BOE 2020-06-22

001(bright music) All right, so I believe we're all here. Let me get to opening comments. I begin this special meeting, this Audit Committee meeting. We'll do a roll call. Alison. Here. Carl. Here. Chris. I'm not looking, but I'm sure he said here. Did he say here? Karen, Yup. Here. Ron. Here. Scott. Here. And I'm here, so all board members are present and participating virtually. The Audit Committee is assembled, may I have a motion to appoint Honore secretary pro tem? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, so item I guess three, or no, I'm not looking at the thing right now. So go ahead Stuart, we're gonna go into the, Audit Committee presentations please. Sure, yep. We typically do have an Audit Committee meeting at this time every year, to take

002care of a couple items. One is to, review, and recommend acceptance of the engagement letter for the external auditors, that we'll be doing their upcoming audit this summer. For the just finished fiscal year. And then also to have our internal auditors here to talk about the recently completed an internal audit, and to look forward to next year. The first item on the agenda for this evening is the external letter of engagement for the audit for the year ending June 30, 2020, which is eight days away. EFPR group, if you recall, we did a RFP last year. EFPR did come in with a proposal that the board accepted. EFPR has actually been with the district since the 2013/14 school year. And previously known as Toski. And their proposal for next year. And their external letter of

003engagement is consistent with their original five-year proposal that was accepted last year. So it's our recommendation, to continue with them again for the upcoming audit. So any questions about that part of the Audit Committee agenda? All right. The next part is to review, the risk assessment update and the planning agreed upon procedures. But just basically the more in depth review of a certain selected items during the course of the year. And with us this evening is a Richard Coffey who does come on site. And with him, his partner, Don Hoffman. Lets to talk about the internal audit process itself. Very good, hi, good evening everybody. I'm Don Hoffman. I'm a partner with Cullen & Danowski. Our firm has been the internal auditor for the district for a number of years now. And the internal audit

004requirements are that we perform two different engagements each year, which we've done regularly. And we report generally about this time each year. Last year we met, I think June 10th. The report last year's risk assessment, as well as the agreed upon procedure report. Both of those reports are what's required by the commissioner of regulations. Scarsdale has been right on track, with the requirements of the internal audit function. Rich and I run the internal audit function for our firm. We deal with about 27 school districts, between the two of us. Scarsdale is one where Rich does the majority of the work. There are other ones where I do the majority of the work. But when it comes to presentations, whenever possible, we both try to make it. And we certainly both work on the reports together.

005So with that said, Rich will take you through the two reports and then I'll follow up with, the finish up at the end. Okay, thanks Don, appreciate it. As you mentioned, we have two engagements that we perform. We perform the risk assessment update and agreed upon procedures. Those drafts as usual have been vetted through with the administration. So talked to and went through the reports with them, just making sure that, you know, we're accurate, we're on point. The first report we talk about is the risk assessment update. That report and the engagement itself is generally inquiry-based, interviews meetings with various individuals. We have about say 30 areas, as you can see on a table in the report that we cover, and you know, talk about key changes that have taken place. I like to point

006out too, that the timing of the reports and field work was just before the pandemic started. So obviously there may have been and probably has been obviously some changes that have taken place since then, since the schools or school buildings have closed and teaching went to a remote scenario. One of the things we did add to this risk assessment, which came out of a very good interview I had with the board president Miss Fuehrer. And that was to include some key items that have taken place since the prior year. We usually highlight those as part of our agenda, we would discuss it with you guys. Well, we thought it'd be more evaluated and helpful to include that within the report itself. And those key changes would be located on pages, seven and eight of the

007report. So many of those things that are in there, you probably are aware of I'm sure. Some of them have probably required some board action and board participation and possibly even agenda items for resolutions. And then we get into the recommendations. And the key thing that we do for risk assessment is following up on prior reports and the status of recommendations that are opened from our previous risk assessment report, as well as any open items from, all items from previous agreed upon procedures report. So that would have been the area of extra classroom activities, which is at the middle school and the high school. Overall our district was a very active again, as in the past with closing out and addressing many of the recommendations. A way to report is set up. It's kind of

008by area and within area, if there's still a number next to, the particular item or comment, for example, page eight, there'll be a number of there. So number one, and there's two new recommendations. One, related to medicare reimbursements. They are to consider possible, maybe reducing the frequency to reduce the amount of administrative work on those reimbursements. We do have many of our districts that have gone that route, and have been successful with doing so. And again, it's really reduction of administrative work related to that. Overall there's eight recommendations that are open, two new, the other new one is related to your capital assets database. Consideration there for setting up for daily backups in the event of something going down, the system going down, as what had actually transpired at the district this past year. So

009those are kind of the recommendations. I guess any questions or comments regarding the risk assessment update report? Okay. Okay, and the next report which is when a detailed review agreed upon procedures, that's a more involved of an engagement. There's a testing that takes place. We look obviously more in depth at the activities and such that take place. We've kind of been looking at, the district over the last couple of years. Can a cash receipts type of related activities or collections insights. So we kind of continued, I guess in that light where we had looked at extra classroom activities, which has a sizeable receipts activities. And here we looked at cash receipts activities, excluding school lunch and extra classroom which we performed, and then use of facilities. And then we've got a report here based on

010the results of the, report itself. The format is similar to prior reports. So we've got a background section to give some highlights and key information, some key information related to the district about policies, procedures. A background about commissioner regulations et cetera. A number of interviews are conducted during these agreed upon procedures. Anyone that kinda has involvement with (indistinct) activities, which is a number of departments and schools as well, is what I would included. Music and performing arts, phys ed, health and athletics and counseling are areas that get involved with some collections. One of the key things there to note which going forward and the district's been very active with my school box. It's an online program and that really facilitates these procedures. One, it kind of reduces and minimizes the number of checks or cash

011and things, at the schools or the departments. And it kind of really streamlines the process. I know Rachel also has been instrumental with working with, district staff and further you know, moving forward with that particular online process, and expanding the use of such, which is something that we kinda noted in the report itself. Findings, combination of some good, you know, key items in there. It's not just a, I guess, a weakness based report. So it doesn't just show where we've had exceptions or errors, also highlights and notes some key processes where there are opportunities for, we feel you know, improvements. We would include those as part of the recommendations. So within the cash activity section, we ended up on pages five and six. We've got you know, five recommendations for consideration for improvements related to

012those procedures and processes. Many of it comes from just thinking about the kind of standardization across the different schools. I think that's one of the good value is of some of these reviews where we go out and meet with people at different buildings to try and get a sense for you know, what the protocols and practices are in each of those locations, and to identify, determine if they're, you know, some consideration for standardizing any practices, as you know, as the board and the administration deem necessary or fit. Okay, and then the use of facilities there. I know, you know, bit of work around there in terms of key things there, ensuring there's proper insurance in place for the groups. And then you've got, you know, detail rental fee schedule as well as, whether or not

013some groups (indistinct) would be exempt. And depending on the nature or the type of organization will determine whether or not there were any, I guess call buildings associated with those. And then we looked into those. Overall in both areas, you know, it's a very good report. Again in terms of no exceptions from I guess, a dollar amount standpoint. Again, it's more probable procedures and operations, enhancements that we found as some opportunities before recommendations related to use of facilities. Okay. So those are the two reports that we had prepared and provided for this evening. Any questions on it? I guess, any of the items in the reports? There's one thing I'd like to just say quickly is, you know, we really do appreciate, you know, Rich and, you know, usually brings another individual with him. And

