[0:19] all right we're now being live streamed uh lenny and matt so uh good evening tonight is monday [0:26] august 9th and we do have a quorum so i will call this meeting to order the first order of business is agenda [0:32] approval we do have one slight change the 2021-2022 return to school plan will now [0:39] be a discussion item as opposed to a report with that change do i have a motion to [0:46] approve the agenda for tonight's meeting so moved do i have a second second [0:53] we'll now vote by roll call to approve tonight's agenda allenberg i [1:00] fox aye green i jones i michaelson [1:07] owen uh they need to be taken off mute they can't hear us [1:18] owen and janie can you hear us [1:25] no let's do walden friedman and come back all right thank you [1:35] um [1:43] do you want to just go with the five yeah we'll go ahead and approve the the agenda is approved um [1:50] and we'll have without uh janie and owen voting [1:56] and we're going to wait one second to see if because they obviously need to hear the board meeting voluntarily [2:04] right um while we're waiting for that just one note of procedure since we have board [2:09] members attending remotely all votes need to be done via roll call as opposed to [2:16] by consensus action [2:26] while we're waiting would you like to review the agenda for everyone watching dr stanley [2:31] i'd love to do that great so good evening everyone again [2:37] it's great to be here with you this evening so the big item that we will be discussing this evening is related to the return to [2:44] school plan uh we also have policy that will be up for discussion [2:49] and then director tope will be bringing information regarding the bond issue [2:56] approval so we had the vote for the referendum in may and now we are [3:02] bringing forward the bond issue approval we will also have leadership and [3:09] committee updates and then i will provide an update as well [3:16] thank you dr stanley [3:22] they're still on mute on the screen [3:28] he's working on it outstanding okay great [3:34] erica why don't you call one of them on your phone and then they can hear you through the phone good idea [3:49] i never thought i would want a zoom meeting back but [3:55] hi they're having trouble unmuting you on screen [4:03] okay okay [4:08] okay [4:14] i'm gonna um put you on speakerphone next to me so you can hear the speakers at least [4:26] okay okay does someone else want to call owen so we can at least hear the speakers so we [4:32] can move forward with the speakers [4:38] you want me to call owen okay not you okay matt's gonna call owen so he can [4:43] hear the speakers as well [4:50] and director tope will you tell them that they can't see or hear anything [5:09] just take them off speaker okay [5:16] so we're going to move forward with hearings from members of the audience and pursuant to board policy 206 we ask [5:22] that you do not duplicate information that has been previously presented if you have a complaint about individual [5:28] employees board members or students in the district please direct any of these comments to the appropriate site [5:33] administrator the superintendent or submit them in writing to the board the board typically does not respond to or [5:39] have discussion on issues presented but questions raised during presentation will receive follow-up as directed by [5:45] the board and finally i'd like to remind all speakers that your presentations are limited to [5:50] three minutes when you have 15 seconds left i'll prompt you to wrap up your presentation [5:56] um so first we have karen prieto is that correct thank you [6:03] yes come on up there [6:16] sorry turn the microphone on thank you go ahead you can start over if you want oh okay my name is karen prieto [6:24] i'm an edina alumni i'm an edina resident and i have a daughter in the edina school system i'm also a nurse [6:30] practitioner i've been in healthcare for 30 years and i'm here to support the mandatory use of masks in school [6:40] and here's my viewpoint i know how challenging challenging it's [6:45] been over the last year with people needing to wear masks you know hibernating fears financial issues [6:53] and you know the need to try and rearrange our lives around covid [7:00] but um then once after you know the covid the year of colvid you know there [7:06] was hope in sight because we had three vaccines and it was really exciting because we thought this is hope for us to get out of this [7:12] scenario um however to reduce the danger it did require a large [7:18] portion of the population to get vaccinated and develop an immunity to the disease in order to reduce the [7:25] spread of covert from person to person to date only 49.6 of the population has [7:31] been vaccinated and this actually makes the coven virus very happy the goal of this virus is to [7:37] find a host and one host is the human body the virus has the ability to mutate [7:43] change and become stronger i feel right now we're at a david and goliath moment [7:49] as the story goes goliath was bigger and more powerful but since david was smart [7:56] and had a plan he defeated goliath that is how i feel we're at with the covet variant right now we have proven [8:02] methods to defeat covid vaccines and masks have proven to be effective [8:07] i think it is time for all of us to look out for each other and protect our loved ones [8:12] when colvin 19 was first when it first appeared seemed to be only concerning for the elderly and those who were [8:18] immunocompromised however with this new variant most of the hospitals and icus are now caring for [8:26] people in their thirties also children are in pediatric icu beds [8:31] like the state of texas for example has one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the nation and its pediatric ic beds [8:37] are completely full they are needing to airlift sick kids to other hospitals [8:42] and i know most parents will do whatever they can to protect their children so not why not wear a mask and get [8:48] vaccinated in healthcare we look at the risk versus benefits of treatment yes sometimes the mask gets hot and [8:55] itchy but it does prevent but if you but if it prevents you and your child from getting [9:02] sick potentially having long-term consequences from the virus why wouldn't you do it and some of the response i get [9:10] is you know i have rights sure you do have rights or how can i ask my child to wear a mask [9:16] all day kids are resilient in order for kids in order for kids um [9:24] really to have a full life and get back to normalcy we must all follow the best recommendations limit spread of this [9:30] disease the only way to do this is by wearing a mask and getting vaccinated and that's [9:35] why i want my school system to support the mass mandate in school thank you very much [9:44] dr sarah preble [9:54] good evening members of the school board and superintendent stanley my name is dr sarah preble i'm a parent [10:00] of three boys two of which are old enough to be enrolled in the edina public schools i come here tonight not to speak as a [10:06] parent but to speak as a doctor i am an internal medicine hospitalist and i've been leading the coping response at abbott for the last year and [10:12] a half the last two school years have been unprecedented and i'm sure none of you imagine these types of discussions and [10:18] decisions were in the job description for a school board member thankfully we have learned a great deal about covid [10:24] and have k-12 guidelines based in science from the cdc and endorsed by the american academy of pediatrics and the [10:30] minnesota department of health i ask you to follow these guidelines and not try to adjust them to appease the [10:36] loud sector of parents who don't want their kids to mask at school we know that mass work but they work [10:42] best by protecting others not just by protecting the wearer the mdh changed their definition of a close contact this [10:49] year the exception is for students who are exposed to someone with kovid if both students were [10:55] correctly wearing a well-fitting mask and other prevention strategies were in place [11:00] this is a huge win for our students and schools and will absolutely lead to decreased numbers of necessary [11:06] quarantines for students but it's only helpful if everyone maths and strongly encouraging mass in the [11:12] high school is a dangerous hole in our layered mitigation plan how are the high school health services [11:17] staff supposed to determine which student is masked and which student is not for every contact tracing event [11:24] and when outbreaks do occur in the high school because i do believe they will with this plan the older high school [11:29] siblings will quickly spread covid to their younger unvaccinated siblings we know the delta variant is much more [11:35] transmissible than previous strains especially in the household setting contact context [11:42] another reason to require masking for all is to decrease the prevalence of viral upper respiratory illnesses in the [11:47] current era of covid a symptomatic student or teacher cannot and should not attend school [11:52] depending on the number and severity of symptoms the student needs a negative coveted test or resolution of symptoms [11:58] prior to returning to in-person learning doing everything we can to decrease all illnesses this year will allow for more [12:04] time in the classroom my takeaway from last week's community thought exchange was this we all have a [12:10] shared goal of consistent in-person learning in a safe environment i think we need to emphasize consistency [12:17] and safety consistency is key so we don't have quarantines disrupting in-person [12:22] education safety is key so that students too young to be eligible for the vaccine aren't [12:27] put into situations where transmission is likely i strongly urge you to extend required [12:33] masking for all k-12 eps students teachers and staff so we can achieve our [12:38] shared goal of consistent in-person learning in a safe environment thank you for your consideration and for [12:45] the herculean efforts you all have put forth over the past year and a half thank you dr preville [12:52] really fast i'm going to test uh janie can you hear us through the computer and see us yep yes okay i'm going to hang up [12:59] on you then okay or you might have already hung up on me oh okay [13:04] there we go okay thank you dr ann griffis [13:13] [Music] hi everyone good evening chair ellenberg superintendent stanley members of the [13:20] board and community my name is ann griffis i'm a parent of two children in the district [13:26] i'm also a pediatric pulmonologist at children's minnesota [13:31] my group takes care of quickly ill children for lung diseases as well as icu [13:36] hospitalizations in minneapolis st paul gillette we take care of kids around the state in the highest volume of [13:42] critically ill children i was pleased when i saw the recommendation for return to school that [13:49] the priority was five days in person i was pleased to see universal masking in elementary and middle [13:56] improvements in ventilation strategies hepa filters ongoing surveillance for symptoms [14:02] where i see the holes to disrupt a five-day attendance is the high school [14:10] last year pediatric hospitals closed wards they closed whole floors of the [14:15] hospital because they had decreased viral infections that's not a bad thing when i have less work that's a good [14:22] thing kids were healthier masks were a part of that vaccines help masks help social [14:29] distancing helps when we use words like works we thinks and we think in absolutes [14:35] everyone thinks that if you mask if you're worried that's helpful it helps partially but what helps most is for the person who doesn't worry the person who [14:42] doesn't know that they are pre-symptomatic the person that doesn't know that they are contagious [14:47] universal masking addresses that we're at risk of our immunocompromised patients and our immunocompromised [14:53] students being at risk i i hear from my families in clinic that they feel they need to send their kids to virtual because [15:00] they're afraid there won't be universal masking in school and i think that's a shame i think that leaves them behind [15:06] i appreciate your time you all have worked tirelessly this past year i'm so proud of the efforts between the testing [15:12] the vaccine what you've done to keep our kids learning i really appreciate that [15:18] my hope is that we can reconsider what we're doing with the high school and the holes that we may be entering [15:24] into lastly i would propose and it may be pie in the sky but it is my hope that we [15:29] would have rapid testing available for students and staff using the binax now testing or other [15:36] modalities through the state and through the federal government we could offer testing here [15:41] on campus with some third party support yes due to clia status but that would allow better equity for [15:47] our families and students and staff who aren't going to spend out of pocket for rapid testing to get right back to class [15:53] so i think that's something