BPS101 Board of Education Meeting of January 25, 2022

001regular meeting of the board of education january 25th 2022 at 7 o'clock p.m um cathy could you please call the roll here [Music] here that seems like a bad echo they've got me locked in a closet over there yeah is that the speaker might be on in the hall with a slight delay [Laughter] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and dr hitchens is there any items to be added to or removed from the agenda tonight there are not all right then the first item on our agenda tonight is public comments i would like to welcome everyone to the meeting of the board of education everybody that wishes to address the

002board this evening we're going to ask that you would have seen kathy scaffidi our recording secretary to submit a form for addressing the board we ask that you put your full name and address on the form as we're required by state law to keep a detailed set of minutes for our meeting that's going to be really odd tonight a forum for addressing the board in general the board will not answer questions or engage in dialogue during public comment it doesn't mean that we don't take your concerns or comment seriously if you have specific questions or would like to further engage with the district you may submit your questions using the link on the website and we'll have an appropriate staff member get back to you um our uh bps101 communications manager will now explain the

003procedures for public comment and call the speakers uh holly dietzmann and we'll have an appropriate staff member oh man welcome to the rps 101 board of education meeting this evening will be called up in order of form submission the first form received is the first person invited to speak when your name is called please come to the podium so that you can be heard [Laughter] the three minute timer will be broadcast up on the board here twice too um the three minute timer will start once you're settled at the podium at any time during this meeting written comments may be submitted to our recording secretary kathy we ask that all speakers conduct themselves with civility and respect towards everyone in the room written comments may be submitted to our reporting secretary and our first speaker

004is nikki and respect towards everyone in the world good evening i'm nikki woodrow fifth grade teacher at ags first i'd like to thank everyone for your time and dedication during these trying times twice some people may believe that not having an lrc director is a slight inconvenience yeah sure they help teachers and students find books to read but they are so much more they are silent superheroes who are knowledgeable wise and caring they are abreast of the latest literature and resources with their specialized training they reflectively order new materials to support kids curriculum and initiatives like diversity equity and inclusion they catalog those materials and consider which students will benefit from their precious gifts yet without a paraprofessional to process shelve and check in and out books this aspect of their job is greatly diminished

005luckily i have an extensive classroom library but even so since the pandemic my students have felt the effects of not having a full-time lrc director in aid last year my students were not able to browse the shelves due to our pandemic restrictions instead the lrc8 brought a small cart with a selection of books for the students we made it work but according to my current students the cart greatly restricted their ability to browse the shelves and find something they were interested in and had not read before there was a limit of books that could fit on a cart that was trying to meet the needs and interests of so many different individuals this year we could visit the actual lrc however fifth grade was barely able to make a time work with our schedules since

006mrs ashby is busy conducting interventions with students consequently if students need a book between our weekly appointments there isn't an lrc aid or anyone available for free flow checkout yet amongst we are happy amongst the shelves we still miss out on mrs ashby's expertise in helping students find just the right book or with the library lessons because of the lack of the lrc aid we are happy in the past she would have taught them how to utilize the library and know the organization system in addition my students missed building at the lego table and other learning activities that promoted collaboration and critical thinking it's more than just books teachers don't have time to collaborate for a number of projects that depend upon the student's use of lrc resources i try to teach the lessons but

007i'm not the expert that mrs ashby is in knowing how to best use the software subscribed to and for which developmental levels that they are targeting her lessons have assisted past students in composing strong argumentative pieces but without the collaboration and co-teaching our students lack these valuable experiences that help them through middle and high school i know that we're all doing our best in a demanding a difficult time period but without the collaboration that it is all we can do however it's important to note that just because we can manage does not mean that we should not at the expense of the excellent educational experiences that batavians have come to expect however it's important so i urge this administration and school board to consider ways to find people to do interventions that can implement them

008and are know me at past months meetings where i've been on the brief side of my comments i'm cashing in those extra chips tonight so it's going to be a little bit longer and i've invited some friends um to kind of come and share the moment with me here so thank you for your attention as i go through my talk for tonight good evening members of the board this evening i'm framing my comments to you using a phrase we have been hearing a lot about the last couple of years building our future together i would however like to offer a small addendum to this phrase and talk to you about building a sustainable future together at this time of year senior administration begins to formulate staffing projections and needs for the next school year it's

