001(soft up beat music) Good evening to everyone joining us tonight and hello to those of you watching later on demand. Thank you for taking the time to be here with us and we hope you and your families are doing very well. The executive order which allows the Board to hold our meetings virtually has been extended until January 1st of 2021 and the public will be able to join, observe and listen. And you may comment at the two opportunities during this meeting. Just before this public session the Board held an executive session to discuss matters concerning collective bargaining and all members of the Board were present. And we took a wellness break or we moved into public session, took a wellness break and we will now continue in public. All members of the Board are present
002and are participating virtually. And I'll also note that all members of the cabinet except Dr. Hagerman who is unavailable tonight are present and also participating virtually. I do have an opening statement, which is very quick. Couple of thoughts. Just to cabinet I know that we all know that last week was an extremely difficult week. And we also know that the decision to move to remote learning for these last two days of school days of 2020 was something that you consider deeply. You used using trends of infections in our area and understanding that safe and effective teaching and learning and the student experience must be supported by strong in-person operational and management structures and by appropriate staffing. So we appreciate your deep and thoughtful consideration of what was best for the students and the staff. And
003I also want to just make sure that the community is aware that we are moving into the Board's work on budget development. It takes about four months, maybe five. You all can imagine that this will be a very difficult process where we will absolutely prioritize the student experience in teaching and learning while recognizing the volatile fiscal environment and the impact of the pandemic on our expenses and revenues and Stuart will speak to that. We encourage you to watch the budget development presentations and the discussions fully and to get clarity on the key budget drivers this year. And we welcome your input throughout this process via email or at any public comment period. And finally, I'll just note that we are all very much looking forward to our second education report of the year. As you
004know, the Board's goal is to support the District's mission and beliefs during the pandemic while keeping our students and our staff safe. And it's always a motivation and a pleasure to see how our mission to sponsor each student's development and to help them think and express themselves well and to understand themselves and others and to appreciate their rights and their responsibilities as citizens and to become people of integrity, maturity and generous spirit how all of those are exemplified and communicated through these regular education reports. So thank you in advance for all the time spent on tonight's agenda items. Moving to the next item with Thomas not here I do believe that Drew has an opening comment. Thank you, Pam I appreciate it. Sadly, I have some upsetting news to report tonight to the broader community.
005We learned last Wednesday that we lost a colleague, coworker, friend and a really good human being, Jason Weiss who was a network administrator in the technical services department passed away. Jason was just 35 years old and had been with the District since 2018. And it's always difficult to process news like this even when things are more normal and this is not a normal time. But we know in particular our technical services team has suffered just a cruel series of losses in the past several years and Jason being the latest. And we really wanna let that group know and all of Jason's friends and family know that we're really thinking about them and supporting them as we cope with this tragic loss. I'm wondering if maybe we can take a moment of silence just to remember
006Jason. Thank you, Pam. I appreciate having the chance to say that. Thanks, Drew, do we have any board members who have opening reports tonight, none, right? Okay, then, sorry, we'll move into the next item which is the restart update, Eric. Thank you, Pam. Tonight we're going to go through a number of things. It will be a fairly short report. I will take us through kind of where the current COVID case numbers stand. Drew will talk a little bit about staffing challenges. I'm going to talk a little bit about the student absent trends we're seeing especially at the workup to our break here. And then I'll talk a little bit about the testing plans what those numbers for the signup were over the past week which the survey closed Sunday. And then a couple of announcements
007about the new website coming in January and how we're going to communicate about COVID over the break. So to start with just to give everybody an update currently, the District has experienced 53 cases of COVID. 30 of those cases where students. 23 of those cases were adults. You may notice that the school report card currently says 50 that's because my latest report hasn't hit the school report card yet. The 53 recognizes the COVID notification we got yesterday about cases over the weekend. At this point, if you look across the County that's probably the middle of the pack. There are schools that have quite a few higher cases and then a number of schools or a certain number of districts our size that have a bit less. In talking with our District physician he's been satisfied
008with the way we've contained and quarantined. Obviously, some of the latest cases have been no contact tracing cases which haven't had huge impacts but then we've had a few others that have had a fairly significant impact on staff. And with that, I'll turn it over to Drew just to talk a little bit about our staffing quarantines and challenges at this point. Thanks, Eric, as Pam mentioned in the beginning we did make the decision to switch to remote learning in all the buildings for today and tomorrow. This came a few days after we shifted the Middle School to all remote learning. These decisions were made very reluctantly and only when it became evident that the in-person learning experience would be difficult or impossible to support for a significant percentage of our students. Basically, the combination of
009COVID related quarantine and seasonal illness that happens inevitably any time this time of year comes around caused an increase in the number of teachers out in recent days. We have a contingency plan for that. Our contingency plan for quarantining teachers or others being out involved streaming into the classroom from home where the teacher is but that still requires substitute coverage by either a teacher aid or by a substitute. You'll remember this year we have employed a number of permanent building subs. These are certified teachers who show up to the same building every day and play a variety of roles supporting education. That is our contingency plan but when aides and subs are also quarantined or sick themselves our ability to supervise students become seriously stretched. Our next layer of coverage beyond that involves breaking our
010cohorting on an emergency basis by using teachers or aides that normally work with other cohorts to fill in and plug the gaps. And on Friday, we reached another level where we actually had to shift building-based subs from one elementary building to another to meet a last-minute coverage. We had to send some folks home due to quarantine but only learned a bit in that moment. So we met as an entire administrative council at the end of the week last week to look at the facts on the ground to look at our attendance data and knowing what our quarantine situation was. And we carefully assessed our ability to safely and effectively support in-person learning and really determined unanimously that this today and tomorrow were not going to be really good productive instructional days in schools and we
011wouldn't be able to cover every class. So that is what really led to the shift. We're constantly looking at this data every morning, every evening to see what it looks like and we'll continue to do so but it just wasn't tenable today and tomorrow. Adding on to that, we've had a student absence trend continuing pretty for about the last two weeks. At this point, we have over 500 students who've moved to virtual only learning. We don't expect that number to stay where it is after (indistinct) but that was in the lead up to the break with another one to 200 students kind of choosing on a day-to-day basis to be present virtually rather than in person. The number at the Middle School has doubled to almost 200 students on virtual only learning. Again, not a
012trend we think will survive past the break but was in kind of hopes of not being quarantined prior to the break. What this has also caused in conjunction with what Drew was talking about was many classes that had significant numbers of kids Zooming in on the secondary level with possibly a teacher quarantined kind of Zooming in also but still having to keep track of students on the ground. It was becoming very difficult to mesh all of those media types and pedagogy in one class. And that kind of also led to the decision of wanting to have a strong pedagogy in these last two days and remote being better than what we were seeing from a student absent trend and the staff quarantine perspective. At this point, we'll stop and ask if anybody has any questions
013about kind of our COVID cases staffing and student absences. Eric, I shared with you an email I know it was just a few minutes before the meeting. Somebody had shared with me that Mamaroneck School District announced they're gonna start pool testing after the break. Really just a comment of we could find out sort of what they're doing the details, I think it'd be interesting to know as we've talked about pool testing at this table. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to find out the details and understand what the group size is. I think one of our concerns about pool testing just in our initial discussions about it because that is possible through the saliva testing is if you get a positive in whatever group you're doing whatever pool you're doing you need to quarantine that group
014until they're all retested and get individual results from them. So that could be logistically difficult but I'm happy to speak to Mamaroneck. I just heard you just send it to me before and I that's the first I'd heard of it. So I will talk to them about what their strategy behind the pool testing is and what they hope to gain from it. I wonder, I mean, similar to receiving recently we all received a note about space and we continue to hear about that. I wonder if I'm sure we'll hear about it during public comment as well. I wonder if there's a value in having any update on that or discussion about that now or I guess it could wait till follow-up to public comment since we're in restart. We'll continue to look at all of
015our spaces as we look into the future. Hopefully, cases get better and the percentages come down for Westchester and all of the lower Hudson. And we would hope to start to bring students in as we can. We continue to work with our architects on how best to do that. But it's also more than just an architectural calculus it's all the other variables that go into that as far as the best way to deliver education. Going back to what Drew talked about as far as and Eric about staffing levels and all of that. All of that as part of that conversation in how we can make that sustainable. I wonder if there's a way to express that somehow I don't know what the right medium for it is. I know we all received the analysis and
016email tonight but I should say and I can't speak for other board members but it's certainly a topic I hear about all the time. Can we can third grade get back in? What about High School? And one of the challenges, I think is obviously, it's very complex. And as we've talked about at this table space is not the only issue. There's a lot of other questions even if we had the space. I don't believe we have and would be valuable. I don't know what would take to get it. Would just somehow to be able to point and say, "This is what it looks like today. "These are capacities. "These are where the placements are. "This is what we have, this is why "and these are the educational decisions behind it." I'm putting that out there
017as an open question. I don't know whether the trade off of the time to do that is valuable but I do wanna share at this table it continues to be a question I hear about consistently. One of our board members had a question of Drew and Eric this week about is there anything that can be done differently in the buildings with staff or faculty or aides having lunch together and then all being quarantined? It was like this question about so many are quarantined at once. And is there any way of like anything that could be done differently that would prevent 30 staff at a time from being quarantined? And Drew you wrote an answer. I don't know if you just wanna (indistinct) The issue is there are very few free spaces for individuals to go
018and have their lunch. So our upper grade spaces are being if we're talking elementary are being disinfected during that window of time. The K through two students are either eating in their class they're eating in their class for half of the teachers' hour lunch and prep period there. They're really very few spaces in the building that are available for some to go eat lunch. I wanna be very clear there. Our teachers and aides are sitting six or more feet apart. They're wearing masks except when they're actually putting food in them or drink in their mouths. But if someone was in that room and tested positive the current Westchester County protocol means that they are quarantined if they've spent 10 or more minutes in that same space. So it's not for lack of following those protocols.
019We've talked about the Swiss cheese model or other whatever models quarantining is the more extreme but still yet another mitigation effort beyond social distancing and masks. Quarantine is a step that health department initiates to add a layer of protection just to slow or prevent the spread of the disease and that's the decision that's being made right now. Short of asking our teachers and aides to eat in their cars which I'm not particularly comfortable doing. I don't see how we avoid congregant settings at the lunch hour. I also wanna be clear to talk about those actual group sizes are. And when we talked about Heathcote we had upwards of 30 staff that wound up needing to quarantine. That wasn't because of one infection or one particular room. That was a concurrence of events that included a
020staff member who had multiple responsibilities while we were moving classrooms. So was in touch with many staff members but individually, while helping doing those jobs and a person who had a longer contact tracing window. Most of the groups that are eating together don't rise above the four or five person mark. So but we have also been averaging a couple of cases a day for the last few weeks. So those multiply pretty quickly when you have contact tracing windows. So it's a push-pull as far as being able to utilize space but also being able to have teachers utilize the normal prep and planning periods to make sure that grades are aligned and they can work together. It does cluster in grades though, of course because that's where the teachers are most likely to be collaborating. I
021thank you for that. I do wanna clarify one part of my comments I don't think I made it clear. Nobody who's asking this question is asking about it for right now. I think everybody who brings it up is asking what about in April? Or what about some time in the medium and long-term? So I just wanna make sure I clarify that. Nobody's talking about that in January that I hear from at least. Listen, I mean, the schools right now have students in almost every conceivable space that isn't being used for other necessary functions. That being said, we wanna look we need to keep in mind population density transitions the ability to keep kids separated throughout the day. So, it's tough. And as numbers come down as we see increasing effects of the vaccine we may
022very well be able to adjust the Swiss cheese model, if you will and remove a layer of cheese because we think that's the safe thing to do which will allow us to reach gigger how many kids can come in when they come (indistinct) where they can be during the day. Any other-- Can I ask a question? Sure, yeah, so we talked about the staffing issues being one of the reasons why we had to go remote for these two days. And are we expecting that we'll be able to start back in the hybrid model in January when we return? That's our expectation. One of the other pieces for these two days that was an added benefit is any quarantines that would have happened someday today or tomorrow would have actually lasted through the end of break
023and into the start of school after the 4th. So I say that cautiously though because I am not sure over the break what other cases will come up what other contacts may be there and all of that. That every day Drew and I especially are kind of eyeballing our phone when we're not at our desks kind of waiting for the next call to come in about cases. It's not to make people afraid but that is it is a steady caseload. And we're not seeing (indistinct) We're actually still seeing an increase from Thanksgiving that is in the community. Again, I would say the scores still were falling in the middle of the pack as far as numbers of cases that we're seeing come in. But depending on where they fall and how they cluster makes huge
024differences into what they can do. We did have an issue where we needed to quarantine many of our grounds crew because of a positive and the need for those folks to really work through a night and take care of our buildings which they did an unbelievable job doing. But a it's a close-quarters job. It's a more than a one-man job. And that when there's an unlucky case that kind of falls in the middle of that it causes great staffing issues. So it sounds like it's our hopes that we open (indistinct) Okay, thank you. You sent out, I think, the email for people on the testing. What kind of response did you get on that? Thanks for the segue, Carl. That's our next piece. So the testing, we had 1500 students sign-ups. They were fairly evenly
025distributed across grade. A couple of points above or below 30% kind of in each grade and school level. We hope for a little bit more on the initial sign-ups. Obviously, 30% is kind of right around the mark that we would need to test, where we'd go on the zone. I'm not sure if that's because it was kind of in the last week heading up to the holiday break which if anybody has a life like mine is filled with lots and lots of busy-ness. So we are gonna recanvass after the break and see what that sign-up brings us. Although, it is 1500 students is nothing to sneeze at. Also there are quite a few signups there. Out of the staff, approximately 1/3 of the staff signed up in this first go-through as we asked for volunteers.