to consider with our mission with equity thank you thank you dr griffiths [16:00] um leslie bergston it's actually cecily [16:06] i i apologize that's okay hey guys who's ready for this year [16:12] okay hi i'm cecily bergston i am the school nurse at normandale elementary school here in edina this is very [16:18] exciting to come and talk to you guys so hello okay so let's be real you guys that was terrible [16:24] like right that was horrible and part of what was horrible was that um [16:30] kids were being sent home all the time my job as a school nurse is to remove health barriers to learning so you know [16:37] i got like diabetes here and asthma here and this sort of thing here and oh you got a broken leg here that kind of thing [16:44] when covid hit this is not something that we thought we would ever encounter in schools and being in both worlds [16:51] healthcare and schools we were hit doubly so our role is to keep kids in school [16:57] learning five days a week we know this this is best for them i have talked to so many parents you guys like i can't do [17:03] hybrid anymore she's just melting down i can't do this and like i have a first grader too this [17:08] year and like that was terrible kindergarten virtual no thank you so in the efforts to keep our kids in [17:15] school five days a week first we need to prevent as dr griffiths and dr prebble said to reduce the spread if we do not [17:22] mask our high school students we are creating very large holes in our swiss cheese sandwich of protection of the [17:29] smaller kids who don't have a choice when we were in session school session [17:35] last year i did not see spread in school until after spring break when b117 [17:41] happened i saw so much spread and it freaked me out and this was with kids masking [17:48] all day outside too distancing many kids got sick after one exposure [17:54] during school and that equaled to many school days missed and i did some [18:01] quick and dirty data this spring a high school sibling infected or caused [18:06] their younger siblings to quarantine about 400 missed days from march to the [18:11] end of the year 400 that is so many days that kids are missing out on school [18:17] and so to create holes to like just sort of be like it'll be fine it's not going [18:22] to be secondly as dr griffiths had said i would love to see rapid testing in my [18:27] health office um dr pebble can you just play along with me here um hi sarah this is cece bergson [18:34] school nurse at normandale how are you doing today good okay so your third grader has a [18:40] sniffly nose and a headache you have to come pick them up um you also have to get them tested you also have to go pick [18:46] up your unvaccinated sixth grader at valley view and you also have to come get your kindergartner none of them can come back until we know that the other [18:52] child is negative you know it'd be great let me just swap you real fast just 15 minutes [18:58] okay you're negative we don't have to pull your siblings out that happened a lot and so many parents had so much [19:04] stress picking up their kids from these individual sites waiting on test results for their symptomatic sibling for the [19:10] sniffles we have to do it this is the world we live in right now let's make it easy for our parents i [19:15] hate having to stress our parents out even more my role is to support families in order for kids to learn their best so [19:23] that being said thank you guys so much see you around [19:30] thank you pamela balobusca ray [19:39] hi guys in your fancy new world here [Music] [19:45] okay [Music] [19:51] um i'm gonna try not to get choked up but [19:56] it's probably not gonna happen okay um first dr stanley i'm so glad you're here [20:03] it's like so exciting so um [20:08] i'm here to say thank you and i'm gonna try not to get choked up [20:13] again um our family has had 18 years of learning [20:18] and growing here at eps when our daughter was a baby [20:30] we walked through the door at ecfe and figured out that we hit the jackpot [20:37] i made lifelong friends there when the years have gone by in a blink [20:43] we're packing her up for college right now um ecfe inspired me to get involved in [20:50] our schools and i became more and more devoted to our little community over time [20:55] our teachers and staff were simply the best and i'd go to the ends of the earth for them [21:02] our family was wrecked by my breast cancer diagnosis in 2019 [21:07] i'm doing great now and i have an excellent prognosis [21:13] we made it through only to join the entire world in experiencing and fighting a pandemic [21:19] let's just say that things have been put into perspective i'm feeling pretty lucky to be in front [21:25] of you right now it's time for some thank yous and a big dose of gratitude [21:33] so here's a start i want to thank all of you the administration and staff and especially [21:39] our beloved teachers here are just a few ways you made a difference [21:45] your decisions protected me from getting sick due to my suppressed immune system [21:51] eps had already been providing extra support to our family due to my cancer diagnosis and that continued through [21:58] distance learning which was no small feat [22:03] our teachers pressed on with incredible dedication and epic amounts of skill [22:09] they showed extra care for us and always asked how we were doing [22:15] i seriously bow down to them now our family gets to see eps from a [22:22] community lens as we move on and here's what i'm impressed by [22:27] eps followed the strategic plan by working in partnership with community leaders to welcome volunteer expertise [22:35] in medicine and epidemiology including people in this room right now [22:41] you partnered with business leaders to bring us test the nest a major accomplishment and something that should [22:47] be copied across the country the vaccination clinics that eps held [22:52] were wildly successful providing around sixteen hundred vaccines [22:58] it's incredible last week dr stanley gave a back to [23:05] school webinar to include the whole community eps consulting epidemiologist dr nick [23:11] kelly explained where we're at from a public health viewpoint this is a public [23:16] health problem it's the lens we need it was in layman's [23:22] terms and would be a great source to share especially on social media [23:28] go to the source not the rumors it's on the youtube channel [23:34] i know we'll have set packs in the future i hope i can be more of a help and less of a critic when that happens [23:42] there's no one right way to handle a situation that is wreaking havoc across the globe however [23:48] mask wearing works it's one basic measure we can all take in our schools [23:53] and across our community i hope to be able to see everybody [23:59] around town soon and we can all spend time together i'm going to be [24:04] hanging out in northeast edina working on equity issues i hope to meet you there someday [24:11] but i just want to sincerely say thank you um might be my last time [24:17] speaking at the school board meetings and i just care about everybody here so much and [24:22] you've meant the world to me so thank you thank you [Music] [24:30] thank you everyone that spoke tonight um we're now going to move on to our consent agenda is there anything anyone [24:37] would like to remove from the consent agenda do i have a motion to approve the [24:43] consent agenda so moved is there a second uh we will now vote by roll call to [24:49] approve the consent agenda allenberg i thought green i jones i michaelson [25:04] the consent agenda has been approved um now we're going to move on to our discussion items and the first one is [25:10] the 2021-2022 return to school plan i'm going to turn it over to dr stacy [25:16] stanley and dr randy smallzel to do a brief overview we did get an [25:22] overview in our work session so we'll keep this short and then move on to [25:27] board member questions but one thing erica just added as you mentioned earlier is there was a brief overview in [25:32] the work session we held all discussion for this meeting so that if anybody thought they missed anything with the [25:38] technical av issues we had all discussion at the board is happening now yep thank you matt also there's a full [25:44] report and board book with very detailed explanation [25:50] thank you thank you chair ellenberg i appreciate that so and thank you to everyone who [25:55] came um to speak this evening um it is good to be here with you this evening and this is a really tough decision i [26:02] had shared during the webinar that we are going to do our very best to get this as [26:08] right as we can knowing that there is no perfect answer in the middle of this [26:14] pandemic but i am glad to be here this evening to be able to present to you [26:20] a proposed plan that i the goal of this plan is to have our [26:25] students in school five days a week in person and as consistently as possible [26:33] i have also moved to have this plan focus on phases and so this phase would [26:40] be phase one so it's just from the start of school august 30th to september 30th i am proposing that we [26:47] come back on september 13th at our board meeting look at updated [26:53] uh data points look at vaccination rates covet infection rates [26:59] look at where we're at with if we had to experience quarantine in our schools [27:06] so the proposal that i have right now is that face mask would be required for early childhood through eighth grade [27:13] students and staff and at this point the proposal that was put forward is to [27:19] strongly recommend that 9th through 12th grade students and staff actually wear [27:25] masks we have a variety of mitigation efforts that are [27:31] in place that were outlined in the report and i am going to turn it over to [27:37] dr smazel and turn it back to [27:42] chair allenberg for any questions that might be in place [27:49] did you have anything doctor smozel um well i can add just a few highlights [27:55] from the report as well and then um we'll come back to questions so thank you chair ellenberg superintendent [28:02] stanley our board members our community members our staff and our students who are [28:07] listening to this conversation one of our great learnings last year was [28:12] that the collaboration of staff across the district [28:17] was able to pull a plan together and implement learning for students and we know that we want to augment that we [28:25] want to really grow the amount of collaboration that happens with our adults so we have plans around how we [28:31] continue to grow and deepen that collaboration with our with our adults and with our teachers we plan to [28:36] implement some of that this fall it's called professional learning communities and there's a little bit in the report about it we can definitely [28:42] bring more back to the board about that we also know it's really important to assess where our learners are at as they [28:48] start the school year both in reading and math some of those foundational skills and literacies [28:53] and so we have plans to do that as they come back we're going to use tools like fastbridge and tools like map [29:00] to help us with collecting that picture but also our conversations with students we know it's going to be very important [29:08] to continue to build our relationships with kids to renew those relationships as they have new teachers they have new [29:13] friends and that'll be definitely a point of emphasis and focus as we come back to this fall plan [29:20] [Music] last spring we did a survey with families at that toward the end of the school year in the beginning of the [29:26] summer asking families about what kinds of learning options would you like to see in the fall virtual learning or in [29:32] face-to-face and predominantly our our families have selected face-to-face learning but we did have some small [29:39] populations of families that were in particular interested in some elementary grade levels [29:45] for online learning and so we did plan for that and we are now also asking families [29:52] again in some of these other grade levels where the interest wasn't there like k and one in grade six what that [29:57] looks like now in light of what's going on with the delta variant so we have that survey that went out uh [30:05] today if families have seen that if you haven't or you're not aware of that that did go out today just seeking additional [30:11] information we do have some online learning classes at the high [30:17] school that families have registered for as of last year i think we have eight seven different classes in 18 sections [30:24] of those classes we've been working to refresh and reinforce our mitigation [30:31] protocols from cleaning to filtration to masking to physical [30:36] distancing and have discussed those and listed a number of those in the report and [30:42] we are well prepared and well positioned with technology and how we'll leverage technology this year both with devices [30:49] with networks with learning management systems we did extensive training with our staff last year around how to manage [30:56] learning uh