BOE Business Meeting 2021-6-21

001(upbeat music) Hello everyone, good evening? I call the special meeting of the board to order this is the faculty retiree recognition event. We're doing it just a bit differently this year. And Drew, will start us off. There we go, thank you very much. So, we are taking a little different approach this year, sorry about that. And we have invited our retirees to follow along virtually and we hope they're doing that. And we also know we'll be able to capture a little video of this and send that out to them, but I'm gonna start and just read the 20 names that we have to recognize tonight of our faculty members that are retiring. And this is our last in the line of recognitions. Jerry has put the slides up, which I greatly appreciate, and we'll just

002go one by one. And I'll say the name and just a quick run through each person. So, we're gonna start with Nelson DaSilva, 13 years here at Scarsdale High School. Maggie Siegrist, also Scarsdale High School, 13 years, Celia Cuk, Scarsdale Middle School, 18 years, Susan Goodman here in the district working with our special education classes, 20 years, Marilyn Blackley who actually retired in December, Edgewood, 22 years, Jodi Giroux is not a name we had had before. She made a late decision to retire. So, this is really the first chance we're getting to recognize Jodi, 22 years. Lindsey Hicks, 22 years, Heathcote, Nancy McGlynn, one of our nurses, our nurse heroes this year, 23 years, Greenacres. Jill Schultz, 23 years, she worked across schools, Jane Strobel, Scarsdale Middle School, 23 years, Mark Winston, Quaker Ridge, 24

003years, Pat Mihalo, our nurse over at IHM 25 years, Paula Bautista, Greenacres, 26 years, Kathy Leary, Heathcote, 26 years. Another one who we learned of a late retirement here, Seth Evans, Scarsdale High School, 31 years, Emma Wixted, Scarsdale Middle School, 32 years. Joan Farella, another of the duo at Greenacres here, 33 years, Rich Clark, Scarsdale High School, 39 years, Doug Rose, Scarsdale Middle School, 41 years. And you'd think that would be it, right? But no, we have a goodbye to wish to Jim Andreski, Scarsdale Middle School after 49 years of service. And those are our 2021 retirees. (members clapping) I just have a few words. As it's clear that once again, this very bittersweet experience of celebrating our retirees is different than our tradition, but no differently, every one of us on the board marvel

004at your amazing talents and the impact on our lives and also on our children's lives as we consider your vast experience and the wonderful outcomes that you represent. The comments that we heard at the retirement ceremony on June 7th clearly expressed how much you are loved and how much you'll be missed. This year, we've been given an opportunity to recognize the importance of personal connections and how much value they had when we returned to our schools in person full time and then also as our virtual-only efforts continued. You've earned the board's deepest gratitude, and you have our best wishes. Goodbye for now, we hope you enjoy your summers, and that you enjoy the transition, your new schedules and all the activities in front of you, but we truly hope you stay connected to the Scarsdale

005schools. Congratulations on your retirement. And I believe I would hand this off, Thomas, do you have a few words? I do, yeah. So, thank you all on behalf of the board. We're so proud of you. Thanks, Drew and thanks Pam. Parker Palmer, author of "The Courage To Teach" begins his book with the following quote. "I am a teacher at heart and there are moments in the classroom where I can hardly hold the joy when my students and I discover uncharted territory to explore, when the pathway out of the thicket opens up before us, when our experience is illuminated by the lightening life of the mind, then teaching is the finest work that I know." What is so powerful about this book is that Palmer speaks from his heart and soul. The writing is both accessible

006and elegant, poignant, and energizing. The essential question that he puts before the reader is how can we continue to deepen our capacity to teach and learn over time and also preserve the joy and love of teaching as we grow both as educators and as human beings? Palmer has some pretty compelling reasons, excuse me, responses to these questions in his book. But if we asked this year's retiree the same questions, I am confident that they would produce a myriad of insightful responses as well, based on their robust, distinguished, and successful careers. Of course, transformative moments in our classrooms only come from the deep devotion of our best teachers, leaders and support staff. In fact, our successful 237-year history has been and continues to be built on the broad shoulders of generations of passionate, experienced, and accomplished

007educators like those who we're celebrating tonight. Each individual has added to this collective legacy incrementally and over time, but tonight we codify this achievement by formally recognizing and thanking each of them for the impact that they have had and will continue to have on the lives of those students in their care. Education is often referred to as the noble profession, in part, no doubt because educators strive to make a difference in the lives of every student that they encounter. But others, including me, would argue that teaching is more of a duty or moral responsibility than simply a job. Educators not only help to craft and mold the lives of those in their care, but they also inform a generation whose convictions, beliefs and actions will ultimately shape our future, both theirs and ours. In my

008mind, there is no more noble cause than to make sure that we give our students and youth the tools, mindsets skills that prepare them for this ultimate responsibility. To our retirees, I would like to say that your contribution to this outcome is both a measurable and undeniable. You have been gifted teachers and eager learners, steadfast mentors, and ready collaborators, trusted colleagues, and true friends. You have been leaders in your own buildings and also in your respective fields, while using this expertise to benefit those around you. And it is important to know that you've done all this work while also serving as exemplars for the rest of us. As retirees, you have demonstrated the best of what it means to be a Scarsdale educator, and we thank you for it. Over the past month, we've had

009multiple opportunities to recognize each of you, to acknowledge your personal contributions to the district and to thank you for your years of service to our school community. The formal events kicked off with an STA ceremony a few weeks ago, then we had a district retirement ceremony, followed by Years of Service Recognition Ceremony just last week. Tonight, on behalf of the entire Scarsdale community, the board of education, my cabinet and myself. I would like to thank you once more for your distinctive contributions to our school community. Congratulations on your well-deserved retirement. And we wish you much health and happiness in the years ahead. (members clapping) I guess that ends the special tribute ceremony. All right, then I'll entertain a motion to move into our audit committee meeting, please. So moved. Thanks Carl, do I have a

010second? Second. Amber, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, abstentions? All right, so, we will now convene as our audit committee. Let me just get into that. I will note that all board members are present except Karen, who is experiencing a family matter this evening and is attending to that need. I would like to hear a motion to appoint honorary secretary pro temp for this meeting. So moved. Okay, Alison, and then Amber second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstention? So, the motion passes. And now we'll move into item 2.03 and I guess Stuart you'll just lead us through the rest. I will, thank you, Pam. So, on tonight's audit committee agenda are three items. The first item is to discuss and review the external audit letter of engagement for the

011fiscal year end in 2021, June 30, 2021. The proposal comes from EFPR who has been our external auditor now for the last eight years. The proposal is consistent with the response to the RFP that was done back in 2019 at $29,000. And if you did read through that proposal and we do have them scheduled for coming in early August and we would stick to our a regular schedule for them to come in the October/November timeframe. Any questions? Okay, so, in the action items for tonight's audit committee agenda will be a recommendation for the audit committee to recommend acceptance of this letter of engagement for the services for the school year. And if so, the action item will appear on the board meeting at the business portion of the reorg meeting in July. The next two

012agenda items are for our internal audit and with us tonight as Rich Coffee, former internal auditors, Colin Endanowski, and the first item will be to review the annual risk assessment update and then also talk to the applying agreed upon procedures. Rich, all yours. Thanks, good evening. Thank you, Stewart. Thanks board and administration, Richard Kwame, Director of Internal Audits with Collins Endanowski Accounting Firm. We provide the internal audit services, as part of our requirement is to perform two types of engagements each year. One engagement they both are here as part of your agenda is the risk assessment board, which is an update that we do. We follow up on prior recommendations, speak with various administrators, department heads plus key personnel to talk about and go through what changes have taken place since the prior year with

013staff systems, technology, obviously, COVID impact over the past year and a half or so as well. That was obviously a key item over the last couple of years. And then we do is also follow up on prior recommendations as well. So, within the report itself, you'll find that there's an introduction section pages two and three that includes the prior reports that we're following up on. What we do is we also give the district about a year to work on and address items in our agreed-upon procedures report, which will follow this report. And that's where we do a detailed review. And that's what we do selections and sampling, really dive into an area or areas. So, you can see here on page three, we're following up on recommendations from the risk assessment, that was previously issued

014last June, as well as the agreed upon procedures report issued last June and that was related to cash receipts activities, excluding school launch and extra classroom activity fund, and then the use of facilities. Those engagements actually took place up until about the time when schools closed last March was when we were here working onsite with the district, just to wrap up those. The cash receipts activities ends up being like a three-year cycle we're going through. Initially we did extra classroom activities, including the receipts to those activities and those clubs then followed up by cash receipts activities excluding school launch and extra class in which other receipts that collected to various types of receipts with different schools, field trips, programs, things like that. And that was a report that we're following up on tonight in terms

015of within our risk assessment report. And then the corrective action plan is something that the district's required to prepare after all audits that have been, I guess, all the reports that the district has been given to come up with a, and the corrective action plan actually requires the board approval. So, our reports, as Stuart mentioned earlier, will be, as an audit committee, we recommend that the board accept our reports, but the corrective action plan is something that the district works with the boards, hence the board approval is required for these reports. And then pages four and five, our a risk assessment table gives you history of, lays out the different various business processes and then we cover each in each risk assessment. And then we also include in-air control risks, as well as the date

016of detailed testing. So, there you can look and track what areas we perform some detail reviews at the district here over the past number of years. And it's also something we'll look at and in terms of determining what area to do next for this coming year, that's one of the things, one of the factors that we look at is when was the last time an area was reviewed, hasn't been viewed, et cetera. So, that's something we're working with administration right now on coming up to define what our scope of work will be for the '21/'22 school year. Then we have on pages six and seven, we've added this in last year's risk assessment. We wanna identify key changes that have taken place since the prior year, 'cause the reports, the risk assessment reports have been

017a finding based. So, findings and recommendations. So, last year, and actually during the conversation with the board president, Madam Pamela, we decided we're going through a lot of things that have been done and have taken place over the district. So, we decided going forward we'll include these two pages. These two pages include key items that have taken place, various types of changes. Most of these, you probably would be familiar with because they become through either through board approvals or conversations or agenda items as well. And then we go into the recommendations and status of recommendations, it goes by business area. That's how it's sorted. And then the italicized sections are the updates. So, risk assessment update 2021. And if there's still a number attached with that recommendation means the recommendation is still open and we'll

018follow up on such recommendation next year. And with that, we've found there's 10 open recommendations, but most of them ones that are open, actually the ones that are open in the report itself relate to recent AUP report, particularly last year's report related to cash receipts and use of facilities. Given with COVID and the pandemic, those areas are significantly impacted both from a lack of a reduction of activities or no activities during such time. So, I anticipate looking at and following up on these items during our risk assessment in '21/'22 and I anticipate as has been history here, those items probably be addressed and most likely to be closed out and district is still active even during these COVID pandemic times to close out nine items. And then we also update some narratives, keeping narratives within

019the business office as part of the risk assessment. Any questions related to the risk assessment update report? Okay, and the second report is agreed upon procedures. That's what as I mentioned, we get into sampling and testing and various transactions and activities. Based on last year's decision in terms of which areas to look at for testing, we looked at three areas, collection of receipts, particularly specifically within food services as well as credit card activities and traveling conferences. So, as a result of those and within our report, the way it's structured, there's a background summary, procedures, findings, and recommendations for each of those areas is the format of the report as you can see starting on page three, which will be background for collections of receipts, for food services. Background section, just to give a little more

020information and background related to those particular areas and processes and procedures, and then the procedures within the report, that's the scope of work from our engagement letter that we had prepared last year related to each of these three different functions and processes in terms of testing. So, what we've done, so, based on that, based on our review, you'll have some points and some of our findings are actually positive items, talking about some new key controls, like for example, blind count and food service and such. And then if we have any findings where we've found an opportunity for improvement or enhancement, we'd end up with a recommendation. So, basically we end up with four recommendations related to the food service area, three recommendations related to credit cards, two of those particularly tying in with aligning your

021board policy with your district practices and then travel and conferences, we've got three recommendations there. And particularly in the area for improvement there is on user accounts within your front line software program being timely in terms of inactivating user accounts. And also Stuart had sent me a good question from a board member regarding virtual conferences. So in terms of taking that into account, recommendation number three related to travel and conferences speaks to ensuring proper backup and documentation related to supporting such travel and conference reimbursements. So, with virtual, you basically wanna do is just try to get some good documentation that verifies that person actually, I guess, attended such a virtual conference. And with that, you may get a lot of times they know there's attendance certificates that are provided and issued by such part of

022the groups and/or other types of documentation or record showing that you actually attended such conference. So, as part of that documentation that would be required, something to consider in terms of if it was a virtual conference, as opposed to a live in-person conference. Any questions related to the agreed upon procedures report? And I guess as a follow-up to that, Rich mentioned the corrective action plans. So, once the board of education accepts these plans, we'll start to, if not sooner, start to get to work on those and have those for the board of education when we return in September. And the things related to the policies will be captured so that when the policy work reconvenes, those policies can be adjusted as in the recommendations. Correct, yep. And then as I mentioned earlier, we'll circle backwards,

023work with Stewart and administration on defining what the scope of work will be. For the engagement letter, we'll put the total amount for agreed upon procedures and work through the scope of work within the next couple of months. Yep. Yeah? Okay, perfect, all right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Rich. Thanks Richard. Thanks, Rich, be well, thanks. All right, so we'll move into the action items of the audit committee. Action item 3.01, the internal external audit letter, that's Ron. I move that the audit committee accept the recommended board of education, well, the acceptance by the board of education of EFPR group, CK's external audit a letter engagement for the fiscal year end 2021 audit as presented. Thanks, Ron. Do I have a second? Second. Thanks Carl, any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

024Any opposed, abstentions? All right, the motion passes, action item 3.02. The risk assessment update report, Amber? I move that the audit committee recommend acceptance by the board of education of the internal auditor's review of risk assessment update report for the fiscal year end 2021 as presented. Thanks, Amber. May I have a second? Second. Thanks, Alison. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, abstentions? All right, the motion passes and we'll move to 3.03, the independent accountants report on applying agreed upon procedures and that's Bob. I move that the audit committee accept the independent accountants report on applying agreed-upon procedures for the fiscal year and 2021 as presented. Thanks, may I have a second? Second. Thanks Carl, any discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? All

025right, that motion passes. And now I will entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. We'll take a wellness break until the business meeting begins at six o'clock. May I have a motion for that? Amber, is there a second? Second. Second, is Alison. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, abstentions? Motion passes, we are adjourned for 10 minutes and we'll begin the business meeting at six. Cool. (indistinct chatter) Hello everyone, good evening. I call this business meeting to order. We welcome you all here in our audience and those of you watching the live stream and those of you watching later on demand, we're happy to have you all here. I'll note that all board members, except Karen Ceske are present tonight and all members of the cabinet are present. Before this business meeting,

026we held a special meeting for the board to recognize our 20 faculty retirees with 525 combined years of service. And then the boards audit committee met and had information items and took action on three items. I want to recognize, in my opening comments, the A school graduates who held their A school graduation last week, congratulations to them on phase one of your graduation process, and of course, we're all looking forward to the moving up ceremonies this week and the high school graduation on Thursday. I wanna express gratitude to the school PTAs who do so much for our students outside of the core curriculum. This year, they have done a tremendous job coming up with creative ideas for events and core plus programming. The board receives their newsletters every week and it gives us just a

027great opportunity to look and see all the different things that are happening, that the committees are actively doing to support our students and provide them the best experience possible. We also receive many letters from school principals to their communities. And again, those are great opportunities for the board to hear about what is going on in the schools and it's one of our most appreciated communication. So, thank you to the PTAs for all your hard work and your coordination this year, and adjusting to all the different changes that had to occur, and thank you to the principals for keeping us informed along the year. And with that, I don't have anything else for my opening comment, Thomas, do you? Yes, thank you. And good evening, everyone. Welcome to our studio audience. Still getting a little time

028getting used to seeing people sitting out here again. So, it's lovely to see everybody here. I wanna thank everyone both in present form here or virtually for joining us for our last board of education business meeting of the year. It has been said that what feels like the end is often the beginning and no time is that more true in Scarsdale Schools than during the month of June when we're finishing up one year and simultaneously planning for the next. Paradoxically, what is most unique about this year's efforts is that it actually feels normal. After more than a year of surviving a worldwide pandemic, we're anticipating a typical school year in the fall, something that before the pandemic, we would simply take for granted, but not this year. But before jumping too hastily into our year

029ahead, I would like to take the opportunity to recap some of the major highlights of the year and recognize those responsible for achieving these goals during the 2021 school year. While much of our year obviously focused on restart and journey forward efforts, we did also complete some other significant work, including the following. The strategic plan, which focuses on wellness libraries, next generation standards, balanced literacy and goal setting to name a few, We did policy work this year. Obviously, much of that was based on COVID, but we also did some important DEI work. We created a policy for gender neutral bathrooms, we looked at our code of conduct, sexual harassment, and also our district's physician. In the area of DEI, we created a new board policy 105, we adopted a culturally-responsive sustaining framework from the state

030and the board task, the compact committee to put together goals for next year, as well as appropriate metrics. Those of you who have been back in the buildings know that we've been doing a ton of facilities work. Some of that like was a giant punch list from Greenacres, but also field work, including Deanfield, which has been under construction for most of the year. Another exciting program that we got to create this year is our summer enrichment program thanks to Edgar and company, it's called Spark and we're looking forward to that kicking off at the conclusion of this school year as we move into summer. Drew has been extremely busy doing collective bargaining this year with five of our six units. And we've come to the conclusion of most of those at this point, which is

031a major accomplishment. Over in the middle of the room here, we see that we have hired a new public relations officer, Michelle Verna, and she's been helpful in helping us to think about our district communications and particularly our social media tools as we continue to improve our communications across the district. And we've tried to provide an array of creative student programming including athletics clubs and curricular and co-curricular activities over the year, to name a few of the things that we've done outside of just COVID mitigation. It likely goes without saying that this work would not have been possible without the deep commitment and tireless work of the board of education, my full administrative team and our outstanding teachers and support staff. There really are no words to express my gratitude and appreciation for all the

032truly heroic efforts this year in shepherding our students and school community through this unprecedented and incredibly difficult a year. But of course, we did not do this work in isolation either. We have always relied on important and significant partnerships to achieve our most essential work and this was never more true than over the past 15 months. Our PTC and PTA's booster groups, education foundation, they all provided immeasurable support through the entirety of the year and we simply could not have made it through without their tangible and intangible support. The Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling Service and the village, including the Scottsdale Police Department, fire departments were also important allies throughout this year and were always on standby to help in whatever ways we needed. Of course, we're all familiar with the African proverb that it takes

033a village to raise a child, well, this year it took our entire village to support and nurture 4,700 children and youth through perhaps the most challenging experience of their lives so far. While this road was not an easy one, There is no doubt that this was only accomplished through our shared commitment and collective efforts. And for that, I am deeply indebted and eternally thankful. To shift gears a bit, as one of the leads on our DEI efforts in the district, I also wanted to acknowledge Juneteenth as our newest federal holiday, which was of course celebrated this past Saturday. In keeping with our efforts to educate and inform our faculty and staff on issues of diversity, Edgar and I sent out a note last week providing some historical context for this holiday and shared some of

034the ways in which this holiday might be celebrated. This is an extension of work that the district compact has been involved with for past couple of years. In fact, two years ago, we created a document entitled World Holidays and Observances Calendar and Instructional Implications in order to share this resource for teachers to be able to use in their classrooms as they chose to do so. We look forward to adding Juneteenth of this document and making additional curricular connections as we move forward with this important work. And finally, I would like to congratulate our senior class of 2021. While we admire the entirety of their time in Scarsdale Schools, the resilience and fortitude that this class has demonstrated over the course of the past year has been truly remarkable. If this is even a small sign

035of things to come from these extremely capable individuals, then we can truly expect extraordinary outcomes from their future learning careers and lives. Thank you all again for being here tonight. Thanks Thomas. Are there any board members who have opening reports? Amber, go ahead. Thanks Pam. On June 17th, Carl and I hosted a board coffee starting at 6:00 pm at the picnic tables at the high school. We had around nine attendees that wanted to share issues with us or show support for the process, and one member of the press. We started off with discussions around equity and DEI. Specifically, there was a discussion around equity between boys and girls sports, but also questions about the board's new DEI policy. For the purposes of clarity, the DEI discussion also referenced approval of a document that is actually

036not the one on the agenda for approval tonight. Tonight, we are considering approval of the New York state education department's culturally responsive sustaining education framework. That individual thought we were going to consider approval of the New York state board of region's framework on diversity, equity and inclusion. There were also discussions around plans for next year. Girl Scout leaders expressed their hope the district would support their use of the buildings again next year, and a PTA leader noted an interest in having parents return to the buildings to reconnect with their school community. Another parent discussed their hope for a return to normal for the school year with an interest in hearing plans for the next year over the summer. And finally, one attendee shared their hope that the mental and emotional needs of all students be

