001(lighthearted music) Hello, I call this meeting of the audit committee to order. Good evening to everybody who's here in the audience and joining us via Zoom. I'm going to do a quick roll call. I wish to note that all members of the audit committee are here except for Jim Dugan and Jessica Resnick-Ault will be joining us shortly. Jim is not able to make it this evening. Can I have a motion to appoint Amber secretary pro tem? [Committee Member] So moved. Second? Second. Okay. All in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, the motion passes. Just a quick review, the board has called for an audit of the district's payroll tax processes, including a review of internal controls and RFP for a third party internal auditor to conduct this work was sent out and six proposals were received.
002After careful review of each proposal by the audit committee and interviews with two firms, we came to consensus to ask Nawrocki Smith for an engagement letter, which is attached to the agenda. And at this point, I'd like to hear the audit committee's thoughts, if any, on this engagement letter at this time. I think the letter's in line with what we've discussed at previous audit meetings and I'm supportive of it. Okay. Any other comments? I'm positive. Okay. I'm also pleased. Okay. I support the (indistinct). Okay, and I, too, support it. So I do need to make a quick motion to amend the resolution language in item 2.04 to read as follows. It should read, "Be it resolved that the audit committee accept the proposal from Nawrocki Smith LLP as presented and recommend that the board add
003the proposal as a separate action item under 11.07 as part of today's business meeting." Can I have a second on that? Second. Is there any discussion? Okay, so I'll call for the vote, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, and so the motion passes. So the audit committee has accepted the proposal, and we will move it to action item 11.07 for the full board to vote on. So can I have a motion to adjourn our audit committee meeting and move into our business meeting? So moved. A second? Second. Okay, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, motion passes. So again, I want to welcome all of those who are attending live in the audience and watching remotely. Thank you for joining us this evening. Again, I call this business meeting to order and note that
004all board members are in attendance, except for Jim Dugan, who's not able to be here this evening, and Jessica Resnick-Ault will be joining us shortly. We are joined by Dr. Patrick and his administrative cabinet, and I'd like to begin this meeting by extending a warm welcome to Carol Priore, who is joining us. And she will be serving as interim assistant superintendent for human resources and leadership development. And Carol, the board thanks you for serving in this role, and we want you to know how much we look forward to working with you in the coming month and throughout the 2022, 2023 school year. Thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here. Great, thank you. I'd also like to take a minute to recognize our two newly elected board members, Suzi Han Pascudi and Colleen Brown,
005and of course, to recognize our reelected fellow board member, Ron Schulhof, who will serve a second three year term. Congratulations to all of you and thank you for stepping up on behalf of our students and schools. Just before this meeting, the audit committee met to review an engagement letter from Nawrocki Smith to conduct an audit of the district's payroll tax process, including a review of internal controls. We did receive six proposals to the RFP we sent out and after interviewing two firms, chose Nawrocki Smith and the audit committee has accepted this letter, and has moved it to the agenda as action item 11.07 for the board. The board also sent out an RFP for search firms to assist the board with the search for a permanent superintendent. The search firm RFP is posted online on
006the Board of Education website under the heading "Superintendent Search." The board has received six proposals, and we are currently in the process of vetting firms. In the coming weeks, we expect to identify the most appropriate search firm to lead this incredibly important work of identifying our next superintendent. And I would like to share at this time a update from our tax council on the IRS matter. I'll begin with an update on the Q3 2020 matter. On June 1st, 2022, we received from the IRS, a letter, 2782C, indicating an adjustment to the district's account in Q3 2020. Even after a thorough review, the contents and reasoning of this letter are not entirely clear. However, we believe that it is in response to the district's Q3 2020 form 843 request for refund and abatement submitted on March
00724th, 2022. If accurate then, per the letter, it appears that the district's Q3 2020 form 843 request has been granted in part and denied in part. We call that the total amount that the district requested to be refunded for Q3 2020 was $147,000... I'm sorry, $147,151.39. The penalty computation enclosed with the letter shows that approximately $46,907 in penalties remains outstanding, which means that approximately $100,244 in penalties has been abated. From our review, it appears that the approximate $46,907 in penalties stems from the August 14th, 2020 deposit made by the district. That is a Q3 2020 deposit that was misapplied by the district to Q2 2020. These penalties seem to have been sustained. However, it appears that the approximate $100,244 in penalties and possibly adjusted interest stems from the payments and over-payments that had been taken
008and misapplied by the IRS, partially resulting in the ultimate Q4 2020 tax shortfall. These penalties seem to have been abated. What this means is that, substantially, $100,244 will be refunded to the district and per a conversation with an IRS representative, appears to be in process. The district will be responsible for the sustained $46,907 in penalties. Recall, however, that Q3 2020 is already considered a fully paid module, so the district will not have to make a payment. That said, this letter does not specifically state the above and the letter also contains some noted inconsistencies that may or may not be typographical errors. And we have reached out to the IRS contacts to discuss and confirm, and we are awaiting response. Finally, if the above is true and the district disagrees with the IRS determination on the
009district's Q3 2020 form 843 request, particularly on the amount sustained, the district's recourse is to file a suit in US district court. Now, for an update on the Q1 2020. Recall that the district also submitted form 843 request for Q1 2020. We have not heard anything yet on this request, however, that is not unusual. In terms of Q4 2020 on or about May 24th, 2022, the IRS appeals officer confirmed that an adjustment to the district's account for Q4 2020, representing the penalty abatement and interest adjustment appeared on her system as pending, but has not yet settled. We have reached out to the appeals officer since then to confirm if and when the adjustment settled, but we are awaiting response. In terms of Q2 2021, we reached out to the IRS revenue officer regarding the status
010of the district's request for abatement of the penalties incurred in Q2 2021 for failure to submit a schedule B with the district's form 941, but are awaiting response. In terms of Q3 2021, on May 13th, 2022, we received from the IRS a letter, 2782C, which is an acknowledgement by the IRS that the form 941 schedule B for Q3 2021 has been received by the IRS and that there was no penalty assessed at this time, which is consistent with prior correspondence on this matter. Once the IRS has fully processed the Q3 2021 schedule B, they should let the district know if it is adequate and/or if anything further is required. We will continue to diligently pursue and engage in communications with the IRS on each of these matters, and I would also like to add that
011the board will continue to keep the community informed about the IRS matter as we are able. And I wanted to conclude my opening comment this evening by recognizing my fellow board members at the table for the time they have given and the commitment they've shown this year, especially over the last few months. We have had a lot of work to do. We've had a lot of meetings, and I just wanted to let them all know how much I appreciate their support and the dedication to our work on behalf of our students and our school, so thank you all very much. And so now I will turn the microphone to Drew. Thank you very much, Karen. Thank you for that update. Good evening. I'd like to add my welcome to everybody joining us in person and
012virtually to learn more about the ongoing work of the district. First, I just want to point out that the retirement ceremony originally scheduled for this evening's board meeting will now be held on June 21st at 6:30 PM. At that meeting, the board will have an opportunity to recognize and celebrate this year's retiring teachers and administrators. Additionally, the district will host a retirement and recognition ceremony, a lovely tradition, that'll place tomorrow afternoon to celebrate our retirees and also, to acknowledge employees who've served in the district for 20, 25, 30, 35, and yes, even 40 years. This morning, I had the chance to meet with the incoming PTA presidents as part of the annual transition of leadership. It goes without saying that the contributions made by our PTA and PTC volunteers are extraordinary. I'm excited, personally, to
013continue our ongoing partnership and collaboration as we plan for next year. As we make this transition, though, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Meg Simon and all the executive officers, along with our building PTA leadership teams for all the support and hard work that they've given over the course of this year. Their continued partnership has provided exciting programming for our students and essential support to our parents and the whole of the Scarsdale community. I'd also like to take some time to acknowledge some of the many accomplishments of our students as they continue to impress through performances on the playing field in ensembles and at competitions. Importantly, the concept of the whole child has been a mainstay of the Scarsdale School's vision. Among other things, this means that the out of classroom experiences
014hold critical value to the total school experience of our students and helps to create a sense of membership and belonging in school for our students. On an evening where later, we will spend some time discussing school safety, I want to emphasize that school membership is a strong, protective factor for our community. With that said, here are some of the most recent student achievements. First, in the area of visual and performing arts, many of our band orchestra and chorus performers have had the chance to show off their talents at concerts since our last board meeting and several continue this week. In many cases, these musical performances have been coupled with extraordinary displays of student artwork, creating a multi-sensory experience for our students and parents. And of course, the senior class play took place this weekend to
015rave reviews. In athletics, our athletics teams are closing out the year with great success and it is not over. The post-season continues this week for some. Among the achievements of our athletes include three state qualifiers in boys' tennis, including a fourth place finish statewide, a girls' golf section 1 individual champion and three state qualifiers, and that competition concluded today. We also had a boys' golf state qualifier, also concluding today. We had a track and field state qualifier in the girls' triple jump. And finally, our boys' lacrosse team not only won the section, but won the class A regional championship this weekend, beating Shenandoah. And they'll compete in the state final four on Wednesday in Albany. In other student activities, as many in the community know, Civ Ed is a ninth grade community experience with a
016variety of goals, like stepping out of our comfort zone, becoming connected to people we would not typically find in our social circle, developing better listening skills, making sure all of our voices are heard and respected, and having fun, of course. This year's Civ Ed group organized a car wash for charity recently and raised over $1,900 for the PolyStrong Foundation. The debate team has been very busy and finished the year strong, the high school debate team. Thirty-four students earned the chance to compete virtually at the New York state tournament. Achievements were plentiful, including a state championship in both varsity oral interpretation of literature and program oral interpretation, a state champion, a semi-finalist, and a fifth place showing in junior varsity extemporaneous speaking, a runner up, a fourth place, and three quarter finalists in varsity extemporaneous speaking,
017a third place in junior varsity oral interpretation of literature. Then on Memorial day weekend, the team participated in National Catholic Forensic Leagues national tournament; their first in person event since March 2020. The team performed historically well with every single competing team member advancing to elimination rounds, placing fifth out of over 150 schools. We had an octa-finalist in varsity extemporaneous speaking, varsity quarter finalist in varsity extemporaneous speaking, semifinalist in varsity oral interpretation of literature, and a fifth place finish in varsity extemporaneous speaking. The high school computer science team won third place at the Sienna College Computer Programming Contest where 24 students on six teams from SHS competed in the competition. At Greenacres, the fifth grade art club students helped to complete the school-wide mural of Frida Kahlo. The mural was complete with flowers and leaves created
018by students throughout the school, along with a quote from Kahlo, "At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can." And students at Edgewood celebrated their year long celebration of identity with an outdoor art show of work from students K through 5, about the aspect of identity they explored with QR code links to videos and documents about their research. So amazing work, just representative of the incredible things our students accomplish, and thanks to our teachers and coaches who play a fundamental role, and our parents who support their students in these great activities. A few more things to point out, June, we are in June now. I don't know how that happened, but here we are. June is Pride Month. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Pride Month is currently
019celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall uprising in Manhattan. The Stonewall uprising was a tipping point for the gay liberation movement in the US. The purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally. And finally, coming up this month, we will celebrate Juneteenth. Juneteenth marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The troops arrival came a full two and a half years after the signing of the emancipation proclamation, and honors the end to slavery in the United States. And it's considered the longest running African American holiday. This year, Juneteenth will be observed with school closing
020on Monday, June 20th. And that's the first time we will have that holiday as a school closing. That's right. Thank you so much, Drew. Thank you for that wonderful update. At this point, do any board members have reports to give? I think Ron, okay. I just have a very quick update. The other week, members of the school administration, Drew and Eric, and myself, had the partnership meeting with Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling youth services project. Just to highlight this meeting, this is a meeting between the school district administration, The Village management, and members of Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling in this important partnership. We meet several times a year to discuss numerous matters of this joint project and that work continues. And we actually have another one scheduled in a couple weeks because a lot of important
021work going on. So just a quick update there, thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, so now we will move to item 4.0, the personnel report, and I think I'm turning back to you? Yes? Okay. Yeah, I'm delighted to put Carol on the spot for her first personnel report. (Karen and committee members laughing) I remember that six years ago. But this is a time in the meeting where, among other things, we do recognize those folks who are gonna be joining our district as new faculty members, and also to point out folks who've decided to leave us through retirement; kind of both ends of the spectrum. Yes, so thank you. So as you can imagine, this time of year is incredibly busy with hiring and preparing for the coming school year. So with that said, we
022have several of our candidates here tonight that will be appointed. And I'd like to introduce them and tell you a little bit about them, and where they'll be teaching. So I'm gonna ask, when I call your name, to the candidate, if you please just stand so we can acknowledge you, and get to know you a bit, and give us a wave. Frank Kandulo. Hi, Frank. So Frank has been recommended for an appointment in the tenure area of social studies and will be with us at Scarsdale High School. Thank you. Next, I'd like to introduce Amanda Gundling. Oh, Amanda is not here this evening, but she is appointed to the tenure area of music and will also be at Scarsdale High School. And I do have to mention that I know Amanda well from Mamaroneck, so
023you'll be so happy to have her, I know. Carolyn Lanfredi. Carolyn will join us as a school psychologist, also assigned to Scarsdale High School. Thank you. Next up, we have Ethan Paul. So Ethan is... Actually, we're gonna welcome him back, because this year he served as a leave replacement at Scarsdale High School in the English department. He is now appointed to a probationary position, so congratulations. Also, did I mention Scarsdale High School? I hope so. And also, Ethan is a former, he's a grad of Scarsdale High School, so we're always happy to have you return to us. Thank you. Next, we have Lauren Pomerantz who, unfortunately, was unable to join us this evening. She is a recommended for an appointment in the area of social work at Scarsdale High School. Carrie Malley. Hi, Carrie. Carrie
