 Good evening and welcome to a special edition of Montpelier Civic Forum and we have a very special guest Libby Bonesteel our superintendent of the Montpelier Rocksbury School District and she's going to talk about the school opening and I want to tell you when this is being taped. It's being taped Monday the 23rd so everything we say might be different next week but it is true as of right now and from prior experience not much of it will change in a week. Libby when do the schools open? We invite students back on Thursday of this week and you expect students on Thursday yes that there's difference between inviting and expecting now whenever I interview you it's usually about the budget except for when we're talking about a pandemic disease and we've done a couple of these now on the pandemic disease it's your third school year going through this uh is this other duties as assigned? This is what I signed up for when I signed my contract of super intent. So you felt at that time that you would be a frontline worker? No no I would definitely not say that but it is what it is. Let's start a couple of years ago when we shut down as a state in March how much time did you have to prepare for that? About a week but maybe a little less than a week. Did the state you could hear a railroad that what you're hearing is a railroad train in the background um did the state have dictates or were you off on your own? We were on our own uh we worked very closely with our teachers union and uh got something going relatively fast with their hard work and that was the virtual presentation. Was it a success or do you know how to how to put metrics to it? I think um many people would have a different answer to that question uh our teachers made it through with their mental health intact and I think the large majority of our students did as well we all did the best we could I know there's lots of different opinions on that but I'll say it we did the best we could in that moment but you felt that it was successful enough that you went into a dual system in the fall you had the opportunity I believe to just do in school. Our fall was different than than what it was in the spring of 2020 that was an emergency situation our fall was planned for so uh the difference being is that our seventh through twelfth graders if they chose a virtual option they were we worked with a Vermont um the Vermont virtual learning collaborative sorry had the mind blank there vtvlc and our younger kids kindergarten through grade six worked with our actual teachers we created another school essentially virtual academy um and those teachers only taught virtual students so we were able to design something different with some more planning time and we worked all summer on it. Mike Berry was our principal of our virtual academy for our kindergarten through sixth grade so it was essentially its own school um for last year that was not how it was in the spring when we had to close in an emergency situation. Now is that sitting if we get a COVID outbreak a major COVID outbreak in one of these schools are we going back to that or what what is the planning for a major outbreak? We would have to go into virtual learning again but we're set up to do that in a different way yes it's not we have our teachers have more experience with that piece they know they know what to expect even teachers who didn't do it last year like some of our middle school teachers our rock spirit teachers never had to go virtual most of our UES teachers didn't most of our high school teachers didn't um so but they all were planned for that um and so they could do that relatively easy we have the technology we know how to do now I there's a lot of different things that we know how to do that we weren't sure how to do on a dime in March of 2020 so we're in a different place there. Now in that experience of last year you know which was fluid and the like I imagine that your outreach to parents got a lot more sophisticated and and basically you could reach them faster and more certainly. We had it down we had it down to a science whereas I would send out nearly weekly communication particularly in the beginning and middle of the year not so much at the end of the year but the beginning and middle of the year um either once or twice weekly and I typically tried to send things out on Fridays and then our principals all send their weekly memos out weekly newsletters out on Monday so they would reiterate what I said on Friday on their Monday newsletter and often talk more specifically about their own school and we also have thanks to our communication specialist Anna Hipko a robust communications and social media outreach and so as soon as I mine went out hers went out on social media with links and as soon as the principals went out Anna had those up as well so we had a pretty well-oiled machine particularly in the fall and winter of last year for communication. Are we to the point of texting parents yet? I have the capacity to text parents if they've signed up for it if they've turned that on that all parents turn that on. Are all of our parents hooked to the internet? The large majority are yes we know that. Now when we come to the virtual academy I want to stay with that because there's a large set of students that we're out for a year what is the percentage of students that I'm not trying to trick you with a question I know the answer to roughly what percentage. We had approximately 30% of our student body in virtual learning last year. So you're reintegrating now some of those graduated or did they? Yeah. So you're reintegrating a sizable chunk of kids who've been out of the social flow at least the school social flow they still lived within the boundaries of the town. What steps are you guys taking to make sure that socially that works? Yeah we're so we redesigned our calendar once again we did this last year actually too but we have parent conferences tomorrow and Wednesday and we really like for families to consider that an in-person conference so that students and families can get into the buildings and see the classrooms and the teachers it's a it's a different dynamic when you're in person and can read body language and can answer take the time to answer questions and