026Again, we'll recanvass after the break for them. The initial information is being supplied to Sovereign Health today and tomorrow to be registered in their portal so they're all set at a moment's notice if we need to use that testing. We'll also make sure that that transfer goes well. And if we have to tweak the form at all we'll do that obviously, before we recanvass when we get back. Any questions on that testing piece? Well, we ultimately need to get more or less everybody, right? I mean, we need to be-- So they have changed the red and orange requirements. There used to be you have to do 100% over the month in 20% or 25% bursts. Now it's 20% or 30% over the entire month. They don't require you to test 100% of the population. However,
027retesting the same 30% would not be ideal. Would it be permitted? By the letter of the law as far as I can tell, yes. Although, the local DOH has jurisdiction and kind of their own their ability to say, "We agree with this or we don't." If that is potentially an issue then we should A, when we send that second blast out let people know that they are jeopardizing by not filling it out by not participating they're jeopardizing schooling A, for everybody. And B, that I believe we discussed that if we need you to be tested and you don't do the testing there is a potential ramification for you as far as your student coming in and learning because we need to have that done. Am I (indistinct) So in between the last meeting and this
028meeting we received direct guidance from the state that testing was not a precursor for allowing students into in-person learning. That being said, there was no lessening of the mandate to have to meet the testing requirements in New York State. So it essentially puts school districts in a position if they can show that they have X number of people signed up and how they're going to test the Department of Health we might not be able to open. Like I said, we have about 30% now and that is fairly evenly distributed K-12. I have yet to talk to the DOH. We just got these numbers at the end of the weekend as to what their thoughts on the total pool of testing month over month needs to be. So, I guess then-- It wouldn't work for a
029yellow zone. 'cause we would have to do 20. Assuming that the testing comes back lower than community spread then it would work for the yellow zone because we do have more than 20%. Well, all right. Let's put it this way then we better be very clear to everybody. If it turns out that we ultimately do need more and we haven't gotten sign-ups. And those first tranche of people signed up that if we don't get the extra percentage that we're likely to close because I for one, don't wanna be sitting here having a discussion and having 150 people on the participant list to complain why are we closed when we've been telling people that you need to sign up for the testing and they're not doing it, if that's the case. If it's not and we're
030fine, then great. Thanks to those 30% that did it right away. I have communication that goes out can you just let people know if they have updated insurance how they should update that because I'm sure a lot of people's insurance is gonna be updating Jan 1 and they submitted, 30% already submitted. If that is the case, I'll announce it here but I'll also put communication. They just need to send the updated insurance information to me and I can forward it on to the company. Eric, I noticed that the consent form mentioned three different kinds of testing not just the spit test. Was there a reason why there were all those all the testing-- So we didn't have to recanvass. Okay. So we didn't have to recanvass if we needed to move to a limited service
031lab plan where we were using the, I always mispronounce the word but nasal pharyngeal-- I didn't pronounce it, you noticed that, okay-- Obviously, we would not, just so everybody knows we would not change without notifying to the community. And anybody who would be tested would be notified before the testing. Whether it's saliva or not obviously, the saliva is easy because you'll be bringing home a test kit and having to fill it up. But if we were to ever move to an on-site nasal swab obviously, there'd be communication well before that. And have we decided how we're gonna do testing at each of the levels elementary school? Are people just gonna take it home? Is that the plan? Individual groups have not been set yet 'cause we just got the numbers and obviously, those groups need
032to be in line with the people who have given consent to do the testing. Any other questions there? This will partially piggyback on our last conversation. Thomas talked about it last week but in January we'll be launching kind of the mid and long-term planning website that will kind of walk the community through what the thinking is for middle ground and the long-term planning for bringing us back to more traditional learning. What are the things we're working on now the next steps and and how that would look. So everyone should look for that and it'll be presented here at our board meeting in January. And we just wanted to let everybody know that come the 23rd on the 23rd, we should have reached a point being remote only from Friday that any of the new cases
033coming in and I'm gonna knock on wood when I say this are from a point that don't require in-school contact tracing. So we are not going to communicate over the break when there's a positive case unless there is a need for in-school contact tracing. Obviously, we would communicate with any staff that are Manning the building during those points but we would provide a communication at the end of holiday break kind of just summarizing what the cases were over break and letting the community almost know what those were. That's really the end of our prepared reports. So if anybody would like questions or other topics addressed now's the time. Eric, just on that do you know Westchester used to put out a map with cases by municipality and they've stopped still doing for the last week
034or so? Do you have any insight if it's gonna come back? I do not, you know what? I usually see it on Facebook at night I didn't actually notice that they stopped putting it out. I can check that but I don't know one way or the other whether they're planning on continuing that or not. And last time I looked at it we were in the mid 70s, I believe. Thanks. I just wanna say that I understand the rationale behind not communicating over the break. It doesn't affect any daily school activity but I also appreciate that it may give you guys some holiday and break time that is highly deserved and necessary. So I want to just recognize the value of that decision as well for your own wellness needs. Thanks, Pam, okay, thank you very
035much. All right, thanks Eric, thanks Drew and Stuart. So we'll move into the next item which is the first opportunity to hear from those who are present. And again, the policy asks that you speak to district matters and you avoid speaking particularly we ask that you avoid speaking to particular personnel. But also district matters, three minutes. We're capping this first public comment to an hour and 30 minutes and you need to state your name and address before you speak and I feel like that's everything. So Mr. Israel, I'm going to promote you and you just need to unmute and Irin, I guess we'll ring a bell at three minutes. Thank you, Irin. Go ahead, Irin. Thank you, my name is Irin Israel and I live on Stranton Road. I find it disheartening that the Superintendent
036Hagerman is not at the meeting tonight. I will personally email my speech. Today, through the Freedom of Information Act I obtained architectural plans of all Scarsdale elementary schools with handwritten notes from BBS Architects that list the maximum capacities of each classroom and common space. These are the District's own architects and their calculations. Using these numbers I was able to easily place all of our current kindergarten through fifth grade children in their schools full-time safely at six feet apart with many extra rooms unused. It took me one morning. First, the administration can no longer state or imply that there's not enough space in our elementary schools. In their own documents, it is proven that there is room. to continue to state or imply that all elementary students and staff can't fit would be lying to the
037community. Second, the Board should no longer sit idly by when misstatements such as those are being made. That is your duty to our community. That is why we elected you. Worst of all, it pains me that it seems that the administration used a misstatement to keep my child at a full-time school this past fall when all New York State Department of Health safety guidelines could have been easily addressed. That is insulting and a breach of your duty to our children. Rates are rising but one, if K through two can fit full class with their teacher and aide as I believe they can you must give our youngest learners that educational outlet and you must give our teachers that assistance from aides in the same class. Two, you have consistently stated such as Eric did at
038the December 7th meeting that six-feet distancing is the quote unquote, major stumbling point and that there are no other considerations. It is not a stumbling point and your own documents prove that there is enough room for a safe six-feet distancing. If there are other considerations, sorry if there are other considerations state them explicitly so they may be addressed. For example, Drew was saying tonight that the children can fit in the schools except for the fact that there aren't enough spaces for teachers and aides to eat. I would love to work on a plan and solution to address that issue. Please email me what has been done on that thus far. Eric mentioned that transitions are an issue but at the December 7th meeting he stated personally quote, that it is less of an issue obviously,
039on the elementary schools because transitions are much more controlled and can be much more controlled. And I'm sure there could be work arounds around some of those transitions in the secondary, end quote. Please state legitimate concerns. As you have been asked to do for months now provide metrics such as rates, vaccinations, et cetera to return elementary students to full-time schooling when appropriate. Sorry, our hope is not enough. Otherwise, there is currently no stated legitimate reason that the children are not in full-time school at this moment and no stated metric for when they will be. That is unacceptable and needs to be addressed immediately. I wonder if the District is opening itself up to a lawsuit. And again, the administration must stop seeing that space is an issue in our schools when they personally have the
040documents that prove otherwise, thank you. Thank you, Lauren, I will promote you and you just need to unmute yourself. Maybe hit my finger slipped. How about now? All right, is that better? Yes (indistinct) All right, great, Lauren Kitain Butler Road in Fox Meadow and I have a first grader at Fox Meadow Elementary. I want to keep this brief. I know that these meetings can sometimes run long. I just want to express my thanks for getting K through two back. Of course and would love to see more students back full time. My daughter has been keeping a tally of how many full days she's had in school. And I know we went back full time November 30th and she was able to get 10 full days until January. And just thinking about the calendar and with
041the parent-teacher conferences and the snow days and then Fox Meadow went remote on Friday where she is. And I know Heathcote has had issues and there's issues across the Board. And then to hear, well, we might close 'cause of staffing issues because we don't know where people can eat lunch. I feel like that is such a basic issue. And I know it's well, I guess they have to eat in a cafeteria space or a teacher lounge or wherever that is. As Irin just commented let's try to be creative here because to hear that we might not be able to function because there's not enough staff spaces and that the staff then comes into contact with one another it's just frustrating. Everyone wants this so badly to get hung up on an issue like that that
042we spent so long keeping the students cohorted that how can we not be doing the same for the staff? I just feel like that should be a basic issue that we shouldn't have aides and teachers all with masks off during the lunch period. That I would ask that sooner rather than later I wonder how things will look different in January than they do now that will let you just shut down. And I'm really afraid to have to tell my daughter why we're going remote all the time. So I would hope that we can try to resolve these issues over the break and come back in January with better solutions as to how we can stay open with the current dynamic seasonal illness. And cases popping up here and there is not going away super soon,
043thank you. Thank you, Lauren. I don't see any other hands raised for this public comments so I'll give it about five seconds. There you go, Diane. Hi, Diane Gurden for Colvin Road. Just one really quick comment. There's been some good news lately about the vaccine and medical personnel starting to get vaccinated very rapidly. I mean, we don't really understand who's next and how this is going to move forward. But just something to keep on our radar that if we get to a point where every teacher is vaccinated and potentially the more vulnerable people in the community are also vaccinated, what is the goalpost for us? Like what are we gonna keep track of to say, "Okay, now we're at the point "where we can safely open up because of that?" And I know this is
044something new and but I just think it's something that we should start understanding what the metrics need to be for us to open. And I understand not now things are a mess right now but just something as we move forward, thank you. Would anyone else like to speak at this point before we move through the agenda? There's a second time after we go through our information items. All right, then I will close this public comment. Thank you to everyone. And we will move into follow-up to public comment. So we have three speakers and as you know Irin has the interest in why space is stopping us from increasing bringing more students into the school. And Lauren brought up the thing with teachers in lunch again. I don't know if that can be made any clearer
045that they are still in their cohorts, et cetera, Drew. I don't know if there was anything that you wanted to clarify, Stuart. And of course I do know that we've been talking about mid-term and long-term active actions based on a potential vaccine for weeks. So that restart committees are considering the impact of the vaccine as a metrics. But go ahead if anyone wants to start with follow-up if there's anyone. You know what? Maybe I wasn't articulate enough. I'm not sure how best to to make it clear (indistinct) and our teacher aides are working incredibly hard to make this work. They are finding their moments of break in spaces that are available to them. In the nicer weather they could use the outside but that's a little tough right now, of course. But we have kids
046in spaces, instructional spaces that in the running of a school are certainly not necessarily always understood by the public when the rate of students getting special services or working ICT classes taking up an additional space and there's just a variety of stuff. There's pressure on our space in the building and teachers are following all the rules that they're supposed to follow. But if you're sharing a congregant space for more than 10 minutes and one person happens to learn that they're positive even when they're asymptomatic the protocol that the County Department of Health lays out is that those individuals need to be quarantined for 14 days. We've gotten hit on that a couple of times. Drew something that people have asked me maybe you could help or Stuart can help shed light on 'cause I think
047this for some maybe a reason this question is coming up. For three to five, where there's still an a.m., p.m. I believe there's some disinfecting in the middle of the day which is why a teacher cannot be in their classroom during that time. So sometimes a question arises in the middle of a high school they're not disinfecting when students move. Why at the elementary and would that give space to teachers? I wonder if that's where some of the questioning is coming 'cause that's what some people have asked me about that. Part of the thinking around disinfecting between the two groups is one, those students are there for quite a long time. Given their age, there are more expected less hygienic practices that kids may engage in at their desks. And the elementary teachers knowing their
048classes and knowing kind of the usage of their desks feel pretty strongly that that disinfection is needed as do I quite honestly. Just to be clear about the spaces we do have them on a (indistinct) So the teachers know exactly where their room falls in the cleaning schedule during the intermittent time. So they do use their room. What you have is congregant spaces that are hot swapped for lack of a better word. I'll use Heathcote as it's the easiest the part of that's being cleaned at that point needs to find a different space. Once they're done cleaning they can move back into that space and often do. So you find these other spaces that are there for teachers kind of having three or four that leave and then three or four that come in. So
049we're using those spaces. Not everybody is coming out and going to those common spaces because it doesn't take the full time to clean each classroom. And they know what the order is so they know when the custodians are getting to their rooms. So we're using those schedules to the greatest effect to keep the groups smallest. Just to respond for a moment to the vaccine piece. The vaccine is very new and we don't know what the societal effects are going to have and at one at what point percentage or group do we see real effect. I know the local Department of Health and the state Department of Health are speaking actively about what are the levels where they will feel comfortable in reducing some of the mitigation practices they have in place. Some of that's going
050to be within our purview much of that is gonna be outside of our purview. So I am keeping close tabs with our Department of Health friends kind of understanding where that is. Obviously, asking that Dr. Corsaro to keep his ear to the ground with the Department of Health and talking to his colleagues and school physicians. Those are the topics that will take up the space of the Restart Committee and the administration over the next coming weeks as we see that roll out. At this point, we've heard long-term care facilities obviously, frontline healthcare workers across the board. Teachers have always been mentioned kind of in that second tier. When that second tier is available we're still a little bit unclear about. There has been some good news with Monsanto coming up and onboard into the country.
051Not Monsanto, I said that wrong. It's, thank you, Moderna. We don't want Monsanto vaccine. But once that gets rolling into the country that should help speed up the vaccination process. So those all are good news. The implication of... And this is how I think some misinformation spreads a little bit. But I think it was said by somebody that we might close because we don't know where people can eat lunch. I do not believe what Drew said and I think you've clarified that well so I appreciate that. We might close because we do know where people might eat lunch. People are doing the best they can to eat in smaller groups in settings that are safe and following the rules but COVID is highly transmissible. And unless we're gonna try to find a way for each
052person to eat independently there's always an associated risk that goes along with it. But the other question I had was which I know we've answered before but it's implied that somehow or maybe not implied it was said that basically we can fit X number of kids per room and essentially, that the administration for reasons which escape me and by association of the Board are undercounting or underplacing the number of kids that can fit in a school for some, I don't know what purpose. And is there a way that we can clarify that you're analyzing each classroom, et cetera and there's not an excess capacity in these rooms that is being unused for whatever purpose people seem to think we would keep rooms purposely understudented or whatever? Well, I think you go back to what I
053mentioned earlier that there's multiple variables. A room is X square feet and the mass says you can fit a 20 kids in there. You can fit in there all day. Can you do that in so many places in the building? And there it is, it can work. I think we've all sort of touched upon it. There's more variables that have to go into that including Drew mentioning passing time in the ICT classes and other special needs classes and all of that. So having said that we were still working with the architects to make sure that we really go through our buildings to see if there are opportunities where we can fit in more kids wherever they may be. So when the time is right that we can maximize if it makes sense to do so.