009around these needs for staff that i wish to provide you with information to ponder and to ask questions to clarify as these plans for staffing begin to take shape for the last few months i've come before you on behalf of the bea to speak to you about the urgent need for our district to get up to speed concerning the topics of diversity equity and inclusion we've heard from passionate educators concerned parents and scarred students all echoing sentiments that attest to this need i realize that there are plans underway that involve gathering feedback analyzing patterns and holding conversations that eventually will involve the synthesizing of this information into action plans however a critical staffing need we have as a district right now is for a dei coordinator or coach pie in the sky would be an

010overall coordinator and a coach at all three levels elementary middle and high school working with plaque to plan effective and timely professional development for staff serving as curricular consultants as cac begins to review our curriculum under the lens of dei answering the day-to-day questions and providing guidance to staff on topics such as microaggressions and unintended bias and being a consultant to all students when it comes to to diversity equity and inclusion would help our district grow as we strive to be culturally competent and responsive to the needs of all of our students no matter the color of their skin or the languages they may speak it is clear as a district the instructional coaching model is one that is valued the need is there and the solution is apparent and it is with utmost urgency

011that as a district we create at least one staffing position to guide us down the dei path together a second area that could be used to sustain the great things we are currently doing while providing needed supports for students and staff is with interventionists as an interventionist myself i am proud of how we as a district have made strides to meet the needs of our tier 3 students both in academic and social emotional supports and instruction it is apparent however that the numbers of those students needing that support has outgrown the number of interventionist positions we have as the district has had to fill these staffing gaps by pulling some of our most vital and treasured staff members from their current roles as lrc directors and having them pick up the shortcomings of the in

012the interventionist positions last year during the onset of the pandemic and in creating our virtual school bva it was deemed necessary for us as a district to employ an all hands on deck spirit and having everyone help out in any way or capacity they could to keep our kids learning that meant that many of our staff members were assigned to do jobs that were out of their primary duties case in point with our lrc directors many of them were given interventionist caseloads again in the spirit of everyone pitching in and helping out during the throes of the pandemic with very little training and the unknowns of providing interventions in a virtual world where kids actually didn't even have books in front of them we made it work and in spite of everything stacked against us

013with the pandemic and navigating a virtual classroom those kids grew in the meantime our lrc directors had to continue to fulfill the duties of their primary positions as the lrc director in their buildings even though there were times last year when students were not physically in the lrc the duties of the lac director never waned even though they had the additional responsibilities of planning and instructing up to five or more lessons a day for interventions that was also now an additional part to their daily responsibilities it is also important to note that a paraprofessional position that had supported the work in the lrc had been drastically cut and even in some cases eliminated putting more of the day-to-day operations onto the workload of our lrc directors fast forward to this year many of our lrc

014directors are still providing multiple interventions for our tier 3 students being asked to sub for classroom teachers due to the sub shortage or warehouse multiple classrooms of students in their learning space when subs cannot be found and provide subsequent supervision all while trying to complete the duties of a fully running in-person lrc essentially our lrc directors are doing the jobs of two if not three people within the constraints of one day and one jobs compensation our own district board policy 6.230 library resource center states the following objectives for our lrcs the library resource center shall provide a collection instruction programs and services to meet the informational creative and recreational needs of students and staff lrcs must instruct students on how to find evaluate and ethically use information learning resource objectives include providing a diverse and

015multi-format collection aligned to the school's curriculum supporting the quest for knowledge by providing for varied individual needs interests abilities and maturity levels nurturing a love for lifelong reading offering an inviting supportive and stimulating environment that encourages learning within and beyond its walls fostering information literacy skills to support lifelong learning promoting equitable access to ideas and information and empowering students to become information users critical thinkers creative problem solvers and skilled readers in board policy section 6.230-e-1 learning resource center mission and philosophy it states that the learning resource center extends the classroom for students and staff by creating an environment that supports and enhances curriculum this is accomplished most effectively when all individuals have full access to a wide variety of resources and learning opportunities designed to develop skills necessary to become discriminating users of ideas and

016information it goes on to say that the mission of each learning resource center in district 101 shall be to collaborate with teachers in achieving the following objectives promoting enjoyment of reading providing leadership instruction and consulting assistance in the use of instructional resources and information technology while functioning as the information center of the school ensuring access to information and ideas that will enhance the learning experiences for the entire school community developing resources and activities that contribute to lifelong learning and building a collection that supports the curriculum and strives to meet the changing needs of a diverse school community other operational tasks that fall that fall under the purview of the lrcs is challenge and acceptance policies sopa compliance with electronic resources dea dei audit of lrc materials copyright training and compliance tracking library usage circulation database

