Board of Education Special Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 6:32 p.m.

All Board members were in attendance.

The Agenda was adopted with one change - to remove Melissa Thompson as a new employee under item 4: Personnel

Melissa Thompson was removed from the agenda per the notes in item 3

Dr. Butcher thanked everyone for coming stating that there was a good turnout and he was glad we moved the meeting from the library to the gym. This is a time to discuss everything that is going on regarding masking.

Dr. Butcher then went on to say there has been a misconception, regular Board meetings are held on the 3rd Thursday of every month and the last meeting was not a secret meeting. He explained that some updated Department of Health guidelines came out a few days before the regular meeting and. Dr. Hire asked Dr. Butcher about putting the items on the agenda on Wednesday the day before the meeting. It was intended to be a discussion item. But as the Board members got into the meeting and had a discussion, looked at guidelines, and looked at some scenarios The Board decided they needed to make a decision/motion and resolution to follow some guidelines.  There was no intention of hiding things and that the Internet goes crazy with stories. The meeting did happen to be on the same night as the open house at the same time.  No one thought it would be an issue at the time this was scheduled and wouldn't have been had this topic not come up.  Dr. Butcher apologized. He watches the news, both local and national. He spoke for the rest of the board saying that,  in hindsight, they may not have done anything different but should have found a way to notify the public and allow conversation.  We are going to discuss masking tonight, go over the same Ohio Department of Health guidelines and have a time for the public to speak Dr. Hire will speak and we welcome the public input. Dr. Butcher turned it over to Dr. Hire.

Dr. Hire stated that whether you agree or disagree, the Superintendents all received information from Governor Dewine. There is no new information on this it is just in a different format than what was originally presented to the Board.  Dr. Hire read this document aloud and it was projected on a screen. The letter is attached to this document. Dr. Hire also shared a flow chart that he shared with the Board at the last meeting also attached to this document. The flow chart describes the action that must be taken if a child is exposed with a mask and without a mask and/or vaccinated or not vaccinated. If a child is not vaccinated or wearing a mask the child must be quarantined for at least 7 days - until tested with a negative result. There are other details in the document. Dr. Hire read it in full. He continued stating that yesterday, he received a simpler form of the same guideline. It states that quarantine is not necessary if the school requires masks, maintains 3 ft distance, or if the school does not have a requirement but the student was wearing a mask and maintained at least 3 ft. Dr. Hire just wanted to provide the Board and our audience with the most recent information he has received. He stated that prior to the last meeting there were moderated meetings/phone calls that superintendents could participate in, the message was if we want to keep our kids in school, masking was the way to do that. He said this has not changed. We have exemptions in place from last year, we all want what is best and safest for our students. Any questions from the Board?

Dr. Butcher asked - Dr. Hire, you have been in school for 8 days. How are things going?  Dr. Hire responded -Currently, we have had 5 cases. We have quite a number that is being isolated/quarantined as a result of that. I will be upfront that we have had some things that we did not find acceptable and made adjustments on how we were staging students at the beginning of the year. We have made changes - our administrative team has been great we now have more distance between our students. One of our questions is what we will do if we have too many of our students out. He doesn't know that there is a percentage. He knows it is best to keep our students in school. We are concerned about possible staffing -Will we have enough? We do not have enough bus driver subs and limited teacher subs. 

Remote options - Dr. HIre stated that the platforms are the same as we had last year. Apex for 6-12 and Edgenuity for K-5. Last year our staff handled the ES level. This year our staff is not supporting this. We have approximately 11 students in this program It is still staffed with a live person, this person is just not a CCSD staff member. It is still difficult for some students, others get acclimated to it and are successful.

We have registered a separate online learning program for grades 6-8 staffed by our own staff. This program is a separate school with its own IRN. 

The information is on our website. We continue to get parents to apply for the online options. There is confusion, we thought the state would allow flexibility like they did last year but they did not. We have submitted with the state the Blended Learning option. At this time we are not seeing changes in the state's stance on the blended learning option. 

We are working on getting all computers distributed to the students. It does take a while with the younger students to get them acclimated. We are attempting to get these distributed quickly in case students are isolated they can still participate in the learning. Right now, we need to be prepared to go to remote in case. The State is not interested in giving extra calamity days4

Dr. Butcher stated that we have 3 classes of students quarantined already are those students learning online. Dr. Hire said there have been packets made for the younger students. The older students have a mix of both.

Mr. Clark asked for clarification. At this point, the students go home for 8 days. Do those packets count for their regular school time? Dr. Hire said we treat that time as if the student was sick and completing work and we are treating it the same way. 