054And I recall Eric mentioning at some point that there needs to be some capacity for kids that come back into the school as well. Right. I guess. Capacity, the number of students can change as they switch from remote to in person or vice versa and then the same for staffing. I mean, so in other words somebody looking at a piece of paper with numbers on it would that have all the information that you need to establish what the right number of students in that room is? I know I'm being a little redundant here but it just keeps coming up-- Absolutely not, that's one piece of it. I think in previous board meetings we've gone through Stuart has done a great job having come and go through kind of how we're staffing our rooms and where
055we're studenting our rooms, if you will or packing them and utilizing them. We have sections that are made and set for this year. There are places (indistinct) virtual only where if we broke down sections and made larger sections and collapsed and change teachers around that we could put more kids in a particular room here and there. But I think it's important to the flow of the school day. We are utilizing the spaces that are there. We are keeping kids spread out. We have seen one case of in-school spread and that was an adult to an adult spread in a particular situation which we could identify or most likely identify in that spread. And I think that's one of the main points that we need to keep in the center here. That there is an in-school
056spread for the reasons because of these mitigations because of the mask wearing. There are reasons that we saw 50 cases across the building. No building was spared. Anywhere from five to a dozen cases in every building with a spread of 30 students. So it's the majority of cases are students who are with their classmates throughout the day. If you put the rest of the students in the building you are decreasing the space around them. You are making the contact closer and you are weakening that mitigation. Let's just be clear about what we're doing if we were to work a book down that road. Okay, anything else for follow-up? Thanks, everyone, moving onto the next item six. Drew, the personnel report. Thank you, Pam. So this is the first of probably the next several meetings we
057might learn of people notifying us of their retirement of their pending retirement at the end of the school year. Tonight we have three long-term teachers and a guidance counselor who have announced that they're going to be retiring at the end of the year, The High School, Richard Clark, science teacher environmental science, biology 39 years in the District has announced that he's gonna retire at the end of the year. Jill Schultz who has served as a music teacher in the District for a total of 23 years. And Emma Wixted who has served both as a Middle School teacher and then later in her career went back to school and has served recently as a house counselor. All three of them (indistinct) for 32 years all three of them have announced their retirement. And couldn't be more
058grateful for their service. All three of them are well-known by our students and families and I know they'll be missed by all of us. We will have some of our more formal opportunities to thank them later in the spring time. But as they come up on the Board agenda I'd like to take a moment to point out that these folks have let us know that this is their sunset. Thank you, Drew. That's 92 years of service for those three spectacular individuals who have touched thousands and thousands of children's lives. So thank you, Mr. Clark, Ms. Schultz and Ms. Wixted. We'll move into the consent agenda. And again, the superintendent the vice president and the president meet before each board meeting to set the agenda for the board meeting. The items on the consent agenda are
059put there because there's the belief that there is no need for Board to have a discussion on those items. But if at this time there's a board member who would like to remove an item from the consent agenda in order to have a discussion, please let me know. All right, so we'll continue to move forward with all the items, who is this, Amber. There are nine items on tonight's consent agenda. Items 8.01 and 8.02 recommends that the Board accept the minutes of the public forum on November 18th and the board business meeting on December 7th. Items 8.03 and 8.04 recommended the Board accept the certified and uncertified personnel reports as presented. Item 8.05 recommends that the Board approves the resolution with regards to the New York Liquid Asset Fund changing their investment advisor from RBC
060Global Asset Management to PMA Asset Management and changing their marketing agent from RBC Capital Markets to PMA Securities. Item 8.06 recommends that the Board approves the resolution to authorize the discontinuance of the action with Rok-Built Construction. Item 8.07 recommends that the Board did up two resolutions one titled "Transportation Aid During Pandemic Resolution" and the other titled "Keep School Buildings Open Resolution" that were discussed at the 12 seven business meeting. Item 8.08 recommends that the board authorized the assistant superintendent for special education and student services to execute the contract with the Music Conservatory of Westchester for music therapy services for the 812 class at Edgewood. And item 8.09 I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Amber. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Carl. All in favor, we'll do a
061roll call vote, Alison. Yes. Amber. Yes. Bob. Yes. Carl. Yes. Karen. Yes. Ron Yes. And I'm a yes so the motion passes unanimously. The consent agenda is accepted. Thank you, everyone. Moving on to our information items the education report, Edgar. Thank you, Pam. I'm working with Jerry on this so he's gonna doing the slides and I'm gonna be doing the talking but I have some help. Welcome, everyone, it is truly my pleasure to present to the Board and community a description of the ongoing work in the area of diversity equity and inclusion. We enlisted the help of teachers, department chairs administrators and students in collecting information tonight's presentation. Tonight, I will present examples of some of the work in this area. The area we've been working on. Work not always widely known by members of
062the community and alumni. I'll highlight the work and structures recently introduced and look critically at our next steps as a learning and growing community. I wanna thank Dr. Hagerman for work on the structures of this presentation. This work is very important to him professionally and personally, he was planning on co-presenting and I know he wishes he could be here to present this with me. We found a good benchmarking tool in the current New York State guidelines for culturally responsive-sustaining education. It gave us an opportunity to demonstrate places in which these standards are operationalized in Scarsdale as well as look forward to areas of continued growth. Happily, I am not alone in this presentation. Ben Howard interviewed several educators and students those closest to the work to describe their planning process and impact. Two things, first,
063a warm thank you to those who enthusiastically volunteered to take part in this presentation. Both a testimony to the Scarsdale teacher and the importance of this work. Second, we had such a large amount of great material that some of it had to end up on the cutting room floor. Honestly, we hope to repurpose some of it for later use. So we'll start with a broad review of the standards and the overarching goals for students. And then jump into examples where this work has been ongoing and deepened in recent years. Finally, we'll discuss some of our next steps and address some areas of continued growth. Here's a definition of what a culturally responsive-sustaining education actually means. As much as I don't prefer to read off slides this one deserves a read aloud. Cultural responsive-sustaining education is
064grounded in a cultural view of learning in which multiple expressions of diversity, race social class, gender, language, sexual orientation nationality, religion and ability are recognized and regarded as assets for teaching and learning. So we begin with an agreement a shared assumption with this statement. And while this statement supports our view of an ethical learning environment, it does not stop there. We believe that through our diversity we are smarter, stronger and better able to thrive in our diverse and complex world from classroom to boardroom to statehouse. Here are the four principles of a culturally responsive-sustaining education. Creating welcoming and affirming environments. Inclusive curriculum and assessment. High expectations and rigorous instruction and ongoing professional learning. I prefer this graphic, this other graphic as it reminds us that all we do is for and because of our students.
065Beginning in 2019, the elementary teachers did an audit of their classroom libraries guided by the Teachers College consultant author, Shauna Fraser and the work of author, Sara Ahmed teachers were provided professional development at faculty meetings by principals and assistant principals and then weeded through their collections with a critical eye on representation and access for all students. In considering our striving readers we wanted to make sure that all levels of learners were provided books that were both readable and highly engaging. I'm gonna let Liz Rosenfeld, the fifth grade teacher spend the next minute talking about the importance of choosing books with multiple perspectives for her students. As teachers, we need to help our students identify who they are so that they can identify with characters in stories both similar to themselves and different. And so, we
066need to provide them with stories that reflect not just a image of who they are but open up a window into a world in which they don't necessarily know themselves. And the more that we can use our books as windows and mirrors the better our society will be. The more educated our students will be. The more culturally responsive our students will be. I think more than anything is that we kind of have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling. Talking about race, talking about culture is a really difficult thing. And as educators, it's really difficult not only to address your implicit bias inside of yourself but to discuss it and open up a forum with students especially when they're really young. And it's a really difficult thing but it's an incredibly important thing that we
067have to do. And I think that as a community of educators our next steps is to not only educate ourselves but become comfortable with those uncomfortable conversations. Thank you, Liz. The standards have three broad learning goals for our students. We want our students to experience academic success. We want them to be socio-politically conscious and socio-culturally responsive. And because a civically engaged citizen is important we want students who have a critical lens through which they challenge inequitable systems of access power and privilege. When we describe academic success it is not always about grade point average. Our goal is to have critical thinkers who can understand multiple perspectives argue with eloquence, tenacity and support and facts and have a deep awareness of the system's actions and structures that perpetuate and institutionalized bias and the strategic ways to
068address it. In our classrooms we strive for critical analysis of all viewpoints not just one. And it is important to mention while we do align with the standards this is not about political indoctrination or censorship of traditional text or conservative ideas. But rather to create additional and ready access to different perspectives nurture empathy through heightened awareness develop critical lenses through structures and systems and the ability to produce exemplary written and oral arguments to defend positions. We want civically engaged problem-solvers. We believe classrooms should be safe spaces for all students to be themselves while striving for protocols in which students are entitled to respectfully express their opinions while building resilience to be in the same room as those with ideas and opinions which offend them. Petitions for the removal of people or ideas is antithetical to
069a critical engagement. We want students to build tenacity to advocate for their position without censorship or the silencing of others. These slides will be made available on the website but I will summarize some of the points that I think are highly relevant here. Sociopolitical awareness is about seeing the world through an engaged and critical lens. One element is to engage in critical conversations. I would expand that and agree with Liz that we need to make sure that our students can have brave and difficult conversations. Sociocultural responsiveness is about an understanding of the role of culture but also to act for social change. Importantly, it also includes building alliances across differences and practices and practice mutual respect for qualities and experiences that are different from one's own. The ideas I just referred to. Here, Karine Schaefer,
070the English department chair discusses some of the exciting ongoing work of the English department at the High School and their steps to diversifying texts with a lens on social justice and multiple perspectives. And I'm happy to be able to talk about this topic because for many years the English department has been committed to seeking to teach texts that engage with issues of social justice. We are a department that doesn't shy away from uncomfortable conversations and we believe that it is essential that students learn the history of inequality and injustice in this country. And that they really engage with the lived experience of people who aren't White, who aren't male who aren't straight. And we believe that part of the reason you read literature is that it fosters empathy with people other than yourself. Literature offers
071a challenge to what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls the danger of the single story. Literature opens up the world of other people for you. And so, we do work on social justice, on racism as part of the District's commitment to non-CB. Speaking specifically about race for many years, we have taught novels like "Passing" by Nella Larsen "Invisible Man", "Beloved", "The Bluest Eye" the work of Richard Wright. We've taught plays by August Wilson, Anna Deavere Smith, Lorraine Hansberry. Nonfiction work like the "Narrative of the Life "of Frederick Douglas", "Letter from Birmingham Jail" "The Other Wes Moore" and "Between the World and Me". We want students in our classroom to see themselves reflected in the stories that we choose to present to them. We do have a diversity of students here and representation matters. And so, we are
072keenly aware that we need to have everybody in the community see themselves in our texts. Over the summer, we started looking at our curriculum and thinking about over the course of the four years where are those places where we can increase the diversity of perspectives and experiences in the texts that we teach? We have been using our PD time this year to discuss these texts and to make sure that we're doing our best to foster a classroom environment that is inclusive of all students. Our mission this year is to pilot. We are piloting new novels and new memoirs. So we are asking students to look at "Another Brooklyn" by Jacqueline Woodson and "57 Bus" by Dashka Slater. They're looking at Trevor Noah's memoir, "Born a Crime" and some of the seniors are going to read
073"Swing Time" by Zadie Smith. At the same time what we're also looking at as a department are several of the exciting and thought-provoking new nonfiction texts that are at the top of the bestseller lists that have to do with social justice. One pedagogical piece to highlight as we present these diverse stories we have found that film and documentaries and TED talks basically that the medium of video really, really help to increase the power and the resonance of the printed word. And this year we've been able to use some of the asynchronous instructional time to ask students to study videos. So we might pair "Invisible Man", for example with Jordan Peele's film, "Get Out". Or we might pair the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas" with the documentary "13th". We might pair "To kill a
074Mockingbird" with "Selma" by Ava DuVernay. This year, we're thinking about teaching the film "Just Mercy" to the entire student body to accompany Martin Luther King Day. This is a film about Bryan Stevenson's work with inmates on death row in Alabama. And it's a powerful way, we believe to engage with the injustices in the legal system. And seeing film makes these issues more real to students. What we've been finding so far since March or April is that our students genuinely want to talk about issues of race about issues of police brutality about issues of social justice. Where once we might have confronted a certain degree of apathy, now that apathy is gone. Students have questions. Students want to feel that they are talking about these issues and they need teachers to take them through the complexities
075of the issues. Thank you, it's also important to mention that this work has been supported by the author and educator, Kate Roberts. who's been working very closely with members of the Middle School English department on diversity inclusion through book for choice. Due to the storm we were not able to highlight some of the wonderful partnerships going on at the Middle School through thoughtful book pairings. That is a presentation for another day. Fostering the high expectations and rigorous instruction is a hallmark of the Scarsdale education. We do partner with several outside organizations. K-12, higher education institutions targeted content experts, the skillful teacher as well as research-based programs that build skills for all of our students. Collaboration, as you can see across the District is happening more now than ever. The adaptive learning methods are also being
076employed and expanded. To highlight just one dozens of our educators have begun employing strategies of a learner active technology infused classroom based on the research of Nancy Sulla. These methods are built to inspire student agency curiosity, independence and explicitly engage and build executive functioning skills. Global perspectives and connections are important as well to our work. An example of an outside partnership that has excited multidisciplinary work at the Middle School is Level Up Village. This program connects students from across the globe on a common project, goal or theme. I'll let Meghan, Will and some of our Middle School students explain the program and this year's focus. Also Heather Waters from the High School will describe her work with global citizenship. Helping Middle School students understand multiple perspectives and an appreciation for their role as global citizens
077is always a really important part of the social studies department and also of the Middle School as a whole. Especially now during the pandemic when the students have spent time in quarantine and now back in school really gaining an appreciation for what that experience was like for students around the world is really critical. And we were lucky to be able to continue our partnership with Level Up Village through the support of the District as well as the Scarsdale Education Foundation. And this is an opportunity for students in grades six through eight to connect with students in Tabasco, Mexico as well as Harare, Zimbabwe. And this builds on the work that we do in the building on human rights and appreciation for different perspectives. During those webinars, the students in Scarsdale as well as the students
078from Mexico and Zimbamwe shared their educational experiences and what it's been like to be a kid in this pandemic. I think that learning about different perspectives is really important because it allows us to make connections with people who we otherwise wouldn't have even known. And we realized how many different cultures and different types of people there are in the world. And we might think that we're completely different but we're actually so similar and we have all these connections. I think that it's been really good especially as a seventh grader to be able to get these experiences. And I think it's really changed my perspective 'cause often we have a bubble of the community we're living in. We think that that's how everybody lives in the world but actually that people are living so differently to
079we are and they have so many different experiences. We may think that we're having like a really hard time during this and we are. But like so many people also have other hard times and they can't do many more things. And so, it's good to learn about other people's experiences instead of just like thinking we're having it the toughest. It's nice to ask the people questions and it's a lot of fun knowing that you can actually engage with people from other places instead of just like reading a textbook or so on because you can feel like you actually know more about the people and their like way that they're handling different times. Whereas just learning about us and thinking that we know the way that everything is going on. We've had seven years of Global
080Citizenship Day which is about awareness to action that has covered a myriad of topics. And we've had tremendous feedback and engagement from the kids. Most recently, we've done some international conversations on the pandemic, on global justice on sustainability with countries 15 countries from around the world. And students are learning to both hear and listen and that their experience mirrors often experiences in other parts of the world that are very different from their own. And they really come at the issues with heart and it often connects or builds on what they're doing in their socialized classrooms in English also. Zoom has actually opened our ability to engage more students because we're not getting on a plane sometimes. We're able to travel around the world Singapore, Morocco, Turkey, China and talk about issues that concern us as
081a nation concern us as teachers and students. And it's been a really fruitful experience. Our students are learning to develop those leadership skills that they'll need as they move forward into college and their careers. Heather is also working with our Global Learning Alliance. Some of you may know that Scarsdale was set to host our founding partners from Singapore and Finland last April. Plans that were shifted scaled and adapted to an online platform. Stay tuned for what's coming up next. We discussed the importance of a curriculum that represents and reflects our students. I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment here to say that this work is not limited to English and social studies but our world language, music, PE and art departments have included cultural representations in their disciplines. I just was at
082our High School art department meeting where I was learning about the street artist and activist named Molly who I didn't know about before. As well as select science and math lessons include histories to highlight the role of non-English speakers, women people of color, immigrants and differently abled people who have made intellectual advancements in STEM. We are not working in a bubble. We engage resources from programs like Facing History and Ourselves, Circle of Friends Learning From Our Differences and partnerships at the elementary level with Teachers College which has an inclusive philosophy and a lens on social justice and curates mentor texts and lessons that reflect diversity. Through meaningful connections with publishers we've secured full collections of engaging and diverse texts to fill our libraries and classrooms. We've also enlisted the expertise of consultants in diversity, equity
