 It is 6.30, so I will call this meeting to order. This is a special meeting of the OSSD School Board. We are discussing the learning modalities going forward. We're gonna, if one thing on our agenda, we're gonna hear from Lane Millington Superintendent, sort of an update. First of all, how we are doing currently and then an update as far as how we're going forward and what the district is planning as the months go by here. Following Lane's presentation, I will open it up to board question and comments and then we will open it to the public for the same. Please try to keep your comment to three minutes and we will try to spread around the questions and comments so that we hear from a variety of viewpoints you know that people feel passionately one way or the other about lots of different things and we hope to be able to hear from staff, community, parents, students, if we have them, et cetera. First off, I wanted to just make sure that everyone knew who represents you on the OSSD board. We are an eight member board. We have two representatives from Brookfield two from Braintree and four from Randolph. We are elected by the whole district and we represent all the students and at all five schools. So I, Laura Rocha and Brian Baker represent Brookfield. Rachel Geddes and Katja Evans are from Braintree and then we've got Meg Salt and Kaplan, Hannah Arias and Ashley Lincoln from Randolph. Finally, the chat function on this call tonight is going to be disabled. We wanted to allow for a single conversation to take place at each time similar to the way it would happen in a public meeting. One person would be speaking at a time and so we will not be distracted by seeing a chat go by at the bottom of our screen. All right, thanks for joining us tonight and happy new year. So Lane, I'm gonna open it to you to update everyone about how the district is thinking about moving forward. Yeah, I'm gonna put a presentation up and I'll ask folks kind of patients for a moment or two while I do that because I think it's important that anytime we're making a recommendation to the board that we're kind of reviewing what the current data is telling us and kind of what we're looking at. So give me just a moment to see if I can get this set up. I'm gonna apologize. Usually the first couple of minutes of the board meeting are a little bit distracting. I kind of run the software behind the scenes and I get a lot of people that are still getting admitted at this point in time. Give me just a moment here. Can somebody tell me if they can see this? Yes, they can. Perfect, thank you very much. So I apologize too as we go through this. All I can see on my screen is the presentation during this time. I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for comments afterwards. So I would ask folks, if you get a burning question that comes up while I'm presenting, please just take a moment and jot it down so that you've got it available to ask at the end of the presentation. A couple of things that we're gonna look at. We'll look at the most recent learning modality survey that went out in terms of people's preferences. We'll look at current conditions in and around Orange County, around the state, around the nation, and any logistics that might act as limiting factors within the district in terms of the decisions that we're able to make. Parent responses on the most recent survey, which was done in January. You can see there, I'm also comparing it to the same survey that was done in October and November, so you can see the change over time. In terms of the parent survey, we had 242 parents that responded. Full in-person has always been their preferred modality, and fully remote has always been the parent's least preferred modality. I will break this down by elementary level and high school level in a few moments. In terms of the teachers, we had a hundred teachers that responded to the survey, which is actually pretty awesome because I think we've got about 109 total in the district. And if you take a look at what the teachers are saying in January, hybrid continues to be their preferred modality. If we take a look at results for elementary parents and elementary teachers, 68% of parents prefer in-person at the elementary level, while only 17% of faculty would choose this modality for themselves. And I'll leave that information up there for just a few moments. In terms of Randolph Union High School, about 50 of the parents that put in information into the survey were representative Randolph Union. It's kind of a low number, but it is statistically significant. It's high enough that it can be a reliable indicator of where the district is at. Both parents and teachers at RUHS strongly prefer the hybrid schedule. In fact, a quarter of the teachers actually prefer in-person instruction compared to 0% of the parents. I'm not sure why there is this difference between the results from elementary and the high school. Maybe we'll hear a little bit about that tonight as people are making their comments. I think it has to do a little bit with fear because there is a slightly higher risk of serious complications in older individuals. In some cases, I think it's because the parents need the older students at home to help out with their younger siblings that are operating under the hybrid schedule. I also think it has to do with the fact that the high school is doing a pretty darn good job in terms of serving its students during the COVID pandemic. Metrics being considered as we look towards kind of making a recommendation to the board is the same as we looked at in November. The first one is, do we have the staff to safely support a return to full in-person instruction? Right now, 17% of the elementary teachers are saying, yeah, they think they're comfortable with it. 28% of the high school teachers are saying they think they're comfortable with it. The second thing which we'll look at in a bit of detail is, is it a wise decision giving the current conditions that we're facing? And then lastly, what's logistically possible? COVID gives us some kind of unique burdens in terms of facilities and social distancing and spacing, how we have to interact with the kids. And in some cases, those logistical issues become limiting factors in terms of what we can do. And so we'll talk a little bit about that as well. Current conditions, this is comparing today's data on the right in January with the data that we looked at in November. And at least in Orange County, case rates fell significantly immediately following the Thanksgiving holiday. And this was not true of the state, but it was true of our region. And those case rates in Orange County had been slowly creeping down ever since. Right now, we're averaging about 1.9 cases per day. That's on a 14-day rolling average. Back in November, when we were taking a look at things in Orange County, we were averaging about 8.3 cases per day. Data is not well reported over the holidays, so it makes things kind of wonky. But we have had two days of higher than normal case counts on January 2nd and January 3rd. It's not enough information to tell us if this is possibly a small kind of post-holiday spike, or if it's just the normal jumping up and down that data does. We need a couple more days to be able to determine that. The other thing that we should talk about a little bit, and I know that this is on some of the minds of folks that are here tonight, is that kind of further complicating the picture as we look at making a recommendation is the new B117 coronavirus strain that has shown up in Colorado, Florida, and California, and also just showed up in New York tonight. They're saying that it's anywhere from 50 to 70% more contagious than what we've been dealing with so far. Logistics, these are things that can kind of control what we're able to do and what we may not be able to do. Remember at the elementary schools, grades K to six, three feet of social distancing is a requirement. It's not a, yeah, if you can do it, it's no, it has to be three feet. At the high school right now, it's six feet of social distancing. And again, that is what we have to do. It is not a, if you can manage it, it has to be six feet of social distancing. And as you can imagine, those type of constraints kind of guide a little bit of what we're able to do and what we're not able to do. Kind of, we had this interesting thing going on at the elementary schools that we touched on a little bit at the last meeting. Probably a decade or so ago to promote group learning. The elementary schools did away with individual desks in favor of tables that seat, you know, anywhere from two to four students. Based on conversations I've had with the cabinet since then, the desks it appears were either given away or they were stored in locations in the districts where they became damaged and had to be thrown out. And so over the last couple of weeks, while the principals in the cabinet were running around measuring square footage in rooms to try to figure out how many kids that we could reasonably fit and safely fit, we realized that the only way we could make this happen is if we ordered desks. It wasn't gonna be possible with the tables that were in there. We did order 300 desks, 150 of them are here and are being installed currently in the K to two classrooms. The other 150 desks are sitting right now in Memphis, Tennessee, and we'll get them installed as soon as they arrive. We'll talk a little bit more about this when we get to the recommendations section. But given this requirement of three feet of social distancing, we're pretty good to go in meeting that once the desks are in place for grades K to two. The second we hit grade three, given the size of the classes, especially at RES, we're gonna start having spacing problems. We're not gonna be able to fit all the students into a classroom because of the three feet of guidance. At the high school level, again, things are a little bit different. You've got the six feet of social distancing that's required there that has to be maintained. Unless that changes, like hopefully maybe a couple of months from now or a week from now, things start to get better and they change the guidance, it is gonna be impossible to bring all the students back at RUHS. They've been running around and I give everyone a lot of credit making measurements. They've been going on to sites that actually model classrooms to try to figure out the best way to use the spaces and to fit in as many students as possible. But at best with some extreme difficulty, we could probably get grade seven to return. There was talk about possibly grade nine as well because it tends to be a smaller grade but it's still unclear. And by the looks of things, it's probably not possible but we're still jiggling things around trying to figure out what we might be able to do. On a positive note, we wouldn't have to really buy too many desks to help out at RUHS because we can remove the five foot tables from the elementary schools. We're gonna have to get them out of the way anyway. Bring them up to the high school and use those as a five foot table per kid will help with the spacing up there if we're able to get the seventh grade back. So again, we got some logistical issues just in terms of space that is gonna make a return in some cases a little bit difficult. Talking with the other superintendents and taking a look at what the trends are in schools in our area. One or two have been in full in-person mode and they're operating under what I call a nutrition model and I'll talk about that in a moment. But most right now, like us today are they're coming back into a hybrid schedule and most like us are looking to begin this transition to in-person instruction in the middle of this month either on the 11th or the 18th. What's interesting is because of that extra distancing that's required for the high school level students in most cases, in most districts the high schools will remain in a hybrid mode. There's just not enough spacing for them to bring the high school students back. So the focus in most of these districts is really this full in-person instruction at the elementary level. Now the nutrition model that the schools that have been operating full in-person have been operating under is kind of interesting. I kind of relate it back to my days in the military. They wouldn't have enough transports to get our company around to where we needed to go. So they'd march us everywhere through the desert and what they would do is they'd send one transport vehicle with us and as we're marching along our 20 miles in the heat as people became exhausted or dehydrated and keeled over, they'd throw them on the truck and everybody else would keep marching. That is the model that is being used in most schools, right? If a couple of people fall ill, they go out on quarantine they might keep that class out for a dare to until they're sure they've identified all the people that may have been exposed who should also be out on quarantine and then everybody else just keeps marching along. Current recommendations and I'm gonna split these into elementary level, high school level and then the tech center. Right now, based on what we're seeing is I am recommending and after talking with the cabinet that we bring grades K to two back beginning on January 11th. Again, we don't know yet if there is a post holiday spike, I don't believe there will be but we also need some time. Like I said, those desks just arrived over the break to get them assembled to get them in place. The teachers also would need time to do the planning for the transition back and it's appropriate to give that to them. This would be four days per week of full in-person instruction Monday through Thursday. In one case, and this is Brookfield because their second and third grade are together in a classroom, it would be through third grade at Brookfield. This change over to full in-person is for students who are currently under the hybrid schedule. Those that are currently in a remote modality could stay that way. We have some teachers that due to medical conditions need to be teaching remotely. So it made sense to match them up with students that were in similar circumstances. That system is pretty much at capacity right now. So once we start making this change over, those parents and students that would want to move to remote, the only way that we would be able to do that is if they provide medical documentation that supports their request. Then we can talk a little bit about what would be required in those circumstances. So that's a current recommendation for the elementary. And this is basically the start of a transition to trying to get K to six back. We would get K to two back, wait about two weeks. If everything is going well, we've got the logistics down and the other desks that we're waiting for come in and we have time to assemble them, then we can bring in the other grades three to six after that. Current recommendations for RUHS, the recommendation is to maintain the current hybrid schedule. But this does include a lot of exceptions that we have in place for students in need. We currently have quite a few students who are here in person most days because of need. And not just academic need, but we've got families that don't have internet access and despite everything that we've tried with the help of the state have not been able to provide that for them. So it makes sense to kind of have them come to school. Again, the reason for this different recommendation for the high school is they've got a larger space that each student needs. Each student pretty much takes up three square feet and then you gotta have six feet of distance between each student at all times in the classrooms. And we've got some classes in moderately sized rooms with 20 plus students in there. And it's just, it's not logistically possible given the guidance that is out there. Part of this though is we maintain this current hybrid schedule. But again, students in need who cannot perform well in the hybrid modality can attend in person up to four days per week. We talked about this with the cabinet the last meeting before vacation. RUHS is looking at creating and implementing what we call a rubric driven child find protocol. So in other words, they have a rubric that they follow that has characteristics on it of students that would benefit from coming to school full in person. The child find piece means that they are scanning through their student population probably about every three weeks to see if any students are reaching the threshold that we should be inviting them in for full in person. The recommendation for RUHS is also to kind of revisit our ability to bring these students back if and when things get good enough that they might change the social distancing spacing for these students. RTCC is a whole kind of different animal many of the spaces, the classroom spaces are very large for the programs that are there. And again, they're limited to how many students they can have anyway to about 15 in a program. So there is plenty of space to bring all of RTCC back fully in person. And the intent would be to do that at the end of the first semester, which means with the board's approval, they could start on January 25th full in person. And with that, I'll hush up for a little while. So we move over into the next part of tonight's meeting. Thank you, Lane. I'd like to open it up to board members who have questions or comments for Lane at this time. I do. This is Hannah Arias. The last recommendation in terms of going full in person, even for those younger grades, as I understood it, was the 18th of January. And that was to allow for data collection from what may or may not have happened over the winter break. I know that things are updated with the state on Fridays, I believe. So we'll have some information on Friday, but I'm wondering why the change? Do we think we'll have that data sooner? This is a multi-part question, but I'll pause there. Yeah, I think part of it came out of the discussions at the last board meeting. I updated the plan a little bit, as well as what was possible in terms of talking with the principals in the cabinet. I mean, the cabinet is supportive, especially of having the younger students, especially that K to two level, getting them back to school. Remember that the holiday started on the 23rd, technically, right? So people have already were probably, if they were out traveling around, I