014you know, we've gone through a lot of internal audits over the years. a lot of the, you know, lower hanging fruit have been picked up, but we really sort of embrace it as a, you know, a management consultant. And so I say to Rich pretty much every year is, you know, we don't particularly have the time or, the breadth of expertise, or information that Rich can get from going through different school districts and seeing best practices, and for him to bring that back and review our practices is really, you know of great help. And we do appreciate that. Thanks, appreciate it Stuart. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, that's great actually. You know, that's what Rich and I really like to do. You know, we liked working with the clients and helping out, and like you said,

015taking on knowledge and trying to spread it out through the industry. You know, we think that's what we enjoy doing. So I'm certainly glad that you appreciate, Rich's efforts there. So if there are no specific questions on either of the reports, the next steps would be, that within 90 days a corrective action plan should be prepared, and approved by the board. And that is filed with New York State and only New York State, at the controller's office, through the state SED, our reporting portal, right? So that's not a change. The instructions for how to do that are in both of the reports. So that should take place routinely. Then during next year as risk assessment, Rich would follow up, on the activities against that corrective action plan, right? And then we report back to this

016committee on our findings. Also with this time, we generally have a discussion about what areas to perform detailed testing on for next year. I know, there's been some discussions as I understand that are about looking at continuing the efforts related to cash activities, and looking at the cash and checks and other payments related to the food services operations. We looked at extra classroom a year ago. This past year we looked at all their cash receipts. So the third major activity there would be, food services from a cash receipt or a check receipt or credit card payment perspective. I think there was another area that we also (indistinct) There was, we was looking at a couple of relatively small areas, but good ones to look at. Travel and conferences, activities to make sure that those are

017properly authorized, the spendings within policy, and there's the appropriate reviews of the expenditures, and then looking at credit card activities as well. And that's our recommendation. I think Stuart that was, you know, you and Rich have discussed those areas without provide the best benefit for your perspective. Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's you know, sort of with that, you know, management consultancy in mind, you know. Especially with, a lot of the trips that we do both for staff and for students, at least in the past, I don't know about going forward. But really trying to it in, you know, some of the best practices that we can to make sure you know, everything's operating as it should be. Any questions about the scope of work related to that. Actually a question about the deep dive and

018looking ahead. Do you have a list of areas that you do deep dives in that, just in general for all districts? I think that would be helpful to understand sort of what is the universe where you consider deep dives. Yeah, so, in the risk assessment report in the table, we list a series of areas. I think it's probably pages five and six in the risk assessment report, where we provide the areas. And we also give dates of when we've last looked at those areas. (overlapping chatter) As an in depth dive. So that risk assessment is really you know, informs, you know, where we are and maybe what's correct, will make more sense in the next rotation, or maybe it was something that we haven't looked at yet, that you know, maybe it's lower risk, but

019it's been a long kind of, we should take a closer look at it. Yeah, and that's what we've found. We've found that some of the areas that we looked at, you know, six, seven, eight years ago, you know, a word coming around, there's another cycle. There may be personnel changes or other issues that it's worth taking a look at. But, each year Rich and Stuart review that list and try and determine where the best, value is in terms of where we can perform detail work. Yes. Great. Can I ask questions? So in terms of following up, even I think the two areas that you've identified certainly could be a benefit to us. I wonder in conjunction with Rachel's new role as the data privacy officer. If some of the areas under student related data or

020some core information technology would make sense if that would actually be a good year to do that, or would it be maybe like the following year, once we have the data privacy officer in place. It seems to me that maybe there could be some efficiencies and synergies there as Rach's doing the work, to have an independent auditor, you know, providing also some of the benefits in terms of what other districts are doing best practices. But maybe I'm a year too early, but that was at least a question I had Yeah, that's an interesting area. You know, I think your comment about waiting a year is probably appropriate. We will follow up during next year's risk assessment, and we'll make inquiries about, data privacy, right? So, but right now all the districts are kinda working through

021the issues. You know, software licensing and making sure that, you know, that's in place. Making sure that your vendors have contracts in place that have an addendum related to student data. These are the things that everybody's thought of working on right now. We have discussions when we conduct a risk assessment about, you know, what are you doing? Who's gonna be the data privacy officer? What steps have you taken? Are you running into problems that, you know are unique to Scarsdale? Or are you pretty much caught up with the industry, right? So we'll go through that process. So I would recommend let's go through that process again next year during the risk assessment stage. And then we'll see if there's any sense that, there's additional work that might be required there, or what might be helpful,

022you know, in terms of what's being done and how we can sort of (indistinct) some of that work. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? I'll just say both to Rich and Don that, as Stuart said earlier, that having the information, the risk assessments in the places where there are recommendations, and then you're following up on them, and then concluding and closing the items. You know, this is my fifth year on the board and I feel that, you've really helped guide the district through so many challenges and so many areas for improvement and really appreciate all your work. Yeah, that's great. I mean, you know, frankly Rich and then with the staff account has done, you know, 95% of the work in the district. But as I said earlier, this is the way we like to

023operate. So, you know, we certainly are glad that you appreciate it. You know, we think as much as, as a mandated service can be, that we try and provide value, to our clients right? And we're very proud. We've lost one client in 12 years, right? So we're obviously satisfying our clients and doing the work, you know, in a strong way. So we appreciate you saying that. Yeah, and then one last thing is the order of operations. So after the action items for the Audit Committee tonight. These items will appear, presuming that they're, yes, that you do recommend, they'll appear on the board agenda for July. And then when get back in the fall in September, we'll have the corrective action plans that Don previously mentioned. Okay, so in a sense, the community discussion is over

024and we can meet the action items. Is that right? Yes. Okay, thank you for your time. Good night everybody. Good night Don and Rich. Thank you so much. Yeah thanks Don, thanks Rich. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good night. Thank you. Goodbye. Okay. So do you wanna introduce each one Stewart and I'll just ask for a motion, or should I just ask for emotion as we go through? Preference? I guess I can introduce it. The first one is the external audit letter of engagement, as an action item for the Audit Committee. And this would be, recommending to the full board, acceptance of their engagement letter for the 2020 audit. All right, so I have a motion to accept that recommendation that the Audit Committee recommend acceptance to the board of the letter of engagement.

025So moved Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All right, we'll do a roll call vote. Alison. Yes. Carl. Yes. Chris. Yes. Karen. Yes. Ron. Yes. Scott. Yes. And I'm a yes. So the Audit Committee will recommend that to the board in July. If you point .02. And the second one is the internal audit. So this is for the Audit Committee to accept or to recommend acceptance by the Board of Education, the review of the risk assessment update report for the fiscal year ending 2020. Thanks, George. Is there a motion to do so, is that Alison? Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? I just actually have a question for Stewart if that's okay, Pam. I think they've said that they've been our independent accounts for 15 years or something like that. I know we've

026done RFPs for the external audit and that's not exactly this motion is to accept the report, but I just didn't know when the appropriate time would be to ask, what kind of RFP process, if any, would you recommend the board undertake in the near term or immediate term for independent, you know, auditors on the internal side? You know, if we wish to do that, we could do that at any point. You know, again you know, it's going through the process. And my question didn't, I don't wanna presume or suggest that they're not doing a good job by the way. You know, I don't want that to be the takeaway. I'm just in terms of good practice of going through a RFP process from time to time, you know? Yeah, I mean, we could go off

027of, we haven't done one since I've been here and one hadn't been done previous to that probably since they were, engaged initially as far as I'm aware. I've been very pleased with them. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't do an RFP, as you said but, I have worked with other internal auditors that it's not that kind of management consultancy. It becomes abrasive maybe for the wrong reasons. So I would leave that up to the Board of Education as you know, really you know, report to you. Whether you would want to do that or not. And, sorry to hijacked the motion. No, it's a good piece of information, thanks Scott. Go ahead, Carl. I thought I saw that it was done by RFP 2013 or something, so. Yeah, that was the external auditor. Oh the external,

