Amity Board of Education Meeting - May 10, 2021

001away from your all right we are now live okay great thanks dr buyers okay i'd like to call the yemeni regional board of education uh meeting to order for monday may 10th time is 6 35 first order of business please join me in the pledge of allegiance of the united states one nation under god and indivisible with liberty and justice next item is approval of minutes the first of the two is the board of education regular meeting from april 19th 2021 page 4. someone like to make a motion to accept those spudoza thank you mr howard thank you any discussion mr belfanty yes mr brown yes ms cardozo yes miss carlson i'm staying i was not here then you cannot thank you mr davis yeah mr demeo mr howard yes ms hubbard yes ms yes

002dr turner yes thank you great thank you that money passes uh the next one is the board of education annual district meeting on may 4th 2021 found on page 14. someone like emotionally uh [Music] yes mr ralph yes miss cardozo yeah miss carlson upstate mr davis yes mr dimayo mr howard yes miss hubbard yes miss burke abstain ellipstain dr turner sorry yes thank you that passes okay moving on uh recognition of students we have a couple of awards to discuss uh virus yes so uh we have two awards to present uh virtually this evening and hopefully our students and their families were able to join us in the live stream uh the first will be the k student leadership awards and we have with us this evening um mrs burke dr tracy and mrs mann

003to present the awards to our students tonight so mrs burke want to begin so i have the pleasure of introducing students for the cave student leadership award again the focus of the student leadership award not only looks at students academic performance and engagement in the school community and beyond it also looks at that leadership quality that students begin to exhibit especially at the middle school level when they start taking ownership and leadership both within the school and outside of the school so it is my great pleasure to introduce maya revija my an 8th grade student at amity middle school orange i first met maya um when the school closed when we had the shutdown and we were preparing uh to welcome our 7th grade students our incoming seventh grade students and we needed to make

004videos to make the students more comfortable and so i asked my at least participate in that and she was one of the few students that volunteered and happily um did a little promo on student blackers and transitioned to middle school so even then as a seventh grade student she had already started to demonstrate that leadership ability it was to say she maintained high academic standings throughout her time here at amity middle and she is known for being kind positive and a wonderful role model to her peers so congratulations maya the next student that i'm pleased to recognize again when you go back and look at what teachers had to say about him i i i can see that the consistent things that came up where the idea reliability consistence and integrity robert cooley is an

0058th grade student at amity middle school orange he is determined to earn good rates and strive to do his best academically he demonstrates leadership not only in his academics but also on the sports field he is an avid baseball player and was looking forward to participating in the amity middle school baseball team last spring but it's truly looking forward uh to the coming year where he can once again participate in sports uh hang around with his friends and really enjoy high school so congratulations thank you gracie all right we have two students also um the first student liam coyne uh liam was recommended or nominated by the gold team um as this year's cave winner he's an exceptional student who takes his learning very seriously he's a leader both in and out of the classroom

006his respectful participation and compassionate nature allow him to facilitate collaborative leadership amongst amongst his fears and he pushes everyone to take an active role in the classroom his interest and intrinsic motivation led this year to the creation of the stock market club at dammit middle school bethany he was one of my first kids that wanted to start his own club at the school where students can learn about stock market and investing outside of school he's an active member of the community during cobit he assisted his brother with their own ppe drive for the columbus house of new david he collected needed supplies for those without homes he's also an avid squash player competing in the u.s junior splash tournaments connecticut massachusetts new york and rhode island it's outgoing and compassionate personality along with his strong

007abilities a student truly represented but an anime student being his best self the other student to present is hannah guo hannah was nominated by the black team teachers hannah has maintained strong breaks throughout her time in amity bethany she's an enthusiastic learner and she leads class discussions and offers very insightful comments during class her enthusiasm for learning and her commitment to the classroom community offers a strong example for others to follow last year as a seventh grade student she was our ptso student representative outside the school she competes in gymnastics and plays the vienna she's been doing excel gymnastics for the last five years uh two years ago she won first in her age group at the state championships and went out to the new england regionals where she won third place overall in her

008eighth grade she's also an accomplished musician and has been playing piano for six years now she's currently on a level seven of the rcm music program and in this program she scored in 93 which is ranked first in honors with distinction so congratulations to those two students liam and anna from amityv all right good evening everyone before i begin i would like to know that each one of our students being recognized tonight are exemplars of our amity community and i'm reminded of the work we are currently involved in with building our portrait of the graduate and cannot help but think of how each one of these individuals could serve as a model for our school and local communities so our two students from the high school for our cave awards are the first one is

009audrey marin who is currently these these are all juniors for us all 11th grade students um so audrey has consistently taken the most rigorous courses available to her and has earned a spot and this this is our nurse in the top 10 of her graduating class she's interested in pursuing a career in the stem field and while she enjoys all of her courses she is drawn to chemistry and mathematics audrey is a very successful soccer player and served as the captain during her junior year and track and field athlete and she has a plan to play soccer at dartmouth college after graduating from amity where she will pursue her studies instead audrey is also is also the news editor for the trident newspaper is a co-author of our weekly student happenings newsletter and this year

010assisted our career coordinator by conducting interviews with professionals in various careers in preparation for our virtual career day project she is an active member of the student government and is the president-elect for next school year for student government is a peer tutor a link to leader and currently serves as vice president of the junior class audrey is a participant in our science research program and has been working on a project on colorectal cancer with the research research ratio for the past three years in her spare time audrey volunteers at bosaro farm and also enjoys running and skiing with her family and friends and i admire audrey because of her innate interest in learning for learning's sake she is sincere and authentic and a pleasure to work with always so congratulations audrey our second student being

011recognized for cave is also junior kobe o'connor colby is a go-getter who looks for opportunities to grow he has taken and excelled in some of our most rigorous courses at amity including numerous ap courses and science research he has a strong work ethic and enthusiasm for learning and experiencing new things he approaches his extracurricular involvement with the same unbridled energy giving 100 to all that he does a three-season athlete colby is a member of the entity cross-country team basketball and lacrosse teams but lacrosse is his greatest passion that's where he is tonight actually goldbe also has a passion for inclusion and creating an equitable school community this year colby has been a member of the ciac student equity advisory board as a representative of vanity this experience has allowed him to work with students from

012other schools while discussing equity in athletics and to the school communities from different perspectives all over the state holby's involvement in clubs and committees is extensive and he has emerged as a leader in many of them including diversity in action of which he's co-president deca bbyo and student government and he is the vice president-elect for next school year he's also involved highly principal committee in the school climate committee jsa junior states of america junior class council he is a junior class council treasurer and he's also a linker leader he is a very visible and active student at amity and is incredibly deserving of this honor and on a personal note i work closely with colby throughout this year particularly and have been impressed with his resilience and determination it is encouraging to have the opportunity

013to engage with such a tenacious advocate for positive change so this is well deserved then we also have the super tenants yes the superintendent student awards traditionally this has been um an event that uh the students are invited to for a lovely luncheon with their families um and this is the second year where we have had to not hold it in that manner but instead recognize the students here at the board meeting so um dr tracy would you like to start us off on this group of individuals sure i'm still holding up for that much though we have two students to bring forward to you uh as our selections for this award um in the eighth grade um one student that we selected from team black is adam fleishman um adam is a leader in

014the classroom and has maintained strong grades at his time at amsb he's a diligent student and the care that he demonstrates for his learning is evident in the work that he produces kind of like miss man was just mentioning before he learns for the sake of the love of learning he's a role model for his peers through active participation in class discussions and he is always actively engaged in class activities in addition to his academic achievements adam competes on the community swim team and as a bassoon player he also demonstrates a commitment to his community he helps with his synagogue's gift shop website and is a great example of what it means to be andy adam is awesome his teacher is right and i agree he's a great guy um our other student is holly

015harry this uh student was nominated for the gold team teachers and um polly they say holly is a hard-working student who consistently took sport for best effort in everything that she does despite the global pandemic carly continues to be an active member of her school community she's always willing to help a classmate understand a concept work in groups and help kids that are struggling in addition she's involved in the diversity club at school it's seventh grade highly played in the amsb basketball team outside of school holly plays both premiere in travel soccer and basketball she's a wonderful young lady who embodies our be amity model her outstanding and friendly personality along with her strong abilities as a student truly represent amity student being your best self for these qualities we believe she's the reserving candidate

016of the scazza award thank you uh from amity middle school orange uh we are pleased to introduce the two gaza superintendents student recognition awards uh first i want to recognize matt curley matt curley is an eighth grade student at amity middle school large he's proven to be a leader in the classroom and a role model to for other students he is often the one to keep other students on track while within the classroom and is always willing to help out and encourage other peers he is a positive asset to the school community matt has been involved through youth organizations in town he often takes jobs helping our members of his community with work such as snow removal and yard work matt has a passion for cars and enjoys working and fit and fixing he wants

