BOE Reorganization Meeting 2022-7-1

001Well, good morning. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's board meeting and call the meeting to order, noting that it is 9:00 AM on the nose. We'll begin with the reorganization portion of our meeting this morning, followed by a hearing on the code of conduct, and finally move into our regular business meeting. The roll call and meeting notes will be addressed a little later in the agenda once we have a newly elected board president. So, for the purpose of electing our board officers, I would ask that a board member appoint me as the temporary chairman of the meeting. Can a board member make a motion to that effect? So moved. Thank you. Can I have a second on that motion. Second. And I'll call for a vote on the motion. All in in favor say

002aye, all opposed say nay. Aye. Thank you. The ayes have it, therefore I will serve as the temporary chairman of the Board of Education. And the first order of business is to administer oaths to our two recently elected board members. So I'll start with Susie, if you can... Are we gonna come up here or... Okay. So, Susie, will you raise your right hand and repeat after me? I do solemnly swear- that I will support the constitution of the United States- that I will support the constitution of the United States- the constitution of the state of New York- and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of board member of the Scarsdale Union Free School District. that I will faithfully discharge the duties of Scarsdale Union Free School District board member. Thank you.

003Congratulations. (attendees applauding) (Drew speaking faintly) And Colleen, will you come up. Will you raise your right hand and repeat after me. I do solemnly swear- that I will support the constitution of the United States- the constitution of the state of New York- and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of board member of the Scarsdale Union Free School District. that I will faithfully discharge duties of the office of school board- Of the Scarsdale- Scarsdale Union Free District. (both speaking faintly) Congratulations. (attendees applauding) Well, congratulations to our two new board members, and welcome to both of you to the Scarsdale Board of Education. Okay, our next order of business is to elect board officers for the 2022-'23 school year. To start the conversation, do we have any nominations for president of the board

004for this year? I would like to call for nominations at this time. Bob. I would like to nominate Amber Yusuf for president of the school board. Okay. Amber Yusuf has been nominated by Mr. Klein. Would you like to say a few words about why you're nominating Amber? Oh gosh. I was thinking I should have done that. I think for everyone who knows Amber, she is someone who has stepped up to the plate during very demanding times. And I think, for me in particular, her demeanor and her thoroughness really has been appreciated. And I think I feel 100% confident that she will lead us this year in a good direction. So I really appreciate all of Amber's work over the last few years. We joined together. Thank you very much. Do we have any other nominations

005for president? Okay. With no other nominations, we will close this part of the discussion, and I would call for a motion to nominate Amber Yusuf as president of the Board of Education for the 2022-'23 school year. So moved. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. And with that second, all in favor say aye and opposed say nay. Aye. The ayes take the motion. Congratulations, Amber, you've been elected president of the Board of Education. (attendees applauding) And I declare that the motion was carried in that Amber Yusuf is elected president of the Board of Education from July 1st, 2022, until the July 2023 reorganizational meeting of the board, and I will ask you to come forward to take the oath. Raise your right hand. I do solemnly swear- that I will support the constitution of the

006United States- that I will support the constitution of the United States- the constitution of the state of New York- and that I will faithfully discharge the duties- and that I will faithfully the duties- of the office of president of the Board of Education of the office of president of Board of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District. Congratulations. Thank you. (attendees applauding) Okay. At this point, I will turn the meeting over to President Yusuf who will call for nominations for vice president. Thank you, Drew. Good morning. Do we have any nominations for vice president of the board for the 2022-2023 school year? I would like to call for nominations at this time. Yes, I do nominate Ron Schulhof as the vice president of the school board. Thank you, Jim. Would you like to say

007a few words about why you nominated Ron? Certainly, yeah. Well, Ron obviously needs no introduction, this being the start of his fourth year on the school board. I think we all know Ron very well from the time he has served. He has a sturdy voice, a sharp mind, seemingly limited abundance of time to spend, and real dedication and a clear vision for the continued success and excellence of our schools. I couldn't think of anyone better to be the vice president of our school board. Thank you, Jim, for your nomination of Ron. Do we have any other nominations for vice president? If yes, say about... If not, then we'll close the discussion. And I call for a motion to nominate Ron. Can I get a motion to nominate Ron? I move. Thank you, Jim. Can I

008get a second? Second. Great, thank you. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The ayes take the motion. I will now ask the new vice president to come forward to take the oath before the district clerk (indistinct). (attendees applauding) Oh really? Sure. I don't know if I'm prepared for. Sure, come on over. Raise your right hand. Thank you. I do solemnly swear- I do solemnly solemnly swear- that I will support the constitution of the United States- the constitution of the state of New York- and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office- and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office- of vice president of the board education- of vice president of the Board of Education- of the Scarsdale Union Free School District. Congratulations. (attendees applauding) So now

009we're, yes, roll call. Now we'll move on to item 2.6, roll call. And I will note that all board members are present except for Jessica Resnick-Ault, and Dr. Patrick and his assistant superintendents are also present. We move on to item 2.7. Just as quick background: Each year the board re-adopts its policies, and therefore I move that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby re-adopts all Board of Education policies. Is there a second? Second. Oh, yes. Thank you. Before the vote, I just wanted to share just a note here. We've implemented a modest change to the Policy section of BoardDocs. With Honore's help, we've moved the regulations that are part of policy, that are connected to our policies, from an inward facing only part of BoardDocs to the public

010facing part of BoardDocs. So you'll now note that the regulations appear in line with the policies in each section of the policy manual on BoardDocs. And it just seemed to make sense to have those more accessible to the public and to anyone who works in the district as well. And it might be worth spending just a second to distinguish a policy from a regulation, just so people are aware. So paraphrasing from our trustee NSBA law book, school law book, a policy is a statement that establishes standards and/or objectives to be attained by the district. A policy can only be adopted or amended by the vote of a majority of the board members at an open meeting. A regulation gives specific orders and procedures to be followed to move in the direction and attain the goals

011that are set forth in the associated policy. So we just thought it made sense to make those publicly accessible; so as of today, they are. Thank you, Drew, for that explanation, and also for taking that initiative to put those regulations out in public, appreciate that. And, Honore, appreciate your work there as well. Is there any other discussion? Okay. Can I get a motion? Oh, you made the motion. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. 2.8. This one's also me. Each year the board also appoints a number of district officers and personnel. I won't read through all of these items, but they are all listed in the meeting agenda. I move that the board adopt the resolution to appoint district officers and personnel for the 2022-2023 school year as presented. Resolved,

012that the Board of Education hereby authorizes and appoints the following district officers and personnel for the 2022-'23 school year. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye, please. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The motion passes. Ron. Next one is about the appointment of district consultants, such as legal consultants, attorneys, accountants, and financial advisors. I move that the appointment of district consultants for the 2022-2023 school year as presented. And they are all listed out in the agenda. Can I get a second? Second. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor say aye, please. Aye. Any opposed say nay. The motion passes. Thank you. 2.10. That's my last one. Okay. 2.10 is the appointment of the Audit Committee for the 2022-2023 school year. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby appoints the Board of Education, so

013all seven members, as the Audit Committee for the district for the 2022-2023 school year. And I make that motion. Thank you, Ron. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Is your microphone on? I apologize for being late, I had a little word emergency on the way in. But I'm wondering if we commit to doing it for the entire year, whether we have any leeway to change it if we decide, for example partway through the year, that we'd like to make it a subcommittee or have community members to it, or if we want to make any changes to the structure of that committee? Would it perhaps be prudent to name us as the Audit Committee for the first half of the year and reconsider in January and renominate if necessary? Can we change partway through the

014year? Yeah, I'm not a 100% sure. I would believe that with a vote of the Board of Education, it's likely, but we can certainly get an answer to that question. Well, my concern is I'm not sure that we can nominate or, you know, authorize us to be the Audit Committee for less than the full school year now. I just dunno, legally, if we can do that. So I looked into this before bringing this up, and legally we can certainly add non-school board members or make it a subcommittee of the school board should we choose to. I just don't know whether we can do that partway through the year. Well, yeah, that doesn't answer the question as to whether today we could appoint us to be the Audit Committee for less than the full school year.

015That's the question I have. That was one of the things you suggested. I just don't know, legally, that we can do that. Right. So that's a question. Well, we don't have our attorney here right now. Does anybody on this side have any thoughts on that? I think we do have to appoint an audit committee today, though, so we have to appoint. For sure. I understand that we have to do it today. And I understand that we're not prepared to change the structure of the Audit Committee today. 'cause we've had a lot of things on our plate. Absolutely. But I guess my question is do we wanna do something that locks us in or is there a way to do this in a way that is more flexible going forward once we have discussed? I think

016one thing we have is that we have a new treasurer starting later this month who's just getting up to speed, so it might be worthwhile to discuss with her, her thoughts on the Audit Committee. I realize that doesn't address your question. But I don't know if we don't know the answer to, legally, if we can appoint for less than the amount of time, I would be concerned about not doing something without having checked with our attorney. Sorry, I have one suggestion which may resolve this, 'cause I agree with Jessica worth the discussion. Somebody can make a motion to amend my motion for the Audit Committee for the 2022-2023 school year or until a successor is appointed, that way if we have that ability, then we could do that; and if we don't, we make sure

017we have our audit committee for the year. So somebody would just need to amend my motion. Jim, are you comfortable with that? I think you'd have to say the lesser of the 2022-2023 school year or when a successor is appointed, otherwise it might be that the 2022-2023 school year is over and we're still the Audit Committee 'cause a successor hasn't been appointed yet. So the lesser of those two. Fair point. Sure. Does that work you, Jessica? Yes, that's perfect. Okay. Thank you, Ron. I think since I made the motion, somebody else should propose an amendment to the motion. I think Jessica since- It would have to be me, but I would have to use Jim's words. so let's team think this. So I propose that we amend Ron's motion using the language that Jim suggested,

