go ahead and vote on the remainder and then we’ll you may ask any questions that you have. All right, thank you. I would entertain a motion then for approval for agenda item 7.1. Staff terminations leaves 7.2. Staff appointments 7.3. Approval of minutes for the June 9 2021 regular meeting, June 23 2021 regular meeting executive session, the June 24 2021 special meeting executive session and the July 20 2021 special meeting executive session. 7.4 approval of recommendation to hire Dean for Alpine elementary school 7.5 approval of recommendation to hire Dean for Erie Middle School 7.6 approval of recommendation to hire Dean for Frederick High School 7.7 approval of recommendation to hire Dean for Meade High School 7.8 approval of recommendation to hire special education area coordinator 7.9 approval of amendment GMP to construction manager general contractor cmgc contract for the Everly Montgomery Fieldhouse renovation project. seven point 10 approval of joint use agreement with city of Longmont seven point 11 approval of contract award for asphalt repair at Westview Middle School, seven point 12 approval of contract award for asphalt repair at Erie elementary school and seven point 13 approval of city of Longmont intergovernmental agreement connecting Colorado students, CCS grants for del camino region. Show moved by Jim and a second deck pulled 14 so we’ll approve everything but that thanks for the reminder though, Don, and john with a second Christy if you could please call for the vote. Mr. Arens Hi, Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. I, Mrs. Raglan, I miss Seacrest. I. Thanks, Christy. I would like to take just a brief second and and recognize and welcome all of the new hires that were just approved. Congratulations on your positions. A Dec seven point 14. I don’t know. Michelle is here in person, actually. So I’ll let you I’ll let you take the floor. It’s all yours. Thank you. President secrets. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:59
I just had a point of clarification. Michelle, with regard to the proposal, I noted on page 80 of the packet or page 10 of the specific proposal that there’s no reference to area seven. You’re gonna so area seven is the site close to Silver Creek High School. And I just wanted to confirm it appears on the map. But it doesn’t appear on the table. And I just wanted to confirm that the enhancement of access for students to high speed internet also includes area seven.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:47
That’s a good question. Dr. Martin, one of the reasons that you won’t see that one in the build out of the wireless mesh network that you will see it in the larger project is because what we learned as we work with the city of Loma is that the city of Loma actually has fiber connecting the household of the students who live in that area. And so rather than build a wireless mesh network, we are instead actually building directly into those students homes with a fiber connection that the city of Longmont will support for them.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:20
Thank you very much even better, even better. That answers my question. I would like to then move adoption of item seven point 14. Approval of the city of Longmont intergovernmental agreement connecting Colorado students. Grant.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:42
Thanks check. Is there a second Chico? That second was by Chico Christie. If you could call for the vote, please? Mr. Arens? Hi, Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan. I miss Seacrest, Aye. All right, our action items this evening. Our next we have two. The first one is 8.1. And that is an approval for an intergovernmental agreement with the counties of Boulder weld Larimer and the city and county of Broomfield for the 2021 coordinated election. Tony, I believe you’re, you’re back at it.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:20
Yes. But yeah. So again, to clarify, this is for the approval of the inter cover intergovernmental agreements with the four counties in which we reside to coordinate the the coordinator elections for each of those and authorize Greg feasts. Greg fees, our CFO and designated election official to sign execute these agreements and address the various logistics regarding the coordinated election with those county clerk’s.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:49
Great, thank you. And this is something we see each year that we have an election, nothing significant has changed. No, nothing’s significant. And then we wanted to emphasize that these were reviewed by legal or legal team. Right. Thank you. Any board member questions or comments? Dick?
Unknown Speaker 1:20:11
Thank you President secrets. Just a question. Tony, do we have an estimate of the overall cost for running these elections?
Unknown Speaker 1:20:22
So we do I as being the budget director, I do happen to have the estimated cost that we budget for each year when the election takes place, and that is between 100 and $20,000 per year. But that does go away if there is no election due to appointments of board members on rather than requiring an elected election. Excuse
Unknown Speaker 1:20:46
me. Thank you very much. That’s exactly what I was asking about.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:51
Alright, thanks, stick. Alright. Then I would entertain a motion please. for approval of action item 8.1. so moved by Karen, second by second by Jim Christie. Mr. Arens? All right. Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan. I miss siegrist. I actually, I’m a point to his approval of requests to grant an exception to board policy GB e a staff ethics, conflict of interest for Mike Herman.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:29
So as you know, GB EA states, no school district employee or firm owned by a school district employee shall be allowed to sell to the school district or its schools or staff goods or services of any kind, without the Express prior written consent of the Board of Education. So again, this is to prevent conflicts of interest, favoritism, etc. And so these need to be disclosed and approved by the board. So this gentleman is Mike Herman is the husband of Lisa Herman, who is a teacher and librarian at Westview. Middle School, he has
Unknown Speaker 1:22:05
been selected to provide services upon service, installation and maintenance of the greenhouse pond at Burlington elementary school, because he’s a husband, we are requesting a waiver for this board policies so that he can provide those services, this total amount for services would not exceed $10,000. If in
Unknown Speaker 1:22:30
a circumstance where that amount was changed to be exceeded, we would come back to the Board of Education for additional approval.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:37
Thanks, Tony. Comments or questions from the board this evening on this agenda item?
Unknown Speaker 1:22:45
President secrets My last question. Tony, I noticed that the amount of this request is $10,000, rather than the in one year rather than the more typical $5,000. So my my question is, really? Is this a reasonable fair market value? For the work we expect to be done in this next 12 months?
Unknown Speaker 1:23:14
Yeah, so these are essentially what you call from economics, terms of arm’s length transaction. So the the services, I do believe would be between five and $10,000. As quoted, I can get more information for you if you’d like at this time, or later on. But I’m, I’m happy to do a little more digging for you. But yeah, these aren’t specific rates that are favorable due to the the relationship between Mr. Herman and his wife.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:47
So the our assumption is that it will be because of the services provided it will likely exceed 5000 but be less than 10.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:58
Yeah, that’s my understanding. I don’t have the quote in front of me. But yeah, because we are here. And we have a number that’s below 10, but not below the five that you’re used to seeing. That would indicate it. Yeah, it’s in between five and 10. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:14
Thanks, Chuck. All right. I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.2. so moved by Dick. Second by Karen. Mr. Arens. Hi, Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr. Yes. Miss Pierce. Hi, Mrs. Raglan. I miss siegrist. I thank you, Christy. That comes brings us to the end of our agenda this evening. We will reconvene next Wednesday the 18th. That will be a study session here in the Board of Education room. You can look at that agenda online. We’ll be discussing some various legislative issues, as well as some mill levy levy education funding. information as well. I do want to once again thank everyone for attending this evening, Dr. Haddad and the Board of Education will remain if you would like to talk with us or if you didn’t have an opportunity to speak earlier. With that, I will wish all of the students a fantastic first day of school and and all the staff as well. And thank everyone that plays a role in making public education possible. So entertain a motion please for adjournment. so moved by gem and a second. Second by john. All in favor, aye. Thank you everyone. Be safe.