017to pursue a trade in the area of automotive automotive or collision repair as a future side trade connected with his academic skills in his free time matt enjoys hanging out with friends and biking he is also involved in baseball and up until the school closure we have he also was planning on trying out for the amity middle school baseball team i personally have worked with manuel here he's in my advisory group and again i can attest to the allocates from his teachers i find him to be upbeat positive and certainly engaged with the school community so congratulations matt the second student that we are recognizing is olivia furkowski olivia is also an 8th grade student at amity middle school orange she has a strong student she is a strong student and leader in the classroom

018serving as a role model for her peers she is dedicated and driven to working at her highest potential academically and is not afraid to try new challenges again when i go through looking at report cards and comments some of the words that continuously came up in her time hearing were effort diligence persistence so in addition to setting high standards for herself she is certainly uh proven to be a hard worker who understands that sometimes it just takes a little more diligence to really get accomplish your goals olivia contributed as a member of the amso drama club and she was also in the strings program she participated in the regionals for seventh grade choir and she is on the arac swim team and participating in diving lessons with the hopes of joining amity high school swim

019dive team next year apart from her extra her academics and extracurricular activities olivia is an active member in the polish school where she is about involved in various community service projects and opportunities olivia olivia is always available to help out with service through her church in her free time olivia enjoys spending time reading a good book congratulate olivia all right and our final last but not least two students tonight are jane whitman and nolan young so jane is a bright and caring student who continues to excel at amity both academically and for her co and extracurricular activities she earns strong grades in high level classes and is also involved in a variety of ways a variety of things at school and in her community jane is a key member of the amity girls basketball team

020serving as captain during her junior year and is also a member of andy's swimming and diving team she is passionate about raising awareness for mental health struggles particularly with athletes and is asked to collaborate with me on working to address these concerns on a school-wide level outside of school jane can often be found volunteering in a variety of settings most notably through her annual personally created fundraiser called hurricane james ice cream where she packages and sells ice cream each summer to raise money and buy bikes to gift anonymously to children for the holidays jane started this fundraiser when she was 10 and those of us in orange have probably seen it around and it has grown each year raising over 2 500 last night jane is a kind driven and thoughtful student who has a

021great future ahead of her and from my perspective jane is a student who demonstrates composure and grace she is willing to advocate for herself and stand up for her peers when she sees them in need we're so proud of you g and nolan young is a natural leader who stands out both in and out of the classroom academically nolan has been successful in many challenging courses throughout his time at amity he is an exceptional writer and won a local essay contest last year as well as a genial and uplifting person just to be around outside of the classroom nolan is the captain of the amy swimming and diving team he is also a theater performer he has leading roles in the envy plays and musicals as well as having a role in this year's musical

022at laurelton hall nolan also stands out as a link crew leader helping with our 9th grade transition program in the summer nolan volunteers his time with programs such as summer sidekicks and i can bike two programs that work with special needs students with this caring nature and desire to help others nolan hopes to go into a career field where he can serve others such as being an aprn we have no doubt that he will find great success in all that he does and i have known nolan for many years and have always been impressed with his ethical demeanor he is a team player even in activities that may seem less reliant on team and he brings a sense of community and positivity to any group that he is working with i'm thrilled to be able

023to present nolan with this recognition congratulations thank you we appreciate all the kind words and the information you need to share with us congratulations to all the student winners um moving on um we have the student report i believe else in carolina with us tonight everyone hi everyone um so we're going to start off with the high school so students were especially grateful for their teachers last week during national teachers appreciation week students helped create personalized worlds for each teacher along with the banner thanking them for their continuous support and dedication throughout the year ap exam administration began on may 3rd many students have participated in the first wave of exams which are all in-person administrations with paper and pencil the next wave at administrations are soon to follow and will be conducted remotely the

024week of april 26th amne high school recognized pride week a major theme was prioritizing education regarding lgbtq plus history current events legislation and terminology students were encouraged to check out at amity plot on instagram and participate in the organization's planned activities seniors participated in senior spirit week last week seniors dressed up in different outfits that corresponded with the theme of the day and these themes included college apparel day tie-dye day and twin day and seniors participating in sslp or sip are currently in their final week of high school they're working to finalize all coursework before friday and are looking forward to their internships and research projects okay hello everyone um so at the amity orange middle school students collected over 800 pairs of socks to be donated to homeless shelters in new haven the raised

025box of socks collected socks throughout the amity community collection boxes were also set up through the local area amso students would like to extend their thanks to all of those who supported this project additionally amity will be sending one team to the connecticut middle school debate league championship on may 22nd two students from the orange middle school and one from bethany qualified to participate a total of 29 teams throughout the state will be participating as well mrs burke and mrs remigio met with incoming 7th graders from the orange elementary schools q a sessions which each of the 6th grade classes gave students the opportunity to learn about the middle school program and to help them transition to the middle school at the bethany middle school 7th grade students participated in nature's classroom on wheels program

026this week students are engaging in team building activities and are forming lasting positive memories a few weeks ago the 8th grade students participated in this program and reported having a wonderful experience faith great tip sorry the 8th grade will take their annual trip to holiday hill on june 2nd the day will be filled with food fun and outdoor activities lastly a group of 7th and 8th grade students were selected by our teachers to participate in the adl bystander ally training on may 25th that concludes the sooner report does anyone have any questions for our student representatives thank you both for your reports okay moving on to public comment uh ms eichler was unable to make the meeting tonight so i'll summarize the comments we did receive um the first one is from um aaron williamson

027and asher marks it was explaining that they voted no on the every pleasure referendum um they had heard concerning stories from parents and students about racism and tolerance they were imploring the board that we were responsible for what happens next and they were asking um that the indian board of ed needs to work with superintendent buyers to create a multi-year strategic plan with measurable goals of how the student will address diversity at the institution the second one was from uh miss chandra prasad she wrote regarding that she's concerned about fairness and equity in schools she's asking that whatever the administration has been doing over the past three years um has not been significant sufficient or effective um she said we must do more she was questioning whether or not we can look into hiring a

028diversity consultant such as north haven high school has and then there was one from emily melnick and matt mcdermott and they were also saying that they would have known any budget referendum they're concerned with what is happening at epic high school regarding racism and tolerance um and they were saying that we are as a board responsible for what happens next uh and that all of the children in our community deserve a safe and nurturing learning environment in which they can thrive um then there was one from sherry storyguard at matthew storyguard and they were talking about just the general nature of racism and bigotry and they think that is apparent in our school community they also applaud the board of ed's efforts and they're grateful for the tremendous amount of work that has gone into

029keeping our schools open and safe for our children during copeland um they are still concerned with racism diversity and inclusion uh and they said we have a moral obligation to act on this now uh then there was uh last but not least from our fellow board member uh sean mccrimmon um sheila is in this letter resigning the board of education as a result of the fact that she was elected on may 3rd to the woodbridge border selectmen congratulations sheila um and she's asking that we do um abort self-evaluation and the superintendent evaluation before june 30th which we can talk about later um she said part of the reason she's stepping down although she could stay on uh both roles is to make room for community members who wish to step forward to serve and lead

030um sheila has been with us for seven years on the board and um she is still excited to contribute to many different ideas and topics during the last couple of months before so those are our public balance moving on to the superintendent's report so um we are actually in um because i hope we would have students but they are all at um rescheduled athletic events this evening so the first item will be the discussion and possible action on a diversity action in diversity in action signage uh there's a memo on page 18 of your board packet uh this proposal um mrs mann brought this to me um back in early spring uh and we gave it some consideration um i think the big difference um uh between this and something else that we would typically

031do is most of the time we have signs up and they're on the inside of the building available to essentially our students and staff but not really um open to the public um it was my understanding that the proposal would actually be installed at least in one place on the outside of the building and even though the board pot there really is no board policy with respect to that when we've had other outdoor installations like the flags on the light poles going up to the athletic fields we've often brought it to the facilities committee and the board for your approval because it's now outside of the buildings um the diversity in action sign would read with the following statement ami regional high schools administration faculty and student body are deeply dedicated to the advancement and

032inclusion of all cultures and perspectives upon entering this building diversity shall be celebrated encouraged and protected um and then the construction of the sign would all be done in-house through our ctv department uh so um we did bring this to facilities and it did move forward from facilities to the board with a couple of caveats one of which was that um perhaps students could present on the sign this evening uh since they can't be here they put together a video that mrs mann is going to show and then the other um was that we sort of had a mock-up or an idea of how large the sun was going to be and what it would look like so i think we will also present that this evening as well so mrs mann if you want