083and inclusion at various levels. Consultant Lynne Hurdle worked with a team of K-8 representatives twice last year and storyteller and educator, Sheila Arnold back again in November for Human Rights Day has made a powerful impact on teachers and students at the Middle School. Here's the clip of Will and some students talking about their experience with Sheila Arnold. So when Sheila Arnold came to Middle School she took on the role of civil rights activists, Fannie Lou Hamer who was arrested for registering to vote. And students were really able to sort of hear about that experience through Sheila Arnold's embodiment of Fannie Lou Hamer that really tied in with our study of the Jim Crow era and civil rights. And she really brought that character, that person to life and the students were able to ask questions
084of Sheila as Fannie Lou Hamer. and then Sheila Arnold as an educator afterwards to really get her ideas and perspectives on how to teach civil rights. And I think even more importantly why to teach civil rights as human rights and how interconnected those concepts are. I got the opportunity to listen to Sheila Arnold who talks about civil rights and it's really cool 'cause we didn't get to read it from a textbook. We watched her act it out so it made me feel like I was there. And I got to put myself in her shoes and realize what it's like because it supplement what we were learning in school. So like if someone was confused about what we're learning they got to see it from her and they had the opportunity to ask her questions which
085is really cool. So the Middle School staff also participated in a book group reading of "White Fragility" over the summer which has led to a deeper understanding of race and implicit bias. As well They have developed an ongoing partnership and done professional development on empowerment and inclusion with the Prospector Theater in Ridgefield, Connecticut which employees differently abled adults. Many factors go into the development of a course at the High School. Here is a High School social studies teacher Carine Thompson, who describes her work to develop the race and ethnicity course that is offered. But my goal starting out in teaching the class were one, to make sure that I looked at various perspectives so that students didn't just think that specific groups whether it be African Americans or Asian Americans or Latinx individuals or Indigenous
086Americans that there was one monolithic point of view or perspective from members of any of those groups. So I wanted to talk about different perspectives and just the different ways that discussions of race have existed. So one thing I focused on is colorblind race theory which is this idea that race should not be discussed at all. And I spent a (indistinct) on that. And then I also spent some time discussing critical race theory which is in many ways opposing to colorblind race theory which is the idea that structural and systemic racism is the cause of many issues in society today. But we also have looked at just economic perspectives on it on the end the idea that people who are high socioeconomic status versus those who are in lower socioeconomic status if they are people
087of color they might exist in systems and structures and in different ways. So there's so many different ways of thinking about it. I'm continuously challenging the students to in many ways play devil's advocate because I think that that's gonna help promote civil discourse and also help us to promote empathy for those who might not feel the same way as we do. So I'd like to take a moment now to highlight some of the work of the Dignity and Inclusion Team at the High School, our High School. One of our High School assistant Principal Chris Griffin facilitates the group and provided me a summary of the work that's been done so far. In the fall of 2019 the committee, 22 students and 13 professional staff was convened after discovering antisemitic and racist graffiti in the High
088School bathroom. Last year, they worked with two consultants. First, Tanya Odom, an inclusion specialist to establish norms and goals. Through her, they enlisted Steve Wessler an experienced consultant who helped them gather data from students relative through their experience of belonging. And late fall of last year they administered a survey to all students asking them to reflect to what degree Scarsdale High School has achieved a culture of inclusivity. As well Steve and the team collected qualitative information from students through multiple focus groups, 175 students. Students reported hearing language that was demeaning to other students and that the language could be racist, misogynist homophobic and or anti-Semitic. They reported hearing these comments during the school day and seeing them on social media at night. In February, the presented the findings of the survey and the focus group
089to the faculty. The faculty was moved and disturbed by the information they shared. Steve Wessler attended a faculty seminar and presented the report to the students. Leaving that faculty meeting there was a strong sense of purpose that we had to work hard as adults and leaders in the building to confront and address issues of racism integrating language in all its form. After March, as you can imagine the discussion continued online. They've been meeting monthly on Zoom conference calls to talk about the growing movement around social justice in our country. A High School Student Government and a concerned group of alumni wrote letters to the District requesting changes to the program at the High School. They also addressed this Board directly. In response, the Dignity and Inclusion Team has been going through the list of suggestions
090and here are some of their recent responses. The dignity team sent an email to the building leadership team requesting that each academic department conduct a comprehensive curriculum review course content, delivery materials and assessment for representation, multiple viewpoints and cultural bias. At a recent meeting, they discussed the need for a short professional teacher training related to difficult conversations around race identifying bias and discrimination and working with demographically complex student populations. They talked about the importance of creating welcoming and safe spaces and the desire for a more diverse faculty that more closely reflects the Scarsdale student demographics. They're currently focusing on administrative procedures and managing incidents of reported bias and discrimination. There is a sense among some students that the efforts of teachers and administrators to confront and address acts of discrimination have not been fully effective
091as they should be. They will be having a conversation about the philosophy behind restorative justice approaches and working through these complex situations. Tanya Odom was back recently and spoke at the faculty meeting to present on social justice and the Black Lives Matter movement. Her talk was titled "Making Sense of the Moment" and the High School will follow up in January with small group discussions among the faculty on how we can create culturally responsive classrooms. And Tanya will be back to give us some feedback on the work. Engaging in ongoing learning and support is foundational in all of this work. As a way of addressing these standards on professional training I'll ask Jerry to move through slides which lists courses offered through the Scarsdale Teacher Institute. Some of the courses have been responsive and newly developed.
092Others annual courses. Examples of the latter are the course Race Still Matters and this was started in 2008 as well as Exploring the Professional Shelf which has included new texts focused on systemic racism. Now the STAC classes are seminars with either outside or internal experts. And I'll ask Jerry again to go slowly through the many offerings. Since the spring of 2020 that's focused specifically on diversity equity and inclusion. So we are delighted to tap internal experts. Many of them offer STAC courses and STI courses. But I was made aware that Liz Waltman and Katja Rossi presented to the faculty. And here are some samples of the dozens of books they presented and they are our library media specialists. You'll see nonfiction titles as well as young adults antibiased titles. As Jerry scrolls through these some
093of the titles may be recognizable to you. All of these, of course, with their descriptions will be made available online afterward if you would like a closer look. I did include two titles written by YA Asian authors, David Yoon and Kazuki Kaneshiro to illustrate the point that multiple perspectives within a racial group dispels what Carine Thompson called the monolithic idea of one group. These are two very different protagonists and two very different love stories. Liz Rosenfeld talked about the idea of mirrors which reflect the students in the class and windows ways of looking at other ways of being. Making multiple perspectives available of a group of people is what some educators consider prisms which is really the gold standard. John Harrison, the chair of the High School social studies department shared with me some questions
094through the social studies department that the social studies department asked of their students. You can see from these questions an interest in student feedback to help to guide the work ahead. So in thinking about next steps from the feedback that we've gotten from our examination, our audit thinking about what's out there in the literature we know it's very important for us to prioritize assured experience for students both curricular and instructional in this area and educator training both in awareness and methodology. Ideally, we have a wonderful array of voluntary classes. We need to determine like those that we've already presented at faculty meetings which should be the highest priority that are embedded training for all. It's also important for us to coordinate mobilize and engage our diversity within. We have a diversity committee from all the
095elementary schools and I sat recently with a centralized elementary diversity, equity and inclusion group. If any of you had an opportunity to see the K-2 presentation we have just a rich resource of parents and families that are really willing to share their experiences. And given the platform, the webinar platform we were able to reach hundreds of kids at the same time which was very powerful. Not the same as an in-person lesson but it had quite a reach. Karen Ceske a board member and I are part of an ad hoc (indistinct) committee on antibias. And they were talking about just how the schools are actually wonderful at tapping the talent of the diverse families and coming in and being part of the school. And they're looking for feedback on how they can be more inclusive to
096and get the word out so that they can bring more diversity in town committees so that they can benefit from the strength of inclusion and diversity. It's also important as we go forward to really highlight that role and importance of critical thinking divergent ideas and multiple perspectives and create a real, respectful and safe environments for students. But also we need kids to be tenacious and resilient and be able to face different ideas with grit and facts and that's what we're going for. We're gonna continue the important work of auditing our curriculum for implicit bias and any just any discrimination. We've given examples of these audits but this is something that is really sincerely. We also need to assess our students' understanding of the big picture, this framework the work that's underway. Some of the students
097aren't necessarily aware of the structures that are in place and the outside community. It's important for us to assess the student understanding so we can build from that. And we saw an example of really asking for students sincere and meaningful input through the diversity team work and also through what the social studies did with their forum. In summary, here are some of the key ideas that I've been talking about. I'm gonna have to get away from my notes (indistinct) And it's these big ideas around belonging, diversity, critical thinking the freedom to express ideas. And what I think is also important is this idea of a growth mindset is that none of us are fully baked and we need to have an open mind to how we can grow and think and also be respectful while
098being critical of different opinions but do it in an informed way and do it with empathy. I do wanna thank all the teachers who are involved said it so beautifully and succinctly and I'm very happy to answer any questions from the Board on any of these topics that I covered. I don't have a question quite yet. I just have to say I am blown away again but I am so grateful for this hard work. It is so deep and so thorough and so broad but more than that, passionate and committed. I see this when we see these education reports and it's so impressive and I'm so grateful to be here to have our students be impacted by this hard work. I have to say, I don't usually do little family anecdotes but my daughter has
099had an extraordinary something an experience I hadn't yet seen as she's reading "Dear Martin" and she's journaling her thoughts on "Dear Martin". And the ability to be more self-aware and introspective in a personal way in her journal. I don't know what's happening in the classroom but how thoughtful she has become about this topic because of this book is something I had not seen and she's my third child. And so, I recognize these changes. I just needed to say that. I might come up with questions but I'm just so impressed, thank you all. I just wanna also acknowledge our teachers because I know it must be very difficult to lead uncomfortable conversations. And I really respect that they're rolling up their sleeves and doing that with our students. I wanted to ask a question because I
100know you mentioned there were opportunities for our teachers to assess and reflect on their implicit biases. And I was wondering in our students reading so many different perspectives and having those windows and mirrors what opportunities do they have especially our older students to actually sit and reflect upon their biases, their identities and have sort of an intergroup dialogue with each other? Or maybe that's something in the next steps. I don't know if that's happening already. Well, I know that it's happening and there are different structures that support it. Karine talked about the philosophy around that the English department and setting up structures where that those kinds of conversations are invited. And the other Carine Thompson was talking about how she creates a course around that. I think that when I'm talking about creating a safe
101space it's the safe space in which we really do want to invite students to be vulnerable and talk about that. We also need to model that. And part of that is to understand that we are not finished in our work in educating ourselves and also making a meaningful impact so that we can address some of these things that continue to bubble up. So I also want to add my thanks. I thought that presentation was beautifully done. I wanna thank the teachers who participated and the students who participated. They spoke with such honesty and clarity. My question is really an extension of Karen's. The levers with which we can operate our policies. And as we updated our policies over the last few years we did try to update them to reflect these important principles. But I'm
102wondering if there's anything specific in the New York State guidelines with regard to what boards of education can do to be supportive, to create policies to work on their own implicit bias issues. Things that we as a stakeholder groups should be doing. That's a really good question. The document that we're working on and really looking closely at was very much focused on the educational structures and not necessarily explicitly on board policies. I think that I'll do do further research and I could share that with you, Alison. I'm gonna echo my fellow board members sentiments and say, thank you for this presentation, Edgar. It's so wonderful to be a board member in a school district that has these values. Like this was amazing. One thing I was wondering about. So in the elementary school levels there
103was some discussion about books and sort of along those lines as a way of introducing some of these ideas to our younger learners. Is there any work in the social studies area like in terms of history in that level? Maybe you could talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean, there is and you're bringing up a really good point because there is in the social studies curriculum network looking at very closely. It's through some C3 shifts. It does talk about diversity but often and one of the reasons why I focused on the classroom libraries is that it's often through the lens of immigrant, hero, enslaved person. So while there are multiple perspectives I think that some of the work that's assured a learning that happens happens through Circle of Friends, anti-bullying how to treat
104people respectfully. And I think that one of the steps is in our audit is to look thoughtfully and critically. I know for sure when I've been in social studies elementary classrooms it's done with a great deal of respect. One of the things that we hear again and again in the language and the literature and antibias is to make sure that when we are presenting different perspectives we are making sure that it's multiple perspectives and it isn't always through the traditional historical lens. That and one of the things that we talk about is if you are gonna talk about the African American experience do you start with, is the first thing that you learn is it about slavery? Or does it actually talk about African history before it goes so that there's more of a textured
105understanding of it and it's not through just that? Or just through celebrations or through months. I mean, one of the things that we talk about is we can use a month or a day to energize and to bring in speakers. But and again, the gold standard is to make sure that we are integrating throughout the year this kind of diversity and that's where we're gonna see more and more change, thank you. Edgar, I'll echo everyone's thanks. And I also wanna make sure we thank Ben for those great interviews. It supper. Really great to be able to get to see what's going on in the classrooms with our faculty and our students. Can you talk a little bit about overtime? How are we going to measure our success in this area? Both in terms of the
106broader topics that you're talking about and broadening perspectives as well as those day-to-day concerns that propped up at the High School and led to a committee being formed. How do we measure those to make sure that we're authentically succeeding? That is a very good question because when we talk about things like that can be overt which is easy to measure like the number of times that these kinds of overt disciplinary actions happen. It's a little bit more difficult to really put a number on the microaggressions and implicit bias except through the qualitative data and the feedback that we get from our teachers and our administrators about what the culture feels like. And importantly, through conversations that we're having with our students. Because hearing the feedback that we got as a board that recently graduated and
107the phone calls that I had the experience that each individual has as reported doesn't tell the entire picture but it gives us a glimpse into what that experience is. On the other side of that, one person's experience does not mean that or two or a handful of people's experience does not mean that there aren't a great deal of educators who have been really working very, very hard in this area to make it the most inclusive environment possible. They're just gaps that we need to continue to work on. Thank you and just following up on the diversity and inclusion that's at the High School, correct? That committee, is there any sense or concerns that at the Middle School a similar group is needed? Do we have a sense of sort of where that starts to pop
108up by age group? Well, the student does have a government structure that I learned about actually has doubled in size because now they're having twice as many. But as it is developmentally appropriate it is something that the Middle School administration is very aware of and very committed to. They're also committed to student voice through the structure that they have in their core program where a lot of these difficult conversations are brought to a much smaller group. And because that's an ongoing thing as things arise, they're able to be worked on and talked through. Edgar, yeah, just one question. Obviously, with the pandemic and the use of Zoom that's opened some opportunities for dialogue. But I'm just curious although, we live in Scarsdale and we live in Westchester I think we all know there is diversity
109around us. Yes. Communities that border us that are diverse and not only racially but economically which I think is also part of the need for empathy and to appreciate what one has in the bigger picture. And I'm just curious what programs or efforts are made to obviously, after the pandemic when we can be more in-person with things encourage students to engage locally. To help people less fortunate whether it's tutoring or whatever social justice kinds of things. I'm just curious what exists within the structure of the High School for that? Well, there are structures at the High School and also in the Middle School that had the great pleasure of dropping in on. There was a partner, a social studies and world language Spanish partnership that happened in which they were going to do community service
110in which they were going to, in a meaningful way use their Spanish with members of a nearby community. And through that experience and the educators were very articulate about it. The goal was for them to make meaningful connections in a way that had a deeper understanding of the economic conditions in which led to a family needing to rely on a food bank. So it was both the social studies around the economic structures that created it the language that was involved in it. But we want to tread in a way that is balanced so it does not come across as being just to develop sympathy. It's not about sympathy it's about a deep kind of empathy that we could be and through Level Up Village and through the texts that Liz was talking about at the
111elementary. This could be us given a different circumstances and in the longer clip. It was so heartbreaking to go through those clips and take it off. Liz talked a little bit about this idea of a person being labeled poor and what that means when it such a different connotation culturally what your circumstances. And also one of the things that I didn't mention it but the storm. We had a lot going on on that Thursday is Chris Hughes at the High School has organized his course around economic diversity and structures. So it is something that is on beyond on the radar. It is something that is meaningfully connected to the work of diversity and inclusion and equity. Diversity, equity and inclusion gotta get the initials right. But good question, thank you for that. Can I ask?