037considered as we return in the fall. The former student also noted the value of the coffee and hope the board would hold them again next year. Thanks Amber, any other opening reports from board members? Ron. On June 9th, Karen and I hosted another board coffee, this time at 4:30 to try to be different times. A number of topics were brought up by the seven community members that attended as well as the Scarsdale High School cheerleading team, which included both students, parents, and coaches that were there. A number of topics were discussed. I'll go through each one, and then please note that if you brought a topic to the board, a more detailed email went to the full board. First was about communications and the importance of including the process and thought process, that why, behind

038decisions. Committee members also discussed about next year planning, the process and communications around next year planning. There was comments about the superintendent review process and how the community is being engaged in that process. There was a number of comments and questions about the diversity, equity and inclusion. There were comments and questions about student and staff wellness, as well as the benefit and importance of continued surveying to get a general view of how wellness is going throughout the year, the importance of students learning to think critically. In other words, according to this person, ensuring students are learning and not just "doing school," questions about the AT and AP review. A question about homework at the high school and wellness committee recommendations from previous years, comments about the elementary math program, comments around competitive cheer related to

039the status for the fall, as well as feedback about this spring and the rationale being allowed to practice but not compete, comments about middle school girls lacrosse and feedback about the difference in the number of experienced coaches for the girls and boys team, question about turf fields and whether there is a plan for additional fields, and a question about AEDs on school fields and whether they are accessible when schools are not open. Awesome, thanks Ron. Any other opening reports from board members? All right, again, I'll just confirm that after these board coffees, the board does receive a more detailed summary from the attendees of the coffee and some of the issues that are related to our managerial areas get forwarded to those assistant superintendents or directors for further information and provide clarity, perhaps at a

040forthcoming meeting. So, we appreciate the input and it's considered as all input as we continue our work. The next item is personnel report, Drew. Thank you very much, Pam. I've two items tonight. One is a calendar-related item, which I'll cover second and first is to welcome eight individuals, all of whom are special education teachers who will be appointed across our three levels and some, if not all are in the audience tonight. So, I'm gonna read their names and ask them to stand up and give a wave and at the conclusion, we'll share a round of applause. First, we'd like to welcome Lorraine Adu Crowe who will be joining us at Scarsdale Middle School. (members clapping) Next, I'd like to welcome Gabrielle Barberry who will join us at Scarsdale High School. (members clapping) Sarah Heffernan will

041be joining us at Quaker Ridge Elementary School. (members clapping) Jenna Muzzillo will be joining us at Edgewood Elementary School. (members clapping) Kira O'Neil will be joining us at Heathcote Elementary School. (members clapping) And Jenna Pagliaro will be returning to Edgewood Elementary School, this time as a probationary teacher. So, she's been with us before. (members clapping) Ashley Rinaldi will be joining us also at Heathcote Elementary School. (members clapping) And finally, Daniel Turret will be joining us at Greenacres Elementary School. (members clapping) So, welcome to all of those individuals. We look forward to a really exciting orientation and start to a wonderful school year. Welcome, thank you so much for being here so we could see your faces. Have a great career with Scarsdale. We're looking forward to it. I'd like to welcome you all here. We

042have a very long board meeting and understand you guys probably have other things going on tonight and this week. So, don't feel like you need to stay here, but we're really delighted you guys were here for this tonight, so thank you very much. Thank you. (members clapping) Awesome, so, we'll move forward. I had one second item. I'm sorry. You're right, you did say you told me. No problem. Fair warning. We will have an updated calendar, both in the grid view and the list view up on the website tomorrow. The outstanding item that we hadn't pinned down yet were the half-day parent-teacher conference days for the fall for K-5 and for the spring for grades K through two. So, I'm just gonna read those dates off. Those dates will be December 2nd, 7th and 9th, and

043March 17th, 22nd and 24th in the spring. So, again, we'll post those. We have three committees that are elementary, middle and secondary levels, high school levels focusing on parent-teacher communication as an outgrowth of our STA contract negotiations. We're finalizing our summary report on that and we'll communicate that out, but we didn't wanna delay any further and I know the calendar committee was getting ready to send their dates off to the printer. So, we have pinned those dates down. Thank you. Super, thanks, Drew. All right, good, we'll move on to item six, the journey forward update. Great, so, this is gonna be fairly brief tonight. Just a couple of reminders. I'm gonna ask Eric to go over our metrics in just a moment, then I'm gonna just review a couple of things about our moving up

044and graduation ceremonies. Say a word about planning for next year, and then ask Ray to come up and give a quick update on athletic planning for next year. So, Eric wanna kick us off? Sure, thank you, Thomas. Thank you to the board. Just to give everybody a heads up on where we are, we are currently sitting as a yellow zone within the CDC framework. Our positivity rate, which is currently at 0.4% is well within to the green zone for the CDC. However, our cases per 100,000 is still hovering just slightly over 10, which is the cutoff for being in a green zone for the CDC. It is currently hovering around 1.3 to 1.7 each day, per 100,000. So, it's currently just sitting right over 10 by a few percentage points. In general, the numbers have

045continued to be good. In the last month and a half, we have had two cases in Scarsdale, in the schools of Scarsdale, and there are currently four active cases in the village as a whole. So, all in all very good news, the numbers seem to be steady low. We haven't seen trends. They've flattened out towards the bottom of all of our graphs. So, that's a wonderful place to be. Thank you, Eric. Just in terms of this week, we have obviously a moving up ceremonies and our elementary schools were very excited. We had to obviously do multiple scenario planning for this as we've had to do with everything over the course of this year. We were able, with the change to the large outdoor gatherings, we are able to move from having cohorted ceremonies, to having

046one large ceremony outdoors. We're able to do this with, unvaccinated students must wear a mask or not just the students, but anyone unvaccinated needs to wear mask to those events. If you're vaccinated, then masking is optional, obviously, which was not gonna clean most of our students, it was scheduled for Tuesday, but we actually made the call a little bit earlier. Tomorrow is supposed to be a pretty rainy day and we didn't wanna risk it. We really can't move it indoors and have one ceremony. So, in order to really preserve that one big ceremony celebration, we decided to move it to Wednesday which is supposed to be a perfect day, weather-wise. So, we are excited about that and anticipate those ceremonies going off very well. We also obviously have graduation at the high school coming up

047on Thursday evening. I'm also anticipating pretty decent weather for that. So, although there are three alternate days for rain days on that, we're not at this moment anticipating having to use those. It will run as usual, as one large ceremony, except it will be on Butlerfield this year under the lights and the same masking information applies to that ceremony as well. Beyond that, as we have continued to say, we are planning for a normal school year next year in every capacity. This year, we are still under the current guidance that guides this year. So, we're not able to make any changes except for those that have been specified by the governor or through executive order. And so we've made those accommodations and changes as the guides change. We've tried to be very responsive to those

048with the example being the moving up ceremonies and the graduation ceremonies. As soon as we receive updated guidance, we've been responding accordingly, but in terms of next year, we are anticipating having a full normal school year. We are not planning on having a remote option. We are not planning on having anything other than was required by guidance at that time, which may or may not include masks depending on how these metrics continue over the course of the summer. As soon as we have information, of course, we'll be communicating that out to the broader community, including to our students. And with that, I'm gonna ask Ray to come forward and talk to us even more specifically about athletic planning for next year. Thank you, Thomas. So currently, we are all planning for the 2021/'22 school year

049and interscholastic athletic seasons are for a complete return to normal. In the fall, overnight and interstate travel plans are in place for field hockey and girls volleyball, homecoming's planned for October 1st. And we're planning tournaments for volleyball, basketball, wrestling, and cheer. All preparations are being put in place for competitions as usual and at this time, we're still unsure about the clearance processes, some safety protocols and continuing restrictions, and there are a few outstanding questions like will the risk categorizations for sports continue? And will the additional requirements as outlined in the Westchester County Department of Health, February 3rd memo continue or will they sunset? And we have not heard back yet from our several requests from Westchester County Department of Health. But I'd like to take on a position of advocacy with three entities in order

050to ensure that all of our students are able to practice and play their respective sports equitably, and I'd like to advocate with the New York State Department of Health to remove risk categorizations of sports and to focus on the five factors in assessing risks of COVID-19 transmission, as outlined in the National Federation of High Schools' revised guidance, also like to reach out to the Westchester County Department of Health, to remove the extra requirements for higher risk sports outlined in their February 3rd memo and remove the clause that American academy of Pediatrics guidance must be followed relative to the wearing a face coverings. The last entity I'd like to reach out to is the American Academy of Pediatrics and ask them to add a provision in their guidance for the use of face masks, with a

051clear distinction between Gators and other masks that do not go around the neck that will allow for our cheerleaders to use face masks if a coach has in place to supervise, and if the mask mandate stays in place. There's no doubt that most of our teams were affected by the COVID-19 mitigation efforts, in particular cheerleaders, indoor track and field athletes and our wrestlers had extremely limited or no competitive experiences this year. As the board of education is aware, cheer families have been in contact with the administration and the board seeking an immediate response which allows competitions in the 2021/'22 school year, while the board can not provide guarantees at this time due to the guidance that remains in place, we all remain committed to planning for a normal season in the fall and beyond, including

052competitions. At this point, we have no indication that the current guidance will be extended into next year and our planning as such. And I see my advocacy efforts as outlined earlier as the strongest way to demonstrate allegiance to our cheerleaders and all of our student athletes. Thank you, Ray. And I would just like to reiterate that plan, I think we all share in the philosophy of wanting to return to normalcy in every way that you just described. And, I know that as section officials, regional superintendents, athletic directors have all been doing the same advocacy work that Ray has described and certainly would encourage the full of our community and I know that we have chair folks here tonight, but the advocacy really needs to be directed to the agencies that Ray had talked about. And

053I think as we speak together with one voice, we are more likely to see changes to that guidance. And so I would encourage all of us to think about working together on that front. It has been something we've been working on for several months and there's been a reluctance to change that guidance for this school year, but we have every hope and every belief that there will be changes to that guidance over the course of the summer as we prepare for next year. So, Ray, thank you for that update, appreciate it. Eric, also for that additional information on health metrics. At this point, I'd like to turn it over to the board to see if there are any questions. I don't have any questions, but I just wanna commend Ray for putting together that statement

054and for noting that you are committed to those advocacy efforts on behalf of our student athletes. I think that the board does expect our management to attend to its areas of operations. And that would be you as a athletic director attending to this work with a supportive cabinet and the superintendent and we are behind you 100% for your work to do what you need to do to give our athletes the seasons that they deserve, that they're entitled to and a traditional fall season, and are very supportive of your work to plan for a traditional fall season. I know it's been rough, the work you've had to do this year, but I, for one, I'm extremely grateful for it and commend that work and hope that the belief that we have a traditional fall season comes

055to fruition, I truly expect that it will. I'm not sure who this question is for, but do we have any sense of when the state might be updating the guidance for next year? Have they given a sense of timing? They haven't given official sense of timing yet. This is me, I wouldn't expect it to be any time in the very near future. My understanding is they're looking to have extended school year still work under the guidance that's there. Yeah, that's really the issue. There's a number of school districts that are providing extended year services this year. And I think they're hoping to have this guidance stay in place through that. I'm not sure if they're gonna actually update the guidance or if they're gonna let it expire. And I think there's a lot of people

056who believe that, obviously this was allowed through executive order and it's the only way that the governors had the power to make these kinds of decisions and to delegate these decisions to the New York State Department of Health and to other supporting agencies. But if the executive orders expire, all this goes away. So, I have a similar question for Westchester county then. Ray, the requirements specific to cheer for Westchester county, is there an expiration date on that or is there action required by them to rescind it? And I understand that if other guidance goes away, it might be a move point. Yeah, so, it's unclear on whether that memo was just in place for fall season two and for spring. The section hasn't heard back anything yet from their requests. I put in a couple

057of calls to the section executive director to see if they can advocate for us to get some responses, what's unclear as to whether it will sunset or if these categorizations of sport will stay in place. So, we're just not sure. And then when you talk about advocacy, which I personally fully support, are you talking about you advocating or are you asking the board to do the advocacy? So, it's me because I have the expertise in sport and I think I can speak to the technical terms of what's safe and what's not. I have a clear bias on this and I've always said that, I want all of our athletes to be able to compete. And I think that our coaches can make it as safe as possible for that to happen. And so I think

058that I can put it in the language that needs to be there for people to attend to. My hope is that the health and safety experts will stick to the health and safety aspects as it relates to COVID and that they'll allow the people who are most intimate with sport and guidelines and safety and managing risk to deal with those other things. So, granted, this would require a conversation amongst the board, but I think it would make sense for you to advocate. But I agree with Thomas what he said before that it's helpful to have many voices advocating. And so why not have a conversation amongst the board on whether we also advocate to the people that we talk to at Westchester county or the state? I mean, personally I would be supportive of that.

059Yeah, I think the more voices, the better. As I mentioned, the regional superintendents group, which is about 70 superintendents have been working on this, the regional ADs have been working on this issue. There are a large number of people who've been advocating for this, but certainly I think if the board wanted to send, either make phone calls or send an email or something that outlines further support, that can only help. And I'll also just clarify that this board was asked to pass resolutions related specifically to winter and fall to sports. We were compelled to either make a resolution related to those two seasons or the superintendent would write a statement to the Westchester County Department of Health allowing high-risk sport competitions. So, our regulations were for those seasons only, the board would not take up

060that resolution again unless we were compelled to do so. So, there is no intent to take up a relative solution related to fall 2021/' 22 sports until we are mandated by some government agency to do that. But certainly, the advocacy on behalf of our athletes is a great idea and something for you to consider as a board in July. I mean, I'm asking us to consider right now. I'm good for it, I'd like to do it. So, I have no problem with it fits in with our advocacy efforts and goals anyway, I just wanted to clarify or ask and it was a question of clarification of something that you just said, Pam, which is in terms of us not taking it up unless we're required to do so. I would emphasize that it's, not only

061is it that not required, like we're not only not required, we're never required to do it. We only got asked to do it on this single occasion because the state and county passed the buck down, but there's no reason to, at this juncture, to expect them to do that and in the absence of anything else, we assume that it will proceed in the normal course. Absolutely, the board expects our management to attend to those specific details and Ray, as the athletic director's responsible for those decisions as he has every single season, other than that, I'm more compelled by county authority to do so. So, Ray has outlined what other, three bullets, Ray, related to advocacy? The board could write a statement supporting that, and then could consider doing something with a letter to each of

062those sources if that would be an effective thing to do. Sure. So, if I'm looking at this correctly, it's three different letters, to those three different sites. And the language be slightly different to address each individuals, entities, place and restricting our athletes So, then let me ask the board if the board is comfortable with Ray's direction, if he would consider drafting a letter to each of those entities that then the board would sign and send. I mean, it's extra work- I'm definitely comfortable with doing that. I think it's definitely consistent with the advocacy that we've taken on throughout the year on these issues and I would support Ray taking those steps, yes. Yeah, I think definitely you should do that we should support it. Yes. So, this is a request from the board that you

063take the time to write something to each of those that would then come from the board in language from the board, and then that Anna Rae would send on our behalf. Does that sound reasonable? We obviously have good consensus to that. Okay, thank you, Ray. Any other questions about the journey forward updates? I have a question, I think it's for Eric. So, for the moving up ceremonies, they're outside, but even unvaccinated children need to wear masks. Why did we decide to go with that? So, this is the interesting part of the way the state is governing end-of-year activities. They are governing them under the large group gathering guidance, which has, anyone who is unvaccinated needing to be masked even though they have said that children at school do not need to wear a mask outside.

064So, during regular activities of school, that is the case. During a large group event whether in graduation, and moving up fall under those two categories, they need to have, anybody who is unvaccinated does need to wear a mask. Okay, that's confusing, but okay. They specifically exempted those two types of ceremonies from the school guidance, which is in place for all other things. That's why cohorting still needs to be maintained through a number of our other activities at the end of the year, many of the PTA-sponsored ones, but the large group gathering guidance is different in that it says unvaccinated must be masked and vaccinated are optional. Thank you. I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead and follow up 'cause this is sort of different. Just as a followup to that. So, just to confirm, right now,

065for sports outdoors, at our school fields, you do not need a mask? High school, ISOs, youth sports I haven't believed that we have a confirmation of that that's gone out. So, I just would like to hear that officially. The only thing that was keeping masks on was the school guidance at that point for outdoors. Based on my personal anecdotal experience, with youth sports, I do not think that's well understood 'cause since there has been no official update. I do think it would be helpful to get that out to everybody. So, it's my understanding, Ray, you can please confirm this, so we sent the information out to the village who was responsible for disseminating information out to outside groups? So, they did ask for it, something on letterhead from the district. I'm happy to put it

066on my letterhead if that helps. But you're correct, Ron, at this point, ISOs and other organizations do not need to wear a mask. Thanks. And there's a fourth bullet here related to the potential expiration of the executive order, which could continue or discontinue public comment via Zoom. I just wanna make sure this is an opportunity for the public to know that should the executive order, that board meetings are allowed to be held virtually expire and, or not be renewed on July 5th, as it has been for over 15 months or whatever, then we are no longer allowed to do business virtually, which means any board business that we do, which includes in our agenda hearing from those present in public comment may not be done virtually. And so it is likely or possible that July

0677th meeting will not have Zoom public comment opportunity, just wanna make sure that that's clear. Thanks, Pam. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. All right, thank you everyone. We'll move to item seven, hearing from those present. Let me just read this little preamble that I do. "Members of the public are cordially invited to be present and speak at this time on agenda items or other non-personnel related matters per our adopted resolution policy 1230 has been amended to allow each individual three minutes to speak, and during this public common period, we have a 90-minute cap." And again, this lasts through the extension of the executive order related to virtual board meetings. "The order of public comment will be as follows. We will listen to community members present at the meeting in-person first, and then community members

068may speak via Zoom afterwards. And there are a number of items related to personnel, executive agreements and contracts on our agenda tonight. So, I wanna take this moment to reiterate that input related to personnel is very much welcomed via email and at any time during the year, but by law, matters of personnel other than the personnel report can not be part of a business meeting agenda, and thus cannot be raised during this item, hearing from those present or later tonight within item 15. Should you be intending to speak to specific personnel agreements or contracts, I ask that you email us your comments instead as I am not able to allow them during a board business meeting. So, with that, if there's anyone in the audience want to come up and speak at the podium, you're

069welcome. Oh, please state your name and address, and if you represent any organization at the beginning of your comments. Hi, my name is Lily Kiai and I live on 11 Roosevelt Place. I am a rising senior and I will be speaking on behalf of the Scarsdale cheerleading team. "Do you know what it feels like to not be heard? to watch your friends and classmates talk about how amazing it feels to compete and build hype around their upcoming game? to see maroon and white, tell the community to vote for the athlete of the week, to see other teams post on their social media about their big wins, and to know that you will never be able to feel this joy this season? It is devastating, it's demoralizing, and it's painful. We've watched our fellow cheer athletes

070at schools throughout the county and state compete without us. We've practiced and hoped for approval from our board of education and our superintendent who are supposed to support us. We've worked with our parents to try to get the American Academy of Pediatrics, understand our support and change the wording that was problematic. But in the end, unfortunately, you have failed us. As a group of around 30 girls, we are alone in this. We have no one else to talk to about it since we are the only ones going through it. No other team at the high school has had these specific struggles. Cheering for all of us is so important in our lives, many of us have been doing it since we were very little. So, now at the high school level, at the time that

071we have been preparing for our whole lives, it is being taken away from us. Possibly, this may stem from your lack of understanding of our sport, time and time again, people only associate high school cheerleading with supporting our football teams at their games. But do you know that we do so much more than that? Perhaps you don't understand that cheer is more than a one-season sport. We have committed so much time and effort tumbling on our own, many of us doing private lessons, improving individually for it to not matter. Because you most likely don't know, year round, we prepare for our local and national competitions. This process starts in August by preparing our two minute and 30-second routine filled with tumbling, stunting, jumps, cheer, dance, and pyramid. And we work on this routine during our

072whole season to perfect it. And the best feeling for all of us is getting off the mat at a competition knowing that your hard work from the whole year has paid off, but you are preventing us from having that feeling and enjoying our sport with our teammates. During the pandemic, every student at the high school went through so much and for many of us, cheer is our only escape. It's been so discouraging and damaging that our only escape does not feel valued and it's feels that it may again be taken away from us. For a school that claims to prioritize our mental health, it seems that this doesn't apply to us. It doesn't apply to the Scarsdale cheerleaders. So, what will you do to create a clear path forward for our team? What will you

073do to support our mental health? What will you do to support our collective goal, which is to represent Scarsdale High School during the 2021 to 2022 cheerleading season? Please hear what we are saying and support us as we fight to keep Scarsdale cheerleading alive this season, thank you." Thank you so much. Go ahead, name and address. My name is Sabrina Finegold and I live on 22 Elm Road and I'm here on behalf of the Scarsdale cheerleading team. I not only want to reiterate what my teammate, Lily said, but I also want to add to some of her concerns and claims. You are the adults. You're supposed to look out for us for both our physical and mental health. The district lawyers points with theoretical risk. But what about the emotional strain we have been put