018or that you and Jim together have suggested. Jim, do you wanna share that language again? That the Audit Committee would be appointed- For the lesser of the 2022-2023 school year Or until a successor is appointed, yeah. Is there a second? I'll second that. Okay. Any discussion on the amendment to the Audit Committee? Yeah. We vote on the amendment first? Okay. All in favor of the amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The amendment to the Audit Committee carries. (Amber speaking faintly) (Ron speaking faintly) Okay. So, Ron, do you wanna read the amended resolution if Honore's got it ready? I don't know if you have it ready. Okay. No, I think they've already stated the amended, so now I think- So now you just say... Okay. Now we just need a vote. Do we need to

019do a motion to vote again? (speaker speaking faintly) We did that, we passed the amendment I think we passed the amendment. (speaker speaking faintly) Okay, so now we need to vote on the original. Okay. And we've already done motions on the original because we had discussions. So all in favor of the original resolution. Well, can we say all in favor of the original resolution as amended? As amended? Yes. As amended. Okay. All in favor of the original resolution as amended. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. Fantastic. 2.11, Bob. Yes. I recommend that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby authorizes the assistant superintendent for Business and Facilities to certify all payroll registers. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the motion

020carries. 2.12. We recommend that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby designates the president and the vice president of the Board of Education to make appointments of impartial hearing officers when needed on behalf of the Board of Education, pursuant to the change of the commissioner's regulation, adopted by the board of regions on June 12th, 2001, the aforementioned board officers being authorized to act individually. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. 2.13m Bob. We recommend that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby designates the following banks and/or trust companies as the official depositories for the investment of funds and the deposit of moneys received by the treasurer of Scarsdale Union Free

021School District of the district of the 2022-'23 school year: JPMorgan Chase Bank; JP Morgan Securities, LLC.; TD Bank; Webster Bank, N.A.; Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company; People's United Bank; NYLAF; and New York Class. Thank you, Bob. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. And last, but not least, we recommend that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby authorizes the employee dishonesty insurance coverage for all district employees and board members be provided at $1 million per loss, subject to a $2,500 deductible. Second, anyone? Second. Thank you, Jessica. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you. Any opposed? Motion carries. 2.15, that's you, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following resolution as presented. Resolved, that "The Scarsdale

022Inquirer" or "The Journal News" be designated as the official newspapers for the advertisement of legal notices by the Scarsdale Union Free School District for the school year 2022-2023. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. I move that the board adopt the following resolution as presented. This is a long one. Resolved, that the board authorized reimbursement for meal and lodging expenses incurred in the performance of district business as follows: A, meals may be reimbursed at a rate of $50 per day without receipts for each full day in attendance at the meeting or conference; B, Otherwise, original receipts must be submitted and the following dollar limit apply; exceptions to these limits are permitted only with the written approval of the superintendent of schools:

023B1, $75 may be reimbursed per day for food and non-alcoholic beverages at approved conferences and overnight travel; B2, $40 dinner, $30 lunch, and $20 breakfast may be reimbursed for local meetings outside the district attended by the central office administrators appointed by the superintendent of schools; B3, $300 per day for lodging expenses while attending meetings outside the local area; C, employees may be reimbursed up to $40 for food and non-alcoholic beverages if an employee is required to attend evening sessions of the Board of Education or other district meetings and food is not provided. Thank you, Jim. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. I move that the board accept as presented the following resolution. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby delegates the

024power to the superintendent to authorize travel by members of the Board of Education and employees of the district. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. I move that the board accept the following resolution as presented. Resolved, that the Board of Education hereby approves the individuals with the following job titles to hold a district credit card, as recommended by the superintendent: assistant superintendent for Business and Facilities. Thank you, Jim. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Jessica. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. Jessica. Okay. We are now moving on to an authorization of individuals to open and publicly read bids. We recommend that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Resolved, that the purchasing

025agent, the assistant superintendent for Business and Facilities, or a district representative such as architect be authorized to open and publicly read bids received by the district. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Motion passes. That's you too, Jessica. This is on an authorization of petty cash funds. We recommend that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Resolved, that the following petty cash funds be established in the district for 2022 to 2023. I'm not gonna read each of them, but they're attached in the agenda. Essentially it's $400 for each of the elementary schools, for the Central Business Office and the Information Tech Department, 200 for the Plant Office, and 300 for the Superintendent's Office, the Personnel Office and the Curriculum Center,

026also 400 for the middle and high school. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. This is regarding the indemnification provisions under the public officer's law. We recommend that the board adopt the resolution as presented. The Board of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District adopt the defense and indemnification provisions contained in Section 18 of the Public Officer's Law and hereby boards the protections, such protections, to the District's Board members, officers, agents, and board authorized volunteers and employees define therein. This coverage shall be in addition to the coverage made available to such individuals under other enactments, including but not limited to Education Law of the state of New York. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All

027in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The motion passes. Thank you. And that concludes our reorganization actions. And I believe now we'll move into the public hearing on the code of conduct. Drew, do you wanna take that? I'm gonna pass that over to Mr. Rauschenbach. Thank you, and good morning. Congratulations to our new board members and officers. This morning we're having a public hearing, as outlined by school law, that every year we must review the code of conduct that has been done this year by a group of stakeholders earlier in June, and it has been open for comment for the last 30 days. There have been no comments provided. The committee this year did not recommend any changes to our code of conduct, so the language is the same, and there have been

028no regulatory changes. So this is the opportunity for the public to speak on the code of conduct should anyone feel they need to. Thank you, Eric. Do any board members have any questions or comments on the code of conduct. Hi, good morning. All right, this one. (speaking faintly) Thank you, Eric, for conducting the code of conduct this year. I appreciate that the approach is restorative as opposed to punitive. And I think it's wonderful, especially, that the students are involved in this process. I think anytime that we can involve student input into what we do, we should look to do that. So thank you to you and the committee for this work. Could you review how the code of conduct will be shared with the community and if that process has changed at all from past

029practice? Absolutely. First I'll just point out that the students, probably over the eight years that I've been doing this, have proposed and had the most impact on our code of conduct on that committee, so probably the center of which was the complete redo of our dress code to make it non-gender specific and much fairer across the board. So the students are always a valued member of that group. So in the past... Well, not in the past, we continue to put our code of conduct in everyone's agenda books which they receive that on the first day of school, so it's gonna continue to be provided that way. We are also going to add an electronic distribution because as technology has advanced, less kids are using their agenda books and more are using Google Calendars and Google

030Classroom. And so we think that it will be beneficial to have a specific communication dedicated to the code of conduct to parents and to students at the early part of the year. Anyone else? Okay, great. Then we'll move on to... Oh, did you have something, Drew? (Drew speaking faintly) Yes, we have or public comment right after this now. So we'll move into public comment where members of the public are cordially invited to be present either in person or via remote means and to comment on the code of conduct at this portion of the meeting. The order of public comment will be as follows: Community members present at the board will speak first. Community members speaking via Zoom will speak second. And community members speaking via Zoom must have their camera turned on when it is

031their turn to speak. Is there anyone in the audience who'd like to speak on the code of conduct? Okay. Jerry, is anybody on the Zoom? Great. Hi, Robert, please turn your camera on. Okay. Is this only about the code of conduct or this public comment as to other matters? Yes, Mr. Berg, this is about the code of conduct at this point. We will have a public comment later. Thank you if you don't have no comments on- Okay. Is the only about the code of conduct or is it public comment as to other matters? Yes, Mr. Berg, this is only about the conduct at this point. We will have a public comment later. Thank you if you don't have no comments- Okay. Nobody else, Jerry? Let me just check. No one else. Wonderful. Thank you. So

032we'll close public comment. The code of conduct will be in the consent agenda later in the meeting for- Thank you, Eric. 4.1, the Smart School's Investment Plan. Is that Jerry? Good morning. The board has heard my presentation about the Smart Schools Investment Plan back in May, and then you saw a preliminary plan that we presented at our last board meeting, and today is the official hearing on the plan. Just to review some of the basics and give you a recap of the latest work: We're asking for approximately $200,558, which is from a state grant for technology. And part of that grant will go toward non-public schools in the district, in this case IHM. Just to recap how that works, what happens is that the money is given on a per pupil basis to all students

033and the District of Scarsdale is responsible for administering that to our school and other schools in the region. I did make some minor modifications to the original plan, nothing changed the substance of the plan at all. I did things like added a link to our Technology Plan because that's now been approved by the board. I added Jeannie who will be working on this and hopefully be the receiver of the funds when that is approved, and some other minor things; but other than that, the plan is really unchanged. And just to give you a sense of what would happened, assuming that the board approves this plan later on, is that I would have to submit an application. I'll be working with Jeannie on this to the state of New York. It's kind of like applying for

034a mortgage. I did this once before for the first round, they have a lot of different questions. And then I'm going to request an informal hearing or informal consultation with individuals at the State Department of Education to review it, and after that unofficial review they'll either tell us that, yes, the plan is good, or it needs some minor corrections, or you really should go back to your board for a second hearing. At that point it'll be submitted to the committee and they can take anywhere from the next three months to a year to approve the plan. And then, of course, once that's approved, then we can order and distribute the equipment. So those would be the steps that would take place after this piece. Just to recap what happened in our first phase is we

035did an informal review of our plan. There was one question about budget that we had to adjust and then the plan was approved. So we can expect something similar, I expect, to this. The Smart Schools Bond Team at the state level is entirely new. I was fortunate to be in contact with the new team, and they've been very helpful in helping us put this together. Are there any questions? Thank you. I do have one question, sorry, Jerry- Sure to keep you up there longer. Thank you for all your hard work on this. But I was curious about whether... I know we've received some parent feedback after the previous Technology Plan presentation, and I'm wondering whether that's been incorporated or whether they've been specific changes to address that. So this is the Smart Schools Bond Plan,

036that would be the technology- So this is separate from the Technology Plan? Right. The Technology Plan, you'll hear about that a little bit later. But in the Technology Plan, basically the concerns that we're stressed the parents primarily dealt with screen time and digital health, and that is a goal, that's one of the four goals we have in the Technology Plan, so I think that will be addressed. And I did speak to one parent who came in to see me, and I did contact the other two parents as well. Thank you, Jerry, for all your work on that. So I'll give you a second to get set up again, but we'll move into public comment for the Smart Schools Investment Plan. So once again I will invite members of the public who are present either in