mean, it's not guaranteed, but a lot of them were probably exposed about two weeks ago now. And so we would be seeing at least the beginnings, if not the middle of that surge in our area, if it were happening in terms of case counts. Again, like I said, we had two higher days on the second and the third. We were sitting at one and zero every day for quite a while in terms of case counts in Orange County. And then on the second and third, we had like seven one day and four the next day. And I don't know, again, if that's just a normal fluctuation or if that's the start of something. But I by the 11th will have a pretty darn good feel in terms of what things look like. The other piece has been the communication. And it's just, it's getting parents to realize that, hey, you know what? We really don't wanna be invasive. We don't wanna be asking you if you've been traveling. We don't wanna be asking you, if you've been going to social gatherings. But what we will ask you to do is help us keep COVID out of our schools. If we can keep it out of our schools, it doesn't matter so much what's happening in the community. And the way we keep it out of our schools is that if your family does something that the guidance says requires a quarantine, then go and quarantine. Do not send your kids to school. You know, if we can get folks to abide by that. And I think by and far they have, we didn't get a spike in Orange County after Thanksgiving, you know, we did in the state, but we didn't in Thanksgiving, which kind of indicates that, you know, it's a good indication that people were playing by the rules. And so I'm hoping that if that continues and people just do what they need to do, yeah, I went on a trip, I probably shouldn't have. I know that means my kid has to be out of school for seven days and a test or 14 days total. And they just do it, will be okay. So Lynn, if in May, I realized that the break started on the 23rd of December, but a bigger concern for me is the 31st of December and the social gatherings that happened with New Year's Eve rather than Christmas. Both are concerning. New Year's Eve is more concerning to me. I also just want to express, and this isn't something, you know, I'm asking for an answer to, but I am personally aware of both positive cases that have not been reported and people who have been exposed who are not being tested. And, you know, I'm not here to play a blame game. I'm not here to say names, anything like that. I just, I'm personally aware of that. And we don't have the data from New Year's Eve. I'm surprised by the 11th, I have a second grader. So I actually have skin in the game for, I want my kid in school. These aren't mutually exclusive. I just don't think we have the data to support that. I'll stop. Yeah, usually what we found as in the weeks kind of leading up to these vacation times is, you know, we were, if we had a case in the school or had a family who had kids that went to our school that the state was notifying us about, they were notifying us about it, usually on Sundays. So what was happening is the previous weekend was when those people were exposed, right? Either social gathering or travel. And so it was taken about five days for them to be reported to us. So again, January 1st was four days ago. You know, the 11th, we would have, I would think a pretty good idea of exposure, you know, well before the 11th, because it seems to take about five days on average from what we were seeing in the district and how the patterns were falling out between when people were saying they were exposed and when they were actually showing up positive or going to the hospital or calling us with concerns and symptoms. So again, I'm not trying to, your things you're saying are completely valid. I'm just giving you, you know, kind of what we know. And again, that's what we know from two months ago. Will it still hold true? Nobody can say. Again, there is this new variant that is out there that people are saying is anywhere from 50 to 70% more contagious than what we've been dealing with. I mean, that's a whole new picture on the scene. So there are definitely concerns. Yeah. Other questions from or comments from board members or I open it up to the public. Okay, we go now. I got a couple, probably more just comments. I wanted to say that I did get a call from a concerned parent who was all in favor of going into full instruction, but they were concerned with the phasing aspect of it. And the, you know, they would like to see it done sooner and not stretched out as much, but also take into account that, you know, people with multiple kids, and if you've got some full time in summer is still hybrid. And so that was a concern that they had is the different structure on it. And then as far as my opinion and questions, I kind of comment the same type of thing is I'm in favor for them going back, but I would like to see it done sooner if we could and, you know, this stretching it out over a couple of months seems like a lot, but, you know, logistics. We don't have the details on that with Lane in the cabinet, but my opinion is I'd like to see it done sooner if we can. I'm gonna take them as Brian, just his comments unless there's a question. Yeah, they were just kind of comments. Thank you. Laura, if I can speak, this is Ashley. Go ahead, Ashley. Okay, so thank you, Lane, once again, for sharing the data with us, but I am gonna reflect back on the governor's presentation last week along with the secretary of education, where they continue to remind folks that the importance of our kids being back in school, K through 12, and that the transmission rate has been proven to be very low within the school system. I would like us to be thoughtful about the data behind that, and the fact that we need to be looking at the school, not the state and not national numbers, but what we're seeing here amongst our community and how that affects our students and the teachers in the buildings that we are proposing to open up. I'm very pleased to hear that our TCC will be on an accelerated course and will be opening, but I do not agree with the very phased, slow approach at the elementary levels, and I don't agree with the high school not being mentioned to happen more quickly. I appreciate the fact that this teachers are saying that they are looking at students that are struggling. I think there's probably a lot of surprises for a lot of students that are struggling that don't rise to the top. And I think it's unfortunate for those kids that they are not in a environment of academic learning with their peers and with their teachers. I am disappointed. I guess I missed the survey that went out in January because I would have been an RUHS parent that asked for my students to be back in school full-time. So I think some of that data also is misleading because I think maybe some parents didn't see it. But again, I appreciate, Lane, what you've presented, but I do not agree with the slow phased approach and I will continue to base my opinions on the science that we're seeing and the data that's coming out of the state from the Secretary of Education and from the healthcare professionals. I don't really have a question, it's just a statement. Thank you. I'm in terms of RUHS, again, we physically do not have the space to meet the legal directive we have been given. So even if the board voted for RUHS to go back, I couldn't do it because you would be asking me to violate a legal directive. So I wanna be clear about that. It's not about a willingness to try, it's not about a willingness or a decision to try to get them back, we want them back. But while that six-foot piece is there, that's a logistical hurdle that until they change that, we can't overcome. And they got very strict on that six-feet guidelines. Early on, they were saying, well, six feet if you can do it. No, the last round of updates that they gave out, it's six feet period, it has to be six feet, there's no, and we did talk with the Secretary of Education on it and he did send it out in writing and one of his frequently asked questions thing that, no, it has to be six feet. In terms of misleading, I don't appreciate that word. No one was misled in terms of the survey that went out, it went out, it was open for about two or three weeks. It was referred to in the front porch forum, it was sent out to everybody in the community. And it was also on the front page of the website for a while. So I know that's not what you meant, but those words tend to set off comments for a while afterwards. In terms of the elementary school logistically, until those other desks arrive, we can't do more grades. We could, as soon as they're here, we can get them in place. If the board wants to push and have those students return sooner, then that's something we could probably do, but we don't have the desks for it right now. We only have 150 out of the 300. And again, they're in Memphis, they keep promising us when they'll be in. The hope is they'll be in by the end of this week, but nothing's guaranteed given COVID and everything that's happening around the country. So just my comments, and I appreciate the time. Lane, likely you've already done this, but have you thought about creative ways to use the high school building, for example, holding classrooms in the gym or cafeteria, things like that, if maybe we could get the seventh and eighth graders back? Yeah, they had a team of people looking at all possibilities from guidance to Ken to the administrator, just to some of the teachers that were running around making measurements, taking a look at everything that was possible. Again, they spent a significant amount of time over vacation going into the modeling, website, plugging in the sizes of classrooms and where other pieces within the classroom are located that is set up to maximize what the spaces and whatnot were. Like I said, seventh grade is doable, it's gonna be extremely difficult, but it's doable, but being able to do much more beyond that is gonna be incredibly difficult. So yeah, I know they had a full team that was working on it for quite a while. Same thing with the elementary schools, they all should be given quite a bit of credit for the measurements, for the work, for the analysis that they put in. Hi, it's Megan Sall here. I'm just wondering if we were to go back for K through two and then gradually increase or whatever the plan is going to be, is there a plan, should there be some sort of outbreak as we would be removing the pod system that's currently in place with the hybrid learning modality? What would happen if there was an outbreak in certain classrooms, would they then go to full remote or what's the plan regarding that? So all the plans regarding what school would look like are, we're updated probably a month and a half ago in our COVID handbook. The pods, especially at the elementary level will still exist because they're in their classes, right? And so they have things that are set up to try to maintain those students with the same teacher, but we will be on the attrition mode. As people fall with the coronavirus and need time to recover, they are taken out of the system and everybody else marches on. If we have to close things down for a while to make sure that we know everyone that was exposed who should be in quarantine, we won't be shutting down an entire school, we'll shut down the class, we'll shut down the pod, but the schools will remain open. Gone will be the days of shutting down a school unless something major that we can't anticipate right now where to happen. But it will be the attrition model. Hey, Lane, have you talked to some of the local high schools around? Cause I believe like Royalton, Northfield, Williamstown, Waterbury, they've been going full in person since September. So do they have that much more space than we do or what have they been doing? I mean, cause even like, like Waterbury, hard work, that's a fairly, they've got a pretty big school. So what are they doing that we can't do? First thing is they're under the attrition model. And we kind of had this discussion early on. Boy, I'd like to remember how far back, but it was a while ago. A lot of the schools were able to do the full in person cause I remember having the conversations with the superintendents at the time. And it was like, hey, how can you do this with the six feet requirement? And that was when the six feet was optional. And they said, because of declining enrollments, we have the space to meet those six feet requirements. So those were the schools that were the early adopters of going back to full in person. But again, they also, at this point in time, I just talked with Suzette, you talk about Williamstown and Northfield. Today, they're in the attrition mode. They keep plugging along. If people get ill, they remove the folks that are ill, they go into quarantine, they keep everybody else moving. Seems to be working pretty well, but they do have had multiple outbreaks. I mean, look at the number of outbreaks that Montpeliers had. So, as long as people are doing what they're supposed to, following the mitigation strategies in the building, which prevents a lot of spread should the virus show up. And if more importantly, if we can keep people who potentially have the virus from showing up who should be in quarantine, any school would be in pretty good shape. But the trick is, is we really gotta get the parents and the community in this mindset that, hey, if I'm gonna travel, even if I took every precaution possible, or if I'm gonna have a social gathering that's outside of the guidance, you really need to quarantine. Just take it on your own initiative that you made the choice to have the gathering and keep the kids out. If people can do that, this will work well. But yeah, again, there are enrollment changes. Again, right, Vermont's had declining enrollment for years. So a lot of the schools just had the extra space to be able to meet those distancing requirements. Do any other board members wanna have a comment or question? If not, I'm gonna open up to public comment. Please introduce yourself before you begin speaking and let us know who you are, whether your staff or parent, maybe where you live. Just so we have some context for your comment or your question. Laura, I just wanna make sure you're aware of the feature of raised hands. There were several. Yes, I know, I'll have to look at that. Okay, thanks. I don't see that on my, I don't see it right now on my screen. It's at the top of the listing of the participants. Okay, I'll take the list and then the top has raised hands. Yeah, I had it last time, but this time for some reason, I don't have it. I mean, I have it. I don't wanna take things over, but if you want me to tell you who's next to me and I can do that. If you can call on the next person then. So Jodi, Davignon, you're up. And don't forget to unmute. Hi, this is Jodi Davignon. I am a parent at RES. And I was just curious if, as we look at your plan to slow and steady things along, will you be bringing in like outside classrooms as you get to the elementary students in three to six, if when Vermont weather allows that type of thing? Yeah, so good question. It's actually, it's in the plan that when we get to March, we did purchase some pretty sizable tents. I mean, like the size, you see it incredibly large weddings. They came in, it took them a while to be created because obviously every school in the country was ordering the things in the fall, but they've been in storage here. In March, the facilities folks will go put those tents up to allow for more classes and more activities outside as the warmer weather starts to approach. Oh, let's see. Jeremy, really. This is actually Sarah Lewis and Jeremy Reeling and we both have seventh graders this year. And I just have a question in regards to the survey that was sent out, because it did say 0% replied for full remote and we both did complete the survey and that was our response. So I'm just curious if there are other parents that might have filled it out and it didn't successfully submit or not. I mean, we've had issues in the past the very first survey went out, we both completed it and we got calls from the school asking what our response was. So just wondering if anybody else might have responded and it didn't show up. Yeah, when I did the breakdown, I actually double checked it because it seemed a little bit odd to me. And so I think the biggest takeaway from it was that the highest preference that came out of, again, a limited number of high school parents, about 50, was hybrid modality, regardless of the fallen person or not. But no, I did double check because it didn't seem right. I had the system going and kind of recalculate the query I had put in to pull the data a couple of times and it always came out the same. My guess is, is if we had a lot more participation at the high school level, because there's three to 400 possible parents there, it would have been higher. But no, I didn't see that at all. And I did go in and I do look at the individual entries as well because sometimes there's comments there to see what the comments are. Daelyn, you're next. Hi, I'm Daelyn Ledke. I have three kids at the Brookfield School and I teach at Norwich actually. So I'm pretty familiar with the social distancing guidelines in classrooms and how difficult they can be. I wanted to actually think Ashley and follow up on her comment about the statistics that came up at the governor's press conference. I was struck by the fact that Secretary French noted that there was a 0.26% positivity rate in the surveillance testing of schools when it comes to staff and teachers. But I was a little bit also concerned that only 40% of staff and teachers are apparently volunteering to be tested. And so I was curious if we have numbers for our district or county and what our positivity rate is and how many are being tested? I can talk at least on our staff. We have our next round of testing this week, I believe it's Wednesday, as I'm getting my brain kind of squared away coming back after the vacation. In our first round of testing, we had about 99 teachers that signed up out of about 109. 