017use and collaboration data spearheading grants book fairs and fundraising for the lrc and possibly most importantly collaborating with staff to keep up with curriculum initiatives and learning cycles it is the lrc director in each building that oversees each and every one of those things that i've just mentioned yet more and more they are pulled out to sub to provide tier three interventions and in short are having to close the one place in every building that has equity of access for all students due to no staff being there i could continue on to highlight the great things that under current conditions just simply aren't being done by our lrc directors being one person doing multiple jobs instead i'm going to bring this back around to where i began building a sustainable future together our lrc directors

018cannot sustain the rigors of doing multiple jobs that have been laid before them to do the great news is that many are completely unaware that these issues have persisted in our buildings because of the professionalism of our lrc staff and their desire to do whatever it takes for the kids in our buildings many times at their own personal cost of time and mental well-being this path is not sustainable as an option i'd like to refer back to our amazing interventionists in the district there is a need for them so hire more of them use the data that is being collected from our district assessments to gauge the exact need for tier three intervention support and hire enough staff to provide that and not fill the need with our lrc directors it is critical to the

019continued success of supporting our neediest learners and it is imperative to begin the transition back to having our lrc directors be full time in their hired positions so they can once again teach our youngest learners how to use the lrc effectively through library skills lessons in fact we now have half of our elementary students in grades k through two that have not had the same opportunities to learn how to access the lrc and all it has to offer has those same students prior to the pandemic and the shifting of the lrc director responsibilities it's also to have adequate time to have conversations with students about books and promoting a love of reading to have time to meet with grade level and building teams to help design lessons and provide resources that aid in meeting curricular

020targets and lesson cycles to bring back the life skills of researching information literacy evaluating sources that have been all but lost due to our lrcs not functioning as they once were if as a district we truly value the statements made in the very board policy that governs our district it is time for our lrc directors to move back to their lrcs and be allowed to do all that they have been charged with that would certainly be a step in the right direction towards building a sustainable future together at this time i would like to acknowledge these amazing women standing beside me as our district lrc directors we have amy miller you know from the high school kelly cook from the middle school sandra lundgren from mcqueen thank you guys in the right order it's just

021how i've written it diane kissbert from storm tamara ashby from gustafson cheryl cole from hoover wood and also donner henry hand is the lrc director at louise white and julie phillips is the director at jb nelson they have all gone above and beyond these last two years and i'm hopeful that through the collective processes we value in bps we can get these ladies back into their lrc full time and bring back the lrcs to where they once were a place where one can go for information a place of safety a place of comfort a place that one can find others like themselves in the pages of a book and a place that doesn't have a sign on the door that says lrc closed please join me in a round of applause for our incredible lrc

022directors thank you in closing i want to take one last opportunity to thank you as members of the board for the job that you do each month you listen contemplate inquire formulate conclusions and then make decisions based on the information you have what you feel is most equitable and in the best interest of all you vote on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on approving contracts for computer leases and copy paper and sometimes you face making difficult decisions from what i know of each of you you have been and will continue to be thoughtful reflective and objective when it comes to rendering any decision that you make tonight you will continue to be asked to make extremely important decisions i trust that you will not rush the decision-making process you will critically read the statement

023provided to you and weigh the decisions of your vote with the possible outcomes of it i have faith that this process will guide your decisions and i thank you for all the work you are not only about to do but all that you have done and will continue to do in the future thank you all very much thanks ted all right next item on our agenda our board member committee update uh chris we'll start down with you i did not have any committee meetings although i do have a cac meeting on thursday so i will have an update next month erin uh capital projects also did not meet since our last meeting but i did attend two meetings with the facilities planning team which included a meeting here in virtually last evening for the audience

024this is a group of volunteers and members of the district has been working very diligently for our first community engagement session to discuss building our future together which as you walked in you might have seen as next tuesday at from 6 30 to 8 30 at the high school next tuesday is going to be the first of four planned presentations and feedback sessions with the goal of the community helping the district prioritize and refine elements in the master facilities plan and this first session will focus on providing the community a comprehensive assessment of our current facilities and i would encourage everyone to attend and join the conversation and if you need more information you can go to the bps101 website i think if you type bps101.net it's actually the first thing that will pop up