through these technology systems and the the benefit of that is that it [31:01] provides a better experience for our families on the back end and a consistent experience kate k12 we use [31:07] see saw in k2 and we use schoology in grades three through five [31:13] we're trying another uh mitigation strategy is to use premiers substitute [31:18] or reserve teachers at each of our schools so instead of calling up a substitute teacher if a teacher is going [31:24] to be absent that may have worked in multiple districts we will have what we call [31:30] premier reserve teachers who will be employed by edina public schools and be assigned to schools so that each of our [31:36] elementaries will have a number of reserve teachers each of our secondaries will have a number of reserve teachers and they will [31:42] work in only our district employed by identity public schools and we believe that's a another important mitigation strategy [31:52] we have some protocols defined in the report about how we handle and plan to handle [31:58] cases and and how we'll follow the mdh um decision tree in that respect and [32:03] then i had shared at the work session one of the big differences uh this year that has changed in the [32:09] guidance is how we handle cases when others around that particular student or staff member are masked and [32:16] and we now have a change in how we do quarantine so if students around a positive case our mass [32:23] is long as that is properly worn and fitted as our speakers described earlier [32:29] then those students are not required to quarantine so our goal is to keep students in school as much as possible [32:35] we know that we have some events coming up in the community with back to school orientations and we have [32:41] this get connected day that we offer and so we're just going to ask families and [32:46] visitors and students to bring their mass to those events so that we can make sure that we're keeping a safe [32:53] learning environment for students as they come back to school we do have protocols designed around the [32:59] lunches the first one is just trying to create space between students whether they're [33:04] in elementary middle school or high school we've had some questions about why not eat in the classroom why eat in the [33:10] cafeteria and one of the leverage points of the cafeteria is it provides actually larger [33:16] space than in the classroom so we're trying to keep kids with space between them when they're [33:21] eating we also will have the ability to monitor who kids are sitting with and so [33:28] that can help from a contact tracing standpoint if we need to do that and uh so we'll be [33:35] tracking that and then we're trying to again leverage as many spaces as we can so that [33:41] kids are spread apart when they're eating we have transportation laid out so that [33:47] kids are wearing masks when they're transferring on buses and our kids club and wiseguys programs will be offering [33:54] the same protocols and use of the same protocols that we're using during the day lastly we will have a updated family [34:00] dashboard that provides communication to families about what is happening what is going on in [34:06] terms of the covet monitoring the technology that we're using maybe things around athletics and activities [34:12] faqs etc so with that i'll pause a lot of that information additional details in the report [34:18] but just want to make sure we have ample time for questions that the board has and we'll invite some colleagues up here to [34:25] help support those questions as they as they come great thank you dr smallzel and dr [34:31] stanley so from a question and discussion perspective i thought it might be um [34:37] easiest and best to have to go around and have each board member [34:42] give their general and immediate thoughts of the plan and then [34:47] um provide their specific thoughts on the masking portion as well as their top [34:53] two or three questions that they have or issues that they would like discussed [35:00] if we do that at the beginning then we can see where we have consensus where we don't where if there are issues that [35:07] float to the top that every board member has questions about [35:13] so again it was your general feedback or thoughts your specific [35:18] thoughts on the masking in particular then your top two or three questions or issues that you have [35:24] um janey and owen did you hear that yes that's a good idea okay so i'm just [35:31] going to start with lenny and then go around the board table and then go over to you um janie and owen um [35:38] erica can i just jump in and owen i don't know if you're having the same issue but if i speak or if owen speaks [35:45] there's quite a bit of feedback so i'm just putting that out there because i don't know how else to get hold of josh to let him know that so [35:51] owen i'm not sure if you're having the same problem i'd hear you well [35:57] because sarah john could you talk could you run in and tell josh that please [36:02] we don't hear anything here but we're going to let him know that um okay that makes me feel better okay thank you [36:10] so lenny so my general feedback is that i do approve in general of the [36:15] recommendations within the report i do support masking i would say that my key question is [36:21] given cdc and department of health recommendations for masking k through 12. [36:27] how why does the report distinguish between high school no masking and [36:33] k through 8 masking so i'm going to keep mine short and to the point [36:40] i can respond to that so one of the things that we looked at were uh was the vaccination level of uh [36:47] students and we don't have the exact staff numbers but the vaccination levels and we're [36:53] going by the information that was provided at the webinar most recent information [36:58] from dr kelly and at that point we believe that our [37:05] 15 through 18 year olds that we had a vaccination rate of over 80 percent [37:12] we received information today when we were able to specifically look at our [37:18] students in our schools where our vaccination rate is 70 [37:23] as opposed to the nearly 89 percent and that was what went into making that decision [37:30] uh initially was that we were closer to we were in the 80 percentages [37:36] of vaccination rates okay but we're at 73 is what you're [37:43] saying and that's for fully vaccinated yes and that [37:49] they just received that information this afternoon wait dr stanley is that fully vaccinated or at least one shot that's [37:54] at least one vaccination so not necessarily fully vaccinated and [38:00] so i know you got the information today so does that cause you to rethink the [38:06] recommendation at the high school level and i know we have till the 17th to [38:11] decide and certainly information that we're taking under consideration [38:18] do we know how many are fully vaccinated i don't have that information [38:24] right now what they were able to pull is students who had had at least one vaccination [38:33] matt okay i went through the uh thank you for [38:40] putting together the comprehensive plan i think it's a good one uh overall brought in a lot of considerations uh i [38:46] know that especially with literacy and the youngest kids were thinking about different ways to intervene if they had [38:52] more language loss or issues in the kindergarten to second grade levels i know some concerns have arisen not just about in [38:58] person but also about learning and speaking cues and things that are non-verbal [39:03] that are important so i know there's a lot of background work that even wasn't included in the plan that's gone into that so i'm appreciative of that from a [39:10] teaching and learning perspective i've tried you know we all have our own [39:15] lens we all have our own levels of scientific background i don't deserve a white jacket uh but i've been in [39:20] healthcare sector for some ways in 20 years and so i do read a lot of the primary [39:25] information and i think that i fully support the kindergarten eighth grade well the first thing i'll keep in mind for all of this is that [39:32] there's no permanence to anything in this environment right we've had to change many times not just i spend a lot [39:38] of my time on the board in the budget arena and not as much in the teaching and learning to be honest so [39:43] and i have younger kids i don't have kids in middle school or high school yet so i try to listen to what the nurses [39:48] are saying i know at the elementary level but what the teaching and the nursing staff is saying and what they're experiencing and what the [39:54] administration is trying to get done so keeping kids in five days a week is the absolute imperative we're all in [40:00] agreement of that there's been no discussion otherwise i think that we're looking at a 30-day period and so [40:06] if you're saying k-8 is mandatory masking to begin with and that's very smart i think that [40:12] uh and dr stanley i was able to get this information earlier just this afternoon and a flyby about some of the new [40:17] numbers and being closer to 90 being closer to 73 at first for me hit me as well is that [40:24] statistically significant as a difference or is it not because numerically it's big but i'm not sure [40:29] it's that big a difference but really thinking through and listening to not just the analogies and metaphors [40:35] around swiss cheese and other mitigation strategies but the pass down from high school to middle school and elementary [40:41] of the virus right now it's it is pretty serious what's happening in austin texas is very serious that is with little kids [40:46] through 12th grade and what's happening in albuquerque where they're flying patients in because icus are filled in the neighboring states is very serious [40:53] so if our goal is to keep kids in five days a week to have a piece of paper or cloth over [40:58] their face for the first 30 days and as we said we're going to look september 13th and reevaluating it [41:04] i thing makes a lot of sense now again i'm not disagreeing with the administration's recommendation i think that it was thoughtful and it was done [41:10] under certain terms but my suggestion or my lien would be [41:16] to start out again in phase one as dr stanley put it with a um [41:21] a masking requirement from kindergarten 12th grade because i think that the risk reward [41:26] dynamic for 15 to 18 year olds while i do want to empower them to have their own choice and voice [41:32] is for the betterment of all kindergarten 12th graders so [41:38] there's there's definitely if you look at the numbers from the feedback from last week and [41:43] otherwise there's definitely a stronger support for masking versus not for vaccinations versus not but i do believe that every family should have the right [41:50] to choose at certain levels but my gut myelin at this point in time is to require k through 12 masking and [41:56] otherwise i'm fully integrating with the plan and i know we do have another week to see whether that's one shot or two shots or what the [42:02] numbers look like and i know we've talked about dr stanley you've you've wanted to support bringing more vaccination clinics in we discussed that [42:10] and one other comment too to the earlier discussion about the rapid testing so we [42:15] did run the test the nest program this last year right and there was a lot of help from [42:20] the physicians that are in the room as well as community members and it was a challenge to get the funding to do that strategy right [42:27] so looking at what the state's offering if we can do that we absolutely will and i know that the incident response team [42:33] is uh there was a dance if he couldn't see that um is the incident response team instant command team is continuing to follow [42:39] what's happening closely and dr stan has continued to engage them actively so that'll be obviously something that [42:44] we'll continue to work on in in finance and otherwise to see if there is resource to do that because the goal [42:50] again is to reduce or eliminate quarantines that are necessary and testing helps and i believe the strongly [42:56] that it helped in the spring i believe strongly that when you had to take 20 kids and instead send them all [43:02] home you were able to do the pooling that we did i think that kept kids in school and can't calculate the hours [43:07] because there's no statistical way to do that other than guesses but testing helps and i think these mitigation strategies on a short-term [43:13] basis to begin with makes sense so everyone knows i tend to be more long-winded than money but uh generally [43:20] i think said the same thing in about 5000 more words so thank you thanks spot julie [43:29] um so you want overall overall feedback of the plan right yup um so i'm going to go [43:35] through and just give the feedback of things that because i i know masking is one piece of this but there's a lot of [43:41] other really good things in this plan that i want to address um one is i really like that um this [43:48] plan lays out that we're going to look at elements of it in september and october