ran out of the booklets pamphlets. So if you are a family that has multicopies of that booklet slash pamphlet and you are willing to share with a neighbor that would be greatly appreciated. We are going to go ahead and try to make some more copies in the meantime.
Better hit it again. All right. School's in session, folks. All right. It is now 7 p.m. Thursday, May 29th, 2025, and I call this meeting of the board of education to order. Cindy, would you please lead the role? Matt, present. Gilbert present. Thomas present. Arandu here. Slider present. Here. Right.
Thank you for coming. Uh, it's on the thing. Flip it up. Good evening. Thank you all for coming for tonight's Family Academy presentation. Um, our presenter tonight is Michelle Mcgara from the Office of the Attorney General and she's presenting on social media and how that impacts our students and children um with mental health. Welcome. Thank you all so much. It is a pleasure to be here tonight and present on such an important topic that's so relevant to not only our youth but all of us as a as a whole. Um, once again, my name is Michelle Garage and I am a community engagement coordinator for the um, Massachusetts Attorney General, Andrea Joy Campbell, and my office is in New Buffford. So, I am, you know, born and raised here in Bristol County and I am proud to be here today representing Florida public schools and um, engaging with our community.
in in this room, there have been a lot of wins, a lot of a lot of school records set. Um, a lot of personal accomplishments, a lot of a lot of team accomplishments that we're all very proud of. So, here's the way uh this runs. I I just say a few words like I just did. Uh, Dr. Roberty had to be at an event for his son. So, uh, Mr. Doctor is going to give the welcome, followed by our principal, Mr. followed by um our board president Alan Paris and then we're going to get into some of the special awards and then some team presentations where a team MVP will be announced and then our uh female and male athlete of the year. In the middle of that, we are going to have dinner and make sure you do stay for dessert. So, I'm going to ask uh Mr.
[Music] [Applause] Good evening everyone and it's my honor to welcome you to the spring 2025 orchestra concert featuring the FMS MS orchestras and honors symphony. At this time on stage we have Miss Jordan Valet filling in for Miss Colleen Tr who was on maternity leave. So Miss Valet is our interim orchestra honor symphony director and this evening we also have Mr. Silipino in the house as our honor symphony director. Couple housekeeping rules. Uh restrooms are located in the main lobby. Uh if you are videoing or taking any photos, just be courteous of your neighbors view of those sitting around you. At this time, we'd like to focus our attention up front and I welcome Miss Jordan Valette. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um like you said, I'm uh Jordan Valut. Uh the kids know me as uh Miss B because that is a mouthful of a name.
Next is pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Welcome to the meeting of the board of education. If anyone wishes to address the board this evening, please see our recording secretary to submit a form for addressing the board. Please put your full name and address on the form. In general, the board will not answer questions or engage in dialogue during public comment. This does not mean we do not take your concerns or comments seriously. The board values active community participation in the district's endeavors and encourages people to engage with the district using the appropriate channels and systems designed with your input in mind. Bird members are not involved in the day-to-day operations of the district and cannot engage in district business individually.
So, let's get started. Some of the goals for today, we have three important goals that we would like to primarily focus on. The first one is we're here to inform you about how social media companies purposely design platforms to be addictive not only to youth but to all of us in general. We're here to equip you to inform and guide you, guide the youth in your lives and also empower you to become involved in broader effort efforts to make social media safe for young people and all and hold companies accountable. So, these are just some examples of some really popular social media platforms that our youth are engaging on a day-to-day basis with. We have Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, and Discord. So, a lot of these are the ones and also Reddit. A lot of these are the ones that are primarily um more engaging to our youth.
Doctor to come up. [Applause] Good evening everyone. Uh I'm here on behalf of central administration and Dr. Rozi specifically who uh wanted me to express his condolences for not being here this evening. Uh as Mr. Maly said he had a family event with his son who is graduating this year. Uh at this time I would just like to acknowledge uh some of our central administrators, assistant superintendent of business uh Mr. Amed Shahada is with us this evening along with uh our board of education and Mr. Alan Paris will be up in a moment and he will be uh mentioning all of them who are here this evening. Uh I just want to take a moment just to congratulate all of you. Uh I have been here as an athlete. I've been here as a coach, as principal of the high school, and now as a central administrator.