033to share your screen [Music] okay hi i'm julian stevens co-president of british national club alonso of the o'connor the diversity and action club was created because we wouldn't have a place where ideas would celebrate diversity and inclusion were cultivated and we thought what better way to leave our mark on the school than to have a sign that literally says it all amity high school strives for excellence in every aspect we thought what better way to aid this pursuit of excellence than to take on the initiative of devising a fixture that represents amity's core values as well as diverse and actions core values alongside miss mann and our club mates we decided that respect and fairness were two core beliefs that would aid in the motivation for the statement the motivating factor of our statement for

034the diverse action is inclusion and when you look at the sign we want you to be remembered of amity's mission for inclusion and celebration of diversity that the bethany orange woodbridge community brings us this is what makes us stand out from other clubs that would like to have signs in the school because not only does it collide with our personal values it collides with the high school's personal values and we would love to make a visual representation of that the details of the sign will be there will be two signs measuring two 22 by 24 inches the first one will go in the front of the school under the facade and the second one will go as you walk into the back entrance there are two signs will be made out of exact materials that

035don't weather the statement of the sign would read ambly regional high schools administration faculty and student body are deeply dedicated to the advancement and inclusion of all cultures and perspectives upon entering this building diversity shall be celebrated encouraged and protected the review process will encompass a biannual review this will allow for the fixture to evolve for renovation as well as the community to talk about whether there needs to be changes on the wording this sign is for the community so the community should have a say in how it is where did and where should be placed thank you hi i'm julian stevens co-president february's united club okay so he didn't actually include that or it skipped over the part that said that the sign will be 22 by 24 inches um there will be two

036of them uh and the idea is to have the one placed on the inside which has kind of become another um de facto entrance main entrance to our school towards the at the backward the with the athletic entrance but the one that will be outside would be just underneath the overhang um near you know in in the just outside the vestibule but outside on the side of the building so that's their proposal and as i said that or as dr byers said um julian and colby presented this idea to me in about in february maybe end of february beginning of march and we talked about ways that we could kind of make this happen um and so that's there and i do know julian was planning on being here tonight he's also on the baseball

037team cheshire it and and i think mr barnabas for those of you who were there there's definitely some concerns and questions and regarding policy regarding um precedent and you know we've certainly got the answer tonight on that the size and what it will look like but we had some other concerns i think that you guys did yeah i think um i mean the wording is lovely and the problem is that slippery slope idea of every group coming forward with a sign at some point we have all kinds of science inside the school so the fact that it had to be on the outside of the school which we generally don't do signs on the outside of the school that was a concern the sign on the back by the but that would be inside the

038school right and so it's just the one on the front and so um i didn't have a we didn't have a sense of the size of it because it's a large overhang area we didn't know about the weathering and other issues as far as that goes um 22 by 24 is relatively small um in fact it it almost seems like it would make sense to put it just inside the vestibule or the the sally port so i um but those are the things that we raised and then also sort of we don't have a policy we looked at the policy we have for naming buildings and that's a different story and we don't really address this so i think we definitely should look at our policy and develop something over time um i also know

039that these guys are seniors right [Music] yes so and i also think it's uh it's a lovely message and it's a it's a great message um and so i'm what i had suggested at the facilities committee was if we could just put some sort of a sunset period on it where we say we make this motion and then it's approved for this period of time and then we re-evaluate from there from there on and maybe that means it gets moved inside at some point or it gets updated or something changes or something comes back to the board at some point rather than a permanent approval which is what i was concerned about did we see something in there in our five-year-old review yeah the the review process that we had discussed was having a biannual

040review um certainly on i mean i talked to the students about what happens if we have to do a renovation to the building and you know we needed to take the sign down where we put it you know back up that kind of thing um but even just to make sure that we are um remaining consistent as we develop and evolve you know with our um with our mission and our approach to the graduate and all of that kind of thing um but i think that also with the size of the sign uh there could be a you know discussion about where the problem with our main entryway is that it is there's no wall so there's no place to really make it super visible whereas when you walk in with that big gray wall

041to your right that's kind of the idea that they were thinking that it makes it a little bit more um but it stands out a little bit more so that was the the idea um there were other ideas of having a floating ceiling and that kind of thing but that has to be a little bit cumbersome to try to get down on that so we're hoping to feed back up maybe moving it inside or looking for we don't actually have the sign manufactured yet we are going to be using the azek composite and as dr beyer said mr rostowski is working with both these students to use our technology to make this statement and so we can see once it is manufactured we can present it but um the only concern is that that's the

042june meeting and that and that's and i hear that and i also i know you can probably make it pretty quickly but from a timing standpoint with our meetings it just it doesn't it doesn't work very well um i mean i i'm open to to ideas but what i was going to suggest is that if we make a motion to approve the construction installation of the sign um until the end of next school year including biannual review which is what they suggested but that at least gives us a period of time to work on a policy think about it some more see what we think about it look at it say this makes sense we like this we don't like it we get a sense of of doing something in that time frame that was

043my suggestion was to put a little sunset on it where we have a review and then we look at it on an annual basis after that for most of you haven't heard of this yet so this is the first time i know you're you're hearing about it so if anyone has any other comments or concerns so just for clarity mr brown was that actually emotionally put forward so i'll make that motion uh but i'm open to uh friendly um amendments so i moved to improve the construction installation of the diversity and action site at amity regional high school as presented until the end of next school year 2122 um with possible bi-annual review if needed for moving or building or what happened but that would be my my motion at this point so a formal

044motion so is there a second for that okay now we can discuss that motion i just wanted to commend and applaud the group and mrs mann for taking it on i think the messaging is inclusive and really beautifully crafted um and i think that's kind of just a lovely umbrella for all groups underneath um and i mean i was expecting 22 by 24 foot sign so that's why i was kind of like so i mean we were given no measurements at the venture i was also expecting 24.99 right oh anyway so thank you sure dr turner i saw your hand go up at one point but yeah i this might be a better longer term policy thing but i feel that the concern that this might be a precedent for each group gets to stick

045up its own sign outside thing it's different if it's an expression of the whole school's values and mission and i'm just wondering if you could say a little bit about how this sentiment was like did students have input into it outside the club is there a way that it's true that the student body feels that this represents them because if it is i feel like that's not a precedent for every group gets to set up its own thing it's a school statement of values and principles that's a good point and this um was this particular uh sign idea was not presented to the student body um but it is we work this the club which is open to all students and has a membership probably um i would say about you know a couple couple

046dozen students arranging in all grades um did we they presented an idea to me and then we went back and kind of looked at the wording and looked at the attention and then aligned it with the mission statement um of the school and the core values as julian mentioned which are do have evolved out of lots of constituency work and um you know kind of vetting over the many years from when we started in 2012 2013 to when it was adopted in 2016. jason might remember i think it was 2016 or 2017. and so that is reflective of the it is very much in line with our mission statement and our core values and beliefs which were vetted okay if so i am comfortable just with a biennial review is this still in alignment with

047our core values and beliefs and mission statement rather than saying that we need to re-work our policies but if the rest of the board wants to look at policy that's fine thank you mr president um so i i also think this is a lovely sentiment and it's a gesture that i think is important especially if it's coming from a student group um but i do also have a couple of concerns about what happens when the next student group comes with a message and it is equally a lovely sentiment that we want to put up on a wall like this um so i do think the idea of aligning as dr turner just mentioned with our existing um we sort of have an inclusion statement that's that's um official so having that on the wall is

048is perhaps more in keeping with our policy and then the other thing i just wanted to mention is that especially with a topic that is changing all the time and becoming more and more timely like diversity equity inclusion um we don't want to be seen as making a gesture to say here we're done this is it this is the sign so i like the idea of a biennial uh look and i wonder if we could also like not just look at the wording of the sign but look at what the steps are that we're taking to make the words of those signs true in our hallways the other thing i would just mention from a graphic design standpoint is um 22 by 24 is small that's the size of you know like a lawn sign

049that you'd see on someone's lawn and you have a lot of words there so um in order for them to stand out maybe going back to our our standard diversity equity inclusion statement that's part of the um you know the motto of the school and the you know what's been approved previously it's perhaps shorter and then we could take a look a year and a half from now or two years from now to see where we're at in a biennial review just some thoughts i could not see the video when the student group was speaking so this perhaps was more clear then but what's the reasoning behind having the sign be this small so we um i i was speaking with uh mr rustowski and i think that the idea between the two signs i