so i really appreciate that i [43:54] think that's really good the other thing is i think under teaching and learning [44:00] plc i think the learning from 2020 and applying it here and how that will play forward for all of our students and [44:06] supporting our students i loved seeing that that that is i love the um the community the professional [44:13] learning community playbook i thought that was that's just really good really strong for um site leadership so i know that's [44:20] a lot of the principal work so that's awesome the assessment plan i thought was excellent we kind of barely went over [44:26] that but i love coming into the gate and really assessing where our kids are and where their needs are [44:32] just i really think it's really laid out it's very clear i believe that [44:38] this will be a great playbook for teachers and as we move forward in the school year to make up [44:44] some stuff that could could be missed from obviously missed over the last [44:49] year just with the situation um the other thing i loved and that i saw [44:56] in here was the mental health support and i know jeff jorgensen and his team has been [45:02] working hard on that everyone who's donated to the ed fund and that support that has been a huge [45:07] effort to get another fte i love seeing that in the panoramic partnership and the survey that came back as a baseline [45:14] for that i think that's our mental health support for kids and the whole student support is with our [45:19] strategic plan but also everyone in this community wants to support that coed has taken a hit there [45:26] the other thing that i saw in here that i thought was fantastic was student voice and i want to give a shout out to [45:32] katie sonja rhea and meredith who came up with the plan in terms of how to build social connections i thought that [45:38] was awesome to see and now my questions um so i want to talk about quarantine first [45:46] before i go into my thoughts on on masking um so i've i've two things [45:52] one is in the event of a quarantine what is expected [45:58] from this teachers like how does that work what does that look like so if you have [46:04] a student who is quarantined for two weeks is that student getting piped into the classroom or is it treated kind of like [46:12] pre-coveted that if they were home and out they would have the assignments and do it that way i would love some [46:18] clarification on or if you are still working through that at this different site levels i know it looks very different i would imagine [46:24] for elementary than it would for middle and for high school but or do we need to provide more support [46:30] for teachers um or more support for students [46:35] so that the teachers can be focused on the kids that are in the classroom like what that split is so that's my first [46:40] question i was looking over it jody [46:47] i was going to look at jody as well to see if i should answer [46:54] each building is working with leadership teams on quarantine plans within their buildings and are definitely working to [47:00] provide opportunities for students to continue the learning while they're at home [47:06] with that limited stress on the classroom of students that are still engaging in the learning [47:12] but i would say at this point that teams are still in process and determining what those best plans will be and also [47:17] taking the learning from last year and what worked with buildings and with teams [47:25] okay that's helpful i think i think from a feedback standpoint i want to make sure that we're being [47:30] consistent so a student at normandale and a student at countryside should get similar support whatever that looks like [47:37] i know that you know there are so many different factors that went into last year and um [47:43] delivering delivering content and for different reasons some teachers [47:50] were able to bring their kids in and that could there's a multitude of reasons that that could have happened um but i think the consistency piece [47:56] for students teachers and our community so everyone just knows this is what it looks like i think is super important so that's [48:03] great um that you guys are working through that um the other thing with quarantine so [48:09] i i think this the quarantine protocol chart that was put together was really [48:14] good i would like to go a little bit more in because [48:20] there are some things that are missing so for example um if a student [48:26] doesn't have coveted symptoms but has an exposure what does that look like is that a rapid test in the nurse's [48:32] office if they were masked they wouldn't have to quarantine but i i [48:38] think there's just a little bit more to explaining [48:45] the different scenarios to give more guard rails for our health services staff [48:50] and the community and this again goes to consistency too right and what can we do [48:56] as a district to support that so that everybody kind of knows this is this is the deal um [49:04] i would love to see a little bit more um just because i looked on here and it's you [49:09] know what if somebody tested for kovid or had covered three months ago right and they're at 100 days [49:15] out and they're still testing positive do we give any is that a one-on-one case basis so that [49:21] kind of stuff and i think we need to work through i'm not the expert on that at all but i just know that this is the [49:27] source of stress for families and for staff and for students for the board for the [49:32] administrators so i just want to make sure we get this right and we have a really good um really really strong [49:37] guard rails up so whatever we need to do there um i think for masking um you know [49:46] looking at the number the original number of looking at 90 of students at [49:51] the high school being vaccine which is originally what this was based on was to me [49:56] like wow that is a very high number for a threshold that [50:02] you could very i very well could see how you would pull mass because we have we have done what we needed to do [50:09] to really bring down the thread of covid that number going down and not being at [50:16] that number gives me a moment to pause i think there's a little bit more there's more information that i [50:22] need before i can make a informed decision one of them is being what is mshl doing what is the minnesota state [50:29] high school league doing you know they make their own policy decisions [50:34] the board does not make those decisions so how does that impact you know i don't [50:40] know what our neighboring schools do that we're going to be playing basketball football all those guys are doing in [50:46] especially the fall sports looking at phase one i think that actually impacts things um [50:54] so i don't know what the mshl plans are but that would be something i think we [50:59] should consider so [51:05] i can just say right now that um troy stein he was he was in a meeting for minnesota high school sports league [51:11] last week and they do not have key information for us yet yeah okay [51:16] and i think that that plays into it we don't know so um and i'm looking over it andy i know [51:22] i would love to hear your thoughts on it you're the one in the building um but [51:28] i think i think reality of um high school students wearing the mask [51:35] and complying is also a challenge especially with vaccination when they've been told [51:40] vaccination you know if you're vaccinated you have to wear a mask so i think there's going to be at [51:45] least i think it would be hard to implement that rule and then is it [51:51] is it worth it to do it then if we have kids that aren't following the rule um i know it's i know it's it's [51:58] it's there's no um clear path but i would love to hear andy thoughts on [52:04] come on up andy yeah it's like the price is right i mean you're in the school with the kids and [52:10] what are your thoughts on this dr stanley jerillenberg members of the [52:15] board director green thanks for the invitation to come forward um i think when we [52:20] initially were having this conversation about the high school it was because we i think the incentive was you know if [52:27] our kids are getting vaccinated in mass when we were looking at the clinic that we did last year that was very popular [52:34] and and well received and our our kids really wanted to have that opportunity because they were seeing [52:40] uh the opportunity to avoid quarantine if they had a close contact and they wanted to stay on their sports teams and [52:45] things like that so when we were seeing those numbers really high i think we were having discussions about [52:51] the high schools that we wanted to have that carrot for them by doing the right thing and and following those guidelines [52:57] to be able to get vaccinated they have the opportunity and obviously high school students [53:02] have the eligibility and the opportunity to get vaccinated where elementary students do not [53:08] i want to clarify the 73 percent that number that came out today that is the number of students that are fully [53:14] vaccinated at edina high school of our student population right now i don't have the number of the partial but the [53:21] 73 percent is fully vaccinated so and we are offering a clinic uh [53:27] vaccine clinic again on the 26th and get connected day whatever the decision is tonight and i i [53:32] i want to say our kids um at eden high school are amazing if we tell them that we have a mask mandate they'll do it [53:39] they'll do it they want to be happy with it but they'll do it but i also think that it's [53:45] important that we incentivize our students to keep going forward to have the opportunities to have more [53:50] freedom more sense of normalcy in school have the opportunities to go to those big sporting events and things like that [53:56] and in mass and so any way we can try to incentivize that whether that's through vaccination or masking or whatever that [54:01] might be i'm all in favor of doing that thank you that's super helpful [54:07] so thanks thanks thank you helen [54:15] well first i want to fully appreciate the work that's gone into this plan and i want to [54:23] support the efforts to get our children back into the school five days a week [54:30] this is something that our district has embraced and i want to do everything that i can as a board member to make [54:37] sure that our kids are in school five days a week by providing a healthy [54:44] learning environment i agree with the district [54:49] supporting the model of learning that does not have the teachers teaching both in class and online [54:55] i fully appreciate the improvements in ventilation including the hepa filters in all classrooms [55:01] and the focus on using data not only in the creation of a dashboard that monitors covid prevalence in our schools [55:08] but that will also give us [55:13] assessments early in the fall so that we know where our resources need to be spent and that we can [55:20] identify all students and their needs [55:27] the minnesota department of health the center of disease control in the american academy of pediatrics and the [55:33] minnesota medical association have all recommended getting our students [55:38] back in classroom full-time they also recommend requiring that everyone [55:44] in k-12 wear masks [55:50] my role and my goal as a board member is to do all i can to ensure our students both short and long-term well-being in [55:57] the short term that means providing an environment that is as safe as possible [56:02] using all measures are the recommended measures to mitigate the sped spread of coven 19 [56:09] in the long term in addition to preserving our students and staff's health means getting them back in the [56:14] classroom so that their in-person education can resume unimpeded [56:20] therefore i would like to see this document changed to require masks on all k-12 students [56:27] and all staff so that's the answer to your first [56:33] question erica the next is my questions [56:41] so we are aware of the importance of our teachers and they truly are our front line workers [56:48] i'm concerned about their health and our ability to keep our schools open so i'm wondering [56:56] if the district has considered requiring staff to either be vaccinated or be tested for covid once a week [57:07] thanks for that question i was on a webinar with the commissioner of [57:13] education and that question was posed to her related to the requirement of vaccinations and what she explained is [57:19] because the vaccines have not been formally approved by the fda they are not at the [57:28] state level approving it like all like the other immunities are requiring it like the other immunizations that we [57:34] have for students to be um to be vaccinated i do realize that there [57:39] are other industries that have moved in that direction and even some higher ed [57:44] um schools in that direction that is not something that we have discussed for [57:50] requiring teachers to be vaccinated to move forward [57:57] as far as the testing we are looking into testing we are working with minnesota [58:03] department of