112I guess maybe it's a question more related to Middle School but I don't know. A lot of times when we see the list of ways we should include we don't see body type and size in that mix. And I was wondering how is that being addressed maybe in the health curriculum especially with the changing bodies in Middle School? But the boy who doesn't grow to be terribly tall or the girl who feels it's a self-esteem body image all of that going to feeling included and not different. That's a really great question. And I think that when we talk about structures that support deeper a empathy around people who look different, who are different sizes having a rich library in which there are different types of people, body types and a combination of that kind of
113implicit wave of building empathy but also explicit conversations about dignity and respect and how we address those. And when you're talking about the Middle School the structure in place around core with the counselors the conversations that I do believe because I've overheard it in classrooms that happen about how to be respectful of our differences is something that's broader than just the list that we've described. And it also has to do with the way we look and the way we present ourselves and weight and everything else. Great presentation, thank you. I don't wanna (indistinct) but I really enjoyed it. I have to tell you what it was sincerely a delight to have an opportunity to reach out to the teachers and look at the structures. And this work is important and ongoing and I look forward
114to continuing it with your support and encouragement. So thank you very much. And thanks to the cabinet and Jerry and yes, Ben who was out there taking a lot of footage. Can you have this posted somewhere not just in the agenda of this meeting where most people don't know where to find it. I think it would be great for people to be able to find this easily (indistinct) to watch this. I have already made that promise to a member out there who asked, could we put this on the website? Yes, I believe that's possible. And I'd be very, very happy to and also to look at some of the other footage and see what we might be able to do with that as well. Actually, I just wanted to pay a further compliment. Just the
115fact that this type of thought and cohesiveness to the educational program is ongoing even when everybody is dealing with all the things that are going on with COVID I think should be remarked upon because it's easy for me and I imagine for others to forget that in the mix of everything else that's going on there's still extraordinary teaching and implementation of the ideals going on. And so, I just wanted to point that out because it's why these meetings these educational reports are so important and they've, I think, we've all gotten a little lost in everything else. So just another compliment and a compliment to the teachers and staff for that because I think it's really important to be reminded of sort of the everyday stuff that's pretty amazing that goes on. I agree and when
116I was reaching out to various people and not a single teacher said... I mean, I think that the bandwidth it can be a low at times but not single teacher didn't enthusiastically say, "Yeah, I would love to contribute." So I wish I could have had more because there are many, many people doing wonderful work in this area, thank you, Carl. All right, super, best stuff ever. And thank you, Edgar, Thomas, Jerry, Ben, all the faculty. We'll move to the next item but I think, Stuart we'll take a wellness break before that since 6:37 (indistinct) So wellness break for five minutes back at 8:30 for the budget presentation. What we'll do next is we'll move into item 9.02 budget development and financial projections item. All right, thank you very much, Pam and Jerry will get the
117presentation up for us. Stuart would you like me to promote (indistinct) Oh, yes, please. Okay. Great, all right so as we've been talking about throughout the fall as we prepare for the budget preparation for the 21/22 budget this stage of the development is really sharing our steps in that budget development. And also our financial projections through to the end of the year. At our meeting in November we did the end of the year audit presentations back in November. So this is really just sort of the next step in our budget preparation process. So tonight we'll be looking again looking at some of those factors in our development of the budget and different considerations. We'll look at historical and projected expenditures for 2021 the same for revenues. With those, we'll be able to project out the
118fund balance and then look at the budget calendar for the budget preparation for the 21/22 school year. Budget development process. So again, just a reminder the school budget it provides all the necessary financial resources to operate the School District to help achieve the goals and objectives of the School District as set forth in the strategic plan. We can see what a great presentation by Dr. McIntosh tonight. And of course, he had a lot of help doing that but this is really this is why the budget exists to provide our students all of those great opportunities and to support all of that great work. I would like to point out we do have an addition to this slide. This year, you'll see a new picture of Greenacres up in the top row in the middle. We
119have a nice aerial shot that I believe obviously, was shot with a drone. You can see all the guiding factors that set forth in the strategic plan which is really the backdrop in and again, the guiding principles and factors as we put forth and prepare the school budget. And of course, we have a few other things to think about as we think ahead for the next school year as well, next slide. So school budget development initiatives they appear in a budget draft after thoughtful consideration, deliberation and discussion. Really start at ground roots in our buildings with different ideas that come up from our teachers and principals and cabinet members. When we think about staffing requests in particular and instructional budget drivers the things that are really might move the needle as far as the budget
120type item. They really are vetted through all the different levels starting at the building level and then working their way up to administrative council discussions cabinet discussions, really looking for educational efficacy staffing efficiency when we're talking about staffing and make sure that we align with all of our different guiding principles of staffing and we'll look at those in a second. Non-instructural departments, even though they're not instructional they all go to supporting the instructional program but maybe just in a little bit of a different way. When I meet Jeff, business manager treasurer meet with those directors we're still looking for consistency with the strategic plan overall district goals making sure that we're meeting our operational standards. Make sure we're keeping up to date with any of the way these mandates and trends. And of course, making
121sure that we spend our money as wisely as possible. We have an amazing director of purchasing now, Linda Pisano also the assistant business manager who really makes sure that when we're doing our buying that we're doing it as best we can to make sure the dollars go as far as they can. And we make sure we look at what are our spending norms. We wanna make sure that we're not spending money on things just because we've always done it. Let's question how we spend money. Is there a better way to do it? And making sure again, to spend those dollars that we do have as wisely as possible and efficiently. So what are those guiding principles for any staffing decisions? Obviously, student educational outcomes and achievement is right there on top. So consistent with the
122classical education and our progressive tradition commitment to teaching the learning initiatives that advance the elements on set 2.0. And of course, making sure that we can further the goals and subgoals of the strategic plan. And then along with that we have to be mindful of mandates and best practices. What are our elementary class size guidelines? We have to make sure that we're true to those of course. And in special education programming there's always something obviously that we have to make sure that the needs of all of our students and all of our programs are being met with our staffing. And if you recall this slide if you've been with us the last couple of years this is a slide for staffing rationale or any sort of program change that our principals and assistant principals develop
123through our budget process in the fall. So with any additional request this form is filled out and it leads to our discussions in our different committees. So we always talk about, well, not always but a lot of times we talked about how are we spending the money? Well, this is just sort of a slide to remind us and everyone that again, we do look for efficiencies. And so, I just listed a (indistinct) from the past and they're still in place. Number one item up there probably saves us the most dollars is our self-funded healthcare plan that has proven when compared to the employer plan and other like plans that we do save quite a bit of money in comparison to those which allow us not only to save taxpayer dollars but also allows us to
124reallocate those dollars more directly to the instruction of students. Optimizing our staff while still meeting all of our staffing needs and using your staff the best way possible to reach those needs. This is one that I've really been focused on is maximizing state aid. BOCES services, we've increased that or probably almost double over the last four years and making sure if it's a service that we can purchase through BOCES and it makes sense to do so and it's a quality of service that we do that because we get back almost 50 cents on the dollar. So we've been trying to focus on that and again, spending the money wisely when we can. Transportation also shifting expenditures there when we can if it makes sense to do so. A couple of years ago, we reallocated our
125utilities to make sure the utilities are going to the bus compound are allocated to that and that creates some aid back on the other end. So just a couple of things with state aid. Timing considerations really thoughtfully. Looking at long-term plans and we've talked about this in some of our facilities meetings. Having those plans laid out so we can slot those as best we can. So we can fill in any gaps that we might have in the budget. If we have a budget drop we can put in a high-priority project that makes sense not only from a facilities perspective but also for many technology projects that support instruction across the District. And again, thinking about staffing decisions as well. We emphasize when we meet with our principals and they're excellent at this there aren't really
126any surprises that come up. A lot of times there might be a request and it'll say and they bring it up and we say that that's great and we discuss it as a group. And we realize or they realize that we really need to study this for a year until we come back to you to say whether this is something that really makes sense now that we sort of lived through another year of what we were doing. We've tried to tweak it a certain way in this staffing request it's still valid and it's still something that we would like to put forth as an actual request this year. We have a number of cooperative agreements with the Village the biggest one being the shared maintenance facility in transportation with the maintenance of our buses bus
127mechanics and all of that which is a really great arrangement. Cooperative purchasing, again, Linda Pisano has been heading up that and been very involved in a lot of... Gets involved in a lot of different types of competitive bids, the cooperative bids that end up saving us dollars and make sure that we're meeting all of our purchasing mandated requirements. And keeping on top of technology advancements. Rachel and Jerry's crew have been great making sure that we're keeping those systems updated and able to save money by updating technology and getting rid of some of the maybe older clunkier stuff that might take more man hours to fix or person hours to fix or we use more energy. So we've been very proactive in that regard as well. So just a reminder of sort of the sequence of
128the budget process. As we always say the budget process starts in the past I would have said last spring as soon as the budget was passed but it's actually this past summer when the budget was finally passed. And there was a learning process through all of that where a lot of things were sort of set aside or delayed and taken out of the current year budget. So part of our budget process this year is sort of looking at those items and do they need to come back in 21/22? So all that's happening in that budget deliberation and development process now along with any of that staffing recommendation and rationale work, meeting with the directors and building all of those different department budgets and building budgets. Now we're starting, with this meeting starting to move those
129discussions up to the Board of Education and administration together. And they'll really take off once we turn into the new calendar year. In those meetings again, will be the community will be involved in those of course, as we have our budget meetings throughout the spring leading up to the budget vote hopefully in May of this next spring. And this is just a graphic of all those different types of conversations that will happen throughout the spring. And they really may wanna emphasize the opportunity for the community. And not only did we have our budget focus form back a month ago now already back in November but throughout the process we always welcome feedback through our meetings. And I know that the Board of Education is always happy to receive emails as is the administration with any
130questions that there might be. And I've used this slide for a lot of years and we tweak it a little bit and I think this is the biggest tweak of any year that I've had this slide. And I didn't quite know where to put it so I put it right down there at the bottom. COVID-19 obviously, is a huge influence in thinking about not only obviously, where we are now but thinking about for next year. So not only do we have all of the normal influences and there are many, many different variables when we consider the school budget. But also now we have COVID-19 the double arrow because it is such a large factor. The school budget can think we say can be sliced into a number of different pies. Probably the simplest three-piece pie
131is the way to think about it. We have educational program, capital and administration. That is the three-part budget. And a lot of forms that we submit to the state are required to be submitted this way where we divide up all our different expenditures. Educational program is exactly what you think of all the expenses that support the educational program. It's all the supplies, teacher salaries, benefits. Transportation is actually in there. And that by far, is the largest piece of the pie. Capital, all the operations and maintenance and that's service related to all of our facility projects. That's the second biggest piece of the pie and administration all as administrative type expenses. So all the salaries of all the administrators clerical staff, supporting those operations, legal expenses insurance expenses, all those types of things. And that's the
132smallest slice of the pie. Many different considerations that we consider when I'm putting into or developing the budget what our projected staffing needs. What's the enrollment data? And Dr. Patrick works on all this and we will start sharing that information in our next meeting in January. A big factor here, obviously, for predictive staffing needs what are those recurring needs in the next school year with a vaccine? Do they continue? Do they partially continue on how instruction is delivered in the upcoming school year? What are the projected contractual obligations to district personnel? Are those altered or changed or impacted by any sort of contracts that are settled? What's our projected self-funded health insurance plan expenses? What's the claims pattern? What are the historical spending patterns? A lot different this school year compared to other years so
133we have to take that into effect and sort of if it's going to be a normal school year next year, do we return back to normal? We've put some efficiencies into place for some things. So I how is that impacted? All those have to be considered (indistinct) we're doing a lot of sort of hedging a little bit on some of these things as we look at our budget development. Projected state aid (indistinct) you can go back. Skipping ahead to thanks, Jerry. Projected state aid, other non-state aid factors for the upcoming school year We don't get a lot of state aid but we do still is a substantial amount that offsets taxes. So it is very important and we obviously, pay a lot of attention to it and trying to maximize it. In this case, if
134you remember for this current school year we withheld about $930,000 as a pandemic adjustment. I'm expecting to have that reduced that hasn't occurred yet. So we're not sure how that can't occur the way the state funding is right now but the official word hasn't happened. So if that does eventually get withheld if it does, does that continue into the next school? And with the changing of the government in Washington I know there's no stimulus for local and state governments in this latest round that was just approved the other day. If there is another round of stimulus payments does that include local and state money? Then does that make some of pandemic adjustment go away? Yet to be seen but that is again, almost a million dollars either way. Fund balance, obviously, wanting to maintain a
135healthy fund balance and being cognizant of those different reserves that we have in place. What are the property tax levy (indistinct) excuse me limit calculations and implications? What does that calculus workout to this year? We always have to be mindful of that. Again, with the enrollment projections making sure that we're mindful taking care of our physical plant, thanks, Jerry. We're developing building specific budgets making sure that each of the buildings have adequate funds to supply all their classrooms obviously. And making sure we work with them to understand if there are particular needs that they're asked for and that they can be addressed if we can. We're doing that instructional budgets again, as mentioned before. Those same sort of factors make sure we're consistent with strategic plans and all of that. And thinking not only for
