Chelsea, MA Unsorted, 20 Aug 2021

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From YouTube: School Committee Special Meeting of 8-20-21

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City of Chelsea, Chelsea Public School Department

A

Okay, we are ready.

B

um Anna, we can't, I don't know, can everyone hear anna?

B

No, I stopped yeah uh anna. We can't hear you.

B

You can't hear me, oh, we can now now we could.

A

Okay, um calling the meeting to order at 5 36 p.m, um we'll start off by doing the pledge of allegiance almighty. Can you give us a flag.

B

Yes, I can oops it's not that great.

A

He's a flag nonetheless,.

A

Okay, everyone gonna mute themselves and we'll side. I pledge allegiance to.

C

The flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god.

A

Thank you. um Can we do an um roll call for attendance? Please veronica.

A

D

All right, miss santiago.

D

Here, mr jimenez.

E

Present also fy, I'm about to jump on my computer, uh I'm on the phone right now. So please let me in thanks.

D

D

Miss hernandez present, ms garcia.

D

Miss carlisle and miss velez yeah, that's four presents and three absent.

A

Okay, um we'll start the meeting off with um new business, and um the purpose of this meeting is for consideration and vote on masking requirements for the 2021 to 2022 school year.

A

The explanation um is a vote from the chelsea school committee is required in order to go through with the recommendation of the superintendent to require mass for all students and staff vaccinated or unvaccinated when indoors and on school buses, no mass or physical, distancing required went outdoors.

A

Can we get a roll call veronica, or did you want to expand on me on any of this help me? I'm sorry, okay,.

B

Can you hear me yes yeah, so um I I do want to expand a little bit as of today. um Deci did put. The commissioner is going to be recommending a mass policy to his board on tuesday and it's um every a universal masking policy for students in grades um k-12, and so there it looks like what from what I read. It will be in effect until october 1st.

B

um So as a school committee, I do think it's important that um that we continue to that. We require math and the deadline. It's up to you. If you would want to consider that, even though jesse is saying up till a certain date, but they um they will be taking that to vote on tuesday on tuesday, um but I do think it's important for us to um to for our community to know whether or not our students will be in mass. Sooner than later,.

A

Does anyone have anything they would like to add or contribute to this.

A

F

Thank you, elmi um hearing about dusty's um proposed policy vote on tuesday um just to just to um clarify.

F

If we pass this um mass mandate today, this would be in effect as the first day of school, for our kids in schools as veronica, outlines an explanation and that it will be ongoing and if there's any further changes that we would have to, there would be another vote in order to change that policy. Where would that change per deci? You know, are we just sort of in terms of process and what we would do if that needed to change later.

B

Yeah, I I think that would become you, as a school committee have can choose to expand the masking policy. If you would like to.

F

Okay, so as it stands today, when we take a vote, it will be, in effect, as of september 1st, until the the school committee decides to change that otherwise.

B

Well, by default, will we go we're going to dusty the the mandate from desi will supersede us the school committee vote, but um because, because we were following destiny guidance at that point, but if this- because I don't- we don't have a deadline here in our in our um explanation.

B

But if school committee felt that you know what we want to be a bit more stringent than jesse, I I believe you could. You can take that vote and we can go from there.

F

So would we would our mass mandate be up by october 1st if jesse supersedes the school committee's vote today, we would need to come reconvene post october 1st, if you want to extend it.

B

Let me I I would like to check with rebecca on that one marcel and then I can. I can get back to you. Thank you.

F

Yeah in terms of what we need to do yeah yeah going forward. Thank you.

B

I mean I just this was in motion before the news today and so.

F

I appreciate it.

E

um Sorry, I'm I help him.

A

Go ahead, roberto.

E

Sorry so marisol just make sure that I understand your question. You want to know like if we vote yes on this right now, if jesse's guidance would change our guidance. Is that correct.

F

More sort of like sort of thinking about what you know if, if they're staying until october 1st, would that mean that we can still adopt this today? We don't have a technical end date, so would that mean that post october 1st, we would extend it? um You know and that sort of thing.

F

Pretty much, I guess it's like grateful that we, this was already emotional zombie stated prior to receiving that um and if they're taking a vote on tuesday to adopt it, then we can adopt it and then you know extend it. If need be, you know see where we are, but yeah yeah.

B

F

Yeah that makes sense.

B

Yeah that does- and you know I I do- uh I just want to say- thank you. You know our school committee we've been. You know, working to I've been working with our school committee on this, and this is the direction that we are we are heading in.

B

I know that there's been a lot of controversy over whether students should be masked or not, and so I I understand why desi decided to to make it a mandate or is trying to the commissioner is taking it to his board to mandate it k-12, um but I think at the local level for us we can. We take. We were already in motion. We already are taking this vote.

B

It's really aligned and in many ways to what deci is already I'm saying if the vote should go through on tuesday, and if not I mean, there's no guarantees that their vote will pass on tuesday.

B

So that's why, when I got the news earlier today, I said: well, we still need to have a vote because there's no guarantee that the board will pass the commissioner's recommendation on tuesday, and this way we can start communicating out to our families and- um and everybody knows what in our community what we're doing.

A

Now um can I I'll raise my hand, um I don't I don't foresee them changing um I I I believe that this will go through and that the mass will be mandated, but and even even if it's not we can still, we can still decide to to do that in our schools, um if maybe even with our deadline.

A

I can't imagine that we cannot that jesse does is not going to say that, even if they say it's canceled after on october 1st, let's say that it's still not left to the discretion of the school districts themselves um in regards to the wearing the mass or not. So we can still decide to keep prolong our our requirements to have mass sworn, even if jesse says that they don't have to wear them.

B

Yes, we didn't, we don't have a dead, we don't have a date on hours, exactly it says for school year, 21 22., so.

A

Okay, um okay, does anyone else have anything they would like to communicate or questions to ask.

E

Just a quick comment, I just want to say thank you for like being on top of this and just being ahead of the curve. um Jesse is clearly not so thank you.

A

You're welcome, thank you and you're right. Thank you very much um for taking care of our kids, so well. um Okay, veronica then, um can we do a roll call consideration.

D

And vote on masking requirements, 20 21 to 2022 school year- miss santiago! Yes, mr jimenez, yes, miss hernandez! Yes, mr less.

D

Yep, I got it it's four in the affirmative and three opposite.

A

Before the affirmative and three absent the motion passes um with. That being said, I think we're done with the meeting. Can I get a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn a second.

A

Nobody wants a second second.

E

A

Okay, thank you. Everyone meeting has ended at 5, 48 p.m.