education um right now what [58:08] what they've put on the table is is similar to what it was last spring where it was the option to be tested every [58:15] other week we have not talked about additional testing or the requirement of testing [58:22] because we need to have a way to monitor whether or not a person was vaccinated [58:28] and at this point they would have to declare that they are not vaccinated in order [58:33] for us to move forward with that i'm not saying that would be completely off the table it would definitely be some work [58:39] that we'd have to do to look at okay appreciate that question yeah thank you for that answer um [58:46] i would be interested in in my question did not [58:51] um suggest that i i would require all teachers to be vaccinated but that there [58:56] would be an option for either being vaccinated or being tested once a [59:02] week and i would propose that the district look into that in order [59:07] both for the health of our community and the health of our learning environments [59:12] but also so that we can make sure that we are able to keep our schools open [59:20] so um so that would be my one of my other questions my [59:26] i've always been interested in ventilation and i wanted to hear whether [59:31] or not um and i've heard that our we have hepa filters in our classrooms but i'm wondering if [59:38] you could tell me if they are in all rooms for example band rooms or other [59:45] rooms where students are gathering cafeterias for example [59:56] i don't know if i can answer all those questions but when i talked to eric [1:00:02] hamilton about it he had indicated that they were in all classrooms and in the nursing offices i [1:00:09] don't know if any of our principals are able to [1:00:23] are they in the cafeteria do we know if they're in cafeteria i'm thinking about where students are [1:00:30] potentially going to be gathering or and especially gathering without their masks on [1:00:39] i don't i don't know if they're in the cafeteria but we do have i mean the cafeteria is [1:00:45] well ventilated through our building ventilation system so i think the idea of hepa filters is to put them into [1:00:52] the classrooms where students are more concentrated in terms of space i don't know karen if you want to add to that [1:00:58] and really fast for people that aren't here in the room dr dalqvist of creek valley verified that the hippo filters [1:01:05] are in all regular classrooms and specialist rooms i just wanted to make sure that people watching online could hear and so [1:01:12] and band and choir rooms are regular classrooms okay super so and that that really has been a great [1:01:19] improvement and i know that the district has been working on improving their [1:01:26] air circulation and other in our all of our facilities [1:01:33] but speaking of that and i'm just wondering if you could describe or have a elementary school [1:01:41] principle describe the differences between lunch [1:01:47] last year and what is being proposed in this document this year [1:02:01] good evening all karen bergman principal at countryside superintendent stanley and board chair [1:02:07] allen berg it's nice to be here with you um we actually are randy and i have been [1:02:12] talking about this quite a bit over the last couple of days just knowing that there's kind of layers of decision [1:02:17] making that were that we're handling right now some of the discussions that you're [1:02:23] having tonight will guide us in what are those next questions and answers we're going to be providing [1:02:28] lunchroom how kids eat where kids eat is one of those that we actually as an elementary [1:02:35] principal team struggled with quite a bit last year a piece to that comes from the fact that [1:02:41] each one of our buildings is situated in a little bit different way with our lunchroom [1:02:48] how many kids can it comfortably fit in what would be a typical time [1:02:54] how do we schedule that lunchroom what is the classroom situation like [1:03:00] when we first started doing planning a year ago we were going to be eating in the classrooms and [1:03:06] i will tell you that our teachers were in full-on panic about that we were we were asking them to be in [1:03:12] classrooms with up to well in my building 31 students in in some of those [1:03:17] rooms and we're asking them to supervise students with all of those masks off and they're eating and the room [1:03:24] is a regular size classroom in their minds and really when you think [1:03:29] about it the opportunity to use a larger space one that is incredibly well ventilated as is [1:03:37] our cafeterias and being able to assign student spaces [1:03:44] places where they would be eating and also being able to spread them out in a considerably larger place [1:03:51] those kinds of things are the are the decisions or the different questions that we were asking [1:03:57] each other as far as what it what is your building schedule allow [1:04:03] at countryside i can tell you that we scheduled our our students for lunch in [1:04:08] the cafeteria we were able to spread out lunches in a way that i had no more than one great [1:04:15] level of students in that in that space they were further apart they were [1:04:20] probably about three or four times further apart than they would be if they were sitting in their classrooms [1:04:26] this far away from somebody as they were eating those kinds of considerations and our [1:04:32] ability to have staff in there supporting them not going through the lunch line as [1:04:39] their plate is being fixed but serving them in the what do they call those [1:04:46] clam shell containers or in a as a as a bag option those kinds of things allowed us to [1:04:53] cut down on the possibilities of kids being up and about and and in you know [1:04:58] different configurations in that cafeteria setting so those were some of the conversations [1:05:05] that we had in each building and again um it it kind of depended too on what [1:05:11] was your your specific building's configuration at concord we have five classrooms um in [1:05:19] each one of those grade level teams their scheduling of their putting students into the cafeteria [1:05:26] looked different than it did at countryside where i had three sections of each grade level [1:05:31] during each time so were like i said it's all coming in layers once we know and have the direction uh [1:05:39] from you on some of those bigger decisions then those next layers will be talked about [1:05:45] in a way of uh where were we last year and what did that look like and [1:05:51] how has that particular part of the day changed and how will we move forward moving [1:05:56] in in that part of the decision from there i i can tell you that our our teachers [1:06:04] and our staff felt very comfortable knowing that we had that option of using that larger space especially when we [1:06:11] knew kids would be without a mask for that short period of time does that answer your question yeah it [1:06:17] really does thank you um i think that that is we have received letters about lunch [1:06:25] and lunch is that one time when you're in a school building [1:06:30] without your mask on and um and to [1:06:35] to be in a room where there are there is mixing of cohorts so you you [1:06:44] start saying you know what what are those mitigation levels or layers and so already [1:06:52] you you start going to are we doing cohorting are we [1:06:57] keeping our masks on and i i just am [1:07:03] watching the district closely on how they're proposing to manage those types of things i [1:07:11] personally i've always wondered why we haven't decided to go outside for [1:07:16] lunch so we do have some classes that will that will do that i know what highlands they're [1:07:22] they're outside every day all day all day yeah one one of the things too that is a [1:07:29] consideration is what you know now that we've had kids in this space [1:07:34] how are we able to um provide cleaning protocols to make sure that we've done [1:07:40] our very best to make sure that that next group that comes in or that next child who sits at that that place [1:07:47] is safe while they're there our ability to do that in a more consistent way and to have staff [1:07:55] concentrated in that lunchroom was really to our benefit in many cases [1:08:00] in a classroom having our custodial staff or our paraprofessional staff moving from one classroom to the next [1:08:08] and oh by the way could you guys just hold those kids outside for 10 more minutes because our cleaning schedule got [1:08:13] got behind and you know all of those all of those um kind of logistics to the day [1:08:19] um allowed us in that lunchroom a little bit more ability to [1:08:24] confirm that those things that we know needed to happen were truly happening okay well thank you um [1:08:31] so in so as i'm processing all of this and i'm watching the head shaking of the um [1:08:38] specialist what i um what i just wanted to reiterate is that i do think that [1:08:46] our schools should encourage eating outside whenever possible and make it be like [1:08:53] the default is if if it can't happen then it's inside that would be my [1:08:58] recommendation and that's all that i have thank you um before you leave could you clarify [1:09:03] will students have assigned seating at lunch um yes we did um will they next year have [1:09:10] assigned seating that's one of the things across all schools yep if um if there were to [1:09:17] be a positive case or an exposure of some kind it was easy enough for us to go back to the [1:09:23] classroom teacher and say okay tell me where this student was sitting and you know then who is who is in close [1:09:30] proximity um one of the other things that that a number of the buildings had done was to [1:09:37] we've got benches on both sides of the lunch tables we basically put up the benches [1:09:42] on the one side and everybody from your class faced faced one way and then we had spots [1:09:49] where where kids could sit so that we were maintaining that distance between them and we were [1:09:55] maintaining the different distance between where this grow of tables were [1:10:01] compared to that next row so it it rather than being in the classroom and being so close in proximity we had [1:10:08] that that ability to kind of measure out how far can we get these kiddos apart and um [1:10:14] i you might not know the answer to this but at south view and valley view will they have assigned seating i don't [1:10:20] execute that if you would like us to execute that okay [1:10:26] i personally would because i think that if you're going to ask students to mask all day [1:10:32] and then have them mingle all through lunch and not to be able to contact trace it [1:10:37] just increases the risk of having to send home 75 kids because we [1:10:44] don't know who they had lunch next grace [1:10:57] we can get that um out so or that maybe that's something that's looked into after 30 days but that that would be my [1:11:03] preference erica can i just can i interject on that sorry did i scare you [1:11:10] just the voice up here um uh the secondary and i think that was probably dr anderson that i heard [1:11:16] talking but i thought that we at the secondary that we were using the qr code so that the [1:11:22] kids could scan where they're sitting as opposed to doing a science meeting is that not the case valley view had [1:11:28] assigned seating i'm not sure about south view but i know valley of you had assigned seating [1:11:35] okay well i guess it would be a question would be what and at the high school what i thought the high school was qr [1:11:41] codes too so i appreciate the question this is an example of what principal bergman was talking about in terms of [1:11:48] the layers that we have to unpack with each decision that we make so last year the high school in southie [1:11:53] made the decision to do qr codes and after one week we felt like oh this is promising using technology to [1:12:01] to set us up for effective contact tracing what we found at the end of two weeks however was that [1:12:07] a it was a management challenge not every child was an expert at accurately [1:12:12] logging the information per the qr code two it was a management challenge because devices are not allowed build a [1:12:18] bell at the middle level for example and this led to blurring of the lines of of clarity for kids so devices were out [1:12:26] longer than they should have been and upon examining those spreadsheets [1:12:31] not the information we couldn't always rely on how seriously kids took the the [1:12:37] care and responding to those questions and so we found that just in contact racing it was just as effective if not [1:12:43] more so to interview the kids at the table who were sitting with as a part of our contact racing while that sounds [1:12:50] more labor intensive than a technology accelerant like qr codes and actually in practice was just as if not more [1:12:56] effective so the high school went away from qr codes and just went to contact racing kind of in a [1:13:03] more labor-intensive way and had we known that the high school had made that decision earlier