037person or via a remote means to come and speak to us on the Smart Schools Investment Plan. Community members that are present will speak first and community members speaking via Zoom will speak second. Is there anyone in the audience who'd like to speak on the Smart Schools Investment Plan? Okay. Jerry, is there anybody on Zoom that has their hand raised? (Jerry speaking faintly) Okay. Then I believe we will move on to... We'll close the public hearing on the Smart Schools Investment Plan and move on to item 5.1, president's opening remarks. Thank you to all those that are here in the audience and those that are watching live and on demand. I will note that all board members are present. And it is my great pleasure to welcome our new members, Suzie Hahn Pascutti and Colleen

038Brown, along with returning member Ron Schulhof to the board table. I will also note that Dr. Patrick and all members of his cabinet are present. I would like to begin by thinking the board for the opportunity to serve as president this year. I look forward to working with all of you as we begin our important work on behalf of our students, our school community, and the broader Scarsdale community. It is tradition for the board president to record the names of our Scarsdale High School graduates at our July business meeting. Attached to today's agenda is the recent Scarsdale High school graduation program which serves as a record of the names of each of our graduates. I had the great honor of attending the graduation last week on behalf of the board. And again, I would like

039to extend a heartfelt congratulations to the Scarsdale High School class of 2022. We know how hard you've worked throughout your time here, and you were truly resilient during the past four years. We extend our best wishes to you as you begin the next exciting phase of your lives. Also heartfelt congratulations to all of our fifth and eighth grade students who have moved up. Exciting transitions are ahead of you, and we look forward to seeing you grow. And of course, huge thanks to all those who supported our students along the way. I would also like to acknowledge some of the important summer work taking place throughout our district. Several elementary school teachers have already begun training with our new elementary math program, Reveal Math, and that work will continue throughout the summer to ensure a robust

040start to the program next year. At the middle school, the PE teachers are designing an exciting mountain bike curriculum for eighth graders which takes advantage of the new middle school nature trail. This beautiful and interactive outdoor learning space was spearheaded last year by the Science Department, but is being used widely across many disciplines. Special thanks to our amazing Facilities crew for helping pave the way with wood chips. Additionally, the house counselors at the middle school are getting together to design lessons for students on social media awareness and provide additional tools to help students self-manage the complexities of various public digital environments. And just this past Tuesday, the high school Counseling Department hosted their annual College Counseling Symposium, which draws in a range of high school counselors and college admissions professionals. This meeting provides an opportunity

041for experts in the field to have candid and informative discussions about the current landscape of college admissions. The board looks forward to hearing from the chair of the Counseling Department Oren Iosepovici on this topic during the coming school year. These are just a few examples of the exciting summer work taking place throughout the district. Thank you to all the administrators, faculty, and staff who are dedicating time on these projects over the coming months. I am also excited to welcome our superintendent search consultants from Hazard, Young, Attea, and Associates, Dr. Sue Guiney and Debbie Raizes, who have joined us here today. Later in the meeting, Sue and Debbie will provide a brief overview of their background and provide highlights of some of the work that will begin this summer for the superintendent search. In other news,

042Tax counsel has provided a recap of the tax matter which I will share with you now. Much of this information we have shared before, but we wanted to provide a comprehensive recap as we begin the 2022-2023 school year. Recall that the district's tax issues began with a shortfall in a federal payroll tax deposit in Q1 2020 and two misapplied deposits, one in Q3 2020 and Q4 2020, which resulted in overpayments in Q2 2020 and Q3 2020, respectively. Instead of the overpayments in Q2 2020 and Q3 2020 being refunded to the district or applied to the proper quarter as intended, the amounts were diverted by the IRS to pay penalties and interest that had been assessed for the Q1 2020 shortfall, therefore having a waterfall type effect and causing additional shortfalls in both the Q3 2020

043and Q4 2020 quarters, for which additional penalties were assessed. As a result, the IRS assessed total penalties against the district in the amount of $714,168.71 plus interest for Q1 2020, in the amount of $147,151.39 plus interest for Q3 2020, and in the amount of $448,316.81 cents plus interest for Q4 2020. Thus the penalties totaled $1,309,636.91 plus interest. This also left a tax shortfall in Q4 2020 of $843,558. In addition, a federal tax lien was filed against the district for Q4 2020. Finally, the district has been assessed another penalty for a failure to submit a Schedule B with its Form 941 for Q2 2021, which resulted in a penalty of $412,837.45 cents plus interest. Thus the penalties against the district totaled $1,722,474.36 plus interest. A collection due process hearing was held in March 2022. At this

044hearing, the IRS appeals officer granted the district's request to abate the Q4 2020 penalties in the substantial amount of $448,316.81 and adjust the interest to zero. In order for the appeals officer to do so, however, the district first had to pay the unpaid tax balance in Q4 2020 of $843,558, which the district did. Though we do not yet have anything in writing, the appeals officer has indicated that the penalties have been abated and the interest has been adjusted; and once those amounts settle on the district's account, the Q4 2020 balance will be zero. Once the Q4 2020 balance is zero, the lien will self-release in 30 days. Also at the collection due process hearing, the district was told that because Q1 2020 and Q3 2020 were fully paid quarters, the appeals officer did not have

045jurisdiction to adjust them; as such the district prepared and submitted two Forms 843, Claims for Refunds and Requests for Abatement, for Q1 2020 and Q3 2020. The district has not yet received an acknowledgement or response on its Form 843 for Q1 2020. However, the district received a notice indicating that for Q3 2020, of the $147,151.49 requested to be abated, approximately $100,244 in penalties have been abated and approximately $46,907 in penalties has been sustained. Finally, the district submitted a request for a penalty abatement to an IRS revenue officer for the Q2 2021 penalties. Though we do not yet have anything in writing, the revenue officer indicated that the penalty in the amount of $412,837.45 has been abated and the interest has adjusted to zero. Thus, the total penalties thus far that have been abated are substantially

046$961,398.26 plus adjusted interest. It appears that approximately $46,907 in penalties have been sustained. We are awaiting response on the remaining $714,168.71 in Q1 2020 Tax counsel will continue to diligently pursue and engage in communications with the IRS on each of these matters. Earlier this week, the board released the IRS matter of fact finding report to the public, a copy of which can be found on the district website under the IRS Matter page. The goal of the investigation, which focused on timeline and communication, was to confirm the facts of the IRS payroll tax matter and discover any additional pertinent information. It was also to assist the board in determining appropriate next steps, which have been taken. As we look forward, the board has approved several actions to improve processes and community to ensure such a situation

047does not occur again. Such actions include the engagement of Nawrocki Smith, LLP, to conduct an internal audit of the payroll withholdings function, which may lead to recommendations to improve procedures related to the recording and payment of payroll withholdings going forward. Additionally, the focus of the annual internal audit this year will be on the broad payroll function in order to assess this area holistically and to identify any additional improvements to procedures. This audit will be performed by Cullen & Danowski. The board and district administration will work collaboratively to strengthen and ensure timely and transparent communication of any issues requiring board deliberation and action. Findings and recommendations from these internal audits will be presented at a future board meeting and shared with the public. In closing, the board looks forward to its work ahead this year in

048support of continued excellent educational experiences and outcomes for all of our students. We also look forward to developing goals and setting priorities, along with conducting the superintendent search, continuing the important diversity, equity and inclusion work, and continually assessing and enhancing our safety, security and emergency management protocols. I look forward to our important work together in all of these areas. Drew. Thank you very much, Amber. Well, good morning again, and thank you again for joining us for the first Board of Education business meeting of the 2022-'23 school year. Perhaps some people are just tuning in or later when they decide to watch on demand. I'll just give a quick recap that the first portion of our meeting this morning was the reorganizational portion covering many of the logistical items necessary to comport with the New York

049State Education Law and regulations and to manage the district. We swore into new board members, determined our board officers for the year, and designated district officers and attended to many other procedural matters. Looking ahead, within the business meeting this morning, we'll cover a number of important consent, information and action items. Before we get to that, I would like to extend my congratulations, as well as to add to Amber's, to the 2022 Scarsdale High School graduates and recognize the work and dedication of all of our high school faculty and administration for providing an amazing graduation experience for the students. The ceremony was lovely, despite a slightly cleansing rain that fell toward the end of the ceremony. But the entire community, Scarsdale community, should be proud of the accomplishments of our graduates, and we look forward to

050the many contributions our students will make in the years to come. Also on behalf of the entire school community, I would like to once again welcome our newest board members, Colleen and Susie. Your decision to serve the school district in this capacity is critically important and deeply appreciated as the work of board members has a lasting impact on the education of Scarsdale's children. So I thank both our new and returning Board of Education members in advance for your service and look forward to working with you throughout the 2022-'23 school year. I also want to officially welcome Jeannie Crowley, who is sitting in our audience. Jeannie is joining our leadership team. And although she's been transitioning actively behind the scenes, today is her first official day. And I know I speak for the entire administration when

051I say we are excited to work with you, Jeannie. I'd also like to extend a public thank you to Honore Adams, the clerk of the board, also the right arm of the Superintendent's Office, maybe the left arm as well. Honore you've been a critical bridge throughout this period of transition, I'm personally very grateful. So with that said, I'm excited to be approaching what I expect will be an incredible school year for our students, our staff, our families, and our partners in the community, but not before wishing everyone restful and rejuvenating summer. Thank you. Drew. Do any board members have opening remarks? Okay. Then we'll move on to item 6.1, the Personnel Report. Carol. (Carol speaking faintly) So first I'd like to welcome Hanah Geilin. She's recommended as a music teacher at Scarsdale Middle School and

052comes to us from Poland School District. Mary Lattin is recommended for appointed in the tenure area of special education and will be assigned to Heathcote Elementary School. Lauren Tenzer, who's here. May I ask anyone who's here, please stand when I call your name. So Lauren's here, she's recommended for appointment in the area of Special Education and will be assigned to Heathcote Elementary School. Allison Lerner. Allison comes to us from (indistinct) Elementary School in Westchester, and is recommended for appointment in the area of Special Education, assigned to Edgewood Elementary School. Danielle Pecora. Danielle is recommended as a school social worker assigned to Scarsdale Middle Schools, she comes to us from Irvington Public Schools. Kevin Anton will join Scarsdale High School, and he's recommended as a physics teacher. He comes to us from The Ursuline School in