94 had successful tests that came back. We had no positives out of those 94 teachers. So zero positives in terms of the teaching staff when we did our testing. In terms of the other local positivity rates, I'd actually have to go and research them and look them up. I basically just look at the easiest data it is to get my hands on each day, which is the number of cases in Orange County as a whole. Ashley may have more detailed information. And if she doesn't, I'm sure she can get her hands on it at some point. Does that fully answer your question, Daelyn? Yes, I'm happy. Thank you. I'm pleased to speak to hear that our numbers are so high in terms of people getting tested. I think that's been really successful at Norwich. And so it's important to me, I think as a parent and a teacher. Great. Christina Harlow, you're next. Hi there, everybody. I'm Christina Harlow and I am a parent of a child in the Brookfield School as well. And I'm also a local nurse practitioner and I work in the emergency room at Gifford. And so I have just a quick question, Lane, about your statistic about having a lot of students contributing to the latest questionable outbreak. I think that said something about a hundred of the more recent cases were in schools. And I was just curious about that. The Department of Health publishes the list of cases in schools. And it said in the last seven days there has been 27, I believe. So I was just curious about that. And I'm sorry, I have children. That's okay. No, that data wasn't about anything current. The current data is that there are 27 active cases in schools right now. That was the total number of schools that have been impacted by COVID when I pulled the data yesterday. So it's been- So that could be families or people that may have contact. I understand. Okay, I just wanted to- These are actual, the number of schools that have had a positive case in Vermont. Got it. And then- Thank you for that. And then I have just a couple of comments as well. Just looking through, Brookfield Elementary has had zero cases in the entire year. Braintree, Randolph Elementary the same and only three for this entire year. So I feel like you've been saying, I completely agree with what you've said that we really do have to look at our numbers and not as a nation especially, but even as a state, every district is a lot different. And then just as a health care provider, I know there's lots of people who are really worried about this new strain coming out. I did wanna add that it does seem that the vaccine when it is available to more people is probably effective against that. I also wanted to just put in a plug for PPE for wearing masks and glasses. I think our teachers should all be doing that. I really hope the district is providing enough equipment for everybody to feel safe. Working in the emergency room, I have had, I've personally taken care of COVID patients and I wear my PPE and I've never gotten sick. My family has not gotten sick. And so I think that, I think this virus is here and we have to learn how to best protect ourselves. But I think that fear can cause more harm than good. So yeah, that's what I got to say. Yeah, no, awesome comments. And I wanna pick up on one piece of that about the anxiety. One of the main reasons that the phased in transition was spaced out the way it was, was to take into account people's anxiety. If we bring K to two in and things are working well, we've learned a few things and people are feeling safe and happy, it's gonna be a lot easier to bring in the next three grades. And if those are working really well, then it's to give time for people's anxiety teachers as well as parents in the community to come down to a level where this is manageable. Because, and I know a lot of you recognize this, but it's not as simple as just making a decision one day and doing it. It's the logistics. It's making sure that we've got the equipment. But most importantly, we're a people organization and we have to do what we can to manage people's legitimate anxieties and fears in a way that's gonna reduce them to a level where they feel comfortable providing the services that we want them to be able to provide for the kids. And so some of that spacing, it wasn't so much to try to try to mitigate any concerns about spreading things like that. It was really spaced out that way at its heart to give time for people to get used to the change, to see that things are working okay and to allow the anxiety to reduce before we bring in the next group of kids. So there was a lot of thought and a lot of logistics that went into that. So yeah, now I appreciate the comments, they're awesome. Thank you. Okay, next we've got Nora Skolnick. All right, thank you. Nora Skolnick, I am a community member. I live in Brain Free. I am a teacher and I am president or co-president of the Education Association Cardistry. Many hats. I wanted to remind the board members that while I am one person speaking, I am representing the entire membership of both teachers and support staff. And that's the voice of over a hundred of my colleagues. You can see many of those members here this evening. And while educators are great at talking with students, it is often very difficult for them to speak to large groups of adults. So I would encourage you to speak to their voices on what I'm about to say. Tonight, I want to focus on two main points because I know I've spoken before for why the union is strongly urging the board to delay the beginning of full in person modality. The first has to do with the mental health of your staff. Frankly, like many members of our community, our mental health is not good right now. Educators are dealing with all the same stresses that everyone else is. The isolation, the worry of becoming infected from a virus that can kill you or your family or can leave your health compromised for the rest of your life. Child care, the loss of income if a spouse is out of work. In addition, we also face the stress of having our workload increase significantly, working to teach our students under conditions that no one could have predicted or planned for as well as supporting our students and their families emotional wellbeing. I have never seen colleagues break down emotionally as frequently or powerless to support them as has happened in these past few months. Now, on top of all this is the stress of possibly switching the modality to full in-person instruction, doubling the number of students in close vicinity to any teacher and therefore magnifying the potential harm to teachers and staff, causing their stress levels to increase to frightening and maybe even intolerable levels, in effect taking all the weight that's been putting on upon us and doubling it. The board has an opportunity tonight to help their staff. We understand that you cannot make COVID go away, but you can help your employees mental health by ensuring them that you will be making sure that their working conditions are as safe as possible by staying in hybrid learning for the time being. And by improving educators' mental health, you are improving the learning conditions for all of our students. The ability to concentrate will increase, to plan and to teach will all improve dramatically. It is not irrational for us to be fearing for our safety. Yes, the numbers right now are better in Orange County than in many parts of the state. Thank goodness, but this is due in part to luck and in part to how cautious we have been. We also do not have a safety bubble around all of us. Indeed, most of our staff do not live in Orange County and while it is rare, there have been instances in Vermont where the virus has spread in elementary schools. There is now that new and even more contagious strain of the virus present in the United States and this is not mild anxiety, but real fear amongst your staff and it is completely rational. I also wanna make clear what the difference will be for a student's day to day life in a hybrid classroom during the pandemic, excuse me, versus full in-person learning. And for talking about starting with K through two going full in-person, let me describe a typical day for a primary classroom. The difference in number of students coming into the room each day for a typical class and RES would be from seven or eight students in the room to 14 to 16 students in a room. Right now, given the weather, most of the day is inside. Students would come in and need to take off their coats and boots and snow pants. With hybrid numbers of seven to eight children, the hallway space might allow for a six foot distance, but that certainly will not be possible with double that number of children even three feet apart. Next, they come into the room and wash their hands each for a 22nd minimum. Just that one small task will take at least 10 to 15 minutes and I have never yet a six or seven year old who can really do it in 20 seconds. To maintain even the three foot distance, you would have to call students up to the sink one at a time because you're going to have desks in the way of them making a line and keeping that three foot distance. Oh, and please imagine that 20 minute of hand washing happening a minimum of four times a day. All right, now you have everyone at their seat and hopefully doing some work. Students cannot get up from their seats unless it's one at a time. Again, there's no room. Their desks have to be spread out through the entire room to have enough space. So no circle time, no playing together, no partners unless you're outside. To be honest, the only way to keep the three foot minimum is to have them stay at their seats or standing right next to their desk. So picture a wiggly kindergarten student or a first grader in their seat facing the front of the room for an hour or more of stretches of time. The younger students especially need mass breaks and even now struggle to keep their masks on in hybrid learning. Mass breaks will have to be outside, which means once again coats, snow pants, boots, which starts that entire process over again. Each break is at least a 30 minute time away from learning. And this is not talking about the time away from learning for the teacher to monitor physical distancing and having students keep their mask on in between while they are inside. Even in the current hybrid mode, teachers already have to spend a good part of their day monitoring that students keep their masks on and maintain appropriate physical distancing. And it is a constant struggle. Doubling the number of students in the room at the same time will only increase this problem with the addition of making it harder to keep track of the students. Teachers are very good at scanning the room for things, but this will take even more time away from actual teaching. It is a daunting task on top of trying to provide the rich learning experiences that we want with ensuring that they remain at their desks. So is all of this worth it? Your staff is overwhelmingly saying no, it is not. We are near the finish line. We are not waiting for them to be zero. We are however waiting for the numbers to steadily and dramatically be decreasing across the state or for teachers to have the option of getting the vaccine. We should be working together to push the governor to follow the CDC guidelines and move teachers closer to the front of that line for the vaccines as they are essential workers rather than basing it solely on age, which is what they are currently recommending. Wow. Wow. We want to be back in the classroom with all of our students. We want that more than anything else. We are so close to being able to do that safely. Please don't put our lives or that of our families at higher risk, not when we are so close to being able to do this with minimal and acceptable risk. To return to fully in-person learning now seems foolish and dangerous. There are no do-overs if we get this wrong. Thank you very much. Lane, to you or someone from the administration want to comment or are just presented to us? Yeah, I think, like I said, the anxiety piece is real and that was one of the reasons that the return was spaced out the way it was was to give people time to adjust and realize that there is a legitimate level of fear that people should have around COVID. It's here. Shouldn't be here. If it is, then there are things that we should be doing to try to bring it down to kind of a more realistic range and that was one of the reasons for kind of spreading things out the way that we did. If we start off and things aren't working the way that they should or if things change in terms of conditions around us or the conditions in the schools, we do what we've already done multiple times now is we change what we are doing to ensure that people are safe. There is no intent to purposely put people in harm's way. I think people hopefully realize that I've taken a very cautious approach to this, wait and see to make sure that we're in a good position to be able to begin making this transition. And I would hope that folks would support that and would honor that judgment that's been pretty good so far. Not only was the transition planned to try to help reduce anxiety to give people some experience and to see that things were okay, but it was also timed out to match hopefully the expansion of the vaccine distribution to folks as well as the fact that we'll be hitting warmer weather within a month or two and we'll be able to have more and more activities outside to kind of increase the social distancing. There was an incredible amount of thought and planning that went into how the plan was put together to transition back to full in person. And it took a lot of things into account, especially in terms of trying to mitigate any new risks with new protective factors. That's how it was all set up. Again, like I said, and it's written right in the plan that if conditions change, we need to change too. As simple as that. So again, I don't wanna just remove anything that Nora has said. I believe that what she is saying is genuinely where the faculty are coming from. I do, however, believe that the level of anxiety is higher than what the actuality is. And understandably so. We haven't had a chance to grapple with this or work with this. One of the reasons to bring just a few grades back first and see how things go. So I'll leave it at that. I would also remind that there are a lot of people. We have 150 people here tonight. It is important that we try to stick to the three minute rule if we can so everybody can have an opportunity to speak. Next we've got Jessica Allen. Elaine, I just have two quick questions. I'm still really confused how there's 0% wanting full in person when I know both my husband and I filled it out on computers. And it sounds like Sarah Lewis did also. And it's still at 0%. So is there skewed data somehow? I am happy to share the data that I have with you if you would like, but no, I have not skewed the data. It is the data that the system is reported to me from Survey Monkey. So I'm quite happy if you'd like to see and to share that with you. What I will do is I will go into the system tomorrow and I will specifically look for your names in there under the individual. And if I can find it, that may help in the search. If you're there and it didn't report, that'll tell us there is something going on with the system. If you put in and for whatever reason, the system didn't take it. I can talk with the text to find out if it's an issue with browsers or what. But no, I'm happy to share that with you. My other question is it sounds like teachers are struggling and as we are hopefully moving into kind of full in person, are we providing mental health services, EAP services, something to support these teachers who are struggling? Yeah, they have the EAP services that are available to them. A lot of the principles depending upon the school have actually been working in terms of mental health with the teachers in terms of programming, especially RES. Additionally, we do have a memorandum of understanding that allows any teacher whose anxiety is rising to the level that it's a medical diagnosis to be able to teach remotely. So there are other options, but in terms of teachers struggling at this point in time, at least through where we currently stand, the teacher attendance rate has been outstanding. So the teachers, at least during the time of the hybrid, they have been stepping up to the plate, they've been doing the job, they've been doing an incredible job that they've been here. I would think if the anxiety levels were a little bit higher, at least in terms of what's being presented, that that would not necessarily be the case. So the data that I have shows that the teachers are here, they're showing up and doing a darn good job. Next, I see Orphan Angels wanted to speak. I'll move on. Evan Brownell. Yes, hello, Evan Brownell, eighth grade student. So great discussion, very valid points that everyone has. So I just wanted to say, quote Governor Scott and say, he said Vermont lights the way. And if you think about what he means by that, he means that we need to try to be back to normal, try to become the state that we used to be. And so I believe that if we go back to full in-person or four days a week or whatever you want to call it, that is starting, I guess you could say that is, that's going to be on our way to getting back to normal. That's lighting the way, so to speak. The other thing is that in my little section of the school that the eighth grade has, there are five empty classrooms that are not being used at all. And I guess I'm not understanding if those were also taken into consideration when Mr. Millington had mentioned that there wasn't enough space, I mean, like five. And so I guess what I'm, that's what I'm confused about. And the other thing is that in some classrooms, there are too many kids to have one at each desk. And so what they do, what they did, I should say, is they got dividers. And so there are dividers in between us. And those sort of block any particles that are being put out into the air by an individual person. And I totally understand that stress and anxiety are, they're very big issues. And there's anxiety for everyone. This is a huge change, you know? So lots of anxiety for me, so I wake up, just for example, I won't be too much longer. But for example, I wake up on a Wednesday for my remote or my synchronous learning, right? And I wake up, you know, 6, 6.30, and I go downstairs and then my father's asking me to do a bunch of this stuff. You know, you're saying you got to do this, this, and this. I'm like, well, dad, I have classes today. Well, no, you got to do it. So sometimes I have to stop what I'm doing to get on class. You know, that's really hard. I would much rather use Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to