050mean the one in the back uh really won't we wouldn't be able to fit anything much larger than that um in the back entrance way uh it's just because it's going to be on that wall and there are a couple other things including some athletic uh presentations as well as a um a water fountain um and so just in terms of space that would be uh you know where that is and the other question was we weren't sure whether it should be whether it was going to be on the outside wall or in the vestibule because we talked about in the sally port presenting it there or having it there and um that would not uh having originally the idea was a 24 by 36 sign that would be awfully large in that smaller space

051um and so this was kind of the idea based on their manufacturing and not knowing exactly how the board would and for consistency between the two mr howard had a question i guess i'd just like to piggyback um you know possibly the statement could say something about besides the administration faculty and student body with the amity board of education you know that it is also listed with me and also just a suggestion that um it's been over a year since i dropped the kid off at amity high school but there is a third entrance there really that a lot of kids stream into and i think if they see that there no no not anymore that that was just why i was wondering what this means and then also here in the page 19 of

052the packet it had the family finance committee listed and has this going to forgot items yet or no no no no it went in facilities that's a type of i think okay thank you i was wondering yeah thank you very much those were my questions and comments yeah good points well there's definitely more discussion that is coming out obviously that we're we're all talking about it so you know i don't know if there's a sentiment on board to you know vote on it or if we wanted to it's crystal motion to have it outside or i mean i think that's the kind of question that i have is what signs do we currently have outside both the junior highs or the middle school i'm sorry and the high school because if we're going to do

053the high school we should do the middle schools as well is my first take my second take is um what what signs do we have outside um on the facilities i believe zero it's the painting of the rock which is probably the only like normal expression area which is also i believe vetted before action is allowed right students have to they have to be asked to improve them make a proposal so from a practical standpoint i guess me personally i'd be okay with it inside the schools to start and then have it go through policy and have something more concrete um to look at and to stand the test of time would be what i would um want to see happen i just our job is three things as a board one is to hire

054a superintendent which we do um second is the budget and the third is policy everything else we kind of stay out i applaud the students for putting this together but i don't like to put the cart before the horse and would like to have this go to policy and discuss it and make sure that it stands to test the time so and then if we are going to do it to have that at the [Music] i just i took a look at the amity website just to see if i could find that um what i remember to be our phrase uh or our statement regarding equity and inclusion and i do see our mission which is it's a great mission i it doesn't mention anything about diversity equity inclusion at this point and i'm not

055sure i mean one place we could definitely put a statement like this is our website so that uh people have the opportunity to see it not just when you walk into the building but also when you dial into our website but um i kind of like the idea of perhaps getting this back to policy i think i agree with you steve that that's a good channel to take it but to allow this uh version of it to be placed inside the school i think is doesn't even need a board vote i wouldn't think i would be fine with both sides being inside the building once again i don't think that means our approval so i i would also be fine with putting it up outside for the next end of the year and then and

056then decide on it the problem i had was if it goes to policy it's not going to happen this year no offense you're very efficient but it won't happen just because of the voting of the different days and so if they were willing to make it put it up maybe maybe by the end of this year we have a policy around it you know for going forward but you know it's possible i i think it would otherwise it i was trying to give us time to sort of work on a policy yeah no i understand yeah i can certainly tell the students necessarily so i would say if you um well would would we like an amendment of the motion to make it to the end of this year rather than next year uh which

057would make it a shorter period of time or would we just like to vote for or against that motion the way it stands you know uh grab it uh next month and start talking about it policy okay um that may be the way to go so i i will um yeah unless somebody yeah so i'll reset my motion and that can be also asked that someone revisited at the two middle schools so that we have something similar i'm not sure the club well i think the order of operations is really if the motions were sended the high school can install it and do what they want on the inside the board would develop the policy that then would allow anything further going going forward so and then at some point if the policy works for

058us to even install the signs then we can go back around with what gets installed or not and maybe the middle schools have a different message maybe they have a different way maybe they have a different club i mean i don't know what clubs they have right this is all again it's off to us as a board right so yeah yeah it needs to be explored and uh going through policies i mean i did right now a couple dozen students and i and i know it's in line and but it is a smaller you know subset of students well i i i'm comfortable with that um so yes you should have a personnel report um we have continued to have uh some changes in our staffing um as and the good news is um we

059are actually hiring staff for next year so it kind of feels like we're looking forward to next year um i did want to make the board aware of a couple of just small changes just in case you um you hear about them uh the first is and you'll see it later in finance that mr brandt continues to run a remarkable special education program and we have more students coming back from out of district placements um than we have already anticipated and talked to the board about as a result he will be able to reallocate some of the money in the idea grant and hire a an additional special education teacher for amity middle school orange which is going to be needed as these students return and come back from the out of district placement so

060there will actually be an addition of a staff member um the other thing is we will have some internal changes um when last board meeting we had a reduction in course of spanish we didn't actually reduce that teaching position instead that full-time teacher that that proportionally has been reallocated to math and to the um visual arts department in order to meet both graduation requirements as well as the student requests for some of the visual arts classes and that's the summary of the personnel report before um yep so uh again up just a couple of things to point out um during the past couple of weeks and actually continuing a little bit into this week our students at the middle schools have been taking their mandated state assessments um and the high school will be doing

061their science assessment for grade 11 as well it was as you heard from our student report teacher appreciation week at um throughout the district last week and um on behalf of the community and the board of ed um we do thank you appreciate the teachers for all the work that they've done um whether it's a cover year or not they're really an incredible group of individuals and truly they are what makes school the experience that it really is for our students and so we did celebrate them and then last i'm very proud to announce that um the amityville pen awards were recognized last thursday in a beautiful outdoor ceremony um and our three winners this year are um andrea drewery from bethany eric basic from orange and vicki hulse from the high school this is

062one of the more significant awards because they're completely dominated and decided by their colleagues and peers and so it's truly a honor and recognition for those three individuals and then lastly coveted uh 19 updates um so not much to share um i did send in the last board report that after our visit with the health districts and looking at um kind of the structure that we would still have to go through for lunch that would continue to be somewhat challenging for us to switch the high schools to full days especially because the net gain would have been nine full days of school um so kind of the trade-off just didn't seem to to be worth the effort that that would have taken we would have had to have a completely different schedule than what we've

063run in the past to have smaller lunches so that we would be able to meet the requirements of the health district the other challenge that we had which i mentioned is our after-school athletics we still have locker rooms that are filled with classroom furniture uh so we can have uh physical distancing in the classrooms and so there would have been no place for our student athletes to change and we really can't pull practices much later than what we are currently uh doing so um it just was logistically not possible um even though we did uh ask about that and mrs mann really really wanted to have the students back for full days but we just couldn't quite figure out how to pull that off um we are um however approved for all of our end-of-year

064activities and um we will continue to work with the health departments just to get some of their guidance on some of the more unique um features of you know running things like crown at the school in the middle of it and stuff like that so um but we're doing well and uh approaching the end of the coven 19 school year um can you just touch base on the bodak youth survey i know that we've had this before and i know that we've had some issues where parents have seen all the questions and if the child answers no on a specific question and there's a subset of questions that that child never never sees i personally think it's important for the community to get behind this um and to encourage you know the kids to take

065it because i think last time we had a lot of opt-outs and i think one of the reasons was again that parents should solve all the questions and again if the child says no then they're not asked different questions but this is huge i think to understand our student population so yes so um so the vodac survey is part of a grant partnership that we have with um with bodak and um they have been we've been surveying students in seventh ninth and eleventh grade uh because that does allow us to look at a three-year span as our students go through the the amity school district and um the questions uh do address um sort of what we would call at-risk behavior so whether it's behaviors around use of alcohol use of cigarettes use of nicotine

066products like baits use of drugs we have also incorporated into the survey questions about mental health that we did the first time two years ago um and this year uh they also included a few questions related around covid and the um the students experiences during a pandemic um the error the way that the survey was designed um mr demaio is correct you would ask a very broad question like do you use nicotine products and if a student answers no it just moves them on to the next section of the survey if they answer yes it drills down into more detail about what kinds of products how frequently we use them where they might be able to find or purchase or buy such products um but students don't actually um get to those questions unless they

067answer yes the administration of the survey is happening only in school because we didn't want a student to have to do that at home if they were a remote learner and have their parent kind of standing over their shoulder as they were completing the survey because we would like to have honest answers from our students and not only does the data help us with our programming and how we might address some of the concerns through our health classes but it does also help the vodaf provide the community programs that they do for our our students and our families outside of school and so um so that is the survey we did release it to parents so that they could view um there was an opt-out form that was available through powerschool if they didn't want