028okay. (overlapping chatter) Okay, the only other question I had was, I think correct me 'cause I'm now not getting everything up on my screen all at once, but we saw the draft, right? And now this is just a technical question, we're voting to approve, or the motion is to approve what we saw tonight, which was the draft. So should we be approving or is it (indistinct) That will come back as the final document for the board, yeah. Once you approved this, will come to the board as a final document. Okay, that's what I wanted to make sure so. Okay. And then when my turn comes, I vote yes. (chuckles) Any other discussion on this motion? Okay we'll call vote. Alison. Yes. Carl. Yes. Chris. Yes. Erin. Yes. Ron. Yes. Scott. Yes. And I vote yes,

029so the motion is passed, and this will be put to the board in July and item 3.03, Stuart. Yeah, and this is for the Audit Committee to recommend acceptance to the board of education for the intentive review, or as we call it, the applying agreed upon procedures report for the fiscal year 2020. Thanks, Stuart Do I have a motion to accept the recommendation, that the Audit Committee recommend acceptance for the Board of Ed of this. Sure so I move (indistinct) The current report on applying the (indistinct) procedures? That was a Carl's so moved. Is there a second? I (soft chimes) Is there any discussion on this? All right we'll call vote then, Alison. Yes. Carl. Yes. Chris. Yes. Karen. Yes. Ron. Yes. Scott. Yes. And I am also a yes. So that motion passes. I'm

030seeing that we're all done. Action items. Can I have a motion to adjourn into the business meeting please? So moved. Is there a second? (overlapping chatter) Any discussion? Alison. Yes. Carl. Yes. Chris. Karen. Yes. Ron. Yes. Scott. Yes. And I am yes so, this Audit Committee is now adjourned. We are beginning the board's business meeting. The roll call has happened at the beginning of our Audit Committee meeting. So all members of the board are participating virtually. And I'll also note that all members of the cabinet are present and participating virtually. And I'll remind board and cabinet members to unmute yourselves when you're ready to talk. Good evening to everyone joining us tonight. Hello to those watching later on demand. And thank you for taking the time to be with us. We hope you and your

031families are well. As most of you know, our recent executive order allows the board to hold our meetings virtually. The public's able to join, observe, and listen. And then public may comment at two opportunities during this business meeting. Before this meeting, the board held an executive session to discuss matters of collective bargaining. And we met as the district's Audit Committee, where we reviewed and approved recommendations, which will come before the board on July 8th. To accept the external audit engagement letters, the internal auditors risk assessment update report, and the independent accountants applying agreed upon procedures all for fiscal year end 2020. So to begin my opening comments, I just briefly wanna recognize the PTAs and PT Council for their full page recognition of our faculty in the "Scarsdale Inquirer" this past Friday. It was another

032very touching reminder of this community's deep appreciation for our educators. And I wanna thank you for that. I'm not gonna be speaking to the successful budget vote, but I will just recognize and appreciate the community for their response and participation again. And to conclude this very atypical year, the board will acknowledge our departing board members. Something we often do at the year-end barbecue retreat. The times this recognition has been in song or, by poem or, via a roast and toast, I'm gonna stick to something much more, straight forward as an expression of gratitude. And, frankly, we're all very, probably very grateful for that. So, I'm going to speak to Scott, and Alison will speak to Chris and then other board members will, chime in at the end. Scott, thank you so much for your six

033years of service to this district and the board. Two and a half of them if I'm correct as an officer. That alone speaks volumes about you. You are willing to do the work. You are the hero of the "Belling the Cat" fable. Many mice can have the idea of putting the bell around the cat's neck, but the difficulty is finding the mouse who will undertake take the task. And I believe your motivation, which is your passion to improve the experience of teaching and learning for all our students, together with your can do attitude, your strong work ethic, and your deep seated desire to be helpful, have allowed you to lead. And this board and previous boards through key turning points, and critical achievements. And this' been very important yet difficult tasks indeed. The district's administrative

034team, has gone through a significant transformation during your tenure. Beginning of the year, first year. Welcoming new leadership while ensuring that the critical governance responsibilities of the board remain on track and at the forefront is not an easy task. And you have developed strong relationships through integrity, competence, and collegiality. Your curiosity, open-mindedness, clarity, style of communication, preparation for and participation in board meetings, convey respect and professionalism, which has allowed our new administrators, to understand the culture of the Scarsdale schools, to value the commitment of our community, and to consider the board collaborative and critical partners in their work. Your desire to make well informed decisions, has helped to reinforce the structure, which allows the board to confront an array of tough challenges each year. You've attended a multitude of community events, presenting yourself to residents

035as fully available and approachable. Welcoming their input, and ensuring that their thoughts and concerns were represented appropriately to the full board. You've asked the difficult questions, processed the information, expressed your opinions, facilitated discussions, and worked to learn as much as possible, so that a consensus can be achieved, and decisions can be made. This process and mindset is truly inspirational. It's effective and it's appropriate. It provides an impressive pathway through budget development, through construction of facility considerations, collective bargaining discussions, policy review work, and oversight of SSCM, and wellness and sustainability, and food service, and community engagement initiatives. Personally, I have learned from your approach, and your skill. And I believe I've become more capable and effective board member as a result. I would be remissed if I didn't thank you for your mentorship and support during

036this winter and spring. Your communications and assistance, your kind words and your sense of both humor and of reality, have provided me with perspective, and have heightened my commitment to this work. So thank you so much for your counsel and for your dedication to this district and to the success of our students. We are sure you will continue to find ways to support your passion, to support and improve the experience of a Scarsdale education. We will all miss you very much, and we hope that you stay in touch. Thank you very much, Pam. I really appreciate it. I'm gonna just move it over to Alison who will continue with the program. (chuckles) It's my great honor to speak about the wonderful work of my board colleague, Chris Morin. Chris cares deeply about making sure that

037community values are incorporated into our work and our decision making. And has been a particularly strong advocate for our students, encouraging greater voice and choice. He exemplifies our district motto, "Non sibi." And has encouraged us as a board, to step up our advocacy. Leading by example, by participating in the annual New York State School Board Conference, as our representative for several years. And advocating for policies to improve the lives of students all over the state. Also in 2019, he was elected for a three year term, to the board of the New York State Teacher Retirement System by the New York State Board of Regents. So even though he will be leaving our board, he will continue his work towards improving the lives of educators. Chris always brings a nuanced, thoughtful perspective to our board work.

038He has a rare ability to see through the muck, and state with tremendous lucidity, what the rest of us have been trying to reach. So often in our board meetings, I marvel at how Chris will make a point that is glaring in its clarity, stunning in its conciseness, and potent in its wisdom. He consistently challenges us to find a new way of looking at an issue we are struggling with, and often helps us to maintain focus on our core goals. Chris has been a role model to me, and to other newer members of the board. I will miss his quick wit, his sense of humor, his relentless pursuit of data, and his collaborative nature. So thank you Chris for all you have given to this board, to this school district, and to this community over

039the past six years. Scarsdale schools have benefited greatly from all of your hard work, and we will all miss you. Thank you Alison. Thank you everybody. (loud yowl) Especially Pam and Scott. So, is there any other board members who would like to, have something to share? Go right ahead. Karen, go ahead. I mean, it's gonna echo. Go ahead. But I'm gonna echo it anyway. I too wanna congratulate and thank you, Chris and Scott. Watching you both in action over the past six years, I've really appreciated and respected your intelligence. Your incisiveness and your pragmatism. Of course, I have to mention your dedication and time spent, your thoughtfulness and collaboration, and your patience and good humor. And it is really, it has been an honor to learn from you, and share this important work with you