024is appointed as a leave replacement English teacher at Scarsdale Middle School. Thank you. Nirav Shah. Nirav is appointed as the lead replacement in mathematics at Scarsdale High School. Thank you. Kathleen Maseroni. Oh, Kathleen did not join us. So Kathleen is appointed as a long-term substitute teacher at Greenacres School. Okay, and that concludes our appointments for this evening, and I know that you join me in welcoming our new candidates. (committee and audience clapping) And we wish you the best of luck. Okay. Thank you so much for that report, Carol. So now we will move to hearing from those present, item five. At this time, members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items and other non-personnel related matters during two separate public comment periods. When it is your turn to speak, please
025state your name, address, and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization. For those commenting remotely, please mute the livestream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. Speakers are asked to conclude their remarks within four minutes and will be given a verbal cue at the three minute mark. If at this point a speaker has additional comments, we ask that they send them to the board in writing via [email protected]. The public comment period is reserved for comments only. The board will not engage in dialogue. The 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. And response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods. So at this time, I invite
026anyone in the audience who would like to come speak to us. Thanks. Hello, I'm Alyssa Baum, President of the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale. And I'm here speaking on behalf of the league board of directors. The league board wishes to thank outgoing Board of Education members, Karen Ceske and Carl Finger, as well as cabinet members, Jerry Crisci and Rachel Mosley for their dedicated service to the Scarsdale School District. Karen, your grace and thoughtful demeanor helped our school community get through continued difficult times. You demonstrate true empathy and gratitude for all and are able to use those qualities to bring people together. When you speak at the board table, your words come after careful thought and listening to others. Your extensive experience as an educator and as a school volunteer was invaluable in considering everyday
027teaching and learning in our schools. We appreciate your dedication and ensuring the environment that fosters academic engagements and lifelong learning. Carl, you are an open and honest board member who did not shy away from difficult topics. You have a direct style, which enables you to engage in discussion, where others can hold differing views while still being able to reach agreement. You have a special ability to break down complicated issues to more easily make decisions. Your keen legal mind was essential in considering many of the issues before the district this year. We appreciate your service in your prior position as village trustee and now school board trustee. Jerry, your vision for instructional technology brought the Scarsdale School District to the forefront of the movement to build 21st century skills in our students. Thank you for ensuring
028that our students and teachers have all the tools necessary to keep up with these continually changing times, especially during the past two years, which challenged us all to up our technology game. Rachel, where am I seeing? Hi there! (committee and audience laughing) Although you may be one of the less visible members of the cabinet, you're arguably the most essential. You have been on call 24/7 and responded immediately, no matter what time of day to keep the school system running. Thank you, especially for your hard work the past two years to make the many technology adjustments needed to accommodate the challenges posed by the pandemic. You all have demonstrated a commitment to maintain and enhance the quality of the Scarsdale school system. You all should be proud of the legacy you leave behind. We are so
029grateful to you to have benefited from your expertise, insights, and wisdom. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Thank you so much, Alyssa. Does anyone else from the audience wish to speak before we turn to our remote participants? Okay, okay. Hi, everybody. Hi, my name is Vincent Franco. I live at 34 Edgewood Road. Father of five and been around participating in many, many things throughout the various sporting events and community events, and always happy to serve. And I wanna say thank you all for your service, as well. I know at least one of you up there quite well. So I'm up here on behalf of the Scarsdale students that are not just students, but student athletes, as well. This year, many of the students had to choose between prom, and sports, and
030a sporting event. And it just was so unfair, and I saw a lot of turmoil, and because we're involved with a lot of the different sports and a lot of people and we're on Maroon and White and on the executive board, we get the privilege of hearing a lot of the complaints from a lot of the parents. We actually went to... Like I was just at the one of the sectional games, and we take a lot of... People talk, right? And I think, well, we can send the guy to the moon in 1969. I'm old enough, I saw that whole thing, right, on TV. And that takes a whole great amount of scheduling and coordination, but we seemingly cannot get a prom and the sporting events not to coincide, which doesn't make sense. I had
031since spoken to 19 people. I was trying to get a little bit more, but I spoke to 19 people in different townships, municipalities, Connecticut, Jersey, Virginia. I mean, I can keep going on. And nobody has ever had any of this kind of conflict, so it kind of seems from, at least a perspective of myself and a bunch of unspoken majority, that it's just not that important, the athletics, you know? I mean the seniors, they don't have finals. They don't have regents, right? And there was a letter from Principal Bonamo today saying something about, "Well, we don't wanna not have the ability to have juniors go to the prom, as well." And although it was a great letter, and I happen to actually like and respect Ken quite a bit, the reality of it is it's
032a senior prom, right? And I had children and friends have children that really had to suffer and make the distinguishing, "Well, should I go to the prom or should I go to a sporting event?" So I just think it's not fair, and I think we have to be able to do a better job than that. And I know athletics is not as important. It doesn't seem to me as important, but I think it's the whole totality of the experience. And having kids having to choose whether they go to a prom or a sporting event that they've actually made it to the finals or sectional finals, I think it's just not fair, not at all. And we're always worried about the children's mental health, right? So we hear a lot about that. Well, due to COVID,
033I'm worried about children's mental health, but I don't really know how much that really matters when you have situation like this. And it's so easy to figure it out how to (alarm ringing) not have the conflict between both. Thank you very much, Vincent. Appreciate it. Hi, I'm Debbie Franco, 34 Edgewood Rd. So this was a signature petition that we sent out. We have over 450 signatures from parents. That's a whole class asking you guys to please change the prom, please change it for the seniors. So I didn't print it out because it's almost eight pages, so I was trying to be environmentally safe. But I'll just pass this around, and there are comments. So that's a lot of parents asking for help here. That's a lot of kids that are asking for help. So I'll
034start it here. You guys can keep it, and thank you. We can do better. Don't make the seniors make that choice anymore. It was devastating, and we can do better. We can work together and make this work with the administration, with you guys, with parents, we can make this happen so nobody has to feel this way again. Thank you very much, Debbie. Hi, good evening, Rose Hoey, 16 Sprague Rd. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a senior daughter who is a captain on the lacrosse team. To bring more awareness to you is why I come out this evening. It was difficult, you know? The kids have had a rough couple of years, as we know. I'm a long time educator, 32 years as a school psychologist myself. So we know what's going on with
035children and we're finding out this year the kind of impact and the kind of stressors that have been going on over the last two years that we just pushed through, and we push through. I just wanna raise awareness. It's hindsight, at this point. I do wanna mention that I did reach out to Ray, and I know that his heart was into moving the game for our girls. It was a 4:30 game that we said, "Let's go at 7:00 AM, we'll do it." The girls wanted to do whatever they could do to be able to do both, because letting down their team, some of them, my daughter being on the team for four years, her last season was very difficult. It's not just the eight girls who went to prom, it's the team. That's the whole
036point of being involved in sports is to learn leadership, and to learn how to be part of a group, and to sacrifice something for the better of that whole. And it was a very difficult decision to think about not going to that rite of passage. This is to build awareness. The younger girls were pulled up that day and they fought and lost 11-10, which made it even harder because our season ended, we think, prematurely because the lack of our eight starters who weren't on the field that day. And we have to realize that it's not just a check in the box for all kinds of kids. Sometimes this is their extracurricular activity, and it should be celebrated, and it should be given the kind of importance that it brings well beyond physical education. And we
037should definitely try to do better in the future. Thank you very much, Rose. Good evening, my name is Tara Grecko. I live at 31 Tompkins Rd. I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of my three spring athletes that will be seniors in 2023, '24, and '27. In February, I wrote to you about the conflict with the spring athletic calendar and the senior prom. I once again wrote to the administration when both varsity lacrosse teams advanced to playoffs. My daughter's lacrosse team had eight girls that had to choose between playing in a quarter final game and the senior prom. This situation caused a tremendous amount of undue stress and anxiety for the girls, their dates, their teammates, and all of the families involved. Unfortunately, their team lost by one and did not advance to the semi-finals.
038I think most of us still wonder if circumstances were different, would they have advanced? My son's team had six players attending prom, and they had to play the next day. These boys were probably a bit more tired than necessary. The boys pulled it out, and as you well know, they have continued success and will be playing in Albany again on Wednesday. Softball also had to play a game on prom. Unfortunately, baseball did not make the playoffs, but if they had, they would've had to play a game on prom, as well. Both flag football and boys' tennis teams had their Thursday games moved to Friday. Please do not create conflicts that the students cannot change but have to choose between. Please consider moving the prom dates so that seniors do not have to choose. Thank you
039for your time. Thank you very much, Tara. So if there are no more members of the audience who wish to speak, we will turn to our remote participants. We have one remote participant. (indistinct) Hi, good evening. This is Myra Coykendall Rodriguez at Foxman Rd. I just had a couple of queries I was hoping you might be able to answer later on in the meeting. So I'm not sure that everything was clear earlier when you spoke about the auditor. I wanted to know what's happened with the federal lean against the school district. The New York State Department of State Uniform Commercial Code still has that lean in its website, and I was wondering if having the lean, does it affect you in any way to get contractors for any school updates or does the lean affect
040you providing any kind of educational mental health services or anything else to our students? Secondly, I was curious about the Brock investigation. Is that being led by the Board of Education or is it the district? Who exactly is running the investigation? Are there any conflicts of interest there? Thirdly, on the audit, I read that letter a couple of times. It's a little unclear. I was hoping that you could explain to the community, what exactly is the internal auditor going to do? The letter states that the auditor is going to apply certain procedures. Certain procedures, what does that mean exactly? Procedures to what? Also the letter states that the engagement is going to include, will not include a detailed examination of all transactions and can't be relied on to disclose errors, irregularities, legal acts, including fraud
041or defalcations. But then it also says that it will inform you of any such matters if they come to the auditor's attention. So if you could clarify that, and who's gonna lead that project? Is it you, the Board of Ed, or is it the office of business where the payroll errors actually occurred? Because there, too, would be a question of credibility and of conflicts. Lastly, thank you very much to Karen Ceske and to Mr. Finger, Carl Finger for your volunteerism. It's important to remind everybody, especially maybe new residents, that you do this for free. So thank you for all the time you've spent on behalf of our students in the district. And lastly, Ms. Mosley and Mr. Crisci, you've always answered my questions, that says a lot, so thank you very much. My husband, Bryce,
042who is a technologist and a lot more intimately familiar with the nature of your work, and I are big fans of both of you, and we're gonna miss you. So thank you very much, and goodnight. Thank you very much, Myra. No other participants? Okay. Oh, did we have some students? Do any of you wish to speak? Because we'll reopen the public comment for you, the floor, okay. If you could tell us your names, and your addresses, and if you're... I guess your names. Who you're representing... My name and my address? My name is Chinasa (indistinct). I live at 1201 Post Rd. And I'm here to talk about the situation with the prom and the girls lacrosse playoff games. I wanna preface this by saying that we realize this wasn't an intentional decision and we realize
043that the school tried its best to fix this situation, but it was a strange situation for me because prom wasn't just the celebration of the four years of hard work that I had put in as a senior. It was also the culmination of work that I had done in student government. Because student government is primarily three things. It is fostering service, giving back to our community, it is fostering school spirit, and it is planning these big events like the senior class pray, prom, a hundred days 'til graduation. And I realize that I did it voluntarily, but I did give up a significant amount of time. Instead of watching football games, I was grilling in the back. You know, small things like that, that do make up a senior's experience at Scarsdale High School. And on
044the other hand, I made a promise to the Scarsdale varsity girls lacrosse team that I would be there for them. So I was placed in a very uncomfortable situation that I had to choose between. And ultimately, I did choose to go to prom, but it still... and my teammates will say that they understand my decision, but we lost by one, and that still weighs with me. Because it's not only that, that was my last game. It was that we could have continued, but we didn't have the opportunity to, because we were put in a decision that was out of our control. And I wanna end by saying that Scarsdale puts a very big emphasis on mental health, and I appreciate that effort, but to put a student... Again, this was a silly mistake. It was
045a lack of communication that, you know, could have been avoided, but it wasn't. To put a student in a situation where they have to choose between what is supposed to be one of the best nights of their high school life and supporting a team isn't supporting student mental health at all, so. Hello! My name's Hailey Matusz. My address is 26 Cayuga Rd, and I want to say that, following up on what Chinaso said about senior prom, as an athlete that plays two big team sports, field hockey and lacrosse, I'm a big... I would really do anything for my team, so having sacrificed so much to be an athlete for these two teams, I feel like being put in a position to decide whether to go to my senior prom or to go to a playoff
046game where like, who knows what could have happened? Like we were an underdog team, so who knows what the turnout could have been and what Chinaso said, we only lost by one. So in my brain, I'm always gonna say, "What if I did show up and I was there for my team?" But I was put in a (alarm ringing) awkward position to give up another major event in my life or to go to a big playoff game, and I just think it was really unfortunate, and I would never want anyone or one of my teammates, they're like my little sisters, I'm so close with them, I would not want them to go through the same thing. So I just wanna prevent that for anyone else because I know that they had issues with this the
047year before. Thank you. My name's Nina Franco. I live at 34 Edgewood Rd. And I just wanna say I was a player in the game that playoff day, and I just wanna say it was really hard without our four starters, which is really unconvenient, with prom that happened that night. But I just wish, like, we could've had them there because we all had the feeling that we were gonna win, and we all knew we could. So not proceeding onto the next round in playoffs kind of wasn't really the best opportunity that we had, so yeah. (teammates laughing) Thank you very much. Okay. (audience clapping) Lets do follow up to public comment. Do you wanna do any follow up now or we could do it later? Yeah, its fine. (indistinct) Yeah, maybe at the end, we'll
048do the follow up. Sure, I just want to thank everybody who spoke, but the students in particular. Thank you for taking time outta your evening to come out and share, ultimately, it was very personal to you, and I think I speak for everybody in appreciating how personally and candidly you spoke about this. In terms of the date of prom for next year, I do know Maroon and White has not, in addition to the petition has sent a letter to Mr. Bonamo, to the board, to me. And Mr. Bonamo did craft a response. I did meet with he and Ms. O'Gorman today, and we invite conversation with the Maroon and White presidents to kind of talk through what it looks like for next year and going forward into the future, so thank you. I'll echo that.