do whatever I need to do. And so I'm saying it's just, you know, I'm not going to say no to him. I'm not going to say no, I'm not going to do that, you know? So that'd be disrespectful. Talking back, I don't do that. So what I'm saying is it would, I understand that it's a very difficult change to come back to full in person. I understand it. But I just think it would be a lot easier, a whole lot easier for teachers and students and parents who have to deal with going to work and watching their kids. And that's all I have to say. I'll shut up now. Evan, I beg your pardon? Evan, just to kind of respond, I appreciate the comments a lot. The dividers, I think, are a good example of how the guidance changed early on. And please keep your speakers, not your speakers, sorry about that, your microphone's muted unless you're speaking. Just adds a lot of feedback to things. The dividers are one of the places where the guidance changed early on. They said, hey, it should be six feet of distancing. If you can do it, if not, a good idea is to put dividers up in place. And that'll help you be able to reduce that distance a little bit. They came back in the recent guidance and said that the dividers don't really work all that well. And you cannot use them to decrease spacing between students. So a lot of that is just due to the fact that the safety guidance that we're getting from the state has changed. And so even though they're there and they probably do help a little bit, we still have to maintain the six feet of distancing at the high school level, even with them. But yeah, I know it changes daily with the guidance. But I appreciate the comments and very, very good, Evan. Appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. OK, next is Aaron Pomeroy. So I am Aaron Pomeroy. I have a student at the seventh grade middle school because he special needs. He is currently going four days a week. Yet at the same time, he can tell you just like Evan, there are open classrooms throughout the day. There are classrooms that have very little amount of students in them at all, if not like two or three kids in the classroom to utilize that space more effectively. Evan, you did an incredible job of stating what it's like on a daily basis in that classroom and in that school. I think the teachers have done an incredible job of going with the flow and doing what everyone's asking them to do on the spot. I do think the fear factor is a real issue as far as kind of getting over that hump of being fearful of a virus that, like our ER nurse just stated, if handled properly, there is a fear. But there's not a fear that it's as crazy as it was at the very beginning when nobody was wearing masks and nobody was washing their hands and nobody was doing what was asked of them. I think there is that hurdle that we need to cross over. I think our entire area right now has been showing and proving that we can handle these spreads, even when we have little spreads, that they're isolated amount of spreads and that we can be able to isolate them and effectively move forward. I think Lane has done an incredible job of making sure that they go on to lockdown and, OK, yep, OK, never everybody's remote and, OK, now we can go back to hybrid and so forth. And I think that fear factor is our hiccup right now. And I think we need to get over that fear factor and move on and be able to put our students' education before everybody else's fear. I think the kids are losing out so much on the fact that they don't have a normal school year. They're not going to have a normal school year. But they need to have some sense of normalcy that is being taken away from them by fear. And I think that fear needs to, like Lane had pointed out, needs to come down a bit. It's way too up there with teachers and staff and some parents freaking out when our numbers have been excellent. And when they have risen, there's call for Lane getting involved in shutting things down. I would love to see us be able to move to in-person a lot faster than this model of only K through 2 and so forth, just for that sense of fear to go down. I don't want to sit there and say that we need to everybody stop doing what they're doing as far as wearing masks and everything else. No, we're doing that. And it's effective right now. Let's continue it, but getting back to normalcy. But thank you all for doing what you have been doing. The teachers have been incredible. And I think if we as a community support them, there won't be that fear factor that's happening right now. We need to come together and give them a sense of support. And they've done an incredible job so far. They can continue to do an incredible job if we as a community support them. I agree. Well said. Hey, next, you've got Tev Kalman. Hi, thanks, Laura. I'm Tev Kalman. I teach at the high school. Also a parent, although not of an OSSD student, but I've got two little ones. And I'm also the vice president of the OSCA. And I guess I want to speak a little bit to some of the things that Aaron was saying, as well as others. And I really mean it when I say, I know, Aaron, that you were sincere. And I know that others have been sincere in expressing appreciation and a desire to support us and a recognition that what we're doing is hard. And I want to say, in exactly the same sincerity, that we recognize that what you are all doing is extremely hard, as well, for different reasons. And for many of you, a lot of the same reasons, because it involves trying to guide young people through a really uncertain and traumatic and unsettling time. And that has an impact on the adults and on the children directly and also on the children through the adults. So I'm hearing a lot of talk about anxiety or the fear factor. And I just wanted to give a little more context and a little more data to show where I'm coming from. And I don't know that anybody said this outright, but if there's any sense that this fear is the product of an overactive imagination or not rational, I want to point out that we have had people. I have had colleagues get COVID-19 at school. And that's a data point that I haven't heard mentioned when we're talking about COVID transmission. I think it's true that there have been studies that have shown a relatively low transmission in schools. And that has been our local experience. However, I know that at least one study that recently came out in the Lancet came to a rather different conclusion, finding a different sampling method and was basically finding that kids don't display COVID at nearly the same rates as adults, but they actually do carry and probably transmit at the same rates. As has been brought up, the new variant of COVID-19 is a complete unknown, and I think that one trend that has been true throughout the pandemic is that nobody in this room but leadership nationwide and worldwide has consistently underestimated the trends of this virus. And I think it's also worth mentioning, I haven't heard it noted, that while it was pointed out that there were many more cases of the flu, but not noticing the wild discrepancy and fatality rate, which is like an order of magnitude, not taking into consideration that while the fatality rate from COVID is quite, quite low, and I think somebody compared it to, I think actually Dr. White compared it to the risk of a car crash, getting sick from COVID and not dying is no joke. And the data that I'm looking at is saying that between 10 and 30% of people have become infected, experienced long-term symptoms, which can be quite severe. You should Google along COVID. So all of this is just to say that we are scared. I'm scared to go back to work. I'm going to do it. We are all going to do it. And I think that Lane's point, which I appreciate, Lane, what I think you were trying to say and saying, like, we haven't seen a tradition. We haven't seen people bowing out. We haven't seen people shirking because we're not going to do that because we care about your kids too much. But we are, many of us are feeling afraid of going into work, not because we don't think that every precaution that can be taken given the constraints is being taken, but because there are legitimate reasons to be afraid. That being said, I do think there are some things that can be done to help spike down the anxiety. And I apologize if I'm going a little long. I'll try to wrap it up. But I think that if we're going to say we're going to be science-based, we need to be fair about that. And the data is not a slam dunk, that there's nothing to worry about to go to school. Depends on which data you look at. I think there's reason to question, and maybe it's a matter of capacity, which is totally understandable. But a lot of people who come into our building every day live outside of Orange County. So looking at the data from Orange County, to me, from outside of Orange County, to me would make sense if we really want to be cautious and show that we're supporting people who have these concerns. And the last thing is that I just want to echo some that Nora was saying, which is that the way, how safe we feel and how supportive we feel as the people who are working with their kids is going to translate into the quality of attention that we are able to give them. And teaching, as Lance said, we're in the people business, and that is so true for us. And I'll be honest, more and more of my brand space is going to worries about my own safety, the safety of my loved ones, and the safety of my colleagues, particularly as a union leader. And there's only so many hours of the day, and there's only so many hours I can take away from my own kids. I know I'm not alone in that. I'm not asking for your sympathy, but I think I'm just trying to ask for a level of discourse that is not trying to minimize these concerns that people have. One last point I want to make is that I really appreciate that where so many of you are coming from is recognizing that our kids' mental health, and when I say our kids, I mean, the students of our school system is suffering this pandemic. There is not a single employee of the school system who does not recognize that and is not torn up about that. And I hope that we recognize that that is not a problem that is going to be fixed simply by going back to school full-time in person with the constraints that we're under. That is a long-term proposition, and I know that times are really hard right now, but I hope that as we have the conversations in this budget season, in next budget season, as a community, through parent, teacher, whatever the venue that we're working together and putting those kids' mental health first and recognizing like, yeah, we're all in this together and we're all in this for the long haul. So thank you very much for letting me go a little long. Thanks, Ted. Sage Barber. Hi, can you guys hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay, I apologize. I couldn't figure out the technical stuff earlier. I just want to say, Tave, the person that spoke, that was really articulate what you said, and I felt it. I wanted to kind of share my experience as a mom who has been going through this with young children. I want to represent a lot of those families. I had to hire somebody since the beginning of the year to help me with my daughter's schoolwork because I had a 10-month-old and a three-year-old, and I couldn't give her the attention she needed. So I'm not the only mom, I'm sure, who's felt that way, and she went to school today and she came home and she was like, I had so much fun today, mom. It was like, and it was so peaceful in our home. Like, I just want to like talk a little bit about, you know, the mental well-being of families who are just together all the time. You know, she really misses school. And Elaine, I want to mention, I did the survey as well, me and my daughter, and we said we wanted full-time to return to school as well. So I don't know why you didn't get our survey either. I don't know if there was some other people who had that. That was a high school level. Did you say that? Oh, no, no, no, no, for the elementary. Sorry, Miss... Okay, no, I'm just making sure so when I'm looking tomorrow, I know what I'm looking at. Yeah, no, I was, you got ours. So I'm just sort of sharing another perspective, but again, I want to honor, Tave, what you said too. This is a hard situation, you know? What everybody says is important. I also just want to mention the... I talked to my daughter's teacher, she's in first grade, and her report card, she told me, she's kind of really behind in her reading, but her teacher, Miss Pratt, told me that she thinks that's because of the pandemic and because she's not getting that in-school attention. So I just wanted to mention all those things. And I don't think there's a clear answer, but I just wanted to put in a word for families who are, you know, the well-being of them and the people who have young children and what they're dealing with in their homes, it's affecting people all very differently. So I support going back to school, but I am also not a teacher. So yeah, thank you. That's all I have to share. Thanks, Sage. Lindsay? Yeah, this is a Jordan Schwenyer. I have a student in the elementary school. I just want to say that I do support elementary school going back. It's been very difficult for my son to do the hybrid and the remote learning. He's one that needs a lot of structure. There's probably some other students that do well with structure and don't do well when they don't have that structure. My wife's been staying home, trying to do a full-time job or trying to help teach my son and educate him. This year has been very difficult, very subpar as far as the education that my son is learning this year and part of last year. You know, as a businessman that I am, you know, as a customer, I look at that and say, okay, I'm getting subpar results from this business. I would go somewhere else, right? I don't have that opportunity. That's very difficult. I don't know, sorry, it's my first board meeting I've ever been to. I don't know where the four days comes from. To me, that's not full-time. I don't understand it. Someone will have to explain that to me. And also, you know, it's been tough for everyone. I get it. It's tough for me and my family. It's tough for the teachers. It's tough for the children. We're all in this together. You know, we all need to rise up, deal with the anxiety and move forward and really look forward to providing the best education for our youth and our future, right? We have our future who is not getting education that they need. And that's all I have to say. Lane, do you want to explain the four days of in-person instruction? Thanks. And that's based on a little bit older guidance that hopefully is going to change in the future. We also, as part of the phased-in plan, you know, as we get closer to March, you know, that was looking at going to five days. The guidance that we had when this was developed was this idea that the particles that come out when people breathe cough, sneeze, whatever, those aerosolized particles, they can float around in the air for a number of hours before they actually settle on a surface. And so what we like to try to do is a more extensive cleaning at least once a week. But the first part of that cleaning is to allow for about 24 hours for those droplets to settle onto surfaces so that we can then basically kill the bugs and clean those surfaces that contain them when we go through and do our regular cleaning and disinfecting. So, you know, the idea of a deep clean has gone out the window, but this idea of giving some time to really air things out well, you know, open some windows, give time for those particles to settle and then go through and do the disinfecting afterward, it takes time, about 48 hours. So the idea of that Friday is to allow for that. We also have an agreement with the union to provide them with a half day of professional time to plan in an environment that's difficult to plan for. And so we need to preserve some of that time on the Fridays until, you know, we're basically back in full in session to be able to honor that MOU agreement. So good question. Okay, thanks. So next is John Fenton. Oh, you can hear me okay? Just fine. Okay. Hey, John Fenton, I have a daughter in kindergarten and a son in second grade at Randolph Elementary School. I'd like to start off by saying that I think Ms. Langlois and Ms. Opens have done a good job with my kids through this, all the challenges and stuff. So I'd like to say thank you for that. I have no complaints with the hybrid and when we were doing remote, but I do have a question about spacing in terms of how it relates to the elementary school and the high school. It sounds like Lane from the graphic that you put up earlier, that given the state's recommendations at this time that high school learning is just kind of out of the question until something changes. Am I right in that? Sorry about that, that was fine in my microphone. So they've given us, it's more than guidance, it's a directive that there has to be six feet of spacing for the students. So unless we're able to provide that, it's kind of impossible to bring the students back. So that's one of the biggest controlling factors that we have at this point in time in regards to the high school. Okay, so my question off of that is in regards to, I know that my children K through two will be able to go back in on schedule, but in regards to three through eight, has there been any exploration into until those guidelines change for the high school using that space that's not going to be used to space out three through eight. So maybe those kids can get back to in-person learning and has there been any reaching out to maybe some local public buildings that aren't open right now for possibly high school kids that want to be back in session, Chandler, any other local public areas that could accommodate that spacing requirement? Yeah, we've actually looked at all of those things. The six foot directive is for grades seven through 12. So when I'm talking about the high school, I'm including the middle school grades in there as well. The three foot social distancing is for grades K to six. So we do, like I said, we do have the ability to at least bring the seventh graders back, potentially the ninth graders because as a class, they're small. But remember, we're still operating under a hybrid schedule and those students are in pods. So trying