040on behalf of our students and our schools. And I will miss you, and I wish you both all the best. Thank you Karen. Thank you. (overlapping chatter) I'm just gonna echo what everybody else has said. It's been great to work with you both over the last year. Unfortunately, I've only gotten to be on the board with you both for a year, but you both been so open and accessible, through this time, both in person or virtually, and it's really helped me become a better board member. And I really appreciate it. Enjoyed getting to know you both better. I new you both a little bit before, but getting to know you both personally better and, well, I'm gonna miss seeing you on the Zoom screen. I hope the next time we'll be in person soon. And

041I just can't wait to see what you'll do next for the community. Given such a great amount of time. I'm sure you'll need a little break, but I can't wait to see what the next act is for you both. It's been a pleasure working with you both over the last year. Thanks Ron. My turn? Yes, go right ahead Carl. I wanted to make a few, also similar comments. Nothing I could say can adequately express, how I think everybody feels about you better than Pam and Alison I've already done, but few quick observations to add to which is, Scott, I've enjoyed being on the board of both of you. Scott, I really appreciate your willingness to share your experiences and your recollections, which have been, extremely helpful. Looking back over the years that you've been on

042the board and bringing that, history to the table. And Chris, I think your ability to really, ask different questions, you know, put us in the position of asking ourselves questions, sometimes putting me in the position of asking you a question, to understand what it is you're asking me. But, I think it's really important to have people like you who ask those questions that, the rest of us aren't always focused on in the same way. Jointly in my estimation, you're just leaving us with a gaping hole, and, I mean really in every way, and that's not to disparage, you know, anybody who's on the board right now. I just think that you two have really brought such a, different approach to everything. Than, the four of us. (soft chimes) So, it's large shoes for us to

043fill, and we're gonna work hard and, we're gonna call you and get your opinion anyway. So thank you very much. It's been a real distinct pleasure to serve with you. And I appreciate all of your help throughout the last year, getting the (indistinct) Thank you Carl. Well done to you both, thank you both. (sighs) So I think every board member has spoken at this point, and Thomas I'll turn it over to you to the next agenda item. Pam would this be appropriate-- Scott sorry, you wanted to say something I'm so sorry. Yeah, I don't really wanna belabor this and I really appreciate it. But I have a few thank yous I'd like to say kind of. And I think probably appropriate now as opposed to whatever time this meeting ends. So I just wanna say

044thank you to board members with whom I've served. Chris, Pam, Allison, Karen, Carl, and Ron, and also Lee Maude, Bill Natbony, Art Rublin, Nina Cannon, Suzanne Seiden, Mary Beth Gose and Lou Leone. Thank you for your friendship and your partnership and your commitment to Scarsdale. To Thomas, Drew, Stuart, Edgar, Eric, Jerry, Rachel, and Ray, and all the previous cabinet members with whom I worked. Thank you for teaching me, for your leadership and your collaboration. To Ken, Megan, Maria, Felix, Sharon, Melissa and Tasha, and all the assistant principals who were not assistant principals necessarily at the time. They may have been teachers in charge as well. I've really enjoyed getting to know you, and learn with and from you. To David Wickstead, Joe Vaughn, Steven Mankell and all the teachers who served and are serving on

045the STA Executive Committee. To all of our teachers, all of the staff of our district. Has been my honor to get to know you, and appreciate your commitment to the students of Scarsdale. To all the tireless volunteers in Scarsdale, whether it be within our schools, our PTAs, our boost organizations or in the greater Scarsdale community, including the village manager and Mayor Samwick, Hartford, Mark and Steves, and all the village trustees. It's all the people that make Scarsdale, Scarsdale. And thank you for working so hard on behalf of the wonderful institutions of Scarsdale, whether it be our neighborhood associations, our Citizen Nominating Committee, our SBNC, Scarsdale Family Counseling, League of Women Voters, the Forum and the list goes on. Thank you to the entire community. It's been an incredible opportunity and honor to serve our district

046and our kids for the past six years. I sincerely hope that the district's in a better place today, and set up for greater success in the future, than the day that Chris and I first took our oath to serve six years ago. Finally and most importantly, thank you my wife and our three daughters, for their support over the past six years. Without their selflessness, compromises, and sacrifices, I would not have been able to serve on this board. I look forward to Monday night dinners, and I'm forever grateful to you and love you. Thank you. Well, thank you for all those words, Scott. I try to avoid emotions, but I'll gladly second everything Scott just said. I kept hoping you'd leave someone else, so I got something to add, but which only leaves my own wife

047and children, who have been, wonderful and extremely useful and, excellent guides to the parts of the district that I, needed to know the best. Thank you all. I should have thanked (indistinct) too Chris, I'm sorry. Well, enjoy your retirement while you can. I'm sure you'll get swept up into something else very soon. Both of you. Thomas, I believe now you're up. Yeah so (indistinct) Scott's on, you know, you had said that roasting and toasting was an option. So I took you literally at that, Pam. I'm just kidding. This is the last meeting of the board of the 2019/20 school year. And so I felt like I needed to broaden the conversation. I will get to thank yous of Scott and Chris, towards the end of my remarks. But I just wanted to acknowledge a few

048things, this being the last meeting of the year. It's been said that what feels like the end is often the beginning and at no time is this more true in Scarsdale than during the month of June, when we're simultaneously finishing one year at actively planning for the next. And of course this has been infinitely more complicated this year by doing this work in the midst of the pandemic, with remote learning, being the modus operandi, both for the conclusion of the year, and one of three options for the future ahead. But before jumping too hastily into a new beginning, I would like to take an opportunity to recap some of the major highlights of the year, and recognize those responsible for achieving these goals. In terms of teaching and learning, We have finalized and implemented the

049district strategic plan along with the system for monitoring progress. We have devised implemented integrated plans for e-learning and providing remote learning opportunities from March until they ended the school year. Of course, due to COVID-19. We've maintained a strong focus on belonging, inclusion and diversity, including curriculum reviews and changes, professional development activities, district wide communications, and the development of several documents to serve as district resources. And we've created a Steering Committee in a number of subcommittees to provide guidance on district restart efforts, with a variety of scenarios being explored and planned for. And in fact, you'll hear quite an extensive presentation on that tonight. In terms of the operation side of the house, we've emphasized safety, security, and emergency management, with a measured approach to balancing changes in practice and behavior, within the current school culture.

050That's resulted in an updated SSCM plan. We've developed and revised a budget in the midst of this pandemic, devised new procedures, and successfully manage the 2021 budget and board member election process, overcoming many challenges of the state mandated changes to absentee mail-in ballots. I've also led and guided the Greenacres remodel efforts, which will result in a beautiful final project in early fall. We've completed successful negotiations with a number of our unions, and we've worked with PTC on a number of initiatives over the course of the year, including safety, communication, gifts, programming, and so many other issues. Board work was also been significant. In collaboration with district administration, they've developed and implemented a comprehensive policy, process excuse me, for policy review that was transparent too and inclusive of the larger Scarsdale community. They worked through a

051myriad of issues related to the pandemic and conducted numerous board meetings, to complete significant work, which was livestreamed and attended by many. They (indistinct) and adopted next year's budget with recognition of the current economic issues, initiated a formal outreach plan to better understand the needs and concerns of the community, and continued enhancements with our supporting partners, including the Scarsdale Schools Education Foundation, Parent Teacher Council, respected PTAs, Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling. And of course the Scarsdale Village. In the areas of communications and community relations, we've implemented and communicated a regular coronavirus update to Scarsdale families to guide them through the pandemic, sharing important information and updates on a host of topics. We've added new sections to the webpage, including strategic planning, multiculturalism, daily updates, e-learning and voter information. Met and communicated regularly with community partners, as