049We appreciate your coming to speak with us. We appreciate everyone's comments this evening. So now, we'll move to item seven, written communications, and I'll turn it over to Amber. Thanks, Karen. Please note that the Board of Education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk. Open meetings 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 public board meeting. A board member will respond at their earliest convenience. These are emails from May 4th, 2022 through May 26th, 2022. There were 41 emails received by the Board of Education. Twenty-six were on district matters, 15 were on board matters or invitations. With regards to district matters, there were two emails with opinions on opportunities for board
050oversight. There were 21 emails related to curriculum. Sixteen were in regards to the AP, AT, or tri-states report, four were around balance literacy, and one was on foreign language. There were two emails related to COVID policies. There was one email requesting increased mitigation efforts related to COVID and one email expressing concern about the current mitigation efforts that are in place. There was one email reflecting disappointment with the conflicts between senior prom and sports playoffs. With regards to board matters, there were three invitations. There was one question about a voting location for the budget and school board election. There was one email in communication of support of the budget. There was one email about the cutoff distance for district transportation. There was one email requesting details about COVID related purchases. There were two emails related to
051the IRS matter. There were two articles. There was one email on security. There was one email with concerns around a lack of AP class offerings. There was one email with concerns about the district's reading programs, and there was one email inquiring about the distribution of condoms at the high school. Thank you. So now we will turn to item eight, the consent agenda preamble. 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 the Board of Education into a single motion. Items are selected for the consent agenda when the officers of the board and the superintendent believe there is no controversy regarding them. Any member of the board who feels that any of the
052consent agenda items require discussion prior to action may remove that item from the consent agenda. At this time, does anyone wish to remove anything from the consent agenda? So we will then turn to item nine, the consent agenda, and I'll turn it over to Carl in a minute. But first, I believe Dr. Patrick wants to add comment here. I do. We've heard some nice words tonight about our colleagues Rachel and Jerry. But there is an item on the consent agenda tonight that I want to point out, and that is Mr. Mattie has announced that a year from August, he will be retiring from public school service. And I wanted to take a moment just to thank you, explain to those watching that part of our... When I was an assistant superintendent and maybe again, our
053letters of agreement speak to giving 12 months or more notice, and Mr. Mattie has graciously done that for us, so we can have a robust search at a busy time. But I am personally grateful for all of the work that we've done together. You helped me enter this district and make sense of a new place and new responsibilities, and I will forever be grateful to you for that. There'll be time down the road for more accolades, but I just wanted to point that out and express appreciation to you. Okay. Okay, so I move that the following items on the consent agenda be approved. And I'll skip the numbers, and I'll just indicate exactly what they are. Minutes from the business meeting of May 9th. Minutes from the Special Meeting/Executive Session of May 11th. Minutes from
054the Special Meeting of May 17th Special Meeting/Executive Session minutes, May 18th. Special Meeting/Executive Session, May 23rd. Special Meeting/Executive Session, May 26th. Special Meeting/Executive Session, June 1st. Special Meeting/Executive Session, June 3rd. Personnel-Certified, Personnel Non-Certified, the MADSA Contract, which is there, the CSEA Transportation Contract, Preliminary Tuition Rates for '22, '23, Corrective Action Plans- Internal audits, Corrective Ation Plans- External audits, Tax Certiorari Reserve Establishment, Music Equipment & Supplies Bid, Maintenance Bids-Contract Renewals, Maintenance Bid-Middle School Breezeway, Consultant Contract Agreements, Smart Schools Bond, Special Education Contracts- Out of District Student Placements, and a Stipulation of Settlement. Can you make a motion to that? (indistinct) I switched it up and I said, I moved that at the beginning, just to see- Second. There was second. (committee members laughing) (indistinct) Sorry, I guess I missed that. Okay, any discussion? Can I call
055for vote, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, so the motion passes. Now, we will move to item 10, our information and discussion items. And the first one is 10.01, safety, security, and emergency management update, which will be led by Eric, Drew, and Mike, I believe. Thank you very much, Karen. Tonight's update on safety, security, emergency management will start with just a statement that I'd like to make. And then I'm gonna turn it over to Mr. Rauschenbach. I'm grateful to have Mike Spedaliere in the audience, our chief of SSEM, and then Mr. Mattie will fill in as needed, because he's been part of this work. But first I'd like to, I believe it's essential to communicate a few thoughts and messages at the start of this conversation tonight related to school safety and security. Of
056course, in light of the recent decisions by individuals in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas to frankly murder human beings, including children and teachers. Both events in Buffalo and Uvalde were the 197th and 213th mass shootings, respectively, in the United States since January 1st of this year, according to the gun violence archive. The event in Uvalde, Texas was the third worst school shooting by death toll in our country's history, behind only Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. These events are devastating on a dimension that defies comprehension. As you would expect, these events have once again, caused us to reexamine what we do to keep our students and our staff safe. They also cause us to consider what else we could or should do. Of course, we
057have also gotten these questions from members of the community, again, as we should expect. As school district leaders, we believe it's our responsibility to be direct and forthcoming with our community about what we are doing, engage with the community, with respect to and what else we could or should be doing, and identify what might be out of our control. This is an important if difficult conversation for all of us. First, I wanna point out that we've developed deep and sustained partnerships with a variety of organizations: our local police and fire departments, and other first responders, Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling, consultants who've become specialized in the area of school safety, and contractors who help to provide non-education services to our schools. Second, I want to clearly state that we understand what our charge is. There are
058three areas that we are steadfastly focused on. One: preventing school shootings and other potentially deadly events in the Scarsdale schools. Two: implementing systems, protocols, and procedures designed to save as many lives as possible if an event like this does happen. And three: implementing systems, protocols, and procedures designed to foster recovery from such an event, starting with reunification of students with their family members, and continuing through to the ongoing support of all experiencing trauma associated with an event of this magnitude. Tonight, we are going to remind our community of some of the important steps we've taken over the past many years to address fundamental safety concerns. Mr. Eric Rauschenbach and Mr. Stuart Mattie, each of whom has led our efforts in this arena, will discuss some of this work. Also here as I mentioned is Mike's
059Spedaliere, our chief of SSEM, who will share some of his thinking and practice about this work across our schools. Before turning it over to them, I'm gonna share a question that I've been thinking about. That is, what is the correct balance between safety and the student focused Scarsdale school experience we imagine for our children? We understand that there's a continuum of comfort related to what counts as safe for our children in school. Perhaps on one end of this continuum is a school as fortress model, with fences and metal detectors, and a heavy law enforcement presence, keeping the bad out and the students in. On the other end of the continuum, there are some among us who think there's nothing we can do to guard against these types of events, so let school happen. What I
060can say with confidence is that we've attempted to find a place in the middle based on three prongs. Providing student focused programs, experiences, and staffing that create authentic student engagement and a sense of belonging and membership in our schools with mental health and social emotional support services to address individual needs. Two: layered elements that provide physical safety and security at all of our buildings. And three: the thoughtful implementation of policies, practices, and procedures related to safety, security, and emergency management. Finally, we do expect to develop a mechanism for gaining insight from our students, parents, community, faculty, and staff about their views on this issue, and we hope to share more about what those mechanisms might be soon. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Eric to begin with some slides. Thank you, Dr.
061Patrick. And thank you to the board for the opportunity to talk about this, especially in light of the recent tragedies in Buffalo and Uvalde. Usually when we talk about safety, security, and emergency management, we're speaking about a comprehensive approach to safety in schools, including all aspects of emergency preparedness. The recent tragedies in Buffalo and Uvalde understandably refocused that discussion related to SSEM to the prevention and response to mass violence. This focus on our practice is appropriate, and as a district, we review our practices whenever there is an incident in the news or in the immediate area of any kind related to school safety. This can include anything from fires, evacuations, bus accidents, or mechanical issues raising facility safety issues. However, today we'll be talking about some of the common themes around school violence perpetrators, effective
062ways to prevent incidents, our practice for assessing threats, and our response to emergencies. Additionally, we will take a look at the work we've completed since 2016 in safety, security, and emergency management, and how it has adjusted our practice and enhanced our abilities to provide a safe and secure set of schools. Finally, we'll take to look at two areas, well, that we feel provide opportunities for improved practices in light of our recent tragedies. Next slide, Jerry. Thank you. It goes without saying that school violence is the worst nightmare for parents and for education professionals alike. (indistinct) Don't worry about it. [Committee Member] That's okay. Don't worry about it. This happens in my living room. Which remote does it? Okay, I'll keep going. Like I said, it goes without saying that school violence is the worst nightmare
063for parents and educational professionals. Each time there is a school shooting, government agencies, schools, and parents alike look to see what they can learn to reduce the chances of this happening in the future. While there are many, many specifics to learn from each of these incidents, three main takeaways are consistent. With regards to perpetrators, there is no profile. Most have similar characteristics and experiences. They often feel rejected, inadequate, and disconnected from their communities. They often have difficult home lives and a lack of trusted, supportive adults. Commonly, they have diagnosed or diagnosable mental health challenges that are un- or undertreated. Often, they discuss or imply their intentions prior to the act. And they usually have an interest in and easy access to weapons. While this may sound, in fact, like a profile, we have to keep
064in mind that many students can feel rejected or inadequate or disconnected during their adolescence. Mental health challenges affect almost 25% of individuals in the United States, and many kids experience difficult home lives at some point in their maturation. So believing that any student with this specific set of experiences or a traumatic event is likely to commit violence only serves to increase the stigma around mental health and the reticence to ask for help. The focus must be on making sure all students have access to trusted adults, an inclusive environment, and mental health support, while at the same time monitoring and assessing students who could be showing signs of resorting to violence or self harm. What we also know is, secondly, school shootings happen quickly. The average school shooting lasts less than 12 minutes and most are
065under five. The most effective way to mitigate tragedy is to quickly and effectively announce and execute a school lockdown. Announcements in the execution of a lockdown is not as simple as making the procedures. It requires regular practice and evaluations, so students, teachers, and administrators can fulfill their roles under stress and from muscle memory. These characteristics make quick and effective emergency response from local authorities essential. This type of response also requires regular communication and practice with our community partners. It also is imperative that local responders have an intimate knowledge of our buildings and the procedures that we use and know how theirs match up to ours. Next slide, Jerry. We're gonna talk a little bit about both prevention and then response. Quite frankly, the best way to prevent school violence is to intervene with an individual
066before that individual even contemplates committing an act of violence. We have and will continue to look to build school programs that focus on social, emotional health, community building, including teams, clubs, and organizations that are open to all students, and assuring that students have at least one trusted adult in our buildings. Social-emotional learning themes are built into our curriculum, especially at the elementary level. The middle school Keystone Program and high school Civ Ed, and freshman seminar programs are just a couple of examples. This work builds a protective factor in our school community. Post pandemic, these types of programs have become more and more important, and we are continuing to look at ways to spiral social-emotional learning into our curriculum at all levels. In additions to programs geared to provide skills to all students, it's imperative that
067students have access to mental health support when they're experiencing situations that may lead to some of the feelings mentioned at the outset. As many of you know, this year's budget goes a long way into increasing that mental health support within our schools. In addition to creating a climate of community and inclusion, schools must also monitor for and assess any concerns related to school violence, self-harm, harassment, and bullying. The assessment of these types of concerns is complex and no two are alike. When student concerns arise with regards to self-harm, our mental health team looks to intervene clinically with assessments and recommendations for immediate and long-term care. Our multidisciplinary threat assessment teams assess reports of threats systematically and develop interventions on both a clinical and enforcement focus. Each of these teams is made up of administrators, psychologists,
068and other counselors, and the Scarsdale police sit on our threat assessment teams every time they meet. Not only is assessing the current situations important, but actively planning what ongoing interventions will look like for students who may be dealing with ongoing issues. Many incidents in the past across schools have shown us that schools or police departments have had initial interactions with future perpetrators, but additional interventions beyond what they did in the first place were not in place, leading to that student continuing to travel down the road of decreasing mental health and a spiral into violence. These first two focuses of prevention would be student facing. Physical deterrence looks at our campuses and our procedures for entrance and exit of the building, monitoring visitors, surveillance, and identification of safety hazards. Schools should inherently be open and inviting
069places. They must be to engender the positive experiences that prevent school violence. However... excuse me. However, we have, in fact, enacted policies that track and monitor our visitors, developed controlled points of entry, installed and expanded our camera systems, and increased safety monitors throughout our buildings. These practices play an important role in reducing the vulnerability of our students in the case of emergency while trying to strike a balance between student safety, life, and experience in our buildings. Moving, in addition to trying to prevent incidents, we have worked to ensure that we are ready to respond in the case of an emergency through the development of building emergency response teams and a district emergency response team. These building teams focus on ability to enact a response in the face of an emergency. They plan and develop practices
070with the specifics of their particular building in mind, they train and drill students and staff, and they provide input on the systems we use to enhance safety. These teams also play the command and control roles in the event of an emergency in the building. The district emergency response team mirrors the BERT teams on a district level and adds the responsibility of directing policy with regards to SSEM, while also acting as an overall command and control for the district when there is an incident. Each BERT team has developed specific procedures for each of the simple six scenarios, which we use to prepare for an emergency, which take into account the unique features of each building. They, along with the DERT team, coordinate and share information with local response agencies to make sure our emergency response plans
071fit the procedures of first responders. And the DERT team has developed specific communication procedures with first responders to reduce response time. However, without practice emergency plans are useless. Each year, the BERT teams train with our consultants and provide the full staff with training on the building level emergency response plans. Additionally, they participate in regular tabletop training and analysis of emergency responses to area incidents and direct the required drills in our emergency procedures. Education law 807 requires that New York state public and non-public schools conduct four lockdowns and eight evacuation drills each school year, with at least eight of the required drills being conducted prior to December 31st. These drills are a minimum, and the BERT teams may add additional drills when need be. Further, we regularly have the Scarsdale Police Department and Scarsdale Fire Department
072join us to participate in or evaluate our drills leading to valuable feedback for our teams and experience in our buildings for the first responders. In addition to our planning and training the district building safety teams in collaboration... Excuse me, our district and building safety teams in collaboration with the BERT team and DERT teams, and our consultants from Altaris regularly investigate new technology and systems, which are designed to reduce the chance for human error and makes the response time faster. Some examples include our access control system, visitor management system, video surveillance system, and our pending work on an automated lockdown system. While our district has always had emergency response plans, the start of this work as a comprehensive SSEM plan started in 2016, when Scarsdale partnered with the Altaris group to engage in a comprehensive review