we probably would have made the same decision [1:13:09] so balancing that with the social emotional needs of when kids can talk to each other at lunch [1:13:15] pre-slugging a seating chart led to lots of dissatisfaction from families and [1:13:21] students if i was seated in a place where i didn't know my colleagues at the table [1:13:28] and this had quite a profound effect i mean community conversations were going on about this very thing so we'd want to [1:13:33] take really great care on what we would do for a seating chart and get settled into that it would be [1:13:38] developed in the first two weeks how we would do that but we can execute that but we're confident we can contact trace [1:13:45] lunchrooms especially since we're using bigger spaces for lunchrooms again like last year so that's not different from [1:13:51] last year because it is a safer way to make it more likely to keep kids in [1:13:57] school i think it's worthwhile to have a discussion about [1:14:03] i mean i've even thought of things that it's an opt-in for families that want their kids [1:14:08] seated in an area you can eat outside or come into this so i i think that we need to have further [1:14:14] discussion on that point you know that is something that we can definitely look at as a matter of fact [1:14:20] all principles are coming together tomorrow afternoon so we can look at that and [1:14:25] get into the details and then update that information in preparation for tuesday [1:14:31] thank you um owen sure [1:14:36] thank you erica like this format um can you all hear me well [1:14:42] yes thank you okay good good good uh the first thing i'd like to say is i [1:14:48] am excited that uh we've got hepa filters uh throughout the district that's going to [1:14:56] serve the kids health well the teachers health well and increase community confidence [1:15:02] in our mitigation plans the second thing is i'm excited that [1:15:08] we've got fast bridge tests coming up in september [1:15:13] right away to get on top of our literacy assessment the next is in the same vein i am very [1:15:20] excited that we've got map testing uh scheduled for the fall and so put the [1:15:25] dipstick in find out where the kids are i hope we can do that in the spring too so um i'm real excited about that [1:15:32] development the thing that i'm most excited about far and away is the fact that we've got [1:15:37] our kids coming back five days a week fully uh face-to-face um [1:15:44] that to put everything in perspective that will matter so much emotionally and [1:15:50] pedagogically for our kids and i i think that's something to celebrate [1:15:55] so i really want to emphasize that then continuing on with this i'm glad [1:16:01] that we have the high school in um [1:16:06] uh masking optional and let the families decide what the students decide and as dr beaton just [1:16:13] mentioned a few moments ago that it reinforces vaccination and it rewards vaccination on provacs [1:16:21] so i'm excited about that you can probably infer that [1:16:29] i wish that we had masking optional for k through [1:16:35] eight i think that that promotes more of a natural school environment [1:16:41] it promotes more of a natural emotional development for the kids [1:16:50] so i that's why i'm in favor of making it optional and letting the families [1:16:56] make that risk management assessment decision themselves [1:17:02] transmission rates have been low for the kids a lot of the adults are are vaccinated [1:17:09] the teachers the high vaccination rate among the teachers many local school districts are doing [1:17:15] going optional k through 12. the wall street journal had an article yesterday [1:17:21] talking about the low hospitalization rates for kids across the country it's 250 [1:17:27] for covet and many of them covet is a comorbidity there's other [1:17:32] issues involved as well so and beyond that the evidence of masking is not real strong the cdc fauci has [1:17:40] reversed himself foster home seems to be equivocating on uh cloth masks and bandanas and so [1:17:48] um the science behind it doesn't really seem real strong [1:17:53] but so since we have decided as as a district here that we will be masking or [1:18:01] option a mandatory masking from k through uh eight in that context i'm very glad that we [1:18:09] have clear face shields for some of the sensitive [1:18:15] phonemic awareness training for some of the language classes i think that's fantastic uh we [1:18:21] have a high vaccination rate among the teachers um [1:18:27] i'm grateful that we are going to be checking in on this at a regular [1:18:33] interval on a one-month interval and we're going to see what the vaccination rates are like what the [1:18:40] transmission rates are like what the hospitalization rates are like like and we're going to be meeting in about a [1:18:45] month to confer about this again so i'm glad that we are not setting this in stone for the rest [1:18:51] of the fall but we're going to be sensitive to it um i like the fact that we're relaxing [1:18:57] quarantining standards um it it was onerous on many of the families many of the students last year [1:19:03] so i'm very glad to see uh that we're moving in that direction [1:19:09] and i i'm glad that we have a backup for families that may not feel comfortable [1:19:15] say with um full face with man optional masking in high school [1:19:22] and that we have our virtual academy that can be a fallback for those families [1:19:27] so those are my thoughts um and i don't have any questions at this point [1:19:32] thank you owen janey yeah although the nice thing about going last is um [1:19:39] you guys actually talked about a couple of things that i was going to ask questions about so thank you um i am [1:19:44] going to just start with a couple points on the plan that i want to say i more than appreciate all the work that went into this it's very clear the amount of [1:19:52] time and effort that was put into this and the priority being getting our kids back in school five days a week and [1:19:58] keeping them there in the classroom so i appreciate that i appreciate the phased approach and as [1:20:03] matt alluded to that there's really no finality in any decision and that these will be re will be reassessed at regular [1:20:11] intervals and so i appreciate that i'm going to echo what julie said that i think they're [1:20:16] i appreciate the intentionality that we have laid out behind assessing what unfinished learning our students have [1:20:22] and i really look forward to getting that piece started and um [1:20:27] really working on that i'm sorry there's a barking dog the next piece would be the social [1:20:33] emotional learning piece that was laid out i think putting together strategies for [1:20:38] engagement and connectedness for our students is a huge part of getting everybody back and everybody [1:20:44] in class and in person learning and i very much appreciate that and i look forward to hearing more about how [1:20:52] about what that looks like at the high school as these kids really haven't had any sort of central [1:20:59] connectedness point give me one second i'm just going to open the door and let the dog out [1:21:11] i feel like we're like this close to landing [1:21:18] i'm really sorry about that um at the exact moment they decided to [1:21:24] start parking um i would uh like to say and i know it's [1:21:29] been mentioned before i would like to see how we can utilize testing as a [1:21:34] bigger piece of the foundation to this plan i know that testing has been mentioned many times in [1:21:41] all of the recommendations from the cdc and the mdh as being a part of our mitigation strategies and knowing [1:21:47] that we have some experience where other schools don't and i'm not recommending bringing [1:21:52] back test the nest with pool testing so i want people to hear that loud and clear but the rapid testing and what [1:21:58] that can bring to decisions within our school and opportunities for our students to [1:22:04] continue their learning in school i see great benefit in that so i would really like to have us look into [1:22:11] beefing that part of the plant up and having it be a stronger part of the foundation of the plan [1:22:16] um so i guess that kind of leads to um my [1:22:22] feelings on unmasking hang on now i'm gonna close the window because people decided to talk [1:22:29] um i've heard what everybody has said at um about the high school and i [1:22:36] 100 have to keep reminding myself that my priority is having kids in the classroom learning as much as [1:22:43] possible and eliminating disruptions to their time in the classroom [1:22:48] that being said i i haven't heard clear enough evidence [1:22:55] to support an optional masking role i think as a school board member i don't have a [1:23:03] public health background i don't have a medical background therefore my decisions need to really be based on what i hear [1:23:10] from those people whose job it is to know this stuff i'm not i i can't look at opinion pieces i have [1:23:18] to look at what science tells us and what medical studies tell us and those recommendations are clear right now but [1:23:24] it's k-12 and so i am requesting as i think a couple of the board members have [1:23:31] that we re-evaluate that not because i want our kids to wear masks i want to say that loud and clear i that is not [1:23:38] something that would make me happy it doesn't make me happy to wear a mask it doesn't make any of us happy to wear a mask but if that at the end of the day [1:23:45] keeps the most number of kids in school for the longest amount of time without disruption [1:23:51] that to me seems like a simple step that we can take and i know our students that's their primary goal is to be in [1:23:57] school that's their primary goal to not have to miss football games or things like that because of [1:24:02] exposures or quarantine so i will reiterate my request that that be looked at again is the high school masking [1:24:10] mandate versus a optional guideline did you have any questions janie [1:24:17] you know what i um i didn't i will say i had asked a question before about contact tracing [1:24:23] and i'll circle back and say one of the things i was running especially for our elementary and our middle schoolers who [1:24:29] are going to be wearing masks if a positive case is identified and say my [1:24:34] son ends up being a close contact even though he was masked and the child with [1:24:39] coped was masked i wanted to make sure that we were going to be notifying those contacts even though we weren't going to be quarantining them and i have been [1:24:46] assured stacey had told me that yes we would be notifying families if they need to take precautions if they need to be [1:24:51] watching their kids for symptoms or if they have a vulnerable adult in their household too so i did want to mention [1:24:56] that in case somebody else had that same question but that all of my other questions have been answered so thank you thank you [1:25:03] you actually don't get to go last i get to go last so just uh just so you know i forgot about that [1:25:10] erica you forgot about [1:25:16] so um so again luckily every a lot of people have [1:25:22] said um things that i was concerned about overall i think the plan is [1:25:29] very solid i think it's detail-oriented i [1:25:34] won't go into all the things that i appreciate but really quickly i do appreciate the focus on the testing [1:25:40] and trying to assess where our students are from an academic perspective i think that's crucial [1:25:49] i um i guess i'll just launch into from a [1:25:54] masking perspective i fully support the k through eight i um [1:25:59] i'm struggling with the high school it's not a matter of uh i [1:26:05] clearly take covet very seriously i'm struggling with the balance between [1:26:12] the real public health medical [1:26:18] benefits of masking with the real mental health issues that are going on at our [1:26:24] secondary level and the need our students have to have a feeling of normalcy in their life [1:26:33] i look at our vaccination rates in secondary i look at the coveted rates in our community um [1:26:40] i personally would rather err on the side at this point of [1:26:46] knowing i mean all of this could change in two days of having masking at the high school be optional because [1:26:55] i think that if we see that there are outbreaks or something is [1:27:00] causing infection students in high school are causing infections to students in the other [1:27:08] school system to me that's an immediate sign that we need to mask up k to 12 or e to 12. [1:27:16] um but for me the benefit that we give to these students to even starting out the [1:27:22] year um quote unquote normal i think is huge [1:27:28] um again knowing that this is this could change [1:27:34] at any moment if we see the need to change it i think there's also part of it is the reality of the life of [1:27:41] a high school student that we can mask them all day at high school they don't mask on their [1:27:47] own they go and do things on their own they play sports um [1:27:52] i just this this one i'm just i'll just be honest