052I've mentioned above, and solicited and encouraged community voice through written communications, public comments during meetings, public forums, informational meetings, and most recently surveys on e-learning. Of course, this work was only made possible through the extraordinary work of my colleagues, including our remarkable teachers, support staff, administrative team in my cabinet. Each individual has contributed in countless ways, that are evident than in any given year. This year particularly however, efforts have been extraordinary, from the abrupt pivot to e-learning, to a complete change in voting procedures for the budget, and board member elections, to celebrating students and staff, in novel and creative ways at the end of the year. Each person has gone above and beyond to demonstrate what professionalism really means, as part of the Scarsdale school community. I would also like to thank and acknowledge the

053Board of Education, the District Clerk Honore Adams, for their dedication to this work this year. The only way you can accomplish this much work, especially during such challenging times, is through tremendous focus, and a lot of concentrated time and energy. I would also like to acknowledge and thank Scott, Pam and Alison, for their leadership this year as board president and vice president respectively, as these positions were split over the year. Moreover, I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge and thank Chris and Scott specifically. These are the two last members on the board who have been here since my arrival, six years ago. Scott and Chris' contributions and influence to the district have been significant and far reaching, as many others described in much better words. You're entitled to a well-deserved break, but it is my

054hope that you will continue to support the district through other volunteer opportunities in the future. To the rest of our trustees, it should be noted that being a board member in Scarsdale is a hard job. And often a thankless one as well. I know I speak for the broader community when I offer a heartfelt thank you to all of you for your time, effort and dedication on behalf of Scarsdale students, faculty, and staff. And finally to our students, I would like to end on a note of joy. Over the past many months, we have focused on challenges, difficulties, pivots, iterations, and missed opportunities. And they have served a purpose to acknowledge that this year has been unprecedented and life altering in so many ways. But while this is true, there was also another side of

055the story. From wellness week, to passion projects, to student activism, to end of the year celebration, there has been so much to celebrate for, and alongside our students. As we ended the school year, rather than concentrate on those things that we've lost. I would like to propose that we think about some of the silver linings. Joy is imperative for boosting our resilience and wellbeing. But even more importantly, it gives us strength and energy. We need to do our important work in the world. There is much work, and much living for us all to continue doing, beginning with the summer months ahead. It is my hope that each of you enjoy, the best of the summer season, and all of us at the district look forward to seeing our returning students and families in the fall.

056Thank you very much for joining us tonight and congratulations to our board members. Thanks Thomas. Thank you, Thomas. All right, so we'll move to the next item on our agenda, which is the personnel report Drew. Thank you Pam. A couple of items to note tonight, just as an update to the board, we budgeted in this budget 102 elementary sections, and that's what we are staffing for. We are anticipating 102 elementary sections as of today. On tonight's consent agenda, we'll be welcoming, a couple of returning and a couple of new faces. Sarah Bott, who served as a leave replacement this year at Quaker Ridge, we'll be moving into a probationary position, in the elementary classroom area there. Well, not a new face. we're happy to see that Sarah is able to have a probationary appointment. We'll

057be welcoming a new part time French teacher at the high school, Zoe Kelton will be joining us. As you know, our integrated co-teaching and 8:1:2 programs. Were staffing adds this year. So those appointments are on tonight's agenda. Just wanted to update everybody on that. So we will be welcoming Lisa Rubinstein to the middle school in special education. We'll be welcoming Merrill Miller to Edgewood for the 8:1:2 program. And we'll be welcoming back Taylor Kramer to the ICT classroom. Taylor joined us a couple of years ago as an intern. And she's since gotten her certification and moved on. She was a leave replacement at Chappaqua and returns next year. On the classified side of things, we have some, couple of retirements to announce. We learned since the last board meeting that our own David Barry will

058be retiring. It's hard to see that, but after over 39 years in the district, Dave will be, moving on to greener pastures as they say. And also, Rachel's department has experienced quite a bit of change in these few years. Barbara Toledo will also be, resigning for the purpose of retirement after 34 years in the district. So many thanks to those individuals and as is our tradition, I wanted to point those out. Thank you Drew. Great news and sad news simultaneously. You've got it all. Now moving into the restart update, Thomas. Sorry-- Well, I had you there, Thomas, Eric Edgar.(chuckles) You know, I just really wanna credit, particularly Edgar, I mean, Edgar and Eric. Eric has been taking the lead on the restart efforts. He has established a Steering Committee, which he'll talk about and the

059participants on that, as well as 10 sub committees, which is really incredible to think about, taking on various aspects of the restart efforts. They're gonna provide the context for you. But of course, we're looking at a, multi-platform approach to thinking about restart efforts. All of this will be predicated on the guidance that's issued to us from the state. Either the governor or the New York Department Of Education. But the work has been really impressive thus far. It's been really a community effort in terms of the folks who are participants. And, so far it's been very promising. I think you will see that in tonight's presentation. So with no further ado, I'd like to turn it over to Eric and to Edgar. Okay, I'm going to Oop! Rachel, can you allow me to share my screen?

060While he's doing that, I'd add also the presentation is as part of the board packet, for those of you who are not following along in the community. While we wait for that, I wanna say thank you to Thomas for supporting this effort and moving us forward towards restart. There are many unknowns but we've been able to start the process and, really move along with this support. Can everybody see my screen now? Fantastic. I'd also like to thank the rest of cabinet and our building administrators for their leadership and the task groups. It's really been inspiring to watch us bring people together. And I'd like to thank the almost 100 people involved in the various task groups and Steering Committees who have spent the last weeks really thinking as a group, and focusing on students, focusing

061on what's best for the district and in what are uncertain times. So as we start here, what I can. So as we start here, I'd like to start off with just saying the context of what we know around restart at this point. As many of you may know, school opening is part of the phase New York state restart plan, and as a phase four, business or entity. Most of the state is set to go into phase four next week. So we are approaching that milestone. Phase three we'll start in the Hudson Valley, hopefully knock on wood soon. Governor Cuomo has said in one of his press briefings, that schools will be required to submit reopening plans for approval by the state. He's indicated he'll release the guidance sometime in June. And those plans will be

062due sometime in July. That is really just from his press briefings. We haven't seen any dates or official release times from the state as of yet. And guidance on reopening has not been released. Some of our neighboring states have released their guidance, and we have used that as templates in our, restart planning thus far. I think it's important to understand that it's the virus that's gonna dictate the process of reopening. Should things continue in the way they are looking now with declining hospitalization numbers, declining contagion. Then we look to open, in a way that has more students in the building at any given time. Should there be a change in that virus trajectory that may in fact change. Given the way this virus has worked and the way this pandemic has worked, we have no

063doubt that we'll need to adapt any guidance very quickly. But we'll need to keep in mind what our students and our staff need for appropriate education. You know, starting off this presentation, I wanted to make sure we're all on the same page around some expectations. At the end of this process, I don't think anybody's going to be a hundred percent happy, because we are not going to be doing business as usual. This really is an exercise in looking at a situation that is unfolding, unprecedented, and not the best situation for education. So we're really going to have to adjust our expectations and adjust our practices. Another thing is that change will be constant. We're not going to find ourselves into a new normal until the virus has a viable treatment, and or a vaccination. And

064some of the most frustrating things early on in this is that, we cannot actually make any decisions until the state guidance is received. So, you know, we're in a holding pattern using scenario planning to make sure we're ready to react to that state guidance. But as of right now, we are a little bit in the dark as to what will be required to do for September. And finally, I think it's important just to set out there at the beginning, that any reopening plan that we can create is about mitigating risk and mitigating the ability for the disease to spread within our schools, to students and to staff. It's not about eliminating the risk of that disease altogether. So, you know, that is a key understanding of these procedures that will start to be coming through.