074under? We feel we have been let down again and again and again, I understand that the AAP has stated that there is a theoretical risk of choking due to mask. I'm a flyer myself. That means I'm constantly spinning around flipping and being thrown in the air. Not once has my mask moved from my face, much less choked me or impaired my vision. Every single cheer team has these same guidelines and is potentially subject to those same risks. Every other cheerleading team has the exact same wording, which our lawyers claim to be the issue, yet their boards found a way to support their cheerleading teams. So, why are we being denied the opportunity to compete? We do the exact same thing we do at practice that we do at a competition. Our coaches sit in front

075of the mat at every practice. And if we were allowed to compete, they'd be there at every competition. On top of that, at UCA competitions, staff are provided to stand on the mat and are trained to recognize danger and step in if needed. If masks truly were a concern, we would not have been able to practice as practicing presents the same risks that competing does. We know that the lawyers have chosen to be conservative, but it feels like this is an excuse rather than a genuine concern. It is not a safety problem as our entire season has proven that as well as the countless other cheerleading teams in the nation who have all had successful cheerleading seasons. We understand that the board is not currently voting on cheerleading. If we are allowed to go back

076to school in September, without masks, the vote would not be needed. The problem is that isn't a guarantee. Even if that was to happen, we most likely would not hear about that decision until September or maybe even later. And as Lily previously said, we need the whole year to prepare for our competitions. We were told that gender wasn't an issue, but for teenage girls, it really did feel that way. Knowing that we were denied the privilege of competing at our own competitions, but then being expected to be at every football game for the boys was detrimental. While we watched our season slowly fall apart, we sent emails, we wrote letters and we mostly recently put out an article on the inquire and spoke to a member of the board. We feel extremely unheard. Please, don't

077just listen to what we are saying, act on it and represent your students. Thank you, Sabrina. (members clapping) We do also applaud you for coming to speak to us tonight. Name and address, please go ahead. Sorry, one second. I'm Roger Nice, 28 Franklin Road. I just wanna mention, I wasn't trying to be rude. I got a text from someone that Zoom was not working, so I don't know if it's been fixed yet, but all they saw was a picture of the high school and no sound. So, I don't know who's supposed to- They can watch live stream if they want to. Okay, I just thought I'd throw that out there. Thank you. The election's over the voters have spoken. There are a few conclusions you can draw from the school board election. First, to the

078current board, the results are meaningful. Voters had a choice between endorsing the approach of the past year under current leadership or voicing their preference for the change. Their voice should be heard loud and clear. The approach of the past year was not supported by a majority of the voters. This is a fact not subject to interpretation as the current vice-president did not garner enough support to remain on the board. That's meaningful, regardless of the specific topic or approach, maintenance of the status quo was rejected. Please respect the voters who chose not to reelect current leadership and make no significant decisions today before your term ends. To do so would be to replace your judgment for that of the electorate. The Oxford definition of authoritarianism, "Lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others." The

079majority of others have now spoken with their votes. You were not elected to cram a significant decision until the last meeting of the current term. You were elected to represent us, not replace your judgment for ours. To do so would be a violation of the public trust. We've elected two new board members and rejected current leadership. Again, that's simply factual. By electing Jessica and Jim, we've expressed our desire to have them included in major decisions regarding our schools. They may not agree with my opinion, which I will purposefully not share, but that's democracy. By extending any administration contracts at this time, the board will remove Jessica and Jim from impactful discussion of administration performance. This is precisely the type of decision they were elected for. I hope you'll all recall the decision of two years

080ago, when the current board extended a contract for a total of five years, they had just elected three new board members, all of whom sit here today and all of whom and I'm not sure if I spoke with Karen at the time, but the other of whom felt it was wholly inappropriate and the decision should have been held until they were sworn in. I hope your memories aren't that short. There is no urgency regarding contract extensions. All you're doing is partially disenfranchising the voters of Scarsdale. Parents were consistently unhappy this past year about the lack of transparency as confirmed by the tri-state consortium, which of course does mean different things to different people. By doing this, meaning any contract extensions at the last minute, without a meaningful opportunity for notice and input continues this lack

081of transparency and makes it appear as though the board cares not for what the community wants. All I'm asking is that you simply table such discussions for now- (bell dings) I have one more sentence. Go ahead. Thank you. Let our newly elected board members have their say, start to change the tenor of the board here and now. Please do not continue to make it appear as though you have no regard for the will of the voters. Too many people feel that already and it hurts our community. It's time to take a breath and start the healing, thank you. Thank you, any other members of our audience interested in speaking at the podium? Dalia, name and address or organization, thanks. Hi, Dalia Aecon, I'm here on behalf of PT council. Do you still need my address?

082No. Okay. On behalf of PT council, I want to extend a sincere thank you to all the retirees who were recognized earlier this evening. They are what makes Scarsdale schools a special place we treasure. I know my own three kids have had many of them and learned so much. We appreciate all the talent, time and energy they have given to the Scarsdale schools and wish them well in their next adventures. And to mark the final board meeting of the school year, I also wish to thank board president Pam Fuehrer, vice president, Alison Singer, our board liaison to the PTC, Amber Yusuf and all members of the board of education, Dr. Thomas Hagerman and the entire cabinet for your dedicated service and commitment to our children's education. Throughout this year, I look forward to your continued

083guidance and input until you complete end of your term. The PTC also looks forward to continued collaboration with you all next year. This board working with the administration has been challenged, perhaps more than any other. We acknowledge the tremendous and almost impossible job you had this year, and thank you for leading us through these difficult times. You've had to oversee the district during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and move to remote schooling and a racial reckoning. These were issues no board had faced and solutions often not readily apparent. You all devoted enormous amounts of time, energy, and care to working with the administration to arrive at the best possible outcomes. We know this hasn't been easy, we also know that you've always done what you believed was best for the district. I have the honor tonight of

084also recognizing the two outgoing members of the board of education, Pam Fuehrer and Alison Singer as they complete their board service. Pam and Allison, we salute your willingness to contribute your time and expertise to our district over the past years. You are two of the hardest working volunteers in our district. We realized that board work has often taken you away from your own families, which during this past year has been especially challenging as our own kids needed us more than ever. We also recognize that the time we see you in board meetings is just a fraction of the hours you have devoted to the district. And we know you have worked so hard because you care. You care about our children's education, about our schools being the best they can possibly be and about the

085future of the community, both of you have worked to guarantee that Scarsdale schools maintain their standard of excellence and continue to grow and innovate towards an even brighter future. Alison, thank you for your three years of service on the board, during the last of which you led as vice vice-president. From the start, we knew you were committed to ensuring that all our students' needs and concerns were met and addressed. Throughout your tenure And especially this past year, we have benefited from your experience representing people with disabilities. But we also know that you have always worked hard to represent all students in our district. Can I get a couple more minutes? All right, got a couple of minutes. All right, you have taken the time to attend workshops, which showed best practices and share your knowledge

086with the board. We appreciate your service and we'll miss your voice. Pam, thank you for your six years of service on the board, including your year and a half as board president. Your leadership, organization and confidence have been great assets to our community. You have always approached your role with extraordinary grace, respect and seriousness. Even this past year when board meetings were often emotional and heated and went late into the night, your consistently calm demeanor helped the board navigate through difficult situations. In addition, your extensive knowledge of management has allowed the group to be productive and advance numerous goals and initiatives throughout these years. Thank you for your dedication to our children and all you have given to our district. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you for giving so

087selflessly of your time and working so hard to make sure our schools are the best place to learn and teach in the country, thank you all. Thank you very much. Yes, please. Good evening, I'm Alyssa Bom, President of the League of Women voters of Scarsdale and I'm speaking on behalf of the league board of directors. I have two separate comments. The league board wishes to thank outgoing board of education members, Pam Fuehrer and Alison Tepper Singer for their dedicated service to the Scarsdale school district. Pam, you served as board president at an extraordinarily difficult time, not just this year, but throughout your tenure as a school leader, you have enhanced the education available to our children through your focus on improving curriculum and programming and through your efforts to broaden outreach to the public. We

088appreciate your gentle touch and sensitivity as you discuss the issues facing the district, as well as your moderate tone during public comment. You truly have been a workhorse dedicated to your role. Alison, you've been an incredible advocate for special education and student mental health and wellbeing. Your personal and professional experience reflected in your thoughtful questions and comments informed board discussion on the importance of understanding diverse student needs and ensure the inclusion of all children, no matter however they learn. Your great breadth of knowledge from budgeting and finance to facilities and school safety contributed the sound board decisions. You listened to everyone and remained fair and level headed. You both have demonstrated a commitment to maintain and enhance the quality of the Scarsdale school system. You both should be proud of the legacy you leave behind

089as Scarsdale board of education members. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Second comment, at the May 24th school board meeting, the league asked whether the board would continue to use a virtual public comment after Governor Cuomo's executive order suspending the open meetings while expires and school board meetings are again conducted in-person without social distancing requirements. The board stated that it was advised by its counsel that this was not permitted under the law. One of the league's central missions is for the public's active participation in government. The open meetings law is silent with respect to participation. The law requires that the government's business occurs in public so that voters can see their officials deliberations and resulting actions. In the same spirit of openness, the school board's policies allow in-person public comment and

090recognize the importance of community involvement in its decision-making process. It is the view of the league board that there is no legal reason to discontinue the use of virtual public comment, simply because it is virtual in nature. In fact, if the school board seeks to uphold the spirit of the law, virtual public comment should be allowed as it provides to those community members who might not otherwise be able to attend meetings, the opportunity to remain engaged with the school district. The league reached out to New York assembly woman, Amy Paulin's office on this issue. Her staff explained that it could not give legal advice. However, because the open meetings law is silent as to public comment, assemblywoman Paulin has introduced a bill- (bell dings) if passed, if I could just say what the bill would

091do, it would just clarify that any meeting of a public body that is open to the public that allows public comment, shall provide for an opportunity for that comment to be given in real time, by any available means. So, this past year has been a dramatic increase in public engagement, vigorous public engagement is key to a well-functioning board and any allowable measures that support community engagement should be maintained. We urge the school board to revisit this issue so that virtual public comment may continue, thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else here in our audience who would like to come to the podium for public comment? Is that a yes? Sorry. Yes, go ahead. Name and address and if you represent an organization. Thank you. Hi, Will Brennan, 10 Tunstall Road and I am rising

092to second and support Mr. Newsdot's opinions and comments earlier. I understand that I got here a little late, so I'm not sure I received the full impact of your comments earlier, but I understand I'm not supposed to talk about personnel matters, but I would like to talk about the process and the community trust here that seems to me, I lack full information, so, perhaps I'm wrong about this, but it seems to me that an item was added to the consent agenda at the last minute and is potentially going to be considered now in a way that suggests that it was designed to avoid public comment and public input. There's a lot of distrust in our country right now, a lot of shenanigans by a lot of government authorities. If this item was considered and passed

093under these circumstances, I would suggest to you strongly that it would do only more to break down trust in government bodies, even at the local level, which is just terrible. And so I would I would implore you to vote against that item, thanks. Thank you. Can I bring my mask down? No, we can hear you fine, go ahead. Okay, great. My name is Shirley Samron, I'm at 22 Butler Road, and I just wanted to also echo the comments of the prior gentlemen that we've had a lot of challenges and we've had a lot of challenges this past year with respect to the community feeling very disenfranchised from the board. And I implore that all of you really consider your role in this community in terms of really listening to parents and really including the feedback

094that you've received about this administration's ability to really pull in the community. And what I mean by that is that I work in high tech. I've worked high-tech for over 20 years and it's come back to me. The company that I work for is based at MIT's campus and it's come back to me, even through that by my virtual Zoom meetings that the reputation of Scarsdale is tarnished and that's very discouraging. For a woman who's spent her entire career working high tech, trying to encourage other girls to actually pursue STEM and pursue engineering and pursue, it's discouraging to find out that other high-level institutions like MIT and technology companies don't think that well of Scarsdale. So, really think about that. Think about the fact that our property values will suffer if our school district is

095seen as being less than stellar. And think about the fact that we really need to have agile minds, come together and rise when you have war, when you have really difficult challenges before you, we need to really look to our leaders to rise above it and bring us together. And it seems like presently, some of the matters in hand in terms of the consent agenda, really seek to divide us. And that's not a good use of the board's time. So, I would encourage all of you to really think very critically about the feedback that you've received from parents. I haven't talked to a single parent this year that has been happy with the way things have gone with their children's schooling this year. And I have very, very strong students who have performed extraordinarily well

096in this school district, and this year have had to have multitude of tutors and additional support and I think that's very unfair because not all parents in Scarsdale can afford that. It's extremely unfair and I also think that we need to think carefully and critically about being much more inclusive to everyone in the school district, including having the opportunity to have public comment virtually and incorporating all parents in this process. We can not have a district that's just ruled by a few people and have one perspective rule everyone. Not everyone is made up of a district that has a household that has one working parent, not everyone has the same demographic background, not everyone has the same class background. And we need to be conscientious of that and have more empathy and really be thinking

097critically about what our board makeup is. So, thank you. Thank you, anyone else in the audience wanna come to the podium at this time? Oh, there we go. State your name and address and go ahead, please. Jeremy Ganz, 45 Harvest Drive. This is gonna be very brief. I just am adding yet another voice to what previous speakers have said regarding the item the consent agenda on the superintendent contract. I urge the board to consider tabling this item so that it can be discussed by the incoming board. This is a matter for the future and it is not an urgent matter that needs to be discussed and voted on tonight by this board. If however, for some reason it's not tabled and held over, it should be removed from the consent agenda so that the public

098can hear the rationale for taking any action tonight. As other speakers have said, the public has been broadly dissatisfied with the process and outcomes, we never know, but the process that has happened at certain meetings this year and leaving this item on the consent agenda is just furthering down that path. And hopefully the board will consider tabling it, and if not, removing it from the consent agenda so that it can be discussed and the public can hear the rationale for any decision that's made, thank you. Thank you. Any others in the live audience? All right, seeing none, we'll go to our Zoom audience for those who want to comment virtually, and I see four hands raised. Can I raise this question, a couple of people reached out that they can't get into the Zoom, although

099it seems like there are people in the Zoom, where would somebody find the link if they're having trouble? It's in the board events calendar on the homepage. It's in the events calendar, and the meeting notice that went out. So, two places, the meeting notice that went out, I guess Thursday, would have the Zoom link for public comment, and then also on the district events calendar, which is on the homepage of the district web page. There's a link in that for tonight's meeting, thank you. So, moving through, so we'll promote Isabella, Jerry, you can do all the promoting for me. I got you. Okay. So, Jerry promote Isabella and then once you're promoted, name and address, and if you represent an organization. Isabella, you can speak now. Hello, can you hear me? Isabella, we can hear

100you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, okay. My name is Isabella Gottschall. I'm a rising junior and I'm a rising junior and 151 Madison, I'm on the Scarsdale cheerleading team as well. I think the cheerleaders as a whole can agree with the statement that we are tired. We are tired of our sport being pushed aside, whether that is your intention or not. Have any of you personally been present at a cheerleading practice? I ask because it seems that hypocrisy has been a very large issue at the heart of the hindrance of our cheerleading competition season this year, and decisions seem to be made without full understanding to back them up. I'm sure everyone in attendance is aware of the issues that are barring our sport competitions. But since it seen that

101a lot of information has been lost along the chain of command behind the scenes, let me quickly reiterate some of the highlighted situations. First of all, I understand that mask wearing is one of the main problems. Aside from the fact that mask wearing is not exactly impeding other sports and their competitions, we can all vouch for the fact that our mask do not affect our sport movements. Now, I've not been asked for my opinion on whether or not mask wearing causes danger when on the cheerleading mat, and to my understanding, none of my teammates have either. Specifically, our thoughts and our perspectives have not been sought out prior to any rules actually being made or written up. Now, personally, I think that obtaining evidence from the source is helpful to make an informed decision rather

102than a reckless and arrogant judgment or assumption, especially when said judgment will greatly affect a specific demographic. So, I am not positive whether or not exceptions are being made for other sports like wrestling and such, or if they're able to simply break the rules. If neither are true, then why are the guidelines and expectations different when the possible dangers of the sports at hand are very similar? The very same piece of cloth that can supposedly impair cheerleaders' vision can just as well impair wrestlers vision. And if the fact of contact during COVID-19 is still another issue, then why can wrestlers roll around the mat in interscholastic competition when our interscholastic competition just involves our team separately competing on the same mat as another team? Next, I find it very confusing and quite frankly, a bit

103foolish to allow our teams practices while our competitions are still a taboo. Again, if we were ever asked personally, we could educate you all on the fact that our practices entail the exact same actions as our competitions. In fact, our practices are essentially held so that we can perfect our competition routine. Literally, the only difference between our practices and our competitions are that the routine is being done in practice clothing versus our uniforms. (bell rings) I believe the issue at the root of why we have not competed at all this year is the wording within the written guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which Scarsdale has been following. However, I would like to ask, who has the power to change this wording? Or who has the power to actually affect the changing of this

104wording? At this point, we are all very confused and I hope that you could all enlighten us as to why this warning has not been altered and rectified over the course of an entire year. Many other student athletes have been able to compete, doing what they love with the little to no- Isabella, just finish up, please. Excuse me? Isabella, the time you have is up. Okay, what exactly is holding us back? Who is holding us back and why are we being held back? Because quite honestly, the wording of rules does not seem to be the problem anymore. We have racked our brains about the motivation behind the force pushing us away from doing what we love. Is the argument against us being withheld on sexist grounds or are people prejudiced against us as a cheerleading

105team? Is our sport still not being taken seriously? Which is an exhausted and worthless justification in today's day and age? We do not know, but at this point what are we left to think? Speaking to board members and fellow parents, we have been told that the authority near to help advocate for cheerleading and affect these restrictive rules has been tossed from person to person. From the district attorney to the board itself, to the athletic director, we are beginning to feel more and more confused and helpless. I wonder who can actually help us because I am personally losing faith in the people who should be listening to us. It seems that we are being silenced or rather just not taken into account, but I hope that you all can understand it when I say that cheering

106is my oasis. Cheerleading is my second home. Thank you so much. You're gonna have to fix that, Jerry. This is off. All right, will you call up the next one? Adele, room 34 has been promoted. You may now speak. Name and address, please? Please give us your name and address. Hi, I can't tell if I've been called to speaker or not. Yes, you're speaking, please give us your name and address and you can speak, thank you. You can speak. Adele, room 34, you can speak. Please give us your name and address. Hi, this is Mida Cocendall from Verigos, Fox Meadow Road. Thank you very much for holding this meeting. First, I urge you or I should say I urge the new board to seriously reconsider not allowing Zoom for public comment starting possibly on July

1077th, especially for those of us that are in the labor force, Zoom has been incredibly helpful in enabling us to participate in these meetings. Secondly, as I have stated before, I urge the board, I urge the district to please release the agenda for board of ed meetings much earlier than Mondays at around noon, because it really doesn't give us the time to look at all the attachments. And so that we can comment in a more informed manner. Thirdly, two parents right now spoke about how voters voted and how the community feels or might not feel. One person said that the community feels disenfranchised. I personally would urge all of us to exercise significant caution on comments about what the community wants or does not want. This is a very, very heterogeneous community. Moreover, even though

108we had almost two weeks, if memory serves me well to vote absentee, and we had an entire day where district staff worked diligently to make voting go incredibly smoothly, only 13% of registered voters voted. 13% and the group which voted the most were those that are 40 to 49 years old. Their representation was only 25%. So, 75% of those people, many of the majority who have kids in the district did not vote. The 30 to 39 cohort, 10% voted. The 50 to 59%, 17% voted. I really would like to thank PTA president Alice Striker from Fox meadow. I found her kindness and very strong managerial skills to be incredibly helpful this year. It was she who wanted to create a DEI committee and she was incredibly supportive of so many other PTA committees. Thank you

109very much, Pam, as the president of the BOE, you bore the brunt of parents' frustrations. I certainly wouldn't want your job. I hope that with the benefit of hindsight, people will be grateful for the entire six years that you served as a volunteer, and of course, all the volunteer work that you did previously. Alison, you've done so much, not only at the board of ed, but nationwide for America's most vulnerable children, those with autism. Your compassion, empathy, and incredible knowledge of budgeting and finance leave very, very big shoes to fill. I wish the new board, a lot of luck in achieving that goal. I managed to attend the Spark information meeting today, and I was really impressed with all the information that the assistant principals and Dr. McIntosh and all the staff gave us. The

110topics look phenomenal, they look really relevant and appropriate for this age group. So, thank you very much and have a good evening. Thank you, Mira. Claire, you've been promoted to a panelist. You may speak now. Claire, you can unmute and tell us your name and address, please. Am I unmuted? Yes, Claire, you can speak now. Hi, am I unmuted? I can't tell. Claire, you are not muted, you can speak, we can hear you, thank you. Am I unmuted? Yes, Claire, you can speak. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I've got double feedback because the Zoom, I have to be on Zoom and on the live stream. Hi, my name is Claire Paiklin and I live at 13 Harcourt Road. I just wanted to speak regarding the same topic that Mira talked about. Well, Brennan, Rodger Newstead, Jeremy

111Ganz, basically, I'm feeling a lot of distrust here. I feel like you guys are supposed to be our representatives. You're supposed to represent the community. How do you represent the community if you don't allow the community any time to get engaged, to get involved, to discuss this last-minute addition to the consent agenda? It seems suspicious, it seems dubious. I'm wondering what the motivation is. What is the motivation? The fact is, we don't need to do this tonight and you guys don't really have the power to do this tonight. Yes, you have the power, but you shouldn't invoke it because you are not the elected representatives of this particular community at this moment in time. You were, but now you no longer are. Some of you are and some of you are not. So, what I

112would really like you to do is think about what the rationale is for doing this tonight and perhaps opening it up to the community to hear their thoughts. One thing that's rather frustrating tonight especially is that because the Zoom link isn't working, a lot of people who want to comment on this are not on the Zoom because they can't be on the Zoom because it was broken. Instead we're told, "Oh, you can just watch it on live stream." Well, we weren't sure that the comment period would work virtually. So, we're lucky that it does, but many people dropped off. And I really feel that this is not good oversight, this is not transparent. It's really not what the community wants. The community has been stating the whole time, as Roger mentioned, that the lack of

113transparency and the lack of communication has been abysmal. And this is just another example. So, please do not approve the consent agenda for that particular item and open it up to the community and let's hear what the community has to say about contract extensions for administrators who have not been transparent to us throughout the school year. It seems very underhanded to do this at the last minute and will only perpetuate the distrust that this community has, thank you. (bell dings) David, you are now a panelist, please unmute, state your name and address. You can now speak. (indistinct) Hi, have I been promoted? I'm seeing there was a glitch with the Zoom link. You can speak. Okay, well it looks like- David, you are now a panelist, state your name and address. Okay, great, thank you.

