001i'd like to call to order a regular meeting of the board of education may 24th 2022 at 7 o'clock p.m thank you um i did want to take a moment the word um would like to acknowledge the number of um devastating acts of violence and death that have occurred over the past few weeks so we just wanted to take a moment of silence to acknowledge and remember those victims before we do the pledge of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice all right the first item on our agenda tonight is our public comments uh we welcome you all to the board of education meeting if anyone wishes to address the word tonight uh please see our recruiting secretary over um
002next time to submit a forum for addressing the board we do ask that you put your full name address on the form as we're required by state law to keep that detailed seven minutes or meetings uh in general the board doesn't answer questions or engage in dialogue during public comments it doesn't mean that we don't take your concerns or comments seriously we truly do value community participation in our activities and our endeavors and we do encourage people to uh participate and engage with the board using the channels that we've designed i know there is some confusion at times as to how the board works um one of the things we ask people to recognize is that our work happens here in front of you in public so often when people are frustrated that we're not
003engaging this is where it happens and so we're happy to have so many people here tonight to see um that engagement if you do have specific questions though we are always happy to have you um speak to an administrator or um or whoever would be the right person to answer your questions because you do understand that often that one-on-one can get your answers but your questions answer much more quickly um our communications manager will explain the procedures for public comment and she'll be calling up the speaker so i'd like to introduce hollywood thank you president speakers will be called up in the order of submission the first form received is the first person invited to speak this evening we have nine speakers when your name is called please come to the podium so that you
004can be heard your comment will be limited to three minutes a three-minute timer will be projected onto the screens and will start once who are settled at the podium at any time during this meeting what written comments may be submitted to our reporting secretary kathy spiky at my right we ask that our speakers are conducting themselves with civility and respect towards everyone in this room our first speaker is madison foyer hi my name is madison floyd and i'm a senior botavia high school graduating tomorrow night for as long as i can remember a priority of mine has been to practice loving one another unconditionally i was taught to love my neighbors no matter their race their color their gender their orientation or anything else that may make them different from myself i have learned of
005the immense beauty and diversity and of the rich elements of our world's many cultures for the last few months i have watched the live streams of the board meetings from home i have watched continuously as my teachers my peers and other adults speak to you about our district's issues surrounding equity having practiced such love and acceptance throughout my life i can't help but hear their cries feel their pain and see their struggle with that being said i simply cannot sit on the sidelines anymore watching others fight for a cause that i believe in so strongly and have believed in for my entire life now you may look at me a white straight cisgender woman speaking to you today about diversity and question what in the world this could possibly have to do with me this
006isn't my problem right well i believe that an issue is valid and important no matter who it affects for an issue regarding the minority is an issue that deserves to be addressed with the same speed and manner and respect as an issue within the majority for if it were your children being cussed out in the halls or being bullied into depression i am sure you too would want immediate action empathy is not lost on me these kids and adults alike deserve better watching students make hateful posts on social media is heartbreaking watching my peers fear coming to school crying at the doorway is heartbreaking nobody and i mean nobody should feel as though they are a target for hate because of their identity we learn the basic concept of empathy as children trying to understand
007the golden trying to understand other individuals points of view so let us remember the golden rule to treat others the way we want to be treated now this is a lesson taught from childhood upwards however it's become a loss a lesson lost on so much of our population without change this is a problem that will not magically disappear nobody can wish it away and nobody can ignore it out of existence a year now has gone by a year of voices speaking to you and a year full of we'll just do it later and with all due respect there is there can be no later there has to be a no and as the year comes to a close i can only hope that the next year looks different for our marginalized students staff and parents
008alike i want to see allocated professionals and resources for our diverse students in our service in our student services department i want to see active education in our classroom specifically geared towards our white sugar population as we need this education more than anyone else for change to happen i want to see guest speakers and i want to see change in our staffing where it is due so please let me repeat this one last time an issue does not need to impact you personally for it to matter this has been pushed off for far too long our students our staff and our parents are hurting they're hurting and you've been presented with options to tackle their issues let their christ be heard and let their battle end thank you for your time [Applause] my next speaker
009is jessica benelli so [Music] thank you for the opportunity to address the board once again you may recall that last year i was here with my husband and my son to address the board about the stem partnership school closing in about two days that's going to happen in one of the addresses to the board i shared that the president of au called stem a mini united nations it's culturally and ethnically diverse i'm saddened that he won't have the same experiences in not only stem programming but the exposure of diversity my family is biracial our representation matters i'm mexican and my husband is a non-us citizen 100 italian our stem student tony has expressed a sense of belonging numerous times at happy classmates at firm aurora and naperville in preparing for his transition to rotolo i
010became aware of the may 11th rms messenger because my friend sent it to me and it alarmed me a group of 100 students gathering to quote-unquote express their concerns the action was described as generally respected and responsive to redirection however a few paragraphs later in the same messenger was a statement students who harassed others intimidate others or create hostile learning environment will place face disciplinary consequences don't you think the student who was a target of this bullying may have felt or thought that 100 students quote-unquote gathering was harassment intimidation and created a hostile environment the description of the gathering is not congruent with the alleged consequence i recall that such behavior was not condemned or viewed as bullying i'm concerned for the safety and well-being of our student population and teachers in our district as
011i addressed in my email uh yesterday with other bps parents for equity and justice we need leaders that are willing to risk being uncomfortable and unpopular because they take up the fight for every child's right to belong to feel safe and to have the same educational opportunities as their non-marginalized counterparts so the four proposed points and actions that i support is that bps leadership should allow and establish affinity spaces for marginalized students bps district board hire a professional firm with experience in equity auditing to conduct a full district equity audit bps school board should create and hire a chief equity officer and finally the board should research resource and implement changes as defined by the equity audit to close the educational gaps for marginalized students what you do matters representation matters please listen to us
012[Applause] is hello my name is abigail abate and i've lived in batavia for over 10 years and still i've experienced and heard the same homophobia and racism taking place in every single one of those years from the start when i was just in second grade i first heard the n-word from some boys whispering it on the playground ten years later this is still going on but now they're shouting it and that's because they go without punishment it's because we let them our schools are not safe for everyone but we need to do whatever possible to fix this just the other day i heard about six white boys say some sort of slur whether that be homophobic or racist as if it was just any other word and to them and their arrogant ignorant minds it
013is and it's not their fault it's our education system that has failed them schools are not just here to teach us math and science and literature the education system was put into place to help teach children who grow into adults how to thrive in our new diverse world we pledge to our flag every morning at school for liberty and justice for all but where is it for them by letting people be openly racist and homophobic we break the other children in their chances of success by giving them depression and suicidal tendencies these children are far more segregated than white cisgender students and that's very clear we dismiss their worries their fears their aggravation because they're just kids yes they are just kids their children who are getting discriminated against by a system that continues to
014allow harm to them every day they are made to feel less than their counterparts by the treatment towards them not from many teachers but from their peers one of the ways that um it does affect things that our staff is predominantly straight white men and women just being in my ap language class where i had an astonishing woman who was a person of color showed me so much of what i was blind to and she actually encouraged me to help today i want more teachers like her she did it in a respectful loving way and i think we need to take the time to actually open our ears open our hearts and take in what so many parents teachers and students have been trying to tell us we might be equal but the lack of
015equity is appalling for instance the schools preach that we are all equal we are all one race and color does not exist but color does exist it's what makes us who we are in our skin there are centuries upon centuries of our culture our history and i wish that with every cell in our bodies we can take the time to learn about those other cultures besides the good old american one because there is no american culture we stole it we all came from somewhere else we took it from italy ireland germany nigeria we have the power to mold our own culture and we need our schools to teach and accept and cherish all of them things need to change because things are getting worse people are getting hurt by words once again in our history
016but this time is your sons your daughters and someday if this is not changing it will be my own children so i ask you to do something about it please due to race gender and sexuality will not be tolerated in the places you would like to call it a safe place because that means it's not safe just because it doesn't impact everyone it does not mean we should ignore it and that's something i really wanted to focus on thank you [Applause] good evening my name is sue saklinsky i am a retired batavia educator high school students and de-centered groups have come here repeatedly seeking your help christina reported that another student had called her a monkey and then told you i didn't report it and it's not like anyone but listen anyway our students must