025and i think holly's done a great job of getting the word out but i would ask everybody here to tell one person we're really hoping for a strong turnout on tuesday in the future sessions so that's what i have to report thanks aaron sue i have had no meetings but i would like to just kind of push out there because hall of honor we are still looking for nominees if you go to the bps101.net website if you've thought about nominating somebody please go for it we're desperately looking for nominees it's not difficult so go to the bps website under about and then there's the hall of honor site that you click on fill out the form we're looking for it also for beefy my other committee i'm on grants teachers fill out grant applications it's

026not difficult we've made it so easy it's just online you fill it out we want to give you money we want to give out money so fill it out those are due february 4th and then if you have a student you know a student in high school joanne knows this scholarships are due march 4th so grant's february 4th scholarships march 4th so if he wants to give you money so thank you we did have insurance committee meeting this month and the big focus this time was on uh looking at the results from our wellness screening and then also we analyze our financials and so that team continues to do really good work to try to provide us with the absolute best benefits while also making sure that they are sustainable and affordable so that's what

027we did rj i have no committee updates erin i have a few um plaque met and we have been working diligently as a collective committee to create a list of district approved resources and literature um and i've been reaching out to some of my peers together some of that along with other committee members and we're also looking forward to some of our upcoming institute days some plans that we have to focus on um important uh dei topics um i also went to the facilities planning meetings on the last two and i'm just gonna echo everything erin said please tell your friends to come and bic meets saturday so i'm really looking forward to hearing about what each of our boosters organizations and the ptos have been working on that's all i have you uh that's

028it for um our partner reports so the next item is our consent agenda which is an opportunity for us to pass prove a number of items that are routine financial items routine business items all of them are outlined in our board book and mr pierce if you take us through that for sure 4.1 is the approval of the december 2021 special meeting minutes uh 4.2 is the approval of the december 21st 2021 regular meeting minutes 4.3 is the approval of the december 21st 2021 closed session minutes 4.4 is the approval of the january 10th 2022 special meeting minutes 4.5 is the approval of the january 20th 2022 special meeting minutes 4.6 is our monthly personnel report 4.7 is our monthly payroll and bills uh 4.8 is the destruction of our closed session recordings 4.9 we

029had one donation 750 dollars from patty richardson uh she donated um yamaha saxophone and clarinet to our music students 4.10 is the accepting uh one of tony's favorite exercises the annual cafe for the fiscal year 2021. 4.11 is the second reading of our policy and 4.12 is the approval of this consent agenda all right are there any items on that agenda for further clarification or for removal no all right then i would entertain a motion to prove all items in the consent agenda as presented second move by michael or second by lock all in favor all right any opposed consent agenda approved as presented the next item on our agenda is our reports i'm going to hand those over to dr hitchens sure this section of our agenda there are no votes for these agenda

030items but we do have two reports that are regularly occurring so i would entertain any questions about those two the our four requests and our treasures report um while natalie assal and kerry roo make their way up for the third report which is student services so if you have any questions while they're getting settled i'd be happy to answer them right our annual student services report and carrie and natalie are going to take it away well good evening everybody thank you for having us tonight my name is carrie rue and i'm the director of special education and i'm natalie eslin the director of student services and um we work very closely together we thought it would be nice to kind of give a broad overview of the differences in our roles and some of the

031similarities of our work that we do under curriculum and instruction so student um i'll go ahead and start special education is servicing students ages 3 through 22 who meet requirements under idea where they are eligible for special education services and so in batavia we have a broad scope of what we call a range of services or least restrictive environment where students are educated within our buildings and they have services outlined on an iep or an individual plan and those students meet with special education teachers or related service providers to help them achieve their educational goals related service providers there's a number of them that we have within the district from speech and language pathologists social workers occupational therapists physical physical therapists vision mobility hearing any one of those areas that a student may need an

032accommodation a modification or service we are a team that works together with the student with the family the general education staff to make sure those needs are met so that they can achieve their academic goals and progress so that's a kind of a broad scope of general ed and student services really works to support the students who have at-risk needs whether that be academic or social-emotional areas some of the things that you've heard about earlier today during public comment and so that might look like intervening supports through our multi-tiered systems of support for academic social emotional or behavioral needs it might look like section 504 plans for students who are eligible for accommodations under the american with disabilities act it may also look like making sure that the safety of our buildings and our students