that kind of thing. Will the parents be expected to be masked? Yes masks are mandated in our district and so we're that's our first step at the different buildings they're doing different things in the first couple days and teachers are masters at ensuring that kids feel comfortable in their classrooms so I know that each individual teacher and team of teachers are thinking about that but it will look differently depending on the age of the kids. Now I want to stay with virtual on snow days the rumor was out that the Montpelier snow day is a thing of history and that parents will receive word to get your kid online. Yeah we tried that about 66 percent of our student our parent population our caregiver population and our teacher population supported the idea of virtual snow days because they like knowing what the last day of school is but our secretary of education said that was not allowable this year that we that he reads the attendance statute of Vermont law to say that it has it it has to have a kid in seat so it has to be an in-person day in order to be considered a school day. Now considering that my school child hasn't been in school for 12 years how do the parents know that it's a snow day do you get in touch with them? Very early in the morning yes they hear my lovely voice at about 5 45 to 6 o'clock in the morning so they don't have to listen to WDV or any of that. It's also up on all of our social media sites. Which I'm sure that everybody checks at 5 30 or 6 in the morning. Do you anticipate that the lessons that we learned from virtual learning will enhance the number of students that take AP classes that aren't offered live at the school? It's been an option for years but it hasn't been used as much. I honestly don't know I that's yet to be seen I'm not positive whether or not that will enhance the AP or not. I mean it allows a small school the high school to sit and expand its curricular borders but I think we've had that for years. Yeah we have had that for many years. Let's go into the schools and let's talk let's start with the school bus. All kids are required to be masked. Yes. What happens with parental objections to masking? Parents can choose what they want to do outside of schools but inside the buildings and on school buses the kids will be in masks. So if parents object to it's what happens? We'd have conversations kids would come talk to the nurse parents would talk to the nurse we'd have talks with the administrators. It's a it's a matter of a duty of care statute so I'm responsible by law to provide a duty of care for students. This is a public health crisis experts in the field say masks are what will help as a risk mitigation factor in fact next to vaccines it's the highest risk mitigation factor so there's really no question in my mind our students will be masked for the until further notice. Now for the younger kids who are riding the school bus when are the temperatures going to be taken still? No no that was proven as a mitigation effort that was not necessary we are asking caregivers to do a check on just well-being check before the kids enter the school building that would probably be our third highest mitigation risk if we're thinking about it in order that we do not want sick kids and sick people in our in our buildings so we ask that if kids have sniffles common symptoms of common colds that we keep them home during the day. Our staff have they've been vaccinated? A large majority of them have yes. Our teachers? A large majority of them. Will we are we hoping to go beyond 85 percent to 100 percent or you're working on that or at this point we are what we are? At this point we are what we are we I believe we are over 85 percent vaccinated in terms of our staff. I don't have the exact percentage of that because we haven't asked them but just knowing and through conversations with our nurses who've talked to pretty much every member of our our community who works in our buildings and we're well above 85 percent vaccinated. Kids are going out of state you know you couldn't last year you weren't allowed to travel out of state or you're severely discouraged from doing that is there a COVID testing capacity at the schools when kids come back into state? Not specifically for when kids come back into state although the state I believe recommends that kids do that or that families do that people do that in general but we are we did sign on with the voluntary testing that will happen weekly in our district. What is that could you explain please? Yeah so the state is set up for school districts who wanted to participate voluntary weekly testing for students and staff. It will happen in the school buildings parents will opt into it and when that we're working out the logistics now we haven't we haven't you know we're still working with the state as to what exactly that will look like. Kids who are younger than seven I believe the test will be done by the school nurse and it's just the nasal swab that many of us are very used to at this point those of us who have gotten tested often and anybody older than eight will be doing it a self-administered nasal swab so that will happen weekly we send it off to a lab and caregivers will be able to check a website to see what the results are pretty quickly. When the vaccine well right now the high school students could be getting the vaccine and part of our middle school yeah. Are we going to do vaccinations at the schools? We do have had vaccination sites at Montpelier High School we've had a few vaccination events in fact Governor Scott was vaccinated at Montpelier High School in the spring so we'll continue to do that when the when the vaccines become eligible for under 12s we will and the boosters that are coming we will be first in line to offer that to our to our students and make it as easy as possible so we'll we are right there next to the agency of education they know how eager we are to get our students vaccinated so they reach out pretty quickly and set something up we're also a centralized location right off the highway so it's easy access to our buildings in order to get more of public vaccinated so we've been pretty we've worked very closely with Vermont Department of Health and our agency of education to set