068to participate and the administration is of it is happening this this week regarding the of 19 of the electrifiers i don't probably too early to ask this question but i'm sure board members are curious also the community has the state given any sort of guidance whatsoever as far as what's going to happen am um other than um other than the uh statement that came at the end of april that they would not mandate remote learning as an option for parents and that that could be a local decision that's the only guidance that we've received so far i did participate in a webinar today related to the federal funding and we will actually have to have something called a reopening schools plan in place by the end of june um but how that looks terribly different

069from what we are already doing since we are already a re-open school um i'm not sure that that much will change at that point so we will see uh where we are probably probably a little more guidance i'd say mid-summer thank you john i think we're going to ask if there was any guidance for the uh for next week on the 18th when things opened up a little bit i didn't think you were going to go all the way yeah so thank um correspondence did we have any correspondence um yes she sent you uh i'm sorry miss perot email today oh and i saw the public comment once but i didn't see that question yes but we'll make sure that it gets distributed to the board since the cycler isn't here but i believe there

070were two maybe three pieces of correspondence that came from public comment okay thank you okay uh sheriff's reports um when you record so so first as far as from from the chair um a few things so we will be doing the annual review of the backer buyers um as we know the fiscal year is july 1st 30th so we like to do that in june uh annually uh last year we were unable to do that for obvious reasons and push it to but we will be doing that i will be setting some uh available dates out for people and we'll be using the same matrix that we used last year which was our first year using that matrix and i'll be looking to ms hubbard and ms carlson and some of the others that really

071helped us uh navigate that that was very helpful last year so uh that will be coming uh number two is um we will be doing a board retreat um there's been some discussion i think from from members to order to do it you know before uh the three people that will be leaving us uh sheila and pat to do it before or do it after the new members and i really think that it's important um for these members that are here now especially these three because they've been here so long and have so much to offer that i think it's important that we all hear from them as part of the group what their take is on different subjects and um you know we can certainly bring the new people on when they come on

072but i think it's more important to kind of deal with what we have here so we will be getting a facilitator to help us discuss that it's really going to be more of a self-assessment primarily and then secondarily it's going to be norms we're going to discuss things in the future but i think it's more important to kind of see where we are right now as a self-assessment tool and discuss that yeah i mean is there an option to bring in the new people as well not to exclude them because they'll benefit from it just like little benefit i think they'll probably be sworn in they won't have attended a meeting yet but just to buy just look at this possible yeah i don't know the timing of everything but yeah that's certainly possible because

073i mean as it's looking now it's probably going to be after graduation so it's in that that time frame of between june 9th and june 30th so we could certainly talk about that it's a good idea so just to clarify your new members are sworn in as of july 1. okay so they will not overlap could they not be sworn in early no because then you would have more people on the board of it than you are permitted to have unless we have the meeting june 30th at midnight and that's all i have and we can move on to community reports uh aces so i don't have a report for tonight's meeting um because we have not met yet this month we're meeting on thursday so i will report next month back to school safety

074mr demand uh ad hoc school safety yes they had a joint school safety and health well i get confused with it at high school oh you're right you're right yeah no you're ready we have a number five not a number two yes [Music] uh this week regarding a few items that you were involved with yeah so i did want to highlight a couple of things there is a cave diversity equity and inclusion survey that has gone out to all um the board of ed members and if everyone could please try to fill that out um cave it's a real strength of theirs to plan professional development for board members and they're trying to get a sense all around the state of where uh the various board members come from with their experience uh dealing with

075diversity equity inclusion so they need to first take a survey and they'll be designing programming and then they'll be offering it to us as we're a dues-paying member of cave it's a really great opportunity for us to learn from them they also still are planning to have their let your voice be heard webinar series june 14th is the legislative wrap up still to come and then they also had in their very long email a plug for their webinar library and this is your opportunity to just go onto that website and see any of these topics that you may have missed that you want to watch at in your own time at your own pace you can see them listed there and one of the ones that most recently has been posted there is a seminar

076they did called names matter and that's leaders in action talking about language that is ever evolving and there was a discussion of what terminology means and how we can signal to people that we respect them by how we use the terminology that they're asking us to use so that's really great background information for board members um there's never an expectation that all board members know everything about every topic so this is a great opportunity to learn more so those are some highlights from what cave is offering us okay thanks very much moving on to curriculum okay yes so curriculum committee came together on may 3rd and we did receive um public comment which i believe all of you got as well um and to sum it up it was from two community members essentially one

077was requesting more diverse course offerings specifically in english and history um and then the second letter was a community member requesting that we offer the black and latin course this fall instead of 22 23 which is where we are kind of in the curriculum cycle and so dr mcpadam is going to share that with the leadership team um the rest of our agenda doctor bye was pretty much covered in her amazing superintendent report um was really around sba and the next generation on science testing um all ela teachers are engaging in readers workshop at teachers college which is excellent in a full day training i think it's middle school and then um discussion of the yemeni youth survey so thank you mr demaio for bringing that up and i found it really um helpful dr

078hadn't shared with us too all the questions around sex i guess were taken out this year which i think was a really good one and then um there was discussion of the golden pen awards that's it great thank you moving on to the district open safety it sounds like we had a meeting we did have a meeting um so the main focus of me was to try to stay away from cobia 19. um it was in a sense nurses kind of gave um what they're seeing um outside of kobe um but then it came back to covet kind of in a sense that the middle schools are using the courtyards um for lunches and other activities as well which um i think everyone you know was was happy about which may lead to some cameras

079that the school may need to get but there is a grant a covenant grant that we think will be used i think that was about oh the other topic was some parents that opted out or not opted out but the vaccination or some miscommunication on potential for vaccinations for children in the in the fall so some parents group parents have opted out or i don't know if i'm using that term correctly but have used religious reasons or opted out for not having their children uh vaccinated in the fall so that was the gist of me i miss anything no that's a lot of it pay attention thank you yes all right can i ask a question i'm not sure i heard properly were you talking about covet vaccination or the new bill that just went

080through the state legislature yeah it was related to the new bill that just went through the states so we we had a little flurry of religious exemptions come in that we haven't traditionally had in the past and and uh off the top of my head i don't remember but the bill addresses that in that you have to have them established before june 30th in order to kind of grandfather them is that the gist upon which the bill was approved but we're waiting for further guidance from the state department because there was some ambiguity in that actual date great i'm sure you're going to keep us up to date thank you district technology we did not have a meeting but there was a monthly report at page 25. we had a busy facilities meeting there's a

081report on age 26 the modular building was demolished at the end of the road here on the other end of the building um we talked about a number of things we talked about addressing the field which you'll hear a little bit later and they're obviously the big project right now it's track and field project and there's been two meetings um update meetings for that that was one on april 22nd and there was one on may 6th and those are the first the first two that that's the one and two that have happened so far there should be another one i think on thursday another one thursday yeah yeah and things are moving well they were two days ahead i think they had some rain um all the demo is finished they're right on time and

082there are no access issues right now everything's going to move along but they seem to be right on time with their with their schedule that's great yeah all right thank you not too financed we have our finalists for the meeting for this meeting one by one um will you see the presentation again it's my time now no no okay so can i bother you here to just summarize what my gloss presented earlier oh i can summarize [Music] committee meeting and uh maybe i'm thinking what chris is thinking that if we're not happy with this report we'll never be happy because these are phenomenal returns um not only for the quarter but for the fiscal year to date so all of our uh investments and pension op and sick and severance are performing and are doing

083very well moving on we have um the following agenda items eighty discussion of cross election on okay so the first one is from this fiscal year it's technology and it is for um leasing uh it'll end up being 784 devices for seventh grade students and though i have 12th grade listed there mr deroza corrected me between meetings i think 12th grade because our current 12th graders don't have devices but next year they will be gone and 11th grade books that will be 10th graders who will actually receive new devices at hand but it's the last class that will get the one-to-one devices so we have secured with esser funding for the 10th 12th grade class and we had put on an rfp we had one respondent and it was not the device that we had

084proposed it was comparable but it was uh nearly twice the price and we found out that uh the acer device we were looking for is in transition of having a new model done that won't be ready till later this year not in time for the start of school and will be about a five percent higher price um so we were able to secure um 784 devices through a consortium bid and we would like to award that contract to early computer associates of massachusetts at the bid price of 346 thousand 920 that is the three year that is the purchase pricing we will be releasing these devices over three years thank you yes mr brown ms cardozo yes miss carlson yes mr davis mr dimeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes miss burke yes is

085mcrevin yes dr turner yes the next few are for fiscal year 2122 budget items the first one is copiers and printers our contract with xerox will expire next year so during the budget process um and we were looking to see what that price would be and to have our current uh design for copiers and printers uh reflect the changes now that we are a one-to-one uh environment and uh to look at the usage that we've had on copiers so we have come up with uh we currently have at least planned for 24 xerox copiers and supplies and for 100 district phones and network printers um and we are proposing 25 xerox caviars we will buy out three copiers in the nurses office because they um they are still in very good shape and it actually