033and staff are maintained through our threat assessment and supporting our threat assessment process as well as making sure that our students who are hospitalized for their needs are receiving the services and transitional supports that they need coming back into our buildings to feel safe and welcome and that our staff feel equipped to make sure that they're addressing their needs as well so we really are here to work collaboratively under the umbrella of cni to meet the needs of all of our students who come with unique needs through a disability or they just come to us with a unique set of needs so i think um before we move into any of the information that we've pulled together tonight natalie and i were reflecting on what would be some of the things that we want to

034highlight and i think in our tenure together the past two years in particular have just highlighted the incredible team of individuals that we work with on a day-to-day basis from our bespo to our bea employees and our administrators in the building how they pull together and really have that student focus on every student is important and how do we get creative and work together to make sure that the students are feeling that their needs are being met and that families voices are being heard a part of that planning period and so i think that is something of great pride that we continue to have year after year and i think the last two years in particular some of the creative ways that um people have moved out of maybe their comfort zone and tried new

035skills just because it was in the best interest of of a child is i think very very commendable and courageous and we couldn't do our job without the amazing team that we have absolutely as we think about the report that we brought forth tonight we've had a similar format over the last three years and that's something that's important to us because we want to make sure that we have comparable data that helps us look at our trends in our students that we're supporting and it helps us make to make decisions such as staffing and resource allocations and how we're um bringing forth recommendations so our overall observations are really truly that um the data that we're bringing before you are not any different than the trends that we've seen over the past three years in

036terms of hospitalizations and threat assessments number of students with needs i think the one piece that as we were compiling our data for this evening brought us to a pause and gave us an opportunity to say this is something that we'd like to investigate more are those numbers of students that we're servicing under section 504 and so those are students who have disabilities that don't require specialized instruction so they don't need that iep part but they do need accommodations to help them access our environment here at um within public schools so that is something that we are noticing a trend that we'd like to further explore and monitor those numbers any questions about the report i have a question first of all i want to thank you for that summary could one of you give

037a summary of when a student becomes eligible under mckinney-vento could you provide a summary of what type of services are made available to them so um mckennie vento are students that are lacking fixed regular adequate housing and so when um one of the most common times that that happens is when a new student comes to the district to register because kathy or front office staff have to start asking questions about address where are you currently residing and when we start to sense that a child may not have a stable home that is when we look into their mckinney eligibility the other time that we get familiar with students is when staff start to sense that something is a little bit irregular about a child coming to school maybe their attendance patterns maybe they're coming late

038maybe they're mentioning that they're living with another family because they are doubled up for some reason or another and so that is how a child becomes eligible is that there's a series of questions that a staff member asks the family about is it fixed is it regular or is it adequate so some examples that we tend to see more often is a family that may be living in a short-term motel or a hotel situation or a family has to move in with another family member or a friend because they may have lost their home for some reason or another so a couple of things to that that the students have the right for is our number one obligation is that their education is not disrupted so for example if a child is in a batavia

039residence and the family has some financial hardship or some situation where they no longer have a fixed and adequate home and they have to reside with a family in aurora our obligation to that child is that their child's education still should be provided in their school of origin so that would mean we would not expect them to move mid-year to aurora to then begin their education because of some unforeseen for hardships that their family has endured so one of the number one things that we provide these students is transportation so they may be sleeping in aurora but they're still allowed to access their educational day here in batavia because we know they have connections with their peers with their students we're one of the most stable things at that point in time while their their

040family is working through some of those obstacles that may have brought them to the circumstances that they have so transportation is a huge one the rights of school of origin is another piece and then really working with the families about fees lunches and things of those nature that we would look at waving for those families at that time we're very fortunate and blessed in batavia that this community is beyond outstanding in their giving nature and so working with other organizations such as chippen bspn batavia united way we could list off area churches and organizations they oftentimes also come together and go above and beyond and really work to supplement some of those extra areas that families need to feel a little bit more stable and secure in their private lives that are beyond the scope

041of education so amy nelson is a huge person that we rely on for building those partnerships and relationships to keep in good communication with the families and help them link to those resources in the community to make sure that their family's needs are being met while they need to get back on their feet thank you very much absolutely i've got a couple questions um i know that we have been uh informed that we are over identifying children of color for our special services um do we have an idea of how what extent that problem is and what are we doing to rectify that that's a great transition something that we really wanted to highlight in the report is the work that the student services committee is going to be doing we started a couple of