053Rochelle. And last but not least, Samantha O'Keefe-Kane. Samantha is recommended to Scarsdale Middle School as a teacher of English to speakers of other languages. Samantha has served at the middle school as both a long-term substitute and a leave replacement. So thank you, Samantha. Thank you. And welcome to everyone. We're so happy to have you. (attendees applauding) Thank you, Carol. And welcome to all of our new staff. Thank you for joining us today. And don't feel like you have to stay for the rest of the meeting. (laughs) It could be long. Okay, wonderful. Let's move on to item 6.2. Drew, is this you or Carol? Okay. So the Scarsdale Public School Administration, on behalf of the Board of Education, negotiated with our Custodial (indistinct) Grounds and Maintenance Unit as well and have reached a tentative agreement

054with the parameters set forth by the board. The memorandum of agreement spells out the provisions of the new contract as ratified by the Custodial, Grounds and Maintenance Unit as is presented to the board for consideration and discussion. Thank you, Carol. Does anyone have anything? Any comments or questions? And that comes back as an action item later in the- Great. In the Agenda. Thank you, Drew. Thank you, Carol. Okay, we'll move on to item 7.1, or 7, hearing from those present. And 7.1, I'll begin with the public comment preamble. Members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel related matters during two separate Public Comment periods. When it is your turn to speak, please state your name, address, and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization. For

055those commenting remotely, please mute the livestream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. Speakers will be asked to conclude their remarks at four minutes and will be given a verbal cue at the three-minute mark. If at this point a speaker has additional comments, they may send them in writing to the board via email at [email protected]. The Public Comment period is reserved for comments only. The board will not engage in dialogue. The board board reserves the right to respond to comments and questions at its discretion either during response to public comment or at a later time and place. Response to public comment will take place after the first and second Public Comment periods. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak? Okay. Jerry, is there anyone on Zoom who would like to

056make a comment? (Jerry speaking faintly) We'll give it just a couple of seconds, I know there's a delay on the live stream. Robert Berg has raised his hand (speaking faintly). Thank you. (Jerry speaking faintly) Okay. Good morning. Robert Berg, 17 Black Birch Lane. I read the ersatz three-page investigative report of Anthony Brock on the district's IRS scandal issued this week with disgust, but no surprise. The Board of Education is no January 6th Committee, that's for sure, rather your lack of transparency reminds me far more of Congressional Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's public response to the January 6th insurrection. Mr. Brock failed to take any statements of the key witnesses under oath. That fundamental weakness is magnified when the key player, Dr. Hagerman, provides a timeline of when he purportedly learned of the IRS matter that is

057many months later than when Jeff Martin and Stuart Mattey state that Dr. Hagerman was told. Mr. Brock apparently never bothered to try to confront Dr. Hagerman with these inconsistencies. And had Dr. Hagerman been under oath and subject to a meaningful cross examination, perhaps a more credible timeline would have emerged as to his knowledge. Even more importantly, Mr. Brock never seems to have questioned the district's attorneys at the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King about the firm's involvement with the IRS matter. I've said from the outset of this scandal, at the very first Board of Education meeting after the public was told about the lien, "Where were the District's attorneys and outside accountants, and how could they have not communicated with the Board of Education about this major IRS matter?" They had to have been

058involved when the District was negotiating with the IRS? Did that thought ever come to Mr. Brock's mind? I'm sure it did, but he's protecting Bond, Schoeneck & King here; and that's seriously wrong. We know that in mid-September 2021, around September 14th, Mr. Martin and Mr. Mattey spoke with the district's regular outside attorneys, Daniel Petigrow of the Thomas Drohem firm and Craig Olivo of the Bond Schoeneck firm, and told them about the IRS problem, and they asked them for a referral for an IRS lawyer. The lawyers recommended Bond Schoeneck's own Frank Meyer. At this point, competent outside counsel for a public school district have a duty to ensure that their client, the school district, including the Board of Education, is aware of the problem. The New York State Rules of Professional Conduct requires attorneys representing an

059organization such as a public school board of education to ensure that the leaders of that organization, in this case at, the very least, the officers of the Board of Education, are fully aware of the important legal issues facing the district. In mid-September of 2021, Bond Schoeneck and Thomas Drohem should have made the board aware about the IRS problem, they should have made sure that the board knew about that problem. But what's worse is on November 28th, 2021, the district, through Mr. Mattey, specially retained Frank Meyer of the Bond Schoeneck firm to represent the district in the IRS matter and to file papers and an appeal of the IRS lien and penalties and interest of the IRS. And Bon Schoeneck actually filed that appeal on November 19th, 2021. Bond Schoeneck merrily started building away on the

060project. And we are led to believe that no attorney at Bond Schoeneck bothered to speak with any board member about this matter until after the end of March 2022. That's insane. That is plainly a violation of the attorney's professional responsibilities. It's legal malpractice. Meanwhile, presumably Bond Schoeneck is sending bills for its legal services promptly, and this board, through its audit committee, is approving payment of these bills. The Audit Committee consists of all board members. And the Bond Schoeneck bills presumably are itemized and describe the legal services as services regarding the IRS lien and appeal. So who's approving these bills on behalf of the board? And how can the board stay there in the dark? Finally, while the board is whitewashing its serious deficiencies as overseers of the district's finances and operations by saying, "It wasn't

061me. We weren't told," the board is happy to throw poor Jeff Martin under the bus. Jeff Martin is a hardworking, tireless, loyal man who devoted 26 years to the Scarsdale school system. Here there was a screw up- Mr. Berg, you've hit the four-minute mark. Could you please wrap it up? under his watch. We now know it was the data entry error where a zero was dropped which led- (Jerry speaking faintly) Okay. I'll be done very quickly. We now know it was a data entry error where a zero was dropped which led to a cascade of horribles, owing largely to the bureaucratic ineptitude of the IRS during the COVID crisis. Jeff reported that problem, as a treasurer, to his boss Stuart Mattey and to Dr. Hagerman, he did not have the reporting responsibility to the board.

062Stuart does and Dr. Hagerman did- Could you ask him to send his remaining remarks to the board please, Jerry? Mr. Mattey has been disciplined- Rob, I'm sorry. (Jerry speaking faintly) Okay. I just think it's wrong to throw Jeff under the bus, Dr. Hagerman skates off to a remunerative contract in Chicago- Jerry, could you please ask him again to wrap up his remarks? Okay. Is there anybody else, Jerry? Yes, there is. Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez has raised her hand (speaking faintly). Hi, thank you, Mr. Crisci. Good morning, Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez, Fox Meadow Road. Good luck to the new board for this year. And congratulations to the new members, Madams Brown and Hahn. I wish the two of you a great year and a lot of luck. First, I am very, very concerned about the financial effect of the IRS

063debacle. Taxpayers and parents deserve a lot more details. The interest and penalties that we as taxpayers are on the hook for, different Board of Ed statements have different figures. Is it 1.3? Is it less? Is it more? Also, it has come to light that over $50,000 have been spent on the BSK counsel that nobody apparently told the Board of Ed that they were conducting work on this on this matter. There's also the extra auditor that you have hired to audit the payroll, there's the expenses for the Brock investigation. His report was barely a report, it was incredibly light on details. Were board members from the boards of 2020 all the way through 2022, were those members interviewed? 40 employees knew about the IRS scandal, were any of them interviewed? This was not a report. unfortunately,

064this was a timeline. Frankly, it could have been put together for free by any resident who read the documents that you uploaded on the District's site back in May. In fact, a Scarsdale School journalist did put a timeline together and certainly nobody paid her the significant amount of money that is being paid to Brock. I repeat, as I've said previously both in writing and in the Public Comment, any auditor or lawyers who knew about the IRS matter before March 24th, 2022, should not be involved with the district anymore. If it is true that they did not notify the board about what was going on, they do not belong at Scarsdale Schools District. Secondly, please give the community more detail on expenses on the DEI consultant and other educational consultants. It's very important for taxpayers to

065know exactly what kind of content are they delivering to teachers, parents, or students. And the expense on whiteboards of $195,000, is this normal, and how long do they last? Lastly, in the board's Audit Committee, I highly recommend that you get an auditor in that committee. To my knowledge, none of you have accounting expertise or auditing expertise. We have a lot of people in Scarsdale who work at EY, Deloitte, Pricewaterhouse, et cetera. You really need somebody who has significant expertise in auditing in that audit committee. You should be receiving copies of invoices of big ticket items, such as the BSK counsel, and you should be getting an in-depth, detailed financial report every single month, and that should be public so that all taxpayers and parents are aware of how our money is being spent. In the

066Business Office's own website, it states that financial information should be given to the BoE on a monthly basis. So there is absolutely zero reason why Mr. Mattey and his team did not inform the BoE about the IRS matter. Publicly, that page says that that office is supposed to be delivering financial information to the Board of Ed, and this should be in a public manner. Also, I remain very concerned that the Business Office is in charge of approving FOILs, Freedom of Information Law requests, especially if some of those requests are related to the IRS matter. This really should be handled by anybody else, but not by the Business Office. Thank you very much for your work, and I really hope you do a great job for the rest of the year. I am very concerned about

067the district's finances. And as I have said before, when I look at the numbers coming out of the district, they do not equate to a triple A according to the Moody's methodology, and I stated this last year in October. Thank you very much, and have a great summer, everybody. Thank you. Jerry, is there anyone else? There is no one else. Okay. It looks like we don't actually have a response to public comments, so we'll move into 8.1, the written communications. Ron. Thanks, Amber. Please note that the board of Board of Education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk since open meeting law requires all board deliberations, which may lead to action or policy changes to occur in public; therefore, your written communications and emails will be reported in an upcoming board meeting.