136next school year what about the year after that from the year after that? And thinking wisely about that. Employee benefits budget salary and benefits, 80% of our budget. So obviously, we have to be mindful of making sure if there's other opportunities out there to lower those budget dollars that we look at those and consider them if we can. That service budget is projecting them out and make sure that we're accurate in projected revenues. If you remember recall with revenues for this current school year interest revenues and sales tax revenues were two major items that we adjusted downward. So what's gonna happen next year? And how are we going to budget for that? And then finally, employer pension contribution rates obviously huge, huge drivers. They can be huge drivers. Fortunately, as they are percent of salary
137TRS, Teachers Retirement System mandated contribution for every dollar spent on certificated salaries across the District. Current year, 9.53% projected nine and a half percent of the 10%. So it'll be somewhere in between that. So that was very good news when they came out with that range. Fearful that that was going to be higher than that which would have obviously, just driven up the budget on that. So that was good news and ERS projected to go down slightly. And then just a reminder about 1% of the budget 1.63 million when we start to look at increases. Tax levy, each percent is about one and a half million dollars. So historical overview and financial projections a lot of numbers on these upcoming slides. I'm not gonna read through them all the way and I have to shrink
138down everybody on my right side of my screen so I can see the numbers better. A lot of these I'll be covering in the next couple of slides into details. And so, state aid highlights you can see down a million. These are actual to projected actual on the top row down a million and that was primarily due to that pandemic adjustment that we took. So budget to budget it's actually closer but the actual to actual is driving that downward. Interest earnings projected $70,000. So our budget on that was, I think, 230 oh no, 292, I think it was so we're actually even less than budget even though we brought that down quite a bit from the year before. Well, primarily due to interest rates dropping we did lose money switching it to the two payments
139on the collection of the tax levy were mostly driven by the interest rates on our funds in those accounts. The other items transferred from reserves actual to actual that was a budgeted debt as we recall that was a auditorium and a $700,000 transfer and elevator project. So that was a planned increase. Overall, actual to actual up $950,000. The next slide, thanks, Jerry. So these are on the expense side again, actual the actual in the variance and operations and maintenance. So this is where we really see a lot of the impact of the COVID-19 expenses. And as you recall we did the large transfer month and a half or so ago now to cover a lot of these expenses operations and maintenance. We saw a large increase, a large part of that transfer due to the
140PPE expenses. So major driver in that along with facility projects. A lot of the testing that we've done have driven that number up. Also not only the purchase of PPE but also the addition of staffing and operations and maintenance where Dr. Patrick mentioned the addition of the custodians for the cleaners earlier in the meeting. Regular education up 3.3 million. Again, not only planned increases in that budget-wide due to instructional staffing but also non-planned COVID related increases for instructional expenses. Our employee benefits. A lot of that were planned increases but also you'll see we get into some detail related to COVID as well related to staffing. And I think that's about it. You'll see $8.2 million increase actual to actual and then we'll come into some of the detail on that in the next slides. So
141I really try to provide a lot of detail. So if you don't have a chance to look at it tonight real closely hopefully, you get a chance to look at it after the meeting. The top three items that are listed here and again, this slide and the next slide are all COVID related fund balance drivers. These are all things that drive the projected year-end fund balance up or down. So these are driving it down on this slide. So these are overexpenditures and the top three are ones that you were familiar with related to that board transfer or the transfer that we did earlier in the fall. So the first $1.5 million were for the personnel related benefits teachers and cleaners. We had the supplies the PPE related purchases, teacher aides. We increased the hours just
142recently in support of the K-2 staffing where K-2 students coming back full time impacted that almost $900,000. We've added a little bit of extra nursing time health insurance impact from the... Again, these are all projected COVID testing on the health insurance plan. The last two are related to the school lunch fund. So these are our big ones. So last year and both related to not having students in the building sort of obviously, as much as we used to and having still run a food service program. So we have fixed costs but we just don't have the sales. So we've dropped our staffing way, way down low but we still need to buy the food and have fixed costs of some staffing. So we have some legacy costs leftover from last year of $220,000 and a
143projected deficit this year of a half a million dollars. Now we hope we're able to reduce that. We haven't seen the full impact of K-2 lunches for December yet. We're still waiting on those. So that will help a little bit but we're still only doing about 30 lunches a day. Middle School has been our sort of our... 'Cause we've been running lunches there that's been our strongest revenue. And the High School is really the one that's been hurting us the most where the students are leaving 11:30 or 12:30 and they're running out of the building understandably to get home for their remote learning in the afternoon and we're vigorously trying to be creative about different ideas to come up with to increase our sales for those students. So it's sort of our mission to be
144creative (indistinct) Creating a fast food type environment trying to be mindful of our healthy choices but capturing them as they go out the door. So that unfortunately, is the deficit we're projecting at this point in time. I do wanna say for all of these projections and thanks to Jeff Martin who I'm sure you'll hear from at some point when you have questions later on this is between Jeff and I we've probably done 60 budgets 55 different budgets throughout the years. And this is in projections and by far, in a way, the most challenging where nothing is normal. You're not sure what the coming months necessarily bring. Expenses are not consistent. So extremely, extremely challenging. So with all these projections I didn't put asterisks next to them or anything like that but imagine there's asterisks next
145time because it's our best work, our best guess at this point in time knowing they're certainly not going to be exact. So the total from this page deficit of $4.6 million from these expenditures, thanks Jerry. So there are some surpluses or savings along with all the overexpenditures. So on the instructional side curriculum and program improvement related items are not completed. So we don't have students we don't have staff in the building all the time. The opportunities are the opportunities as they normally are for having sending people to outside programs having speakers come in and all of that. And due to all of that we projected savings in those categories of about $265,000 on salaries. We fired a number of replacement teachers. For teachers who've decided to take a leave or not to be in the
146buildings those teachers are making less or some breakage there about 270,000. Savings related to interscholastic athletics, $128,000. On the security side, safety monitors we're not using them to the full extent as we had planned in the budget due to primarily just the afterschool activities where we don't need the coverage that we typically would. Transportation savings on some salary and fuel savings mostly fuel there. Travel and conferences obviously, no one's going away to anything at this point. And then other miscellaneous savings across the board about $1,157,000 (indistinct) Jerry. So those are the COVID related surpluses and overexpenditures and now what are the normal ones? If you picture this we really wanted to try to divide it out so you could picture what's impacting what. So some of these you might see and say, "Well, wait a
147minute "didn't we talk about them over on the COVID side?" We did and then this is sort of what we would see based on normal operations as best we can see it but they they all flow together and should be thought about as a whole. So teacher salaries savings due to contractual negotiations and mid-year replacements that $220,000. I can't see the last digit. Other salaries, mid-year retirements time lag and hiring people coming and going and all of that projecting out to about $255,000 surplus. Normally, typically in any given year our aid budget again, because of comings and goings or hiring at less then there might be gaps between the time that we fill people. The time a person leaves, the time we a hire person typically, about almost $200,000 in surplus. We're projecting a surplus
148in special education services this year. So if you recall this current year we did increase that budget to make sure we had enough in there for our projected expenditures due to student placements, contractual savings and then combined with all of going comings and goings of our COVID instructional year projecting about 1/4 of a million dollars in savings. Utilities, this is a big one, $719,000. Oil prices the bottom has dropped out on that. So primarily driven by that. Building use is also down quite a bit. You see about afterschool hours obviously, Wednesdays the High School's a huge building not as many people in the High School. And we also have new boilers now thanks to the bond project. So a number of the buildings have new boilers. So we're seeing efficiencies there. Now, also we're not
149into the throws of winter yet. Windows are open more than obviously, they used to be. And we're encouraging that as much as teachers and people in their offices can be comfortable in doing that as far as temperature wise. So this is a projection but there will be substantial savings in that category. Health insurance, actually a deficit there about 1/4 of a million dollars just based on additional membership and claim trends. Social security, FICA, surplus about $150,000. Pensions, 233, again, some savings not related to COVID about $100,000. And then miscellaneous across the board on 360. So all those categories non-COVID related surplus of about 2.39 million. So if you had those three previous slides up for the expense drivers there's about a $1.1 million deficit on the revenue side. As you recall, assigned fund balance once
150we spend it, we spend it it's a one-time check and we talked about that during the budget process last year. So that's gone 'cause it's been accounted for. The debt service fund transfer. that's a one-time transfer so that will be reducing our fund balance being 164,000. State aid (indistinct) down $58,000 from what we budgeted. And again, we're still projecting that 20% pandemic adjustment about $930,000. So that was planned luckily and it'd be wonderful if somehow some way they don't reduce that because that would be a plus to this category which would be great. Interest earnings down 222,000 compared to budget interest rates as mentioned before really, really dropped in the changing to the two collection periods where we have less cash flow in the bank. Sales tax as actually compared to budget. We're actually up
151through the first five months. So we're projecting that to be 280,000 which is good news. Hope of that keeps on that pace we'll be in good shape. Building use fees pretty obvious we're not opening up our buildings to outside groups. So those rental fees are not coming in. And then a number of miscellaneous categories about a $96,000 surplus. So grand total driven by the same fund balance obviously, going away down 2.6 million. I have to get my voice in shape for budget season need some practice here. So where does that project this out for year-end fund balance? So you might recall or if not our end of the year fund balance was 26.6 million for June 30, 2020. If you add up those revenues So plus year in revenues 160.9 million you take away the
152expenses that were funded by reserves, 864,000. Take away our expenditures, 163.8 million. We're left with a fund balance, projected fund balance I should say projected not actual, $22.89 million. So how would those funds be allocated? At this point in time we have the tax tertiary reserve funding projected liabilities, Jeff and I met with the new tax assessor I think a couple of weeks ago now. So we're starting to reconcile all those cases and we should have some really good accurate information as we move forward. And we have in the past, I think he was reconciling it I think even to a higher percentile more than what we have in the past even. But we feel comfortable with that number, that present. Self-insured health insurance, four and a half million. Debt service reserve down as we
153made that transfer out this current year. you recall, we created the Board created the retirement reserve this last school year, $1.4 million anticipating that that contribution rate would go up. So that was great news that it's going up and not by very much. So we should be able to hang onto that or at least not dip into that too much if we think about next year's budget plan. ERS reserves still holding steady at 2.7 million. And then we have encumbrances. We usually keep that flat but that'll either bring an expense or an encumbrance at the end of the day. Unassigned fund balance, $5 million. And we dropped down the assigned fund balance if you recall that was 1.7 to 1.425. So you can see those dollars match. If we go to the next slide, Jerry
154we can see the historical where you can really see the year to year. If you don't recall if you don't have all these numbers quite in your head. So assigned fund balance you can see it's actually a 175 this current year so we dropping that to 1.425. So dropping about $325,000. Tax cert reserve holding steady and the reserve for health is the one that you'll see decreasing to offset those increase in expenses decreasing to four and a half million dollars. The other side is obviously also decreasing as we made that transfer out of that category earlier in the school year. You'll see 22 almost $23 million and in comparison other than last year 'cause it compares pretty consistently with the other years. What you'll see is the other side fund balance obviously, is dropping well
155below that 4% right now if these numbers hold. So we go to the next slide, Jerry. So what's our budget discussion timeline? Again, this is really the kickoff meeting. Jeff has done a tremendous amount of work with these projections. It allows now as we develop the budget throughout the fall. In the early weeks of January we'll be sort of getting our first draft finalized and it really allows us to develop a budget plan that we'll share sort of that first blush with you high-level on January 11th with any staffing recommendations that we'll be making as a candidate group. And then we'll get into budget session one, two where we'll be going into all the different areas of the budget as we typically do throughout February until we get to the final drafts full-budget presentation in
156early March. And I see the forum this year is scheduled for March 22nd and the date for our budget adoption is April 12th getting ready for a May 18th vote. And with that, I'll entertain questions and have a drink of water. Stuart, first, thanks for the presentation. It was great and I think it gives us a really great base to start our budget discussions sort of getting a sense of where our base is with our fund balance. Can you talk about where you and Jeff like to see the total fund balance in a word capped at 4% unassigned? But when you think year to year where are you looking for our total fund balances to be? Well, I think where it needs to be is where it's right for it to be, right? Our philosophy
157is not to tuck as much money in there as possible. Their reserves are set up for known liabilities for the most part. So when you look at each of those reserves it's a reserve for a specific purpose and it's not fungible. We've sort of stressed in the last couple of years looking at that health insurance reserve making sure what's the right dollar amount for that? We can't just keep putting money in there and if the health care plan is in good shape and all of that. So we put together a model and we have parameters for that. ERS reserve, we have parameters for that. TRS reserve, we're restricted. So I think that is a new one that we want to max out if we can because the max isn't actually that high. I think we're
158at that max with a $1.4 million and I think that makes sense because those are things that can swing the budget as we talk about quite a bit and throw us out of balance if it goes up quite a bit. The tax cert reserve I think we feel that that's in pretty good shape at this point in time. Although, that's always being fine tuned and looked at and if there's another reassessment or something like that that can throw up that out of balance. I think right now we have to be mindful of and certainly Jeff can speak when I'm done as well. We have to be mindful of our unassigned fund balance that now that's dropping down a lip a little bit lower than probably we would be comfortable. We are uncomfortable with that. We'd
159like to see if we can build that up again and get that closer to that 4%. Because that is that that money allowed us to do what we did this year with that emergency. It allowed us to keep our educational plans running. It allowed us to purchase things. And a lot of other school districts perhaps weren't able to purchase and we're more difficult to have those conversations. And we were able to do that and put that into place. So we have to be mindful of that and keep on top of what those liabilities are that are out there that we wanna make sure that we have our reserves in a good place and taking those opportunities when we have it to fund those reserves where we can, Jeff. I think we're in a good spot.