017be heard by letta stated i wanted to hide who i am this student also said we feel unsafe and ashamed we cannot learn in such environments our students must not feel shame alexis told you i am the kid that told they were going to be lynched i've been called the n-word many times it hurts our students must not be hurt sierra told you something has to happen sooner than laters our students need action now these are only four of the numerous statements students made this year in desperate efforts to show you the need for immediate action i am here tonight to talk about allyship such as this ally ship is to take on the struggle as your own allyship is to transfer the benefits of your privilege to those who lack it ally ship is
018to amplify voices of the oppressed before your own allyship is to acknowledge that even though you feel pain the conversation is not about you allyship is to stand up even when you feel scared allyship is to own your mistakes and to de-center yourselves allyship is to understand that your education is up to you and no one else what does action on each of these points look like in batavia schools this is a question that must be considered by every administrator by every board member by every employee every student and by every battalion batavia citizen begin by creating affinity groups at the elementary schools the middle school in the high school for students in all these centered groups board members and administrators i urge you to become active allies of students and faculties and faculty in
019the center groups by first educating yourself i suggest that you receive you refer to the batavia community diversity initiative social media platforms where you will find a plethora of resources to become an ally is good evening my name is maura hershauer my husband jim and i have three children that attend batavia public schools in a situation such as this that so deeply affects our community i want to acknowledge that i am wearing three metaphorical hats i am a batavian a parent and also the state representative of the 49th district it's difficult to separate these hats so i wear them tonight with pride first i would like to thank administrators teachers and staff at the district for working hard to educate our kiddos every day it's been a tough few years and especially challenging and there
020are new and more difficult issues at your doorstep i appreciate that you all meet them with empathy and integrity however i was disappointed with the district's response to the student-led protest on the rights of a transgender peer that occurred on may 11th i was disappointed that there was not an immediate and strong statement against lgbtq plus discrimination and hate you had that opportunity to affirm the rights of lgbtq students in batavia but you do not take it transgender non-binary and gender non-conforming students have the right to attend school free from discrimination and harassment and to participate in programs and activities on equal footing with their peers this should have been loudly and proudly stated in district communications illinois has robust anti-bullying laws and a strong human rights act recently the illinois department of human rights
021released new guidelines for schools on non-discrimination protections if you do not have the guidance or need the help with implementation of these rules i would be happy to assist wearing my state representative hat good educators of which we have many here in batavia strive to make their classrooms and schools safe spaces some students are lucky enough to feel safe and nurtured in batavia's classrooms but as we have learned from the protests at rotolo and heard in the past several board meetings straight from the mouths of brave students our black and brown students and lgbtq plus students feel anything but safe and protected in our schools and for some of these students it is a matter of life and death so i ask you what is your plan to keep these students safe we cannot ignore
022this opportunity to do better for all batavian students and families i ask the district along with others to create safe affinity spaces for students and to use your platform to connect families with resources like youth outlook and safe school alliance to listen to your educators who have repeatedly asked for training and curriculum to address equity and justice in our schools and i stand here as a partner to use any resources i have to help the district create the equitable and excellent educational spaces that we want for all batavian students [Applause] our next the rights of minorities students and their perspectives and their need to be heard and affirmed but tonight i'm speaking to you as clearly a minority member in this crowd which is okay because i don't need applause and i don't need people
023approving of what i say and i don't need people to think that i'm okay because i feel like i'm okay one of the things that i keep hearing about tonight is how we need to break people up into affinity groups we need to have safe spaces we need to have separate resources and all i hear is divide divide divide and i don't know kind of mimics what we're seeing in the country the more we talk about our differences the more divided and the harder it is to bridge those differences i hear a lot about being tolerant of other people but unfortunately some people don't understand that tolerance is a two-way street i have children or had children in this district one who i won't mention you can hold up your signs i'm uncomfortable with it
024i have a child who's been called the bigot chase down the hall because she's a white blonde girl i'm glad you're doing this right now i'm glad you're showing how tolerant you are i'm glad you're showing how much empathy you have and how much you care about minority in my case in this room minority opinions maybe i don't need to say anything more because your laughter says it all it's really not about inclusion and equity it's about prioritizing your rights minority rights above the feelings of other people and if somebody walks into a girl's bathroom and they are biologically a boy and somebody objects to it they're the hater all the adults in this room grew up having separate boys and girls bathrooms it just was done you wouldn't have thought otherwise but now we're
025expecting our children not to say think about it not to have any sense of modesty or what they want if they feel safe i hear a lot about other people wanting to be safe but what about what other people feel it's a two-way street it isn't just about you and that's all i have to say thank you [Applause] hi thank you for having me um i want to thank everybody that has spoken so far i think it takes a lot of courage no matter what you are up here sharing um i was out earlier with a lot of people in the front of the school talking to them and i really found some common ground with some people that think differently than me i agree also that we are in a situation we are where
026our country is very divisive and um bullying is not okay for anybody it's not kids need to have consequences absolutely bullying is by definition is something that's ongoing to a specific person group of people that's ongoing that is the definition of bullying so i feel like there's miscommunication about the bathroom usage from what i'm understanding um from what i understand that there is a student that went to use the boys bathroom and when it was brought to the administration's attention they didn't know about this student this student has been using the girls bathroom all school year and just within the last couple weeks has decided that it was that their right to use the boys bathroom and i don't care i i i love everyone i am not i don't you can hang your signs
027i'm not a hater i i don't care what you and your family choose to do i will accept and be accepting and again bullying is never okay but we have gender neutral bathrooms at rotolo middle school for students that need that and those students those boys were caught off guard when this student went into the bathroom and i fought the administration for that student that went in the bathroom and those hundred boys it was respectful i talked to the principal and they were voicing their opinion by sitting in there was no from what i understand angry words they were sharing their their feeling that they were uncomfortable because their space has been violated and again why do they have to feel that way just like anybody shouldn't have to i you know what take all
028the bathrooms out do 10 12 15 individual bathrooms if that's what needs to happen then fine because everyone should feel safe so again i'm going to go back really quickly everyone has to have a safe option individual bathrooms if the voices of many aren't heard they will work to find other solutions and they're not cognitively prepared to address issues that they don't fully understand at their young age brains do not cognitively start developing for those type of concepts until they're 12 years old so please just address everything [Applause] our next speaker is scott naylor i'm going to start by reading from someone who couldn't be here it was a last minute submission to me and he asked that i read it for him it's for joe bert o'neill says i'm a proud 2002 graduate of
029batavia high school during my time as a student i served on multiple extracurricular boards one of which was a program like that a like-minded group of students put together called star it stood for students together accepting and respecting our objective was to create an environment of acceptance and inclusion specifically for the underrepresented community in our school at that time we were met with a lot of resistance the administration told us that it took away from curriculum teachers told us they don't know how to properly implement the lessons and the community at large made it pretty clear that we had an uphill battle but we were okay with that because we knew that at the time nothing like this had ever been done at batavia high school and at the time the national discussion was different
030you have to understand that back then we were still reeling from the murder of matthew shepard and up until that tragedy occurred most of us didn't realize how dangerous bigotry truly is fast forward to today and i wish i could say that i'm proud of the foundation we laid two decades ago unfortunately it seems as if instead of moving forward we're moving backwards we no longer have the convenience of using ignorance as an excuse too much time has passed to pretend these issues are not incredibly pertinent bullying has evolved hate has evolved unfortunately the potavia school system has not evolved to combat those evils i pose to you the notion that mental health and personal safety are not prioritized by the school system we are no longer at a point where we can look at
031the evidence and proof in front of us and deny the fact that we are failing our students what breaks my heart the most on a personal level is the thought that all the work we put in decades ago was for nothing and while i refuse to actually believe that it's an undeniable fact that because the people at the top refused to help us out we were denied progress we simply cannot let that happen today do not let the words of the students teachers and faculty fall upon deaf ears do not let history repeat itself remember why you are here remember your duty to protect students and do the right thing to make sure that happens moving forward and just because i don't have enough time i'm just going to make a comment that uh the
032majority of people you see standing back or word of bread here came here with a common goal um and uh the purpose of the group that we're a part of is equity and are what we want to see is that students feel safe equal and included no matter their race gender identity sexual orientation special needs disability or financial situation [Applause] hi my name is olivia naylor i'm currently a sophomore batavia high school though i haven't had racism or homophobia directed at me at school i hear things said around school far too often on may 11th i was walking into school and as i was walking to class the first thing i heard was a group of boys and none of which are black about to see the n-word they stopped once they saw me look
033at them and after they passed me they said to the boy who originally was going to say the slur you're indigenous so you can say it i have multiple classes with these students in the group and sadly it wasn't the first time i've heard them say something like that another day a few months ago around december january i was walking to a practice room during chorus and i heard the same group of boys along with a few others from my class saying the n word and trying to convince another white student to say it among this group of students only one was black but he wasn't the only one saying the slur my siblings who go to the middle school here in batavia also fear students saying slurs on their school bus on a pretty