114Thanks, David Benderson, 14 Hamilton Road. I'm a member of the SPMC but speaking purely from my own personal standpoint and not representing any organization. First of all, I just wanted to take a second to also thank Allison and to thank Pam for their dedication and service to the community and the board and all the tremendous amount of time and effort they've put in over the years in the school board. Just thank you so much for everything. I wanna just take a brief second, just to echo all the previous comments in opposition to having the school board, I'm sorry, the superintendent's contract as part of a extension as part of a consent agenda item. And also I'd like to also mention that the physician, the district physician's contract is also up as part of a consent

115agenda item and I also think that that is something that's not completely inappropriate. I think that these decisions are things that really warrant a discussion from the board publicly, performance evaluations, which can be reviewed by the public and then input from stakeholders, especially in this environment, after this past year where there's a lot of families and students that have strong feelings about performance. And I think it's worth looking into that before extending the contract. There's no necessity, there's three years left. The incoming board should be the ones to do this. And there should absolutely be performance evaluations and public comment on it. I think that to do so would actually lead to a lack of confidence in those who are having contract extensions, because the process will be seen as illegitimate and could lead to

116issues, including possible petitions for recall, or no confidence for these employees such as the superintendent and the physician. So, I would urge the board to table this, this should not be a consent agenda item in any case, it should be something that's fully evaluated and up for public comment. Thank you so much. Stephanie, you're now a panelist, please state your name and address and lower your live stream volume, thank you. You may begin speaking. Right now? Hi, hopefully you can hear me. This is Stephanie Cox from 50 Vauxhall. I just want to echo the comments made by Mr. Newstead, Mr. Brennan, Mr. Ganz, Ms. Pakelin, and anyone else whose names I didn't catch- Hi, hopefully you can hear me, this is Stephanie Cox. We're coming through a pandemic that's put tremendous pressure on our administration

117and our board members beyond anything that we could have anticipated. We have two new board members coming in that were just elected and similar to what others have said, I would ask the board, wait on voting on items related to procedures, staffing, administration, contracts, and anything else so to allow detailed governance and review by our newly elected or complete new board at the time. So, thank you very much for your comments. And I would also give support to the cheerleading squad that we hope that you guys will be able to resume your competitions shortly, thank you. Thank you, I just wanna take a moment while Jerry works to promote the next one and to remind people who are commenting via Zoom to turn off your live stream. There is a delay. Jerry will be speaking

118directly to you via Zoom to tell you when you are unmuted and when he can speak. And he will tell you when you hit the three-minute limit and also remind you not to speak to particular personnel. So, listen for Jerry's voice for those of you who are speaking through the Zoom comment, and also turn off your live stream, thank you. Iran, you have been promoted to a panelist, please state your name and address. Hi, my name is Iran Israel, and I live at 64 Stratton Road. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be in attendance tonight and I'll be very, very brief. I'd like to just reiterate what Roger Newstead said first and many people have agreed with since. I think it's very important that the board take a clear look at what they're about to

119vote in. Additionally, to take further what Claire Pakelin said so eloquently, but to take it one step further, I think that the board in the time after public comments now, or later, or during the consent agenda if they can speak state why they believe that this item is important at this time and must be voted on right now. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Iran. And for the next to attendee, Jerry will promote you. Robert, you've been promoted as an attendee, please unmute and state- Good evening, this is Robert Berg, 17 Black Birch Lane. I'm talking to you from an airport in New Orleans. I rarely agree with Roger Newstead about anything, and I never ever agree with Jeremy Ganz, but I must say I'm flabbergasted to find out that the board has placed

120on the agenda tonight the contract extension for the superintendent, and also the extension of the district position. It's beyond belief to me that good governance would allow those two contracts to be put on a consent agenda for the board to pass when you have a new board coming in in a week. It's really just an outrageous abuse of the positions of the outgoing board members and the existing board. It just is not good governance. And I've been a big proponent throughout of good governance. And this is surely a terrible example of board governance, and I truly can't understand how it got on the agenda. I'd also like to put my support behind the girls' cheerleading team. I think they've been really sorely mistreated here. I can imagine this happening to the football team. You can

121see with the boys wrestling team. Clearly, they have more contact than anyone, and they've been allowed to proceed in competition. To me, this is really a sexist matter. Relying on bad advice from legal counsel is not a good way to proceed. You guys have common sense you that can use here, and you really need to support the girls' cheerleading, it's been devastating for them as they attested. And I think you should revisit that immediately, thank you. Thank you, Bob, and now Jerry will promote the next attendee. Anna Rue, you're promoted to a panelist. Hi, it's Anna Rue Hansal from 40 Burchfield Drive. I just wanted to echo what my neighbors and other members of the community have said about how inappropriate it is to basically deprive the incoming board members off the opportunity to review

122the contracts that have been placed on the agenda for renewal tonight, prematurely, years ahead of when they're up. Seems like the only purpose to that any conceivable purpose would be to insulate these employees from review by the incoming board members despite the fact that, I think that the community has roundly rejected by voting new board members in the way that the last year was handled by the current administration. And I feel like the only reason I have to chime in after so many other people have is because the board has not allowed sufficient time for the community to consider and comment about this. So, the only way that we can make our voices heard is to chime in in situations like these. Thank you. MSP, you have been promoted to a panelist, please unmute and

123you may speak now. Please tell us your name and address. MSP, could you please unmute and tell us your name and address? You can speak now. Am I being promoted to speak? You've been promoted and we can see you. You can speak now. MSP, you have been promoted to be a panelist, you can speak now. I can't tell if I'm being- Yes, MSP, you can speak. Yes, you can speak, we can hear you. Chosen to speak, I can't hear anybody. Yes, you can speak now. Am I on? Yes, you're on. Yes, MSP, you can speak. You can speak. It's confusing 'cause I'm on two things at once. Thank you- I can't hear anybody. My name is Melissa Cullen. I live at 46 Crossway and I just wanted to talk on the- Yes, MSP you can

124speak. It's confusing 'cause I'm on two things at once. I can't hear anybody. My name is Melissa Cullen. I live at 46 Crossway and I just wanted to echo, (audio feedback overspeaking) sorry, I just wanted to echo the things that were said by other by- You need to lower your live stream volume. Sorry, I just can't tell if you can hear me or not. I just wanted to echo the things that were said by other community members, Roger Newstead, Jeremy Ganz and others. I absolutely object to the last-minute addition of these contract issues to the consent agenda. I ask that the board table these issues until the two newly-elected board members are able to take their seats. At a minimum, I ask that these issues be removed from the consent agenda. And if nothing else,

125then if this were to go forward on the consent agenda for the evening, I ask that those board members who are going to be continuing to serve beyond August vote no. And then the one other thing I wanted to say was to just voice my support for the cheerleaders. I am a mother of boys, but I feel that these young ladies are being marginalized and devalued and I can't imagine how that must feel to them. And I ask that the decision makers reconsider the way that the cheerleaders are being handled and let them compete, and that's it. Thank you, and while Jerry promotes the next one, again, listen for Jerry's voice he'll let you know when you're unmuted and please turn down your live stream. Kate, you have been promoted to a panelist, you can

126speak. Hi, this is Kate de Lorenzo. I live at 1010 Still Road. I just wanna be brief and say that I think that this last-minute addition of something to a consent agenda erodes trust that the board is trying to be transparent. I also feel that what you're doing is probably technically okay and procedurally okay, but in fact, not in good faith and that does not feel good. As a community member, it makes me feel blindsided and disrespected and yeah, that's how I feel. And also I would add that it seems that in a different technicality, the cheerleaders are being kept away from their sport. And I think people should probably start standing up for the spirit of who we want to be as a community instead of the letter of who we want to be,

127thank you. Sarah, you've been promoted to a panelist. You can unmute and begin speaking. State your name and address. Make sure your livestream volume is down. Sarah, you've been promoted to a panelist. You can unmute and begin speaking. Sarah, you can speak. Sarah, you can begin speaking, we can see you. Am I unmuted? Yes, you are, Sarah. You can begin speaking, you're unmuted. It looks like I'm unmuted. I have no idea whether I actually am. So, I'm just gonna go ahead and speak and hope everyone can hear me. I'm Sarah Bell Wexler, 368 Heathcote Road. And at the outset, I just wanna be very clear that I'm speaking in my individual capacity and not as a representative of any entity, organization or other people outside my own individual household. It's funny that this is all

128happening today. At breakfast this morning, for some reason, we were talking about what my husband's and my majors were in college and my children didn't realize that I was actually a public policy major. And when they asked what public policy was, I explained it's how you make laws and rules, how government works, how it's supposed to work and how you get government to work the way that it's supposed to work. Adding to the consent agenda, the item that everyone has been speaking about tonight at the last minute is not how government is supposed to work. The board of education each and every one of you are our elected representatives. We chose you to represent us and to make decisions for us based on what is best for our community and best for each of us

129individually and including our children and our families, but not everyone in the room are our present going forward elected representatives for the next three years. Only five are, Jessica and Jim are the two representatives who we've chosen to make the decisions for us about personnel, about governance, about how we want our community to be and they're not in the room. So, it's not right and it's not fair to make personnel decisions, contractual decisions tonight without the input of the elected representative, the incoming board who we've chosen to govern for us. I think it's pretty funny that Bob said that he agrees tonight with Jeremy and Roger for maybe the first time ever, but it shows that the community is coming together and the community is bonding on one area and in one place, and that's

130how we want our community to be. We want good governance, we wanna all agree, we wanna cooperate, we wanna be together, we wanna be kind to each other. And that people who have disagreed with each other for so many years are coming together on this issue tonight shows that the way that this board, right now, today in the room is going about making this decision undermines the confidence of everyone in Scarsdale, not just the people who you are claiming to represent. I urge you to please take this item off the consent agenda. This is not for you, this is not your item. Our children are watching what you're doing and how you're doing it. Set a good example. Show them how we wanna be in Scarsdale. What we wanna look like, what our leaders look

131like, what decision-making looks like, not closing the door and doing something that everybody has been watching on TV for the past four years and was happy to vote out of office. Thank you. Jesse, you were promoted as a panelist. You may speak. State your name and address. Make sure you lower your live stream volume. You can begin speaking. Jesse, you've been promoted as a panelist, you can begin speaking. Jesse, there's a problem with your audio, Jesse, we can't understand your audio. It's very sketchy. We're gonna bring you back to attendee and then ask you to raise your hand again. Maybe that connection will be better. Thank you, Jess. Just raise your hand again because we can't hear a word you're saying, it's very glitchy, I guess. Like a minute behind. Judith, you got promoted to

132a panelist. You can unmute. Please make sure you lower your livestream volume and state your name or address, please. Judith, you can unmute yourself and begin to speak. Good evening, Judith Burgery Foror, 53 Sprake Road, can you all hear me? If somebody just nods up and down, that'd be great. (members chuckling) I am right here. Good evening, Judith Bergery Foro, 53 Sprake Road, can you all hear me? If somebody just nods up and down, that'd be great. Oh my god. We can hear you. Just lower your livestream, please. There seems to be a lag between when I speak and when you can hear us. Good evening, Judith Bergery Foro, 53 Strate Road, can you all hear me? If somebody just nods up and down, that'd be great. Great. We can hear you. Thank you. The

133live stream is off. So, first of all, thank you to the board of education. Thank you for the departing members who have done much for our community. Every time I've spoken before this board, I've always appreciated the effort that people have gone to and their volunteerism in our community. And you do this because you wish to be leaders. And right now we do need leadership. We don't need somebody to take over the ship, we don't need a mutiny. We need open public comment in a situation such as this last item board that was just recently added. Each of you work in our community, live in our community, have people whose voices would be willing to be heard. However, that didn't happen. I only learned about the last line item issue, and I can't tell you

134whether I agree with it or don't agree with it right now. I don't feel that I've had adequate representation or information proposed to me. And I don't think this is something that belongs on a consent agenda. I appreciate all the work that everybody has done in this community, but in fact, I believe you all have an obligation to the people who elected you and who will continue on the board going forward and as well as representing or accepting the fact that we have new representation coming in. There is no emergent situation here. There is no extra situation or circumstances that justify this being placed without people having had the time to communicate with the board directly. Again, I only found about this in the very last minute. I object to it being placed on the

135consent agenda, I object for that being going forward, I preserve that objection going forward, and I would ask the committee or the board in general to replace this issue off of the agenda, whatever your other issues of agenda exist should go forward, but I don't believe this is an any way shape or form something that procedurally belongs here at this time at this place. Separately, I will also join the support that every other voice has had about supporting the cheerleaders and the situations they have been in. Many of our athletes have suffered in the past year. There's absolutely no reason for them to have the circumstances going forward. I support what they're saying. I have raised four children in this district, two of whom suffered tremendously under the athletic regulations because of COVID. COVID also

136factors into my objection to moving forth on the consent agenda with this last-minute item being placed forth. I don't believe the community was given fair notice and I think fair notice is obligatory upon good governance. I thank you for your time. Thank you Judy. So, Jerry will not promote the next person. Please listen for his voice. He'll let you know when you're able to unmute and turn down your live stream. Christine, you've been promoted to a panelist, please unmute, and you can begin to speak. Hello, my name is Christine Weston. I'm at 26 Content Road. I wanted to echo everyone else who has spoken, who usually disagrees with each other vehemently and I think that is a very good point that everyone else has made very, very good points and have made them succinctly. And

137I have been trying to formulate my own opinion as I'm trying to listen to everyone. Because of the feedback, it's been almost impossible to do so. The year is over, summer is here. There's only one week left in the school year. Their graduations have already taken place. We should all be able to trust our board to tie up the year easily and quickly so that we don't have to monitor every single line, item and an agenda and be reading it constantly and being aware of updates that were done. It's ridiculous, and it shouldn't be the case. So, I'm not doing this nearly as succinctly as everyone else did. Mira made an absolutely valid point that very little people came out to vote, which is very sad. And it's unfortunately not the first time and on

138these change as well. Cheerleaders, you should be very proud of yourselves. You were using your voices, you were organizing and you were standing up for yourselves and you deserve everything that you're fighting for. So, learn from this fight and go forward and just don't ever give up. Thank you very much. Thank you, Christine. And again, there is the delay, but Jerry will be promoting Jonathan, listen for his voice so that you can unmute yourself when he lets you know. Jonathan, please unmute yourself and begin to speak. Hi, this is John Lemley. I live at 32 Kent Road. I wanted to echo many of the comments that have been said tonight, but in particular, David Benderson, who I've had the pleasure of getting to know over the past two years in some civic involvement that we've

139shared together. I also wanna come out and state my displeasure with the last-minute addition to the consent agenda regarding personnel items for the district. I think it lacks transparency and can create distrust. And regardless if that was the intent, it is certainly the outcome of what's happening and I can tell you that they were dozens of people that reached out to me this afternoon to discuss, that were very concerned about this particular issue. Without getting into specifics of the issue itself, I would say if an individual has a contract, it seems to me inconceivable to extend that contract in the middle of a term without getting significant input from the community at large, especially if it's someone who is the leader of the school district in the superintendent. So, I would implore the entire board

140to take a step back and think about what we're doing right now and if it's really needed to even consider an extension of the term without significant community input, given the impact this position has on all of us and in particular, our children. Secondly, I think that the pandemic has unfortunately caused tremendous amount of acrimony and the fracturing of our community due to issues related to our schools. And without taking a position, whether it's just or unjust, the fracturing has existed. And this will only be further exacerbated if an issue is passed without any transparency, any open debate and any community input. And I think as a board and being fellow residents and being neighbors of one another, we should again, take a step back and think about what the goal is and why we're

141even volunteering in the first place. And I would think bringing this community together and keeping this as harmonious as possible, as opposed to creating the opposite should be one of the foundational principles that we'd all be working towards. And I think at a minimum, an item like this should never be on a consent agenda, but secondly, there should be time for ample community feedback, which the majority of the community hasn't even heard of this. So, in the spirit of good governance and good government, it would seem to me extremely inappropriate for this item to be there. And you know, no big deal, mistakes happen, it can easily be removed from the agenda and giving the community ample time to give proper feedback. And I would just say in the strongest terms possible that this is

142not the right move for our community right now and to appoint David May. If decisions like this are made in haste, it would seem to me that it could completely de-legitimize the individual as it's even meant to help or to promote in a figurative sense. Completely unrelated, I wanna give a lot of credit to the rising, I think junior and senior in support of the cheerleading team. I think being a high school student and coming to speak before the board takes a lot of courage and she was extremely articulate and I have a lot of empathy for the position that she took and I would support her efforts in letting the cheerleading team resume their activities. Thank you, Jonathan. Jesse, Jerry's gonna promote you in a minute and please respond to his unmute and hopefully

143we'll be able to hear you better this time. Jesse, please unmute, you may begin speaking now. Hi, my name is Jesse Timberger, and I tried to speak before without success. So, I'm gonna ask if somebody can, my livestream is not quite working. If someone can give a thumbs up, maybe text or something and that's in the room that can maybe hear me, that has my number. But anyway, Jesse, Timberger, 8 Eastwood's Lane. I am speaking today as a member of the community, not affiliated with anyone. I wasn't going to and I feel like I'm always saying that, and I wanted to just let you know that I wanted to thank everybody who was up there. I wanted for you all to know how much your hard work this year meant to a lot of the

144community, and although not everything was necessarily what I was hoping for, I know what went into it, and I know the thought processes and I appreciate that. I also wanted to thank the principles of the middle school and high school, that's just where my kids are. I'm sure the others were fabulous as well. They showed great leadership, were excellent communicators, and I appreciate them and all their teams of teachers that have been wonderful to my children this year, which then brings me to the retirees that were announced. And although I missed the part of the board meeting, I know a few of the teachers that have greatly impacted my children are retiring and I wanted to wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. They are life-changing teachers in Scarsdale, a lot of

145them, and I think you all. And then I just wanted to commend also the cheerleaders who got up tonight. I'm always in awe and I've spoken about sports over and over again and I would be very, very upset with myself if they didn't come out and support the cheerleaders. I'm a mother of boys, but getting up there tonight and speaking the way you did, I am so impressed and keep fighting. What I wanted to ask was, I don't understand the nuances about the governance with what gets voted on in the board and I know that there were things that got voted on like wrestling later on and I don't know that that can be done tonight necessarily, but what is the process that would have to undergo to get that voted on again? Just in

146case the guidance doesn't get lifted till the last minute, can it be done tonight, can it be on the next agenda? I just find other communities found a way to do cheerleading. And I just want these young women in Scarsdale to have the same opportunity. As far as the consent agenda items, I just always find anything that's last minute and surprising, disconcerting. But my trust is there that the right decisions will be made. Last, thank you to Pam and Alison for your service. I know I've spoken with them throughout the year and very much appreciate the communications there as well. And I'm hoping that somebody is going to continue following up in the school year to come on mental health issues. I think it should stay at the forefront. And I think that just because