160I guess I would always trying to fill the hole in terms of the assigned fund balance for next year. So two points here. The $5 million projected unassigned is roughly gonna be about 3% of next year's budget. The amount assigned to next year to offset taxes we increased 1,750,000 last year and that was really just trying to help bring our taxes down. We didn't think we could decrease it to 1,100,000 going forward even though that's kind of our long-term plan and just draw your attention to that. So we're projecting a 1,425,000 for next year. And if you go back to the page of fund balance drivers that were not COVID related we had $2.3 million surpluses in those this year. Clearly, some of these like utilities are kind of COVID related. But so the point
161is will we have 2.3 million next year in surpluses that are not COVID related? If you go down this list the only items that we might have a surplus in might be utilities, quite honestly. So those other ones are not going to happen again, right? If we have a surplus in teacher salaries we're not budgeting that next year we're budgeting off a base budget. So the utilities is the only one at 719,000. And you almost have to say even though it's not shown as COVID not half of that's really COVID related because oil prices are definitely gonna rebound at some point. So in terms of where I feel comfortable with fund balance I think, at the total numbers this year at 22.8 I think that's about where we need to be. It's great that if
162TRS and ERS go up next year which they're not projected to for 21/22 but if they go up for 22/23 we do have some funding mechanisms there. Simply put, when you look at 21/22's budget and we've talked about this briefly, Stuart the only way that we start out talking about having a budget that is not over the tax cap is based on pension rates. And since pension rates aren't going up significantly we have a real good chance for 21/22 of being right around the cap 'cause CPI is running very low around 1.1%. So it's putting a budget together. We've been doing this a long time. So this will be my 25th budget at Scarsdale Schools. I think today is the beginning of my 25th year. I think when I started 24 years ago today. So
163got a lot of experience in this and we're fortunate to have a board that supports us. We're fortunate to have made a big decision last year to include the $920,000 pandemic adjustment on state aid. It positions us well for 21/22. And not only that, I mean, that's the big one but also recognizing the drop in interest earnings even though it's still going down below what we expect. I mean, we did reduce that budget a lot and even with sales tax (indistinct) Well, of course there are a lot of unknowns, right? The largest unknown is that we don't have a contract for any group except the aides right now. So, as we build next year's budget that's a major conversation. And I would just add I think Stuart alluded to this before that we took out
164a number of items last year from the budget things that we probably need to do at some point either maintenance items or things we wanna do obviously (indistinct) Yeah, in all of our budget discussions we're making sure that everyone revisits that list and not automatically just putting it back in, right? Because you're now you're living without whatever that item was. If it's (indistinct) okay do we really need to put it back or not? In some cases they're not coming back or they might be so you know what? We're gonna do something a little bit differently. So it goes back to that how are we spending money thing. Do you also know what percent of people paid or what percent of taxes have we received? I'm assuming some people paid their full taxes during the first
165installment date. Do we know what percent we've received (indistinct) You know what? I haven't actually looked at that. We weren't expecting to get much more than 55% or so. But when we lowered the interest rates the interest earnings of that I think we lowered it by 67 or I'm sorry, 32%. I could look at that. There's nothing that was shocking that I saw come through but I don't have those numbers off the top of my head. Anything else? All right, thanks, guys. You're welcome. Great start, thanks, Jeff. It's great to see you, Jeff. Yeah, nice to see you all too. All right, thank you so much. (indistinct) January 11th on that. So every meeting we'll be working this out. Next one, 9.03 is the third meeting on the policy tranche the 0000 and Alison's going
166to lead this again. Okay, so this is, as Pam said the third read of tranche 0000 of the revised board policies. The Board had been engaged in a comprehensive review of all of our policies with NYSSBA prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In our last board meeting Ron asked why the first paragraph of policy 300 that was suggested by NYSSBA was removed. So I looked into the meetings the subcommittee for tranche 0000 discussed policy 300 on three dates April 9th, 2019, September 11, 2019 and February 25th, 2020. The policy deals with accountability and was a new policy recommended by NYSSBA. So I reviewed the tapes of all three of those meetings. What we had was NYSSBA provided two suggested introductory paragraphs for policy 300 which again was a new policy. The first suggested paragraph was the
167Board of Education acknowledges it is directly accountable to the community it has been elected to serve and is committed to engaging in continuous assessment of all district conditions effecting education. The second proposed paragraph was the Board recognizes that a comprehensive accountability system is necessary to improve the effectiveness of the district schools by keeping the primary focus on student achievement and on what can and should be done to improve that achievement. So the review of those paragraphs took place at the April 9th, 2019 meeting. The committee discussed that it felt the goal of this policy was to communicate that the Board is accountable primarily for student achievement. Our discussion of the first proposed paragraph focused not on the first clause which addresses accountability to the community but rather on the second clause focusing on commitment to
168engage in continuous assessment of all district conditions. And the group didn't feel that this captured the nature of our accountability. The Board felt that the language in paragraph two specifically the clause describing that the Board's primary focus should be on student achievement was preferable. So the group agreed to move forward with paragraph two. There was no specific discussion on any of the three dates with regard to the clause directly accountable to the community. So, Ron, do you feel that that addresses your question? I appreciate that background. I also watched the tapes, I agree with that. I would propose that I think the paragraph as written is great. I would just propose that we start it with saying, "The Board of Education acknowledges "that it's directly accountable "to the community it has been elected to serve."
169And then go into the Board recognizes that a comprehensive accountability system is necessary and the rest. So I think that the discussion of the committee was that the focus of the accountability was with regards to the student achievement. So that would be a discrepancy with regard to what the committee discussed. So, I mean, I'm comfortable moving forward with the language that the subcommittee recommends and that the focus of our accountability being student achievement. So I think of it probably very similar but slightly different. I think we are responsible for student achievement. I think we're responsible for every aspect of the District. But we are accountable to those that the Board, I should say is accountable to those that elect the Board. That's I think just how elected officials who they're accountable to. And I do
170think in a policy it's important to state where your accountability ultimately lies. So I agree, I would say we are responsible for all that but our accountability is to those that elected us and I think it's important to add that. When we discussed this we didn't see it as who we're accountable to because I think that we believe we're accountable to the full school community. We're accountable to student achievement not necessarily to a particular group of people but to the goal of our missions and our beliefs. And I don't think we saw this policy at all as to whom are whom accountable? It's why are we accountable and how? What are the actions we are involved in at a minimum to be accountable for student performance, student achievement? The committee did not see this as
171a policy on to whom are we accountable? And let's specify. It's what are we accountable for? And how do we be accountable for that? What actions should we take to ensure that we are assessing and being accountable for student achievement? So it didn't get to the gist of what we saw this policy's purpose as being. Are there other thoughts on that because you have the committee's recommendation other board members thoughts on this? I mean, it's not clear to me looking at it and looking at all the other policies that the policies, I mean, I think seem to go along with what you're saying, Pam a little bit more than what Ron's point was. Which Ron's point is well-taken but I'm not sure that that's needed or really functional. In other words, is that to me
172the policies and what we're sort of doing, right? When I look at them generally it's what are we doing? How are we doing it? And as you go through it it sort of lists the things that we're gonna be doing. So that sort of indicates that the being accountable to our electors or whatever isn't really fitting in with the rest of the policy there. Which isn't to say that's not a valid point. I'm imagining not having been part of that discussion that that's probably why the committee moved in that direction. And I don't really have a (indistinct) I think that's fine. I mean, quite frankly, we're all accountable to the community whether we put it in the policy or not. Whereas all the other things in the policy if we don't have them there there
173is no accountability for them, right? So I think that's a pretty big distinction. I think I tend to agree with Carl on this in that I think that I'm trying to think of what kind of metric you could use for accountability to the community versus accountability on student achievement. And I can see student achievement as being something where we would have metrics. But in terms of being accountable to the community I'm not sure how that would be evaluated. And I also think that given that we're elected by the community and that we take an oath I feel like that those are the ways we're already accountable to the community. So I'm not sure why we would put it in a policy but yeah, that's sort of my current thoughts. I also don't think it's the
174accountability direct accountability to the community is not really outlined below. So I also agree with the conversation that's being had with the recommendation from the subpolicy group. We don't think that our accountability has been outlined. I actually think it is and I think all the how in there. And I guess the way I would stay is sort of how it measured is. To me being accountable means things like if we have a view on something it's our duty to share our views on how we came to a conclusion. If you're accountable to somebody you don't necessarily have to do that. You might have a view on something and keep it to yourself. I think as an elected official you are accountable to those and that you do have to share and I think spelling it
175out is important. I don't disagree with any other part of this policy. I think it's all great work that's done here. I just like adding that as a preface. I think it's important. I will note that we did change 'cause when I went back and read all the meetings on this as well. And I actually believe there was a fourth meeting 'cause I've in my notes that we watched the March 29th discussion as well or May 29th discussion as well. But in that the word consistent with its goal. Where is it where we talk about keeping the public informed or doing this on a regular basis versus as appropriate? There it is, it's in the first paragraph. The Board is committed to keeping the public aware of such progress and performance on a regular basis
176was the phrase and we switched it to as appropriate. And then we've switched it back to on a regular basis for this reading simply because it wasn't something the committee felt strongly about. We were hesitant to say a regular basis 'cause there was not going to be something scheduled. And sometimes the regularity requires some sort of structure or schedule but Ron had asked to put as appropriate back. And so, this version now has that change as well. I don't know. I set to put as appropriate here? I mean, it's fine. That was what honorary's notes were from last week's discussion and I think I had it too in my notes. Maybe you would have preferred it to go back to as on a regular basis as opposed to as appropriate, yeah. So we went back
177to on a regular basis. Wait, I'm sorry, on 300 (indistinct) Yeah, in the top paragraph the last phrase of the top paragraph your suggestion was to... So, I'm just gonna reopen it. So 300, the second paragraph? It's right below. It's the first paragraphs is the one that's deleted. The second paragraph is the one that's left in and the third paragraph is the regular or the regular basis. So it's a state-alone sentence and instead of saying as on a regular basis. Yeah, there's a lot of different versions. I thought I had the final clean copy and it says, "As appropriate," in it. Let me confirm-- The red line. There's a red line copy that they changed it. It says revisions (indistinct) PDF. Okay, anyway-- Green lined in this case. That's fine if I'm the only one
178that has this perspective. It's not like I came out of this from nowhere. NYSSBA did recommend this. This is based on also what NYSSBA recommends but that's my view. All right, so are we good with this? It had recommended either or, right? No, this was the introductory paragraph. There wasn't two options. It was their recommendations with both was both paragraphs. I thought Alison just said that they recommended one-- Not necessarily and in the vast majority of the subcommittee policy work we eliminated most of the recommended (indistinct) language. In some cases we recommended full policies that they recommended 'cause they were not consistent with our other policies or with values moving forward, so. I mean, I have to say for sure I was on three trache groups or maybe two It felt like three. Like to
179put this as nicely as possible we did not feel that the NYSSBA policy work was up to the standards that we were looking for in terms of guidance on a lot of these, there was... It was a lot of you could do this or you could do this without much guidance, so-- And even some of this was something that we felt was-- Right, in some cases not good selected zero. That's why it was committee work finding the proper path for Scarsdale, I guess. I'm not disagreeing that you don't agree with me that's totally fine. I'm just making it (indistinct) it didn't say option one, option two. NYSBBA had both of them in there and you can disagree with it, that's that's totally fine-- Yeah, they put a lot of stuff in there, absolutely. Their proposal
180had two paragraphs prior to this list this numerical list and I'm just taking the first sentence out of it. Why do you feel that that's needed? Is it not clear that we're accountable to the community as elected officials? Do you feel that needs to be directly stated? I'll give you a different example. We have a mission statement in our policies. I mean, I think it's very clear what our mission statement is to everybody in the community but we have a policy that makes it in writing, puts it down. I think a lot of our policies would be very clear but I think it's important. This is what drives our actions and this is what, whether it's the Board's actions or drives regulations or how the schools are run in this case, I think, it's about
181our accountabilities this is about us. And I think putting it down that if somebody says, "Why would you think about a topic "a certain way?" Yeah, it's in there, it's in our policy. We are accountable to explain that and I think it's very valuable to have that. I tend to think I'm more accountable for student achievement than I am being accountable to somebody's request. I mean, I think that I was elected. I'd like to think I was elected because I can think about the different viewpoints. And I dunno, I guess, it just feels like having two drivers of what I'm accountable for pulls me in different directions. I feel like I should be accountable for student achievement. How I get there is perhaps by hearing those different viewpoints explaining things to people but I'm not
182sure that I wanna have that on the same level as student achievement. I guess that's where I'm coming from. To me student achievement should be what is our driver. And when you say these should be our drivers I don't know if I feel that should be stated as a driver on the same level. Well, I guess I would say, I think we're responsible. I agree with everything you just said. I would just say we are responsible for student achievement. That's how I would... I have a question. It says, I mean, this is a really interesting conversation which people are watching probably don't but it's interesting. It says, "The Board of Education acknowledges "it's directly accountable to the community "it has been elected to serve." So I'm wondering when we're elected the community to which it
183has been elected to serve what does that mean? Does that mean the Scarsdale community? Does that mean the student community? Does that mean the school community which is bigger than the student community but smaller than the overall Scarsdale community? I'm just wondering what would that exactly mean? And I wonder if that's what the committee also was wondering. And I don't know if anybody has any idea. I just, as I'm reading it carefully I'm wondering what... And if it means school community or it means the student community it's not appreciably different than what's there. And if it means something different then how does that impact the part about being responsible for the education, et cetera, that we just talked about? And that's not just for Ron, that's-- So the committee was not looking at this policy
184after having done work on many other policies already in this tranche. We weren't looking at this as like what you alluded to earlier, Carl as the way to say to whom are we accountable and what our roles and responsibilities related to the community? This was how, right? This is how are we accountable? How do we assess and what do we do? What are some minimum steps that we take in order to assess and be accountable for student engagement student enrichment and achievement? And so, what we did was the first sentence just if you look back at the tape, the videotape that first sentence, we moved off of that first sentence in a matter of five minutes 'cause it just didn't give us the wording that we were looking for in a new policy on accountability.
185And we read the second one Scott, who was chair of this committee moved us to the second one. We read it and we were like, bang! That's as exactly what we wanna say that we are accountable for student achievement and these are the methods down below. So we moved quickly passed an accountability to a community. And didn't put that discussion into play as a committee because our priority was what are we accountable for? And what are the steps that we need to take to be accountable for student achievement? That was where the committee was thinking. And then three days I have a fourth day of changes and this is where we got to after lots of discussion. Which is fascinating, it's a great opportunity. I think you'll each very much enjoy being on a committee
186to do the policies. It's great work. But here it is so we should keep moving, yeah, Alison. I didn't hear what she said, I'm sorry. I didn't hear either. I said we can bring it back as an action item at our next meeting. Okay. And then I don't believe we're be doing any more tranches this year because no other ones have been a completed-- The last tranche, the final tranche. There's two out there still that have committees in play. Is that honorary or -- Just one? Okay, so we'll move on to the next item. Thank you, Alison and everyone. We'll move to 904, Eric. Yes, thank you. This is actually a rather simple fix in the policy. The appointments during or reorganization meeting usually we have cause to identify and appoint a chief medical officer.