i'm really struggling with um [1:27:59] i would like to know how successful our vaccine clinics are that we have at the high school i don't know if there's [1:28:06] if we have some sort of incentive to back that if we get to a certain threshold at the high school that means that we [1:28:12] don't have to have masks i don't i don't know [1:28:18] i just again i i struggle and again no one predicted there would be the delta variant this [1:28:24] last spring so i know things have changed i just struggle with the fact that [1:28:29] these kids have done everything that we've asked of them all of these students have done everything we've asked of them they're [1:28:34] getting the brunt of this horrible situation that they're in and [1:28:40] um if we could give them uh some side sign of normalcy um [1:28:46] i'm for that knowing that we might have to switch it at some point [1:28:52] from a question perspective my main questions which i appreciate the fact ellen asked a couple of them and some [1:28:58] other people did as well was my other big concern was lunch [1:29:04] and so that was to me the big hole in the plan for me was [1:29:11] lunch at the primary level and the middle school level [1:29:17] and then i agree that i would like to see if there's some way that we can utilize rapid testing [1:29:25] um i don't know if it's some sort of community partnership but i um i really believe in the health equity [1:29:31] aspect of it but also the ability for us to not send kids home if they have seasonal [1:29:38] allergies and we're concerned that they have coveted um so i would like us to look into that [1:29:43] those are my i think those are those are all of my points [1:29:49] um yes erica can i ask a follow-up question [1:29:54] to that yes so i echo a lot of what you said but here's [1:30:00] where i got hooked up and where i'm struggling and maybe i need clarification with it so at the high [1:30:07] schools if mary decides not to wear a mask and mary like [1:30:13] you said is a high school student and is out and about and we can't control [1:30:19] you know what exposure mary might have and say she comes she contracts cobia if [1:30:26] she's sitting next to johnny who is wearing a mask who opted to wear a mask and [1:30:32] she is positive but johnny has decided to wear a mask [1:30:37] then does johnny have to be quarantined right so it's her choice that's for the optional piece that i'm struggling right [1:30:44] so so if johnny's not vaccinated because he has an immunocompromised [1:30:52] system he can't be vaccinated how is that optional for him to then [1:30:58] have to miss school so that am i missing something in the decision tree that that's [1:31:04] not how it would work because that's i hear exactly what you're saying but i'm struggling with this piece of it [1:31:09] from an for people that are immunocompromised or just people that have chosen not to vaccinate in general [1:31:17] because the way i read the way i read the that was actually the [1:31:22] i i can't necessarily speak to the decision tree from the perspective of people that are immunocompromised but [1:31:28] from my perspective that was actually the plus of the decision tree was that there are so [1:31:34] many students at the high school that are vaccinated that if you are vaccinated you don't have to [1:31:40] quarantine so even if susie comes to school and has and doesn't isn't [1:31:45] vaccinated and doesn't wear a mask if if she sits next to stanley who is vaccinated he doesn't [1:31:53] have to quarantine and so if we're 73 [1:31:59] vaccinated that leaves a population of 20 some percent of students [1:32:05] and i struggle what i struggle with is that is how do we [1:32:10] how do we err on the side of the 75 of students that are doing everything we've asked them to do [1:32:16] and then we have absolutely you know yeah i absolutely agree with you absolutely but i i [1:32:24] i don't know enough about the decision tree and maybe someone here if there are students that are immunocompromised and they can't get [1:32:31] vaccinated then i'm sure you're right janie that there are situations where [1:32:36] if they can't get vaccinated they're wearing a mask but susie isn't wearing a mask that student i assume would have to [1:32:43] quarantine [1:32:49] what yeah i should get tattooed on my body i know it's so well now hi so [1:32:57] at this time the current decision tree that is out from the minnesota department of health from may of this year um doesn't discriminate between [1:33:04] immuno-compromised or whatever it's vaccinated unvaccinated bottom line um [1:33:10] and so that's that's where we're at the decision yeah yep thank you yeah yeah [1:33:16] thank you one more comment yeah absolutely just one more thought [1:33:22] again i'm playing a doctor on tv but the the one issue that didn't come up at all [1:33:28] from medical perspective that does worry me that i was waiting to see if anybody raised is [1:33:34] there is real evidence now that people that are vaccinated are still able to carry and transmit the virus and that's [1:33:39] new with the delta virus and that hasn't been mentioned tonight so i thought that'd be remiss to not comment on it so [1:33:45] one of the questions is when you look at an issue and i respect what principal beaton said that if the students are [1:33:51] asked to do it they'll do it and and i love reward systems that reward people i mean otherwise it's a joke right so if [1:33:58] we're incentivizing students to get vaccinated they have more freedom and choice we want to follow through with that but the landscape keeps changing [1:34:05] which is why i think it's smart to do a 30-day phase one and when things are more dangerous than [1:34:10] not it's better to be more restrictive than not in my personal opinion and just i wanted to raise the idea that [1:34:17] somebody can be carrying the virus be asymptomatic have gotten vaccinated not [1:34:23] get to moderate or severe or even critical status and still transmit to others regardless of masking or [1:34:29] compromising compromise status so because things are moving so much i'd [1:34:35] much rather see us get a little more data get another month out know what's happening in the high school see what the rates are get the kids in [1:34:41] five days a week not have the over complicated decision trees and then from there we alleviate some of the stress [1:34:47] and burden that gets normalcy back but just just wanted to mention that [1:34:52] factor about the transmissibility even if you're fully vaccinated which does protect you but not others i think that [1:34:58] is i know we're all processing a lot in real time but that's um that that's a serious factor to consider [1:35:09] you know i was just going to note that it to me it seems the consensus is k-12 masking [1:35:14] but that's what the majority of the board is is stating tonight [1:35:22] stated i would say it's a majority not a consensus so a majority okay a majority [1:35:33] can i make two comments um one is one thing that we didn't um [1:35:39] address that and i this is out of my um expertise very far out but the recommendations [1:35:47] from mdh and cdc and aap right is [1:35:52] it feels like that was a blanket recommendation for the country right and so i i'm trying to get my head around [1:35:59] locally what those numbers are and what those thresholds are i don't have the [1:36:04] answer to that but like that would be something i think we look at we really looked at all that data last year that [1:36:10] drove a lot of our decision making i think that's the piece that i'm struggling with because [1:36:16] when you talk about a vaccination rate when you talk about [1:36:22] our case count right now um in edina in our schools that's where [1:36:27] i think i'm trying to get my head around so i don't know if there's more information out there in terms of the recommendations on where those [1:36:34] thresholds are because to me i i think if we are going to incentivize [1:36:40] which principal beaten talked about if we're going to look ahead if we hit 80 what does that mean you know and the [1:36:47] state could come out and say if this gets approval that schools are going to have to mandate [1:36:52] vaccinations that could come out that is not a school board decision just it is not a school board decision it is [1:36:58] a decision by the state of minnesota for public health and then that would actually [1:37:04] change the landscape quite um quite much um so i wanted to say that if there was [1:37:09] any kind of um more information about that i would be interested in and then the second piece too is um i just want [1:37:15] to say i this has been a really really um tough year and a half to be on the board [1:37:21] um i didn't mean to get emotional but um [1:37:26] we are all working our hardest i just want to say that because um [1:37:33] we have community members we hear from everyone we are listening we are working really hard i don't know why i'm getting [1:37:39] so emotional probably because i'm dropping my kid off in college in a couple days but [1:37:44] anyway i just wanted to say that because um i'm thrilled we have a new superintendent this report is fantastic [1:37:51] it's a fantastic plan we're going to get our kids back so i just wanted to say that did not [1:37:56] mean for that to happen but that's going to go on youtube now probably [1:38:03] erica can i talk for a sec sure absolutely um first off i want to [1:38:08] commend julie for talking about the fact that two things one is [1:38:15] if the state and mdh mandates that we go to masking then we would have to go to masking the state [1:38:21] uh is authoritative in that context and the second thing i want to affirm [1:38:27] with julie said is she was deliberating we were thinking about how [1:38:33] this um how we as a board make the decision [1:38:39] about whether to mask or not to mask whether to go full face to face or not that is our decision and i guess i'm [1:38:46] making a distinction uh with the cdc because i don't think we've actually [1:38:52] said this the cdc is an advisory council of the federal government and it is [1:38:58] composed of non-elected officials who do not have binding authority on what we [1:39:04] do so that really makes the decision sit among the eight of us and i include [1:39:11] dr stanley in that uh so just for a point of discussion that the the bloc does stop with us and [1:39:18] so as we go forward with these discussions into the fall um i i want us to continue to deliberate [1:39:25] us for to think about it uh us to take into account uh things like what um [1:39:32] dr beaton said about rewarding the students for getting the vats [1:39:38] and we are the decision makers not the cdc so uh julie i commend you for a number of your [1:39:45] comments which were deliberative in nature and we make the decisions so just a point of discussion erica thank [1:39:52] you um thank you owen just to wrap up the discussion um [1:39:58] as lenny said it sounded like a majority of board members were interested in masking e to 12 um [1:40:07] that we're interested in looking at lunchtime more deliberatively uh not that you haven't looked been [1:40:12] looking at the edit deliberatively that was the wrong word that i used um yeah thank you specificity i appreciate [1:40:19] that um ellen was interested in vaccine vaccines and testing for staff if [1:40:25] there's any opportunity there and multiple board members had mentioned um are there any ways that we can utilize [1:40:31] testing for students as um one of our mitigation strategies [1:40:38] um i think that's a wrap up of well thank you for that i did capture [1:40:45] all of that information and you know what i want to say is again it is [1:40:51] it is emotional right it i mean we are talking about i talked to someone the other day and i [1:40:58] said you know this is 9 000 students um that i feel like i hold on my shoulders [1:41:05] to make sure that we keep them safe plus 1200 staff members hope i didn't hire some extras in there [1:41:11] if it isn't 1200 and so i really i appreciate just the thoughtful deliberation again i [1:41:18] appreciate all of the comments from our community members and the many many many email [1:41:25] that i have received that the board has received over the past couple of weeks we will take this back and we'll go back [1:41:32] to the table and we will move forward where everybody will know [1:41:37] that an updated or enhanced proposed plan will be available [1:41:44] on thursday in the board packet and then we would move forward uh to bring that [1:41:49] to the board for action on tuesday august 17th so thank you i appreciate it [1:41:56] thank you superintendent superintendent stanley we're going to now move on with [1:42:01] our board meeting and next up for discussion is policy review where we'll be discussing policies 629 and 913. [1:42:11] um owen are you just are you leading this [1:42:17] no julian i apologize i couldn't remember i couldn't remember [1:42:24] that's right thank you julie for stepping in that's right and when you can correct me if i get anything wrong [1:42:30] owen is the chair of the policy committee and i am stepping in