042weeks ago and that the work that that committee has committed to doing over the course of the remainder of this year and moving into next year and that work is really examining data to identify trends and also the needs of our students and so some of the data that they identified that we as a committee are going to review and create some need statements around that we'll bring to dr hitchens really are disaggregation data for students with ieps we're looking at dual life identification data so students who might have an indicator of low income and el and then what are their outcomes um demographic data for students who are identified for tier three intervention through our and also dismissal rates so we do certainly have a format where we are committed to looking at those

043data and creating some statements that will ultimately result in some action items as we're assessing that data since we only hear this once a year is it possible to get an update as we get information and understand understand what the problem is so we make sure that we're allocating the necessary resources to address it yeah i think the student services committee right now is looking at those pieces and then our role in the the collaborative structures that are built are making recommendations to dr hitchens and then she helps us decide what groups would be best disseminating that information too so it's all being part of that strategic plan but some of those recommendations um those will be forthcoming probably more towards the end of the end of the school year okay and then the other

044question that i had in our observation and it kind of relates to disseminating the data is it's nice to look at the overall data but we can't really tell who these kids are and so if there are certain groups that we could be surfacing better to lower these numbers it would be great if we can disseminate that information and it sounds like that's where we're going so i would if we if the board agrees to include that in the future reports would be nice one thing that we'll have to be careful with is identifying students because numbers can be very small with certain populations if we desegregate data so we'll have to pay careful attention to that that's fair the isb is looks at a number of factors i think there are 12 indicators of

045the information that you've talked about as well so that is something that we get published every single year through the state of illinois so they look at not only disproportionality but we also look at outcome measures for students in transition graduation rates dropout rates all that data has been collected for a number of years and is available on the website too for public consumption so that's another place that is um kind of a checks and balances that we have to monitor every year is to make sure that we're meeting those indicators so that is um easily available and accessible thank you other questions all right well thank you so much for that thank you very much for your time tonight really value the work you're doing thank you for everything time is building our future

046together i think uh tony was taking that yes and aaron did an excellent job of of advertising the upcoming community engagement session in his comments earlier but i will take another opportunity to plug it to make sure that members of the community who happen to be watching have the opportunity to join us on february 1st at batavia high school at 6 30 p.m to talk about building our future together as the board is well aware we have been in the planning process for this master facilities plan since something about like 2016 as i recall and we've gone through several different planning groups and many stakeholders from throughout the community have participated and there have been some opportunities for the community to chime in but now that we have a a near final draft of the

047plan we're going to talk about the broader details about why we need to make some changes to our facilities and how we might go about doing that and what the implications will be for taxpayers well they'll come out in the upcoming sessions the very first of which will be held on the 1st of february so we just want to make sure that we get as many people there as possible so that they can learn more about the plan and there's there's a lot to it and but we definitely want to hear from them and hear their thoughts and so that we make sure that we have a plan that best fits the expectations and needs of batavia questions about that all right those are all the items on our regular agenda we do have closed

048session with possible action after um so after our staff and board comments we will be adjourning to closed session and then we will be coming out for possible action so let's start with lisa my comments tonight would be for members of the public i heard if i could gather a couple of the comments and repeat some things that i've heard we need you in a few different ways one would be um like we've heard twice already about attending building our future together there really is an opportunity there for you to help us you know shape the facilities and the district for many future generations so we look forward to hearing from you on that um the second place that i heard was from sue about hall of honor there's categories if you know an alum

049it really doesn't take that long to honor the person and it really is a great way to show somebody that you are um that they've made a difference in your life but there's also a category for teachers so feel free to um to the parents that are listening think about somebody that's made an impact on your child and take a minute to nominate them in the staff category and third speaking of staff i do invite the community to visit our human resources page as you can see we have students with needs we have a fabulous staff who are very dedicated if you're looking to make a difference in this town consider there's different opportunities available that are openings we have right now and we would love to have you consider us as um because it's