034regular basis and to my knowledge these students face no punishment as i said before i haven't experienced racism or homophobia directed at me in school but i have experienced sexism i've been dress coded somewhere between 7 and 13 times throughout my academic career last semester i was dress coded three times in one week when i would ask my female teacher what was wrong with what i was wearing i was never given a straight answer the first time i decided to question why i was being dress coded and pulled to cover up i was told that i would be sent to the principal's office if i kept speaking of a matter the next day i wore a shirt i had previously worn school two times i was dress coded again and this time pulled into the
035hall to discuss the matter with my teacher before class started during this discussion i was never given a clear answer is why i needed to cover myself up but i was told i was being insubordinate distracting disrupting class of my clothing and that what i was wearing was inappropriate i chose to speak to one of the deans about the issue and to my knowledge the teacher's been spoken to since then but that doesn't change the embarrassment embarrassment and objectification that i felt then this semester a male teacher showed my class a sexist slideshow about women and tried to justify it i spoke to the principal and the teacher about it but from my knowledge i don't know if that even changed anything i was never given i was given an apology but my class was
036never given an apology or any other classes that might have seen this live show students should feel safe and comfortable at school parents should feel comfortable sending their children to batavia public schools and teachers shouldn't be saying that they've worked here for years and they've never heard as many racially moderated incidents as they've heard this semester alone elementary school all the way up to high school we're taught to be respectful to one another but the stories i've heard from my teachers and peers the things i've heard in my own classes or even her just walking through the halls at school shows the complete opposite of respect it doesn't matter that school ends in two days action needs to be taken immediately i'm now not the first person to speak up about the baby tree within
037our school district but i'm hoping that i can be one of the last [Applause] uh good evening my name is michael straub i am president of mountain fox valley and our subgroup batavia pride we are a non-profit lgbtq plus pride and advocacy organization in the tri-cities and surrounding communities i am here tonight because it is well known in the community that bullying and harassment are a concern about the middle school and high schools here in batavia our concern goes beyond the lgbt plus students but includes students who are bullied and harassed based also on emotional and physical disability racial or ethnic identity gender height weight native language or any other characteristic that is subjected to bullying in 2019 report the national center for educational statistics reports that just over 20 of all students report being
038bullied male students are more likely than female to be physically bullied while females are more likely to be bullied by rumors or purposely excluded from activities the centers for disease control state that students who experience bullying are at an increased risk for depression anxiety sleep difficulties lower academic achievement and dropping out of school a 2018 study revealed that 70.1 percent of lgbtq plus students were verbally building in the past year because of their sexual orientation and 59.1 of their gender expression 53.2 based on gender 59.5 of lgbtq plus students feel unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation 44.6 because of their gender expression and 35 percent because of their gender the trevor project reports that lgbtq youth are not inherently prone to suicide because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather held
039us at a higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society i find it shameful that anybody has the nerve to stand up here and claim that white cisgender children are heterosexual children too are somehow a victim of society because we're looking out for the best interests of everybody and i just want to say dei supports all children it improves the lives of everybody it certainly does not hold back anyone and so how dare anybody say otherwise batavia district 101 has the policies required by state law regarding bullying and harassment but it is apparent that the spot program is implemented when a problem arises have not proven a concerted whole district policy emphasizing diversity equity and inclusion is needed currently there are staff that purposely misgender misname and radical students based on
040their lgbtq plus identity not all staff not most staff but enough that it has an effect on students and students behavior my time is up thank you [Applause] uh good evening dark and difficult times lie ahead soon we all must face the choice between what is right and what is easy for voting ominous yet thought-provoking this quote is taken directly from a character in a film that i count among one of my personal favorite film and book series of all time harry potter if that professor albus dumbledore delivers his line to harry himself in the goblet of fire movie right towards the end of the film when after seemingly clearing another hurdle in his life's journey harry is being warned by dumbledore that there is more yet to come for young harry that will challenge
041his very thinking his values his tenacity and the very character that makes up his being will harry crumble and do nothing taking the path that is easy or will he choose the path that is right and just and commit to giving everything in his being to fight the good fight if you know the books in the movies then you already know that answer if you don't i would give anything to read these books again for the first time and perhaps you can do so as well so why am i spending my time before you tonight referencing harry potter in many ways where we are as a district right now is where harry and dumbledore were at the end of the goblet of fire difficult times do lay ahead for us as a district each and
042every person in this room in this system in this community will need to answer that very question for themselves are you willing to do what is right or are you going to settle for what is easy all year long month after month you as a board have heard from community members parents teachers staff members and students about issues impacting our district people have been sharing their truths telling their stories coming before you and publicly sharing things with you and asking things of you at the end of the day everyone no matter what side of the topic they happen to be fighting for is looking for the same thing what will you do about it your role in and of itself is not an easy one to fill each one of you is a volunteer who
043decided to take on the role of board member to help make our school district a better place a safer place a place that we can all be proud of the time spent on the receiving end of what i am sure is an ongoing barrage of being told everything you're doing wrong or not well enough in no way balances out with the times that you're told thank you or well done believe me your teachers educational support personnel administrators and district staff are in that exact same boat and that leads me to my main point we should feel like we are all on the same team but in all honestly what i feel and i don't believe i'm the only one in that feeling is that there is an us versus them mentality there isn't just one
044thing that has led us to this point there are many things over countless numbers of years that have been rationalized internalized and institutionalized that have now become the face of our district this leads us to a very important climax in our district's history what difficult decisions will we be making that will begin to tear down the walls that have been allowed to be built up and woven into the fabric of bps taking a stand is hard making a top decision is even harder the hardest thing is making a decision that you know will have the maximum benefit for most but may end up upsetting another group of people one thing i have learned as a leader is that no matter how hard i try or how much i wish this to be the case almost
045never will a decision be a win for everyone inevitably someone is going to be upset by a decision that i have made or a decision that i must carry out that however does not stop me from making that decision in fact every time i make a hard decision or a difficult decision that is the correct one to make that makes me more courageous it gives me the fortitude to continue to make difficult yet right decisions and not opt for what is the easiest or the decisions that will garner the least amount of backlash in fact making a decision that is wrong or choosing to be indifferent and not make a decision at all fosters a spirit of cowardice and it is ultimately those decisions that will permeate our entire district and either fill it with
046courageousness in fighting for what is right fair inclusive and equitable for all of our students or cowardice for choosing to bow down to those who are perhaps the loudest but certainly in my experience are in the minority easy is the quickest answer but i challenge all of us to be brave and to look at whatever injustices are facing us as a district and to make the decision together to fight for what is right fair inclusive and equitable for everyone that comes into our classrooms and buildings those will not be the easiest choices to make yet will be the ones that will be the most impactful and driving our district forward in the spirit of doing what is right and just all while knowing that there will be backlash from those impacted from those decisions we
047must look at injustice for what it is and decide how best to combat it to close i'm going to quote the wisdom of professor dumbledore once more in the same montage where he is telling harry about the difficult choices he's about to make he tells him to remember this you have friends here you are not alone even though i realize that not everyone in our district can refer to each other as a friend we can certainly agree that as colleagues we are not alone and at the end of the day we are here to make sure all of our kids feel welcomed included and valued we are not there as a district yet we may say it but that's not the truth we must now work together to make the difficult decisions for what needs
048to be done so this could be the new narrative of our district that isn't just posted on a bulletin board or part of a daily announcement we all have to live it model it and most importantly believe it we have begun to take small steps in that direction but in order to make those bigger leaps we are constantly going to have to ask ourselves will we do what is easy or will we do what is right i know where my allegiance lies and i hope that leading by example we will see where yours is as well thank you [Applause] all right so we're going to talk about kind of a recap of this past school year so first of all i want to say most of the students at majority of the schools did get
049involved in something this past year whether that be a sport or an activity or a club or a board um anything like that most of our students were very involved and they had a very successful year um so first of all we're going to talk about some of our sports teams football was first in the duquesne conference and went 10-1 overall in their season and also made it to the second round of playoffs girls tennis was due cane conference champions for the third time in a row this year and they also won the second sectionals championship and five of the athletes qualified for the state tournament this year and as well many tournament titles were won throughout the season uh boys tennis also won sectionals this year and had six other players qualify for the