068A board member will respond to all communications at their earliest convenience. We received an email on June 21st, 2022, expressing concern about the timeline and process for returning school-issued iPads in middle school students. Ms. Troy responded. An email was received on June 23rd requesting clarification regarding the IRS matter for an article, and Amber responded. And an email received on June 24th, 2022, expressing concerns about the lack of transparency and location of important developments on the IRS case and employment contracts, and Amber responded. Thank you, Ron. Let's move on to item 9, the consent agenda. And I'll read the preamble for the consent agenda. The board may conduct some of its business using a consent agenda in an effort to achieve greater efficiency at board meetings. A consent agenda condenses some of the routine business of

069the Board of Education into a single motion. The consent agenda is prepared by the superintendent of schools in consultation with the president and/or vice president of the board. Items are selected for the consent agenda when the officers of the board and the superintendent believe there is no controversy regarding them. The items on the consent agenda will have the same background material as ordinary items on the board agenda. If any member of the board feels that any item on the consent agenda requires discussion prior to an action, that board member may remove that item from the consent agenda merely by requesting the same at the meeting. The exempted item then moves to the regular agenda. However, all non-exempted items would be moved, seconded, and voted upon without discussion in order to provide greater efficiency to conducting

070the routine items of business of the school district. Does anybody wish to remove anything from the consent agenda? Okay, great. Looks like 9.2 is the personnel certified report, and that is... No, I'm gonna do the... Do you want me to do the- Oh, do I have a- It just got pulled up- Okay, sorry. I didn't hit refresh. I wasn't sure why that was there. All right, great. Thank you. So, Bob, you're the consent agenda? Sure, I think this may be an all-time record, I don't know. 27 items. So it is recommended that the board accept the following. And I'm just gonna read the titles. And for all those that want more information, they can go into the website and pull up the attachments. 10.1: Minutes of the special meeting, June 17th, 2022. Item 10.2: Minutes

071of the business meeting June 21st, 2022. 10.3: Personnel - Certified. 10.4: Personnel - Non-certified 10.5: Foreign Exchange and Domestic Student Programs, 2022- 23. 10.6: Code of Conduct. 10.7: Parent Member List for CSE/CPSE. 10.8: Appointment of Surrogate parent to CSE/CPSE for the 2022-'23 year. 10.9: Impartial Hearing Officers for 2022-'23. 10.10: CPSE/CSE Recommendations. 10.11: Adoption of Building Emergency Response Plans for the 2022-'23 school year 10.12: Lease Purchase Agreement for Instructional Computers. 10.13: Special Education Contracts - Consultants and Out of District Placements. 10.14: Standard Work Day. 10.15: Risk Assessment Update Report - Cullen & Danowski, LLP. 10.16: Report on Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures - Cullen & Danowski, LLP. 10.17: WPSBA Annual Dues for 2022-'23. 10.18: Tax Certiorari Settlement - 1112 Post Rd. 10.19: Tax Certiorari Settlement - 23 Oak Lane. 10.20: Claims Audit Report - June 2022. 10.21: Facilities

072Use Fees. 10.22: Contract Over $20,000 - Athletics - Ice Time Proposal. 10.23: Contract Over $20,000 - Athletic Training, Physical Therapy & Concussion Management Services for Interscholastic Athletics 2022-2023. 10.24: Contract Over $20,000 - Zoom Video Communications Contract, 2022-'23 10.25: Contract Over $20,000 - Piece of PI Consulting LLC Agreement. 2026: Contract over $20,000 - Ellie Drago-Severson. 10.27: Smart Schools Investment Plan. And I make a motion to accept the consent agenda, 10.28. Did you get- Did I skip? A doctor, the contract for Dr. Derrick Gay? I don't- (overlapping chatter) 10.27. I think you read 10.28 as 10.27. You know what? The one I'm clicking doesn't have it. Oh, I'm sorry. Contract. Yeah, 10.27: Contract over... Dr. Derrick Gay. 10:28: Smart Schools Investment Plan. And then item 10.29. I apologize. I was looking at an old- It's okay. It

073happened to me too, so no- That I had put on my screen, sorry. And did you move to accept- And I moved to accept the consent agenda, please. Thank you, Bob. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion, Drew? Yeah, I was just gonna point out what we think is a small but significant improvement. You'll notice those last few that Mr. Klein read start with contract over $20,000. We routinely enter into such contracts, and all have to be expressly approved by the Board of Ed. But we thought it prudent to label those things a little bit more clearly going forward, not just... You know, the public can see it more easily, but also they'll be more easily searchable in the BoardDocs. So we just wanted to share that. That's a great suggestion. Thank you, Drew. Is

074there any other discussion? Okay. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The consent agenda passes. Now, let's move on to some exciting stuff. It is our superintendent search update. At the last business meeting, the board made the unanimous decision to appoint Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates to assist the Board with our search for our next superintendent. Dr. Sue Guiney and Deborah Raizes, who will lead HYA's team, are here today and will give us a brief presentation. Please come on up. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. I am Deborah Raizes. I am with the firm of Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates' National Superintendent Search firm. And this is my colleague Dr. Sue Guiney. Thank you for having us this morning. So we'd like to start by just talking a little bit about HYA and

075what HYA is, and a little bit about the breadth of networking that HYA can do as a search firm. So HYA is one of the largest search firms in the country. Please forgive the mask, it makes it a little difficult. Anyway. And what we have found with HYA that is really the huge benefit to districts is that HYA really seems to know that when we find someone that we're interested in, that we have people that we can call HYA consultants that can tell us about this person and can do reference checks on this person. There are over 50 to 100 consultants in HYA, and we have an incredible network, and we expect to use that network as we go about finding great candidates for Scarsdale. Sorry, it's just the end of COVID. I am a

076former school board member from Scarsdale, hard to believe. I was on the board from 1991 to 1997. This room does look a little different, but not a lot. And as a matter of fact, the chairs look a little better. But it is wonderful to be back. I was president of the board the last year and vice president of the board of the year before that. I have been with HYA. When I got off the board in Scarsdale, I joined the firm of HYA. And I have been with HYA now for approximately 25 years, it's hard to believe, and have done over a 100 searches in that time. The vast majority of searches that I do are for high performing suburban school districts like Scarsdale. I have also done urban districts. I am also on the

077Board of Trustees of Lesley University. I chaired that board for eight years and continue to be on the board. And I am also a vice chair of the Westchester Community College Board of Trustees. So I am really quite delighted to be back here and working on the search for you. Thanks, Debbie. Good morning. I'm Dr. Susan Guiney, and I've been with the search firm of HYA for approximately two years. And I joined HYA and have had the honor and privilege of working with Debbie on quite a number of searches during that time. Prior to joining HYA, I was the superintendent of schools in the Mount Pleasant Central School District, and I had the honor of successfully serving as a superintendent for 10 years in Mount Pleasant. Prior to that, I've had a long career in

078public education, from acting as a classroom teacher, to a director of technology and professional development, to building level assistant principalships, all the way up to being a district level administrator as a director of curriculum before I landed in the seat of a superintendent. And I guess it's fortunate that I decided to retire just prior to COVID. So I definitely have great empathy and a lot of support for my colleagues who still remain in the superintendency, who are leading schools and guiding districts and families during what has been a very critical time and very challenging time over the last several years. My doctorate degree is in organizational leadership from Columbia University Teachers College, and I have advanced degrees in technology and information science, English literature, and educational administration from Fordham University, Iona College and Queens College.

079It's an absolute privilege and thrill to be working with Debbie and all of you, and to be assisting the Board of Education as you search for your next leader. It is so critical that we have a wonderful, strong leader in our schools, especially at this time. Our children deserve it, our children require it. And it's the most important job of a Board of Education to select someone who can take the charge and lead the district forward and the families forward during this time. Debbie and I are thrilled to be here to work with you, so thank you for having us this morning. We'll talk a little bit about the process. This is really an ideal time to begin the search. We expect to do a lot during the summer and get as much in terms

080of leading with people as we can, people that are around. We expect that the next superintendent will be in place by July 2023. And as I said, we are gonna use this summer to really get as much done as we possibly can. Sue is gonna outline some of the steps that we will be doing during the summer. So during the months of July and August and September, and hopefully many of you will be relaxing and having your feet up, and enjoying a wonderful summer, we'll be busy at work here in Scarsdale. So our first order of business is to meet with the Board of Education and plan out a calendar of events, and setting up appointments, and getting input from the Board of Education regarding the superintendent search. We'll be meeting individually with each Board

081of Education member, getting their take, kind of the pulse on what's going on in the district, and that will inform much of the work that will be going on behind the scenes. As Debbie said, we will be setting up meetings and doing focus groups and interviews with members of the community, the Scarsdale stakeholders, who are here in district over the summer as well as in September when everyone returns to school. We'll be meeting with the administrative team, faculty and staff, with students, with parents, community members, and all other members of the community and school groups and individuals who will be participating in the search process. There also will be an anonymous online survey that will be presented to the community that will open up in September when everyone returns from vacation, and everyone in the

082community will have an opportunity, if they don't have a personal interaction with us at a community forum or in an interview, to make sure that their voice is heard so that we are being as transparent and inclusive of everyone as possible. And inclusivity is a major trademark of what is gonna be happening in this search process. And then we will be having a leadership profile report prepared, which we will present to the Board of Education and to the community, and the tentative date for that will be early October, the first meeting in October. And that will summarize the work that we've done and what we've heard from all of the community members and stakeholders, as well as the results of the survey. So that's the outline, the scope of our work for the next coming

083few months. We understand the importance and believe in the importance of community involvement, of making sure that all voices are heard, that we need to make sure that the characteristics of the next superintendent are agreed to by the board, and also characteristics that the community parents, faculty, students are looking for in their next superintendent. And we will spend a lot of time making sure that we hear from anybody who wants to talk to us, and we really encourage people to do that. There will be a part in that survey that also has an opportunity for people to give open-ended comments. So this is open a process in terms of getting information and the feedback from people that we can possibly have. We really appreciate the opportunity to do the search. We are looking forward to

084being very aggressive recruiters. There's a fine line between being aggressive and being obnoxious, and we really try not to pass that line, but we work very hard and we are very good, if you'll forgive me for saying, for being very aggressive recruiters and finding people who are very happy, who are doing great jobs in their districts now, and who we see if we can interest them in Scarsdale. And there is also an opportunity when we meet with everybody to ask people if people have recommendations for us, which we follow up on, and there's also an opportunity in the online survey to also give us recommendations. So it is certainly an opportunity for people to be involved in giving us their opinions on who they think might be the next great superintendent for Scarsdale. It's a