And uh I'm very excited to be the intera director here at Fisher Middle School. Uh filling in for Mrs. Colleen Trust while she's out on maternity leave. Um and hopefully watching the the live stream um since she's I believe due in about five days. So yeah, she's not here with us tonight sadly, but um hopefully she's watching home. very excited. I will let the kids now take it away uh since they have MC duties for the night. So, good evening and welcome to the FMS spring 2025 orchestra concert. Our first piece is called Highfly. It represents the lightness and freedom of flying through the sky like a bird. It starts with a symbolic theme in the upper strings before the bases come in with a bright and soaring melody. The song has some dynamic changes and crescendos that make us different to play. Thank [Music] you.
If you have specific questions or would like to further engage with the district, you may submit your questions using the link in the website and the appropriate staff member will communicate with you. Our BPS 101 communications director Holly Deman will now explain the procedures for public comment and call up the speakers. Thank you, President Meadows. Speakers will be called up in order form submission. We have one. Your name is called. Please come to the podium so you can be heard.
So here are some advertising campaigns that are used to engage. And we'll talk a little bit about why these particular slides are relevant. But when when I click over to the next slide, you'll notice that social media companies are using the same type of playbook as big tobacco and E6 marketing to our youth. They're doing that because putting out this material um the same type of notion that it it's been just flooding the um social media platforms to bring in the youth and keep them completely engaged in the social media platforms and not necessarily engaging with their peers or their family. But why target young people specifically? Why teens? How much money did social media companies make just from advertising to people under 18 in 2022? Here are some guesses for you. First, 2.4 billion. Second being 5 billion. C 9.3 billion. D 11 billion.
And of all of the dinners, all of the events that uh I have been to while in Clifton Public Schools, this is one of my favorite. Um it's a night where we honor all of our senior athletes, athletes who have gone through two, three, four years of being the best of the best at Clifton. And I want to take this opportunity to congratulate all of you and your coaches for a great year this year and four years for the vast majority of you. Thank you very much. Have a great [Applause] evening. Thank you, Mr. Doctor. Next up, Mr. Honda, our school principal. Good afternoon, everybody. I just want to take a moment to congratulate you all. This class is special for me. Uh you guys are the first group of students that have had me as their principal from start to finish and I have to say it's been a wonderful ride and I'm so proud to see all the growth in this room.
Heat. Heat. [Applause] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Malle [Music] [Applause] [Music] Ille. [Music] [Applause] Our next piece is called Honor and Glory. The composer Suni New dedicates this piece to firefighters, law enforcement, and other service members who risk their lives to protect people in need. It was a challenge for us to count since many phrases have long notes held out over line breaks between measures. This song is heroic with a grand majestic melody that moves through different sections in the orchestra and uses more of our lower strings which gives the piece a warmer. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Lou jingle Lou. [Music] [Applause] Our final piece tonight is called Joust. This piece tells the story of a medieval joust. two nights represented by the high and low strings. The sensed rhythms and minor harmonies create an exciting and energetic sound. The dark and tense feeling in the battle between the two nights.
All individuals speaking will be limited to three minutes. Three minute timer is projected on the screen and will start once you are settled at the podium. At any time during this meeting, written comments may be submitted to our recording secretary, Cindy Rodriguez, at my right. Speakers should conduct themselves with civility and respect toward others. Our speaker is Martin F. Thank you. At the last board meeting, the BEA president reflected on the agreement made one year ago between the BEA and the district to transform our educational environment, specifically by addressing issues of transparency and trust. Not only has the district committed to this goal, but in the recent election of two new board members, one of whom received more votes than anyone else, the community also gave a strong mandate for that true transformation. After years of students coming to these meetings and begging for strong action to be taken and failed referendums revealing that the community does not believe that true transparency and trust are currently present, transformation is indeed what we continuously cry cry out for.