065So we have to talk about how we're going to get to a place for a successful restart plan. And there's really three aspects to that formula. Using a design thinking process where we can really go through iterations of what reopening might look at, or a shared vision between all of the participants. And that includes our community representation, of parents, or teachers, or staff or administrators, and the voice of the student. How do we do that? We're gonna do it through a Steering Committee, and a task specific group set up, with some scenario planning until we get to the state guidance. Our goal is of course a flexible and responsive plan that is well understood by all of our stakeholders. So to talk a little bit about what are our assumptions and what are the three

066structures, which we could viably see as an opening? We could be returning at full capacity, where everyone is physically in the building at the same time, like we would on any normal year. This would indicate we have a virus risk that's lower than it is right at the second. There would need to be restrictions on large group activities and shared spaces. And no groups larger than a full class. I'm gonna get a little bit more into each of these structures as we go on, because these are just the high level kind of understandings of these structures. The second is a hybrid model with mixed groupings. And this would be if we have a virus risk that's a little bit more moderate, or something like we're experiencing now. The state of New York and states in

067the vicinity have really used a population density reduction model, while reopening businesses. And that's what we're using here. The thought that we have to reduce the density of population in our buildings in order to reduce the risk of spread. So we're using two different possibilities. One, which is reopening at 50% of a class capacity, so no larger than half of any regular class. So that would be anywhere from a max of 22 kids in kindergarten, to somewhere in the 26 or 27 area for some high school classes. So half of those classes would be the largest groups available. And then a second possibility hybrid model, where there are no groups larger than 10 students. This is some of the models that we've seen in Europe. And the third and final, will be familiar to us

068is an e-learning or a remote learning situation where there's limited or no opportunity for in-person learning. So just to talk a little bit about design thinking and the process or Steering Committee and then ultimately our task committees have gone through. I won't bore you with all the pieces of this, but really it's about developing deep understandings of the challenges we had, and understanding what we're trying to solve and how we're trying to, work with a problem that we have. And there are many, many challenges in this restart planning process, from logistics to education, to health and safety. And it's about putting everything out on the table. What are all the ideas that we can bring to the table before we start to release any of them. And then really trying to prototype them into workable

069plans? So our Steering Committee and our test committees have gone through this. They are at different stages of this process with each of our scenarios, which I'll get into a bit later. So a real importance is a shared vision. What can we all agree to that we're trying to do? And how can we all be looking in the same direction. The Steering Committee met and thought through our vision from the importance of three particular perspectives. What are our students' experiences going to be? What are our teachers and staff experience is going to be? And what are our family experiences going to be? 'Cause unless we address all of the needs of these groups, we will not have a successful plan. With the help of the Communications Committee which Thomas leads, we have developed a shared

070vision for the restart committee, which I'll read. "The Scarsdale schools restart efforts, "commit to providing an educational environment "that is physically and emotionally safe, "to establishing and nurturing connections "within the full school community, "and foster meaningful learning opportunities "for each student "regardless of the structure of schooling "which takes place in the future." So I think it's important to understand a couple of things in this vision statement. The order is important. We really felt that the educational or the environmental safety and the emotional safety of our schools is of primary importance, which makes a lot of sense in a global pandemic. The second part is, how do we nurture the connections of our community? How do we make sure that we don't lose the important relationships that are necessary for education? And how do we then

071look to the meaningful learning opportunities? And you'll see it doesn't say full curriculum because there are parts of this process and some of these structures, which will really necessitate us looking at what are the core things, especially if we're in a e-learning structure or hybrid model. What are the core things which students need? And what can we get them that in a meaningful way that gives them engagement beyond wrote participation. To give you an idea of this planning structure, at the center of it is our Restart Steering Committee. The Restart Steering Committee is a group of 27. It includes the cabinet, building administration, parents, teachers, and building administration. Under the Restart Planning Committee, we've developed a building and operations and instructions group, which the full Restart Committee serves as. An under them, each level has

072their own Operations Committee along with special education. Elementary then has its own building level groups due to the differences in our different elementary school buildings. We have tasks specific groups in the areas you see here. And really the thought is that these will work in tandem with each other, where the building operations and instruction committees will throw out and develop sketches for plans, and for procedures. And then each of these areas will take a look from their perspective, to figure out how to make those plans and procedures viable. Each group area or each task group is made up of area specialists and representation for administrations, teachers, and parents where they're appropriate. Building operations and instructions as a sub group structure with full parent representation on all of those. Elementary has parent representation from each elementary

073school, and the middle and high school have representation from their parents as well. I think it's important to note that, the PTC has worked very, very hard to provide all of these committees with representation from their elected officers. The thought being that those elected officers were elected to represent parent interests in the community, and they are now serving throughout this planning structure. To give you an idea of what we're hoping for a timeline, and this is subject obviously to change and state guidance and state requirements. This month, June of 2020, developing the structures for planning, starting our initial planning meetings and task group meetings. Doing this right now, which is informing the community of our structure and doing the BOE presentation. Ultimately by the end of this week, we'll also finish with a launch of

074a website attached to our school website that will have, most of the information that you're going to hear tonight, plus our initial workings in the task group. Through the middle of the summer in July, we're asking all of the task groups to provide us with specific recommendations for all of the scenarios. We're nearing that point with scenarios one and two. And we will hopefully be there by the middle of the month with scenarios three and four. Sometime in the middle of July, we'll gonna be providing the community with an initial plan for reopen if we get state guidance. If not, we'll be providing the community with recommendations from each of the scenarios. We're assuming we will have to submit our plan to the state for approval sometime in July, assuming the governor's initial timeline is

075correct. In August as close to the beginning of the month as possible, we're looking to release our specific reopening plan so that parents can be informed of what our process and procedures are. Looking to start the training of faculty and staff as needed. And then ultimately prepare our community for that return, and obviously prepare our facilities. So our three structures of reopening, I'm gonna take a little bit of time and go into each one of the first two, and then Edgar will take up the reins on e-learning and talk a little bit about where we are as far as that goes. So structure one is the full capacity with restrictions. We'll bring all students back. All of these plans that have live instruction expect us to develop a health and safety plan for screening, personal

076protective equipment, and dealing with symptomatic students and staff. Social distancing, we'll restrict groups to no larger than a class. Within that is a larger need to restrict the mixing of groups within the school. In the elementary school, this is slightly easier because the classes are together the entire day, and we can make arrangements for specials. And the mixing of kids is reduced in the elementary schools naturally by their program. This becomes more difficult as we move into the middle and high school, with the high school being certainly the hardest of this piece. We're trying to restrict groups so that there are cohorts of students, and not the same level of mixing between groups, so that if there is a positive case of COVID, the contact tracing and the spread can be mitigated. So at this

077point, our groups are actually preparing the recommendations for the Steering Committee which is meeting this Wednesday. Again, some of our major factors here, mixing of groups in the high school is really going to be at odds with student choice for class placement. The middle school is dealing with out of team classes and mixed classes. And the elementary schools is really trying to work through, how do we have our youngest kids practice good personal protective equipment practices? How do we have them really understand the hygiene? And what do we look like inside a classroom which is usually broken up into sections where kids do sit quite close to each other? So what are those classrooms going to look like if we're coming back in a situation where we're looking to social distance, as much as possible.