085privilege, it's an honor to do the search, and we will work very, very hard to get you a great slate of candidates for the next superintendent. Thank you, Debbie and Sue, for coming here today and giving us that presentation. Do any board members have any questions? I don't have a question. Just thank you for the great presentation and for being here so the community can meet you. Obviously the board has had the chance to meet you before. Just one thing I wanted to mention to the community, although a lot of this will be happening over the summer or in the fall, if anybody has feedback about process or questions, they can always email the Board of Ed about that at any time or reach out to the board directly in addition to the discreet community

086outreach that you'll be doing. Anybody else? I think one of the things... Thank you both for being here, especially ahead of the long weekend, we appreciate it. One of the things that was made very clear to us was how inclusive your community process is, and we appreciate that, and we look forward to seeing it go really beyond just scratching the surface of Scarsdale and getting into all of the corners of different people who are stakeholders in the schools. Okay. Thank you so much, Debbie, Sue. Enjoy the holiday weekend, and thank you again. Later on the agenda, we have our meeting dates, but we'll discuss briefly in public when we may be able to meet with you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Let's move on to item 11.2. This will be a preview of our

087STI courses for the fall of the coming year. And Ann Marie Nee is here to present. Good morning, everyone. First I'd like to welcome everyone who's in a new position this year, whether you're on the Board of Education or on the admin council. I'm really looking forward to working with each and every one of you. As Drew said, I'm Ann Marie Nee. I'm the director of the Scarsdale Teachers Institute, which is entering its 53rd year of providing innovative, teacher-driven professional development in supportive district goals. And I just wanted to give you an update on the very, very busy week we've had this first week of the summer. We had three sections introducing teachers to the new math curriculum in this very room, three out of eight sessions for the rest of the summer. Teachers Reader

088Study Group met, financial literacy in the classroom, facing history teaching about equity and justice. Teachers updated their STEAM skills in the woodworking areas of the middle school, and they built dispositions for the classroom and team building and character education on the middle school challenge course. Elementary teachers created over 30 interactive games each for RTI uses in their classroom. Elliot Cohen began two summer-long courses, Positive Psychology for Educators and Managing Emotions in Times of Stress and Anxiety. A group of teachers went on location on the Lower East Side to create lessons about immigration/ And our teachers' college reading and writing workshop partnership began. That's what happened since last Friday, okay? So it's been a great summer so far. And last week, the STI Accreditation Committee met to talk about the fall, and we approved four new

089courses: Leveraging Universal Design for Learning, which leverages cognitive neuroscience in using different ways of engaging students in the classroom; a professional learning community course at Greenacres, which is a pilot to develop in-house support for the new the new math curriculum; a new multimedia tools, K-12; and then an articulation course and assessment for middle school and high school world language teachers. And then there's a list of 51 other courses that were run in the past or approved by the accreditation and the board that we're looking to run again this year. Having said all of that, I've already gotten requests for ideas for new courses. So this is our preliminary list that we'd like to start planning and listing locations and times and getting people to sign up as soon as possible so they can plan. But

090with that said, I'm anticipating coming back in September, after all the summer work is completed, with some more courses that people are interested in running. So if you have any questions about anything, I'm happy to answer them. Does anybody have any questions for Ann Marie? I just had one quick question. I'm not sure if it's for Ann Marie or for Edgar, just about Reveal Math. Can you just talk a little bit about how the STI course, Growing a Math Professional Learning Community at Greenacres, compares to the professional development work that you spoke about that's happening over the summer, and also whether this course might eventually expand to the other elementary schools as well? Or is it something specific about Greenacres? Well, the courses that are running this summer... And Edgar can jump in, if you

091want to jump in too. The courses this summer are run by the two math coordinators for the elementary level, or math coordinator and assistant coordinator, and they're open across district and they're broken down K, one, two, three, and four, five. And so they're running this summer with a general overview of the curriculum, and every teacher will be exposed to that. But what Greenacres would like to do... And this is something that's planned by the assistant principal in concert with a teacher who's very interested in getting her colleagues together. This is something that's going to use the structures at Greenacres and the times that they have available at Greenacres before school and after school to talk about math, to get into each other's classrooms, and to really form a community around talking about math. So it

092was Greenacres that proposed at first, but there's already buzz in other schools about this. So we're gonna see how it plays out at Greenacres, and then hopefully it will continue into the other schools as well. Great. That sounds great. Thank you very much. Yeah, I think that it's an exciting opportunity. And in pilots like this, new structures are ones that we're always excited to promote and see how they work. Concurrently with this ongoing professional development, there are opportunities for teachers district wide to engage in this kind of work; so I'm very excited about it. Anyone else? Thank you so much, Ann Marie. It sounds like you have an exciting summer ahead of you, so- It's great. Very excited. We look forward to hearing from you in the fall, thank you. Okay. Item 11.3, the Youth

093Services Project. Drew. Thank you. So as board members know, and I believe many in the community know, we've had a long standing partnership with Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling to have the Youth Services Project, including youth outreach workers, in our middle school and high school. We've been in discussion with both the village and the organization on, you know, the changes that we are experiencing by the hiring of new social workers to be faculty members at the middle school and high school, and being able to get closer to returning to the core mission of the Youth Outreach Program. We've also been in discussion with them about the finances required to recruit and retain youth outreach workers under the current contract, and given the demand for mental health support in the world, in our region, of course, as

094well, that there likely needs to be a little bit more in terms of resources put toward the contract. So we've had preliminary conversations with Jay Genova and our friends at the village. And the village is also engaged in those conversations internally. So normally we would have a contract at this point in the year to adopt, and we're not at that point 'cause we do expect to require a little bit more in funding to be able to recruit, retain folks in that position. So that's my broad message to communicate. Eric, is there anything you would add, or Ron who has served as our liaison as well? No, I think that's accurate. And I think we're having good discussions around what the resources need to be in order to get the types of individuals we're looking for

095to work with our students, and around how we really focus in on the outreach part of the youth outreach workers, and getting back to a regulated system of trying to address students who are having small problems rather than waiting till they get into the medium and large problem size. So I think it's very productive, and my hope is that we have something reasonably soon. I just wanted to add one piece, and that is there's no... Even though there's not a contract on today's agenda, there will be no impact to services, whether it's over the summer, starting in the fall, for the Youth Services Project. What I will say is there was a period of time during this school year where those positions were not filled. So there is a recoup of some of that money

096being credited to whatever this year's contract is, which will adjust the delta a little bit, so it should not be a major budget impact, generally. Does anybody have any questions? I actually have a question. So, when was the last time that this contract was updated? It's renewed every year. So each year we have a partners meeting that goes over the budget for the following year, what any changes were. This is the first time in a while that we've really started to rework the language a little bit and think about retention and recruitment a little bit more strategically in partnership with Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling. So this is not outside of the usual process, but it is a process that has a few more questions than usual this year. Okay. Thank you. And, Ron, I appreciate

097your noting that there should be no impact to students on this. Did you have something else? I just wanted to add one thing because there was this change internally as well, that I think this just shows the commitment of the district to the Youth Services Project, the youth outreach workers, and the importance of Jay, his team, and this partnership. Seconded. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much Drew, Eric, Ron, for that update. Let's move on to item 11.4, which is the village mayor's invitation. And I shared with all of the board members that earlier in June, the mayor sent an invitation to the board that they are going... The village trustees and the mayor will be discussing telecommunication gaps within the village, and we've been invited to comment on that as this is a

098topic that has come up within our district and PTAs and parents, and we've heard about it here at the board table. So I wanted to present that opportunity to the board to see if anybody had any thoughts on if we should comment on it, and if so, what we might say. And I apologize, their meeting is currently scheduled for September 6th, so we don't have a lot of time in terms of thinking through this issue. Would anybody have any thoughts? Oh, Eric, that'd be great. Yeah. I wanted to put out there that we had met, part of our usual meetings, with the village around safety, security and emergency management topics. You know, I think we obviously, as a school board or as a school district, have a certain ability within our properties to increase our

099bandwidth to allow for more WiFi calling. But when we think about the wireless communications across the village, the dead spots in the village, of which there are many, really do impact safety, security and emergency management. We've gotten around it with putting in a new radio system and things like that, but cell phones are still a major form of communication that are used ubiquitously across all agencies, and they're not reliable when we're in and about the village, and that is a detriment to responding in emergencies. So if there's a place that I would recommend we have a conversation with the village or comment about, it is that it makes the village, not only the schools but the village writ large, safer to have that coverage in place. Thank you, Eric. That was really helpful. Does anybody

100have any thoughts? Well, I mean, I have to plead ignorance. I have not had an opportunity to read this proposed legislation, it's 65 pages long. I don't know if it helps the issue that Eric, you know, correctly observed is an issue or if it doesn't, or if it makes it worse, I just don't know. So, I mean, I feel like... I mean, to the extent that it doesn't help or makes it worse, obviously, or to the extent that it helps, I mean, I do think there should be an interest on the part of the schools to comment. I just don't, as a matter of fact, know what impact this proposed legislation has on the on the issue Eric raised. Thank you. And actually, if I could just point out, the legislation that's attached in executive

101content has been passed, that was what they discussed in January, and so now they're gonna work on actually executing. This is the parameters that they have to follow. So, for example, there's a map at the end of that that has where they can and can't put in towers should they choose to. And there's a requirement there that they cannot put anything within 500 feet of schools, I believe also there's other buildings that they can't put put in towers. So there are some restrictions on what they can and can't do; however, I think that they are wondering if this is something that we as the board support them looking into in general, in terms of our students' safety. And as Eric mentioned, I know we are doing WiFi improvements, but there is more that could be

102done. Certainly if there was some kind of power failure, I could see a situation where cell service would be very important. I don't know if anybody has any... I mean, I think it's valuable for this body to weigh in, in relation to what Eric mentioned, how it impacts the schools. I think we've done that in the past with village legislation that could impact the schools. And we are continuing to work on our partnership with the village, we're all essentially one community. I don't think there's anything specific in front of the village right now. So I do think when we go to them, we should also make clear that we're opining about certain things that impact the school; but if they have specific proposals, we would ask that they come back to us, especially if anything