up vaccination clinics. When it goes down lower and lower in terms of eligibility for this will we have vaccination clinics at MSMS or at UES or Roxbury is that anticipated? Most likely our clinics will be at the high school because we don't have parking at MSMS or UES so most likely they'd still be at the high school building just because of access but that's not to say that's written in stone either you know they might change how those vaccination clinics go we wouldn't need parking but we right now that's that's the deciding force as to where it is in our district. Is there any policy on unvaccinated students? No. When that arrives are you saying that the mask is sufficient? The public health officials are saying masks are efficient so sufficient. How fluid is that right now? I'm sure that you're cut well into that loop from the Department of Health you know that that's feeding into the education realm. Are you seeing a consistent message during the entire period of the Delta virus or is that shifting? It shifted considerably so we well it hasn't shifted actually in the last so we get received our guidance for masking and it wasn't guidance or the recommendations. But it was left locally to determine? From the Department of Health and the Agency of Education the second week of August that was kind of right when Delta was spiking here in Vermont or starting to spike and people were starting to get worried about it they've held tight to those recommendations since that time so what was that two weeks ago you know wasn't wasn't that long ago and Delta has certainly not gotten any better in the last couple weeks so superintendents around the state are having to deal with the fact that their recommendations and not you know not rules that have to be followed our community has been very supportive of masks and so for I haven't heard much from people who don't agree with my decision around masking. Was it your decision or the board's decision? It's my my decision so the board has authorized me to make safety decisions for COVID-19 they did it in the last board meeting they did it last year too so I certainly keep them apprised of any decisions that we make I ask ask uh ask their opinions when I need them but those are my decisions to make. Last year we were talking about a six foot separation between people in the schools as well as in public how has that changed? It's changed to a three feet recommendation and their recommendations they're not mandates anymore so because we're not in a state of emergency at the moment we have no framework for guidance or rules around this piece so for instance last year we received a 50 page document around rules that we needed to follow this year we received a two page recommendation document so the distancing piece that the agency of education verbally has said to us try to keep them as close to three feet apart as you can and that's what the CDC currently is recommending as well so we have we've we've put in different um different pieces to try to make try to keep kids as apart of separated as possible and not have kids congregate in spaces. Now I'm venturing into something I know nothing about how's the ventilation in the three schools have we worked on it? It's actually really well yeah Andrew the Roses our director of facilities and uh right when we closed in the summer after the first closure he worked very closely with Efficiency Vermont they offered grant money and Andrew LaRosa was first in line to access that grant money and because he acted so quickly we have our HVAC system working at at the highest peak it possibly was designed to do. At which school? All all four of our buildings. Okay I was going to ask about Roxbury. Yeah all four of our buildings so um Andrew also had engineers who designed our system up on you know at the HVACs this summer to ensure that they're still working we just got new um controls for Montpelier High School to ensure that that HVAC is actually going to be working better this year than it did in the past so our air circulation and and work with the HVAC is actually quite strong. A pod we went through this last year and we'll go through it this year what is a pod what schools were their pods at are there going to be pods this year? Last year Main Street Middle School Union Elementary School in Roxbury Village School used the concept of a pod so each classroom had two adults in it it was either a teacher and a teacher or a teacher and another staff member and that pod stuck together they went to the bathroom together they went they lunch together they they were together all the time and did not they were out at recess together they didn't um integrate with other pods in any way shape or form this year we do not have that system in place um we have kids in homerooms or in classroom rooms. Are we back to where we were several years ago the same model or is it a modified model of what many of us are familiar with? It's definitely modified uh so at Union Elementary School for instance kids will be starting the year eating in their classroom instead of 100 kids in the cafeteria we've also got uh if you go past Montpelier High School I haven't been past Main Street Middle School today but if you go past Montpelier High School there's a big circus tent up that we're going to have picnic tables underneath so kids so we can spread kids outside for recess and for classroom activities and things and we're putting one out in front of Main Street Middle School as well it's a little tighter fit fit there um so we had to dig up the street in order to do that. No that was not us so we uh we won't be potting kids we we weren't planning on potting kids and this Delta variant hit Vermont very late in the summer and in order to do the pods again or in order to do the pods we had to do significant shuffling of kids and of teachers and of classrooms and we just we simply don't have the time to do that. Sociologically what's the difference between a class and a pod do kids see more kids different kinds of kids traditionally if it's a if it's a traditional class structure or home room structure yeah you especially at Main Street Middle School you you integrate with more kids um you might have classes with different groups of kids this year