to do two things at once within the building is going to break down that pod structure. And we also don't have as many rooms available to be able to support it as people believe that there are. We did initially take a look at other possible public spaces to be able to run some classes and spread things out a little bit. The problem that we run into is we have pretty stringent requirements in terms of cleaning, in terms of protocols that we have to follow and lose a lot of that ability when we go to a public space. We've been working hard with Vermont Tech, with the task force to try to use the little red school building, for example, to be able to run a temporary childcare up there. And we're three weeks in and there's been some progress, but it's difficult getting those legal agreements developed by the lawyers and having people sign it because of the liability. So yeah, it brings in a whole new host of concerns and constraints when we start to look outside of the district itself and then being able to, like I said, provide the cleaning and handle the protocols and deal with the liability. So yeah, very good questions. Okay, thanks. Stop, Owen. Next is about Briella Hough. Yes, thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay, thanks. So this is Lindsay Hoppe. My daughter is Briella and I have two elementary schools and two elementary school-aged kids in Braintree. I am a physical therapist at Gifford Medical Center and I also own Moteo Recreation in town and have been working hard to provide that opportunity to families. So I'm pretty versed in all the social distancing and all the guidelines at this point in many avenues. I'd really like to reiterate the healthcare professionals that have really put out the data. We kind of throw data around and I know for people who probably aren't used to interpreting it, it can feel a little bit overwhelming but it really encouraged the board to hear the facts that the transmissions are low between teachers. It's not zero, nobody's saying that but the reality of it is there's transmission if you go to a family event is higher and we know teachers were doing that over the holidays just as other people were. The reality of it is the transmissions are higher if you go to certain public avenues that people are still going to. Many professionals feel the exact same anxiety as teachers do. We're just not given the privilege to fight for that. We're expected to believe that the professionals that lead us have provided us with what we need to be safe. The ER doctors, myself as a physical therapist who see upwards of 50 to 60 different people in a week in close face-to-face contact, totally get it. But we also know that you can do the right things and stay safe and we're proof. Lane mentioned back in October when many of us parents wanted to see us go back in person that we would give the other schools, many of which were going back to school around us, Williamstown, Northfield, Bethel, Tumbridge, Rochester, South Royalton, a chance to sort of show us, can we do it? They've all now been four to five in person, some of them even at the high school level since then and as Lane stated, they are doing well with simply removing sick individuals. For us to continue to need to be slow in our progression is unfair to our community. We have catered to the fear for the first semester and we are now asking that people stand up to that fear and figure out what it is that they need to do to feel comfortable and move forward. It is extremely hard as a parent to negate my child's mental health and only consider that of teachers. I'm not saying it's one or the other but you have to hear the families that have sat by and supported the hybrid learning while every other community around us has gone back to school. I have watched and listened to teacher after teacher in my own community say I'm ready. I don't know why we're not back either. I'm confused. I also ask that if I'm frustrated, I should say by the fact that we don't have tables. We knew back in September that the plan was eventually going to be to send our kids back. We should have been ordering tables in September that we knew we would need when that happened. We should be prepared for this now not just trying to think of solutions. We had extra weeks at the beginning of school where our kids were home. So teachers could figure and staff could figure that out. I love our teachers. They have done an amazing job and I know when we go full remote they will continue to do an amazing job but we need now to look at what we need to recommend moving forward and that is full in person for elementary students starting on the 11th and not facing it in a month's timeframe because of anxiety. We have already catered to the anxiety. If Braintree and Brookfield have the space for their kids to go back, they need to go back. We don't need to wait for Randolph Elementary School to have that set up. As soon as those tables are here the rest of the sixth grade kids should go back not two weeks later. Please hear the parents and the medical professionals that know what is necessary to be done and help us get our kids back in school. Thank you. There you go. Good job. Good job. Okay, next Christina DeNicola. Can we ask everybody stay muted please? Hi, this is Christina DeNicola. I'm a parent of a second grader at RES and I'm also a pediatrician here in Randolph. And I just want to comment on Erin. First of all, thank you everyone for sharing everything that was said tonight. Just some really great points were made. I was really struck by Erin Pomeroy's comments about the fear, the anxiety and getting over that. And I'm also struck by what Nora Skolnick said in her comments as well. And again, as a healthcare professional I experienced firsthand the anxiety and also the conundrum of how I quit my job and stayed home. One, I would have done no service to my patients or medical community or colleagues or anything. It just, it wouldn't have been an option, right? But the fear was tangible. I didn't sleep for months and nobody knew anything at the beginning of the pandemic and we were being told we didn't even have enough masks to protect ourselves as healthcare workers. That anxiety, just thinking about it raises my heart rate. I really understand the anxiety that Nora is concerned about. But you also, you know, but Nora also said that teachers are essential workers. Absolutely, they're one of the most important, if not the most important job we can have for our school in terms of education. And the thing that helped me as an essential worker move past the fear was, in a sense, time, more information, elegant studies that show that a simple act of wearing a mask, even if you're in a room with a COVID positive patient who is not wearing, or a person who is not wearing a mask protects you. The number one thing that I had to take in, in my brain, was trust your PPE. A simple mask and additional glasses maybe not eliminated to zero, but really darn close to getting COVID, especially in more controlled situations in a classroom. I've been covering my patients in primary care clinics. There's no six feet. I'm within six inches of them as I have to examine them. I'm sitting in the room probably less than six feet away. My visits are anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes per patient. I have to go into the ER when I'm consulted and see those patients. I wear my PPE everywhere. I'm also covering labors and deliveries where I'm literally, I can literally be in a room for several hours under masks with a panting laboring woman screaming. And if there's anything aerosolizing, that's probably the most aerosolizing thing I can think of. And yet our OB team and our providers have stayed safe with simple glasses and masks. And these are cheap, inexpensive things that can be washed and reused. And they really protect, I mean, not only have I not ever gotten COVID, I've not even gotten sick, period. And I have kids coughing in my face every single day. And that fear is really there. But if I hadn't gone back to work, I mean, I never left work, but if I had quit at the outset, one, I may never have gotten back ever, which would have been a massive life change. And maybe I would never have gotten over that. Two, going back or staying with my colleagues who were also going through the same thing and having the support of mental health care professionals helped tremendously. Going through it with my colleagues rather than in isolation was probably the most healing thing that helped me continue what I had to do. The fear is real. And no one wants a teacher to go to work and get sick and have any kind of complications from COVID. Nobody wants any of that for their community members. But at the same time, if we don't at some point use the resources we have to one, protect ourselves, which are really good resources now. There are treatments as well, which weren't available in the beginning of the pandemic. If we don't use them and we stay in isolation and in fear, you can't move on. And so my heart goes out. I was in the same panicky fear mode for months until I realized, okay, this is working. And so use mental health care providers to work through the fear, trust the glasses and the masks. There's a very eloquent, so the majority of well-designed studies have shown that there's more transmission from adults to adults to adults to kids than there are from kids to adults. And also there's been eloquent studies that show that the contact like, things living on surfaces, getting COVID from like taking in your mail. There's been very eloquent studies that show that there's really not a lot of that. There's hardly any transmission from that. It's more airborne and it's more touching your mucus membranes with the live virus particles on them. So trust that. I had no choice but to trust it or I would have lost my mind. And if I hadn't trusted my colleagues, the professionals who put out the best studies, mental health care professionals, I couldn't have moved on. And I just wanna say that we understand and but at the same time, we need an education community back for so many reasons. So that's all I have to say and thank you. Thank you. Chris Armstrong. Hi, Laura, thank you. Chris Armstrong, I'm a teacher. I have children in the district. I grew up around here. All of my family members live in the community. I just have to jump off of Ted's comments earlier and say that to me, it's disheartening to hear the tone and comments in the last meeting as well as this one about everyone's anxiety level and suggesting that it's higher than it should be. Implying that people are living in a condition of elevated fear and that it's not at an appropriate level is something that people need to be more careful about voicing in a forum where so many people live in incredibly different situations. My level of fear should not be qualified based on anyone else's. There are those living with people for whom it's a very real possibility of not living through this pandemic if they were to contract COVID. There are also many who do not live in that type of situation and really cannot understand it. What's greatly missing from these conversations is a real desire to understand the circumstances of our neighbors. There are many living in fear for very good reasons. There are many living within Orange County who have been infected and refused to even get tested while they spread it to others. I've heard it compared to chickenpox. Once I get it, I won't get it again. This puts the most vulnerable in our community, and by the way, the least represented in these forums in grave risk. If we're to go out off the data, then we cannot ignore the fact that many cases are completely unreported even within our own supervised reunion. In the end, this comes down to whether or not the board believes that advancing to the next level of phased instruction is worth the risks. And let's be honest, despite anyone's level of fear, the risks are real and still very unknown on so many levels. It's without doubt the in-person full-time instruction is the best education and the best option for the majority of students. This decision, however, unfortunately goes beyond just the basic parameters of public education. This is a pandemic and brings with it unusual circumstances. This decision really needs to also take into account whether it is worth the risks that it poses to the staff and community because if a spike occurs and it does spread out and affect the vulnerable in our community, I wonder how many would agree that pushing forward as fast as possible is really worth the risk. I believe that most would not. We're a community entity and we need to act responsibly for the community. I hope that in the end of all of this, looking back years from now, that the time will show that the board made the correct decision. Honestly, it's in your hands. We all hope you make the right decision. Our elderly and medically vulnerable neighbors' lives depend on it. So I just ask that you really think this through before making the decision. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Elijah. Hi, everyone. This is Elijah. I'm principal at Randolph Union and was in the classrooms last week doing some of the measurements and trying to look at what six foot would actually look like. I just wanted to make sure the board had a little bit of a picture of what it would look like for grades seven and eight to come back at the six foot distancing. And I also wanted to suggest that while some of our medical professionals are endorsing, of course, the effectiveness of PPE if the implication is that we disregard the six foot directive from the state, that should be part of the board's resolution. Because if we're planning with six feet in mind, that's one thing. If we're directed to disregard the state's directive, that's another thing. So it's really important that you're clear with the administration, what parameters you want us to follow when we plan for seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th grade classrooms. I'm hearing Evan, who's one of my students, ache for a return to normalcy. And I'm hearing the parents ache for that too. I just, and I ache, of course, also to see your students five days a week. But just so you know what it would look like at the six foot distancing to have seventh grade back, we would, and again, like Lane said, it's physically possible, but this is what it would look like. It wouldn't look like normal seventh grade classes. So we would, there are four rooms in, on the campus where there are curtains that you can retract to create classrooms that are double the size. So we would, because the seventh grade is our biggest class, we would allocate all four of those classrooms to the seventh grade and teach one of their classes in the middle school gym. So that would give us five spaces that are big enough for the 20 student class sizes that we would create if we brought students back full time. So that would mean like in your seventh grade math class, your teachers at the front of the room and between the teacher and the student at the back, there's 60 feet. That's how long the big classrooms are. So we would probably need some kind of amplification system so that teachers with masks on can communicate 60 feet back to the students at the back of the room. So that's, again, that's physically possible if we get the right tables, but it's obviously not a return to normal. The eighth grade, and Evan is right to identify that there are some empty classrooms. They're definitely gonna be empty classrooms on a campus if you only have half the students coming back on a given day. So the hybrid modality doesn't make use of every square foot of the campus. But the eighth grade classrooms are 800 something square feet. And we wouldn't be able to have the full cohorts back in those rooms. So if we brought the eighth grade back full time, we would then end up probably teaching eighth grade science and eighth grade math in the high school gym, which has a divider so you can pull a curtain across the middle of the high school gym and then you would have math on one side and science on the other. Now, I've never done that before as an administrator so I don't know what that would look like in terms of effectiveness of instruction, how loud or how quiet it would be or what it would be like to have science without a sink in the high school gym. But obviously we can fit a class in half the high school gym. So that's probably what we would do for two of the eighth grade classes. We would probably also move an eighth grade class into the media center that is the library which would then displace the 11th and 12th graders who use that as one of their study spaces when they're not in classes. So that's also possible. What we would do with the other eighth grade classes I'm not sure we might use a combination of the PBL lab which may be big enough or we might have to look into moving the 11th and 12th grade students who are in two of our larger classrooms which are the music room and the art rooms. Those are two of our biggest classrooms and so they could probably accommodate the eighth grade but then that would mean bumping the 11th and 12th grade. So again, physically possible but you start to get a sense of what the school might look like and what the ripple effect would be. Ninth grade can probably fit if we bring everybody back full time in their current rooms. But the challenges there are about just a total reset of the campus as a collective if we need to do a February, March redesign of the whole campus. It's just important to keep in mind what's implied there across the whole school. 