Now we kind of go along to see how what the answer of this question is. But the answer of this question is they spent 11 billion in advertising to really draw our teens to these apps. and what happens when you know and we'll talk about kind of some of the side effects of being so drawn into the social media community versus engaging in real life day-to-day time, you know, in the time um engagement. Social media companies made billions in US ad reverence from minors. This is a study shown by Harvard University showing that Instagram has made tons and tons of of um billions off of our our youth. We have a slide here that's showing how Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Twitter, and YouTube as well. So, you can kind of see the apps that our teens and our youth are very engaged in. [Music] What are some of the impacts that we're seeing on our youth?
All of you guys have gone so far from when you were freshman to today. I think that's the theme for this class, growth. We all grew together. I grew professionally, but you guys grew educationally, physically, emotionally. You guys have done so much good. And listen, one thing that I want to tell you guys is that, you know, no matter what you do, you guys have learned something that is extremely important by playing sports at Clifton High School, right? It takes commitment to start something, but it takes consistency to finish it. So, the fact that you guys have gotten here shows that you guys have determination and consistency, which is going to get you far in life. So, I hope that you guys enjoy the night. I'm so so proud of you all and thank you all for coming. Thank you, Mr. Honda. Uh, board president Parish.
We hope you enjoyed our portion of tonight's concert. Next up is Fisher. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Hallelujah. Glory. [Music] Down your hand. [Music] Happy birthday. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Hallelujah. Amen. [Music] [Applause] We got a sixth grade chamber orchestra. A chamber is an orchestra, just a smaller orchestra. Students in the chamber were chosen to learn additional and rehears outside of our orchestra class. Our piece tonight is called Moonlight Tango by Richard Mirror. Inspired by traditional tangos from Argentina, it features dance rhythms set in a moody sounding key that was said was a new challenge for us to learn and play. We hope you enjoyed our portion of the concert next to seventh grade or [Applause] Hello everyone. [Music] [Applause] La. [Music] [Applause] Where's my [Music] On stage now is a seventh grade orchestra. Our first piece is called luminescence. It jumps back and forth between two contrasting phrases.
Yet one year after that commitment was made, I have not begun to see that true transformation. The proposal made on implementing your year- old strategic plan at the last meeting is yet another disappointment. The DMG plan represents yet another opportunity for true transformation that you are being asked to blow. I have no confidence that DMG's approach will move us anywhere closer to true transformation in trust and transparency. And why should I why should anyone in this room? Because this is our our promise, our the process that we have for everything. It is our tried and failed recipe. Make a promise, a year later, pay an outside consultant $100,000 to give us corporate jargon, make some committees, have late night convoluted vague discussions, and ultimately no change is made. There are many things this district does well. However, this is the same tried andfilled recipe that led to two failed referendums on operational excellence, priority three.
On average, teenagers spend 3 to 5 hours a day on social media. Now, think about this. This is just an average time frame, but as we all know, There might be times where our teens, our youth are spending way more than 3 to 5 hours a day. And what types of effects does that have for them where they're, you know, um on social media platforms and not necessarily engaging with their community and peers. However, using social media for more than 3 hours doubles the risk that teens will have for mental health. And this is why we're here today. We're talk about we're here to talk about how important our future is the f our future our youth are to our community and the effects that the constant use of social media platforms are having on their mental health um are starting you know to show signs of being very detrimental to our community.
Thank you, Mr. Manki. I'd like to introduce the board members that are here with us this evening. Uh, starting with Commissioner Brunak, Commissioner [Applause] Mahia, Commissioner Siano, Commissioner Suarez, Commissioner Danny, and Commissioner Kenova, and Commissioner Bask. And I know uh Vice President Santiago is on his way, so he'll be here uh very very shortly. Ladies and gentlemen, dedicated coaches, faculty, administration, proud parents, and most importantly, our remarkable class of 2025 Clifton High School senior athletes. As the president of the Clifton Board of Education and proud CHS class of 1977 alumnist, it's an honor to address you this evening and celebrate your outstanding achievements. Your dedication, hard work, and passion have not only brought honor to yourselves, but have continued a Clifton athletic tradition spanning decades. What does it mean to be a Mustang? It's more than just wearing maroon and gray. It's a dedication to excellence both on and off the field.