073of our safety, security, and emergency management. This led to a number of recommendations based on the best practices of the time. And in 2018, the relationship expanded to include an onsite chief of safety and security, our friend Mike Spedaliere, who took on the responsibility of the day to day safety and security work while he and the consultant at Altaris continued to help the district stay current with best practices and maintain an ongoing focus on our SSEM practices. In the next few slides, I'll take us through the main pieces of work the district has put into place since 2016, '17. This work closely mirrors the original recommendations from Altaris and takes into account the additional best practices published by the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service in 2018 and 2019, respectively. We've kind of
074taken these in two year chunks, so the first set of years is 2016 and 2017. Next slide, Jerry. So I do know I'm going to read these slides relatively verbatim, but I think it's important that we hear and understand what these projects are. In 2016 and 2017 and '18, Altaris completed a full assessment of all our buildings. They reviewed and revised our fire and evacuation protocols, including rally points, command posts, parent unification, nursing, and triage. They reviewed and revised our lockdown procedures, including identifying the safe areas in all classrooms and large group areas, release protocols, developing exterior rally points, and empowering the support staff while they were supervising students. And they revised and reviewed to an actual practice during that year, a response to bomb threats. Next slide. They also developed training with each building
075emergency response team, the district emergency response team, and the transportation department, including training on the simple six procedures, tabletop scenarios, parent reunification plans, bomb threat response, and lockdown procedures. And they did an initial evaluation of our lockdown drills. They reviewed and began establishing emergency zone maps, and they just reviewed and debriefed any concerns at each of the DERT and BERT meetings that staff and faculty may have had. When we move into 2018, '19, and this was the beginning of the time that Mike came into the district, we did an immediate reassessment of all buildings. We implemented the Raptor Visitor Management System, which all of you are very familiar with. We reviewed and adjusted our visitor management policy our door locking policy, and our employee ID policy, implemented the incident command structure, or ICS, which includes
076training of all the DERT teams, formally identifying command and control roles and responsibilities, and developing redundancy roles in those command structures. This seems like a simple type of training, but this really is... The ICS is a nationally recognized command structure used by all emergency management personnel, including the police, fire, and emergency response department. So it really has helped us create procedures that mesh with Scarsdale fire. This was the year that we started the initial training and development of our threat assessment teams, and we developed and distributed training for building go kits, parent reunification kits, and the simple six flip charts for each room. Next slide, Jerry. We implemented drill evaluations for all buildings with regular observations from the Scarsdale Fire and Police Departments, and we started quarterly interagency meetings between Scarsdale Police Department, Scarsdale Edgemont
077Family Counseling, and the school district. These meetings really focused on being able to look at trends within our community, develop a heartier working relationship and understand if there were individuals who all three community organizations knew of and were concerned about. Additionally, we completed the glass mitigation phase one, which took all of our primary glass areas and provided a film, which would slow down any type of intruder, not bulletproof glass, but these are a film that has been shown to add anywhere from one to three minutes when someone is using a firearm to get through a window into the building. And obviously, that's an important piece of time in any of those situations. Additional safety monitors were added to each building, and the evening hours were extended at SHS & SMS. The completion of our security
078buildings in the elementary school happened in the 2019, or the 2018, '19 school year, and we purchased a new district radio system, which was compatible with all buildings and allowed the district emergency response team to communicate with any building throughout the district at any time. We also installed keypad access to our buildings for the police department to use in the case of an emergency. Next slide, please. The work of 2021, which obviously, in 2021, we were in the heat of COVID, so all things focused on that, although additional safety, security, emergency management work did continue. The threat assessment teams were developed and trained at all schools during the 2021 school year, security cameras were added in the elementary schools, and the middle schools, and 50 cameras were added to the high school system. COVID restart
079planning with regards to SSEM took up an amazing amount of time in the beginning of that school year to figure out how do we adjust these procedures in the face of a public health crisis? Mike and his team developed the procedure manual for safety monitors and established an eight hour training program that was for all of our safety monitors. And we installed interior lock boxes for police department access to help us with lockdown release. We updated our building evacuation plans, we performed walkthroughs of all of our emergency evacuation routes, and that's not from the building, that's from the building to secondary spaces. We updated our building shelter in place plans, and we worked with the Scarsdale Police Department with traffic regulations, especially around Quaker Ridge and Fox Meadow. Threat assessment refresher training was offered for
080the teams that were developed prior to the close in COVID, and our district health and safety team was established that year. Currently in this school year, we have integrated our access control and lockdown panic systems, or started that work, which will be completed this summer. We're currently researching with FirstNet and AT&T cellular repeater services to improve our coverage around campuses. We're researching proposals for digital mapping of our buildings to increase first responder tactical awareness, and we've coordinated with the Scarsdale Police Department for additional lockdown training in Edgewood and Quaker Ridge. This February break active shooter training was held by the Scarsdale Police Department and 14 other police departments from around the county to both familiarize Scarsdale Police Department with our schools, but also train a large swath of police that are responding to the schools
081in Westchester. We are adding video camera access to the Scarsdale Police Department. We have that server, and it's being installed in the next week. We've coordinated with the Scarsdale Fire Department also to reexamine the Greenacres fire exit, given the immense amount of construction that has happened there, and now that they've settled into the building and understanding of what the best exit routes are. And we've recently passed budget funding for additional mental health programming in the middle and high school, which allows increased capacity for outreach to students. And our curriculum focus on social emotional learning, and further alignment of skills and experiences will continue into next year. While that was a long list, I think it's important to recognize that safety, security, and emergency management is ongoing work. In this case of school violence, we need
082to take into account the root causes of a problem and focus considerable energy on raising the protective factors in the community. With that being said, as we have looked, next slide. As we have looked at Uvalde, we're really currently focused on two main points. With any incident, we spend time debriefing and use the information to know if there are improvement opportunities. The first is reporting structures. The first we're looking at is our reporting structures around threats and safety concerns. As a district, the administration and our DASA coordinators have always been the avenue for reporting concerns. We will be more clearly identifying contacts for reporting threats and providing instructions for such on each of the school's websites and the district's homepage. In addition, and at this point, that has been added to the announcement section of
083each homepage. We're currently figuring out a better place for it, but we will be sending out the information that we're talking about today to the community about that. In addition, we're exploring anonymous options for reporting and the 24/7 services that are available for that type of reporting. And over the next couple of weeks, as I said, we'll adjust our website and send the information we're presenting here out to the community. Second area that we're looking at, given the details surrounding the management of doors in Uvalde, we're looking at evaluating our procedures around doors, both our manned entrances, and our exits, and our secondary doors around the campuses. With regards to secondary doors, we are looking at specific technologies to minimize the threat posed from propped or unlocked doors. These types of technologies would alert safety
084monitors to doors that have been opened for more than a programmed amount of time, allowing for more immediate response than is currently provided by our safety monitors' regular checks around the campuses. In addition, we're also reviewing the entrance policies in our building. All of our buildings, with the exception of the high school, have all of their doors locked between arrival and dismissal. This practice requires a buzz in through one of our manned entrances to anyone entering the building. We are looking at those practices and the high school safety team will be looking at balancing the open campus with additional security procedures in the upcoming months. These are the initial areas that we're looking at for next year, in addition to the pending work I spoke about earlier. However, as additional information comes out about Uvalde,
085and the best practices change in light of it, we will continue address the practices as needed, and I welcome the opportunity for discussion and questions. Thanks, Eric. First I have to say thank you so much for that great report. I appreciate that you looped all the way back to 2016 and reviewed all the things that are being done and that we are looking at this constantly. It's much appreciated. So I'll turn to my fellow board members for any questions to begin the conversation. Go ahead, Jessica. Eric, thank you for your attention to this, and also for your attention to the matter throughout the year, right? I've sat in a number of these security briefings that you've led with the various administrators, and I think it's important for the community to understand that this isn't merely
086a reaction to a shooting, but this is an ongoing process that the district and community are engaged in throughout the year. I had a couple of questions that were pretty straightforward. I also understand if you can't answer them because of security. I know that obviously there are fire drills and lockdown drills as required at all the schools. Is there an effort to do it in circumstances that might be unusual, for example, during class change times, during indoor recess, during outdoor recess, during other unexpected circumstances, lunch times, when people might not be in their normal classrooms? Yeah, absolutely. Each of our BERT teams really focuses on trying to throw a few curve balls into the drill process. Usually, the first few drills of the year are done very vanilla, and then as we move on to
087the little bit later drills, they may block off hallways for exits, they may do it during a class change period, do it during a lunch period, all of those scenarios that you outlined are fair game for those drills. So it is a regular practice. Obviously, there's no way to hit every scenario that could possibly be, but they do their best to vary it so that so kids, teachers, and administrators experience what could really happen, and that it could happen at any point. One of the tragedies of Uvalde was the lack of coordination, apparently. I mean, judging from afar, right, which is a hard thing to do, or analyzing from afar. Between the school department and the police department, are our police equipped with things like bulletproof vests that would make them comfortable or as safe
088as possible were they to need to enter an active shooter situation? Yeah, so our administration has been briefed on the preparedness of the SPD. I won't go into detail on what they carry with them. You should know that they're fully equipped to... They are regularly fully equipped to address an incidence of school violence. The standard operating procedure for any type of mass shooting in a school is an immediate entry and neutralization of whatever the danger is in the school. It is not to wait. SPD knows that, SPD is trained that way. They use our schools regularly for that. And you answered my question about creating an anonymous hotline and about the phone improvement. I think I had two last questions. One: I know that a lot of detail and a lot of work goes into
089these plans, and they are very substantial plans for how you would respond to any emergency drill. Do teachers and staff have sort of one pagers, almost pictorial reminders that they can grab so that they don't have to remember all the steps- That's a great question. Of everything. So the answer is yes. So I'll go through how it boils down from large to small. The public facing document, obviously, is an 80 something page document for district emergency response plan. That is almost you could think of it as a high level overview of what the building emergency plans look like. Building emergency plans are in a binder that's about five inches thick and are really meant for the building emergency response teams, not during the start of an emergency, but really in the aftermath in response to
090the emergency. We have trained with what's called the simple six, which are six simple procedures, and each classroom has a simple flip chart of six different procedures, lock down, lockout, shelter in place, evacuation drills that are really condensable to helping kids understand what they need to do. And the job of each classroom teacher is to enact the protocol that is most appropriate for the emergency that's called by the school. So it really boils down to that. Once we move into reunification with parents, or responding after the initial emergency, or the initial danger has passed, that is where there are a number of things where teachers will be looking at the procedures we have in those building emergency response plans about where that unification will happen, how to set up the buildings, and what to do
091in those cases. And my final question, you talked about using film to provide a bulletproof type- Not bulletproof. Not bullet... But a bullet resistant- No, what it actually does, yeah, I think it's important to recognize this. It doesn't actually stop bullets. What it does is hold the window pane together so that it doesn't shatter, allowing someone to walk through it without a significant amount of work. Okay, so I understand that. But we have older school buildings in many of our buildings. Has Altaris had the opportunity to analyze, for example, door locks to make sure that door closures are secure and more challenging to- So we do have older buildings. There are... All of our doors, regardless of the age of the building, have been upgraded to the required push bar locks. Obviously, we regularly look
092at those. There's an enormous amount of, that's outdoor doors. There's an enormous amount of use on those doors, so there's regular maintenance and upkeep. We encourage all of our teachers, facilities folks, and staff to report immediately if they find a door that's broken or not working quite right. All of the internal doors are set so that they can be locked in the event of a lockdown that they... And all teachers, subs in the building receive keys to whatever room they're going to be working in so that they can facilitate those drills. (indistinct) Thanks for that report, Eric. And I actually wanted to talk a little bit about the last point that you made about reevaluation of entry procedures. I was thinking about the open campus at the high school and reflecting back on what Drew
093said originally about having every protection in place versus nothing. And there's a lot of culture in the high school having the open campus. And I wonder how you make decisions about changing procedures there. Do you involve students? How does that work? Well, the high school safety team is part of that process, which involves parent participation and student participation, along with faculty and administrators. So that's where that discussion will begin. Obviously, the DERT team and the district level safety team will have that discussion, as well. And it's exactly like you said, it's a balance. I think there is, from my understanding of our culture here, an attachment to our open campus, and understanding that it provides students with an experience that enhances their freedom, their responsibility, and their ability to enjoy their friends, the campus, and
094the school day, much like a college campus allows kids to move freely about the campus when they show the responsibility of being able to. It's a tough conversation, though. I don't think it's a bifurcated question where it's no open campus or open campus, and we do everything the same we do now. I think there are ways that we can reduce the times of the day where we're making the buildings a little bit less vulnerable, but I don't want to be naive and say that there aren't going to be times of the day where any building is vulnerable. There's arrival, there's dismissal, there's lunch in every building. There are times of day when more students are outside. We cannot reduce that part of our program. Those kids need those experience. Parents need to pick up and
095drop off their kids, and we need to enter them into the building. There's also a balance between entering them into the building quickly and having them all queue up for an ID check on the way in, which will leave kids outside for long periods of time. So in every one of these discussions, depending on the specifics of the building, the age of the kids, it's all a balancing act between how do you maintain safety while making sure kids don't feel like they're entering into an inside out prison. Thank you. And I appreciate you're taking a thoughtful approach to that. I'd like to kind of piggyback on that thought of Amber. One of the takeaways that I had from the community coffees that I attended was a, I would almost say certain nostalgia, to the notion
096of parents flowing in and out of a school with their children, a kind of loss of a sense of community and attachment that seems to be a natural tension of the need for security. And I don't have an answer, but I think part of it, perhaps, could include, sorry, more parent engagement at the elementary school level where I think there needs to be some sort of acknowledgement of the challenge of parents wanting to flow into the school to drop off their kids, say hello to teachers that they know, take a peek at the artwork, and what's going on, and the need to be secure. And I don't know what the answer is, but I think as someone whose children went through Greenacres what seems like generations ago, where there was that open flow within the
097school, I am sympathetic to that sense of loss the parents are mimicking. And I think many people know there's so many alumni of Scarsdale that are now back and parents who say, "You know, my mother always used to drop me off, or my dad used to drop me off." So I think we need to be more open and transparent about some of these trade offs, because I think there is a loss. And I think we don't want our kids to be in the prison, at least, I don't think we do. And it feels like it's stepping closer and closer to that, appropriately, I mean, I totally get it. But I think there is a risk reward, and I think, you know, Andrew mentioned it that what is that balance? I don't think we exactly know.
