Public Comments - 5/18/2021 Governing Board Meeting

Please see below public comments submitted by form prior to the next Governing Board meeting on Tuesday, May 18, 2021. To view each public comment please click on the arrow to open. Click on the arrow again to minimize.

Public Comment 1
Public Comment 2
Public Comment 3

Submitted by: Jaime Lawless

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Please keep the mask mandate effective until vaccines become available for all children. Greenfield Elementary is already packed with kids, and the masks have really helped mitigate risk for those attending in person. It is expected for vaccines to be available to those over 2 years old by hopefully September, please really consider keeping masks until at least then. As a Doctor of Pharmacy, I am always having to stay up to date on Covid 19 developments. There are studies in Europe that show children who have Covid are showing signs of “long Covid” for over 7 months. This includes problems with concentration, chronic fatigue, the “mental fog” that adults exhibit, shortness of breath, among other effects. Help keep the children safe and keep masks on until the decision to vaccinate is available! Thank you!
Public Comment 4

Submitted by: Ashby Hatch

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I have written several times about face masks and I am asking once again that face masks be OPTIONAL for families that choose to wear them, or not wear them. I also believe that the face mask mandate should be optional for teachers. I have been a substitute teacher for GPS since October 2020. I have spent the year wearing a face mask or face shield while teaching in the classroom. Until you have been in an elementary school, all day, walking back and forth between specials, lunch, and recess, you won't understand the hardship our teachers have gone through to provide a quality education for our kids all while wearing a mask. The heat is now well into the 100's and our teachers are STILL required to wear a face mask outside on recess duty. The majority of our teachers are vaccinated, and according to the CDC they no longer need to wear a mask. The year is almost over, and the rule about face masks is about to come to an end, as per a vote by the school board last month, but it is time to make sure that this mandate NEVER returns to GPS. We have done our part for over a year, it's time to unmask our students AND our teachers for good. Thank you.
Public Comment 5
Public Comment 6

Submitted by: Christina Meszaros

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I am requesting that the upcoming Senior Graduation guest limit of 6 people per graduate be removed. The event is outdoors with space for social distancing, the CDC has lifted the mask mandate for fully vaccinated individuals and Arizona has one of the highest vaccinated rates per capita. These kids have had enough taken away from them this School year, severely limiting the number of family members to celebrate in this milestone event with them is just plain cruel and unnecessary.
Public Comment 7

Submitted by: Jenny Miller

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Hello my name is Jenny Miller. I am the owner of Rhythm & Motion Dance Center. We are a small business that provides dance education for children in our community. Our studio is located within Gilbert Public Schools boundary and most of our students attend GPS. My husband and I are born and raised in Arizona and both grew up attending Gilbert Public Schools. We also have several staff members who are also employed by GPS. We are scheduled to have our dance recital at Highland High School on June 12th and I am here today to ask you to consider raising the capacity limit for our private event. Since our small business was allowed to open back up last year after being forced to close for 3 months, we have seen joy and confidence brought back to our students after such a scary time. We are proud to be a safe place for them amidst the pandemic. The dancers can’t wait to have a real recital again and the families want to watch them perform more than anything. Our last recital in a real auditorium was December 2019. Covid has impacted our small business, just as it has for many others. I do not want to jeopardize anyone’s health. Many Arizonians are already fully vaccinated and with the recent CDC announcement as of May 13th, it is now safe for vaccinated people to return to normal activities and gather indoors. With almost 4 weeks left until our event, this means even more people will be fully vaccinated by that time as well. I will do anything I can to make my customers feel safe and do my due diligence for GPS. This includes asking everyone to wear a mask, distance themselves from others and having families sign a waiver prior to attending. We will also have the waiver printed on the back of the ticket they are using to get into our event. We can make sure our event is a private event for our customers only by ensuring tickets are sold pre-sale at our studio only and not at the event. Our recitals greatly impact the success of our business financially as we want to keep students and parents happy. Having our recital at 25% capacity means that our dancers wouldn’t even have 2 of their family members present in the audience. My staff member kids will have no one to watch them perform because I am asking my staff to sacrifice their own tickets so that we have more room for customers to watch. When our dancers are performing on-stage they should have the opportunity to look out and see their family cheering them on. Our kids have been through a lot this past year and we hope to bring some normal back into their lives. Also, we fear that the negative impact on not allowing the families to watch their child perform will make families not want to continue to dance with us after recital. In addition, only being able to sell 25% of tickets but having to pay a full rental fee will put our business even more at risk. Classrooms are currently not being limited to 25% because it is not financially feasible for the school to pay one teacher to teach 6-7 students. The same applies to our event. Arizona has lifted many Covid regulations, as well as many major retailers and theme parks. Customers that are participating in our private event feel it’s safe to come and watch their children. We feel that even putting the limit to 50% would still limit our families but it would make it more reasonable. Please consider my plea, as a small business owner, to lift the capacity restrictions.
Public Comment 8

Submitted by: Jaime Lawless

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Please keep the mask mandate effective until vaccines become available for all children. Greenfield Elementary is already packed with kids, and the masks have really helped mitigate risk for those attending in person. It is expected for vaccines to be available to those over 2 years old by hopefully September, please really consider keeping masks until at least then. As a Doctor of Pharmacy, I am always having to stay up to date on Covid 19 developments. There are studies in Europe that show children who have Covid are showing signs of “long Covid” for over 7 months. This includes problems with concentration, chronic fatigue, the “mental fog” that adults exhibit, shortness of breath, among other effects. Help keep the children safe and keep masks on until the decision to vaccinate is available! Thank you!
Public Comment 9
Public Comment 10

Submitted by: Jordan Kampsen

Live or Work in the District: No

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: Please unmask our children. If you choose to follow any scientific data, it is now crystal clear that community masking does not lower rates of infection (see infection rates for "masked states" vs "unmasked states", especially those that have completely removed mandates recently). Children and young adults are not meaningful vectors (on top of "masks" or face coverings not doing anything to actually stop viruses). If masks worked at all, why does the infection rate ebb and flow with the seasons, regardless of masking? The rates of infection in school and public follow the same general curve as the traditional flu and other respiratory viruses...higher in winter (and in some places summer). Rates in AZ are now extremely low compared with the winter even though masking has been enforced at school all year. The kids and teachers have been wearing masks during the uptick of cases, downturn, etc, etc. Masks are not doing ANYTHING. Seasonality, prior immunity, personal responsibility...all the reasons that have been true before are true now. All this with the reminder that in terms of sickness and death for people under 19, Influenza is more "dangerous" than Covid. PLEASE look at the LOGIC and give people a CHOICE....make masks optional for students, faculty...everyone. Thank you
Public Comment 11

Submitted by: Mary Conley

Live or Work in the District: Yes

Child(ren) attending a GPS school: Yes

Comment: I would like to know what the strategy is to address Diversity and Inclusion in Gilbert Schools. With the incident last month at Highland and both social and local media attention that it received we have a huge responsibility here to address this, learn from this and take action to lead this community. It’s really starting where our children go to school.
Public Comment 12

Last Modified on May 18, 2021

District Leadership

Public Comments - 5/18/2021 Governing Board Meeting

Public Comment 1

Public Comment 2

Public Comment 3

Public Comment 4

Public Comment 5

Public Comment 6

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Public Comment 10

Public Comment 11

Public Comment 12