147guidance ends that it doesn't mean mental health impacts for our community of students and teachers for that matter. So, I'm hoping that there's a more vigorous screening and making sure we're really looking into the welfare of our students and staff. Thank you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have a good evening. Thanks Jesse. Oh right, Stacy, Jerry's gonna promote you. Hi, Stacy, you've been promoted- Hi, this is Stacy Strauss. I live at 85 Penn Road. I hope you can all hear me like everybody that went before me. Let me start by saying I was not planning on speaking tonight way more eloquently than I will. However, I feel is imperative that the board hear from as many community members as possible. I think it is premature to extend Dr. Hagerman's contract, and I don't

148agree with adding it to consent agenda with such little notice. The community elected and trusted new board members to represent their voice and there are many reasons to extend or not extend Dr. Hagerman's contract, but a lot can happen between now and the contract's expiry, and I would ask that we wait to make this decision. Thank you. Thanks Stacy, and Jen, Jerry's going to promote you and just respond to his request to be unmuted and go ahead. Jen, Jerry is trying to promote you. Give him a second. Just promoted her, she's gone. Okay, I think she's promoted. Oh, there she is. Hi, Jen, please unmute yourself, you can begin speaking now, you've been promoted to panelist. Jennifer, you can unmute yourself and begin speaking. Hi, Jennifer, it looks like you're muted. You could please unmute

149yourself and you can begin speaking. Jen, if you wanna speak, you need to unmute yourself, but you have been promoted to speak. We're just waiting for you to unmute. This sometimes used to happen when they have left, their hand was left raised, and they didn't wanna speak anymore. When we were fully virtual, we would only give this another few seconds and then... Jen, what we'll do is we'll move on to the next attendee who's hand is raised at this point, and then ask you to raise your hand if you want to speak 'cause we're not getting you unmuted. So, now is it Tara? Tara is going to be promoted to panelist. Tara, you can unmute and begin speaking. Hi, thank you for promoting me. I just wanted to echo what other people have said, not

150to take up too much time but I don't think this is appropriate for the agenda. This is not something that's timely. We've got- Hi, thank you for promoting me. I just wanted to echo what other people have said, not to take up too much time, then I don't think this is appropriate. Keep talking. So, sorry. The echo confused me. So, I don't think this is appropriate for a consent agenda. There's still time on this contract. The public has voted in two new board members. This seems rushed through and an inappropriate agenda for this particular board and I look forward to the board considering this, when the new board takes their positions. I also want to, just an aside matter, want to voice my support of the cheerleaders. As a former college cheerleader, I know how

151hard these girls work, and I hope that their hard work doesn't go unrecognized. Thank you, Tara. So, Jen, we'll try to promote you one more time, 'cause you're still there with your hand raised and we'll see if you can unmute yourself so we can hear you speak. And Jerry will speak to you through Zoom at this point. We can't seem to promote her, unfortunately. I just tried. Oh, wait, wait, Jennifer, you've been promoted. You can begin speaking, Jennifer, you can begin speaking, please. Hi, am I online? I apologize. Oh, thanks Pam. Again, I seriously just got an email about this situation. Again, why is this a last-minute addition to tonight's agenda? And why am I scrambling to get online at 7:57 at night having just learned about this less than an hour ago? Again, don't

152we need time to think things through and sort them out? Echoing what others have said, there's time left on this contract and why does this feel rushed? I guess that's all I have to say for tonight. I apologize for getting on so late. Thank you, Jen. You have her name and address, right? Anna Rae? (indistinct). So, maybe sending the board of education an email with Tara's name and address, is that helpful? Just in case? So Tara, if you're still listening, we could use your name and address. Anyone else, Anna Rae? Okay, so, at this point there are no more hands raised in the Zoom, and I believe everyone's talked except, did Melissa speak already? And Vivian. So, we will close this opportunity for public comment and since our wellness break was at six, we'll probably

153take a wellness break now, and then we'll resume and we'll turn to the next item which is responding to public comments. So, we are now taking a five-minute break. All right, so, we'll move on to the next action or the next item, which is follow up to public comment. And I'm guessing because vast majority of the comment was related to the process and governance, I should probably be the one to speak to that. Let me first say that this was not in any way, a last-minute addition to the consent agenda. The board puts this item every year on the last or the second to last meeting's consent agenda. All of the non-represented employee agreements come before the board annually at the end of the year. We discuss them in executive session. We decide upon them

154in executive session. And that is always put on the consent agenda because it is a board decision. It's not a contract that's negotiated with our legal counsel. We don't hire our legal counsel for that. It is a right and responsibility delegated to each board to do at the end of each year, by law, by policy, and by contract. And so with that, we have to do it every June and any changes to any of the agreements related to our non-represented employees or to our unions for that matter, go on the agenda. The ones that are not negotiated with labor council goes directly to the consent agenda. This happens every year. This board was made aware of that process on April 16th. It's a big process because it involves a lot of executive sessions and the

155board was told that this is how it goes, and that any changes to executive contracts would be on June 21st consent agenda. The reason why we do this in June is because we receive an entire full year of input from our entire school community. So, it is done by a board after listening to input received from July through June, the longest possible period of public input and it's not just public input, it's input from our faculty. We hear it at the board table with education reports. We hear about assessment, we hear about curriculum. We hear about facilities, we hear about safety, security, emergency management, food service, this year, clearly about restart and journey-forward efforts. We hear at the board table and from the public on every area of operations of this district, every area of

156management of this district for a full year, and that input received by students, parents, faculty, staff, and administrators goes into an entire year's evaluation process that is announced in the fall. It is a process that is agreed upon in the fall. It is presented to the community in the fall. The instrument is presented to the community in the fall and posted online by law. It's a template that uses six or five standards to evaluate a superintendent. And in total, there are 29 different professional practices and board members are aware of this work, and it's one of our most important responsibilities of the year to assess a superintendent according to those 29 practices. We do that in the mid-year assessment, and then we do it again in June. So, again, the longest amount of time possible

157to receive input on the performance of the CEO of this district, according to clarified and defined standards and practices, which are presented publicly to the community in the fall. And all of the input we receive this year was considered and discussed during our executive sessions when we did the superintendent evaluation this June. It is absolutely this board's right and responsibility by law to do this work. We are required to do this work each year. We are certainly not required to make any changes to the executive contracts. And if we didn't, they would not go on the consent agenda, but any changes that we make, and we decide upon in executive session, according to the input we have received during the year, do go onto the consent agenda at the end of every year. It's actually

158best practice, and I confirmed this with our general council and also our labor council that this is the appropriate and best way for a board to evaluate its administration. So, this was not a last-minute agenda item. It might not be something that was made public until the agenda went out, but this is a board decision. This is not a public decision. It is a board decision that is made after extensive public input has been received. Is there anything more that case law supports, that this is something that outgoing boards are required to do and the commissioner of education has ruled that this is our responsibility and have every right to do this. The logic to me, personally, of having a new board do an evaluation makes no sense. That board will do its evaluation at

159the end of its year, working and observing and learning about all of the areas of operations of this district. So, that is why this process is a best practice. And that is why this board and every board before us has followed it and it is followed across the county and region. And I just wanna correct one factual comment you made, which was that it's always done in June, according to board docs in 2018 and 2017, it was done at the July meeting, not opining on it, I just wanna set the record for the facts. Fine, so, the evaluations and the decisions happen by June 30th by policy, by contract, by law. And if there happened to be a little late in the next, there wasn't a board meeting at the end of June, if the

160only board meeting is in early June or something, those things do get put into the consent agenda of the July board meeting, but the work needs to be done by June 30th. Basically, a lot of the concerns were about the last minute, not last minute, a year-long process done annually. We did consider input from across the entire school community, including those from parents received all year on a host of operational managerial issues and the evaluation was completed and the discussions are confidential, but the discussions related to the executive contract were directly connected to that evaluation. And again, we also agree with everyone supported the cheer athletes. The fact that they were able to come to the podium and speak, the fact that we are supporting our athletic director in all efforts to attend to changes

161and guidance for the fall, supporting a traditional season, including competition for the fall. And when I attend a monthly town call with board presidents and for three months, beginning in March, I asked board presidents, I put the question forward on the agenda, "Whom have you approved board chair and how?" And nobody did. It did not come before any other board. As far as I know, it came before Edgemont and it's perhaps possible that the clarity of the guidelines was not made as clear as it was to us, but Scarsdale tends to detail and when the clarity of the guidelines came to us, we are compelled to follow guidelines, but it did not go before many boards if more than us and Edgemont. Nobody else said that they dealt with it. And are there any other

162follow up to public comment, Carl? I just wanted to add to that. I mean obviously, I think it was appreciated that the cheerleaders came and spoke and spoke on the Zoom as they did in the, I wanna say the beginning of March, maybe March 8th when we had the meeting. And I think everybody on the board would like them to have participated and to participate. This was not a decision that was made in March that was reflective of anybody's desire not to have cheer do as much as they would normally do, and I would encourage anybody who's not clear to just rewatch that portion of the meeting, because it was an extensive discussion and a division, even within the board, as to what the right thing to do was. But I think it is a

163safety issue, or at least it was presented as a safety issue from different agencies, including the County Department of Health and the American pediatric association. And the board felt that on balance, ultimately, safety, we're not experts, I'm not an expert, I think that that was the determination and even though I trust the young women who were standing here to tell me that they can do it safely, I think that the board was stuck with a situation where there was guidance to the contrary. And ultimately if somebody gets hurt, as unlikely as it may have been, and we have somebody telling us, this is not a safe thing to do, it put the board in a very difficult situation. And that's why the decision was made. And as I said, it wasn't universal. It was a

164very thoughtful and somewhat gut-wrenching decision because we knew what was gonna happen. So, I hope that it will just go forward and I hope they get everything they need to do for the next year. And I think we all hope that, but if it does come before us, we will certainly remember the comments and the have another opportunity then, but hopefully they'll go forward with that and come back to us. Thanks Carl, anyone else want to contribute as follow up to public comment? Yeah. I just wanna add my thanks to the cheerleaders for speaking up. So, much of the guidance that came out from the state, the federal government, the American Academy of Pediatrics was baffling and made no sense, but this particular one was really beyond baffling. The idea that they could practice but

165not compete, when they practice and compete as a same team without exposing them to new cohorts made absolutely no sense. And at the time we took the vote, the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance was clear, but it was also clear, we learned from our advocacy that the board had done that the American Academy of Pediatrics was having a meeting to review that guidance. And it was my hope and expectation at the time that the American Academy of Pediatrics would change the guidance. Unfortunately, they didn't change their guidance until much later in the year, but it certainly, I'm gonna speak on behalf of the board, there was absolutely no intention by any member of this board to discriminate against our female students, our female athletes in any way. It was particularly unfortunate the way the AAP

166wrote that guidance and then refused to amend that guidance. And, I wish I could apologize to our young women on behalf of the AAP, I continue to tell them how harmful that decision was and I hope that the board, in its continued advocacy efforts will maintain the relationships that we have now developed with the AAP, with the department of health to continue to advocate on behalf of our students. Anyone else? All right, moving to item nine, Alison that's you, written communications. Oh, didn't you have an item? No, I think you guys covered it, thanks. So, before I review the written comments, I wanna remind everyone in the community that emails to the board of education are also viewed by the superintendent and by the district clerk. And that the open meetings law requires that all

167board deliberations which may lead to action or policy changes occur in public. And that, for that reason, all written communications and emails are reported at board meetings. So, between June 5th and June 20th, the board received 32 emails, seven were questions about mask wearing guidance, nine urged the board to include the approval of cheerleading competitions for the fall on the June 21st agenda. Four inquired about density guidance at the end-of-year activities, and three reiterated questions that had either been raised at our board coffees or thanked the board in general for holding the coffees. Again, we are very appreciative of everyone who takes the time to write to the board, to share their views. We take all of that input very seriously, and it's considered throughout the year in all of our deliberations. So, my thanks

168to everyone who gave written comment and also who gave public comment tonight. Thanks, Alison. And now we'll move on to the consent agenda. Just briefly from the preamble, the consent agenda is set at the meeting that happens before the business meeting. It's a meeting where a superintendent and the two officers meet to decide what's on the agenda. This past one, we had an additional board member, which happens from time to time and items are selected for the consent agenda when the officers of the board and superintendent believe there's no controversy regarding them, they have the same background material as any other item. But if any member of the board feels that any item on this consent agenda does require discussion prior to action, that board member may remove the item from the consent agenda merely

169by requesting at this meeting. Are there any board members who want to remove consent agenda items at this time? Please remove the superintendent MOA from the consent agenda. So, item 11.06, superintendent MOA will be moved to the action items. I think it goes 13.06. Are there any other items, any other board members wanna remove any... All right, then we will move forward with a consent agenda, less 11.06, which has now been moved to an action item. (indistinct) Yes, Carl? I have to unmute myself. Carl, then we will be expecting you to deal with the action item later in the agenda. Understood, I'm just gonna take my mask off for a minute because I have a long consent agenda to read through. So, the items on the consent agenda requiring action are as follows. The minutes

170from the business meeting of June 7th, 2021. The minutes from the special meeting slash executive session, June 14th, 2021. The minutes from the special meeting executive session, June 17th, 2021. The certified personnel report, the non-certified personnel report, the annual agreements with non-union administrators, the annual agreements with non-union confidential slash managerial employees, authorization of attendance by certain non-resident pupils, youth services agreement, tax certiorari regarding Quaker Ridge golf course, tax certiorari resolution regarding 6 Fox Meadow Road, the following are the tax certiorari resolutions regarding the following properties. Crosby Close, 2 Crosby Close, 4 Crosby Close, 5 Crosby Close, 7 Crosby Close, 9 Crosby Close, 11 Crosby Close, and 12 Crosby Close. A plant improvement bid regarding Heathcote exterior doors, a plant improvement bid regarding district-wide installation of carbon monoxide detectors, maintenance bids, and contract renewals, cafeteria food

171and supplies bid, a tax certiorari reserve establishment, special education contract for an out-of-district placement, special education contract for consultants, contract for medical director, a stipulation of settlement, the Southern Westchester self-funded workers' compensation plan. And I move that we accept the aforementioned consent agenda items and approval. Thank you, Carl. May I have a second? Second, Amber? All right, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, abstentions? Oh, the item was removed. It was removed. Yeah, it was a discussion around family counseling. Whilst here? Yes, but that's not in there. He didn't read that. That had been already removed before this evening. Okay. So, the motion passes and we move on to information and some discussion, the DEI update, Thomas. Thanks, we have eight items to discuss tonight. We'll try to be brief where we can. The

172first one is a DEI update of which there are four components. This will be brief as we've really covered most of these already. The first one is the school-based goals on which are in the agenda. We talked about this last time. We met as a compact committee a couple of different times and laid out the process for the development of goals. By level, we work together collaboratively across the five elementary schools through this process and allowed the middle school and high school to work independently, although the middle school and high school did come together and talk as they were working through the goal selection. As Ray mentioned earlier, these are tied back to the cultural responsive sustaining education framework, have a direct link to the quadrants in that, particularly, the welcoming and affirming environments. And

173for the metrics, when we got to that portion of the conversation, there was a real desire to be able to go back and talk about the key stakeholders who would be involved in carrying out this work, particularly at the elementary schools, where there might be slightly different metrics depending on the site-based work that's going on there. And so we gave permission to folks to work into September, to create the metrics that would back up these goals. And our plan is to present those to the board of education in the early fall, in terms of setting that up for the year. The second portion that I'm gonna talk about and then turn over to Edgar is just the consultant updates. As we've reported out, we started off with a list of about 15 consultants. We have

174been working our way slowly through that list. It's required meeting with their keepers. Getting through that process sometimes it's involved a second conversation. We are now starting to get proposals coming in, Edgar and I are in the process of vetting those proposals and setting up next-step meetings to talk about scope of work, potentially for those groups. We have made a commitment that in order to finalize the decision, we would be sitting down with other stakeholders as part of that process, including teachers and other leaders across the district to be involved in that part of the conversation. So, that's work that will certainly continue over the course of the summer, and again, hope to have a more substantive information to share with the board in the fall. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to

175Edgar. Great, so, since we last met the administrative book choice committee, unanimously chose the title I'd mentioned at our last meeting- Edgar, are you on? I think I am. Move closer to mic, maybe. "The Person You Mean To Be" by Dolly Chugh and the texts receive high marks across the board in accessibility, readability, its research base, its relevance to the district DEI goals and its potential to be inspirational to the team. We've ordered the book for all the administrative council groups. And we've asked our administrators to read the book over the summer in time to discuss for our late August retreat. It's not exactly a bee tree, but it's actually very well-written and engaging. At the time, we're gonna discuss our learning process as we move through the year. And the next thing I just

176wanted to touch on is tomorrow, Thomas and I are gonna be doing a presentation and have a discussion with a very large group of people made up of various members of DEI and multicultural committees across the entire district in which we're going to, we actually gave them a little bit of homework to do beforehand to review materials in New York board of regions framework to look at the New York state culturally responsive sustaining education framework, the May 10th presentation on DEI as well as the presentation slides. And we also wanted them to take a look at and review the school-level DEI goals. So, for our 2021/'22. Are there any questions by board members? I have some. Yeah? So, policy 105 specifically charges, not only the administration, but also the members of the board with engaging

177directly in the DEI work. So, I was thinking maybe after the administrators have finished reading the book over the summer, they can each share their copy with a member of the board so that the board can also engage in the central text. That's a great idea, actually, Alison, I did order copies for the board as well, I should've mentioned. So, I'm gonna be giving you some reading as well. I was trying to save us money. I know, but you know, we'll share all our copies afterwards, how about that? Someone can share all that (indistinct). Okay. Can I ask a question about the goals? So, you mentioned early fall that the goals would be presented to the board, and I'm just wondering if that's enough time, because are you guys meeting over this summer? How are

178you developing the goals? So, the goals have been developed. I'm sorry, the metrics. The metrics, yeah, so sorry. Yes, I'm sorry, the metrics. So, are you presenting the metrics in the fall? Correct. And so that's my question. Sorry, are you meeting over the summer? Not really, I mean the ask for us was that we didn't wanna create artificial metrics, we wanted them to be something that was meaningful that was really tied into the work of each individual school. You know, they asked for an opportunity to be able to meet with our compact committees, diversity committees and multicultural committees to be able to get normed at the school level what those metrics should be. And then we'll collect those, we're asking them to essentially give them to us. We're gonna trust that they're selecting the right

179metrics for the work that they're doing and then we'll be presenting those in mass to the board. Okay, thanks. Edgar, just a question about the meeting tomorrow with the multicultural and diversity group, I think it's fantastic that you're meeting with such a large group. Given that it's such a large group, I imagine we'll focus on presenting to them. So, you could just talk about what's the process after that, to then get feedback from the ministry? Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I think the point of us giving people homework was that it would not be another straight presentation. Otherwise, it would be a regurgitation of information that we've now provided at the board table, at a variety of other meetings, at leadership meetings. This has been our a little bit of a road show of going

180around. So, the hope is to go over those documents rather briefly, and actually spend the majority of the time fielding questions and just making sure that we're getting grounded philosophically around these issues. I think that's great. I do think we should be cognizant, if I recall from the last meeting, there's like 120-odd people, it's a very big group that not everybody may get a chance to speak and somehow we should proactively reach back out to them afterwards. So, in full transparency, a lot of people won't be able to be there. It was a real struggle for us to choose this date. It's obviously the last week of school, there are a million things going on. So, what we actually talked about doing was recording the session, being able to send it out to people who

181aren't able to attend and then use that as a spring board for inviting additional feedback and questions. Great, thanks. Any other questions? I mean, not so much of a question, but I think it's really interesting to see how this is going to be, what the difference that we've seen already and continue to see in the goals for each school and the metrics with an overarching similar goal. And it seems good to me to have each school adopt their own and really, it increases buy-in when we do that. But I just think we're gonna have to be aware and make sure that folks know that just because something's happening in one school, it's not necessarily the same thing in another school because we have had that feedback in the past. And sometimes it's not good, this

182time it is how it is. So, just something to keep in mind when we start putting those programs out, that people don't think that they're getting less of a deal because they're not getting what another school is getting. Yeah, the arc of this work, Carl, is for us to work towards more district standardization over a period of time. I think what we're building off of is the fact that this work has been going on in all of our buildings and it's been quite different work. And so we wanna acknowledge, recognize that, allow that to continue while also working on building a K to 12 platform as a district. And that's why we're doing the one year working on a plan for a multi-year plan. So, that as we slowly over time, bring ourselves together and

183we've used for example, we talked about this in other contexts, our innovation, structure has mimicked that. We did that with maker spaces where we started small in classrooms and eventually built up so that we had maker spaces across all of our buildings over a couple of years. So, we're using that same structure that we've used in the district that's worked before in other ways. And I think we all are aware that there has been that sort of a cross-district thought. And so that's great and this will continue but just something for people to be aware of that they don't think we're doing taking a step back. And what you said is right, and just making sure people know and appreciate it. Yeah, and there will be, I just wanna be clear, so that it's not