050state tournament which i believe is supposed to take place this upcoming weekend the girls track and field team won conference this year along with sectionals and had many athletes qualify for the state tournament the team finished 12th in the state with many other girls placing high in their events the boys track and field team also won conference at sectionals this year and had many athletes qualified for a state tournament which is also supposed to take place this weekend the girls soccer team did very well this season and when the regional championship and are currently competing in the sectionals tournament the girls basketball team won the regional championship this year and also had many wins against competitive teams the boys basketball team also had a great season and won many games against competitive schools boys cross
051country teams did very well this year and placed high in most of their tournaments along with having one athlete qualify for state girls cross country won the regional championship this year along with the conference title they also had seven athletes qualify for state this year and placed 11th overall in the state and the volleyball team had a very good season this year beating many competitive schools and having many athletes get competitive titles the softball and baseball teams have had very competitive seasons and are headed to regionals this week the batavia dance team had a very good season winning many titles and also qualifying for state along with making it to the uda uh national dance team championship in florida the boys lacrosse team has done extremely well this season making it to the second round
052of playoffs and continuing to play very competitively many of the tv athletes were all academic conference athletes keeping up with very good grades while also balancing their school and social life many athletes also are continuing their academic and athletic careers at four-year universities and fine arts students have also won awards for the exceptional artwork and are continuing on to universities to pursue their passion for art the tv show choir had an amazing performances this year winning few a few competitions throughout their season and they also put on a great show for their friends and family at their showtime performance the fine arts program also put on a great show showing of spongebob this year and had amazing performances for the community of batavia and many clubs did great volunteering throughout the community this year and
053had a big impact on those around them the eco club build new builds a new fountain in the courtyard of the high school library for many students to enjoy throughout the school day many students have also gotten involved in future career opportunities while visiting niu and learning about their future careers or things that interest them the district teachers staff and students are all very proud of each other for the amazing work and dedication that was put in throughout the school year okay and then move this down but a little bit of what we're looking for or like what we're going to do next year for student ambassador is more and more we see the benefit of student input so we brainstorm some systems for students to better communicate their opinions to the district one way
054we're doing this is um we are in the process of emailing slash meeting with the executive members of various discussion clubs this includes girl up gsa equity and justice committee etc this may prove more effective as it is student-to-student discussions rather than adult students so we might be getting more better input that way using the information they've already been collecting within their club madeleine and i will combine the data from our meetings to find what issues are most concerning and require action and also what we did good on this year this will also give us a better idea of the overall opinions of the student body in order to prepare best for next year and then second we want to engage students in studying and assessing their school rather than just asking for feedback on
055questions created by adults or us schools can actually train their students in collecting and analyzing data themselves however this is less likely if this skill is not beginning at an earlier age so we would like to create a system that gives middle schoolers and elementary schoolers a voice that may then allow them to feel more like they have a part in their learning and give them a sense of direction as they advance into higher education in high school so that's it [Applause] our students together a couple years ago for those of you that don't know we have student ambassadors that help the board um the students of the high school and we take a new student every year and plenty interviewed two years ago and tonight concludes her service to the board and so we
056just wanted to present her with a um class [Applause] so i had two committees uh this past month we had the statement committee um at the same committee we had chris owen provide a detailed presentation on how we currently fund and staff for our music programs and a proposal for how we could reorganize that to both streamline the process and to make the district responsible for the costs for all personnel currently we have community organizations that cover a significant portion of our personnel costs for our music programs um so we're going to try to change that obviously this will require any creation so the necessary group is reviewing a proposal and we'll return with something that we can consider also we had a cat meeting and at the cac meeting we discussed our assault teams
057which is our subject area leadership teams and getting those started again it was a very robust positive and inclusive discussion where everybody contributed specifically we questioned what should and could uh be included in seoul teams and what the name is and whether or not the name is accurate while we agreed that there could be potentially other things that could be included besides the core um subjects we decided to start with math ela science and social studies and uh because this work is so urgent we have scheduled an additional meeting so we will be needing to give back continue uh capital projects did not have an official meeting this past month i do have information to share on april 27th in support of building their future together there were open houses held at jb nelson elementary
058and rotolo middle school from eight to five tours of the building were given information was provided considering the different proposals are being discussed and members of the volunteer facilitating team eps one-on-one administration school were present to answer questions and gabby announced the turnout was rather robust especially here at rotolo we had a lot of great discussion a great exchange of ideas so i want to thank everybody in the community who showed up and participated and i also want to thank everybody in the facilitating team who helped put that and the community engagement sessions together it was a lot of work you did a wonderful job you did a service to our district and our community so i want to thank you for that and i also want to share that if you have driven by
059the high school recently you might have noticed the demolition of the bleachers and the press facts by the football field and as a reminder at the november board meeting the school board approved phase one of the improvements to the bleachers lights and press box along with some drainage and sight line improvements that was done at a bid that was awarded for 2 million 167 000 i just want to know that that was well below what was forecasted and if you know anything about the construction industry if we were going through that process now we'd probably be paying 30 to 40 more for that project so mark you were very prudent in your time like that so well done a little history behind that decision the lights and the glaciers were originally sold in 1971 and
060the old bleachers were not ada compliant they were grandfathered at this point but now we're going to address that so all our citizens can enjoy friday nights and other evening events and events at the stadium and the old lights were not energy efficient and did create quite a bit of light pollution so now with this improvement we're going to be better neighbors the other good news is we were able to start a week early because of the report through the scheduling we're not hosting any events which will be good because we're under a very tight timeline so the substantial completion of page 1 is scheduled for september 9th and so i personally am looking forward to tracking the progress of this project and we hope that when we open the new stadium that we have
061the community behind us to support us and celebrate the grand opening of the city a few weeks ago i was honored to attend senior hour's night from fifi and we awarded over 20 000 scholarships to graduating seniors that was very exciting it's almost a fun night very and one other little plug if you will allow me an on-board thing i'm also involved in the flag day committee this year on june 14 at the tuesday six o'clock we are doing the groundbreaking ceremony for the flying day memorial down by the peckbot center so anybody would like to come down and see it still selling bricks um if you have ever heard about it dr segrant was a member of the davis citizen who would like to say is the father of flag day one day and
062created so we're going to memorial come on down six o'clock thank you we didn't have insurance committee uh this month and um our one action item was we are switching our helmet service a less expensive film ad option and much faster consultations and lots of options just to serve our our members better and then a continuing conversation about making uh sure that we're making choices that are financially the most proven while still providing really great benefits for our employees so that's a really awesome team that digs in and does this work every month uh if you guys can hear me i had two meetings this week uh this time with the facilitating committee meetings just want to applaud what the working effort that everybody put into that they did a fantastic job very good conversations
063i'm very honored to have been witnessing that process to hearing um more about it um the second one was the resource responsibility in iraq and i feel ill so i was not able to make it so i don't know later um my only committee update is that plaque is already looking forward into the next year and we have our summer retreat schedule to dip jump on everything early and um assertively for the next school year now for me thank you next time on our agenda is the consent agenda which is an opportunity for us to approve a number of routine business items uh with one vote all items are excuse me all items are detailed in the workbook so mr pierce if you would take us through the consent agenda i'd be happy to do
064so 4.1 and 4.2 is the approval of the april 19th 2022 regular and closed session meeting minutes 4.3 is the approval of the may 9th 2022 special meeting events 4.4 is the approval of the may 18 2022 special media minutes 4.5 is our monthly personnel report 4.6 our monthly payrolls and bills 4.7 that's our donation we have the size of the donation from the boosters 4.8 is textbook approval 4.9 classroom use agreement with mid valley special ed cooperative 4.10 approval of our network storage service agreement renewal 4.11 the approval of food service contract renewal four point um one uh four point one one is the approval our special ed contract 4.13 is the approval yield price increase 4.14 is the approval of the renewal for facilities management software 4.15 is the appointment of auditors for
065fiscal year 22 and finally 4.16 is the approval of our consent agenda thank you spears any items for uh removable or clarification all right then i have entertained a motion to upgrade the consent agenda as presented we've been mentoring the first two reports you see every month before you requested treasures if you have any questions about those i can answer those now nothing out of the ordinary for either of those reports um and then we have two other reports and then we have some action items on the agenda tonight so the two reports are being presented by some of our audience members right now we have the equity team report so we have two staff members from our equity team sarah barrett and genevic knight that will our group represent ft and as conversations of