10th grade could not fit in their current rooms. We put them on the first floor in what used to be like the foreign language wing of the building. They are in the very smallest classrooms of the school other than the high school science classroom that Shana teaches in. So I don't know what we would do with the 10th grade if the directive was to bring them back full time. So that's just a little bit of like what it might look like in terms of the details to quote unquote return to normal. It certainly wouldn't be that if we were to do that in March. And so the board would need to wrestle with is that kind of a redesign of the campus? What we want to be doing in March so that we have it in place for quarter four of the school year. And then Lane would probably need to advise as to whether or not we have the maintenance personnel and the furniture needed to do all of that over February vacation and or to take some more school time to do that in March. So those are some of the details that we've been wrestling with last week and earlier of course as we think about the full return to in person but I just wanted to make sure people knew like what would seventh grade math look like if they were back full in person it would be those very, very big classrooms probably some audio amplification and groups of 20 students as opposed to groups of 10. And we would definitely want teachers to allocate some time to rebuilding classroom culture and routines because whenever you change any student grouping you change the dynamic and so you need to rebuild classroom culture so that it's a culture of learning and not a culture of disruptions. A data point that hasn't come up much at these board meetings by nobody's fault but just perhaps it wasn't on the radar is that discipline reports or discipline referrals that are a result of interactions on campus I could count them on two hands this school year. So really the culture has been one of learning and so we would want our teachers to devote some time to resetting that classroom culture in totally new spaces with totally new groups in March if that was the timeline that the board directed us to use for grade seven and eight. So just a little bit of information, happy to reply to specific questions if people have them. Are there any other board questions for Elijah about this information? Thanks, I appreciate the details. Does anyone have a question for? Okay, we would intend to keep the six foot distance we're not going to flout the governor's directives on that so. All right, are there any, see Evan Brownell has his hand up again. Is there anyone else he's already spoken? Is there anyone else who would like to make a comment or have a question at this time? Evan, if you'd like to say one thing and keep yourself to one minute, that would be fine. I just had a question for Mr. Hawks. Go ahead. So am I correct that you were saying you would need a 60 foot classroom for 20 kids? You unmuted yourself and then you moved yourself again. Okay, in order to fit the students in the seventh grade groupings, Evan, we would need to combine our two larger classrooms and then spread them out across those classrooms. Like if you pulled the divider between your social studies and English room, we would make that into one classroom and then spread the seventh graders out across that room. Given the space calculator that we've been using and also some of the mapping I did with Mr. Cotto, yeah. All right, thank you for answering that. I mean, I just, I was thinking that I was just trying to understand a little more and I don't know, I, you know, maybe it'd just be easier to, like we were gonna do the phasing in, but I'm saying like two grades at the high school at a time and see how much space, which I'm sure your calculations are accurate. I'm saying how much space we would actually use up and see how much we have left. You see what I'm saying? Like take seventh, you had mentioned that seventh grade is the biggest class in the school. So I'm saying take seventh and eighth grade. And by the way, this is totally unbiased. Much as I wanna go back, I'm just, it's unbiased. Take seventh and eighth grade and you have them go for four days a week and then you see how it goes. And I'm not just saying how much room. I'm saying, you know, how they do with the social distancing and we're keeping their masks on and, you know, all that stuff and how the teachers deal with all of it. So I'm just making a suggestion, just putting out ideas. Seeing as I don't- Could I ask a question? Sorry, I- Sure, go ahead. Sorry. Introduce yourself please. I'm sorry, my name is Kathy Robinson. I'm a, actually grandparent in the community have grandchildren in many grades here. And I guess I would like to sort of dwell on this distance issue and having been in this town for decades. I guess I circle back to this issue around looking at other and I appreciate that someone previously brought up using outside facilities. For example, churches and other community buildings, which I was very excited about because I had to trouble getting into the chat room. So sorry, I had to jump in. But I think those should be high on our list of options because again, having lived in this town for a very long time, our school burned down decades ago and that's what you do in emergency situations and obviously this is an emergency situation. And I heard Lane speaking about legalities and contracts and quite frankly, in my opinion and I think would like to believe many others, that ship sailed. We're way past that stuff. This is a bit now about our children's education and grandchildren's education. We need to get them back in school, back in a routine. This is what they need. You can deal with that stuff outside somewhere. Right now, they need a routine. They need to get back into a routine of learning every single day. This hybrid method for many, many, many of them is not working. And I would endorse what many other people are now saying that I don't know where Lane is getting this. People at the high school level did not vote for in-person learning because even as a grandparent, I got sent that survey and I voted for four-day learning and he's saying the zero people voted for it. Well, that's just not true. So I do think that needs to be looked at. So again, it's really challenging to understand why we cannot look at in an emergency situation which we know we're all in, why we cannot look at community buildings, whether it's Chandler, it's churches, it's VTC. Again, I think we're way past an emergency situation and things need to be looked at as an option. Thank you. Thank you for your perspective. All right. If there are no other public comment, I'd love to just re-engage with the other board members as we sort of talk about our feelings about all that we have heard tonight and reflect about those. Oh, excuse me. Hello? Hello? Go ahead. I'm calling into this meeting and I wasn't sure how to raise my hand politely. So I didn't mean any disrespect by cutting you off. I'm very sorry about that. No problem. Please introduce yourself. Okay. Of course. I'm Phoenix Miller. I have a four-year-old at the Braintree Elementary and I have a 15-year-old sister at Randolph Union. I just wanna take a second and appreciate everybody for their different perspectives. I think it's provided a very well-rounded gathering of ideas as far as this goes. I'd love to go off of Chris Armstrong from earlier on the topic of not quite understanding where everyone's coming from in these situations. The mental health of everybody is declining but I'm not exactly sure if rushing to get everybody back in, I understand that education is extremely important and I would love nothing more than for my son to go back to school, but to also go off of the last commenter, who I'm sorry, I forgot your name, I'm on the factory floor, not quite sure how hybrid learning connotates to not every day in school, like whether you're in the building or not, as parents, we should still be working with the packaging. But before I get too far, I guess I should clarify. With my son, he's in a preschool kindergarten situation, so I'm not exactly sure how much leeway or weight I actually hold in this. So would this actually affect the preschool kindergarten hybrid classes? It will affect your son. If your son is fully remote, it will not affect your son. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt. Okay, is there anyone else who would like to speak? I'm sorry that I didn't realize how hard it is for those on the phone to raise their hand. Kim Schmeling, did you wanna say something? Yes. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can, go ahead. So what is gonna going on with RTCC? So the recommendation at this point in time, and again, the board has to vote to make a decision, would be for at the end of first semester for RTCC students to return to full in-person instruction at the beginning of second semester, which I believe is January 25th. So that's the current recommendation that's out there. And that's for all of RTCC. That's correct. Okay, my daughter's in the criminal justice and she's going, they are going four days a week now as it is. Yeah, some students at all the schools for various reasons are attending more than just the hybrid schedule. Okay, so on January 25th though, but the whole RTCC will be returning full-time to four days a week. But potentially if that's what the board votes, yes. Okay, thank you. It is 8.30, I'd like to move on to board deliberation. What questions or comments do any of you have for later for one another so that we can decide how we're going to vote and move towards some sort of consideration of this proposal? Laura, I'll go. This is Katja, a board member. I just wanted to say I really appreciate all of the voices and comments and perspectives that have been presented tonight. It's always so wonderful to have so many people turn out and the fact that we can have these conversations with civility and respect. I think for myself personally, the one thing that I really wanna say and make the point of is that I am in no position to be making a correct decision tonight. I don't know what the correct decision is in a case like this. I think I personally am always trying to make the most informed decision based on the information and the data that's been presented to me. So I just kind of felt like that was something I wanted to bring up because everything is uncertain. We don't know what the correct situation is. We as a group are always trying to take all perspectives and make that informed decision based on what we hear from data, based on what we hear from other individuals. We have some points of parents really wanting to have our children back in school. We have recommendations from Elaine and the cabinet regarding that. So I just wanted to kind of bring that up that the decisions that we make may not be the correct ones, but I don't know what correct is in this situation. Not sure there's one single correct decision. I think it's gonna be an informed decision, but I think there's no way to know what's gonna be correct, quote unquote. Someone else who on the board who hasn't spoken recently, anyone could speak? None of us has spoken, really, opinions. I'd like to ask Lane a question. Lane, if a teacher wants to, we're hearing from the healthcare providers, they have glasses. I'm not exactly, I haven't been to a healthcare provider to see what kind of glasses they're wearing, but do our teachers have access to glasses as well as masks if they feel like they wanna take that additional precaution? Yeah, we've actually, we purchased the face visors that meet the guidance, they gotta reach around to the years, gotta extend beyond the chin. The guidance that we've been receiving from the Department of Health and from the AOE is that you're welcome to use those in addition to the mask, but not in place of. They don't seem to feel that there's a strong safety benefit to it the way the guidance is written, but we do have them available. We ordered them in both sizes for kids and for adults. So they are physically here. Yeah. I'd like to go ahead and say some things. I wanna return. I was very struck by the kind of day in the life that Nora presented that is not a return to normal. So I think someone said earlier the phrase a return to full in person is not a return to normalcy. And I think it's important to remember that when we talk about wanting to get the kids back to the familiar and back to the routine. Familiar and routine is not what they will return to if we go full in person. I feel the same as I did at the beginning of this meeting that the 11th is not enough time to have the data and the evidence data that I can read. I do have the patience to read and I do understand to safely go back on the 11th. I cannot, with a clear conscience, I cannot vote for us to do that. There were several things said tonight. I too think that I appreciate that we're able to have a respectful conversation. I think there were things said tonight that kind of roiled me the wrong way and it's hard not to react emotionally. It's hard not to react as a parent. It's hard not to react as a spouse when talking about health issues, but my responsibility is to react as a board member that represents the health and safety and what is right for the entire community. So again, I cannot vote to go back on the 11th. I don't see the evidence. I wanna say one more time for my own sake. That I, the best thing for my second grader is to be full in person safely. That does not mean, that does not equal to me going back on the 11th. It's not, that's not what I believe is right, safe or fair. Thank you. So Hannah, you're saying you would prefer returning to the January 18th date and that was originally proposed, I guess, back in December or are you suggesting something else? I'm not. I'm comfortable saying that what I understood was that we'd work towards going full in person on the 18th into a phased approach. But that we have to return to the question. Everything is so unpredictable that, yes, I would like to think the 18th we can do it. Again, I don't have the evidence to know that that will be okay. We need more information. We need more data, but I'm being very vague, but yes, I feel comfortable saying that we should work towards a January 18th return, but I wanna circle back on it. Can I say one more thing? I'm sorry, guys, one more thing. I just have to say again that I know for a fact that people are exposed and not getting tested and that is an important thing for me to repeat. Someone else? I also was thinking about what Nora explained when she talked about a kindergarten classroom and having had young children getting in and out of snow pants and boots. And again, I think I understand people want their kids to be in school, but I do wonder would that extra amount of time taken for all of that you've now doubled that amount of time that's gonna need to be used? Are we really gaining? And then we didn't hear from the elementary school principles to also understand those, unless they've changed the way that the kindergarten classrooms are, at least at RES. I'm not as familiar with Brookfield and Braintree, but there's not a lot of space. They now can at least be three feet apart, but is there, I mean, to have these, I just wonder about how that's all gonna play out in terms of how effective the education is gonna be and how easily that's gonna be managed for the teacher to manage all of that, as well as keeping them apart. Or I mean, it's hard enough with the kids who are older to try and keep them apart, let alone the younger ones. I can't even imagine how hard it is to keep them apart. So it just seems like that's a daunting task to have that number of children in that space. I wouldn't wanna have to be in that position personally. But anyway, this is a very difficult question. And I'm curious, Lane, the administrators were in the building doing the measuring and thinking about things. I'm assuming that you are speaking with especially the kindergarten and first and second grade teachers to ask them about logistically just how this is all gonna work and how effective it's gonna be. The elementary crew as well as the high school, but the elementary crew has continued meeting kind of with their transition team that they set up at the very beginning of the school year. And at the beginning of the school year, that team was engaged in taking the general guidance that I was putting together for the district with input from all sorts of different sources and interpreting it to what it would mean in their actual school. So yes, they had been meeting with that group as part of this work and this decision-making process is my understanding. Yeah, so good question. Any other comments, questions? Are you ready to go? Yeah, I'll get all the comments. I will say that I'm more in favor of the January 11th and I still hope that we can get the kids back quicker than possible. But from hearing here, it sounds like there's still a lot of questions on if this can be done. And I'm a little disappointed because I thought we had talked a couple of months ago that to get this plan in place and ready to go when the time came around, but it sounds still like there's questions out there if this can even be done. So I'm for them going ahead is getting them into classes as soon as we can but it is a little disappointing that it's not kind of ironed out yet but it's my... I've taken great pains as well as had the cabinet to keep this board detailed informed in all the details along this way. And a significant amount of work and planning has come in under difficult circumstances with guidance that changes on a dime. So I'm sorry if I'm sounding a little bit upset right now. The amount of planning and work that has been done has been herculean. And there is nothing here tonight that should be coming as a surprise to folks. Remember, the guidance changed again in detail in mid-December in terms of social distancing and all the other pieces that we had to work with. Remember, we weren't getting money from the state to buy the $60,000 worth of desks that we needed and we have a fixed budget to try to draw from. So there has been a tremendous amount of work that's going on and I know it's hard to see sometimes from the outside, but I do that. There has been a, I just got to say it, there has been a tremendous amount of planning done under difficult circumstances. Things are as ready to go as they're gonna be. What was presented tonight is what is possible, right? And it really hasn't changed from what we've talked about earlier on in the year. Just to clarify, Lane, so you're proposing January 11th for the K through two, and then what's your timetable for three through six? So let me pull up the plan that's been out since early November in detail. And again, like I said, I'm a little heated because everybody's had a copy of the plan. Let me just a second here. And again, this plan has been revised constantly as more information commends. So, December break, January of 2020 and to do January 4th, board meeting, the board will determine if a phased in return to full and personal learning modality will begin four days a week. On February 1st, the remaining elementary grades four