184as though it's gonna be all isolated and siloed, we are looking for those threads that pull through all of our schools. So, whether that's common programming that we have, Edgar talked about the anchor texts and we're working certainly with the STI to create courses that are available. So, again, we are looking for ways, even next year to make sure that we have those threads that pull across the district. Okay, item 12.02, annual gift reports and there are, sorry, 12.02? (indistinct). Yeah, all good. 12.02, annual gift reports. There are two documents in this agenda item. The first one are the gifts for 2021. And if you look at that document, you will see that this is a catalog of all of the gifts that have been given over the course of this year. It has a

185description, the dates, from to, the amount of that and then we go through, as you can see, a five-step or four-step process of approval that begins with the cabinet that goes through the, starts with the school, goes to the cabinet, the superintendent, and eventually the board. And so that's how each of these get vetted as an appropriate gift and that's a very transparent process there. And then if you look at the second document, this is the aggregate sheet. A number of years ago, we were asked by the board to make sure that we were tracking this, understanding that there would be fluctuations, potentially, from school to school or from year to year. And so not only do you have the totals for this year, which is about three quarters of the way down on the

1862020 total, but you also see an aggregate total down below and we do watch those numbers and certainly look for anomalies and things like that as part of this process. So, for example, there was, Butterfield had a big lights gift and that threw things out of whack. But the understanding of that is that this will be a district-wide gift that would be used by folks other than the high school, but certainly potentially all the high school students. So, this is this year's gifts and the aggregate over the last five years or so. I don't know if there's any board questions at this point. I think that our schools have struggled a little bit this year to think about gifting in the middle of COVID. We did have one district-wide foundation gift that you can see

187was split across the five elementeries here in the amount of approximately $5,500. And that was the bulk of really our elementary gifts this year. And, I was just gonna add that this is, as Thomas talked about initially at PT council where the PAs come together and say, "Here's what we're interested in doing, here's what we're interested in doing," this is a relatively new process. I would say maybe five or six years worth of work, maybe seven, but this way they do talk about it. And when Ron had a question about the scholastic subscription at Greenacres, because that was something that the PTA there chose to do this year and certainly would talk amongst the PT council that opportunity whether other PTAs would be interested in doing it is, you were looking for where that would

188occur and that discussion would happen at PT council related to who's giving what gifts and why. My question was just, is the goal to have the amounts, I mean, obviously I know the high school had a larger donation, but is the goal to have the amounts generally similar over time between each school? What this was born out of, Amber, was that over time we would watch these to make sure that there wasn't some disproportionate thing happening at one of our schools, that one school was getting a lot of extra equipment or supplies or different kinds of things that would provide an overall different experience of those students compared to the rest of our schools. So, that's really what this was about, is to just sort of watch those numbers. As Pam said, this was really

189the charge that was given primarily to the PTC to monitor themselves and make sure that there was some equity imperatives so that there were not comparisons that were being made. Again, understanding that sometimes, there's a big gift that for two or three years, there won't be anything with the idea there'll be one big gift in a third year, or that if there's a big gift, sometimes that might be split into three parts over a period of time if someone wants to install a garden for example, or things like that. So, it was just a way for them to do some planning, to make sure that the communication was going on internally about what was happening at each school site. And then for us to be tracking it at a district level and at a board

190level so that we could make sure that that disparity was not happening over time. Any other questions about gifts this year? I talked in my opening comments about the partnership of the PTC and the foundation, and obviously these are critical dollars. Just as a reminder, we take full responsibility for what we consider to be our core program. So, anything that's related to the core curricular program or essential class components that, we understand that's our obligation and responsibility as a school district. And then we have the tremendous support of our PTA's and our education foundation to support those things that we would like to have, but aren't necessarily core and they have been great partners in that work for many years now. The next item is 12.04, and I'm gonna invite Ray to come back up

191and unlike the journey forward, oh, sorry, 12.03, my bad. Sorry, Ray, you get another second here. So, SSCM and I'm gonna ask Eric to lead us through this item, please. Thank you, Dr. Hagerman. I wanted to update us on this year's SSCM work and what we're looking forward to over the summer and early next year. As a base level, all of our drills were completed this year, according to regulations by the state, that's inclusive of 29 lockdown drills and 74 fire drills, that's across our seven buildings. The dirt and Albert teams have met throughout the year with the focus this year, given COVID, on making sure the basic procedures were solid within our teams. Tabletop exercises, which is our typical training routine, where we tabletop different situations and have our altereous essentially run us through

192things that have happened at other schools, things that could possibly happen. We'll begin again in September. The district safety plan and all the building emergency response plans will be on the agenda during our reorganization meeting for approval. You have seen those as we have gone through the year, the building emergency response teams are confidential. Those are not allowed out to the public, the district emergency response team, or excuse me, the district safety plan is and has been on the agenda and is open to the public to review. So, they can take a look at that. We are looking at an integrated lockdown system. This is part of the altereous survey that was done a number of years ago. That got put on hold for last year during COVID, but this year we are finalizing, we're

193seeking final proposals from our boss' approved contractors and from our current vendees. The work will happen over the next school year and once it's started, we estimate it'll take two to three months to completion. That type of integrated system will integrate both our key card access systems with our PA system, with our emergency notification to the police system. So, it will integrate and allow us a one-button push lockdown within the schools. So, that's going to be a definite upgrade from our system currently. We're seeking a system that also has the opportunity to upgrade to our camera system, to be integrated with our camera system also to be integrated and allow for visual cues for lockdown, right now, our PA system announcements, while we have very good coverage with PA systems, there are always places in

194the building, whether because of ambient noise, whether it be a lunchroom or a gym that some students may not hear it. So, in the future, we are looking for a system that would also incorporate lighted emergency signs that would allow people who didn't necessarily hear to see a lockdown signal or a fire alarm. So, those are all being planned as we speak. So, we did meet with the village on traffic to discuss mainly Quaker Ridge and Scarsdale Middle School. We met with the two by two and I met separately with the Scottsdale Police Department and discuss both schools. By and large, the main hope is that as we move back to a regular busing load, many of those traffic issues will dissipate. We will be doing surveys over the summer to the community to see

195what the interest in busing is. We expect that to return to normal. At Quaker Ridge specifically, should that return to normal then the arrival and dismissal will again switch back to the way it used to be, which is buses in the front, because that's the number of buses they have parents in the back, which did not have the same choke-point effect on the exit out the front of Quaker Ridge, because parents were able to come out the back and make both left and right turns much more easily, a little bit farther down from the light. The SPD is investigating traffic control devices, no left turn signs and things like that. The area around Quaker Ridge is difficult because half of it's Scarsdale, half of it's New Rochelle and it's a state-controlled road. So, that creates

196a lot of inter-agency bureaucracy to be able to put any type of traffic control device. Scarsdale PD at both schools sent unmarked cars to watch both the dismissal and the arrival processes of both schools at a couple of different points after we started to engage this. What they did was they also timed, they would pick specific cars, time them as they went through the entire pickup and drop off. On average, it was about a 17 to 18-minute process, which really is not a long process at those couple of schools. One of the things that was observed, especially at the middle school is this is not a traffic-control issue with on the school property. The cars are flowing smoothly through the school property, but around the middle school, many parents are parking on the streets illegally

197except in one spot, but that is creating congestion around the middle school. So, the police department is looking at parking regulations in and around those streets to make sure that emergency vehicles can still get in. Again, this issue will start to alleviate itself once more students are riding the buses as a usual year, because that will decrease the number of cars that are needed to move through the pickup. We did discuss one issue that came up of an additional crosswalk. Scarsdale PD did look at that for the top of the hill. There are some serious safety concerns about a crosswalk there. Because it's just over the crest of the hill, you really can't see cars coming up from Mamaroneck Road and it's so close to the other crosswalk, it will create more congestion long the

198street there. So, they really did not think that that would be a viable place for a crosswalk. So, we are gonna continue to look at that and we have committed with the Scarsdale PD to also look at our other schools as we move into the fall to see if there are any improvements that can be done in and around our other five buildings. Since the last SSCM discussion in our last meeting here, we have had a number of meetings as a debrief to the lockout at the high school a few weeks ago. The Scarsdale High School administration has met with their PTA and their PTA has reached out for feedback to parents. Scottsdale Police Department, the Scarsdale High School administration, and the district administration, including myself, met to debrief and walk through the entire process.

199We had a joint meeting, the two by two with the mayor and other representatives to talk through what we experienced and look to where areas of improvement could be, and then the cabinet met and discuss the following. So, SPD has regularly attended our training sessions around our sample six procedures. We are going to start sending district representatives to their tactical training because it will be helpful for a body of administrators here to have a real understanding of their standard operating procedures for our six protocols. Knowing what they will do in any given situation will help us plan more efficiently and effectively with them. So, that will take place. Also, a school representative will be invited in the midst of an emergency like a couple of weeks ago, we will have a school district representative actually

200attend their command post in order to effectuate quicker communication, not really better communication, we have a good communication system. The Scarsdale PD and the administration are very accessible to one another, but having someone live in their discussions as they have someone live in our discussions helps because at any given point, the police are doing what police do, but the district representative can spend the time to have the considered discussion with us while the police are enacting the plans that they're making. We did review our internal communication error revolving around the text messages, and we've just had training to make sure that doesn't happen again. And our initial dirt tabletops for next year will focus on communication aspects of any given emergency. So, that will be the initial tabletops that we do as we move into

201next year. Those are the major highlights of SSCM work. As we move into the summer, like I said, we will be finalizing the proposals for an integrated lockdown system and ultimately determining how to move forward and coming with a recommendation for that. Any questions from the board? Just a minor thing on traffic, if you could bring up, having now that we're talking about so much in driving around, at least at one location, I think it's Heathcote by Heathcote School on Palm when you're coming from the five corners, there's no sign that says this is the end of the school zone. And I think that sometimes it's helpful to have the end so that people reminds them as they're coming up it you're still in the school zone. I don't know if that's the case in

202other places, but it might be something that village could look to put signs up for. We could certainly bring that to their attention. We haven't looked at it at this point. And just in terms of the drills, you said there were fire drills and lock down drills, but not a lock out drill, is that not a thing? So, yeah, the lock outs are explained to students periodically throughout the year. We don't typically drill a lockout because classes are taking place within the building. And the only difference is kids are not allowed to leave and no one is allowed to come in in a standard lockout procedure, and that's made clear through announcements. Any other questions? Eric, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Moving on to item 12.04, inter scholastic sports updates. Unlike

203the journey forward, Ray to talk to us about the season overall this spring and some tentative planning for summer and fall. So, just to review a little bit, talk about the year and I'll, excuse me while I just paraphrase a little bit from our sports awards ceremony from last week. So, despite the ever-changing restrictions, quarantines, and at times infections, we were able to piece together competitive seasons for most of our teams and provide sport experiences for 58% of our students at Scarsdale High School. So, I feel really fortunate and I'm really appreciative to this board, my fellow cabinet members for their support and for this community without whom we wouldn't have been able to make this happen. If we look at last year at this time, the lost season of 2020, spring of 2020, we've

204come a long way. And there's been a lot of innovation with respect to student involvement, live streaming and game management. So, I'm really looking forward to a time when we're away from this new normal that we smacked us in the face last year about this time and we can get back to something a little more extra ordinary and special for our kids. So, this year has been incredible. As I said, 58% of our student body participated in athletics this year. Despite the COVID restrictions, every varsity team was a New York State Public High School Athletic Association Scholar athlete team, even under all these circumstances, and in the spring, just to cap it off, we had three section championship teams in girls' golf, boys' golf, and in their first appearance since 1985 and the only section

205championship in school history, in boys' lacrosse. And it was an amazing game to watch them just outwork their opponents and earn their opponents respect. So, it's been an incredible year and a spectacular way to end our spring season. And I feel really fortunate that we were able to offer all the opportunities for our student athletes. We found new ways to allow access to families via live stream, and we're going to work on programs that allow students to take lead through a new sports management program that you'll see highlighted next year with Scarsdale High School students. We were able to use an intern from the high school this year to help spearhead that work and find ways to reach our student body at the high school. So, we're really excited about opening those opportunities up this

206fall. Just wanna talk a little bit about middle school. I know there was some concern about them not competing this year in their programs, but if you go back and you look, if you have a chance to review, so many schools in the area that did believe they were going to offer competitive experiences, had those experiences pulled out from underneath them because of lack of officials and venues to hold those contests. So, I really think that we did the right thing by housing in-house programs, but we look forward to going back to normal interscholastic activity next fall. Any questions? First question about the live streaming. Do you intend to continue that going forward? We will, I think we have to be strategic about it. The greatest difficulty we found is when we're not attached to

207this campus, or a hard line to the internet especially in Scarsdale where the cell coverage isn't as strong, it's incredibly difficult to get a solid signal and to get the live stream, the quality of the live stream to families. As with baseball this year, we didn't really have a home field, we're working out of SUNY perches, their cell service was not good at all and so it was very difficult to offer a live stream for that sport. So, I think we're gonna target the events at home when we can and then look at ways that we can offer in other places strategically. And would you consider recording and then just showing later? Absolutely, so, we do some of that already. So, we have a pretty robust huddle account where most of our varsity games and

208some of our JV games are prerecorded and students have access to that. Gotcha, great, thanks. And then I know we've spoken about this just one of the feedback that we got during one of the coffees was the question about coaches at the middle school for boys and girls' sports and potential or perceived disparities in both the number and experience of those coaches. It would be great if you could talk a little bit about the process to look at that if that's the case. And also obviously that plays, anytime that we address that, I think that fits into our DEI initiatives on making sure everybody, regardless of sport has a good experience. Sure, so, thank you, Ron. So, I would say like this, in this situation, it happened to be inequity between a boys and a

209girl sport, but if we look across our program, the inequity really isn't male/female, it typically comes into play relative to sport and the supply of qualified coaches. And one of our long-term goals is to have teams where there's not just one adult on the field with them, but in case of any emergency or any other reason, we have at least two adults supervising at any given time. So, we've worked really hard to have a really strong staff and a lot of our programs, we do have that now. There are some programs that we've struggled to recruit and retain what I would say, strong coaches with experience for a variety of reasons. The more specialized sports like field hockey and girls' lacrosse happen quite frequently. You don't find people who are available for that with expertise

210and the required coaching certifications to coach at a public school. And we also don't have people who are always available directly after school, especially our middle school gets out fairly early. I think that's what you saw in this spring. I think that when we think about equity, there are lots of ways to look at that aside from just the number of coaches that are on a given field, but every year, we try to review that. We do look at the three-prong approach that analysis for title IX and the other inequities that you might see are typically defacto related to sport, types of sport. So, if you look at football, the cost that it takes to run football in and of itself, or when we look at ice time and the cost of ice time, those

211things would typically cause people to say that there may be an inequitable experience, but it's rather those costs are built in because of the nature of the sport, so to speak. If there is a push from the board or from the administration to look to examine those costs, we can always give you a breakdown on how that works out. I'm not sure that it will play as big a part in decision-making as we think it would because of the way it plays out in offering programs. Thanks. Ray, thank you for getting so many sports and activities for the kids this year up and running. I just wanted to ask, I know it was tricky and we weren't able to have all the modified sports this year. Are you anticipating having all modified sports, the same

212programs next year as we would in a normal year? Correct, so, yeah, I think we're gonna go back to it the way we have been in the past. We are looking at ways to expand programs. So I think there are a couple of bright lights with modified, and I'm just gonna backtrack just a little bit. The existing philosophy in modified or the philosophy that still exists from a time ago is that programs, if they were offered by the community as a rec sport or travel sport, that they wouldn't have been offered at the modified level. So, we're transitioning out of that. Lacrosse was probably the first sport to venture into that area. We also looked at baseball and softball as ways to add in. Now, we're looking at other places where we just, I guess

213other places where we can recruit more, a higher percentage of participation at the middle school. Most middle schools have the highest levels of participation in their district. We're here in Scarsdale, our highest level of participation is actually at high school. We have a much lower percentage of participation at the middle school, just because of that existing philosophy that was there in the past. So, I think we're trying for next year specifically to focus on looking at ways to connect with student interests to allow for more participation at the middle school. Any other questions for Ray? I just have one and you might've said this, but the point that was made in the memo that from the coffees that Ron was mentioning, at some point in the future, maybe as you're approaching it next year, et

214cetera, if there's anything to share with us about that or those folks that were concerned, I think that would be appreciated because it did seem, it seemed problematic. And then I understand everything you've said, but I think it would be nice for them to hear like a little bit more directly 'cause I don't know if they're watching right now, thanks. Thanks, Carl. Thank you, Ray, appreciate it. The next three items, 12.05, 12.06 and 12.07 are all memorandums of agreement with various unions within our district. And I'm gonna ask Drew to please lead us through those three documents. Thank you very much. Dr. Hagerman. As Dr. Hagerman mentioned in his opening comments, we had six collective bargaining agreements that expire or are set to expire on June 30th of this year. So, we've been actively engaged

215in collective bargaining with, up til now, five of those six groups. And the first three have reached a point of conclusion and that's what I'm gonna speak about in this information section. And they'll appear again as action items immediately following. So, the first group is the Scarsdale Teachers Association, which includes 468 teachers and our school nurses as well. They're represented by STA and they roughly reflect about a $64 million cost in overall payroll. We started this process, it feels like we started this process in 2020 in last school year, right before COVID, we did have a one-year agreement for this year, but we engaged with the full board of education back in January to set the stage and get everybody up to speed, both the negotiating teams and the board of ed up to speed

216on where we were, where we left off that last negotiation. And we worked both through formal at the table negotiations throughout the winter and spring, as well as in smaller subcommittees tasked with focusing on very specific contractual issues, which were then brought back to the negotiating committees. All of that is to say, this helps explain why the MOA is 30 pages in length. It was a very comprehensive negotiation, and there are a lot of changes, only some of which are highlighted in the background section of the agenda item here. There's a lot more detail in the MOA. So, I'm gonna take a little bit of time to cover that. So, obviously, salaries are one of the main things that's negotiated in a collective bargaining agreement. This is a three-year agreement and the salary changes for

217the teachers include a 1.7% increase in year one and then we've devised a increase that is sensitive to both the consumer price index inflation, and also the teacher's retirement system cost to the district. So, there's a lever for each that will influence what the increase will be with a center point of 1.5% increase in years two and three of the contract, but that can go up or down depending on those two levers within the range of 1.25% to 1.75%. We also completed a change with the nurses salaries. They're also experiencing the percentage increase commensurate with the teachers, but we did agree to add two new steps, step 11 in year two of the contract, and step 12. Nurses were heroes this year for sure, but they're always an invaluable asset to the community and one

218of the things that they were seeking was to feel like they had more of a trajectory of experience here of time in the system. I think one of the things I personally am very proud of here, and the stage was set long before I arrived is our health insurance agreement. So, once the board has set along with administration through conversation, a cost sharing agreement of what the employees should be paying relative to the overall cost of our self-insured health plan, we have a really active, robust, regularly meeting health advisory committee that discusses the financial health, the health plan, and makes recommendations for how to shift our plan, make changes to how members pay, what costs they pay in order to maintain that cost share. So, all the changes that are outlined from the premium contribution

219increase to changes in co-payments and so forth and deductibles are connected to trying to maintain this cost share. And there's a trigger in this agreement that would cause us to come back to the table if that cost share is not being met during the life of this contract. In addition to those things items, there were a significant number of other pieces to the agreement that we discussed and I'll just hit some of those highlights. Several of these, we ended up significantly rewriting the contract language to reflect, we think more novel and maybe inclusive and flexible practices. One, with the assistance of Ray and Joe D, we really looked hard at the high school and middle school sports. We sought equity among sports, topic we've talked about tonight between boys and girls programs, and to try

220to find a better balance between the different levels. The varsity level, assistants, JV level, freshmen, and then the modified. So, after a lot of work and discussion and really surfacing what goes into coaching a season and what are the responsibilities, we've come up with a salary schedule that explains in dollar terms, not point terms, what each position stipend is, and a six-column arrangement of growth over time in the position. It also allows us the flexibility, something we didn't have in the past as management, the flexibility to hire outside coaches, for example, at a more competitive salary, possibly even addressing that concern we talked about about maybe an inequity between caliber quality of coach or experience of coach, boys and girls. So, that was a significant change. It also built in a incentive for professional learning

221in the coaching arena. A small but symbolic recognition of ability for a coach to enhance their stipend by a small amount, 1%, by completing a series of professional learning. And we're partnering with the Scarsdale Teachers Institute, we had a great meeting about how to implement this just last week. So, we're feeling positive about that. Second area, also deeply involving and impacting students is the extra curricular activities and assignments. We did add some activities that were well-established, but didn't exist in the contract, the robotics club at the high school's an example that comes to mind there and renormed some of the other positions. We did increase the pay. It's pay that more reflects an honorarium or recognizes there's an awful lot of time that goes into these clubs and activities for many of the advisors. But