066dei have increased in our community and district district leadership recognized the need for a team to come together and have many voices work to advocate for the changes needed in district 101 this recognition came after several individuals and groups brought their concerns to the forefront of the conversation entrusted teachers were invited to fill out an application to be a member of the new district equity team all those who applied believe in the validity and importance of district-wide dei initiatives while not all applicants could be a part of the official team their voices are still important and are carried with the members who were selected to be part of the team the team consists of teachers and administrators from all levels with various backgrounds and experiences each person's story is part of the narrative of why
067we came together and greatly value the incredible important and essential dei work that needs to be done in our district so our next step for our group sorry that seems fun um our first thing is that we want implicit bias training for all of our staff and we are scheduling this to happen on september 2nd at our first institute day our first meeting was held on april 21st and our second meeting was held may 16th our next meeting is going to be next tuesday our future meeting times after that are yet to be determined but are deemed to be essential and should be met with urgency as matters of dei are things that need to be addressed now one of the first items we are working on as a team is finding resources to educate
068our district in its entirety and i just want to be clear that doesn't just mean teachers this means any person that encounters a child um during their day um i just think that that's important to say on implicit bias so we want to educate everybody on an implicit bias in a recent reading i stumbled upon a sentence that said bias isn't a dirty word until we are ready to have uncomfortable conversations and look at our own implicit biases we cannot do the necessary work as an organization at our may 16th meeting one discussion point that was brought up time and time again was the need for a dei coordinator in our district while doing work on matters importance in batavia has often been done with the resources we have within our district the team strongly
069feels that an outside voice is essential to progress and growth in looking at other school districts employment postings for di coordinators i found the following job description the primary responsibility at this position is to ensure equity is embedded in the work of all schools through the development and implementation of diversity equity and inclusive initiatives and provide leadership communication guidance and support to the community the parents the staff and the students another district simply stated that the di coordinator would help shape a healthy and inclusive culture where everyone can grow and thrive we currently do not have the capacity to engage our district with this type of position a new position filled by a person who possesses a deep understanding of diversity challenges and ability to lead systemic change is needed we are also recommending that
070the board along with the district clearly state our position and how we will support our marginalized students this includes our students of color our lgbtq community and our students with disabilities this is not just an equity statement this is a clear stance on how all staff will respond to acts whether verbal written or physical against any of our students this is stating what laws the district will uphold for oh sorry i lost my place this is stating what laws the district will uphold this is giving consequences as well as educating those who violate the rules and expectations we have set forth as a district this is standing up especially when it is hard for what is right and for how we would all want to be treated we ask that this message comes out before
071the next school year set our students and our staff up for success and support thank you for listening and hearing what we are asking of you every person in this equity committee has a passion to make sure that all students feel that they belong our recommendations to you are a step in that direction but by no means the end we look forward to continuing our work and making progress with your support [Applause] um [Music] thank you very much for your passion um i think your first meeting was that in april and so the full action plan isn't prepared yet at least we had and we will give them whatever regular um slides like we have different um groups that report different months we could have that but we would also listen to their recommendations [Music]
072and it actually said how many members are on the committee how many board members how many administrators and we have a little bit of work to do with them and then the second report tonight report means no action but it is a um informational presentation so this one is from the building our future together facilitating [Applause] all righty hi everybody good evening um we are the community co-chairs for the billy refugee facilitating team my name is kelly blakely kenny gasperian so our purpose tonight is to inform you of the work we have completed over the last four months your charge to us was to engage the community and seek feedback on the draft of the educational master's facility plan the facilitating team met starting december 2021 we planned and facilitated four community engagement sessions and
073held open houses at jbn elementary school jp elementary school sorry also and chilly middle school back in december the facilitating team met for the very first time this group of people discuss how to reach our goals and with a collaborative effort determine the schedule for the next four months thank you to everyone who participated and if you're a part of this building team and are here tonight we thank you and your stand up to be recognized if you'd good like you [Applause] as we started the process we based our planning for the presentations on what the core team had discovered during their two-year process the guiding principles set forth what criteria needed to be used as we started to continue to plan for the future the core team spent considerable time talking to all the
074stakeholders in the district and the community was clear and what they wanted to maintain in the district this slide shows what we heard from the community as well as the core team the community enabling sessions were established to get even more feedback from the community about two main points at each session a presentation was given by district administration and other experts following followed by a work activity completed by the community participants in small groups the data from each session was summarized and analyzed by the facilitating team to help us in the making of our final recommendation each session had a specific purpose after the four sessions were completed open houses were held at jb nelson and rotolo middle school lastly a community-wide electronic survey was opened all the information from the sessions can be found
075on this website we have also provided you tonight with a final process report that goes into greater detail for you guys to study session one topic was assessment of the facilities where we've been where we are where we're headed dr lisa dr lisa hitchens dr brad newkirk mr tony lacy and project manager from for the dlr group caribbean sand shared information about the current state of the facilities how the facilities do and do not support learning and teaching and an introduction to educational facilities master plan as well as information about the type of facilities that support and enhance education following the presentation the community members worked in small groups to compile their biggest surprises and concerns about bps1 facilities and to list key questions about the future of the school facilities that they would like
076to be addressed and then remain in community engagement sessions each of these bullet points were addressed in the remaining community engagement sessions session two's topic was financing the educational facilities master plan chief financial officer tony iguesa and senior vice president and managing director for public finance for pma financial group bob lewis did the presentation the presentation featured an overview of school finance including bond structures for public schools a historical look of octavia 101's finances and how three potential facility options would financially affect the school district and its stakeholders following the presentation the community members worked in small groups to come to consensus about three to five pros and cons for each of the options their second task was record any any additional information they felt was needed to make a final decision on a preferred
077option lastly they're asked to come to consensus on which option they would prefer here's option a's breakdown of spending money is evenly split amongst the three levels with most safety and security projects being addressed along with basic maintenance option b allows for operational maintenance projects but unlike option a also includes some functional program improvements this plan would replace louise white at hc storm elementary schools while deferring jb nelson and al gustafson's replacements option c completes almost all of the projects identified by the core team including replacing four elementary schools this graphic illustrates how each of the options meets the guiding principles that were determined by the core team during the smallmouth work activity the 10 table groups considered which option they preferred a common theme for participants was a preferred options b and c but
078almost every table wanted more details about specific costs and timelines so the participants support the idea of improving the facilities but would really like more detail session three's topic was community priorities dr hitchens mr lacey and ms van sant gave the presentation which featured a review of the funding options details about the cost and considerations for rebuilding versus renovating the schools and overview the projects included in each potential option following the presentation the community members worked in small groups to rate each of 24 project categories on scale from one to five with five being top priority their second activity was to identify their biggest surprise and concern about the school projects list in summary the group rating showed that operational needs had higher priority than functional needs the last session session force topic was developing
079recommendations participants heard a presentation from the community co-chairs and mr unlacey that featured a review of the process community recommendations and enrollment projections following the presentation community members worked in their small groups to list questions about the presentation which were immediately addressed and answered by the administration of ms van sant again it was clear that participants wanted more detail about costs the second task was to determine three to five key points from the presentation that were clear and up to five points that were somewhat unclear and need to be better explained last the groups were asked to list three key takeaways that everyone batavia should know about the education master facilities plan summarizing the table's responses it appears that beauty members understand the facility needs what options exist for funding all or part of the
080plan and the impact the options would have on property taxes continuing the same theme from earlier sessions they still seek costs and timeline specifics and impacts on the students on april 27 community members were invited to tour jb nelson and rotolo about 40 families toured jb while 150 families toured rotolo the self-guided tour included stops that highlighted areas of concern for that building as well as similar concerns throughout the district district leaders along with dlr experts were on hand to answer questions nearly 60 attendees completed individual feedback forms at the open houses at rotolo middle school and jb nelson elementary school those attending the open house at jb nelson preferred option c with option b coming in a distant second those attending the open house at rotolo middle school were nearly split between option b
081and c other responses were a mix of option a all none and undecided we were very pleased with the attendance the open houses and thought they went well on april 27 a community survey opened to the public every household in bps101 received a postcard in the mail with instructions on how to access the survey in addition banners were put up in each school and the information was posted on social media eight hundred and seventeen or eight eighteen hundred eight hundred and twelve respondents completed the survey we're going to explain some of the data points of the next few slides in regards to that survey more than half of these uh currently did not have school-aged children in their homes of those that do over 86 attended bps schools and here's the age breakdown of the