050a great way to make a difference in the lives of our students please consider visiting our hr page for current opening good holly she's working there thanks dr welcome board comments we'll start with aaron meisler um thank you for to everyone that spoke this evening we always really appreciate the community coming out and speaking to us about the host of topics that we've been hearing about it's really important that we hear from people and we appreciate the time and effort that you've taken to do so i know it takes time away from your family and time is a precious commodity so thank you for that um i want to just echo the um work of the um building our future together committee it is important work and um i'm really looking forward to the meeting

051in february and i believe that's all i have thanks aaron rj i think there is a building our future [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] comments thank you so much for watching no no that was good that was perfect something about a meeting i don't know um i would like to give mark anderson and his crew a big big shout out sunday morning i was out don't even get into it it's 6 30 in the morning and i drove by the high school and here's the red pickups plowing the parking lot and guys sidewalks and they were doing an awesome job and i can you know i've seen all the schools with the clear you know sidewalks are cleared and everything and so just they're doing a great job so you see a truck wave you know give

052them a high five you know they're doing a great job and also i'm gonna take up john's little reminder you know if you've got your shovel your sidewalks the kids are walking to school so keep the sidewalks clear for the kids you know um natalie and carrie thank you so much for everything you do you know i truly appreciate all the help you've given me over the years and you guys do a terrific job it's a thankless job but very very important and i appreciate everything you guys do todd thank you for what you said tonight i appreciate all your thought you put into it and it was so nice to see the ags teachers again um you know sorry it was under a circumstance like this but great to see everybody so i don't

053get to see everybody so many times you know but thanks for coming out we'd love to hear from you so that was it thanks sue yeah very nice uh i want to echo i won't talk about yesterday i think everybody knows about that but i just want to again thank everybody in attendance for their thoughts and comments and also everyone who emails i say this every meeting but we read every one it drives a lot of meaningful discussion and so um you know we really do encourage people to get engaged and and then i just kind of want to conclude with you know um i'm a relatively new member to the board probably the number one question i get is uh what's it like being on a school board these days and i usually my

054standard answers we're living in interesting times but really when i'm thinking about everything that's going on in our community it's very exciting i mean if you think if you go down the street the city council right now is talking about other things like the pond and that's going to really shape what batavia looks like and so with dei and building our future together i mean we're making decisions to collectively as a community that's going to shape our community for the generations that follow us and i really have a lot of faith in my neighbors and friends and community members that if we work together and we listen to each other we're going to make the right decisions for those that follow us but i also know listening and hearing that depending on your perspective and

055depending on the topic you feel like we're either moving at a rapid pace or removing painfully and not even moving at all on some subjects and what i would say is that every time i'm sitting in this meeting i look there and i see always learning and always growing and unfortunately learning and growing does not go in a linear line it's a jagged and so i just want people to know that we have very good people working on it we're looking for more people that's why we're asking people to come to these meetings to come here to come on tuesday night and so i would just say no matter where you might fall on that spectrum if you're passionate about something we want to hear from you so stay engaged keep the faith we're moving

056in the right direction i think but we won't need to hear from you so hang in there thank you aaron chris i want to echo a lot of the things uh my fellow board members said thank you for your heartfelt comments they mean a lot to us it's important that we hear what we're not hearing and so for not getting it through the regular means if this is the means that you need to use i'm okay with that um i think we need to we're in different times we're in interesting times and we're changing our perspectives in the way that we do things and that requires us to rethink our systems and how they operate and we have to look at the intersectionality of how different things may actually cause an impact someplace else unintentionally

057like does having lrc directors out of the lrc impact our celebration of martin luther king day does that impact our in black history month does that impact our marginalized groups where they can't do other things and so you know with same thing if we're over um identifying students of color for our student services what students are not getting services because of that you know so as we go through this process we need to rethink the way that we do things and change the way that we do things always learning and always growing so that we can do better for our entire community and i'm optimistic that we can do that it's going to require a lot of work it's going to be frustrating at times it's going to move slow for some people it's going

058to move fast for others and i think together we can get there but we have to do it together so um also tuesday at the high school there's a girls basketball game at 7 15. [Laughter] so after you go to the building or future together you can go check out the varsity team um in the in the main gym thank you for coming that's good um i am not as eloquent or as funny as my uh other board members so uh just again thank you everybody for coming out tonight again we do have closed session tonight with potential action after so we're going to transition to that um i would entertain a motion to adjourn to closed session to discuss the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body

059or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodge against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity move by lock second second by meister on favor hi all right during the call obsession see you guys in a minute or two