222we've restructured it so that we now have much greater flexibility to add or determine if a club has not really, maybe has outlived it's student interest to pull that off the list and bring another club into the list. And then the third area that had significant change was in the area of salary differentials for teacher leadership positions. People familiar with positions like department chair, or deans, or psychologists, people who give summertime who have summer work responsibilities, even though it's a 10-month position otherwise. We reorganize these into three categories and with some rationale and justification around it, there was some increase in pay in several of them and we did add some positions that we felt we needed as a district and then a few that the Scarsdale Teachers Association believed were necessary. We also, for

223our teacher-leader positions that have supervisory responsibility over others, we built in for the first time, really, a well-described process for feedback supervision and really evaluation of that part of the role. Yes, these folks teach and they've always been assessed and evaluated for their teaching, but there's this other part that some people step into, which is a leadership role that has a different skillset. And we think that's a win-win in that area. Some other minor changes, but overall it's a long MOA, but I think it accomplishes quite a bit. And it really, I think, met the interests that the board set out at the start of the negotiation. I won't go on this long about the other two, I promise, but I thought that warranted some discussion. Any questions or comments on that? Drew, I have

224a short statement to read on behalf of the board related to this contract between the board of ed and the Scarsdale Teacher's Association reflects the commitments we have made to one another over time in support of our common purpose, which is to educate the district students. As Drew mentioned, "Our efforts this year sought to promote a stable, sustainable, growth-oriented school environment that maintains the trust and support of the Scarsdale community. Negotiations were conducted in a spirit of partnership from our very first session in January, 2021. And that spirit continued throughout the entire process. The board committed itself to a collaboration with the STA based on mutual interests and expectations using facts and data, and having a focus on honest and clear communication, transparency, creative solving problem, which was extensive, balance, equity and fairness. The joy

225endeavors of this board and faculty were productive and showed our pursuit of excellence around the basic interests of our enterprise, which is teaching and learning. This year particularly, we saw continued evidence that our faculty members are our critical partners. We saw it as some faculty came into our buildings to teach smaller in-person classes as long as three or four, or two or even one student needed to get into the building for effective and innovative education and/or his or her mental health and wellness. We saw it as design thinking continued to examine challenges and potential solutions so that teaching and learning experiences would meet the community's high standards. We saw it as our faculty continued to innovate, to train, to assist each other, and to enhance their commitment to their vocation, to continue learning and development

226and to our students. Knowing that our faculty is our district's most important resource, this agreement recognizes the importance of recruiting, supporting, and retaining the best professionals who are committed to their vocation, their continued learning, development and students in schools. The board recognizes its role as stewards of the district's financial resources, acknowledging its responsibility to provide educational programs and services that fulfill the needs of students and comply with regulations to maintain a safe and efficient operations of the district and to support sustainable infrastructure that our effective learning organization requires and which our community expects. Therefore, the board believes that this contract is a meaningful document that appropriately responds to the proposals brought by the board and the STA, and we appreciate the thoughtful, deliberative, and collaborative manner of this year's negotiation process. Thank you to Drew

227and Stuart and Thomas and Craig and Sarah for your guidance to the board throughout this work and for your patience, clarity, persistence, attention to detail, and a commitment to our students and our faculty." So, that was perfectly stated and at risk of marring a perfect comment about the contract, I wanted to just say I agree that especially appreciate the co-operative nature of the negotiations with the STA, And I particularly appreciate that Dr. Hagerman and Dr. Patrick were able to use our interests, help us identify our interests not only that we knew of as a board, but what we need as a school, as an administration, and to actually implement those interests because I've been through a number of negotiations and a lot of lip service gets paid to joint interests or similar interests, but putting

228it into effect and having that conversation with whoever's on the other side, and then having those interests addressed and reflected in the agreement is an extremely challenging thing to do, especially when you have some diversity on the other side, diversity, even sometimes on our side of the table, but I really feel like that's what really worked and I think you all made it work on the administration side and fortunately the teachers as well. And I just am very, very enthusiastic about the method of the negotiations and the results, and I hope that the teachers are as enthusiastic as I feel, because I think it's gonna be good for all the reasons you stated for the next couple of years. And I don't wanna say I'm looking forward to the next round of negotiations, but I

229think conducted like this, it's a really, really good experience and a good way to get everybody on the same page and I can't say enough positive things about it. So, thank you, Drew and Dr. Hagerman. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, thank you. Both of you, thank you for those statements. That's great. Thomas, should I just continue on? Please. Okay. So, next item is item 12.06. This is the secretary's memorandum of agreement. For those who don't know, SAES stands for the Scarsdale Association of Educational Secretaries. And this is a group of about 47 individuals who are often the first face we see or families see when they enter the district, enter a building, enter an office. This group is about a $3 million group in terms of total salary. And we too met throughout the spring,

230and we were able to reach a new four-year agreement, collective bargaining agreement. The most salient points in terms of salary, the salary increases of 1.7% in the first and second years, 1.6 in the third, and 1.5 in the fourth year. There is some increase to their longevity amounts when they reach certain milestones of years of service within the district. They too are part of the health insurance collaborative work, and we'll be putting into effect the same plan benefit changes cost-share changes, and we'll also be increasing their percentage contribution to premium. We did add Juneteenth as a official holiday for their schedules. So, we will be publishing a revised civil service holiday calendar if this is approved by the board. And that's in-years when it is a school closure. And then we also have a small

231number of part-time 10-month clerks in this unit. So, there's some pay increases associated with those individuals. We currently have 13 individuals in that group that works 17 hours a week or less. So, it's another group who we appreciate greatly for their hard work, especially during this time in the pandemic and we're happy to have reached an agreement. Questions or comments on that one? Okay, and our third group is the Scarsdale Principals Association. This is a group that includes our principals and assistant principals across all three levels, 17 individuals. This group is about a $3.4 million salary group. Similar to the teachers, we reached a three-year term with the principals, a 1.7% increase in the current year and we adopted the same salary range model in the second and third year that hinges on CPI and

232the teacher's retirement system rate that the district is responsible for. There was an adjustment to the range of our elementary principals. They have a salary range structure. That's gonna be increased in each year of the contract by $250. And there's a restructuring of the longevity increment. There's a new increment at 20 years in the district. And there is an increase in each year of the contract of those longevities. It's an area of their compensation that hasn't been adjusted since 2008. There is also a one-time non-recurring payment of $4,500 to each member in recognition for their work during the pandemic and they too are taking part in the health care changes 'cause we do this as a collaborative and there is a one-time allowance for them to go above the policy cap, I'm sorry, the contractual

233cap on how many vacation days they can, unused vacation days they accrue and can be paid out for upon retirement or separation, and that total can increase to 25 with days applied from this past year that were not used. And that's the SPA MOA. Another group we appreciate their contributions always, especially in a year where it was full of unexpected everything. I just wanna go back for a second to the secretary's agreement in that I didn't have something written and with Karen not here, I can't find what words would be, but let me just say that, as Drew said, secretaries welcome our families to these schools. They're the first face that our families see every day, and we're so grateful for their work and for allowing the schools to be as welcoming, as friendly and

234as detail-oriented and thorough in terms of management of registration and such as possible. So, we recognize your extraordinary value to these schools. And I'm sorry, I didn't get to say that after that. Carl? I'm gonna do this again, just because I wanna make sure I'm heard. This is an opportunity for me on behalf of the board and on behalf of Karen, who was a significant participator in the drafting of this statement, and in fact, mostly drafted it, but I'm gonna try and do it justice and express our gratitude to Pam and Allison for everything- Carl, we're not quite there yet. We're not? Oh, we're still on SPA, but thank you. (chuckles) I thought it was time. Thought you were talking about the contracts. I'm so excited to- So, comment about the principles. My bad. Oh,

235you're gonna say a word, no? I'll see if I'll introduce the (indistinct). Okay. All right, any other questions about SPA or any of the other remaining contracts? Then, I just need to say Drew, thank you. We know what this year has been and for you to take on collective bargaining, which in a good year is a challenge is just an extraordinary effort. And you bring such talent to this work. Really, in such a difficult year, particularly, and tensions can be so high around collective bargaining and there's so many pieces of people's value and worth that gets wrapped up in this and so many stories that get told as part of this process in terms of the way that contracts can affect people's individual lives and that you have such a skill and aplomb and tact

236in this work and you are able to move people and bring people along and help them to understand the interests of the district and at the same time help the board understand the interests of the bargaining groups is just really a remarkable feat. So, thank you very much, really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. (members clapping) All right, then we move on to 13.06 and I'm gonna actually go first, Carl, and then make you go second. 12.08. 12.08, 13.06, whatever. So, I have to say that this particular agenda item brings me no joy tonight. I have to say this, not only for myself, but for the whole of our school community. "Tonight, we're saying goodbye to two outstanding board members representing a profound loss of experience for our district. Over the past many years, both

237Pam and Allison have been unwavering in their commitment to students, staff and the community. They have been strong stewards of people, resources and programming, yet somehow always striking the right balance, even when that seemed unlikely or maybe even impossible. Though somewhat different in style and approach, their individual and collective decision making has been thoughtful, deliberative, informed, and most importantly, always centered on our students. School districts are of course, composed of diverse constituencies with varied voices and a wide array of opinions on any given topic. The challenge for any board member is to actively listen, thoughtfully consider feedback and make decisions that align with both their personal convictions and also those that are reflected by the interest of the larger school community. This is a monumental responsibility, which is further complicated by the complex rules and

238regulations which govern public schools in New York state. And yet, despite these many challenges, both of these board members have consistently demonstrated incredible skill at dissecting complex problems, asking appropriate questions, providing constructive feedback to ongoing processes, building consensus among board members and making decisions that move the district forward on a positive trajectory. But being a board member in Scarsdale is not just about working your way through information and action items at business meetings, the roles and responsibilities have expanded exponentially over the past many years, taking on more high-touch interactions across the district and beyond. One's ability to be successful in these endeavors require significant interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. Both Pam and Alison have, and continue to be adept in recognizing stressors, empathizing with others, overcoming challenges and defusing conflict. These are critical skills for

239all board members, but particularly those in our leadership roles. Pam and Allison, in your officer roles, you have both been exemplars of best practices. You've been committed to the growth and development of yourselves and other board members. You have been active participants within New York State School Boards Association and the Westchester Putnam School Boards Association. And you have worked with board members across the region on advocacy issues, policy making, and information sharing. In doing so, you have both enriched and enhanced our common work and also created a nexus between Scarsdale and other districts across Westchester and across the state. Pam, I've known you almost my entire time in the district. First, through the PTA PTC leadership and then as a board member for the past six years. To say that we've been through a lot

240is an understatement. As you know, there's been a tremendous transformation in the district over the past seven years at almost every level. And your leadership has been instrumental in almost all of those changes. This year, you and I have been in almost constant contact. In fact, I can't think of a day that's gone by that we haven't been in communication with each other and on a very personal level, I'm gonna miss that connection and support. There's a lot of lore here about some of the larger-than-life figures who have crafted our district into the unique and extraordinary place that it is and their contributions remain legendary. Certainly, Thomas Sobel, Eric Rothschild, Judy Fox, among others come to mind. Pam, I am certain that history will also remember you as one of those icons. You have dedicated

241decades of your life to our schools and the lasting impact of your work will also serve as your legacy. Alison, although I've known you for less time than Pam, your reputation certainly preceded your seat at the board table. Your prior leadership positions in the district were distinguished by your deep commitment to special needs children, mental health issues, and families affected by these issues. The skills you cultivated in your professional and volunteer capacities, undoubtedly have carried over into your leadership position on the board. You have been a clear communicator, an effective problem solver and a trusted thought partner. Your advocacy of all children was omnipresent and you served as a continuous reminder of our shared responsibility around wellness and wellbeing for all students and all families. As a board officer, you regularly asked how the board

242could support the work of teachers in the district, reminding us of the essential partnership between the board and the staff that is critical to our district's ongoing success. And perhaps most importantly, you always took the high road, demonstrating honesty, integrity, and humility. Your contributions have been many, which makes saying goodbye tonight all the more difficult. The only solace that it brings is we know that you will remain committed and connected to our work moving forward. On behalf of the district, I would like to thank both of you for your tireless dedication and many remarkable accomplishments over the years. But to be clear, what we will remember the most is the deep bonds that you have formed with so many district staff and family members through your dedicated years of service. As we always say, it's

243the relationships that are the hallmark of a Scarsdale education, and it is also those same relationships that will be your enduring legacy here. So, thank you." Carl, did you wanna say something? (members chuckling) So, I don't want you to think I was pushing you out the door there. So, I'm gonna repeat a little bit, because I think for going in order there's some value to be having things said at the right time in the right place, even if I didn't do that a few minutes ago, so I wanna give credit to Karen for helping and putting together significant amount of these comments. I echo myself everything Thomas just said, and I, before I make any more comments, thank you both for your, specifically for your guidance and friendship to me as well as the whole

244board. But the last few years, it's been a true pleasure to get to know you and to work with you, and I hope that we will, well, I know that we will be keeping in close contact in the coming at least year. So, here we go. So, "Pam, when you arrived in Scarsdale over 20 years ago, you began a multi-decade commitment as a volunteer in support of your community and schools. Over the years, you have given generously of your time, shared your talents and achieved so much through your tireless efforts and advocacy on behalf of youth. You have contributed in so many ways. Most recently, devoting your remarkable energy to the board of education and serving as an officer for multiple years. During your board service, you oversaw the negotiations of numerous labor contracts, six

245successful budgets, two bonds, served as liaison, reviewed policies, promoted safety and security, worked on steam, wellness, writing, and other curriculum initiatives. You supported programs for our vulnerable students in addition to an entry plan, a technology plan and a strategic plan. You served on numerous committees and helped open new spaces, such as Greenacres, the learning commons, the design lab, the fitness center, and the SMS orchestra room. You responded to numerous community emails, and that's an understatement. You sat through countless district and board meetings. And when COVID hit, you helped us navigate an unknown and very difficult path, along with guidance and situations, frustrated expectations and viewpoints were divergent, emotions high and solutions challenging. You met difficult decisions with fortitude and grace and helped keep everyone safe as we found direction and moved forward together. Your knowledge

246of all policies, procedures, and historical practice of the board is exceeded only by your patience and the level of care and detail you exhibit when responding to emails and correspondences, as you've done for the past two years, both as vice president and president, and it may be more than two years. You were a steady hand in the storm this year, keeping the board focused, on track and allowing us to complete all of our work under the most trying of circumstances. A heartfelt thank you for all that you have done, for all that you have shouldered, and it's been a lot over the past six years. Thank you, Pam. (members clapping) Alison, since your arriving here almost 20 years ago, you too have been a staunch supporter of Scarsdale students and schools, advocating for all, especially

247our most vulnerable. With a strong desire to return more special needs children to the district so they can attend their local schools, your board work included promoting the eight to one to two classroom and enhancing the district special education services. At the board table, you raised concern about student wellness and lobbied for important mental health support. In addition to your work on our committees as a liaison and on many labor negotiations and budgets, you helped to update and write board policy, specifically on anti harassment, anti-bullying and diversity equity inclusion, carefully crafting language to ensure that all children are treated respectfully and fairly in a positive, inclusive and welcoming environment. You never seemed daunted by the complexity, unfamiliarity or controversy of the issues that came our way. Your calm and capable demeanor have been so valued

248this year as we weathered the COVID storm. Your supportive kind nature has been greatly appreciated by all board members, especially by those whom you've mentored. Your drive to assure that all Scarsdale students are considered and attended to in all decisions is only exceeded by your willingness to give your time and experience to your colleagues on the board. You have been a consistent voice at all times and a wonderful sounding board sharing candid and cogent advice and experience with all of us. Thank you for giving the board, our students and the school community the gift of your time. You have helped to enhance the student experience and advance the mission of the Scarsdale schools. Thank you." (members clapping) Are there any other comments at this time, Amber? It's hard to follow all those glowing tributes, but

249I'll try. "Pam, you won't remember this story, but the year that I was Heathcote PTA president, I sat next to you at the staff appreciation luncheon at Heathcote. I had accepted the position of serving as PTC vice-president for the following year, which you had done yourself years before. And you said to me, 'What goals do you have for your year as vice president?' We talked about what you had hoped to achieve when you were VP and I was so impressed with how thoughtful you were about your volunteer time and how you could best make an impact. During my time on PTC and now on the board with you, I've seen firsthand how committed you are to our students. Thank you for giving your time and service to the students. Alison, I feel fortunate to have

250had the opportunity to serve on the board of education with you this year. Your ability to see issues from different perspectives has been an asset to our board and for our community, but most importantly, for our students, I am most impressed by your astute observations. And I am most appreciative of the diversity, equity and inclusion policy that you spearheaded for our district. Your expertise and perspective will be missed. Thank you." (members clapping) Any other comments, Ron? Much has already been said, so, I'll try to keep my comments short 'cause I echo everything that's been said. "First, I'd just like to thank you both for your civic engagement. You both have such a deep commitment to civic duty, both on this board and prior to this and as community volunteers and leaders, and I really hope

251that your dedication to civic engagement is a motivation and a model to other community members to see just how impactful and important local volunteering is, both in our community and really all aspects of life. I also wanna say thank you for being great colleagues. We've worked through a lot of very tough issues this year, but I always appreciate that we've remained friends, we always came the next day, just work on the next thing, something I've always appreciated about this board, and I think it's very unique and special to Scarsdale." And just lastly, I just look forward to seeing what you do next in your volunteer work, both hopefully in this community, but wherever it is in life and just seeing what you both do. And so thank you so much for the time working together.

252Any other comments? I would like to. Yes, please. I'm incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to serve our district as a school board member and as school board vice president. And I wanna thank all of you, my fellow board members, as well as the board members with whom I served over the course of my term. Bill Natbony, Lee mod, Nina Litas Cannon, Chris Merryn, Scott Silverfine, and of course, Pam Fuehrer. Scott and especially Pam have been inspiring leaders and mentors to me. Pam, you keep your cool through the most challenging of circumstances. You show respect and compassion for each individual who contacts you and you are perhaps the most organized and detail-oriented person I have ever worked with. You have been an effective and devoted public servant, and I feel so fortunate to have

253had the opportunity to work with you and to learn from you. I also wanna thank all of the members of the administrative cabinet and the superintendent. You are all an incredibly hardworking team and always focused on what's best for our students. You face the challenges of your position with great expertise, with poise, with grace, with compassion, demonstrating steadfast and thoughtful leadership always. I am so grateful to all of you for your heroic efforts on behalf of our students. To our teachers, I have never met a more dedicated group of educators than those who are here in Scarsdale. Before I held this board position, I held you in the highest regard. And now that I have had the benefit of an insider's view, I am even more in awe of your unwavering commitment To our students,

254as a board, our goal is to develop policies and practices that support your growth as learners. But in fact, I have learned so much by talking to and listening to you. Our high school student leaders have impressed me so much, and it is from you, our student leaders that I have drawn the strength to devote my very best efforts to executing board work every day. I look forward to continuing to hear about your accomplishments as you venture forth and achieve greatness in our community and in our world. And I wish all of our students good health and great joy in their endeavors. And finally, I wanna thank my family for accepting the craziness that this position often demands. When I first ran for the board, it was because I wanted to express my appreciation for

255the wonderful education that my children received. And now that my board service is complete, I will spend some time showing my family my appreciation for putting up with the late nights, the missed dinners and the many hours away from them." So, thank you all. It has been truly an honor to serve this district and I look forward to all of the wonderful work that this board, this administration will accomplish in the future. (members clapping) I have mine. So, just a tiny little story to start. My husband, Craig, grew up in Scarsdale and he graduated with a class of 1986, and when it came time, yeah, with Carl, when it came time to buy a home, he insisted that we raise and educate our children here. His faith in the school system and the community was

256unwavering. And I was tentative at the time, but soon I came to understand why he was so adamant and I eventually found myself uttering the three most important words in a partnership, 'maybe you're right.' And he was right because in Scarsdale, everyone's efforts are aligned toward the shared goal of providing each student with the best experience. We hear it over and over again. The best experience tailored to that particular child, allowing graduates to leave with a love of learning and a solid preparation for life. This understanding for me began with my very first co-chair, Kaperneth Emili, as we began our coordination of the 2005 Edgewood fair. And it grew as I noticed the deep support of Louis Moreno and the custodial staff, and then the extraordinary commitment of the full faculty and the administration to

257attending the needs of our children, both inside and outside of the classroom. It was clear the focus of everyone in the world of the Scottsdale schools wasn't solely on the day job. It was on the best way to utilize their passions, to make a difference in our students' lives. And I've seen this time and time again in parent volunteers, in the regular and ongoing extra efforts by faculty and staff and in our building and our district leadership's teams. Most importantly, our children thrive in this culture. This obvious alignment within our school community ignited my desire to support the shared mission and I knew I found my volunteer path. I will always be appreciative of the thousands of parent volunteers, the faculty staff and administrators who have reinforced my initial observation of this cherished reality year

258after year and even more so during the difficult times and the thorny issues. Thank you so much to each of you for giving me this gift. The widely and deeply-held commitment to our students is a shared priority. And it's a priority that all effective board members keep in the front of their minds. And each board member I've worked with over the past six years recognized and exemplified this commitment. And I'm so grateful to have learned from them to have grown with them and to have been strengthened by them. Especially this year, each of you kept your eyes on the prize and you focused on teaching and learning and the student experience, and you maintained an appreciation of the district-wide partnership. With your minds open to input from all stakeholders within the school community, you supported