082respondents the full survey data report is included in the final report and summary document that you have all received respondents are asked to give their opinion about each option at the beginning of the survey results in these tables were weighted by gender and parents of school-aged children a little background when conducting electronic surveys such as the one completed in our building our future together program oftentimes certain types of district residents are more likely to respond than others commonly women are more likely to respond than men and parents of children 18 and younger are more likely to respond to the than those without children at that age category women and parents of children 18 and younger tend to be more positive about their school district than our men and non-parents so you do not want their
083over-representation among survey respondents to paint an overly positive picture of the district or key initiatives under consideration to avoid this when analyzing electronic survey results responses can be weighted so the survey demographics more closely reflect community demographics and thus result results are more reliable such a waiting procedure was applied to the analysis of our survey results so that they reflect a 50-50 ratio on gender and a 40-60 ratio on parent versus non-parent those of children 18 and younger when weighing the results in this manner the adjustment was very modest for example support for option a went from 47.9 to 51.7 for option b from 65.3 to 62. and for option c from 39.4 to 34.1 so depending on the question the adjusted figures from waiting changes results from zero to five percent right could you
084repeat that option name how the the results in this manner the adjustment was very modest for example support from a went from 47.9 to 51.7 thank you again at the end of the survey respondents were asked one more time about their option preferences for this question respondents had to choose just one option whereas on an earlier question they gave their opinion on each of the options when looking at the results across all questions the survey measured 61 to 62 support for option b early in the survey 62 percent said they favored option b on reconsideration towards the end of the survey the percentage was 61.3 if you assume those who preferred option c would support option b if that option were on a ballot option c while receiving considerable support our engagement meetings was only
085favored by a third or 34.1 of the survey respondents when initially asked and 25.8 on reconsideration toward the end of the circuit respondents were asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with several statements people might make about possible bond proposals for district statements that touched on community pride in the district as well as respecting and continuing the role as played in the community saw the highest level of reading this slide along with the next two that i'll just walk through should give you examples of this as you see somewhat agreed strongly on these topics showed very well two questions asked respondents if they agreed or disagreed that nothing needs to be done to improve school facilities the first time this question was on the survey 26.6 agreed the second time with a different wording 31.4
086percent agreed that the schools are fine the way they are and improvements are just not needed meaning almost two-thirds disagreed improvements are not needed after a four-month process of informing and gathering feedback from hundreds of stakeholders through community engagement sessions open houses and a community-wide survey the facility team recommends the board of education move forward with option b from the community engagement program to adequately maintain and update bps101 facilities to meet the needs of students now and in the future and follow the recommended guiding principles for our district's facilities despite the volatility of the economy moving forward with option b allows improvements to beginning while maintaining the tax levy for bond and interest tax we recognize that the state of the economy and future might limit the scope of what projects can be done however
087we still believe that the community supports option b the district should live within its means and refrain from increasing the bond and interest levy tax regardless what decision the board makes regarding the educational master facilities plan we believe it's critical that the board continues to communicate and engage the community about the three topics noted here overall needs of the district's facilities proposed timeline and impact of the facility updating processes students in an estimated costs for the facility updates thank you for your time and attention to this matter [Applause] i just wanted to say thank you to ryan me the entire facilitated team many of them are here tonight this group first got together in december i believe and they put countless hours those community engagement sessions have been released one night where it was basically
088a blizzard they were still out there doing the work that we needed done so this is invaluable to us i'll speak to you personally it's a valuable from me in my decision-making process and i just want to say that your service is greatly appreciated the only thing i'll add is i attended on a number of the facilitating committee meetings and i just want to applaud the fact that hey this is a very thorough report it breaks down some hard numbers i remember the first time everybody was going through some of the data that was provided from the surveys and i was confused and i've seen them before so this is a very very very good breakdown the other thing i want to make mention is a lot of people if not everybody that was involved
089in this does not do this for you they do not help understand it because you'll probably do it once in your life so thank you um but you know you all put your time and effort into it to try to figure out what is best for our community to provide us the board your best opinions and with the information you have about what we should be doing and what we should be considering and we do not take that lightly so i appreciate really that the kind of time effort and brain fog that you probably had through the process to be able to figure that out some very good conversations on both sides of the fence through the whole process and so i feel like it was very open and honest conversations through the whole thing
090so thank you and one last thing anybody that showed up at any of the events answered any surveys anything else thank you very very much this you know about 800 people that answered it i've not seen a lot my community it's actually a very good number they would call it statistically valid but it's a very good number so i appreciate everybody that took the time to show up and 130 people are so sure enough you're told it's fantastic so thank you for taking the word out sessions and those three sessions it was snowing like a blizzard yeah to get community members out those nights i i just want to thank everyone that showed up um your input was invaluable and you know obviously thank you to the committee but it was so nice to have
091the community thank you to everybody who participated filled out your surveys this is great information and i love david's i can't wait to understand thank you so it sounds like you went to school for statistical analysis or is someone an expert or did you just learn a lot of entourage so i'm just curious potential voters out of how many do we have in the city 11 000 voters how confident are you that that 812 represents like statistically the majority of the yeah hi everybody my name assist with this is and help engage in the community and we also assisted with the survey so as far as 812 that is a good response rate based on your registered voter account and i have that curious need to look it up we looked up your numbers um
092we have found in many other districts that the survey numbers with the electronic weighting do track very similar to the election results so well we can't say for certain that there's a margin of error or things like that because it doesn't have that statistical piece to it um it's good date or who three elections it was high and i will say just in general um you were voter turnout numbers so you have around 22 700 voters and around addresses your turnout in november 2020 was 82 and then in november of 18 you heard about 64 so a lot can change as everybody knows what that turnout may be but it did you're looking probably in that 60 to 80 turnout involved so thank you no problem one thing i really appreciated about the data is
093the explanation about some of the numbers being weighted because a lot of times when i look at data like okay well what does that really mean because as you all explained some people are more likely to take the survey and age groups and do they vote and so i really that piece of it really um hit home for me and made the numbers much more real and so thank you for taking the time to explain that he's particularly i guess my question and i'm sorry if i'm saying that occur before the horse here but what are the next steps for the committee what what from here what can we expect i guess so at this point in time it really kind of turns into a different process and so this committee as it is right
094now can either move forward and look at how you got into the community and push the option be or another committee could be developed so that needs to be determined as we're moving forward so the recommendation is okay but just in terms of next steps really for the board of education in terms of practical terms so appreciate the work that this facility has done and sending you the recommendation forward option b the board of education will have an opportunity to discuss this and consider this more next month in june and and certainly in july as well too but if the board did decide that they want to move forward with option b and wanted to place that on the ballot in november board of education would have to take action to do so nowhere in
095july of citizens in the community would take that pick up that mental care board and get the message out so that the davids can make [Music] nature we do have three items for action tonight the first one i'm going to take a thoroughbred uh my first one on the list here uh is an online enrollment platform that we're looking to purchase um we basically set out to kind of streamline our student enrollment process try to help the parents and everyone deal with all of that try to drop some of the paperwork that everyone's got to fill out over here the whole goal here was to kind of stream on it where you can kind of do it as you get time to do it you can do this from your couch at home watching tv
096or you can do it from a computer it doesn't matter the goal is kind of a one-stop shop for everything so this also includes obviously enrollment and registration it does also take care of like field trip forms um any type of athletic pet forms things like that so it forms into a general one-stop shop um it's actually an add-on to powerschool that we already own so it's just kind of a piece of that that will enhance that experience we'll continue to have options yeah yeah this thing will actually help a lot of the paper transfer as well so like if you for instance spells your name wrong or something on a form we could catch it sooner electronic than it would be if you forgot a paper at home or something like that it's kind
097of preventing some of the chaos that happens but it doesn't replace things like remind or okay this is purely just forms primarily but what this would do is if you get an email from your teacher saying you need to send permission stuff for a field trip in my house the example will be going through thousands of papers to try to find it right you can go to this portal agreement for enrollment express with e-collect from our school in the total amount of fifty four thousand six hundred and ninety dollars so we buy bank slurs uh cigarette meadows all in favor any yeah um so i tried to break this down uh kind of made sense i was just gonna aaron and i actually had a good conversation about this um so we're looking to purchase