to since owen is we don't know where owen is he [1:42:36] just is out so um so the two policies that are up for discussion [1:42:41] tonight are policy 629 and policy 913 i'll start with policy [1:42:47] 629 which is about student fund raising [1:42:54] there is nothing necessarily substantial about the changes that were done to policy 629 [1:43:02] we really just struck one of the lines in there about notifying about fundraising [1:43:08] to the community um because it really lacked purpose um in practice and so that is why and then the second thing is [1:43:15] we also struck um under 7b we struck a line that was just redundant was already covered within policy [1:43:21] um and really that most the changes are just making language consistency in terms of um [1:43:27] in terms of how we talk about activities at the school so which you'll see we're working [1:43:34] policy through policy to make things a little bit more consistent so does anyone have any [1:43:39] questions [Applause] okay great [1:43:45] and then moving on to policy 913 partnerships organizations and parent booster clubs [1:43:51] this again is a policy nothing substantial really changed in it um it's in good standing [1:43:57] kind of with how things should roll out and what we've the way that we've [1:44:03] the way it's been laid out it does work hand in hand with policy 709 which we've talked about kind of [1:44:09] bringing to the forefront with um for principles and new pto leadership and just making sure that we're [1:44:14] communicating this policy so not many changes on that one either [1:44:21] does anyone have any questions ellen yeah i just have one question and i [1:44:26] i'm looking for director tope but he's not here um ed well [1:44:32] okay director tushar i um i have a question with respect to [1:44:37] last year i remember we had changed a policy that um and it was according to state [1:44:44] law and it had to do with funding of that the school board would be [1:44:50] responsible for finance for the finances of [1:44:55] our activity groups that and i'm i'm just do you know which one [1:45:01] i'm talking about i do know the legislative change you're talking about director jones and what what happened is just what you're saying [1:45:07] is everything had to come under the auspices of the district and so those this that's separate from this policy [1:45:13] but that's a great question so um and i understand that that is [1:45:18] that's separate from this policy but as i read this policy it [1:45:24] it means that we have no requirement or the we can't make any [1:45:32] um requirements on these booster clubs in order in as far as auditing or as far [1:45:41] as so i'm just trying to make sure that we can can [1:45:46] tie together those two things one if we are going to be responsible for their finances but we [1:45:53] don't have any um any any other uh [1:45:59] ability to hold them accountable so and i i would refer to director tope [1:46:05] if he was here but um this is about the ptos and the booster clubs and that's separate from districts those district [1:46:11] sponsored activities and so these are separate entities and so this relates to this relays to [1:46:18] how they're separate and that that change in the legislature had to do [1:46:24] with there were different types of activities that that students participated in so it [1:46:29] didn't affect the pto and the booster club component um does that help yes as [1:46:35] long as it didn't if if they're totally separate and this does not pertain to [1:46:40] the activities that are mentioned in the legislation then i'm okay with [1:46:46] this great any more questions [1:46:53] great okay sorry go ahead jd julie um i know you mentioned policy 709 [1:47:01] is that policy up for the policy committee to review anytime [1:47:06] soon or when does that one come through great question director shall that is on [1:47:13] our next round that we'll be reviewing this year oh thank you [1:47:22] else no that's okay we'll move on to our action items um do [1:47:28] i have a motion to approve the general obligation school building bonds [1:47:34] motion to approve second outstanding we have director of business [1:47:40] services john tope and we also have matt hammer from ellers and associates here to [1:47:46] present to us thank you good evening chair ellenberg superintendent stanley and members of [1:47:52] the board on may 11 2021 the edina school district voters approved two questions [1:47:58] one was for a capital project levy renewal and a 500 000 annual increase [1:48:04] question two on the ballot was uh improvements at three different schools for parking lot and lighting [1:48:10] improvements and an addition to the bus garage tonight we're here to present a [1:48:16] resolution for you to ratify so that we can issue 7 million dollars in school district general obligation [1:48:24] building bonds we anticipate that the construction will start in the spring of [1:48:30] 2022 and proceed on from there [1:48:36] we have a pre-sale report here by ellerson associates and i'm going to turn it over to matt hammer of ellers [1:48:43] and associates to go over just the very highlighted areas of the pre-sale report [1:48:49] matt thank you john my name is matthew hammer [1:48:56] and i won the wrestling match tonight to come over here jody actually had a had a [1:49:01] birthday today so i'm sitting in for her but i'm also been a part of the team since i started at eller so i appreciate [1:49:08] the opportunity to be here tonight um i'm not going to go over the the report in detail but i will just touch on [1:49:16] on the schedule that we have laid out um you guys can read that at your leisure and i can certainly answer any [1:49:23] questions tonight in regards to that but um we will receive another rating as part [1:49:28] of this process it should be pretty straightforward um because you guys uh had a rating um as soon as last may so [1:49:35] we're hoping to to have a streamlined process there um we are going to accept bids on september 8th [1:49:43] that's what the ratifying resolution is setting the parameter for tonight and then the school board will ratify [1:49:48] that at their regular meeting on september 13th rates have been staying really nice and [1:49:54] low and and we're assuming we're going to be able to hit the tax impact estimates that were provided [1:50:00] as part of the election last may so with that i can answer any [1:50:05] questions folks have for me tonight um but uh that's all i have [1:50:12] one one very quick uh question so definitely appreciate doing it on a wednesday middle of the month i know [1:50:18] we've had that be a practice so we've instituted four years ago and it's gone quite well you guys have helped us beat the estimate each time so that's [1:50:24] excellent is there any benefit to doing it prior to labor day or prior to the jackson hole meetings getting closer [1:50:30] um i don't think right now i mean in the tax-exempt market i think we're we've been seeing [1:50:37] rates stay nice and low and we're assuming that we're we're we're going to be seeing um good bid results um [1:50:44] when we take bids in september okay [1:50:50] not challenging us want to ask the question though you think if if there's a readiness you don't [1:50:55] think august 25th would be better than september 8th it's going to be absolutely dead in the [1:51:00] market at the end of august from a supply demand perspective so does the preparation need to be that close to the [1:51:06] 13th i'm asking is we backing it up from the 13th meeting or are we is there a different reason why we're doing it on [1:51:12] the 8th um we're actually from the standpoint of a timing perspective this is from this [1:51:18] meeting to when we're going to sell is kind of the time frame we need to get the os and all those things put together [1:51:24] um so from that perspective we are backing up from the 13th to try to hit that date [1:51:30] i will also mention the parameter that's set as part of the resolution is 2.3 percent um right now [1:51:37] our assumption is that we're going to be right around 1.8 percent coming into that sale so we should be beating that [1:51:43] okay okay that sounds good i just wanted to check on those two thoughts i had all right [1:51:50] thank you you guys have done a good job for years so i appreciate it thank you i appreciate the opportunity [1:51:56] ellen i don't have oh sorry i saw your mic was on so i got [1:52:04] are there any other questions for anyone oh yeah procedurally are we gonna do the same thing we do every time i approve and then it comes back to the board on [1:52:10] monday and signing that day okay yeah it's set up for a school board officer and and john to accept awards on the [1:52:15] eighth yep okay all right got it thanks great we will now vote by roll call to [1:52:21] approve the general obligation um school building bonds ellenberg i fox [1:52:29] all right green i jones i michaelson [1:52:34] shaw [1:52:40] fallen treatment okay the um general obligation [1:52:46] school building bonds uh description application is approved thank you thank you chair ellen thank you very much [1:52:54] okay um do i have a motion to approve policies 439 505 and 908 so [1:53:02] is there a second second i will turn it over i assume to board member green again yes great thank [1:53:09] you thank you so policy 439 policy 505 and policy 908 [1:53:14] we um discussed at last month's meeting um policy the notable changes are in policy [1:53:22] 439 feedback from director jones and director wallon friedman [1:53:27] to add in a definition of employee which was added in to give more clarification [1:53:33] and also under g4 on 439 [1:53:39] is to reference that same change so that it's more consistent [1:53:45] so those two changes were made and then policy 505 and policy 908 [1:53:50] the action is to rescind them both based on the acceptance of policy 439 for policy 908 so i don't know if anyone [1:53:58] has any additional questions or if we caught that we got that feedback right [1:54:04] okay great we'll now vote by roll call to approve policies 439 505 and 908. [1:54:13] hallenberg aye fox aye green aye jones aye [1:54:19] michelson shaw hi walden friedman aye [1:54:26] the policies are approved um we're gonna move on to board leadership [1:54:31] and committee updates um i know that board member green had a [1:54:36] update that she wanted to share i did [1:54:48] i just wanted to give a quick update um from the edina ed fund that there is an event coming up on tuesday august 17th [1:54:56] called band together at the high school where there will be community bands playing there's four or [1:55:02] five and there'll be some food trucks and it's a free event [1:55:08] donations are welcome and it goes towards the heel together [1:55:14] mental health campaign that's going on so i just wanted to give a shout out to everyone at the ed fund who working hard [1:55:19] on doing that i think it's a great way to gather outside safely where we can reconnect with our community so [1:55:26] that's my community or my committee update [1:55:32] uh does anyone else have any updates the only update i have is um in case you were trying to watch the um work session [1:55:39] tonight we had some technical difficulties so it was not streamed [1:55:44] um for the majority of the time so we apologize for that but you did not miss [1:55:50] any content dr stanley reviewed the packet and then the full board [1:55:56] discussion was actually at this meeting tonight so i just wanted to mention that as well as the [1:56:02] recommendations for back to school plan any changes to that will be coming back to the board on the [1:56:07] 17th which is next tuesday next tuesday so that um they [1:56:15] will be posted um at the end of this week i believe um for the community to see and then we will [1:56:21] meet again on them next tuesday that's all i have anything from you dr [1:56:26] stanley i just have one update well a couple first of all it's been great to see the [1:56:33] kids out on the fields and back maybe not great for them and all that heat with practicing but it has been [1:56:39] really good to be able to see them i appreciate that and then this week i had an opportunity to reconnect with [1:56:47] a consortium that we are engaged with and it is consortium 2034 [1:56:53] and it is a group of high-performing districts from across the united states [1:56:58] who come together to think critically and strategically about what we can do to continue to push [1:57:04] ourselves innovatively to make certain that we are at the forefront and on the cusp of exciting learning that is [1:57:11] happening and so i'm really excited dr smallsaw and i are able to connect with those leaders in [1:57:17] late september and i just appreciate knowing that this group is together that is [1:57:22] pushing us the group is representative from from california from texas from illinois [1:57:30] just had a great time getting to know them a little bit in a virtual call and i look forward to [1:57:35] being pushed a little bit more great thank you um with that the meeting [1:57:41] is adjourned and we'll see each other on the 17th thank you