259the outstanding work of our faculty and our building and district administrators, you acknowledged their considerable expertise, you ensured opportunities for student voice, and you recognized the value of the passionate commitment of our parents and our neighbors to the shared mission. I hope you continue to appreciate this remarkable collaboration knowing that everyone's dedication is extraordinary and that it's a very special privilege to be elected to the experience. Please have pride in your ride. Alison, my latest and greatest co-chair, there really are no words. You exemplify all that is good about this district, about partnership, productivity, collaboration, and critical thinking. You regularly brought the board's responsibilities of oversight and governance into perfect focus during your leadership and your support of board members, including me as individuals and of our development has been amazing. I'm so grateful for

260the time you gave to all our discussions and for sharing your knowledge, experience and your respect. It made all the difference for me. And thank you to Craig, Hannah, Colon and Aanika, my family, who were there to support and celebrate my work from the beginning so long ago. I knew I was never alone, and we have done this work together. And to Thomas and each of you in cabinet and Jeff and Andre, you impressed me daily for so many individual reasons. Your professional mindset and your dedication to the improvement of our schools is motivational, and no doubt I will treasure this phase of my life. Serving on this board has truly been an honor, and I'm so grateful to be here with all of you as my journey comes to an end. Thank you so

261much for this experience." (members clapping) Any other words? It feels like a strange, an abrupt change from here. I would like to say that on behalf of the district, we do have a small token of our appreciation for each of you and a certificate, we'll give you at the end. Thomas? Yes, Carl? I wanna take the Liberty of correcting Pam and saying that her journey is not at an end, just a new beginning. All right, we'll see. And with that, the new journey will begin with action items. All right, so, the first action item is 13.1, proposed new textbooks and that's Amber. Yes, thank you. There are a few textbooks that were presented to the board on June 7th that are up for consideration tonight. There are a number of musical textbooks, "Tonal Harmony," "Workbook

262For Tonal Harmony," "Music and Theory and Practice Volume I" "Music and Theory and Practice Volume II" "Workbook For Music and Theory and Practice, Volume I" "Workbook For Music and Theory and Practice Volume II," Oh, well this goes on. "The Complete Musician Workbook I" "Writing and Analysis To Accompany The Complete Musician Workbook II" "Skills and Musicianship To Accompany The Complete Musician," and "A New Approach To Sight Singing," and then there is another book, "When The Emperor Was Defined" by Julie Sukkah. And I recommend that the board approve the proposed high school textbooks as presented. Thank you, Amber. May I have a second? Second? Thanks Carl. Is there any discussion on this item? I just wanted to point out that although we take these up and it's indicated in the text of our background that New York

263state education law requires this along with some of the earlier comments, not every board just going even to the cheerleading issue, not every board is following strictly New York state law. And I am very aware that there are boards that are not doing this, and I think it's important that we do it. I'm glad that we do it. And I just think everybody who, again is watching or whatever, take a look at the textbooks. Maybe not some of the more technical ones, but certainly many of them are worth a read as well. And it's just important part of what we do and it's not something to be taken for granted. Thank you, Carl. Any other points for discussion? All right, then we'll vote. All in favor of this recommendation and its motion say aye. Aye.

264Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, it looks like the I's have it. So, this motion passes. Thank you. We'll move to item 13.02, it was assigned to Karen, but Amber will be taking this. Yes, these are the DEI goals that were first identified at our June 7th meeting and were discussed earlier this evening and also the New York state culturally, I'm gonna close the name, I wanna read it exactly. Culturally Responsive Sustaining. Yeah, it's a lot. Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education Framework and we're voting on both of those. And I recommend that the board approve the New York state CRS framework and may identify goals for DEI as presented. Great, thanks, Amber. May have a second? Second. Thank you, Ron. Is there any discussion on this item? All right, seeing none, all those in favor of

265the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? All right, that motion passes and we move on to 13.03, the STA memorandum of agreement. Alison, did you say that was you? Yes. So, I wanna add my thanks to Drew and to the rest of the cabinet and also to the leadership of the Scarsdale Teachers Association. This year's negotiation was a model for collective bargaining and all of the parties involved should be really proud of their performance. From the start, the group focused on values and needs and committed to data sharing and to listening. And that philosophy enabled the group to move toward a contract that expresses our ideals as a community. The memorandum of agreement as described earlier, spells out the provisions for a three-year contract that was ratified by the STA membership and is

266tonight presented to the board for action. I therefore move that the board of education approve and ratify the terms of the memorandum of agreement and authorize the superintendent and the president of the board to execute an agreement consistent with such terms and further authorize the superintendent to take all actions consistent with the terms thereof. Thank you, Alison. May I have a second to that motion? Second. Thank you, Carl. Is there any further discussion on this motion? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed or extensions? All right, the motion passes, thank you very much. 13.04, the next MOA is Alison. Similarly, the board of education and the Scarsdale Association of Educational Secretaries have been conducting contract negotiations and have reached a tentative agreement. The memorandum of agreement spells out the

267provisions for a four-year contract. It was ratified by the SAES membership and is presented tonight to the board for action. I therefore move that the board of education approve and ratify the terms of the memorandum of agreement and authorize the superintendent and president of the board to execute an agreement consistent with such terms and further authorize the superintendent to take all actions consistent with the terms thereof. Thank you, Alison. May have a second to the motion? Seconded. Thanks Carl. Any discussion on this motion? Okay, seeing none or hearing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? All right, the motion passes. Moving to item 13.05, the SPA agreement, Alison? Negotiations with our principals and assistant principals also focused on values and interests and on the best needs of our students and

268of our broader community. Our principals and assistant principals have worked incredibly hard this year. They are so dedicated to our students and personally, one of the best parts of serving on the board is the opportunity to work more closely with this incredibly talented group of skilled professionals. The board of education and the Scarsdale Principals' Association conducted contract negotiations and have reached a tentative agreement. The memorandum of agreement spells out the provisions for a three-year contract. It was ratified by the SPA membership and is presented tonight to the board for action. I therefore move that the board of education approve and ratify the terms of the memorandum of agreement and authorize the superintendent and president of the board to execute an agreement consistent with such terms and further authorize the superintendent to take all actions consistent

269with the terms thereof. Thank you, Alison. May I have a second? Second. Thank you, Ron. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? All right, the motion passes, thank you. Moving on to 13.06, the superintendent MOA, Carl. This is the item taken from the consent agenda. So, the motion is at the board, I move that the board accept the memorandum of agreement for the superintendent of schools, Dr. Hagerman as presented. Thank you, Carl, may I have a second? Second. Thank you, Alison. Is there any discussion? Since I took it out, I just wanted it to state that this year I cannot support the proposed changes to the superintendent contract. Thank you, Ron, any other discussion? Oh, I have some comments. Oh, sure. Okay. Let me do this again for ease

270of reference. I think Pam, that you outlined pretty well, the general process that we go through, but I think it's worth noting some of the types of things that get evaluated in that process in addition to the fact that we do it multiple times, et cetera. So, I'm gonna just run off a quick list because I think people should understand that there's a significant number of items that the board has been considering. I'm gonna run down this as quickly as I can and then I have a few more comments. So, these are things in general, that we consider maybe not each one of them, but most of them were considered in some way, in terms of the evaluation and how we look at things on a broad scale. So, we look at the district strategic

271plan, any school improvement or facilities plan, professional development plans based on data, leadership agenda, students' performance goals, student performance data, use of formative assessments, principal and teacher plans. Some of these are self-evident. Graduation rates presented to students going to college, professional development, leadership, student perfo, I might have said this, but student performance goals, student performance data, formative assessments, timeliness of board packets, board meeting agendas, external reviews and audits, internal reviews and audits, copies of district procedures and publications like handbooks, discipline, policy safety procedures. We look at correspondence, emails, newsletters, we look at surveys that have been conducted of parents and other community folks, policy and procedure documents for internal communications, visible support for district goals and priorities, including other civic organizations such as the forum, agreements and other documents to support collaborative efforts, collective bargaining

272negotiations and agreements, accounts of school and district accomplishments that we are aware of and hear about, the district website, newsletters, public engagement documents, membership and participation with community organizations, other partnerships and collaborations, attendance at community and school events, parent community and staff surveys, teacher school, executive and staff, retention data, ability to confront and build consensus, shared decision-making, outreach efforts, school board policies, very important, minutes and reports data on discipline and the superintendent's own performance goals. In this last year, we specifically looked at the strategic planning, the training, the implementation guidance, the sharing of components and updates on milestones, use of administrative time to focus on aspects of the strategic plan, education reports, very important. We looked at the focus on multiculturalism, diversity, inclusion and belonging, creation and leveraging of communication opportunities to address the expectations

273around those subjects, incorporating multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion into the strategic plan. We looked at leading professional development among cabinet, administrative council and teachers, ensuring that the professional development is aligned with the strategic plan, provision of training that models the best practices and instructional leadership and leadership development opportunities, et cetera. We looked at the quality and performance of the cabinet, the quality and performance of the administrative staff, such as principals and assistant principals and the quality and performance of teachers. And that all of that includes the cabinet, for those who may not be aware, Dr. Patrick, who just completed the negotiations, Stuart Maddie, Dr. McIntosh, Eric Rushenback, Jerry Kreshi, Rachel Mosley, Ray Pappalardi among others. We also consider the building principals, which many people may not know the principals outside of their own elementary school. Toshia

274brown, Melissa Feinberg, Sharon Hill, Maria Style, Felix Gil, Megan Troy, and Kenneth Banano. So, this is an ongoing, very thorough evaluation that has been going on, it's ongoing. I don't wanna say it's just going on for this year, this is something we've been dealing with for, since I got on the board. So, when we look at the superintendent and we decide what we wanna do with regards to the contract and the memorandum of understanding, it's a reflection of how we, for me, it's a reflection of all of that not simply any one item, any one day, week, month, and it's disconcerting obviously to hear people that are unhappy with the fact that we're making this decision. But I do think as Pam pointed out, it is actually our responsibility to make these decisions. That's how

275it is. I think what Mira said, which is true is I think it's very dangerous to start ascribing a, I don't know what the right word is, a community instruction based on an election result. And I could give you three different interpretations of the election result and I'm not willing to make any assumptions about that. I think that we were elected to do this evaluation, to look at the students what's best for the students and that's what we have to do. Now the timing, I have thought about. I understand that it feels like, well, you're doing it at your last meeting, I get that. Before I was on the board, so, I came and it came up and I was surprised. Why was I surprised? Because I didn't know enough about how board functions. And

276I was on the village board of trustees and we dealt with contracts and all that all the time, but it was different. So, I tried, even though I was a little surprised and I thought it would have been nice if I had had a say in it, I try to keep an open mind and come on the board and understand how the board functions, what New York state requires and learn and I make decisions based on not just what I thought two years ago or even a year ago, but how I see things and feel about things today, with the experience of two years. And so I understand about the last minute, but I also understand that it's not the last minute that it would be patently unreasonable for me to expect any person coming

277onto the board to make these types of decisions next month or the month after, or even the month after, because they haven't sat through two years of evaluations like I have, they haven't had the experience of contract negotiations or curriculum development or facilities that is what all of you bring, that what the superintendent's responsible for and is responsible for everybody at this table doing. So, I think the time timing is awkward because we have this thought in our head about lame duck president, lame duck officials, that's not this situation. So, we have plans, we have goals, we have intention on, and we have directions that we've given to the superintendent and the cabinet that we have a strategic plan that we want to see implemented, that we have a DEI that we wanna see implemented,

278that we have other programs that are being worked on. And that on balance, there are a lot of strong reasons for taking an action like we're taking tonight. So, I rethink now what I thought two years ago. Two years ago, I thought "You're doing it the last minute," now I think, "Well, actually, evaluations happen at the end of the school year." That's just how it is. And if you're gonna act on it, you should have the people who have participated in a year-long process or two years or whatever, they're the best position to make that decision and so I feel that we as a group, are in the best position to make that decision. I don't think that, and I hope people don't feel that doing so indicates a lack of empathy or a lack

279of sensitivity to the community. I've listened very carefully, I think I understand the perspective. I don't believe a referendum from people who haven't been through this process would be instructive. I think that we have to look at what we have in front of us and in the interest of what we think is the best for students, sometimes we have to make a decision. Always we have to make a decision, I guess, and in this case, I'm comfortable with the motion, I'm comfortable because I do think it's the best thing for the students. I'm comfortable because we've done an evaluation which establishes that. And I hope that people can respect and understand that. I mean, I'm already getting texts about what's gonna happen to be, or not happen to be next year and all I can

280say to people is, "I try and say how I feel and do what I think is the best thing, in this case for the students. And I'm really, really compelled that this is a proper and appropriate decision and that our students are gonna benefit." And I wanna make that clear because there were several references from speakers this evening about, "It's our job to keep peace in the community," or "we need to do what the community wants and we shouldn't substitute our judgment for other people out in the community." Well, I don't agree with any of that, honestly. I think I'm here to make sure that the best educational situation and the best education is made available for our students. And in order to do that, I have to use my judgment with the information that

281I have and with that in mind, I don't know if I made the motion, I made the motion and I'm gonna support the motion because I do think that on balance, there are so many good things happening here that get so lost in the shuffle and I tried to call them out during the year, but really in my view, this is really gonna allow things to proceed in a stable and comfortable way if passed and in a way that benefits the entire school community and all of the students. And that's my goal, is to benefit the students. And if it means something else for me, or it means something else, because somebody thinks I didn't listen to them, I hope that they'll understand that I did and I do, but I've spent two years learning

282about this and understanding it, and I feel confident that I'm doing the right thing for the students and that's what I'm doing. Thank you, Carl, any other discussion? Yes? Thanks, Carl for your thoughts and Ron, for yours. I agree that it is our right and our responsibility to vote on this at this time, from what I've learned. One thing I'm struggling with is when Carl gave the list of all the people who were giving their input and their feedback, and I feel like we've heard tonight that people are feeling like they're not being heard. I don't know how to reconcile with that. We have received input from the community throughout the year, but we've also heard that communication could be better and I think there's people who feel like this was snuck in which it

283was not, I understand that, but I don't know how we reconcile that or how we address that. Yeah, I mean, having listened intently to a lot of the comments tonight in person and over Zoom, I feel a responsibility to at least clarify my own thought process so people understand how I went about coming to the conclusion that I came to. And that doesn't mean to belabor the details through the nuance of our conversation because that's not appropriate. But I do think for me, it actually is simple. And why I say that is, when I vote to make a decision, it's in light of what is in the best interest of the student, not necessarily what is in the best interest of Bob Klein in terms of to Carl's point getting emails that forget about the

284school board after the way I'm behaving or whatever. I wanna do the right thing. I think I was selected for my ability to reason, to assimilate information and to be sensible and to consider what's in the best interest of the students. I have listened intently, I do hear the frustration and to Amber's point, I wish that didn't exist. And I'm trying to share my thoughts because I'm trying to build trust. I want people to trust that I'm sincerely trying to do the right thing, that I wasn't cavalier about voting yes and that it wasn't an a self-serving decision on my part, that it all comes down to, what do I think is in the best interest of delivering the goals and the plans that are in place? And I believe that the action that we've

285taken is not best interest. Now, obviously they're gonna be people who may not agree with me and that's fine, but I was asked to provide my expertise, so to speak, to help make decisions. So, I think it doesn't mean I'm not listening. And I do take offense when someone says if I don't agree then I'm not listening, there's a difference between listening and maybe not agreeing. I have listened, and clearly there's a lot of sincere passion out there in the community that I don't minimize. And I really hope to really work hard this year to minimize the discontent in terms of decision-making and transparency, that clearly is out there. How much is out there? Honestly, I don't know. I mean, there's clearly some of it, I'm not denying that, but I think I can only

286speak for myself here, but my intentions are as simple as they can be about doing the right thing and I hope people can just respect that. People meaning that people out there understand where I'm coming from and will be respectful about that because there's no mouse on my part in any regard, hopefully that makes sense. Thank you, Bob. Any other board discussion? All right, well then the motion has been made and seconded, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. Any abstentions? Abstain. All right, so, the motion passes, thank you. And we'll move to item 14.1, Bob, that's you. There might be something wrong with what I'm looking at, but my 14.1 is different than this. I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure why I'm looking at an older version of this. I know

287why, because you clicked on the goals in the DEI presentation and went to last year's. Yeah, that happened to me. That's why I messed up with that, yeah. Okay, totally. Okay, so, it is recommended that the board accept with thanks the gift proposal of the original said gifts valued at $3,775 in the approximate of the school and (indistinct). Second. Okay, Carl. Any discussion on this item? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, abstentions? All right, we appreciate that gift. Thank you to the Fox Meadow PTA. Oh, we're in questions for those present. So, again, members of the public are cordially invited to speak on agenda or other non-personnel related matters. I reiterate this statement related to personnel and how we are happy to receive emails related to personnel. We receive them all year

288long and positive and concerns expressed to the board, but that's where they have to be. At this moment each individual has three minutes and there's not a cap on this public comment period. And we will allow people from the audience to speak first, and then we'll go to Zoom and we have someone at the podium. The last one standing. Just name and the organization, again, if you wouldn't mind. Okay, Lisa Bomb, League of Women Voters of Scarsdale. I just was a little rushed and wanted to make one point. There's nothing in the open meetings law that prohibits virtual public comment. There are other governmental agencies who are working on doing this next year. Amy Paulin recognizing the value that a virtual comment has made has introduced a bill that would require governmental agencies that allow

289in-person comment would also have to allow virtual public comment as well. So, we do hope you consider this in the year to come. Thank you. And now are there any other people present in the audience who would like to come to the podium for public comment? Seeing none, we'll go to Zoom. I don't right now see any hands raised, but now would be the time to raise your hands to speak and we'll follow the same protocols. Remember, there's a time delay, but Jerry will promote you and then you need to accept his invitation to unmute yourself and he can speak to you directly to tell you to go ahead and speak. And we have one hand raised and it's Mira. So, we're promoting you and then Jerry will ask you to speak. Mira, you're promoted,

290you can speak now. Hi, good evening, Mira Kurkendahl Rodriguez. I really wanted to thank everybody's comments. Very, very thoughtful comments expressing gratitude to all the hard work that Pam and Alison have done. And I'm a strong believer that people should not be judged just on one year of the totality of all of the work that they do. And I really believe that we don't have to agree on everything, but I truly value all the board members' work. We have to remember that this is volunteer work. They're not getting paid one single cent. I really appreciated all of the comments by the board members about why they were supporting the extension and the increase in salary for Dr. Hagerman. I think it would have been useful to understand for Mr. Schulhoff why he voted against, or

291why Ms. Yusuf abstained, again, just as part of understanding the thought process from all of you. Thank you very much for passing unanimously the DEI, the state's version on that and your own guidance. I think this is incredibly important work, and I continue to encourage you to please, please release the agenda with the attachments before the Monday. I think this would have helped this evening a lot, because, basically you heard from people who were organized enough to get their supporters to turn up to the meeting, but had there been more notice, perhaps you would have also heard other perspectives and those of people who are grateful for all the work that Dr. Hagerman has done, not just this year, but in previous years. Again, we need to think of the totality of the work that

292he has done in this district. So, thank you very much to all of you and good night. Thank you, Mira. I'll ask other attendees who'd like to speak to raise their hands at this time and Jerry will promote you. There are no hands raised at this time. All right, seeing none, I will close this opportunity for public comment and move to follow up to public comment. And I guess to that, there would only be a point to next year's board considering Mira's request related to agenda preparation and availability to the public. And I have nothing to say to follow up otherwise, except thank you for your kind words, anyone else? All right, wrap up items, number 17, that would be the board's directive to Ray to draft three letters in support of, following your advocacy

293efforts for those three and if you get them to us by Friday, I'll sign them and then if not, they may have to wait until the next board president. So, unless I do them electronically. So, I'm sorry, but there is a short term if we wanted it done before July, but if- They're done now. You're done? It's better if it's done. Oh, okay. All right, so, we'll get those presented before the board and I hope that the board can respond quickly via email any comments for those, and then otherwise we'll get them out by the end of the week. Thanks, Ray, any other wrap-up items? Did you think of any? Just that we had a tornado warning that said that we should take shelter about 30 minutes ago in effect, it's an effect until 10:30.

294So, just as you're traveling home, remember to be careful. It already disappeared now. It's in Rockland. The warning said for Rockland and Westchester. So, just FYI. It's been removed? Meeting dates for the coming month, Alison? The new board will meet for its reorganization and business meeting on Wednesday, July 7th at 3:30 right here in room 170 in the high school. Thanks, Alison. Motion to adjourn? So, moved. Second? I'll second. Okay, Amber, all in favor? Aye. Any abstentions? Motion passes, thank you all. Have a great night. (indistinct chatter)