LASD Board Meeting, July 18, 2022: Facing Facts

[XLFD]

Nobody likes going to school in the middle of summer and that includes school board members and others who attend school board meetings on a too-regular basis.  Nevertheless, all members of the board and the usual support staff made it to the July 18th meeting of Ludington School Board, along with a handful of other smiling attendees like me.  The casually dressed board members joked around and featured some broad smiles before the meeting, as seen below:

After the pledge they opened the floor to public comment and a bicycling lady got up and described some of the issues she has had bicycling up on Bryant Road around the school area and wanted the board to look into making things more bicycle friendly.  After she finished, I started my comment by briefly echoing some of her bicycling issues I thought were important before beginning my prepared speech, which was designed to find out why I was able to see so many smiling, laughing faces on this day at this board meeting:

XLFD:  "In the regular July meeting of 2021 this board held preliminary discussions on a return to school plan which germinated into a policy introduced and passed in August to require mask wearing by staff and students when the Mason County Covid 7-day test positivity rate was above 10%.

  

The Mason County Covid 7-day test positivity rate on July 7, 2020 was 1%, it was only 2.4% on July 7, 2021.  This year the Mason County Covid TPR on July 7 was 18.4%, well into the high-risk range, it has been over 10% for the whole month of July this year, while at this point in prior years it never was above 5%.  The CDC continues to recommend people in public places wear a mask indoors when the risk is high.  Let it be noted for the record that there is no return to school plan on the agenda for this meeting and that despite the high risk for contracting covid, nobody on the board is wearing a mask at this meeting.

Mind you, I have not had an epiphany and changed my learned opinion that forced masking of healthy children is harmful in many ways to their health and development, I am just suggesting that a majority of this board is being inconsistent, if not hypocritical, and that they were following the hysteria rather than the known science last year.

Epidemiologist Paul Alexander compiled 167 different studies on mask ineffectiveness and harms in an article I will share with this board, he concluded the evidence has been stable and clear that masks do not work to control virus spread and they can be harmful, especially to children.  Another study came out after this article which showed that wearing masks increases the CO2 levels children breathe in 14 times above normal levels and seven times over acceptable CO2 levels.  It concluded that mask wearing raises CO2 content in inhaled air quickly to a very high level in healthy children in a seated resting position that might be hazardous to children's health.

I empathize with those on the board who thought they did the right thing for the health of the children last year by mandating masks when risks were considered high-- yet if you people once again invoke a mitigation policy that will force masks on our healthy schoolchildren in spite of the overwhelming science against masking children, you will invoke the wrath of those in our district who actually care about their children's' health."  [END comment]

Call me naturally suspicious, but as it is an election year and health officials are already touting new Covid strains that need interventions; I expect there to be interventions and that this school board could approve them when pressed as there is a chance that pro-mask-mandate member Stephanie Reed could be replaced by a more reasonable candidate running for school board.  I considered this an early taunt, effectively daring them to adopt a masking policy when their own actions suggest they don't actually believe they work.

The first board meeting of the 2022-23 school year had eleven items on the agenda, they added a couple more at the beginning of the meeting, and had some blanket approvals of curriculum and other things in their consent agenda.  These included:

-- Setting the regular board meeting schedule for school year 2022/23, which would be held at the same time (6:00 PM on the thrid Monday of the month), but locations would vary through the year.

-- Accepting the low bid of $95,877 for softball field work by Water Management Specialists

-- Approved payment for $947,000 on recent elementary bond project work

-- Approved agreement with DTE for a utility easement near the bus barn

-- Approved agreements with the Pickleball Club and Mason County Disc Golf Association regarding uses of district facilities.

-- Approved probationary teaching contract for Steven Nimcheski, transferring from MCE

-- Approved Munis Financial Software agreement, which the new finance director, Laura Jacobs, was adept with

-- Approved MI DOE Wellness Policy (found in agenda packet)

-- Approved a Chicago trip for 3 days in April 2023 for members of the band

-- Approved an official depository (West Shore Bank), signatories (Superintendent Corlett and Jacobs) and Electronic Transfer Officers (Corlett, Jacobs).  

The agenda additions were first to pay the Lockout LLC to install the districts 'boots' on 60 elementary school doors (district needs to pay $5015 of the $10,030 cost) to provide a barrier to intruders for each classroom.  Secondly, they paid Collaborative Classroom $10,476 for educational materials in a six-year contract.  

Additionally in discussions they talked about:

-- coordinating with City Manager Foster on the deer cull and that it may extend onto school forest property conducted by biologists with guns.

-- the new state requirement for each student to have one year of a personal finance class

-- discussed potential addition of a school resource officer at the LES depending on what the county commission determines in the coming months

-- congratulating LHS student Ryann Rohrer for her recent repeat as state champion in discus and shotput events

[Willy]

Thanks for the information X.