103is cited, as Amber mentioned, whether within those zones or near the zones, and be part of that. So I think just there's two pieces, I would say, one is the aspects Eric mentioned and that any specific proposals they involve the district as needed. Thank you. Anyone else? So is there a consensus that we support sharing our concerns about safety around our schools and closing the telecommunications gap? Yes. Okay. And then in terms of how we move forward: In the past, we've had board officers write a letter to the village. Is this board comfortable with that approach? Yes. Are there any particular topics that you would like the board officers to mention? For example, Ron noted reserving the right to comment later if there's a specific proposal to put something in front or near within a

104school boundary. Is there anything else that this board would like to see? I think perhaps one way to think about it is as the village moves forward, and there are lots of gap scattered around, common sense tells us there'll be an order with which things are done. It's not gonna all happen overnight, right, so they're going to start to prioritize where to go and what to do first. And I think just simply saying we would like the school zone to be considered in the highest priority zone of action items so we're not the last to be done, we would be the first to be done, if at all possible, so that if people are around the school, parents or whoever, we know there are gaps that the WiFi doesn't cover that would be of tremendous

105concern to anyone involved in an incident. So, you know, I'd like them to articulate the priority, how they're going to determine their priorities, and if at all possible, to put all of the schools in that highest priority zone. Obviously we have a vested interest in saying that. But you know what I'm saying, that from our point, I mean, that's who we are responsible for it during this situation. So yeah. Thank you for that suggestion, Bob. Jessica. Throughout the year, I've been attending the SSEM meetings quarterly and have provided the board with notes and recaps, publicly, of those meetings, but each of those meetings has included some concerns specific to WiFi from the community. And I think it would be helpful if you went back through, as the officers are putting together that... Not WiFi, sorry,

106cell service. I was just gonna ask- Cell service. I misspoke, cell service. And so I think it would be helpful. Often the answer is WiFi, right? The answer is, "We have WiFi in our buildings," and the community concern is, "Yes, but that doesn't help us if we are parents on Butler Field or parents outside of a building," right? So hardening the system around the school buildings has come up repeatedly at those meetings. You have access to those notes, and so prioritizing those zones. I think WiFi around the schools has become the proxy for cell service, so that's really where it comes down to. They've asked us to expand the ability to WiFi call out to basically the borders of our... which is not always so easy to do and quite expensive, but if we had

107cell service out there, that would negate the need for that. Great. Thank you. Anybody else? Anything you think board officers should consider as they prepare? Okay. Oh, did you have something else? Well, I was just gonna say, you know, there still is an issue from the village perspective on where they can place the towers. And I just... I did wanna reiterate what Ron said in terms of making us aware if there was gonna be anything close to school property, because there are, I think, four designated zones where they're able to put cell towers at this point. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you, everyone. So then as the board officers, Ron and I will prepare something and we'll send it to all of you before we share it with the village. Okay, let's move on to item

10811.5, which is the first reading of some policy changes. And, Drew, do you wanna give us an overview of that? For sure. Thank you. Thank you. This comes by way of counsel, a recommendation to shift the locus of where the appeal of a FOIL would go to. Presently the full Board of Education is designated as the appeals body for Freedom of Information Law requests, and counsel recommends, for reasons outlined in the background information and in the executive content, that they recommend that be changed to the superintendent, you know, as put out. So this is being brought forward for your consideration and conversation and potentially modification or not. Thank you, Drew So has everyone had a chance to review the memo? And does anybody have any thoughts on the proposed changes? Well, I mean, I understand

109the, you know, rationale put forward for the change. Personally I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with it. And the reason is because we are the elected representatives here for this community. And so a lot of us, we're here for a period of time but we're actually really parents and members of the community first, 'cause that's what's been our experience until we get here. And the reason why I'm saying all this is because I think we have, as a board, an ability that... I don't wanna denigrate any the hardworking members of our district who work for the district, that's not my intention, but I think we, as members of the board, you know, have a view about what the community considers important to know, for transparency purposes that perhaps those who are employed here but don't

110actually live here or aren't community members may not have that same perspective. So I think it's valuable, frankly, that we, as a board, have an oversight role and an appeal role in connection with FOIL requests. I wanted to also chime in on that. I'm largely in agreement with Jim, though with some different reasoning. I think that one of the things that this does is the current structure gives us an ability to make sure that we are fully exercising our oversight duties. It means that we are fully aware if there are FOIL issues going through the system, if there are any questions around FOIL. And I think it is important if we know that there are requests that are being appealed. And I think that having us as the ultimate body, while it's sometimes inconvenient to

111our personal schedules, is part of our responsibility as board members. And although it's been a challenge at times this year, it's a challenge that I personally am willing to take on and think we should take on. That said, Drew, I really appreciate your eagerness and willingness to be involved with the FOIL process. And I think that if there is a way for the superintendent to be more directly involved with the initial FOIL process before it gets to the point of appeal, that would be extremely valuable. Just for the record, I wouldn't describe it as eagerness. (attendees laughing) So Stuart didn't have his microphone on, but there were 66 FOILs this past school year. Is that right, Stuart? And do we know how many were appealed? Four or five. I have a- Remember, the appeal is

112of a partial or complete denial, right? And I'm sorry, before you speak, Bob, Stuart, it's 10 days to reply to an appeal, is that correct? The officer. Okay. Sorry, Bob, please, go ahead. 10 business days. Thank you. Yeah, I wonder, Drew, just to help me out a little bit, if you could maybe help to summarize the pros and cons of you or someone internally versus externally. I hear Jim and Jessica's argument, which frankly does make a lot of sense, but I have a feeling there's maybe another side to this that I just wanna understand. I know you weren't cavalier to make that offer if it's nothing that's particularly fun to do, so-. This really comes straight from counsel as a recommendation for the reasons laid out in the background information. I really don't have a

113lot to add be beyond that, other than it, you know, streamline, simplifies, and makes the logistics of this process potentially easier, smoother, you know, and it is likely that the superintendent, whoever that person is, is more knowledgeable about the content of the FOIL than the board may be. That's not to say the board couldn't become knowledgeable about that, obviously, through the process, but it's more of an uncommon practice to have a board as the appeals officer. That's all. If I could add on to that. This year, our attorney, our general counsel has recommended a number of times, or last year, to us that we consider changing who the FOIL appeals officer was. I think it is quite unusual that a board is, and I believe one of the reasons that was expressed to us last

114year was that for consistency in terms of the fact that the board does change fairly regularly and that superintendents tend to be in their positions longer, so that for consistency of how appeals are handled, that you might consider a superintendent. So I do believe this has come more from our attorney because they have been recommending this to us for a while, but we didn't wanna change it mid-year or something. So it's brought up here for this board to consider if it's something we'd like to do. I just have a question, because I'm figuring all of this out. Is your microphone on? I think so. Can you hear me? Yeah. So, if we change over to Drew, how are we guaranteed that we will stay kind of in the loop of the FOILs requests and appeals?

115That's my only kind of trying to figure out how the whole process works, is if Drew takes this over, is there that like a cutoff of communication between what we know and what Drew knows? I think that's a good question. And do one of you two wanna talk about the current process now? Stuart, do you mind talking about, like, just outline the process? Yeah. Sure. So it's pretty detailed and time consuming, especially when you have 66 of them in one year, which is my career record. And to be clear, that's not all IRS at all, that's actually a very small number of them. So if we receive a FOIL request in, we have five business days to acknowledge that request, we have a litigation log, which has all lawsuits, including FOILs, even though it's not

116really a legal matter, but it's a good way of tracking that. The board has access to that, to look in on that, to see the status of who filed the request, when it was filed, when it was acknowledged, a status, and also what the FOIL was for in general. So I believe the board doesn't have... Is that quarterly... I'm not sure when the reports are sent to the board, so you have access to that. We can think about maybe the frequency of when that's provided so you have more up to date, but that's how it's handled now. You know, I know for... You know, once it gets to an appeal process, if I receive the appeal, if the individual's not happy with what they received or feels like there's more out there and I didn't

117get it, they can file an appeal; and then at that point, typically I would notify the superintendent that there is an appeal and that a board meeting needs to be called. The majority of these, I am involved with the attorney for any redactions and all of that, 'cause again, I'm not the one that's deciding what gets released or not. I sort of logistically get the search going for all the documents and gather all of that, whether it's from our consultants or internal and all of that. But once it gets to the appeal, I turn it over the superintendent who arranges the meeting with the Board of Education. It does get cumbersome. You know, if I were to receive an appeal in the summer months, and timing and all of that, that's the challenging part. So

118I think that's sort of where it comes from as far as the recommendation. Thank you. Yeah. I can share my thoughts. I tend to have the same view as Jim and Jessica. I think this is valuable to live with the Board of Education, the appeal. I'm not gonna repeat what Jessica and Jim shared, I would echo that. I would just add two pieces. One is that a FOIL... I think it's important what Stuart mentioned, it's the law firm that's doing the redactions, so it's our legal team. But in FOIL law, not everything is a yes or no, there is discretion. And I think it's important that discretion lives with elected officials. We can take the advice of council, the boards do change over, I do think that's the impact of elections, but I think it's

119a valuable piece to live with an elected body. And then the other piece is my understanding is if a appeal is denied, the next step is an Article 78 that somebody could file, which is a pretty big step both for that person and for the district to then have to deal with. So I think that there's also an added level of credibility that if somebody FOILs and they know it was reviewed by a seven-person elected board, that that adds some credibility. And I don't think we see too many or I've never, I don't think, seen any that have gone to the next step of an Article 78, even though that this body in public has made those determinations. And then lastly, in the three years I've been on the board, I don't think it's been

120too cumbersome. And we do have some added flexibility with new state law that even in the summer, as long as a quorum could be here, three members could participate remotely, and I think that makes our life a little easier as well. Thank you. Do all have any thoughts? So right now we have three board members who would like to keep the board still as the FOIL officer. We just need direction, you know, whether to continue with the policy reading or not. Go ahead. Hi. Not having been on the board, I haven't seen the process and lived through the process. It does sound like it's a big responsibility, and... But I think some of the comments that were made does resonate with me, that it could be important that these appeals be reviewed by the board.