187In the past, probably at this point, about seven years ago we used to have two district physicians. One, which served the purpose that Dr Corsaro does right now. And the second really focused on providing (indistinct) support for the athletics department and football games in various games along with some overseeing of athletic trainers. At this point all of our physician needs for games or taking care of (indistinct) and his contract in the athletic training department. So we have adjusted this to show that the district chief medical officer and interchangeably used with the words district physician or kind of just work to what our practices. If there are any questions on the language specifically I'm happy to add address them. Okay and we'll come back as a second read, I believe next meeting and then action, thank
188you. Thank you, Eric. Edgar, textbooks, you're muted. The first textbook is digital e-books for Spanish 312 and 322. There was a link, it's a beautiful site. It's being recommended by the department chair, Mary Leech. I had a chance to look through it. I was happy to see that one of the components major components is culture. And also it seems to be a very sophisticated technology component in which there's live conversations with Native speakers. So we've come a long way from the digital world that I grew up in but it looks like a good product. The other one is a book part memoir for the criminal justice class "Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment "and the Rule of Law" by Preet Bharara. And I am just a recent convert to his podcast and had
189a chance to jump into the book a little bit. It's highly readable and very interesting a bestseller on the "New York Times". I loved that in the chapter snitches and the moral quicksand of cooperating witnesses. He makes a connection to his oldest daughter tattle tailing on his youngest son. So I think this would be a good addition to it and it's also very timely. He was fired by President Trump and is very articulate and outspoken. And I think this would be a good addition to the class. Questions for Edgar? So this would come as an action item at our January meeting or it's not added to tonight's action item? It's not added to tonight it's just for discussion and also this will be outside of my office if the board members wanna come by and
190take a look at it. And also (indistinct) some diverse reviews on it. Well, good reviews but couldn't find a bad one but from various sources if you wanna check them out. Great, thanks, Edgar. All right, moving to action items, item 10 proposed textbooks for the High School, Karen. I move that the Board approve the proposed textbook for the High School has presented. I believe the book is stamped from the beginning. Is that right? Did I get that right? Carl was that you? Yes. Okay, great, is there any discussion on this? All right, then roll call vote. All those in favor, Alison. Yes. Amber. Yes. Bob. Yes. Carl. Yes. Karen. Yes. Ron. Yes. And I'm a yes, so everyone has voted, that passes. Thank you, Karen. All right, we've reached our second opportunity in tonight's meeting
191to hear from our attendees again on district matters. Keep it to three minutes, please and state your name and address or if you represent a group and we do encourage you to avoid speaking about particular personnel or your children. I'm promoting Sarah and you just need to... There you go, go ahead. Name and address and go ahead. Hi, my name is Sarah Hopkins. I'm at 40 Birchall Drive. I have three boys grades five, ninth grade and 12th grade. I'd like to speak briefly about some of the misconceptions I'm hearing tonight by way of explanation about my training relevant to this discussion. I have a master's in health policy. I've worked many years in that area. I also have a master's in genetics. And since may, I've been working in COVID genetic research. I heard some
192discussions about pooled RNA sampling and the possibility actually (indistinct) doing that since September. The Medical Advisory Board that the Board rejected could have helped you with this kind of methodology. Similarly, it could have helped with things like the consent form. The consent form that we have right now from the company the lab that you've contracted with is unnecessarily broad. It's asking for permission to do lots of kinds of research and with lots of kinds of samples. And typically with the consent form you want it to be as narrowly tailored as possible. You don't wanna give them permission to do anything they feel like. Yes, the state had mandated classrooms to be cleaned many, many months ago back in the spring perhaps the summer. But at this point that is no longer the science. The virus
193is (indistinct) to be scrubbing desks. It is what many people in the field refer to as hygiene theater. It's akin to measuring temperatures at entrances. We no longer do that in hospitals. It's not a sound use of time. Additionally, I heard a claim tonight that COVID was not spread through the school because of the hybrid plan. This is definitely not consistent with the science. Schools are not drivers of COVID infection. Schools are safe because protections are in place because children abide by those rules, right? They mask very well much to my surprise actually but they do. When they're out in the community for the many, many, many hours that they don't have school they're not as good, right? They're not monitored. And so, it's better to have them in the schools. I sent the Board
194a webinar put out by the National Superintendents Association. It highlighted a Harvard Professor, Joseph Allen who is an expert in exposure, assessment science, whatever. And he's the thrust of his work. And he is an expert in this field is that the school is the safest place for kids. They should be there full time. Crack a window, masks on wash your hands, go to school. And sadly, the Board seems uninterested. And it frankly puzzles me. It's not a presentation from some fringe organization. It's the National Superintendents Association. I'm particularly frustrated tonight to hear once again, that the elementary students could have been in the building full-time since September. The responses I heard defending the boards and administrations in action and making that happen are to me unsatisfactory. Vague replies about us not understanding the space do
195not explain why our children are left to two hours of school a day. I do not understand how you can be talking about subparagraphs of policies when our kids are not in school. And it is extremely upsetting as a parent. If the Board really wants the children back in their classroom as it claims occasionally then please show us your plan for when and how that will happen. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Sarah. Mayra, I'm promoting you, go ahead. Hi, good evening. Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez, Fox Meadow Road. I really appreciated hearing the culturally responsive-sustaining education report presentation. many thanks to doctors Hagerman and McIntosh as well as to all the teachers and students who participated in creating and participating in this presentation. I have a couple of observations and questions. It's really great
196to hear how much the District is doing on diversity and inclusion as part of the curriculum. I think it would be really helpful to see exactly how what Dr. McIntosh presented fits into the district strategic plan. When I look at the plan and I reviewed it again this afternoon I couldn't find the terms multicultural, diversity or inclusion in the strategic plan. Maybe I missed something. The examples on DNI and the curriculum are about middle and high schools. When possible, it would be really good to hear specifics about how DNI is being incorporated into the elementary school curriculum. I know that the kids are doing a number of things in that area because I have a fourth grader and fifth grader and I hear some of the things that they talk about like Langston Hughes or
197they read a story about a Japanese American family in the Midwest at the time of Pearl Harbor. And I'm really impressed with that kind of content and very grateful but I just haven't seen it in writing how DNI is part of the elementary school curriculum. It would also be really good to hear specifics about what efforts are being made to diversify the administration and teachers. I also would love to see demographic data on that. I was really impressed to hear what books are being read and what films are being watched at the high school level. But I would just appreciate understanding more about what the perspective is when the classes, those topics are being overwhelmingly taught by Caucasians. And I wanna make sure that that my point isn't lost here. So I'd like to share
198just one item which is I volunteered for three years at a Jewish charity teaching English to Russian Jewish immigrants when I was at university. Subsequently, I studied Hebrew in Israel for a year and I with five Jewish students in a dorm room. Yet, if I were to teach a module on the Jewish experience in America my perspective would be very different than if it were taught by someone who is Jewish. I think also it would be extremely important to have a framework with quantitative and qualitative metrics that we as parents and taxpayers can see to understand how multiculturalism and DNI are being incorporated into the curriculum and to understand what kind of milestones we're looking for. I also am aware there's a lot of privacy issues but it would be good to understand how many
199discrimination or bias cases occur and how they're resolved. I think that the District's multicultural page really, really needs to be beefed up. It does you a disservice, Dr. McIntosh in all your efforts because that page only has a few links and it doesn't show everything you do. Thank you again for all your hard work. My husband and I very much would like to thank district administrators, teachers all the staff and the Board of Ed members for your contributions to our children's education and community Happy holidays and Merry Christmas. Thank you, Mayra, Rachana. Go ahead, name and address then go ahead. Hi, Rachana Singh from Griffen Avenue. I wanted to just quickly add that the education report seemed detailed and action oriented. Thank you to Mr. McIntosh for such an involved process into diversity and inclusion.
200As a special education parent in this District who had the opportunity to avail the ICT classroom in the District built on the foundation of inclusion and anti-ability bias. I would like to echo again that we can talk about diversity and inclusion but the conversation must and should include ability bias and no discussion on diversity is complete without talking about neurodiversity. And parents, honestly, in this District are such a great resource for administration to conduct those discussions about neurodiversity and inclusion. So I hope there's ongoing staff training and student and parent education in the area of neurodiversity. Perhaps Mr. McIntosh would like to talk about some of those efforts. And I was also wondering if there is an updated special education report coming up soon especially as we assess the devastating impact of COVID-19 on special
201education cohort. Maybe the special education department has some plans to put out some generalized outcome data as we are done with the first trimester to see if there are any learning losses. And as we look to the budget and as we look into the special education budget it's important to pay attention to those issues I feel like as a special education parent. Thank you and happy holidays and thanks to the Board for these amazing ongoing discussions. Much appreciated, happy holidays. Thank you very much. Bob Harrison, I'm promoting you. One second, let me unmute you or ask you to unmute. Okay, Bob, just unmute yourself (indistinct) go ahead. Okay (indistinct) Harrison, Fox Meadow Road. Bob, I'm just hearing you in and out. I'm not sure the whole Board is but just so you know you're kind
202of in and out your sound. Yeah, okay, it seems like I've had problems with my microphone. But anyway, Bob Harrison, 65 Fox Meadow Road. Can you hear me? 40-year resident of Scarsdale. You hear me please, yes? Do you hear me? Yes (indistinct) thumbs up. Okay, sorry, okay I'm trying to read from my notes here. Anyway, so I'm representing the Scarsdale Summer Youth Tennis League. I've been the volunteer director for 36 years helping youth to learn the lifetime game of tennis. And I've had over 2000 youth of our community involved in that program over the 36 years. So our organization is leading an effort to raise funds to help with the payment of the comfort station at the Middle School tennis courts and field. Our plan is to donate $10,000 to the Village of Scarsdale as
203a gift for the comfort station. We have currently raised $7,000 from Scarsdale residents and we're urging all residents to consider a donation of anywhere from $100 to $1,000 dollars. We have several thousand dollars gifts to the program to this effort. And this will go to help those who have concerns about any effect on the upcoming budget. We want this comfort station to be built this spring. And so, we're moving forward with this program to raise funds. And we're urging that a plaque will be erected for those people who donate 500 to $1,000 on the front of the building along with the Village Board members who as a group approved the effort to build the comfort station. And this has been in practice for private public funding at the track at the High School at the
204flag pole. There's a number of bricks on the ground there that the contributors raised $750,000 back when the first track, new track was erected. So we would like an update on the project with the state education department. Those of you who have knowledge will you please tell us if the project plans have been submitted to the state education department and who is the project manager at LAN Architects who is leading this project? And then who was assigned the project within the school board that we know Jeff Coleman at the Village is assigned with the project. So I hope you can answer that question and the status of the project with the state SED. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bob. Bob Berg, I'm promoting you. You may be already unmuted. Can you hear me? Yes.
205Okay, good evening. Bob Berg, 17 Black Birch Lane. Thanks Stuart for your thorough presentation tonight on the budget. Next year's budget presentation preparation seems to be moving well along and you seem to have some critical numbers plugged in already at this early stage. Most notably the pension contribution percentage rate. Obviously, you understand the economic difficulties faced by taxpayers during this pandemic. So I'm wondering if you have any projection yet as to what range of tax rate decrease for the tax levy you'll be proposing in January or February of next year, thanks. Thank you, Bob. At this point, I don't see any other hands. So I'll ask anyone who does want to speak to raise your hand at this time. All right, so no additional hands. We'll close this opportunity for public comment and we'll move
206into follow-up to public comment. So based on the notes that I just took I know Mayra had some questions that I don't know, Edgar you wanna talk to any of those. Same with Rachana in the neurodiversity and then Eric, there was some thoughts about the special ed education report. If you had a thought of when that education report was coming up that could be something you'd address and Stuart with the update with SED and the project manager and maybe Bob Berg's. So do you wanna start with Edgar? Yeah, Mayra, I appreciate your feedback and I do agree that one of the challenges is to get the word out about all the work that's being done and the cohesive work that's being done. K-12, one of the newest traditions is we just started to invite... Michelle
207Verna was part of our rehearsal who was helping to organize and get our word out in a cohesive way. And the presentation that we did tonight will be easily accessible. We'll put it on there and we'll look at that diversity and inclusion page. There is work, of course, that's being done at the elementary level that is both explicit and implicit. There is a curriculum a Circle of Friends, anti-bullying, anti-racist. But again, a lot of the work is being done by dedicated and interested teachers who bring the philosophy of antibias into their classroom and use it to make decisions about the books they choose and the questions they ask in the discussions that they facilitate. Eric, do you wanna talk about neurodiversity and? Just to mention there was a piece of that mentioned in the different
208programs that Edgar highlighted including the work with the Ridgefield theater which is a differently abled theater in Ridgefield, Connecticut. There's a number of programs in the diversity lean, if you will, including... I'm having a complete mental break. The Learning From Our Differences program, thank you which is in the elementary schools and a number of clubs on the high school level that are all focusing on neurodiversity and differently able students. As far as... There was one other thing, Pam you asked me to fly on. Oh, the special education plan. Yes, that's due at the end of or at the beginning of next year. So there will be a new two-year plan being produced for the Board. And that comes to the Board as maybe an education report we go through the special ed plan. The plan
209is required by the state that that'll be done through a presentation of that plan. There will be a special education education report upcoming. I don't know that we've set a date for that yet but it is usually one of the... The education program is throughout the year. Yeah, so she also asked about where DNI fits in the strategic plan. So DNI in a couple of different places. When I look back at the 13 goals that we have it's clearly embedded in our global competencies when we talk about breaking that down into developing empathy and communicating across in a global way, in a globally connected way. It also connects to our goals around wellness. It's a large umbrella but when we think about belonging and acceptance and true inclusion it does connect to our wellness our
210mental health being part of the group. And it's also connected to our initiatives in literacy on making sure that there is diversity in the selections. and balanced literacy is about creating opportunities for students to make choices, independent choices and to provide lots and lots of opportunities for them to develop those skills in diversity, inclusion and equity through that work. It kind of goes across our different goals that we have embedded throughout. It also falls into global citizenship. One of those that Thomas always used to say it crosses many of those (indistinct) Because when we were talking a little briefly about the Global Learning Alliance and the work that we've been doing with the founding members in Finland and in Singapore and it's large. A lot of the way that it's guided is by the students
211who are in the last several years participating. And it was the students that came up with the focus guided the focus and it was all about belonging. So the Global Learning Alliance had the projects which of course, Heather talked about it but we had to make determinations of like what to keep. But they we're working on meeting texts that had to do with diversity, inclusion and belonging and sharing them and then having discussions about them for this kind of truncated version of our Global Learning Alliance conference that we did online. So it is something that touches on a lot of different ones. And we want it to be integrated. We want it to be part of the standards as we think about all the different areas and not something that's like its own month put
212off to the side. Not a curriculum box that you open up and say, "Now it's time to talk about this." Or it's June so we're gonna talk about gay people. It's not so isolated but that's a very good question. Other follow-up, who wants to go? I can speak to Mr. Harrison and Mr.Berg. So the comfort station I still have not received the packet from LAN Architect. I reached out to Jeff last week, Jeff Coleman he was in turn gonna reach out to LAN. So the pack was on it's way but I haven't received it. So it's not at SED yet. I think the initial sign off sheet went to SED that was a while ago but there's a whole nother packet that has to go up and that's what we're waiting. So it's really not
213in District hands at this point. And I'll be the person along with the Jeff with the Village as far as the point person on that. And then of course our facilities department will be involved on a day-to-day basis. And as far as estimated tax projection or anything like that again, we'll, as I mentioned in my presentation we'll have a high-level draft numbers at the first presentation in January. Thank you, Stuart. Is anyone missing something that I may have or (indistinct) have something I may have missed for follow-up? Pretty easily happen, no? All right, we'll move to the next item then, wrap up. All I have for wrap up is Edgar you thought that at your convenience you might do some research to see answer Alison's request or thought of what the Board might be doing
214within this framework in terms of work for the board policies, potentially around dignity, inclusion, belonging, et cetera, right? Any other wrap up? Then everyone take a restful two-week break, please. All right, meeting dates, Alison. Our next meeting is on Monday, January 11th. We'll start at 6:30 with the budget meeting which will include the staffing recommendations right now that is scheduled to take place in the High School auditorium. That will be followed by our business meeting also in the auditorium. And then if necessary we will go into executive session. Throughout the month of January the subcommittees for school visits will be touring the rest of the schools including Heathcote, the Middle School, Greenacres which we all will attend and the Edgewood School and we'll wrap it up on January 26th. Thank you, Alison. Oh my goodness,
215adjournment. May I have a motion to adjourn?- We second. Second. Discussion, all right. All in favor say, "Aye". Aye. Any opposed, abstentions? All right, thank you, everyone, we're adjourned. Good holiday and happy new year to everybody. Bye-bye. And good holiday, everybody. Happy holiday.