098a system that is kind of a platform for monitoring security events that happen on a daily basis milliseconds by millisecond where our team can actually catch some of this stuff going on before it happens it can actually get back stories for instance if someone walks into their phone they change their password and launch their account out i have no idea why this system will actually give me a list of things i can check to see why your phone locked what it is where it was all of that the whole goal of this is enhancing our cyber security stance it also does integrate with other systems we've already owned so it's going to help everything kind of work together as one big machine it's all automated as far as ai and the things that everyone keeps
099using that word in the tech industry there's a lot of stuff behind this that will kind of make decisions based on threat levels and send us an alert or shut something down we have to kind of preventing what we can before it does happen that it's called qradar from ibm right then i'm in motion to approve the purchase of ibm q radar from the continental resources in the total amount of 87 264 dollars mark anderson those area handlers were installed some kind of needs and then i hold for a little bit because of the work we've heard before and they've needed some work done to them and decided to move forward with refurbishing them and so they completely replace them for a couple reasons one we'll know exactly how long those buildings are going to
100be there air handlers take a very long time right now to get so basically with a refurbished we're just going to go through and the air handler itself is going to say that all the parts and components of it will be replaced obviously much more energy efficient for each of those buildings so we have nine total there's four four jamie nelson and five at restaurant the other item on here is related to high school and schiller at the high school and it's basically to put a um they have a frequency drive on that um and really what that does is now the chiller's not going to just run it when it's on it's not going to run at 100 now if it's calling for 100 of a run at that or it'll go down to
10175 50 well that is a cost saving in itself so it's not running at 100 all the time the other thing is it's helped the life of the children because instead of it starting and stopping so much it will actually ramp it up and wrap it down just to give you an estimate it's about two hundred thousand dollars just to go in and overhaul it that's not a new show so this money will be well spent that's basically it there's a report there i'm sure you hopefully read it but if you have any well there's lots of different terms right should we hold off on this decision or will that uh yeah well we kind of forecasted ten years i'll come to kind of come back and look at this again i know that was
102our discussions um yeah we need to do something now and we had an opportunity with us of funds to place work so that was that went into the decision making as well okay mark could you explain what your handlers do in the building how they keep us healthy yeah so basically what your air handler does is it heats and it cools the schools and also they have dampers in one so they bring in outside air and you can adjust how much outside air you drink so like for instance we increased that amount of outside air unit so really air handlers are for like the space horn right now this is controlled by an air handler so variations are normally larger spaces cafeterias gyms any other really large space normally classrooms do not have like an
103air handler they have an individual unit so it's much smaller but that's basically what an air handler does thank you and it's controlled by hot and cold water questions all right energy in motion that we work during us inc a contract to refurbish air handlers at alex gustafson and jd nelson schools and chillers at city high school in the amounts of 306 thousand seventeen dollars all right uh that is all of our normal action on our agenda tonight we do have closed session with potential action afterwards but in the meantime we'll go to dr nathan's administrator all right i think we probably all have comments tonight i'll start by saying that it does appear that we have many people in the community rallying around a cause and you're looking for action and students feeling unsafe
104is a very worthy call to action students who feel like they do not feel welcome are included also a very worthy call to action the public commenters even tonight we're talking about students experiencing racist and homophobic kindness there are students who experience these things in our schools there are also um on social media right now some things that are rumors such as the one where 100 students barricaded a bathroom door to stop a student from entering a bathroom a bathroom that they have a right to enter in a different group of students there's a rumor that a different school had a group of students destroy some lgbtq books these things did not happen the way that they are portrayed online but some students do experience hate theirs is that the district is doing nothing when
105we hear about a student who feels unsafe harassed or bullied is false we are committed to helping these students to do better and we are committing to supporting the students who are affected the details of our interventions are not publicly disclosed to protect student privacy we do follow up on every incident that is reported whether the report is made here at a public meeting we'll follow up with the students who reported incidents tonight or sometimes they report to an adult in the building but i do recognize it for a variety of reasons not all students feel comfortable reporting incidents to us our staff members i really need to make this point are very caring individuals who cultivate positive relationships with students every day they they make a strong effort to help students feel welcome and
106included and to help students feel like they have somebody they can go to one of the things that high school does is they ask every student every year do you have a trusted adult any student who doesn't say that they have one gets followed up with because we know students need that trusted adult and they need to know where to go when they have a concern our students our students have are surrounded by adults who have their best interests at heart this year the board of education asks students staff and community members to review our strategic priorities to see how we can do better a dedicated team of staff members some of them are here tonight that smoke are working on an equity action plan to address the top areas that the community and students
107and staff identified for improvement so these discussions will continue and we will update the equity page of the website to keep you informed so anything new that happens we'll make sure that we can update that page including some of the comments and recommendations from the committee tonight the equity page shows all of the things that we've done this year so far and in prior years all of our work to date but we acknowledge that there's still work to be done our mission is to ensure that all students learn and grow and we will work with students staff and parents to fulfill that purpose and we truly believe that all students belong here and we know that the community supports that as well but it's a really easy statement to get behind we all belong here
108but the ways that we achieve it are complex because not every student does feel like they belong here so thank you to everybody who's willing to be a part of that solution um those words um it has been a very very challenging year um and i really appreciate everyone who came to speak tonight and continues to speak and i say that every meeting but i really do need it and i know how challenging it is to get up and talk about these very very sensitive topics but we need to keep talking about them and we keep doing things and that brings me to my next point which is sarah and jenna thank you for coming to speak to us thank you for being the eyes and ears out there in the vids to the ground
109and i know that you've had a meeting another meeting we need to we need to keep doing that and we need to keep pushing that um and we need to keep having it on our radar through the summer through the fall because our work on this is ongoing this is not a sprint it's a and marathon think if we are all um reasonable about that we can achieve so much more um frankly i don't know that our work on this particular topic will ever be done and that's okay if we are just open and honest about that but we need to do the work and i appreciate the work that the committee is doing and honestly i really do appreciate all of our students that came to speak to us um it's it's not an
110easy thing to do and for board members who we're not in the schools every day we're not students in the schools it's a perspective that i really value so that's all i have tonight thank you um i guess what i want to talk about a little bit is the rumors on the internet i really appreciate the group here and everyone that came in i really believe that this board is going to do our best to help improve dei in schools i would hope and i believe you're all part of the community as well and i would encourage you that you're also this involved with the community and trying to improve and increase knowledge of our community members you know we'll do our best in schools and a lot of learning starts at home i don't
111like saying this but you know the teachers could teach my child that one plus one is two but if i tell her that it's four she's gonna believe me so um i really hope that you all continue your efforts in the community as well and try to help improve knowledge at homes where children also need it um that being said thank you all for being here and please thank you for that statement that you made i really feel like if you go looking for something you're gonna find it whether it's negativity or positivity so i hope that you are all expecting positive change and i think it's gonna come that being said i do think our community is very supportive a little closer to home with hc storm as being my children's school uh we're
112going to have a big meeting at some point we'll talk to other pto's about this but ac storm did a really great job got a lot of support from their family members um i can't remember how much it was but i can call out until a member who raised like twenty five thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars from the staff run just recently she's one of the best 17 000 but in years past they used um different companies to help run that we lost a great percentage of the company and this year they did it all on their own a lot of hard work and efforts and principal milka with the children duct taped into the wall so it was really good it was really nice community effort and i think a lot of people
113are really showing their support for the school so i know that we're in a good place we'll keep it better so that's all thanks thanks sergey a couple of things um one um just thank you to everybody that came out to speak today everybody that came out to stand behind those that spoke today um i said last time we're not just listening we're hearing and i kind of hear that and i appreciate it for what was said by the equity committee today um those those people that bring their passions and their concerns to the board they're valid and they're complex issues and usually so are as you said earlier and so we're doing our best to navigate those and kind of discern the proper path so that all are treated equitably and included particularly also
114those to students that spoke today we hear you as well um from the equity committee perspective thank you for your time and efforts the law road is long and i know it has been for you from the very beginning and i appreciate it i really appreciate the fact that i i find this works best all the time that when we get engaged people that are engaged with our kids on a daily basis that's when real change happens and because they are you know i'm only engaged with two or three kids a day and then my marching band comes around a big number elsewhere but you guys are on a day-to-day people on the streets and so i appreciate your efforts to try to help make sure that we do create a space and a home