through six, as well as whatever middle school grades are possible would return to full and personal instruction, which is potentially seventh grade at this point in time. So, February 1st would be the next. One of the things that want to make sure that people do understand at the high school level are grades 11 and 12 are pretty much full in person right now. And so that's kind of when Elijah was speaking to make sure that people understand what it means to displace 11th and 12th grade. It means that they are no longer pretty much full in person if the other grades come back. I'm sorry, Lane, did you just, the 11th and 12th graders are full in person every day? They come in as needed pretty much any time to do the work that they need to do. That's been going on since this started. We talked about that at one of the early board meetings this year as well. And that's why displacing them becomes problematic. They're already taking up spaces because they're there. If we bring in the other grades, we will technically displace them from what they're currently doing. Any other questions or comments or are we ready for a vote? Laura, a process question. Are we going to vote on the elementary separately from the high school, separately from RTCC? Or is this one vote? Well, it would depend, I guess, on the motion. Right now, Lane's proposal includes everything. So we could vote on RTCC separately and then whoever the motion is proposed, I guess would be the best way to go about it. And you guys, again, these are the best recommendations we have after studying this for quite a while in the changing guidance. You do have the ability to alter and change whatever is there. Hopefully, I would, as a board, I would look at this as, hopefully it's acceptable, but if it's not, as a starting point for your discussions on what you'd like to do. Yes, and I think when, if the situation changes, we're gonna have to go back to the drawing board and revisit any decision we make. What version date you're working off of, Lane, with your recommendations, with a tentative plan? I see that one. Yeah, the last update was December 28th. Okay. That was sent out to folks. I can send it again if folks need it. You said December 28th, okay, thank you. Yep. Do you mind rescinding that if you're able to? Yeah, not a problem. Thank you. But your current recommendation is that we go with this January 11th for the K-2, not January 18th, K-2. Correct. And I think the January 18th date, let me go back and read. I think the January 18th date had more to do when we were in full remote session about when that full remote, remember, things have changed quite dramatically in a short amount of time. That's one of the things about the COVID is it keeps you on your toes. That 18th was in reference to a vote the board did to come out of remote session. I'm right, you voted to go into remote session because we had the eight cases or so. Yeah. I have one more question, Lane. Yeah. So say we, January 11th, we go into this, you know, we start. What if, what is the feedback from your staff or are you gonna check in, you know, is it working well for the students? Is it working well for the staff? If it's not working well, are you gonna look at whether it's working well or are we just gonna move forward no matter what? Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons to take the survey which was to get an initial field to be able to present to the board about where the staff stood. And, you know, it was very clear that the staff are not in favor of full in-person. And understandably so, there is a lot of legitimate anxiety. And part of the, like I said, part of the reason for kind of extending things was to give time for the anxiety to come around, you know, if people get back and things are going well, hopefully that reduces anxiety. But also when the plan was the idea and I talked a little bit with Ashley about this depending upon what the board voted tonight, was trying to see if another one of the medical professionals would be willing just to have an open forum or two with both the community and with the staff to talk about their anxieties and the concerns that they have and hear from somebody in the medical profession just like was done at the board meeting at the last board meeting to just get some data to go along, you know, with their fears to see if, yeah, this is where the data is telling me things should be. I'm up here, you know, is it possible for me to adjust things? You know, to try to bring things more in line. This is part of that plan as well. But it depends upon what we vote tonight. So yeah, it's a part of that. The principles are great. They're checking in with folks. They relay things back to me through the cabinet meeting. The staff do reach out quite frequently. I was in the RTCC and high school today. So I did have time to chat with a few staff members as I was doing that wander around. So yeah, I mean, there's the informal process. I can make it more formal if people feel more comfortable about it. I mean, we can upgrade the survey obviously to see, you know, how folks are feeling might be reasonable to do. But yeah, I don't think about it. The way that you're asking it, because it's usually just a normal part of what we do, if that makes sense. Why don't we start by considering RTCC, making a motion to approve or disapprove the full person instruction beginning at RTCC on January 25th. That seems like a somewhat separate issue that we could perhaps dispense with a vote first and then move on to the elementary and high school question. So can I have a motion to consider the RTCC reopening? This is Ashley and I make a motion that RTCC returns to full in-person learning starting the start of the second semester, January 25th. Is there a second? That's a second. Ryan seconds, okay. All those in favor, maybe we should do a, Rachel suggested we do a roll call just because I can't see everyone on my screen right now. So we can do that, Brian. Yes. Ann. Sorry. Gotcha. Yes. Ashley. Yes. Anna. No. Rachel. Yes. Okay. Yes, as well. So that is seven to one. Thank you, everybody. Next, we need a motion concerning, concerning K2, I guess, to start or we could consider the entire proposal as written and discussed by Lane and elaborate in his proposal. Laura, I don't think we had Megan. Is that correct? That's correct. I'm sorry, I forgot Megan. So it'd be six, one. Sorry, my internet disconnected. Okay. Are you yes or no? I'm sorry, I didn't hear my internet disconnected. Can you repeat that? Okay, that's why I didn't see you. Yes. So we just voted on a motion to allow RTCC to go to full in person four day a week instruction beginning the second semester, January 25th. So would you be a yes or a no vote on that question? Yes. Thank you. Sorry about that. So, you know, is there someone who would like to propose a motion? I just, sorry, I'll make a quick comment. And I'm not trying to make it be difficult here, but I don't think I received the updated proposal from 1228 to read through that. So as a board, I'm not, as a board member, I would personally like to be able to review that proposal before I vote on it. Definitely. I haven't received that resending that you were going to do just now. All right, I got it. Let me, OSSD, coronavirus. We voting on what he proposed in the slideshow? Or am I missing something? And remember that that plan, as it says at the beginning is tentative because guidance changes and whatnot, but it was to give us a starting point to kind of view things from. And it was very clear if I remember in the preamble, I did send it to everybody just now, in the preamble that, yeah, you know, timelines are tentative, they can change depending upon what happens in terms of conditions. But it was just to put something out there to give people an opportunity to start planning for the transition in terms of the teachers and for the board to consider. And so given that it's five days old, it probably needs to be updated again. Lane, are the desks going to be in before the 11th if the board votes for us to come back on the 11th? So the desks are already here for K to two. We have- I only have one room in Braintree with desks right now. The second room hasn't gotten desks yet. Yeah, they're physically here and they're working on them a room at a time. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, because they do have to be assembled, put to the right height, that sort of thing. And then the old tables need to be moved out. When are third graders involved in this plan? You've got K two and four, six. Lane, you're muted so we can't hear your answer. They're with, grade three is with goes through six. So three, six. It's a little confusing because like if you go K two, that's grade three at Brookfield because there are two three. If that makes sense, right? So if you voted tonight for K two to go back, Brookfield would be the odd exception because Brookfield's grade two also incorporates its grade three, which is just a couple of students. So their third grade would go back as well. Which is part of the reason for the presentation was to make sure that the finer details are there now. So then the, the Randolph and Braintree third graders would go back with the fourth, fifth and sixth graders, correct? Based on, yes, based on this. And Randolph is still we're working out the details trying to on third grade and above because one of the constraining factors in that building that we talked about before was when, when that building was built 20 years ago, I think that they were matching funds from the state at the time to help with the building. So the state had input into the size that the classrooms could be and the state required that the classrooms be made small. So Randolph elementary, a lot of their classrooms are too small to support technically the number of kids that would be required to come back because of that construction piece that happened. So that was a requirement the state put on the district to partake in the matching funds. And that this is still considered a tentative kind of. Yeah, I have no power to make any changes or choices. So it was an outline and a starting point for the board of what potential is, what things are looking like. And we updated as guidance changes and whatnot. But again, the board reserved the right to vote on this. It did not give that authority to me. So if we vote on this proposal, you have to abide by these dates. Even if you have information that says, no, this is, we don't have the materials. We don't have the staff and you're just gonna do what we tell you to do because we've taken that responsibility. So in the preamble, it says it should be clearly understood that each step in the below plan should only be implemented if operational conditions safely support them. So that's the out. If we could order the desk and it takes six months to come in, right? Because things just aren't moving right now in the supply lines, we gotta have a way to change things. My take is, is if you guys wanted to vote on something that I am recommending, I would vote on the recommendations that I gave tonight in the slides, which is a more detailed version of what's in here. This is what it looks like at the elementary level. It's K to two, it's four days per week, right? This is what it looks like at RTCC. It's full in person for all students starting on the 25th, RUHS because of the complexities and because right now the social distancing requirements are such that it would be incredibly difficult to bring the students back, is that we leave things the way that they are and we more fully implement the child find, the rubric-based child find so that we are identifying students that might be struggling or have other needs where it's important for them to be in more than the hybrid schedule allows for. So that you do have a strong population of students that are coming in more days a week, kinda like the 11th and the 12th graders currently are. So those would be the recommendations most current based on what's happening right here and now within the last 24 hours. And again, can I assume that you and the cabinet and the staff are gonna be looking at these changes and evaluating how well it's working and adjusting as you need to in order to educate children and not just do it because we've told you to do it? Again, yeah, that's just part of what we normally do anyway. But in reserving this for yourselves, which is really an operational decision, the process has been hamstrung. Typically if you're making a policy or a decision, the best way to do it is you give it to me in general and you let the administration and the district work out the details. So the best way to do this, if you wanted things to move forward is making a general resolution. Lane, we're approving for you to be able to start a phased in approach to full in-person instruction beginning on January 11th and leave it up to us to figure out and implement it. I mean, that's our job, that's the operational side. And I'm not criticizing the board at all for wanting to keep that part because it is very supportive to me to know that you're listening and hearing and also trying to help mitigate for me what's a really difficult decision. So I'm not complaining about that, but typically what the board decides on are general guidelines and then we interpret it and put it into operational practice. That's the more realistic way of going about this and that gets you around all the pieces that you're bringing up that could be concerns. Well, I think actually you are driving this conversation. You are proposing with the help of your administration and basically we're just hearing and basically going along with your suggestions. I think really you are directing this. You are proposing what you wanna do and we are listening to our constituents. And so far anyway, we've always okayed your proposals. And no matter how well planned something is until the kids are actually back until the teachers have gone through the transitioning process, there are a lot of other things that are gonna come up that we're gonna need to address and we're gonna need to work on. So again, that was one of the other reasons for kind of the cautious phased in approach. We're in a unique environment here. It's not like going back to school the way that it was. So it'd be nice to bring them back, see what happens, be able to be a little bit flexible and just make sure that everything is running the way that it's supposed to be. And God forbid if it blows up and doesn't work the way that it should, then we come back and say, hey, this is what we've learned. These are the factors that are getting in the way that we have no control over. We might wanna consider this instead. I mean, it's that kind of a process, especially with how rapidly things change. I mean, you could have an outbreak in the town tomorrow. I mean, a big one. I'm cautious about saying that because I don't want people to run away saying, oh my God, there's gonna be an outbreak. No, that's not what I'm saying. But I'm just saying that things are changeable and major things can happen very quickly. And we need to have the flexibility to be able to respond to that. Laura, this is Ashley. Can I just make one more comment? Of course. I would like to think a lot about what Kacha said earlier, that finding what is perceived as the quote, right decision is virtually impossible in this situation. And the job that we have is to listen to all the information and try to do what we think is best. I, one point that has not been reiterated this evening and I would like to acknowledge Wes Gibbs and the team that Lane has for facilities is the amount of money that has been invested into the infrastructure of all of the schools to ensure proper air handling, which again, shows that that is one of the major components of keeping people healthy, in addition to the PPE that we've heard people talk about. But that air exchange is critical and I want to acknowledge the fact that this district made those investments into those facilities to ensure that was happening. And that has to be part of this decision-making. I appreciate the energy and the time of the school administration and of the teachers for keeping our children top of mind and their themselves personal safety and mental health top of mind. But as a representative, I shouldn't say but, in addition to as a representative in this role and as a parent, I have not changed my opinion that our kids need to be back in school. There are people who will choose to remain remote and that's fair and that's okay. But there are parents, me included. My kid needs to be back in school. And I hear it every day from my colleagues. I hear it from people who reach out to me and I feel confident with the administration that we can successfully bring our kids back into the school and kick off this school year now with an in-person option. So I just want to state my feeling on that. So a vote moving forward, I would like to propose that we do keep the elementary and the high school separate for the second part of this vote as we did with our TCC. Yes, that makes sense to me too. And I personally am in favor of Lane's proposal that this be a phased in approach because that makes sense to me that we try this out gradually and gradually get the kids back involved in school. So I would prefer to separate the elementary vote from the high school one. The other piece just to bring up that's important is if everything works the way that it should, come March, the guidance and the directives that were given that we have to follow should be less restrictive and we should be able to do more, right? Especially in terms of the high school piece is the hopes that things start to improve significantly and the guidance changes and then we're able to do more. We're not so socially restricted in terms of the distancing and things like that. So that is a part that's in the back of my mind when that tentative plan was starting to be pulled together as well as the cabinet when we were discussing things. Hopefully things get better and the restrictions ease. And so a lot of the things that are given us such headaches right now become much simpler. So Lane, I have a quick kind of question or something clarification. Since we are talking about keeping the two votes separate your proposal right now is to have the elementary K through two start to be phased in at January 11th. Do we have a proposal, a date for the