121I think that makes sense, although I also appreciate the fact that Drew would be willing to take that on. Bob, do you have any other- I think I agree with the comments that I think at this point I'd like to be more conservative and keep it with the board even though counsel advises otherwise. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And Colleen, any... Or, Drew, did you? Yeah, so I just wanna call your attention to both the policy and the regulation. There are changes that aren't just about the designation of the appeals officer. So any input on the change to Policy 1120 that strikes superintendent shall designate with and leaves board shall appoint data privacy officer, records access and records management officer. Thank you for pointing that out. So it sounds like in general, the board would like

122to leave the board as the FOIL appeals officer. Does anybody have any comment on any of the other proposed changes to the policy? My only question was: The way that we appoint these three positions is similar to the appointments we did earlier in the meeting. Is that how our policies... I don't know, is there a policy for all those that... Because it is you that brings them to us and then we approve them, right? We are not going to you to suggest anybody. So I'm fine with this, I'm just- That's correct, yeah. Yeah, that's correct. I think it's language cleanup. Sounds good. (chuckles) Okay. So then I think we will, in terms of a next read, we'll want to remove that the board designates the superintendent of schools as the FOIL appeals officer and leave

123the board as the FOIL appeals officer, and then change the part about the superintendent will designate with the board. And then we'll come back for another read, is that right? Yeah, we'll come back with a second reading that has the changes according to maintaining the FOIL appeal process with the board, but cleaning up the language otherwise just to make it clear and consistent. Great. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you, everyone, for that discussion. We're about to go into action items, but it's been two hours. And typically we take our wellness break at the two-hour mark, so I'd like to be respectful of that and go ahead and call for a five-minute recess, okay? Okay. Let's go ahead and get started again. We're onto action items, item 12.1, which is Jim. 2023 tax levy. And I

124would like to recommend and propose the board adopt the 2022-2023 tax levy in the amount of $1,697,444, and that we adopt this resolution as presented. And the resolution, well, I guess I'll read it since this is important: Resolved, by the Board of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District, that the voters of the district having approved a budget in the amount of $173,291,393 being available to the board from state aid and other sources of revenue, the Board of Education hereby certifies to the custodian of taxes in the town of Scarsdale and to the receiver of taxes in the town of Mamaroneck that the aggregate amount of $159,697,444 is required to be raised by taxes for school purposes for the school year 2022-2023. Thank you, Jim. Is there a second? Thank you, Susie. Any discussion?

125All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The motion carries, 12.2, Food Service Contract. Jessica. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the one-year emergency contract for food services with Compass Group USA effective July 1st, 2022, as presented in the background materials in BoardDocs. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Jim. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed. Okay. The motion carries. 12.3, plant improvement. That's you also Jessica. I know. I'm on it. Sorry. It's been a morning. So for plant improvement, it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the bids for the district wide replacement of vacuum condensate pumps as presented in the BoardDocs materials. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Thank you. Oh, thanks, Susie. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any

126opposed? Okay, great. Motion carries. And 12.4. Still me. This is on the CSEA custodial memorandum of understanding. The recommendation is that the board approve the memorandum of agreement and adopt the presented resolution that we ratify the terms of the memorandum of agreement and authorize the superintendent of schools and board president to execute an agreement consistent with the terms laid out in the memorandum of agreement and authorize the superintendent to take actions consistent with the terms thereof. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Jim. Any discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Item 13.1, gift proposal to Edgewood. Yes. It is recommended that the board accept, with thanks, a gift of $10,000 for the purchase of cafeteria tables. Can I get a second? Second. Any discussion? I

127actually just had a quick question as I'm trying to understand PTA gifting. My experience has been in the past that a gift like this is not something that the district usually accepts from the PTA. So I'm curious if there are kind of guidelines around PTA gifting, what is considered a core item that the district should be responsible for purchasing and what items can the PTA technically gift the district? Thank you. It's a good question. In digging into this one, it caught my eye too. So in discussing this with Dr. Brown, the principal at Edgewood, what I learned was that there was a desire from the PTA to accelerate the timeline of replacing these cafeteria tables in their lunch spaces. Some of the tables were in disrepair, which I would say is our responsibility, some of

128them are in adequate shape that they wouldn't necessarily need to be replaced this year or next year, but they wanna move ahead with that. So I think while this one is a little bit unusual, where I came down and my thinking on it was that it was something that PTA felt they wanted to move ahead with maybe sooner than the district was ready outside of some of the tables that really weren't in good shape. So this is about $12,000 plus of the district's money plus 10,000 of Edgewood's money, PTA's money, going into this project. I do think, generally, we will and need to be more on clarifying around, "Okay, let's have that conversation before the gift process is underway about where is our responsibility." But I think your instinct to look at this and say,

129"Is that core plus, or is that really core?" you're right. This one is a little bit grayer than we would normally do. I have no problem making sure that the students have the tables they need. I just feel like my experience in the past, when other PTAs have felt that things are necessary to move along, the district has very clearly said absolutely not. So while I'm happy that Edgewood is getting the tables they need, 100%, I don't wanna stand in the way of that. I think that the district needs to maybe be very clear because you're now going to get, I think, other PTA organizations that want to move things along with items that they can fortunately fund if you want. So I just wanted to kind of earmark that as something that we should

130probably have a little bit more guidelines around for future purchases. Thank you. Is there any other discussion on this gift? Okay. I'll call for a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you very much to the Edgewood PTAs. And then item 13.2, gift proposal to Heathcote. Yes. It is recommended that the board accept, with thanks, the gift of $1,500 for the purchase of a buddy bench and plaque for the Heathcote courtyard. Is there a second? Thank you. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you to the fifth grade class at Heathcote for the bench. Next on the agenda is public comments. So I will read the preamble again. Members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel

131related matters during two separate Public Comment periods. When it is your turn to speak, please state your name, address, and if you're speaking on behalf of an organization. For those commenting remotely, please mute the livestream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. And a reminder that we're asking speakers to conclude their remarks by the four-minute mark and they will be given a verbal cue at the three-minute mark. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak? Okay, seeing no one, we'll turn to Zoom. Jerry. We'll give just a couple seconds for the live stream to catch up. Okay. I'll go ahead and close public comment. So item 15.1, wrap-up items, review information and questions. I think there is, on the board officers, to work on the letter to the village. And

132I guess we'll be updating the policy for the second read. I don't know if there's anything else, Drew, that... Okay, great. Ron, would you like to give us the meeting dates? So you want me to start with what we have so far? Why don't you start and then we'll talk, yeah. Okay. So as of now, what we have scheduled for the coming months is: Monday, September 12th, 2022: a special meeting and/or executive session, if needed, 5:30 PM, High School, Room, 170-172; and then a business meeting, 6:30 PM, in the same place. Monday, October 3rd, 2022: meeting with the designated group, the Scarsdale Teachers Association, at 5:00 PM in the High School Learnings Commons; and then following that, a business meeting at 6:30 PM in the High School, Room 170-172. On Monday, October 24th, 2022: Meeting

133with a designated group, the Village Board of Trustees, 5:00 PM, at the High School Learning Commons; following that, an education report and business meeting at 6:30 PM at the High School in Room 170-172. And I'll pass back to Amber for maybe more meetings. Thank you. Yes. So as we heard earlier today, our consultants from HYA would like to get started as soon as possible with a planning meeting with the board. So I'd like to try to get some something on our calendar, ideally for this month, if we can do that. Additionally, we'll need to schedule a board retreat with our attorney and perhaps for team building, so we'll also wanna put forth those dates. And I discussed with Drew about having a business meeting. Drew, if you... Yeah, just we expect additional hires and contracts

134for services for the coming year that really should be acted on, if possible, in August, instead of waiting until the September- (static drowns our Drew) Great. So there's a possibility of adding three more members for the entire board over the next couple months. And just high level, if you guys could share sort of your availability and then we'll ask Honore to go back and create some Doodle polls. But are most of you around for the month of July, parts of July? July or early August is best for me. I agree with Ron. I'm just away next week and then I'm around. Great. (speaker speaking faintly) Okay. And as Ron mentioned, we do have the option, I believe, for... Well, I'm not sure if we still will in August. Will we have Zoom still in August

135or does that expire July 14th? The part that doesn't expire is if we have a quorum in person, you can have up to three participate remotely. Didn't we need to create a policy for that, though? I thought Dan said that we need to have a policy to allow board members to participate. Don't we have that policy? We do need a policy for that. We do not have that policy. Public can participate remotely. Right now board members were under the emergency. So just something to keep in mind that we would have to do that at a board meeting to create that policy, if that's something that we want as an option, if it's required. So Honore, if you could put- Can I add just sort of one thing? Maybe we could ask Dan this. 'Cause I

136know in my first year I had to participate for a part of a meeting. If you announce. I think you can't take an action. I think the issue was I couldn't participate in the business meeting because over the phone I couldn't be part of votes. But if it's something that we are not taking action on, I think we can call in. Okay. That's great. So we'll double check that with Dan. But just something to keep in mind, that we do have the option of participating, hopefully, remotely for some of these. So we'll follow up with Honore to ask her to schedule some of those meetings. Drew, did you have- I just wanted to share one thing looking ahead to our October meeting with the Scarsdale Teachers Association. I neglected to say this in my opening

137comments. But I just wanna welcome and thank Joe Vaughan. Joe Vaughan is now serving as the president of the STA with David Wixted's retirement. So welcome, Joe, and we look forward to many evenings with you here in this room. Thanks for pointing that out, Drew. Okay. So is there anything else on the meetings? Nope. Okay. Can I get a... Well, I wanna thank everyone, actually, for being here today: the administrators, staff, and teachers, also especially for their hard work over the last year. Welcome to Jeannie, we look forward to working with you. And I wanna say goodbye to Jerry and Rachel because they may not be here after August; I think their retirement is effective soon, so congratulations. Wish for everyone to have a restful, restorative and joyous summer, and extend the same wish to

138our students and teachers and parents. Could I get a motion to adjourn, please? Motion to adjourn. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Have a good day. Have a nice holiday weekend. Thank you.