we're keeping homerooms together as they move from class to class so we are we have a little bit more control than we would in a typical year um and I know classrooms at the elementary school generally are with the exception of lunch and recess are generally just with their classroom you know you don't switch with other classrooms to go to music for instance you go to music so we're having music now we're having plays we're having sports yeah all of that is planned to go on this year even though it's difficult to play a woodwind through a mask yeah they have special masks so uh last year in the spring the music music was able to begin last year um late you know around April and our music team followed the guidance we're starting this year right where the guidance left us last year so kids playing instruments have special masks that are designed with a small hole in it to fit the instrument in um our singers will be wearing just a mask and just a typical mask um so we have safety precautions in place but we want to make sure that our students who are more musically inclined get that opportunity watching an ultimate frisbee game on the sidelines i'll be expected to be masked uh we haven't gotten any rules around that yet we're not sure well i'm using that as an example if i'm watching a basketball game in the gym if you're in the gym yes right as of right now you'd be masked to what age if i've got you know little brothers and sisters at what age is masking mandatory our pre-k's are in masks any anybody who's in our building is in a mask okay um what happens if someone in a class tests covid positive yeah we're not positive quite honestly we believe no pun intended yeah right we got some uh some contact tracing guidelines on friday that look very similar to the spring of last year um there have been some positive cases in sports teams around the state not in montpelier or roxbury but around the state where superintendents are getting mixed messages we're on contact tracing and who needs to quarantine and who doesn't um so we're still i think the health department is still working that out a little bit so we're working that we're waiting for them to work it out so we get the guidance what is the contemporary quarantine period so last year it was about two weeks i know last year but so we're not positive as to what the vdh is going to tell us this year as i said this is fluid right now this is this is monday before classes start yes what happens we know um what happens with the people who are immunocompromised yeah you know and who were home last year for that reason who are coming back again this year yeah it's it's good to be clear that not all of our immunocompromised kids were home last year several were in person as well so we have we have students who fall in that category most definitely we will do everything we can to mitigate as much risk around them as possible parents have the option to do home study if they're really worried about it that's certainly an option for for parents but like i said the the delta virus truly spiked in vermont two weeks ago so we've really pivoted quickly to put more guys more mitigation strategies in place than we were certainly planning we've changed schedules around at union elementary school we changed schedules around a main street middle school we've added the tents in the in the tables to spread kids out more not as many kids will be on the recess out at recess at the same time as we were planning just three weeks ago so we really um we're really cutting down on where congregation sites happen so we feel comfortable with the cleanliness of of the the playground at union the cleanliness of it well yeah i i don't know last year they weren't on that playground they were out in the street oh they were in both we spread them out so are we gonna have the street again no okay no the street is back to public use but we feel comfortable with opening that playground again yeah it's scheduled so that there's not as many kids on it at one time sir anything else that we've done to accommodate that that you'd like to discuss i think just thinking about vaccines fizer i was listening to vpr on the way over here and fizer just got it's no longer emergency authorization anymore it's got the full approval of the cdc at first 16 year olds on up so we just encourage everybody who is able to do so to be vaccinated because i think that's our way out of this we'll keep masks on until further notice um and we'll keep our risk mitigations measures in place until until we feel like it's all it's clear so anything that parents can do to support your effort yeah parents can keep their kids home if they show any kind of sickness any kind of cold symptoms um i would question travel right now especially if you have unvaccinated students travel defined as what uh travel outside of outside of vermont i'd say i'd question you know me and myself as a parent i'm questioning large going to large places with my unvaccinated 10 year old we don't do that right now what about birthday parties i think that's a parent's choice um but i think it's parents choice i think i'm not trying to cast you know fear into the community i was just wondering again my my son's a lot older yeah i think it's a parent's choice and it's a matter of what you're comfortable with you know my daughter's birthday is coming up in the end of october and we're planning a much smaller birthday party with people that she's been with all summer you know that she's played with all summer and there's about two or three people in that group so i feel quite comfortable with that scenario um but that's me that's my parental decision i've made so i think parents have to make their own decision assuming that covid is with us in one variation or another like the flu you know that basically it's a fact of life for a while what does the light at the end of the tunnel that the health department is projecting to you look like vaccinated people if we will get to that place when we can count on people being vaccinated against this that's what the health department has said to us now now we're going to the social issues how many unvaccinated children do we have against chicken pox measles and like what is the anti-vaxxer population like