098It's very easy to over, I won't say overreact, but react significantly after catastrophe like we've just seen. But I think we need to step back and think realistically. Can we manage a little bit of that balance? Hope that we put a little time into that. And I appreciate you bringing that up, Bob. In fact, that was the first item on our administrative council agenda last week, this question of community. It's not just that we've made these changes associated with safety and security, we also shut everyone out for two years with COVID. So it's an amplified effect, I think, that our community feels and frankly, that our teachers and staff feel, as well, that we need to engage with our community, with the faculty and staff, as well, students where appropriate to gauge that. And I
099think we even saw it at many of the events I referred to earlier in the evening where parents were in for concerts and art shows and it was so joyous, and happy, and exuberant, not just because the student work is so great, although that's chiefly why. But because it had been some time since we'd experienced some of those rituals. So I wanna reassure you, and the board, and the community, this is a high priority. It's gonna be sort of the glue of our goals this year is around this question of community and figuring out how do we find that balance of being welcoming, forming partnerships, continuing partnerships that exist, while maintaining the safety element, that is, of course, important and critical. That's the big picture. I don't know if you want to say anything more.
100No, I think I agree completely with that, I think. While as we continue in in person, joyous events of in person schooling can kind of come back online and everybody, I think next year, experiencing a full year of those, whether it's parent teacher night, whether it's orientations being in person, or concerts the like, you know I think that will go a long way in helping. But I can't help but mention it again, that the best way to avoid school violence is to ensure that the least number of people are feeling isolated from the community. Community is the thing that stops people from committing violence and being felt valuable, an included member of that community is the protective factor. Everything else is trying to stop the inevitable except intervening with kids on their feelings of belonging
101or adults, for that matter. I had a question on the communications end. I appreciate all the district has done to increase communication, especially moving to text, texting, the ability to text. I think that was huge when we talk about our open campus, that we were able to now text our high school students who may not be physically in the building, maybe elsewhere, that they're aware of what's going on. I didn't know... I guess middle schoolers never leave the actual middle school campus. I don't know if they are actually connected via text. I don't know. No, okay. Connected via district text, no. Yeah, okay, I didn't know if that was appropriate. I've just raised that. I also really appreciate that part of the budget is to look at the cellular repeater coverage at the high school,
102and I didn't know if that was also something that would be looked at over in the Fox Meadow area. Yeah, we're looking at it at all of our buildings. It's really, I wanna class it as researching, because we have consistently kind of looked for these types of solutions. None of which have kind of panned out to be particularly great when it comes to repeater service. Obviously, technology's increased, we have switched carriers for the district phones that we use so that may provide a little bit, you know, some different options. Okay, did you... Yes, yeah. It's important to remember that... Just for the recording. Thank you. It's always important to remember that within the buildings or the nearby vicinity where we have WiFi or have WiFi calling enabled, it is the same as having cellular service.
103And we are actively, I mean, as soon as the new school year starts, we are actively working on a WiFi expansion project, doing the heat maps we talked about during a budget. So that's all gonna happen so that we can hopefully remedy dead spots in all the buildings. So cellular within the buildings is not really a necessity as long as people have their phones connected. I think I was also referring to parents who are like outside the building, nothing more frustrating than you have no ability to communicate with your child. Right, which the whole neighborhood, currently. So maybe that's something when we talk about coordinating with The Village that we look more into that. It has been, and I'm sure we'll continue. It's on their radar, it's on the agenda, for sure. It's definitely an
104area of cooperation and shared interest in The Village. Okay, thank you very much. Did you wanna go? Yeah, go ahead. The cell service is just such an ongoing thing for everybody and a big complaint to The Village and to us. There's this area, the whole presentation was very helpful and extremely, as Bob points out, complicated. And I do appreciate that there is a very thoughtful approach to the issues, and I think that there have been changes, and they've been gradual over the years at different elementary schools at different times. So one of the tricks has been that each time I noticed we got some school sort of used to the change, then it changed at another school. And that's kind of what we heard at the coffee, too. Like I thought everybody was on the
105same page and turned out, more recently, I can't remember which one of the schools had a change. And so to some extent... And I'm not, by the way, minimizing that it's not helpful. I'm really thinking about the elementary schools now. I think the parents do want... They're sending their kids to this school every day. They don't want it to be a mystery. You know, when you know your teacher, when you know where this classroom is, it gives you a sense of where your kid is. And so that's something that is hard to replicate, unless you're there seeing, you know, what it looks like. But that having been said, I also think that as people are getting used to a slightly different way, that this will, some of the frustration may diminish by itself. So I'm
106hopeful that'll help, combined with you making it a priority to meet people in the middle. So it's been ongoing, and it doesn't seem like it's gonna change, because every time we change, something else changes. But keep working at it. You know, I think it's really important just to highlight two thirds of the middle school parents have been there only through COVID and have probably walked in that building less than three or four times. And every kindergarten and first grade student has only experienced, even most of second grade, haven't experienced the experience, experience the experience, that others have and half of the high school population is the same. So as we move back into a more regular, live event, you know, paradigm that will go a long way into helping people regain their familiarity, and I
107think their feeling of attachment to the schools. It's been necessary, but sad what we've had to do to our (indistinct). Great, thank you all for that very much. So now we'll move to item 10.02, our curriculum update from Drew and Edgar. And ask Dr. McIntosh to share some, what I would characterize as exciting and interesting updates. I would agree. Important and exciting curriculum updates. Each one, I believe, reflects a thought process that is responsive rather than reactive, iterative, rather than predetermined, and holds the needs of our students at the center. I'll discuss Reveal Math, which has been selected as the new math program for the elementary schools rolling out in the 2022, '23 school year. You may recall that Nancy Pavia, our elementary math coordinator, and I described our process and rationale at last year's
108May 24th Board of Education meeting. Reveal was added to the original pilot group of programs after it received excellent reviews from membership of the National Council of Teachers of Math, our external consultant, and closely aligned with our goals for the program. Also briefly review our reading program, specifically how Scarsdale uses an intentional research backed and student-centered approach to reading. There have been conversations about this recently in the news. And I hope to provide some background on how our process has and does reflect highly effective practices and is responsive to new learning in the field without being reactive. Finally, I'll discuss where we are in our advanced topics, tri-state's response, and engagement questions that were raised by the board. (indistinct) that shows some of our pilot teachers on the day we met to compare data collected
109from five programs across dozens of classrooms. This day was a real nail biter. The stakes were high. And when this picture was taken, we had just learned tornadoes maybe on their way. All was well and everyone got home safely. We shifted the final consensus tally to an online platform the next day, allowing me to alert the teachers with a groan worthy email pun titled, "The Big Reveal." Here are some questions that our families may have. The first and probably the most obvious, why are we changing our program from the existing one, Primary Math? So research around best math instruction and materials continue to evolve. And the selection of Reveal Math enables us to further deeper our focus on critical thinking and problem solving, learning forward at the elementary level, 13 years since we've last adopted
110a new math elementary program. And how was Reveal Math chosen? Based programs that we carefully reviewed together with the district math committee, administrative representatives, and our math coordinator, Nancy Pavia. It was chosen from the finalists after being piloted by 41 educators K-5 across all of our elementary schools. Consensus for this program was achieved after receiving high marks through its engaging practice, strong digital components, and alignment within your next generation learning standards in math. So why Reveal Math? Reveal Math is highly rated, research based, grounded in evidence based best practices, and combines the essential elements of concept building, fluency development, application, and problem solving. It allows students to see math as a dynamic set of problem solving strategies instead of an application of memorized algorithmic or computational procedures. This shift creates a more student driven lessons
111that are guided by a carefully crafted line of questioning, allowing students to grapple with ideas while building strong, conceptual understanding. These skills are essential for students to grapple with the complexities of nonstandard problems, design thinking, and the advanced application of mathematical concepts. So how will changing the math program affect my child? So the transition to Reveal Math from Primary Math will not create gaps in understanding and will be greatly supported. As Reveal Math is aligned with next generation math standards, it leaves the content at each grade level intact from Primary Math. And that 2023 rollout will begin with kindergarten through fourth grade, with fifth grade joining the following year. Fifth grade will be adopting a new science program next year, and their focus will be on that rollout. As the year progresses, however, fifth grade
112teachers may be engaging various Reveal tools and methods. Again, this will not impact content coverage or expectations as both Primary Math and Reveal Math are aligned with the math, New York Next Generation Math Standards. And this important question: how are we supporting the transition to Reveal Math? We are supporting this roll out of the program with the addition of a district level math coach, Vivian Robert, a two year assignment; onsite consultancy from both Reveal Math and a familiar expert, Carrie Ortega, and time set aside for summer and fall training, and collaboration with the Scarsdale Teacher Institute. In the fall, the district will hold informational sessions for parents to share the underpinnings of Reveal Math and answer any questions. We look forward to a robust partnership with families in reinforcing this important work. We will also
113be curating video clips and information slides from past, present, and future presentations on the program and process. In fact, the first two links you will find will be from last March 24th, and this one this evening. Also, written communication will be coming from elementary principals that will include all the questions and answers I just reviewed. Next up, I'd like to talk about Scarsdale's balance literacy approach to reading. I wanna start with the definition of a term that has been used in the news of late, balance literacy. This term has come to mean various things to different organizations, political, commercial, and educational. It is important to know that in Scarsdale, balanced literacy means attention to three important areas. First, the foundational skills and knowledge of decoding through phonemic awareness, phonic study, and word study. In Scarsdale,
114it means we use structures that promote student choice, motivation, comprehension, and reading volume. And in Scarsdale, balance means that we understand that some students require specialized instruction. So we assess for and provide for mediation, support, and multisensory practices. So we have shared values in reading instruction that I think are important to point out. We align with the next generation ELA standards, learning standards. These standards include reading foundational skills, print concept, chronological awareness, K-2, and phonics, word recognition, and fluency K-5. Our expectation is that students build upon these foundational skills to move well beyond decoding words and develop critical thinking and research skills, We coordinate essential learning progressions and shared experiences. We have been responsive to the research that clearly demonstrates the benefits of explicit phonics instruction. Every classroom goes beyond the reading units to engage
115students in systematic phonemic awareness, phonics, and word study instruction. We also respond to the body of research that emphasizes that a phonics only decoding method is not the best way to teach readers, but an approach that also attends to comprehension, engagement, and fluency. Through a reading workshop model, students are paired with complex text, make choices, and read voluminously. This structure of instruction allows and promotes differentiation to the needs of learners from those who are striving to those who are thriving. We provide support for diverse learners. A recent tri-states review on the multi-tiered system of supports, MTSS for reading, affirmed the importance of foundational phonics instruction while building structures to support students at all levels of reading. As appropriate, we also have reading supports beyond the classroom through intervention, reading interventionist, speech and language services, learning
116resource center, and as appropriate, ENL, or English as a new language. We provide training and access to high quality tools and resources. We use texts, tools, and materials that include teachers' college reading units of study. These units have provided an assured framework and experiences that attend a comprehension, fluency, text analysis, and exploration of genres. We look forward to future use of teacher college materials including the latest revisions, which include the integration of more phonics and inclusive and diverse texts. As with any transition of materials, we will do it thoughtfully and critically, collecting feedback on the revisions and providing educators the necessary time, resources, and space to integrate the materials into their learning spaces. You may remember several months back, we put sets of decodable text for early readers on for text approval. These resources like
117others are not part of teacher college materials. They were put forth to enrich our classroom libraries and to provide additional explicit practice and applied phonics. At the core of this, of course, are teachers who made countless educational decisions every day in support of their students. We understand that each student is different, and we work to provide the appropriate tools for teachers to enrich their daily instruction. Finally, and this is important, we encourage a love of reading. If you've had the opportunity to see students lost in a great book, on fire with a research project, or furiously searching the library shelves for the next book in this series that they're absolutely obsessed with, you know the value of attention to the love of reading. Some of the most robust research out there correlates reading volume and
118motivation with educational outcomes, not surprisingly beyond even reading. Because there were community questions, we will be attaching a more detailed explanation of our differentiated approach to balanced literacy on our curriculum website, including the points I've made here tonight to provide a clear understanding of how reading instruction works in Scarsdale. And now for the newest on the advanced topics review. I joined principal Ken Bonamo as he facilitated an initial planning meeting on May 23rd with the high school cabinet and administrators to identify priorities and next steps. Summer committee work will involve a broad group of teachers, administrators, and counselors. The focus of this work will be on both a response to this tri-state report and to the questions raised by the Board of Education and community concerning access, student impact, and equivalence. By access, we will
119look at access to courses, programs, and placement. When we discuss the impact, we'll look at the effects on students' academic and social emotional lives. As well, we'll address questions of equivalency of the AT experience versus the AP experience. I think it's important to note and perhaps was not explicitly stated that the entire tri-state's reviewing team was made up of members who have had extensive experience with advanced placement exams, current and past, included the administrative and teacher perspective. We have spoken frankly about any confirmation bias and our dedicated to making recommendations we see as best for our students concerning access, impact, and of course, quality of education. So the board can look forward to two related presentations in the coming year. One on the tri-state report follow up, and two, because access is a recurring and
120important topic of discussion, we will look at the changing landscape of college admissions through the highly knowledgeable perspective of our high school counselors. And now I'm very happy to answer any questions about any of those three topics or anything else. Anyone want... I have a couple questions, but you can go first. No, go ahead. No, go first. You go first. I'm still organizing. (committee members laughing) It was a lot, so I'm looking at my notes, so I'm still... (indistinct) Okay. Thank you for that update. Regarding the elementary math and the reveal program, can you just talk about what is the process next year for you and the teachers to review how the rollout is going, how it's being received by students and teachers? That is a great question. So what's wonderful is that we have