Mr. Clark - if for some reason the Health department decided we had to go remote. If that happened the work they did while working remotely does the work count or would we have to go longer at the end of the year. Dr. Hire said he is not completely sure but he believes that the work hours would count. It depends if it is blended learning or online learning. Dr. Hire found an answer - If the instructional hours have been met by Ohio Law. The flexibility from last year does not apply to this year. If we don't have enough hours or blended learning or online learning accepted by ODE we would need to extend the school year. A class can revert to online learning if the district submitted the blended learning application. Dr. Hire stated that we will be looking at both online and blended learning scenarios having our teachers creating lessons for our students when/if we do that. We also have other programs that can supplement what the teacher is doing. Mr. Clark said he had been reading about this and felt the information he was receiving was not clear and conflicting. 

Mr. Clark asked Mrs. Clark to come up to answer questions as a representative from the Coshocton City Health Department. He asked her - as we are doing the tracing on the people off in our school system, would you say this is coming from parents to kids or kids to kids. Mrs. Clark stated that right now we are seeing parents pass to kids. The school has not been in session long enough to see the trend of kids to kids. We are seeing positive cases in the home. If one is sick, they are spreading and the whole house gets sick with the Delta variant that is highly contagious. 

Dr. Butcher thanked Mrs. Clark for coming and asked how much assistance or guidance or directives are received from the state regarding how to check into contract tracing. They follow the State guidelines. ORC allows them to mandate how to - At this time there are no mandates from ODH. Gov Dewine does listen to input from ODH on strategies of how to prevent transmission and spread. Dr. Butcher stated that in June we thought we were good to go -and then ...

Mrs. Clark stated that with kids in school we have a large number of people in a small area. 

Mr. Tad Johnson thanked the public for coming. He stated that one of their jobs as Board members is making decisions. He said he didn't get enough information. Monday he was given more information 12% of all parents were in favor of masks - 88% of our parents are not in favor of the masks, that is one of the reasons we are here tonight. These mandates - are all over the place. He has lost a neighbor, his wife almost died from COVID. In this day and age, we don't know which way to turn. as parents we don't know which way to turn. He stated to those in attendance that every one of these board members cares about your children and our staff. He then said that he appreciates everyone coming.  

Mr. Phil Hunt stated that he thinks it is important from his perspective how they came to the decision. When he is looking at the information provided for a mass of people you still need to take it in. His father was the 1st person to die of covid in this county. He watched him die through a window. I would want nothing like that to happen to anyone much less your child. relating that to my personal experience. He is as much anti-masks as anyone but more anti-quarantine. My children play sports and attend events Personally, I want everyone to stay safe. 

Mr. Bennett stated that he was not at the meeting but with all the information given, he thought this was the best shot. we have. We had no idea this was going to be a voting item on the agenda for the last meeting. It was a discussion item. We were thinking it would give all of us the best shot to start school with. We were not trying to do anything in secret we have not done that in ten years and we will not as long as he is on the board.

Dr. Butcher - we will now move on to the hearing of the public. He read the statement of policy about public participation. 

Heidi Collins spoke - against mask requirement. She spoke of her husband's death and her children's suffocation fears.

Heidi Collins' son Pierce spoke -against the mask requirement because of his need to see people speak to improve his speech

Mrs. Finch spoke on behalf of the staff and what was best for students - masks should be a choice. She thanked  Board member, Tad Johnson for speaking so honestly. 

Christopher Brown spoke, he has 3 children in the system and is against wearing masks, he stated that mandates are unconstitutional. 

Meghan Hendershot spoke stating that she has been a registered nurse for 16 years and a mother, wants her children to have a normal childhood. Understands Board is in a tough decision but is against a mask mandate.

Kayla Ross spoke, she has 5 children in the district and is against a mask mandate.

Sheila Kristek - against mask mandate

Thomas Loony spoke against the mask mandate

Carla Cullison spoke about being unmasked no mask mandate

John Cullison spoke against mask mandates

At this time the Board designated 30 minutes was exceeded. 

After discussion, the Board made a decision to extend the time for the Hearing of the Public, the vote and minutes for an extended time are recorded below.

Dr. Butcher will now entertain comments from Board members after thanking everyone for coming

Tad Johnson would like to make a motion to rescind the previous action

Mr. Hunt will concede as well and asked about considering a waiver from the families? If so, he would like to make a motion to have a waiver. Dr. Butcher stated that the Board would talk to attorneys regarding a waiver first.

meeting adjourned at 8:18 p.m.