086is better for us to own those and retain them longer than to continue them on the lease and then we're going down from printers from 100 to 20. um i have budgeted a 30 000 savings in them for the 2122 budget and this brings in 37 000 of savings it would be a five-year lease it is uh off uh a pressing peppa bid contract um so it meets the purchasing guidelines and they would the changes would begin over the summer break okay so would someone like to make a motion to accept that i'll make that motion thank you mr man i'll give you a second shannon so it's a five-year contract it'll start july 1 of this year actually i'm sorry dude at the end of this year our first payment we can make in

087july but the contract will start okay so that's before the end of just over here [Music] yes mr brown yes miss cardozo miss carlson yes mr davis yes mr dimayo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes miss burke yes ms mccrevin yes dr turner okay yes you that motion passes okay the next one is student accident insurance um our policy expires mid-august and uh we were due to go out to bid again we had two proposals submitted one was for 33 000 for interscholastic sports and student activities and 2910 for catastrophic accident coverage um and 62 792 for both on the second proposal we have experience with both companies we had our insurance call consultant review both proposals and the lowest bidder coverage meets all of our specifications and industry standards we currently have hvc

088here and the um recommendation in between awarded contract again to hbcc here okay would someone like to make a motion mr davis thank you for the second any discussion regarding the student accident insurance mr belfanti yes mr brown yes ms cardozo yes ms carlson yes mr davis mr dimeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes miss burke yes what's up dr turner yes thank you promotion passes the next one is the field here at amity middle school orange this was presented to the facilities committee last week it is an item budgeted in next year's budget to improve the drainage the fields had extensive work about 15 years ago but now has regular periods of standing water in several gear areas especially during the spring months and often the field is not usable by the phys

089ed classes or middle school sports uh we had mr kevin castle capsulatron sports curve our current groundskeeper develop a couple of options and present those to the facilities committee last week uh the first option is adding play infill to the field to absorb water and improve drainage the fuel will be aerated and 60 tons of infill will be applied at a cost of 42 900 the second option was to replace the current drainage system which would require excavation gravel fill and typing and is over the budget of six at a price of sixty eight thousand one hundred um the administration is comfortable with option one at forty two thousand both of the options presented include um thirty nine hundred dollars to address uh depressed and highly saturated areas we're requesting that the board waive the

090bid requirement and sports turkey award the project as well since mr capsilatro's knowledge of the field is a valuable asset so um if we wanted to go with option two potentially could we use end of year funds to get this project to be done in the summertime yes the intent is to have it done in the summertime when mr capsalatro presented to the facilities committee he seemed to think that option one is actually going to accomplish the same thing that option two would and mr brown pointed out that we can do option one and even if it gets us only five years instead of the anticipated 15 then we would be able to look and see what else could be done under the option to perhaps later so um facilities supported the option one but

091um mr castle is pretty confident in what he thinks he's going to be able to accomplish it adds 60 tons of material it'll be and then it's there forever right it's there so then if we look at it later and then we want to touch a drainage issue or try to clear out a drainage but otherwise we're digging up the field to put in new drainage pipe and which may just get us back to sort of this sort of where we have these smooth spots he is going to specially address certain areas that are wetter than others but it's a field in a bowl where all the water runs down to it it's a tough but i think the idea was the material we buy it and put it down it's there forever and then

092we see how it does after that okay yeah you're smarter than i am trust me now that was uh basically that very good work but the fact the question that i have is he discussed at all what the current condition of that drainage system is and has it completely failed or is it still working but just not working efficiently because of the infill not being present there did he say anything about that because it's been my experience the drainage system isn't working to put all sorts of stuff on it and just won't last and as i said it may last four or five years and then i have to go and do the same thing that we could be doing this year um there could be silt in there right it could be failed and

093could have could have blockage um didn't speculate on how much blockage there was and that's where we got into the special area project where he will address certain areas and if there's something to be done in those areas then you can maybe address the creation but that that that french drain that runs around the field i mean there's a stream basically heading into the field from the other side and like i said the hills so it's it's been 15 years since they've been done um it's probably time to redo them right but let's try this and then this will just add to the longevity of the next next system and it didn't rip up the field you know it kept the field a little more uh usable in the short term yeah the other thing

094he was mentioning numbers and he was saying almost like a good better best like 20 tons will make a nice difference 40 would be better but 60 is really going to help a lot and it's still less than the budget so that's kind of the way he was recommending going with that of mouth as well okay we'll see it's the spring the spring is like it just gets black at this point it was my point too or maybe spend a little bit more just look at it and fix it and put a band-aid on it so i think the way this is it makes it sound like we were choosing option one but really for the committee he was really saying option one is the word development another one we weren't voting down option two

095we were willing to do option two so he was like let's just do option one i really believe that will take care of it that was an impression that we wanted so we thought we would defer to the experts take advantage okay he said a lot of other fields have had very good luck because he's done they have other fields it's a special soil rate that kind of goes like on top of like the the baseball fields and softball fields but rather sandy has very good properties that help out a lot he's got very good luck on other installs with problem areas like this so yeah to test point this is what they recommend and then we'll do the artificial turf field later right down the road all right so we have a motion in

096a second right is there any other discussion it's dirt so it's kind of a set price it's not much it's just spreading dirt so it wasn't like it was a lot of variation yeah all right mr belfonte yes mr brown yes miss cardozo yes miss carlson yes mr davis yeah mr dimayo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes miss burke yes miss mccrevin yes dr turner yes thank you the last one we have is capital not only insurance funds this is the high school roof um the we had put aside last year the board had voted to put one for set aside of 495 000 we had tremco um our roof uh repair specialists to come out and we expected the roofs of all three schools um and we are right now addressing the high

097school we have that one area of 22 sections that's in the capital plan that uh full replacement we would have estimated at 1.2 million you'd have to go out to bond for unless we have enough money capital occurring this proposal is to restore that area and extend the warranty five years it's currently having a 10-year warranty about to expire that process to address that area can be repeated again in five years if we maintain a roof it can be restored again and another five year warranty awarded the five other sections of the roof at any high school will be restored with a seamless membrane and they will have a 20-year warranty um some safety walkways will be installed and some metal uh tap flashings will be on where we have some crumbling capstones uh so

098all of these projects total 390 uh 5 000 140 140 and would be paid for from the cnr funds the um remaining funds in there for about a hundred thousand and we have two reports on uh one on each of the middle schools which uh they don't necessarily have roof repairs but they have access issues and uh drainage um recommendations and we're still reviewing those and we will bring those back at a later date as to what the best plan is for the middle schools thank you would you like to make a motion yourself and i think we have to wait any discussion yes ms carlson yes mr davis mr demeo yes mr howard yes ms hubbard yes miss burke yes yes dr turner yes so every year we ask the board to um to

099make motions to prove that we participate in the healthy foods program at the state we do get funding from that about eleven thousand dollars this year um and there's three motions there you don't have to read them but they do need to be incorporated in minutes and that is to say we're going to participate in the healthy foods program follow those nutrition standards then secondly we will make exemptions for foods that don't meet the standards as long as certain conditions are met it's a connection with an event outside the regular school day or weekend it's the location of the event and it's not sold for a vending machine and the third is about the sale of beverages that they will either meet the state guidelines or they will be sold in the same conditions as

100to at a event outside of the regular school so and as ms cardozo pointed out at finance committee it's really not an optional thing if you want the money from something that you have to do every year any discussion mr elfante yes mr brown yes ms cardozo yes miss carlson yes mr davis yes mr dimeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes miss burke yes yes yes okay so the next is capital projects change orders uh these were brought before facilities last week uh the first one um we call it 1a because we identified it by the administration and it's actually five enhancements where options were reviewed last august at a facilities committee the administration uh recommended two of those options and the facilities committee approved the request for additional conduits to be laid to

101allow access for additional cameras and electrical places on the home side visitors on the home side they total 11 dollars eleven thousand one thirty three um and then we would have if that's approved to do the changeover we have a following motion for the budget transfer so we're gonna do this okay mr davis mr dimeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes ms burke yes evan yes yes okay so then the next change order which is um tinker one from the field uh has to do with the delay in the project an increase in materials um involved in constructing the project so it's for track materials fencing curving the field base of gravel electrical and then field equipment so that's a total of fifty nine thousand sixty dollars and thirteen cents the i'm sorry the