121these great structures that are built in through our partnership with the Scarsdale Teachers Institute. And so the initial training, a lot of the teachers are taking course over the summer that's connected to the program over, you know, (indistinct) we can start off running. Built into the Reveal Math program and one of its strengths is the ongoing assessment that they have on student learning as they go. And there's also a very robust digital component. So as we look forward, we're gonna get that the data that comes back from the assessments that we're giving, but we're also gonna be having ongoing training and check-ins with the teachers. And when we look forward to the rollout of this program, we're doing it in a way that's intentionally not just frontloading everything without there being structures looking forward for
122us to continue these check-ins and these assessments as it goes two years and beyond. Thank you. And just a follow up to that, does rolling not a new program at the elementary school... There's some sort of echo. Echo, yeah. Oh, I hear it, too. (committee members laughing) I'm just powering through it. (Ron laughing) Okay. It's like when you're on the phone and you hear your own voice. Yeah, keep powering. All right, I just... Is it gone now? Is there any impact on the secondary levels? So does this change how you think about middle, eventually high school math or are they more self-contained? Well, you know, that's a really great question. So I have been in contact with the leadership and that leadership at the middle school and have invited, actually Cindy Barrett, to come in
123and participate in the training around the Reveal Math. What is true is that through STIs, there's been a lot of conversation using the work of Joe (indistinct) with a constructive as to who knows the value of questioning and this method of teaching math that gets good to a deeper understanding. So there are teachers who are interested in this work, but we definitely make sure that as these students are rolling up with these additional skills and dispositions and abilities that we're being responsive in our introduction, as well. So, you know, it doesn't exist in the vacuum, but it is gonna take ongoing (indistinct). So I was really excited to hear that you're gonna study the changing landscape of college admissions, because I think that's been a popular topic for high school parents, and how COVID has
124sort of changed things with test taking. But I was wondering, are you tying that into the AP/AT you know, advanced topics, or are you doing that independently? Have you thought about how that study will be framed? We've thought that it's gonna be two different presentations, but the reason I mentioned it is just to put it on your radar, that this is something that's important that's on our mind and something that's on the mind of the counselors and the high school administration. But it also has to do with that idea of access, which came through in conversations that we've had about AT, and that AP, how it might provide certain access or advantages, that came up as a question. In discussion around that, we thought it was important to just really provide some specifics about what
125it is like in the college admissions process, because there have been some major shifts. So would you envision sort of doing this portion of the study first and then looking at the AT program or do you just see them completely independent from each other? Because I could see how a change in college admissions could potentially impact what we offer. You know what? I'll have to get back to you on that, because when I was discussing it with Warren and Ken, we imagined it would be part of one evening. Okay. That it would be connected. Can I add a few things or... I think the... If you can envision a venn diagram, I think what, I was in the same conversation that Edgar referred to. Kind of imagine a venn diagram where many of the, both
126people, the players upstairs, educators, and the purpose of students challenging themselves to take the most rigorous coursework available in the school, which is, for us, AT right now, overlap, right? So there's that connected space. So it seemed in the moment that it would be very prudent and connected to have a specific conversation about the changing landscape of college admissions, but to connect it back to, ultimately, the idea of the most rigorous coursework available. They seem too connected to not kind of address both things. I wouldn't characterize the college admissions piece as a, like a study that's underway. It's an ongoing effort of the counseling office to monitor that both through their, the data, but also through their regular visits and conversations with admissions people throughout the country. And it is a big topic. It's an
127important one. And it's not just the change in test requirements or not. There are also other structural changes colleges and universities have made around what they value in admissions. Oh, that's great. Thank you. Can I just, I think at least I know this is the case, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Just knowing, you know, the administration, but I think maybe what Amber was getting at, or at least what I'm thinking about based on that series of questions is you've got the counseling department kind of evaluating as you've just described. And then you've got this idea about rigorous coursework and some of the feedback we heard was, and I'm not necessarily advocating that AT is rigorous and AP isn't, or whatever, but the information that your college, that the counselors get about college should also
128impact, you know, I mean, I'm saying something obvious, but it just was, you separated the two. And I think the point is that maybe that the college counselors learn that APs suddenly have an even greater impact that, I'm not saying, just hypothetically, than we're currently thinking about, and maybe the AT/AP waiting should be a little different in terms of how many of this and how many of that. And I don't know the answer to that because some of it I understand is based on rigorous, which doesn't necessarily... And deeper thought into the subject matter, which doesn't necessarily equal what's going on in the AP class. So there could be a tension there that we'll have to figure out, but I think that that was, you know, that there's a lot of different places to get
129information and figure out what the right blend of courses will be going forward. Can I add onto that? I mean, from my perspective, from what I've seen, the impact is tremendous on our students in terms of the promoting deep, critical thinking. I think it prepares them exceptionally well for the college experience. I encourage you to look at the impact when they're in college and to reach out to more graduates to understand what that looks like if you don't have that AP credit, how it affects your study abroad, how it your affects your ability to graduate a semester early, how it affects your ability to sign up for coursework. So for me, it's not even just the college admissions process. It's how is that impacting our students once they get there in a practical sense? I
130don't think, again, I know it's prepar- I can say for sure, but from what I know of the student experience here, they're exceptionally prepared for college. However, they then have to deal with not having the AP credits that their peers have and that can have a real impact. So I encourage you to bring that also into the conversation. Can I go back to the math, the Reveal Math? I just, you know, as we talk about building a better conceptual understanding of math, and I know probably a lot of us here are products of Rote Math. Like I could do math, 'cause you told me how to do it, but I didn't really get it. So I'm thrilled that children have a better conceptual understanding, but how does number facts? How do you mesh those two?
131It sort of goes back to phonics. You know, people are like, well, you still need to be able to decode, right? But you don't want that to be the only thing you're doing. So how does Reveal Math bring in the rote number facts work with the conceptual? I think that's actually a... It's a great comparison when you talk about, you know, the foundational work and the phonics. How it might be a little bit different is that phonemic awareness and phonics are kind of growing alongside students' interest and love of reading, and making meaning, and critical thinking. I also feel like, you know, there is always a place for there to be fluency and an automatic recall of say that, you know, the times table. It's not... But it is also important that before memorization happens,
132there's actually a conceptual understanding of what number is and what number means. So that, you know, we can learn shortcuts once we understand what place value is. So it's about making sure that you have that depth of understanding of how numbers work, how fractions work authentically, before learning the tricks of flip the numerator and the denominator and multiply it, without understanding necessarily what that means. But you know, six times six, 36, you know, you've gotta have that kind of recall. So like any reading instruction, you've got to be doing the, you know, the foundational work and the memorization of certain sight words and that kind of thing, along with the deep critical thinking. And they work hand in hand. Does that answer your question? Yeah, no, it does. I understand. And I have one more
133question too on reading, you know, balance literacy. What is the role of oral reading in terms of understanding a child's phonemic, is that, I hear you saying it, awareness, you know, that a lot of times, kids may fill in gaps when they're reading silently. They'll get to the end of a sentence, and they'll go back and fill in, because it didn't quite make sense. But if they're reading orally and they can't decode or they don't know what the word is, you know, I just didn't know how, where does that fit in the balanced literacy? That's something that we do here that we check that reading out loud, oral reading fluency. Yes, that's part of fluency and that's part of, actually, that's built in the assessment is that there's oral reading allowed that the teacher takes
134note of and looks for things like substitutions or when- Oh, okay. you know, they're reading things that don't don't make sense or they're substituting things that make sense, but are actually not what are written. Okay, and I just have one final comment. I love, oh, sorry, you wanna? Yeah. I just have a quick thing to say about oral reading. I think it's important to understand that oral reading in and of itself is the skill is not the outcome we're looking for. It is the way a teacher, though, can assess where the mistakes are in the phonetic base, how well a student can do that. It is often an underrepresentation of how well they read silently because they're not trying to do both the verbalization and the decoding at the same time. So it's less that
135we're trying to make perfect, fluent out loud readers and more that we're using it as a way to understand where the missed cues are and how to address them. That's what I was trying to ask, so thank you. And then one last thing, and I know you probably can't answer it now, but I love that you instill a love of reading, instill a love of reading. And I just want to, how do we keep doing that up and through the grades? Because I know come middle school and come high school that time's not on your side or your phone's now in your hand. And you know, I just, we don't have to discuss that now, but I know it's- I would love to discuss it right now. Well, I know, it's... Oh, sorry. It's no,
136I know. I'm just saying, I just love that you're- It's another presentation 'cause we actually have a... Kate Roberts, who's a professional developer, wrote a wonderful book called, "The Novel Approach," is working with a group of middle school teachers tomorrow morning. I'm gonna drop in on it. And it's about using those core texts and doing close reading, but at the same time, building opportunities for choice. And that actually, the research tells us that's the secret sauce to getting our kids to continue to read and read with volume. And that's great, and that's where we appreciate that you've worked so hard on the libraries and offering more choice, so thank you so much for that. Can I- Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I just wanted to say, as I seem to be doing lately, the
137opposite of what I said a minute ago, which is we have the counselors determining, you know, maybe certain things are gonna help for college, to getting into college and APs, ATS, et cetera. And then I was thinking, but on the other hand, I think the bigger... There has to be discussion around where's that fall on the priorities, right? Even though maybe if there was a few more APs, it might help a little bit here and there, getting into college, or 5%, whatever that number is; maybe that's actually not the focus because we're doing well getting into college overall. And the focus is more on the deeper thinking and all that, which we think helps, but maybe we can't quantify as much. So, and again, I said it last time, but sort of what Karen was
138saying, the opposite side of, you know, there are these other impacts of AP, but is that where the board, is that where the administrator, is that where the district should be focused? Is that a priority, you know? I'm not saying it's not, I just think that there's a lot to prioritize in all of this, and it's not clear to me what they are, and what the impacts are on curriculum. And I think that you're starting the discussions, it sounds like, around this, but I think it's a lot more even than what we're discussing here, you know, a lot more investigation, a lot more understanding in terms of what the priorities are and then how that fits into the curriculum. Great, thank you. So, oh, you're done. Okay, so go ahead. I have three questions and
139I'm gonna keep them short 'cause I realize we're getting late. One, I guess there's been some feedback from community members that they weren't able to hear you. Will it be possible for us to get maybe a recording of this separately? Not tonight, you don't have to redo the presentation, but where we could put it so that the community could access it and be able to hear you and this really valuable information that you've shared with us later. I have no, you know, I acted in college and so I don't mind putting myself on tape. I think that might be a good idea for the better of our community. You know what I also wanna say is that the points that I covered are all the points around literacy are gonna be connected to the balance
140literacy page on the website. And everything that I talked about in math is going to be put in the communication that's gonna go out to the elementary families. Great, so my specific questions content wise are, look, you said it, you know, our teachers are incredible and are being asked to do the impossible in terms of teaching a bunch of students in any given classroom who have, really everyone, regardless of ability has a slightly different approach to reading, and to what interests them, and how to engage them, and styles. I know we offer STI courses and different approaches to teaching reading, and we have a curriculum. Has there been any effort made at this point to take some of the things that we're teaching in STI courses and incorporate them more fully into the official curriculum
141like Reggio Emilia learning, or I think it's Wilson or Winslow reading, Wilson reading, or Orton-Gillingham methods that are done at some schools. I know there are certain elementary school teachers whose work I have observed, who have had great success with Reggio Emilia. Is that something that we would like to spread through the schools, and is there a way to do that effectively? Do you wanna take the Wilson and I'll take the Reggio? (indistinct) Through SDI courses, there have been study groups in Reggio and other project based learning opportunities. There's one that's going on right now with many, many teachers that are involved in project based learning. It is something that we value, and we see as something that we encourage. We also know that the model of the Reggio, the model of project based learning
142is very much aligned with the workshop model that we have in literacy, and also very aligned with a constructivist method of understanding mathematical concepts. It is also connected with tinkering and engineering and developing those conceptual understandings. So it is something that is folded into the best practice. It has lots of different names, but there are connections that we see. Are we gonna declare ourselves a Reggio district and have everybody do things exactly that way? That is not something that I would imagine, because there are lots of great practices that have the essential elements of that that are throughout the classrooms. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it does. And then in terms of organizing things like Wilson versus Orton-Gillingham versus the other approaches to reading. So I think it's important to kind of understand what
143the umbrella... So Orton-Gillingham is both a trademarked program, but a umbrella for names of programs, like Wilson, PAF, SPIRE reading, that are based on the Orton-Gillingham research, which is a multimodal form of teaching phonics. So using all different modalities to teach phonics, it works astoundingly well for students often with dyslexia and different types of learning disabilities. So many of our classes are using one of two programs currently as their word study program, which is foundations and TC phonics, both of which have a lot of, as similar to Reggio, have a lot of the same types of interactions there and kind of more balanced approach. Most students... There's two sets of research out there that, you know, we should use an Orton-Gillingham program for everyone regarding phonics. We don't take that tack as many students learn
144in a more varied way, very well and move forward. And often students who don't need that approach can become kind of bored and a little bit set back in those approaches. We have Wilson in all of our schools and teachers who are certified in Wilson, especially within our ICT program and our LRCs. Students can receive the Wilson training, not the Wilson training, the Wilson program. (Eric laughing) And they can also receive PAF from some of our teachers who are certified in PAF, which is another version of an Orton-Gillingham program. We don't happen to use the trademarked Orton-Gillingham program in the district, but the two we use are PAF and Wilson. And on AT, I think this one is back to Edgar. Sorry. I think that Carl made a great point, which is that it feels