078The other pieces that we're looking at here, staffing and student attendance, and this is something that's across all of our in person teaching. There are going to be a number of staff that are in vulnerable categories. There are going to be the number of students who may not feel comfortable returning to school. How does that impact our ability to run classes as they usually are? Where are human capital holes? Where are the teachers coming from who aren't able to return? And can we use them in other fashions, in order to, especially in a hybrid model, to fill other needs. And finally busing for, if there is a restriction on busing for number of students in a bus. I think it's important to note that the CDC at this point, is suggesting that students should be

079placed in every other seat, every other row. That effectively reduces a 66 passenger bus to an 11 passenger bus, which is not possible to bring everybody in a busing route. So, we are waiting on guidance as far as what busing will look like. And if we are in a full capacity type of structure with busing requirements, we may need to think about spreading out arrivals and departures, and doing multiple bus runs that will obviously have budget and time implications. (computer chimes) So the second model is the hybrid model, which assumes that there will be some number of students in school, and some number of students participating in a virtual learning situation. We're using two benchmarks, one 50% capacity of students which will restrict of mixing between groups as in the last one, but also to

080have no larger than half of any given class at a time. Again, our groups here are preparing their recommendations for the Steering Committee. The major factors here are scheduling, what are we going to do? How many days a week are students going to come in? How many days a week are they gonna be on a virtual? One of the things we have certainly come to settle on is that whatever the cycle is, it has to be a five day cycle, rather than an on off cycle, to help families know on a consistent basis when their students would be in school, and when they would be at home, rather than having those days change on a weekly basis because we're doing it every other day. One of the hybrid model questions out there is equity versus

081equality. So are there grades and ages of students that need more live instruction than virtual instruction? What about students with disabilities? Do they need to have additional services or additional time in live instruction? And then we have to look at the virtual component. What is the synchronous versus asynchronous mix? How do we manage teacher workload? Because every day that students are home at virtual, their teachers are teaching students at the same time. And teachers can't be in two places at once. So how do we negotiate making sure that students who are home, have a good experience and engaging experience, but one that isn't necessarily synchronous because the teachers are teaching live classes (indistinct). What are the tech solutions that are involved in this? And what's the childcare implications for families who have kids at home?

082But just as importantly, what's the implications if every school district in New York state has this type of split program and our teachers have kids that are home and to be supervised? Again, staff and student attendance and busing are major factors in this work, and are still questions to be solved as we seek state guidance. There's a second hybrid model and that's groups no larger than 10 students. There are many similar things from this structure to the 50% model. However, there are some new questions that need to be addressed here. If there are only 10 kids allowed in a group and we are doing something less frequent than, a halftime model for live teaching, can we use an instruction model? Or must we move to a support model? Where students aren't getting support in the

083live interactions rather than content delivery. And what is the managing of these groups? How do we make these groups and split them up in a way that gives everybody an equal opportunity to, enjoy the in-person teaching. Again, major issues with scheduling and busing. This would increase the number of routes that need to be planned and executed. and this puts even more stress on the teacher workload piece. How do we develop the ability to deliver content while in a virtual setting and do support in a live setting at the same time? Again, human resources, student attendance, are major issues here as well. So this structure of, the group of no larger than 10, the task groups and building an operations group are just starting their initial thinking about these two structures. So we've started with these

084first two that I spoke about, and are moving on to these two models, in the next week or so as we meet towards the end of school year. I'm gonna turn it over to Edgar next for, e-learning to talk a little bit about where we are in that situation. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Thomas. Interestingly enough, this is both the most restrictive model and it is also the one that we have the most experience and the most research on. We've been doing it for the last several months. And when we think about e-learning and we think about this structure, the major factors that we've been talking about in our steering groups and through conversations of beyond that is that, we have to think about the parents' roles in e-learning, and also the equity of support

085from household to household, and how parents are partnering with us in the work and what their role is. We also have to make sure that we're attending to structures of sustainability and opportunities for teachers to plan together and work together. And part of that is working on content alignment. It's something that it's K-12, but today the elementary school teachers were doing some rolling up their sleeves and doing some fantastic work, and looking across their maps across the district in creating alignment in the major content areas. On Wednesday, they're gonna be meeting with the special area teachers in integrating the maps, so that they can be ready, not just for the start of the year, to make sure that they're aligned. But because e-learning might indeed be something that we return to once we start in

086one of the other scenarios. Could you just go back for a second there? One of the big factors as well is, thinking about what we're doing with our students to make sure that they are as engaged as possible, that we have the tools and the resources to assess them. And that there's a clear understanding of student accountability in this e-learning model. Scheduling is something that we're looking at very closely. And also, as we think about curriculum planning, one of the things I've been talking to teachers about is that, instead of being (indistinct) imagine what it's going to look like in the future with our usual classrooms, like looking through a tunnel, we are instead looking through a prism. So we have to think in terms of flexibly in terms of what it might look like

087since it could be one of these three structures, or it could alternate between these three structures depending on governors guidance, and depending on the safety needs of our students. And another important thing, a major factor is the communication of a clarity of expectation of every single one of the stakeholders as we go forward. You can go into the next one, thanks. So early during the process, we knew that a feedback loop involving all members of the Scarsdale learning community was key. When seeking constructive feedback from students, teachers, and families, we focused on two essential questions. What has been the most effective about e-learning? And also what has been the most challenging about e-learning? So through a multi-pronged process, we received information on a variety of topics, including effective instructional methods, student wellness, curriculum adaptations, workload,

088technological platforms, and scheduling techniques. We did a lot of surveying. Scarsdale families were surveyed in March, in may to determine how e-learning was being received in households across the district K-12. Between two surveys, we received well over a thousand responses from families. We also helped focus groups receive feedback directly with parents through emails, Zoom, and Board of Education discussions. Building leadership teams, engage parents in ongoing discussions about e-learning and transfer that feedback across the district. Students at the secondary level were surveyed about their successes, struggles, and feedbacks on teaching methods. And focus groups for secondary students were held at the middle and high school. In elementary Q and A webinar was held with students representing every grade from kindergarten to fifth grade. And I have to do a special shout out to Doctor Hagerman, who

089is channeling his former fifth grade teacher to host the session. And most importantly, students provided teachers with regular and direct feedback about their engagement, difficulties and in some cases, their breakthroughs. This input has been, and will continue to be the subject of ongoing professional dialogue throughout the process. Sudden need for experimentation and innovation necessitated new structures to be established for teachers to collaborate and share resources, strategies, struggles, assessment tools, technologies, and teaching methods. At the high school and middle school, faculty meetings led by Megan and Ken, the department and team structures to provide opportunities for feedback and sharing. At the elementary level, we created designated grade level collaboration time during the week, and three planning days in which students were engaged in wellness activities, a celebration of specials, and a virtual field day. The products

090created by our faculty through these collaborations, have become dynamic artifacts that have provided essential guidance, and are pointing us towards more robust structures and practices, should e-learning need to continue next year at whatever form. As well, Jerry and I are hosting a focus group tomorrow with, teachers across the elementary to look very carefully at those practices, and get even additional data from that. Well, none of us would have chosen this instructional environment. We are grateful to our students, parents, faculty and administrators for engaging so thoughtfully in this forced experiment. We are committed to using this experience in conjunction with the feedback and reflection as a catalyst for our restart planning. So our work to date has really been about connecting the dots. And when we say connecting the dots, it's about looking at those themes

091that we've been getting feedback. We've been getting feedback across families, teachers, students, and also feedback that we've been drawing on from educational partners in the region. And also, articles that have been coming out about what's going on, not just nationally, but internationally. And here are the big themes that have come up, but they're not all of them. One is an attention to health, wellness, and fun. And I think Thomas was incredibly articulate about it. We have to not forget about the joy, and think of ways of making connections with students. And making sure that it is not just about the academics, but it's about student to student connections, in some way, keeping clubs and extra curricular activities alive. So that students feel that exhilaration, that connection, that other type of learning. And that we're very