102third one then is uh hvac so our estimates for engineering costs are coming in a little higher so we anticipate the additional ten thousand dollars uh ben zones is still uh very much involved the project isn't ongoing and uh we'll work with the final punch with mr martial when we're near the end of that project all of these are coming from the contingency council and just for purpose of clarity you'll notice there's actually two motions that each of these needs to go through the first would be approving the change orders themselves and then the second would be the transfer of the funds from the contingency into the appropriate accounts to pay the cost of the change so when someone make a motion to accept these yes to approve the change orders that's presented to approve

103the change orders okay we've got a second a second um any discussion on the changeovers that anyone have any questions and a question i'm not sure we're at the approval process for the actual motion or are we talking about adding motions to that larger approval pretty much questions approve all three but this is the time at which we would talk about them okay so i'll just ask the question so i see that we're going into contingency on the project and so my question is just that are we at the point in the project where we're confident that this money is going to be available in contingency are we on or under budget at this point well there's this project is going to increase the budget for the stadium field but we will still have over

104three hundred thousand dollars left in the contingency and this is the largest uh project within all of the projects we signed on for okay so just so i'm clear we're not talking about the capital non-reserve funds contingency we're talking about the bonded projects contingency fine line is that right correct sorry the audio is breaking up there i didn't hear the answer yes it's in it's in the contingency that we actually built into the bond which was put there intentionally in case we saw increases to the project that were unanticipated okay so we're just drawing from that contingency and putting it in one of the two projects that was included in the bond that's right okay thank you that was just the clarification i was looking for and just to be clear too so uh miss

105women so the 59 61 that's basically the material costs because the project was voted on in november december of 19 were supposed to be done in the summer of 20 and then the lawsuit came from the temple of residents and that pushed us another six or eight months till we could start the job so within the last few months with all the material costs going up um that that costs the district really uh taxpayers 59 000 correct and there's a fourth change order which i didn't have the paperwork preparing the packet that i will be bringing next month to the board okay and that is to address the cost because of the stock work water because we had large equipment on site working and then the stock fourth quarter was issued and that equipment would

106have cost more to redeploy and bring back then to just have sit idle but we have to pay a price for its sitting title until we refuel from 16 000 and 400 so that week of delay in addition to the nine months of the delay for the lawsuit has added up about 75 000 or so and changed the taxpayers that the taxpayers are or that comes out of the bond which we have to contingency for but it's right and some of it is as simple as um you know the price of copper went up the price of tubing went up some of it is the actual materials of the signage and the netting and right other things that have just gone up and everything's getting a little more expensive this you know and so that

107nine months have we would have ordered it we would have had it and we would have installed thank you i'll figure out how to get my hand down now there it is lower hand um so i just want to make sure i understand so in the contract um that was entered into with the vendors we didn't anticipate any delays at all so we sort of did not uh write anything into the contract that would that would keep us from incurring these costs with delays so there were there were um provisions for um i forget what that terminology is that mr davis uses non-appropriation no no no no there were there were there were um provisions for um sort of like catastrophic events um but there was not a provision for something like a holding pattern

108because of a lawsuit that's unfortunate thank you i don't know what vendor would agree to that in those terms i mean basically you're saying without negotiating that i don't know the answer either if i was a vendor i wouldn't agree to an unknown of two-year weight potentially for i mean look at the price of lumber right now i think projects of this nature often run into problems like this i don't think it's completely unheard of whether we would have paid a cost to have that written into the contract i don't know but too late for that i just wanted some clarification thank you we're looking at 75 000 which now the three towns have to pay because of one town putting lawsuits and everything the in place did not put a lawsuit in place i

109just want the record corrected to that yeah is correct that that there there was a um there was uh the original lawsuit came from individual citizens okay it was not from the town and the work stoppage the second one was a temporary hold as we worked through some that was from the tunnel first yeah and that was for not complying with the terms that were agreed to so i don't know how we could argue that from amnesty's standpoint we could talk about it another day at the end of this i would be curious to see how much we have wasted or necessarily i i would too be curious until 75 right now okay okay i think we we covered that so let's move on to the next step well so so right yeah we still

110have that we have the motion to approve the change orders right now thank you dr buyers um yes we have the motion of a second right so at this point mr velvante yes mr brown yes ms cardozo yes ms carlson yes mr davis yes mr dimeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes ms burke and so then we would want the second one to do all the budget transfers yes [Music] yes so we're accepting um transfers in the amount of 11 133 and 59.061 from bond contingency to athletics and then 10 000 from bond contingency to the hvac [Music] yes mr brown ms cardozo yes ms carlson yes mr davis yes mr dima yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes yes kevin yes dr turner yes okay thank you that passes now we're moving on

111to the discussion of the financial statements so there was a positive change in the fund balance of about two hundred and twenty one thousand dollars uh revenue had some changes between accounts but a net of 163 dollars as far as expenses go um some more on paid leave legal absences uh taking place then payroll taxes adjusted for the lower salaries uh for the year uh medical is projected at 80.6 i believe and i'm anticipating 97 000 almost 98 000 dollars saved on the medical line uh 55 000 for the lease that we approved for the one-to-one then changes in special ed savings on transportation tuition as dr buyer's management students coming back into the district uh facilities some savings on electricity about sixty seven thousand thirty five thousand water um twenty one thousand on natural

112gas uh we are asking for a transfer later in the package to top off the fuel tank at bethany which will be about 15 000. some highlights of the forecast okay transfers under 3 000 that are informational if you have any questions and then um my the end of your transfers and the budget transfers actually flip the pages so the agenda item is transfers of over 3 000. the first one is for technology for 784 devices for uh implementing that lease now second one is facilities for the 15 300 for the fuel tank top welfare they're not i put them out of order oh okay thank you okay so we need a motion uh velvante yes mr ralph yes ms cardozo yes miss carlson yes mr davis yes mr demeo yes mr howard yes miss

113hubbard yes whisper yes yes dr turner uh yes sorry what emotion passes thank you um then we have the second motion on page 140 for the transfer to cover the first okay would someone like to thank that much yes mr brown yes ms cardozo yes ms carlson yes mr davis mr demeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes miss burke yes ms mcrevin yes dr turner yes that passes thank you so now we're on page 138 which is the standard end-of-year budget transfer so we can close the fiscal year and uh then we're making those transfers all through to july and then in august we report back to the financial committee before any transfers we had to me to make that motion so mr davis thank you wait a second thank you okay thank you

114same discussion regarding that signal we'll call that phone mr belfanty mr brown ms cardozo yes this is carl sanchez mr davis yeah mr dimeo yes mr howard yes ms hubbard yes miss burke yes kevin yes turner two informational items one is just um the capital projects report of expenditures it doesn't yet include the change orders that we voted on tonight that will be updated next month i think we just had an additional uh bill coming from safeway towards that project since the last meeting and then uh food services for 22 next fiscal year um the federal government has approved that all students can receive free lunch for the entire school year next year and we expect that the state's going to follow suit and we will be following filing that application as soon as it's

115available every student will receive free lunch correct yes which has been what we've been operating under this year as well now it doesn't mean we're just giving it a break free right we get the inverse reimbursement from federal dollars so we just have to keep track of how many we are distributing um but our hope would be that as we were able to provide the free lunches and then hopefully next year we're back to normal we can do a la carte sales which that's where we actually make money in our food services but the the lunches and the breakfasts would continue to be provided to students great all students christmas coverage will the lunches be handed out as they are this year at the end of the day or will be more and that's going

116to that that'll be a whole question for reopening schools so right now in the middle schools um the students do actually uh kind of take their own things it's somewhat organized so that they don't have a lot of contact um but and so i imagine the high school cafeteria would look more similar to that um and then the breakfast program normally is only run at the high school during a traditional school year and i think if we were back to normal it probably would function that way as well i guess what i mean is at the end of the day middle schools students are handed out breakfast day yes they already have for the day that's still going to continue next year that would be the day two o'clock together yeah that i'm not sure

117of because we we've been able to manage that right now because we're not doing the lunches at the high school i'm not sure what it will look like and our abilities next year when people are having lunches at high school to continue to do the breakfast program for the local schools thank you that moves us on to policies in our next meeting is on monday uh may 17th at 6 30. 5 30. oh i have it at 6 30 is it 5 30 yes okay i will fix that in my calendar the members themselves um and then we tend to go with the majority because sometimes just me and one other person sitting in a room with everyone else on zoom is a little silly so all right so um there are five policies um

118that are here for our first read so it's a great opportunity to provide feedback especially before our meeting on monday um we're still working in the four thousands so policy four one one five evaluation and support this is an update of a policy uh the the teacher evaluation program was um was statutorily revised um probably i think it was in 2016. 2016 2015 and and we put in a new plan in place and we established the pdec um committee the professional development and evaluation committee they wrote the plan um and so this really just brings our policy up to date with the statute around the teacher evaluation and support all of the language from in here any of the teachers and or administrators sitting on the board they're going to recognize this because this is