145like this requires more investigation and understanding. I'm very aligned with Karen in terms of the idea that having AP credits can open unusual doors to students who have them in college in terms of creating opportunities. For example, for science students to study abroad and avenues like that. I think it's really important as we engage in this investigation, that we not only think about Scarsdale's programs and our own excellent high school counselors, but we look at other high schools, other peer districts, other districts, where perhaps they do have APs and aren't insular in our approach. I think it's really, really important that we're open to considering how the path of a Scarsdale graduate might differ from the path of a nearby school or a distant school that has a full AP curriculum. And, you know, for
146students who are graduating from high school with nine or 10 or more AP credits, their college life can look substantially different from ours. And I don't know that it's a less deep thinking curriculum, necessarily, particularly given the fact that AP now offers a much more open seminars class that is more similar to our AT approach. So you could have a humanities seminar that was an AP humanities seminar that would get an AP score. I would really urge you as you engage in that investigation to make sure it's a wide ranging one. And that it considers a lot of different points of view and not just the one from our own counselors. I'd like to just, this is sort of a general comment, but in terms of, particularly I'm thinking about the math curriculum. What I
147think would be helpful is to understand a little bit better about the intersection of the math program and technology. And the reason I ask that is, you know, my background is architecture, and I learn things very manually, and now everything's computerized, literally everything. And I think, you know, a lot can be done on a computer. You know, you could argue why learn your multiplication tables when you can take a $2 calculator and go, you know, three times three? Well, I think you, of course you wanna learn. You need to know the basics, should not always gonna have that technology, but I'd like to understand. Because I know some, there are parents that are concerned about the interface between technology and curriculum, that kids are spending a lot of time on using computers, that a lot
148can be done on a computer without understanding necessarily even what you're doing. So I think to me, it even reinforces more the new program because you don't need it. Some of the manual stuff can be done automatically, but if you don't understand why it's working, you can't really use it to grow and become a creative human problem solver. So I think, I myself feel a gap between understanding how math today is taught with the use of a computer and for the parent that is afraid that the child is spending too much time focused on the computer and the mechanics of it versus the real methodology or concepts behind it, so that you really know what you're doing, and you're not just, you know, moving your fingers over the- So I can assure you just because
149we're about to put in some orders, and we'll be putting in lots of orders next year, I'm looking at Stuart right now, manipulatives, the three dimensional work needed for students to develop a conceptual understanding is still there. And that was something that was a particular challenge when we were fully remote to the point where we were sending baggies of manipulatives back. And that is something that is true, that that is something that is not going to go away. In fact, it is something that enhances, it's something that's necessary for a constructivist program. And some of the work that's done on the computer has to do with automaticity and fluency. And some of those things that we were talking about before about just having those kind of quick facts, so it can be very effective that
150way. And they have developed programs that get more to conceptual understanding and the computer asking more and more challenging, conceptual questions. But I see it as a relationship that's not either or, but a thoughtful combination of both. Well, you know, I'm glad you talk about manipulatives because from my own background, my wife's a teacher, she taught fifth grade. And even today when she's tutoring, so when she uses manipulatives and I'm like, "Why do you have those manipulatives in this day and age?" She said, "Well, you still need to understand what you're doing, right?" So I think it's good to share that because I think a lot of parents don't understand that some of those tools are still valid, right? That yes, even though we have technology, some of those simple ability to take something three
151dimensionally and understand it, does help. So that's good to know. And I think part of having training sessions with parents to talk to them about it and how we're using the different materials is gonna be very important. Because part of it is to allow students to explore and struggle a little bit, and to not jump immediately to the solution, and actually talk more about the process. So are we, I wanted to... Clearly your presentations, since we've... We have a lot of questions, so we appreciate both you and the SSEM presentation really inspire... And, you know, the board had a lot of response to them. So I thank you for bringing that to us and for listening to all of our questions and answering them, so much appreciated. We've been sitting a while, so I suggest
152we take a five minute wellness break and then come back and finish up the meeting. Thank you. Sure, okay, so we will resume with item 10.03, our DEI update. Thank you, Karen. So just to check in on what we've done so far to work towards fulfilling the board policy 0105 on diversity, equity, and inclusion in education. As a review this year, we had initial teacher training on diversity with Derrick Gay and collected teacher feedback. We've had more in-depth leadership training and workshops with Derrick Gay, the Board of Education, administrators, and cabinet. We've begun the enrichment of resources to reflect diverse experiences and multiple perspectives through classroom and school libraries and common mentor texts at the elementary and shared text at the secondary level. There's been internal turnkey training and planning in the area of identity.
153And teachers have chosen Scarsdale Teacher Institute courses and stack opportunities with DEI themes. Coming up, we will continue our work with Dr. Gay in the new year, starting with a summer day long meeting, Drew and I will be having with administrative representation. The goal of this meeting is to outline the work for the year ahead, which will include structures of educator training and support, a review and deep reflection of the metrics determined and shared with the broader community through our website and Board of Education discussions, and discuss the meaningful engagement of families in support of the Board of Education policy goals. Meaning, how do we best provide guidance to teachers and families for classroom sharing of cultures and traditions? How do we best include authentic parent voice in district wide DEI committees? And strategies for
154effective communication including the coordination of Dr. Gay's work with the PTC and the wider Scarsdale community. We also look forward to discussing the pathway towards curriculum adaptations in the area of social studies that continue to promote critical thinking, developmentally appropriate content, and historical accuracy. We look forward to this important work ahead. Thank you so much. Any questions for Edgar? I just, one observation, you know, when we had this safety security update, and one of the things Eric was mentioning, which I couldn't help looking forward to this was that avoiding some of these problems is to make people feel that they're included in part of the community. And also, so the inclusion portion, and that was also something we talked about in the board retreat. And I think, it's the third word in our diversity, equity,
155and inclusion. So sometimes it kind of gets, I feel for me, it's sometimes it's almost lost at the end there. But I think that it's really important. And I don't know exactly what the mechanism is, but I think one of the things that I was thinking about when Eric was talking, when you were talking is there's sort of this curriculum part, which is a lot of what you were referring to and training and all that. But we have added a lot of mental health support and somewhere in the mix, I'm sure you're thinking about this, as well, but is identifying and finding ways to connect with students who may not feel included in the community, and how to do that. I'd like to think that that's less prevalent here than it is in other places.
156I mean, I like to think that. I'm not naive enough to think that there aren't kids, especially teenagers, that don't feel like they're not part of the community. I appreciate that when we had the students and we had the presentation where we had some videos from them recently, a lot of kids that you might... There was a very, it came through that they felt part of either a specific, smaller community within the school or the school as a whole. But I do think that this is something that I know or it's something I believe is heavily on your minds in adding this staffing that we've added. And I think people should recognize that it's part of... I view it as part of the DEI work, as well, and hopefully, I'm sure it will be a
157successful part. Thank you. Okay, so now we'll move to item 10.04, the operations update from Stuart. Yep, thank you. So this will be a new item at each business item, just to sort of touch on the great different areas that follow my portfolio of work. So facilities wise, as promised, we have a few facilities items for action items in this meeting. We have the bid rejection for the plan improvement project. That's the vacuum condensate pumps at Edgewood Middle School and high school due to a scope error that was caught, luckily, prior to bid approval. We're recommending that this be withdrawn and rejected, and then we'll immediately rebid with a plan to award the bid, hopefully at the July 1 board meeting. Again, as a plan improvement project in the '22, '23 budget. The 2018 bond
158work, again, these were sort of spoken about at the last board meeting. Two projects, middle school site work and handicap accessibility improvements; if you recall, all this work was previously bid with little or no competitive interest. This has sort of been going on for a couple years. Nobody really was that interested. We got a lot of bidders or it came in really high, really no luck. So we split out this work and into two separate projects, and we're awarding one through a competitive bid. We thought just having a site specific project would garner some more bidders, and it did. And the other through a piggyback arrangement, often an existing contract with the district on Long Island. So happy that this has worked out well. One of the consent agenda items was also a piggyback bid
159as well, that we were able to locate, had the attorneys review it, and they're on the agenda so we can get that work done. The Heathcote tree damage, which I'm sure you've heard about, on Sunday evening, May 22nd. There was a violent storm that affected the entire area. The top of the large, hundred foot Eastern White Pine across Heathcote Breezeway Wing C. Unfortunately, classes had to be diverted outta that wing for the remainder of the school year. And we're working on with BBS architects to get that damage resolved. And again, response and coordination, you know, by the facilities team and people at Heathcote, including Maria and her team, really a lot of coordination, and we'll have that hopefully ready for the new school year. That's the plan, so we'll keep you updated on where we
160are with that. Then just keep you abreast of continued high school auditorium conversations. We do have a main committee and a couple of subcommittees working on the continued development of the high school auditorium project, including sort of subcommittee for PR, how we wanna get the word out. We have a video being made. I know Michelle is helping with that and some scope refinement that we will come back to the board and present late October, early November, prior to the budget season with a plan right now of hopefully having that as a budget item, a transfer to capital project for the '23, '24 budget. Food service, initial discussions have occurred with Chartwells regarding our one year emergency contract renewal. And we expect to have the contract ready for you at either the next meeting or July
1611st. We do anticipate that there will be a significant and like double digit percent increase due to food prices and the cost of labor. And unfortunately, that'll end up being passed on to our customers, which are students and teachers, and all of our catering services, and next year's prices. We've been talking about that with our food service committee, probably for the last six months, anyways. And we'll continue to have those conversations and get that out into the community prior to the school year. Unfortunately, we were all experiencing it, and it is real. Our food service committee had our last meeting a couple of weeks ago, and we will be forming up again to commence our discussions in early fall. And that, again, that's all parents and administrators. It's a really nice committee we've been having
162for the last few years; well, six years. Transportation, this is the time of year when our bus drivers finally start to see a slow down after the crazy rush. Gerson's very happy. Spring athletic season is ending. Drivers have a chance to breathe. We had a great, safe year. Unfortunately, we still are actively recruiting bus drivers. That's not going away. So if you happen to know somebody that wants a part-time job, no matter what age, as long as they can pass the driver's test, and get their license, and do all the safety training, we invite them with open arms. We're not immune from the nationwide shortage, and it is a great part-time job. There's my recruiting pitch. (committee member chuckles) And finally, in the business office at the next board meeting, rich coffee will be on
163hand for the audit committee to review the current year's risk assessment and agreed upon procedures reports. Of course, we'll be working with Nawrocki Smith on the current engagement over the next couple of months, while the same time preparing for the year end '22 external audit. I will say we are looking forward to working with Nawrocki who has specific IRS experience to assist identifying best practices in this particular area. We do plan on filing our next payroll tax electronically. This is not a common practice all for school districts. We did a regional survey and no one does this, so it is unusual. So I think we'll be a bit trail blazing with this, which is exciting. I think people will say why don't people do this more often? By anticipating consulting with Nawrocki on that process,
164since they do have some specific experience prior to that, you know, and before hiring a third party, just to really run it by them to get their thoughts on that. Next budget meeting, budget transfers, this will be an action item end of the year. Now, the end of the year, which we typically do in September, but for the end of the year that we know about on budget transfers. So these are all the transfers that are above the $25,000 per board policy, the threshold. So transfers, and these are broad categories, will include not only ones that are COVID related, such as tutoring, PPE, and custodial OT expenses, but also energy related, including fuel oil, electric, and gasoline, and diesel for transportation. Also on the list is the transfer that Dr. Patrick alluded to earlier in
165the year for a professional consultant, Dr. Ellie Drago, and also for legal services. The biggest one and most notably and separate from the regular budget transfer is health insurance. Unfortunately, we've had a drastic turn to the negative on our health insurance claims experience in the last six months, which will require a transfer from undesignated fund balance of a million dollars to cover these costs for '21, '22 school year. This will essentially come out of the health insurance reserve once we get into the new school year, but to practically make it work, the transfer would be from undesignated fund balance. And then come the new school year, it would drop from the health insurance reserve. We need to fine tune, these and we'll get that ready in the memo for the next board meeting. But I
166just wanted to give you the heads up, obviously, that these, are coming. And that is it, and happy to take questions. Great, thank you so much. Anyone have a... Okay, Amber, go ahead. Stuart, which hallway or which breezeway in Heathcote? You said C. C. But which wing is that? Do you know? Like, I'm just trying to envision where the tree was. Past the library. Fourth grade. It's the fourth grade wing, so it's only those rooms that... So those kids are displaced in different rooms in the building right now? Correct, yup. And they have their own classrooms? They were able to accommodate all of them? (indistinct) could probably speak to that better, but yes. Okay, that- Not ideal. (Stuart laughing) Right, no, but I mean... (indistinct) So some of those rooms had- I mean, it was
167fortunate it was towards the end of the year. Right, no, okay. And then when you talked about the food costs going up, we all know that costs are going up. Are labor costs going up also? Is that part of the increase or is that separate? So we sort of manage that. So there's a CPI type increase, but there's also, we hire a lot of entry level type positions. If you think about our elementary buildings, all of our servers, and there's a lot of them now, since we have elementary food service. Those are individuals that work minimal hours. So we have to make it enticing enough for them to get here to work, so their money just doesn't go out the door, trying to get to work. That makes sense. So I have a recommendation in
168there to increase that a little bit more, well, more than CPI, just so we have employees at the beginning of the school year. And then my last question is on, so you said that our costs went up for health insurance this past six months. Was there anything unusual that happened or is that something we expect to see trending next year? That's hard to say. This is a uptick in claims and higher cost claims, not our highest cost claims, not like stop loss territory, but below that. This seems to be catch up really from COVID. Surgeries that have been put off, other types of... Some COVID related illness expenses, it's been experienced sort of across the medical field of this downstream effect of people not going and taking care of things for a couple of years.