115for people where they feel comfortable being students um one of the things that i want to point out that as the year closes and that you know i appreciate all the time and effort that our teachers have spent for the past school year it's been a tough one i have a parent i my wife at home is a speech pathologist in the school district and this is always the time of year i think she gets a little jittery so she's officially done sorry but she um she reminds me kind of every year that you know the teachers are doing their best and this year i think felt like the end of this year's marathon and they're looking forward to next year so please use the summers for whatever time you have to rest and recuperate
116and you know all that you do and we appreciate it so much uh one thing i do want to say on the the equity committee side um i was at the high school band concert in may it would be a meeting if i didn't mention something like that but one of the things i really found kind of impressed me and i thought about it is you know my my son's a man and i get to see all these concerts that people don't get to see where people are where everybody's getting to watch the product of what their kids do they get to listen to the music they get to hear this one was a little different one of the bands played a song called to write our models and it's a song that talked about
117equity and inclusion and about the need for the united states and the kind of nation as a whole to kind of begin to figure out a way to heal there's a really wonderful song that the teacher spent the time asking the students that played it as they learned it all year long what they thought of the song before they knew what it was about and so they continued to have that conversation over time about what it meant for those of you that think eei and elements like equity inclusion are not being discussed maybe they're not being discussed enough that they are being discussed and there are teachers out there trying really really hard people that are failing and stating that there's not enough happening we need to make sure they don't marginalize those that are
118trying their words getting a little worked up so i apologize if i am but i want to make sure that i recognize that and i know others up here as well we need to speak as one voice we need to figure out how to work together and we need to make sure that those that are doing the work are applauded for the work that they're doing thank you thanks guys appreciate any of the students that came out i know how intimidating it can be sometimes it's intimidating for me to speak i really appreciate it and thank you congratulations to all the seniors best of luck have a great time tomorrow make new choices so yeah i want to heck out with my colleagues and just speak to everyone here tonight but also throughout the year
119i've been on this we're for one year and basically every meeting inspired by the courage and passion of our citizens to come out and speak about things they care about and you know we have meetings we receive emails we every email you know we're citizens so we're at ball games we're at lions coffee shop and i'm talking to people and we're listening and these conversations make us think and they lead to conversations with this group and that leads to change for the positive in my opinion so i want to thank everyone for participating in our democracy i also want to thank all the volunteers the equity team the facilitating team and i'm just sort of struck right now i'll point out a couple of people sarah was emceeing a tribune for her school so she's
120all over the place i see karen cheeseman in the back i think she chaired every committee at jb nelson this year and was on the facilitating team so i know that there's a lot of people giving 100 and they help families and lives so it is appreciated and then as we mentioned commencement is tomorrow evening for me it's always a time of reflection that's kind of thanks like we said we're we're going on tears of pandemic it's been tough and someone says what's it been like being on the school board says challenge it's important work but it's challenging so i just want to say thank you this might come off like an oscar speech but but i just want to thank the teachers administrators aides staff counselors nurses librarians coaches launching custodial staff bus drivers
121my fellow board members and anyone else who worked in service to our students and family of the second year we should do a lot i want to thank our families for trusting us with your your students and for the gifts that they give us i've been able to participate in some gatherings and every time i attend these events i'm just filled with joy and excitement that we're able to reconnect again so that's wonderful i want to thank kathy scafidi our secretary who always takes care of me as my last minute request for future documents before meeting so thank you for that and i want to thank dr alisa hitchinson i'm not going to talk about your performance as a superintendent but i don't know you well but i've seen you interact in our halls in
122the community at engagement sessions and being a superintendent is a difficult job you have 54 100 students thousands of families teachers millions of dollars with facilities that she might not look like she has broad shoulders but she has very much shorts and i will say lisa that i've always seen i've been impressed and learned because you always seem interested with grace and respect and dignity you honestly do care about the love of every student every teacher everybody in your church so i don't think you hear it enough i want to say thank you and then selfishly i want to thank again my wife and show your family and lilly with the sacrifices they make to me to be part of this body i want to say thank you to my friend reed who's fighting for
123his life right now for the inspiration he's given me and then finally in that lease but tomorrow and i don't want to congratulate all the graduates and their families it really is a celebration for our entire community so i want to wish all of them happiness health and fulfillment whatever they decide to do okay thank you um i want to echo everything that my fellow board members said i also wanted to say congrats on a successful season for the girls soccer team unfortunately they lost their second game and i had to miss it and i'm sad about that but my community is important to me and my family allows me to make that sacrifice so i have some prepared words um first i want to thank everyone who decided to speak up this evening thank
124you to those who sent emails and reached out to us directly and let us know that you're interested in what we do here in our batavia schools whether you reached out with concerns regarding diversity or any other topic regarding our schools or our community i appreciate you and your perspective i use it every day to do my best to make our community a better place to live when it comes to our current discussions regarding diversity equity and inclusion i have four thoughts i'd like to show a community first as aaron said this is a marathon not a sprite i knew getting into this this was not going to be quick simple or easy government institutions do not move quickly and we're fighting systems that have been in place for generations i began having conversations with
125lisa and my fellow board members following the murder of george floyd he was murdered two years ago tomorrow i have been having these conversations for almost two years we finally adopted an equity statement and created a website in february some of you may be new to the discussions and expect quick change that's not likely so pace yourself from the beginning i believe most of the people i've spoken with honestly believe this is important and necessary work i would like to believe we live in a community where no one wants to see children suffer everyone wants us to have the best schools possible and the best opportunities possible for all students which brings me to my second point we're all on the same team whether we realize it or not we all live here and have
126the same goals we want to feel happy safe and like we belong here when we support one another it is much easier to reach those goals all right however don't let me lead you to believe that there's an easy solution this is very difficult work that requires effort and self-reflection by everyone who chooses to engage it we all need to question what we've been taught and acknowledge that we all have personal and unintentional biases i have engaged in a very difficult personal journey over the last two years that has led me to dark places and it has made it necessary for me to seek out counseling i have attended seminars read books listened to podcasts and had some very emotional intense conversations i've experienced moments of great optimism in times when i just want to
127quit and move away this work is exhausting intimidating and emotionally draining acknowledge that and give yourself some grace you're going to mess up you're going to say the wrong thing and you're going to need a break the important thing is that you remain focused on the law a community member sent us an email this week along with a lot of other emails and we appreciate them all and it included the following quote from arthur chan a dei strategist i found this quote to be very clarified diversity is a fact equity is a choice inclusion is an action and belonging is an outcome we all want our children to feel like they belong in our town and in our schools that requires me do the work to get there this leads me to my final point
128we had to be very careful not to pack ourselves pat ourselves on the back too quickly as a black man i believe i was advocating for all our students the entire time i found on the board the reality is two years ago i ignored data that should have been obvious i didn't question the performance of our black and brown students as long as they performed as well or better than the black and brown students in neighboring districts i was willfully ignorant to the reality that all of our students live in the same town they have the same teachers they share the same buildings classrooms and access to extracurriculars they are literally growing up in the same environment we shouldn't have to we shouldn't be able to guess without high degree of probability the success or
129failure of one of our students based on the color of our skin yet almost all the data says otherwise regardless of how well intended we may have been in the past or may consider ourselves now the truth is the data doesn't lie we cannot deserve success based on how we feel we've done or what we think we've accomplished in my opinion there are two ways we can determine our success in making schools more welcoming for all students first we can follow the data in some cases that may be collecting data in the first place if our numbers aren't improving we know we are not doing the right things we must acknowledge this and change our methods or will be condemned to repeat the cycle which is exactly what a biased system depends on second we
130can have conversations with those who are intending to help and then we can believe them and act when they say they're not okay if they're not part of the conversation if they're not in the room where decisions are being made we're being performative and not actually doing the work that needs to be done members of oppressed groups are not an unknown group of others they're our friends classmates neighbors and family we need to trust their experience may be different than ours and that they're perfectly valued i apologize for this being so long-winded please allow me one more moment to summarize i want you to remember these four things this is a marathon not a sprint we're all on the same team this is difficult work that requires we work on ourselves as well the systems
131we live in and we cannot consider ourselves successful until those who are trying to help tell us our efforts are having a positive impact and we have the data to back that up this is not going to be easy but i'm confident if we stay focused and hold each other accountable for this difficult work we can make life better for all students families and the entire community thank you [Applause] entertain a um to a during a closed session to discuss the appointments employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public practice your legal counsel from the public body is given here in testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body indeterminately moving myself saying my law all in favor