119just what we had to do to update teacher evaluation um i did cross-reference it with our existing plan to make sure that the couple of areas where we had some flexibility in terms of um review particularly in the dispute resolution process was aligned with our teacher evaluation plan so that is four one one five policy 4117.4 the non-renewal process again the non-renewal of teachers is um is statutory and we actually have a policy in place that um that i thought was a good policy of a strong and cave review to and said that we could continue to use it however we did not distinguish out between non-tenure teachers and tenure teachers and there is a subtle difference and so um we took some of the um we took we sort of borrowed that from the

120cave policy of separating those two out but maintaining the language that came when they reviewed it says was still acceptable uh for this um policy um the other thing is we did have to make some changes in the dates because our policy reflects old dates in terms of the non-tenured non-renewals policy four one one seven point four one uh is um our suspension policy and this one has been um changed fairly significantly uh i think the biggest idea is that in practice we have always followed progressive discipline but we did not have that down on paper as our practice so that is just considered a typical common good practice when we have an individual who is not meeting our professional expectations uh the other thing that we did is outline the difference between suspension without

121pay and suspension with pay again both of which we have we have and have used in the past but um was not clearly um designated in policy as to when uh that may actually occur um so i thought this this was a good one to help kind of just codify what we have always typically done in terms of operating uh for individuals who aren't meeting our standards uh 4118.11 our non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity we did not have the eeo statement in our existing board policy so um everything else we we do currently have and it was approved by cabe and it was okay to maintain however i did uh lift the eeo statement from the cave model and inserted that into our policy and updated the legal references and that's it for first streets

122does anyone have any comments or concerns with those my um i had a question about the policy the equal employer or non-discrimination equal employment opportunity so page 152 in our packet i've just um i can see that it it it makes the broad statement that harassment on any for or sexual harassment or any other form of harassment based on protected class status right um that's the section under the red um will not be tolerated and it describes any form of harassment by students personnel individuals under contract or volunteer subject to control the board and then later on in this policy there's a complaint procedure that seems only directed to employees who believe they have um you know someone has harassed them and there's a procedure for that does this policy also cover harassment that's not

123aimed at an employee but instead aimed at another person who is protected under that broad definition of you know we're not we're forbidding harassment by students personnel individuals etc we only either have policies as they pertain to person staff or to students and students are in the 5000s and you'll see a note that's informational where these things get cross-referenced or are separate policies in the other sections right and we have we have some um complaint procedures that are you know the the page behind the policy right in that student section is there something that mirrors this though is is there like a different complaint procedure for sort of the same thing when it applies to students or others in our building well we have that for the students yes okay so it basically mirrors i'm

124just trying to understand you know that again this is two places in the same policy binder but it applies to two different things but we're going to keep this language in you know connected so it's saying the same thing in both places right similar things um the big difference being again this one is is related to personnel and employment and so there is slightly different language because of the fact we're employing individuals as opposed to getting them as students so i think that i think that's why i like the eeo statements those are going to be different from here than they would be in the student policy okay and so this this policy would cover whether you're if you're an employee whether you you've um transgressed against someone or they've transgressed against you this can

125be used for either type of procedure right that is correct okay thank you mr do you have a question oh yeah question on 4117 where is that directly from k that that's directly from the statute from the statute yes that leaves us open to too much interpretation whereas a through e kind of a more specific um yes but that is the statute so and it really is you can have something that you just don't anticipate that ultimately was that a hand there is that a hand duct turn all right so for the second reads um uh starting with four one one one uh this was sent back to policy after our last board meeting and the policy committee took a look at it again we wanted to make sure four one one one was aligned

126or not in conflict with the subsequent four one one one point three um and we were um trying to um be uh respectful of dr turner's concern that we don't just address sort of one area of um trying to be uh minority recruitment that it was that this our policy was broad enough to reflect multiple uh different um people within our community and not solely based on race so we changed the word of heterogeneity to diversity um and we thought that that accomplished the alignment of these two policies and then was also um really kind of increased uh the different classifications these protected classes these policies would address so that was the change in four one one one and then sorry for 111.3 is a new policy that would now um be aligned with the

127state's task force on minority teacher recruitment um but then it does address specifically um hiring educators from different racial ethnic and economic backgrounds and so we felt that those two are no longer in conflict with each other uh 617 was just an update i don't believe we received any feedback when it went through first read and um it was um and we didn't make need to make any changes for 112.8 we also um didn't have any uh feedback from its first read and made no changes and that's it for the new ones for the second reason sorry so we want to make the motion to accept all of that that's one motion to accept all of them thank you any discussion mr davis mr dimeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard miss burke yes kevin

128yes turner yes okay thank you so that passes so would someone like to make a motion to accept them i'll make the motion to accept all of that thank you any discussion regarding these four policies on the second read that we're going to accept i just wanted to circle back on 4-1-1-1 i know we had discussed previously about the diversity of the people who live in the school district and i think it was mr davis had spoken to maybe a larger concern than more than just the people who currently live in the amity school district and i wonder if the committee had an opportunity to think along those lines if the language in this second paragraph is is addressing what the committee thinks we should address well to be clear mr davis is on the

129committee is what i wanted to say uh basically uh we were trying to be inclusive in uh relationship to not only ethnic backgrounds uh economic backgrounds and so on and so forth but all types of people that live in the district and um when we were looking at this uh primarily the concern was uh maybe uh ethnic backgrounds and not some of the other backgrounds that uh we take in in this school district and that's why we uh considered that change to diversity so it would include everyone and not just a specific group of people we also looked at the relationship it had with the uh minority recruitment and uh it was in that discussion that we came to realize that it's it's kind of impossible to go out there and specifically try to hire

130minorities it's illegal uh you have to set up a plan or a program uh which brings uh those uh individuals that uh who create diversity into the community and uh so you know basically we're recognizing those issues am i correctly saying [Music] so i guess my only comment for the board would be um in placing i like that i like the use of the term diversity here instead of heterogeneity but i do think that if we're talking about if we're placing this policy um in the current time the people who currently live in our school district and and of course we know that some students who attend the school their families do not live in the district they are coming to us through project choice for example um but i wonder if we're missing an

131opportunity if we're if we're adjusting these words um i think i like better the way it's phrased at the end at the last sentence the board believes uh it is especially important that this diversity of population be recognized i wonder if we could entertain perhaps striking who live in the district from the beginning of this sentence because i think that diversity in general we don't know who's going to live in the district tomorrow for example so we if we would just open this up a little bit to say diversity of the population or of the state of the you know the diversity of the population we serve i don't know if we could use a phrase like that um then i guess my second question though was also we spoke at the last meeting about

132checking in with our sending districts to see what they have for terminology and these policies did that did we take a look at the other policies well the only sending district that has something is bethany and theirs is a regulation sorry i know that the woodbridge school district has been working on this perhaps they just have it as a draft still and they haven't approved it or very easily have a policy in a different place it's just not these two um specific ones but we did actually borrow some of bethany's regulation for our own regulation that would go behind this policy right so i and and again i would say when it comes to policy it's it's ever living so it's not like the action we take tonight can't be improved upon in subsequent meetings

133i think perhaps when we have our larger board self-evaluation and we we have some discussion of the topic of diversity it won't stop the you know a future board meeting from coming back and looking at it again so as it stands tonight i like that you've added diversity here i think that's that's a an important improvement here thank you yes mr brown ms cardozo yes ms carlson yes mr davis mr dimeo yes mr howard yes miss hubbard yes mrs burke yes mccrevin yes thank you and so the last item was just informational for the um board members um and it kind of goes back to the question mr kevin was asking earlier so um when we did the update to um so and you'll perhaps recall at the start of the year we discussed there

134was a significant revision to title ix laws we had the board's attorneys completely revamped revise our student sexual harassment policy so that it would be aligned and then rather than completely just copying and making them change the adult one they wrote it so that it can be cross-referenced in both personnel and students so we just added the numbers so that it's part of the personnel section as well as the student section um so we didn't have to change anything other than cross-reference the policy number that's it thank you okay now we could move on to personnel uh we have some contracts discussing obsession um loomis and myself [Music] dr byros and you were starting to say i was going to say in the interest of time if the three people on screen could raise your

135hands if you approve going into executive session and then we will have um thank you very much and then everybody in the room would you approve going into executive session if you can indicate by showing your answer okay so we will enter executive session at 8 45 that will give me time because i have to stop the live stream and then start it back up again