169As to whether we'll experience this next year, it's hard to say. It's genuinely hard to say. Okay, thank you. I had one very brief question on the bus driver shortage. I understand that this year there's sort of a one year exemption where retirees under a certain age can work and earn a full salary. Have we approached any sort of groups of retired bus drivers who might be looking to continue to work without... We've approached everyone and we can't find any bus drivers, is that what I'm getting? Yeah, no, it's a great question that actually, you know, the minimum salary is $35,000. So typically, you know, a lot of our drivers are... Or making less than that. So it's not a barrier in the first place? Correct. Okay, so that does not help with the bus
170drivers 'cause it's part-time. And I have to say Gerson is one of the best at recruiting. He physically- Very active. He's a physical recruiter. He's out and about at the places you would want to go to see if someone's interested in a better work environment than maybe they are currently in, and he's been successful over time, but it's a challenge. It is, and it's, you know, a lot of it's word of mouth, right? Oh, I have somebody in mind, and I also agree, Jessica. I think, like I mentioned, the retired person, we had an individual in the business office that was partially retired and was looking for something. And I made that recommendation. He ended up driving for two years and loved it, so that, you know, for that right person at that right time
171of the life, it can be a, you know, a really nice job. Great, thank you. Okay. Just Stuart, a couple- Rachel just put her hand up. Yes! (committee members laughing) Don't forget Jerry's over there. (committee members laughing) And Rachel's local, too. I'm envisioning her from that smart car, which is- (committee members laughing) Crazy, what was that children's, crazy bus? I don't know if I want her driving my bus. I don't know if I'd want her driving my bus after that. (committee members laughing) Can you just give a quick update on Heathcote Gym? Are all those items here? They ready for the summer? Are we still on time? As far as I know, yes. Yes, I'll give you a little more update at the next meeting. Okay. Yeah. Just in terms of food service, so is
172the plan for next year to be fully back to hot lunch at all the elementaries? Will we be able to start using like the Greenacres kitchen? That's all in the plan for next year? Yeah, that is the plan. It will be a phased in approach as we discussed with our full food service committee and with the principals. Just because of that challenge with the staffing, and we haven't gone full hot lunch in a number of years. So we wanna make sure that they all open successfully with what will be a fresh troupe of employees. We're excited about Greenacres and we... The trick there is make sure we have that cook trained, and make sure Chef Glenn has a chance to go over there, and work with them and all of that. But that is the
173plan. Okay, and then just for the health insurance, just the fact that it's not coming, 'cause we have a quite sizeable health insurance reserve for this reason. And I think the years are blending in a little bit. We actually increase that reserve because of deferrals due to COVID. So some of this is just, I believe, a timing matter. But can you explain why doesn't this come straight from that reserve and it's just a transfer? Yeah, that's my understanding right now. I wanna fine tune that a little bit. I think it is basically because of the transfer. It is from undesignated fund balance the present time. And I think we want it to work out through the end of the year to see where we actually are before we do that transfer, since they're all estimates
174at this point. And they will be until we get sort of into July, but I'll firm that up. Because I'm not, I will say I'm not a hundred percent positive on that. And the only reason I ask you is there's nothing coming up at our level of undesignated fund balance is relevant. We have no refinancing, bonding- The only borrowing we have is the computer lease, which is not a full, it's a book review of our rating. So they would not be looking at that. Okay, thanks. But it's a good question. Okay. Thank you so much, Stuart. Yeah. Okay and then we'll move on to 10.05, proposed new textbooks, Edgar? I propose the reveal textbooks that I described and the digital component, as well. Okay, thanks. Anyone have any questions about the textbooks? No? Okay, so
175we'll move to item 10.06, the board's self evaluation. So even though there's no legal obligation for the Board of Education to evaluate itself, (indistinct) does recognize the value of an annual school board evaluation. It is a best practice we had previously agreed upon using the assessment tool that's attached to the agenda. I just wanna make sure there were no additional comments or feedback. We got a little sidetracked from doing this earlier in the year, and I think it's important that we have a summative final evaluation, especially if we look at our goals and objectives and provide comment or recommendation for improvements for the following year to the board. So I ask that we individually fill out this assessment, and I will collect it. And then we'll discuss the results at a, you know, probably schedule
176a quick board retreat maybe before our meeting on the 21st, or we'll find another time to meet to discuss that before the end of the year. I think we should definitely have another special meeting because we haven't had enough special meetings. (committee members laughing) I know, I agree. I contemplated, but I think it's important we do it, so we will get it done. I agree. I just wanna make sure we have a separate, special meeting for it. Yeah, no, don't worry. (Karen laughing) It's important to have a separate, special meeting. 'Cause one of our goals is to keep our meetings at under three hours, and we won't do that if we don't separate it out. Right, right. Plus we wanna set the record for most special meetings in a six week period. Well, it'll be
177a retreat. It's a retreat based meeting, so. Okay, so and then item 10.07 is board succession. So this is the time of year that we start to talk about board succession and remind the community of how this process works. We have a policy 2220, which is entitled board officers, reads as follows: "The president and vice president of the Board of Education shall be elected by members of the board from its membership at the annual reorganization meeting. Candidates for each office shall be nominated and voted openly. The president and vice president shall serve for one year or until a successor is elected. And the new board will have its reorganization meeting on July the first. Nominations for the president and vice president shall be entertained and voted upon at that time. Nominations can be made by
178board members. They can also be self nominations." I wanted to let the board and community know that at this point, Amber has expressed interest in the presidency and Ron has expressed interest in the vice presidency. And again, it'll be up to the board on July 1st to determine who its officers are, but that's the thinking or the people who've put forward their names thus far. Okay, any questions, comments at this time? Okay, great. So now we'll move to item 11, our various action items. And we will start with 11.01, and Bob will take us through this. Yes, I'd like... Yeah, I'd like to recommend that the board adopt the following resolution as presented. Be it resolved at the 2022, 2023 reorganization meeting for Scarsdale Union Free School District shall be held July 1st, 2022 at
1799:00 AM in room 170-172 of Scarsdale High School and hereby directs the district clerk to provide and distribute the appropriate notices of same. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay so, the motion fully passes. Item 11.02. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the resolution per the attached. The bid for the replacement of vacuum condensate pumps at Edgewood, the middle school and the high school, was 2021, '22 dash 17A, was advertised in the journal news on May 4th, 2022 and the Scarsdale Inquirer on May 6th, 2022. Upon a review of the submitted bids, it was noted by facilities director, Mike Paterra, that an important replacement, the high school, was missing from the scope of the bid. Therefore, it is recommended to reject the bids, mechanical and electrical, and issue
180new bid specifications with the inclusion of the identified work. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, and the motion, Bob, did you raise, did you say aye? Sorry. Yeah, the motion fully passes, okay. Item 11.03, Jessica? Yep. It is recommended that the board that the following resolution as presented. Be it resolved that the Board of Education accept and approve the contract award for the bid from the lowest responsible bidder as follows. The site construction contract in the total amount of 240,000 to JABA Co Construction Limited. Be it further resolved that the Board of Education hereby authorized the board president to execute a contract between the district and the winning bidder noted above upon the approval of the same by the district's attorney. A copy of such contract
181shall be incorporated for reference into the minutes of this meeting. Is there a second? Second. Okay, any discussion? All in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Motion fully passes. 11.04, Ron? Thanks, Karen. This is related to the 2018 bond, the bid award for Scarsdale Middle School handicap accessibility improvements. I move that the board adopt the resolution as presented. Second, and I want to just point out this just going towards inclusion anytime we make things more accessible. It's part of that whole philosophy that we're moving towards. So any additional discussion? Okay, all in favor? I wanna say something. Sure. In the interest of inclusion, I'm gonna vote yes on this, but in the future, I'd like us to try to strike the word handicap from our discussions and say instead either ramps for people with disabilities or use
182other terms that are considered more inclusive and of the moment. Thank you for that, Jessica. Any additional discussion? Okay, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Motion passes. Item 11.05, Carl? Okay, let's see. It's a relatively long, but I'm going to move that we approve the McKinney Vento Act policy as detailed in the agenda. And that goes to policies 5151, 5100, 5150, and 5420 to be amended as indicated. Okay. Second. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, motion fully passes. 11.06, Carl? Yes. I move that we approve the textbooks as indicated in the agenda. Is there second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, motion passes. And item 11.07, which we added, Ron? This is the internal audit proposal. Be it resolved upon the recommendation of the audit committee that
183sorry, I should say I move. I guess that be resolved upon the recommendation of the audit committee that the Board of Education accept the proposal from Nawrocki Smith LLP as presented. Second. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, motion passes. And now move to item 12, gifts, 12.01 gift proposal to the high school, Jessica? Yes. The Scarsdale High School PTA has proposed a gift in the amount of $4,800 to purchase and install four additional picnic tables outside the high school. I move that we accept this gift and thank the high school PTA. Second. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, motion passes. Item 12.02, Ron? This is another gift. This time from the middle school PTA. It's a gift in the amount of $500 to purchase 25 yoga mats
184that will be kept in health classes and maybe used for the purposes of mindfulness, wellness, and relaxation exercise. I move that the board accept, with thanks, the gift proposal to the middle school as presented from the middle school PTA. Second? Second. Okay, any discussion? All in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, motion passes. And now we'll move to 13. Do we have any remote participants? We do. Okay, so again, at this time, we invite the members of the public to speak on district related items and other non personnel related matters. When it's your turn to speak, please state your name, address, and if you're speaking on behalf of an organization. If you're commenting remotely, we ask that you mute your livestream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. We also ask that you conclude
185your remarks within four minutes and you will be given a verbal cue at the three minute mark. Okay. Our first speaker, Moira. So you can begin speaking. I'm sending her a message, but I'm not sure if she's there. I asked her to unmute. Thank you. I thought I'd missed the comment part of the meeting. I wanted to comment about the prom. I'm sending her a message. Moira, can you turn your camera on, please? Hi. Oh, sorry, I was muted. Can you hear me? Yes, can you please turn your- (indistinct) Oh, how do I turn the camera on? Okay, wait, no. More. I don't know- It's the bottom left? how to turn the camera. Little dark video icon on the bottom, if you uncheck the red arrow. (indistinct) I usually see it, but I don't see
186it. That's all right, you can continue. Just tell her to continue. Maybe if I minimize. Oh, no. Moira, it's okay. Go ahead. All right, sorry. I don't have one of my kids here to help me. (committee members laughing) So I thought I missed the comments part of the meeting, but I wanted to comment on the prom date for the future that, you know, I'd like it to be later in the school year so that the kids don't get so many conflicts with their athletics. Okay. Hello? Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, we heard you. Okay, so that's it. Okay. So that was my comment. I'm glad I didn't miss it, or maybe I said it at the wrong comment period, I'm not sure. But I live at Southwoods Lane and that's about it.
187Okay, thanks so much for calling, Moira. Okay, thanks guys! Thank you. Sorry for the technical- No worries. confusion. No worries, thank you. Do we have another participant? I do not believe, let me, gimme a second. Okay. We do have another one, but she has not raised her hand yet. Okay. So, okay. So at this time, I will close public comment. No additional follow up. Do we have any, in item 15, any wrap up items? Besides following up with the board on the self-evaluation, which I will do. I think that's it. Yes, anything else? Okay. So then we'll move to item 16 meeting dates for the coming month. I'll turn that to Amber. Wow! Our next meeting is Tuesday, June 21st, 2022. There's a special meeting executive session at 5:30 in the Grande Conference Room. And
188then the business meeting here at 6:30 and Friday, July 1st is a reorganization and business meeting at 9:00 AM in this room, 170-172. Great, thank you. Okay, so now I will entertain a motion to adjourn this business meeting. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? [Committee Members] Aye. Okay, motion passes. I hope everyone has a nice night. Thanks so much. Okay.