in our community it's actually larger than you think it is so if you take covid-19 out of the picture the last data that i have that i've looked at is is not the most recent data i think it's like 2017 so it's not the most recent but we were at about 85 percent and that's uh at the high side for a potential outbreak of something like measles when you're at 85 what does the high side mean so the health experts and i'm not an expert in this so i may be saying it correctly i'm less of an expert than you are um health experts have that kind of point of that percentage vaccination where they don't necessarily worry an outbreak could happen but when a window starts getting larger and larger the potential of an outbreak becomes more just like with covid and so with measles i know that we were at 85 percent the health officials want us to be higher want us to have a higher how do you speak to that community that feels it's it's not a question of convenience right it's a question of core philosophy how do you speak to that with that community i think all we can do with our school nurses or pediatricians is just state this is these are the these are the facts around the vaccines um and this is this is the reality of what it is and parents make their decision now should we have an outbreak it would hit those who aren't vaccinated is there any ancillary blowback to kids who are vaccinated of covid 19 no no no of measles or chickenpox or any of those common childhood diseases so ask your question again i'm sorry if 85 percent are vaccinated 15 percent aren't if there were an outbreak you know amongst that 15 percent would that mean anything to the 85 percent i think that would be a better question for an epidemiologist or pediatrician i'm not gonna give an epidemiologist to answer that question i'm not positive um let me ask a couple of questions just touch questions that i'm sure make your life more interesting is there any discussion of critical race theory in our district not that i've heard of other than from teachers and people who are reading what's happening across the nation and within our state and other areas i have not had any uh emails from parents or conversations from caregivers or community around critical race theory i then i'll just hit you with the question is is critical race theory taught in the elementary school here well you have to think about what that actually is critical race theory comes theory comes from law school and it's looking how laws are have been it's a theory around how laws were created it's not an educational term so we're not teaching critical law theory in our elementary school we're not no we teach to the vermont standards that were required to teach to which talks about talking about perspectives and bias those words are in our our standards documents and that's a measure of a well-rounded education when you can think critically across an idea context a story that there are multiple perspectives and there's multiple ways people experience that perspective and that's good teaching how are we doing that at the high school i know we've gone the extra step in terms of talking about bias and talking about social issues from from that perspective how is that changing and evolving at the high school i think the evidence is in the putting there around how strongly our students work with social justice causes whether it's climate change or racial justice our students lead the way there and our leader in which way they are the ones out front they're the ones out front demanding that black lives matter they have a race against racism that is planned and designed by students every year we have coursework designed around perspective and bias and that kind of thing at the high school we have a very strong sustainability program that's now being extended into the middle school as well so what is the sustainability program sustainability talks about food justice and social justice and climate change you know the un's sustainability goals united nations use sustainability goals for living and through that lens we have a significant group of students who very much care care about our climate and ensuring that we their grandkids are going to be able to eat good healthy food and be able to live in a healthy climate and a healthy planet so our students through our education through caregiver focus as well at home our students have very strong opinions and know quite a bit about social justice movements and are going to be strong voices in the future for a much better place is there any blowback on on open bathrooms that are used you know beyond cis identification not that i've heard of no okay just just wondering yeah and if one i know they're the middle school bathroom when the middle school bathroom remodel happened on the third floor in the in the basement for i guess it would be the first floor one has to see those bathrooms to to really understand what's happening you know they're not traditional stalled bathrooms the stalls have walls that go all the way up to the ceiling you know that there's no way that the the sharing of the bathroom could be anything other than just use of a bathroom if my son's been out of for a couple of decades i've been out for 50 years so yeah yeah they're they're they're wide open spaces teachers can see what's happening from the hallway the the stalls are completely private in every way possible like there's no way somebody could look underneath because the wall goes all the way to the floor and the wall goes all the way to the ceiling there's just not it's just not possible so the thought was given in design again going to the high school is one of your special prides the community-based learning that matt mclean does like that's matt mclean's special pride i would never take no i'm saying that so many kids participate in community first of all what is community-based learning and what percent do participate in yeah matt and his team have designed an amazing program that's been around way before me that offers kids the opportunity to to learn through internships and apprenticeships out in the community and we have fabulous community partners that help us out with that each year in which we think profusely to have our kids there and kids have just