high school to start being phased in, whether it's seventh and eighth grade or not or do we following your December 28th guidelines that are memo that you sent out? Yeah, that if we are able to try to move in at least the seventh grade, I worry the most about the seventh and the eighth graders. We talked a little bit about this previously that in terms of tracking the testing in the student performance there's that huge dip there and then it starts to recover in ninth grade. These are the students, the seventh and the eighth graders that could benefit the most from being back in school. So that February 1st, if it's possible to do, at least try to get the seventh grade back. And again, that's a bit of time, that's a month away. A lot can change in terms of the guidance if things start to improve it might make it easier to bring in further grades. But yeah, that idea of trying to get that accomplished around that February 1st timeline would still be in place, at least for me. But you don't have to consider that now. I mean, that could be a decision that the board makes at a later meeting too. The decision you're making is, what are we doing in the short term? What are we doing tomorrow or on January 11th? Or, and yeah. So I may have misunderstood, but I don't get the reasoning for keeping the votes separate if what we aim to do is say, instead of being really specific about the dates that Lane has laid out giving Lane and the administration the authority to move forward with a process of bringing everyone back in person in a timeline that he's laid out for us. If we give him the general authority to do that based on feedback from staff as it progresses based on changing conditions on the ground as we phase in more in-person learning. If we give Lane the authority to do that, I don't understand why we need to have two separate votes because he's laid out his plan for us. Can somebody help me understand that, please? You're right. We don't have to have two separate votes if we just want to delegate that authority to him. I mean, he did point out that the authority is still ours, but the details of that is his job. So we'd be saying, we want you to do this and how you do it is up to you because that's your job. I mean, it could be as simple as, we want you to begin a phased in approach of getting as many kids back as is safely possible. That would be a way to go and give me some flexibility. And my job is I'm going to follow the tentative plan for the most part. Obviously it'll be adjusted as we learn things along the way and as the guidance changes. But again, typically boards give a general policy and then we kind of interpret the specifics. How do we make this work operationally? And you guys can always change your minds. That would be in line with our policy governance unless we want to change how our board operates. So Laura, I'm happy to consider Rachel's suggestion as well, but I just again want to say, I think the timeline is just too slow. I really do. I just can't, I'm struggling to wrap my head around the delay in the constant discussion, the discussion going back to a March start for our high school. It's disappointing. And I just don't think it's fair to the kids. I really don't. I'm happy that our K through two could be back in the building next week. I agree with that, but I just have to say for the record, I am not on board with the high school going at such a slow approach getting back into the building. I hear your philosophical disagreement, Ashley. I think hearing Elijah's description of how that building is gonna be used makes me appreciate how much work they've done to try to figure this out logistically. I guess if we decided to make a motion to give Lane the directive that we're hoping to return all the kids to in-person learning as soon as is wise and possible, perhaps they can investigate other options for other places, other options for housing students. In the near term, just listening to Elijah's description, it sounds like we really just don't have the space available to have six feet between all our students. That problem would have to be, to my mind, have to be figured out and that's really their job as they go forward. Anyone else? So if we just make a motion that he proceeds with the K through two on the 11th and subsequent grades as soon as safely possible and let Lane decide on when that is and if I guess it comes down in a month from now and we're not happy, we can always revisit this to push him further. But he's the one that knows what's going on in the schools a lot more than we do. So if we give him the guidance to return the kids to full instruction as soon as safely possible, I think that's probably the best that we can do right now. What did the rest of you think? Hannah, we haven't heard from you. I would guess that this is not to your liking. No, I, no, but I think I've said my piece. And I will vote with my conscience. I, on behalf of my community, no, I don't think we should start returning on the 11th. I don't think we have the information to do so safely. Thank you for asking, Laura. I appreciate you checking in when you haven't heard from us. I wonder, Hannah, if we asked Lane, if we gave the authority that Brian discussed and said instead of the 11th, the 18th, if that would be a reasonable place to start or a reasonable compromise? It would, although I'd want to return to the question again. You know, it's not that I'm in favor of a drawn out process. You know, my butt is numb. It's not that it's, but I don't feel comfortable voting to, with a concrete date without information that we could possibly have at a later date closer to that date. Again, I don't want to be vague and I don't want to, it's not my intention to be difficult or make this a more painful process than it is. But on the 4th of January, not having data from the 31st of December, sure that's a compromise that we say we'll consider the 18th, which is what I thought we were gonna do. I absolutely do not feel comfortable with the 11th. What if we added that we wouldn't set any date, we would say we want to have phased in person when it's safe and give that over to the administration to decide. So if they get a bunch of data between now and then they can make that decision like, wait a minute, now we've got other information or if things are looking okay, they're working with their staff, they're figuring out educationally, is this how are we gonna make this work? And they phase it in when they can do it as a team working together to try and educate our kids. What if we give that over to him to do that? I think that that's trying to return to a vote that we already took. I understand the concept of saying, let's give a framework and they figure out how to do it, which is what I thought that that original vote back in August was, I think. But to completely flip that, that's not something personally I'm in favor of doing. But just to add a little more thought to the discussion, I think it's important to realize that no data that we get is going to be a value to our decision-making process for long, right? Because this crisis is so changeable and can change dramatically in a short amount of time. So either in the case that you're proposing, if this makes sense, if I draw it out to kind of the extreme ends of it, it's either because things are so changeable and we'll never have solid data, we just need to wait until the crisis is over before we decide to go back. That is absolutely not what I am saying. And again, I'm just trying to throw more to get the discussion going a little bit. But I think it is important to realize that we will never, given the changeability of this virus, we will never have data that we can depend on long-term. We might be able to say, hey, things are probably looking good for the next couple of days. But if you're saying, are we at a point where I can say a month from now that things aren't gonna be dramatically different, better or worse, no, the trends with this thing don't work that way. But one of the trends that we were really paying attention to was when we were seeing Dr. Fauci or looking at the CDC or looking at the state of Vermont saying, watch out for spikes around times when people will socially gather or travel. And one of those times is New Year's. Did that happen with Thanksgiving? No, thankfully, no. Am I regretful that we weren't full in person at that time because of that result? No, it kept everybody safe, everybody safe. So I feel it's jumping the gun to not at least know really enough, I won't say anything, enough about what happened over the break, New Year's to return safely on Monday. We also, do you know of active cases in the school right now and I'm gonna interrupt your answer for a minute to say in all fairness, I shouldn't just ask that question, I should just make a statement. I know there are cases in the school system right now, but I don't know if they're being, communication is somehow broken down and Lynn, I'm not putting this on you. I am asking- Oh, no, I don't believe you are. I can't, you're hitting on an important point which is the trust that we have to have with the community because if they find out, we may be the last to know. The Department of Health is working its tail off right now. It's off in five or 10 days before we hear anything from them. I have had no reports since the last report I gave to the Board of any active cases that I am aware of in this district, right? They go to the COVID coordinators, to Beth and Sadie who are awesome, have been working overtime and doing a great job and when something happens, they let me know and that's kind of how we proceed. But the Department of Health, again, it's not being critical of them, they are so overworked with the surge around the state that happened around Thanksgiving time that they also, in talking with the other superintendents, they are not contacting people that are positive. They've made the promise that they would contact everyone at least who's positive since they're not doing the contact tracing for the schools anymore and the superintendents are saying, no, we've had people that we've known have been positive, we've got the results from the hospital, it's been 10 days and they haven't been contacted by the Department of Health yet. So there is a lot of data lag out there. So with that kind of information, how can we, I cannot think, believe or say it's okay for us to go back on Monday. No? But the game to go back to the original presentation is it's balancing risk factors with protective factors. We have really damn good protective factors in place and Ashley hit on an important one as part of the early planning that we did. Our HVAC systems, including the ultraviolet sterilization units that are up there are far none, some of the best things that are out there. We have the equipment, people are following the procedures, they're doing what they're supposed to so that if there is a case that happens that comes into the school, the odds of it spreading are low. Can it spread? Yeah, it can. And yeah, we did have spread in our first outbreak but that was a very special circumstance in terms of the relationship of that teacher with those students. That was not a typical relationship given that program. The biggest thing is keeping, like I said, it's gotta be the community helping us out by keeping the virus out of the schools in the first place. If you need to take seven days off from school, have your kid out of school for seven days because you violated the directives on social gatherings, then damn it, keep them out. We're not gonna give you any grief if you're keeping them out for that reason and you're helping us out. And so that's the piece that I think you really have to, the decision has to be made around is how much faith and trust do we have in the community to do what they need to in terms of quarantining when they need to? And I hearken back to when Sadie reported at a meeting that the response that they were getting when they were calling people and they didn't want to quarantine and the response from, as I recall, from people at that meeting and people after the meeting was outrage. And now it feels odd that there's not the same response to what I'm saying, which is that same thing is going on. And the risk factor is real and valid and scary and factual. Yeah, and the data that we do have, and I got a lot of grief because I sent out a lot of very strong emails around that time about people's behavior for how strongly worded those emails, but they seem to have an effect because we didn't have a spike at Thanksgiving, right? That was prior to Thanksgiving that we were talking about this and people, if we look at the data that we currently have, if we're talking about data, the data says that people were doing what they were supposed to as best as we can tell because we didn't have a post Thanksgiving spike even though the whole state did. So the state had a spike, Orange County didn't. Couple other counties didn't either, but it means that people seem to have changed their behavior and we're doing what they needed to do. Does that mean that I can guarantee that they didn't screw up over December break or on New Year's? No, I can't. But if we're going with what data we have, the data says they did, you gotta give the community credit, they did the right thing over Thanksgiving. You know? So yeah, this is a difficult, there's no right answer. So you- There's no right answer and it's tricky to have it and this isn't anybody's fault, but to have this situation be reduced at times to us versus them, like board versus staff, staff versus community, parents versus, it's really hard to swallow sometimes, period. Yeah, I look beyond, I try to look beyond that and it's difficult not to get drawn in because we're all tired. You know, COVID's taken a lot out of all of us. So we get a little sharp with each other at times and I apologize for that, but it comes down to the kids, right? What's the most beneficial for the kids while not putting them at unreasonable risk? At least for me, and again, I'm one person in talking with the cabinet and the cabinet is varied as well, you know, at least trying to get some of those younger kids back and making a go of it, seems to have a potential lot of benefit and some risk but minimal risk. The day that Nora painted for a kindergartner, you know, snack, seated still and that doesn't seem more beneficial. They're little bodies that don't project the viruses as much as an adult, so transmission rates are incredibly low. So that's a protective factor that mitigates the increased risk of the fact that they're little kids and they don't always do what you tell them to do, right? So there's a balancing there, but again, no, I'm not trying to change your mind, but it was a good discussion and I respect 100% where you're coming from. And are you, Lane, I- Everybody here- Or change, I do. Yeah, everybody here, I respect where we're coming from because we're all coming from slightly different spots. I was just gonna mention, just kind of to piggyback on that conversation that something that I'm trying to stay very aware of is that like here too forward, there will always be COVID. And we will always be hearing of cases next summer, next year, 10 years from now. It's gonna be with us, unfortunately, which is a terrible thing to think about, but and I wish that that weren't true, but it is something that will be present in our lives for likely the rest of our lives, just like flu is. And while that's not a great comfort, or any comfort at all, it is just something that is the reality of what unfortunately we're dealing with right now. And in no way to minimize the conversation that's going on there, but I know that that's something that I personally try to consider when looking at the grand picture of the situation. Yeah, and just to sort of the other side of Nora's picture, I think is what that kindergarten or first grader is doing at home, especially on a remote day, they're not getting, I mean, those kids just don't thrive in a remote version of education. And it's taxing, they can't be watching the computer all day. They're not getting social interactions and all sorts of other parts that are so key to their first grade or kindergarten selves. So I think even though going back in person is certainly not perfect for them, and it's gonna be a real hassle to get on your snow pants all the time and wash hands, I still think there are social and educational benefits to even a not perfect in-person model. Are we ready for a motion? I believe so. Are there any other comments or questions or considerations? Rachel, do you wanna propose the motion that you started to propose earlier? I think Brian could do it. Okay, well. I guess on the topic of more discussion, I don't disagree with Hannah that having the full data from the holidays would be somewhat helpful. And so in a rare departure from my general support for the Boots on the Ground Administration, I would ask that the motion suggest the 18th instead of the 11th. I would agree with that. Yeah, I'm gonna agree as well. I am too. I would still say the 11th, but I guess someone has to make that motion. All right, with someone besides Brian, then I guess make the motion if it's gonna be the 18th. Well, would people be okay with saying we'll leave it to the administration to decide when or not? Do we have to decide the 11th or the 18th? Can we just say we'll let them decide in January? I mean, it sounds like the recommendation is the 11th. So if we don't wanna go with the recommendation, we would have to state that we would prefer it to be the 18th. Okay. God, you're muted. The one time I muted myself. Okay, so sorry. I moved that lane proceed with phased approach to in-person instruction as conditions safely allow starting on January 18th. All second. Is there any further discussion around this motion? Hearing none, let's put it to a vote. So I'll call each one of you for a yes or no vote. Kacha? Yes. Ashley? No. Brian? No. Yes. Rachel? Yes. Anne? Yeah. Hannah? Yes. And I am a yes as well. So we are six in favor and two opposed. Okay. Is there any further business for tonight? Thankfully, I don't see any. I really appreciate everyone's honest. And patient, constructive conversation. It's just great to have such a great board. And so I'll adjourn the meeting at Bolly 947. So thank you all and thank you, Lane. And we will see you next week. Thank you very much. Bye. Good night.