it's just a different way to learn and it's it's more of what i can imagine the future being rather than the eight to three school day but how can we design learning so it fits with kids and and we get them out getting to learn leadership skills and use their voice in a different way are there any curricular changes that are being discussed by the board right now that that would have an impact on what the school of the future or the schools of the future would look like we're starting actually i was working on an rfp with uh me and more one of our board members rfp being a request for proposals uh this morning with me and more is one of our board members around a visioning process a community visioning process and the the rfp is to look for facilitators who can help us um what is the community visioning process it's interesting because when we merged we never did this we never talked about um what truly do we want out of our education as a as a new district um and so one of the things that people like to talk about quite a bit is community values and what i've learned is in my you know now fourth year superintendent is that people define that very differently they may think that they define it similarly but they may define it similarly as their neighbor or their friendship group but once you get outside it could be defined very differently and so what the board recognizes is that we need to come together and get a professional in here to help really engage stakeholders and ensure that all voices are heard particularly those from our marginalized group groups and um say well what are they what's name them so then we can make financial decisions in the future based on them we can make curricular decisions based on them we can any decision we make is held up against this lens that that the the process going forward has determined would those stakeholders include those who don't have children in the schools absolutely absolutely yeah that's why we're trying to get a professional how long do you envision this process taking and when do you envision community meetings and like we're not sure yet we're in the very beginning stages of this like i said we're literally just writing the rfp today so um then that's going to go to the board for approval on wednesday next wednesday's meeting not this coming wednesday but the wednesday after um and then we'll put it out we have in the proposal that the work would start in uh december and we'd award the contract to somebody in november we the work would start in december and go through june of 2022 this again is not a trap question um what some capital improvements have been made over the summer and and are coming in in the fall in the schools yeah if you walked into main street middle school you'd see a completely different besides the tents in front uh yeah that's not an infrastructure piece though uh main street middle school's gym got repainted it's bright and cheery now which is beautiful um much different space than what um it was certainly in the spring um other major projects we got new control system that at Montpelier high school to help with the hvac to make the hvac work even stronger than it did in the spring um those were the those were the biggies those were the actual major major pieces of capital besides typical classroom renovations which we do every year you know we kind of do two or three classrooms every year in a building i know you have capital projects every year major capital projects written in year after year that that's the reason i asked yeah we just had a presentation with the board last wednesday concerning um kind of a laundry list so the board can start having conversations with our community around what what we want to prioritize for for federal money that's coming in as well as our capital plan libya i thank you so very much for answering a long laundry list of questions well beyond covid so anything else that we're on the eve of school what should kids what should parents say to their kids they're coming on in back into those schools for some of them they've been gone for a year yeah um what's your message to a parent i think it depends on where the parent is themselves and their anxiety level um this is what we do we keep kids safe we do our best to do that we know how to do that we know kids really well among failure high school i have the best teaching staff and and and other staff in the state by far um and so everything's going to be okay we're going to have some bumps we're going to no doubt about it we may have to go remote we may not i don't know nobody really knows those answers but we will do the best we can and kids safety is the absolute utmost concern that we have and so we're going to do everything we can to do that so i think uh as as i think of my parent hat myself my spin for my kids is always a positive one is always one that things will be okay you can trust what's happening you can you know go talk to people when you're not when you're not sure who are the people is it the school super arched school separate i'm sorry people are welcome to come talk to me the school is it the school principal that sure you talk to your principal yeah any of us would be happy to talk to parents caregivers and students if they're they're nervous or anxious we have a large social work staff our guidance counselors any of our teachers we're all there we love kids and that's what we want them to feel as comfortable as they can be in our hallways and in our classrooms so that's what we do and we hope that there's that open line of communication when things aren't working that we can figure it out with our caregivers but really kids feed off of what you know the adults around them the the vibes the adults around them are giving them so if it's a positive can do a vibe the kid will feed off of that so i encourage parents to do that i also encourage when kids can be vaccinated to get your child vaccinated if i could put an editorial comment to those parents as well i'd encourage everyone to get vaccinated yes uh in our community if we can approach 100 that would be collectively the best for all of us and that would be what would keep our kids in school thank you so very much for watching this was Mount Peal your civic forum