092thoughtful about maintaining our special areas. We are Scarsdale and have always appreciated and attended to the arts, to physical wellness, to music, to musical instruments. And we have to think about a way of integrating it as meaningful and as safely as possible into our e-learning environment. We've also gotten feedback from stakeholders about predictable structures and schedules across the grades. And also regular live synchronous connections with students. A large of research is coming out about the importance of small group and individual engagement. So that we're not just Zooming with a large group of students. While that is sometimes appropriate, we're also making sure that we're attending to the small groups and individual engagements as appropriate. We're also have to be mindful about thinking about those asynchronous activities and those projects to make sure that though they

093are meaningful and connected to students' lives. The ones that are turning out to be the most exciting for students, are the ones in which they can make choices, develop their passions, and also, there are big essential questions that really get to their creative and critical thinking skills. What we've also heard too is that, it's very important across the district for us to be as transparent as possible about both student and parent expectations. Because we are indeed in this e-learning structure three partners in this work. And also one of the things that we need to continue to work on and then attend to, is cohesive feedback to students, feedback from families, back to teachers, and also developing authentic, meaningful, fair, assessments that can be performed and done online through this digital platform. And, you know, I

094think it's important to note and call out both Edgar and our teachers specifically. They have thrown themselves into this curriculum work both through this pandemic and providing students with instruction over the last four months. But also just as, eagerly attacked the curriculum work that needs to happen before we start for next year. There's universal understanding that next year is starting structure may not be our ending structure, and we may need to be flexible from e-learning to live learning to everything in between as we move along. And teachers have worked tirelessly over the last three to four weeks in, starting to look at that forward thinking curriculum. And how do we do that? How do we create an environment that we can move on a dime and switch from various modes of instruction almost instantaneously. And

095it has not been an easy project. And I wanna give a shout out to the teachers for their participation. I wanna give a shout out to the parents who have been on our committees, and have been so thoughtful, And so engaged in the process in a way that has been unbelievably helpful in moving us forward. And I'd like to thank our building administrators also for really focusing in on, how do we make the larger structures work in individual buildings? So with that, I'm gonna open it up to questions, knowing full well that a month of work on restart planning, we've done a lot of work and created more questions than we had on day one very successfully. And we'll continue to answer those questions throughout the summer. So I'll open it up to those of

096you, but I am gonna unshare my screen because I can't see everybody while it's shared. And I need to see everybody to see who has questions. Alison and then Carl. So Eric, Edgar, Thomas, I want to thank you. This is looking like a very intensive and well thought out process that is incorporating all of the stakeholder groups, listening input, considering a wide variety of factors. And I know how difficult it is to be operating in an environment life with so much uncertainty. So I think all of your scenario planning, and all of your contingency planning is really going to go a long way towards making sure that we are prepared. And I thank you for that. My question has to do with how we will measure success. Well, part of this planing I (indistinct) not

097in the initial stage, but as we move further into creating the plan for the state, and submitting and sending the information to parents, will it include opportunities for, will there be measurability? Will there be benchmarking? So that we can determine what the expectations should be for teachers for families, for our students, early on maybe two months in as we move forward. But that really, how will we measure how well would doing? Awesome, that's a great question. And that's actually part of the work, the summer work that we've already pivoted, to make sure that as students are moving from grade to grade, that there is an assessment that we're developing so that we can make sure that we know where students are. And one of the things I was talking about before was also working with

098teachers on the tools that are progress monitoring, to make sure that we have the correct tools that are matched with the technology. So we can see that our students are progressing and that the methods that we're using are moving them forward. You know, I think it's also a combination. There's educational success and progress, which if we're live is measured in many of the traditional ways, if we're e-learning as Edgar said, there's lots of work to do on how do we virtually assess our students to understand their learning? But I think the other piece is, is the plan that we've developed serving our family's needs and allowing them to do the things they need? And if we are in a virtual or hybrid type of situation that will be a challenge, but we will set up

099feedback loops as we start the year to hear from parents, to hear from faculty and staff, and then probably most importantly, to hear from students about what their experiences have been, how they are fairing in, in the plan. You know, the design thinking piece and we're using it for a reason is, has an iteration aspect to it. And wherever we start in September, there will no doubt be adjustments and (overlapping chatter) As Eric said, we have many different subcommittees, all of whom have different metrics that they are accounting for. If you're looking at facilities, that's, you know, a different kind of metric and benchmark, then e-learning versus mental health versus technology versus transportation. So, Eric, as in part of the structure of setting this up, has really encouraged us to think about metrics, that we

100all want to be measuring so that we have a really multidimensional approach to this work, and understand how we're operating as a full plan. And not just necessarily as isolated silos. Carl you got a question? Yeah, a couple of questions or points of thought. And I apologize if my dogs are heard shortly. The first thing is I think on metrics engaging where we are, first of all, I appreciate all the work that started on this. It's a huge undertaking, and I realize that you're all doing it in addition to what you normally do. And it's not just sort of instead of something else. And same to the parents who even volunteered for this. That having been said, in terms of curriculum and I by no means, hold myself as an expert but I think that

101we start at a certain point of, this is what we kind of expect every year. And now we're, I think as you present that to parents, it will be helpful. Not necessarily right now because right now we're hoping that by the end of next year, we're where we would normally be at the end of next year I guess. But it might be helpful if when things happen, people could understand with a little bit more particularity as to, you know, where we're slowing down, maybe what we're eliminating? So that they're not at sea wondering is my kid going to be in the right place at the end of the year, or are they missing something critical, which I don't believe will be the case, but I think there's a lot of uncertainty. I mean, especially even

102in the younger grades, I certainly couldn't say year to year what I expected my third or fourth grader to come out knowing. But if this was going on, I would certainly be concerned that they were missing something. So, in addition to the kind of metrics and measurements, I think just information would be helpful. And to start thinking about, how that could be a part of at different stages, depending on what's happening. The other-- Sorry. Sorry, oh you can go ahead I have another. Oh no, I was just gonna respond to that because you touched on one of the, points that was recurring and in some of the feedback that we've gotten, which is in interest in a more transparency around a curriculum and expectations. And the part of teachers who want, it's very important that

103teachers and educators, that parents and families understand that when we're in this particular e-learning environment, we've looked at critically the essential skills that we need to, get across, to make sure that people understand that it's not business as usual. That we're using these tools in a way that's the best that we possibly can. But on the other side as well, we've heard from parents that they're very interested in understanding, the flow of the curriculum in a way that's more transparent, so that they can be partners and give additional support. So I just wanted to address that. It is one of the themes that we've heard. Yeah I think, you know, there's a lot of things going on there and that's something to attack. The other thing, and I know you have subcommittees, but you know,

104one of the things on one of the slides, I can't remember which it was, but you had a timeline like June, July, August. And at the end of August you had, or not at the end of August, in August on that list, one of the items was preparing facilities. And I'm a little concerned about putting that at the end, because for instance, maybe we wanna put in cameras in all the classrooms, so that if you have a split class, the other class is sitting home. At least they're watching it on Zoom. And maybe there needs to be a big screen, because maybe the whole class is isn't on, but the teacher is still there in the classroom using the whiteboard or the facilities that he or she has and calling on kids. And it's virtual,

105but it's, you know, I don't know. Yeah, I can address that. When I say preparing facilities, we're preparing for the facility needs that we'll need in September right now. We're really going through that. One of the major focuses of all of our task groups is giving us the longterm needs that they think they have now, so that we can do that procurement. You know, the idea of, and I just I'll address it just so we understand. You know, the idea of virtually streaming classes and having, you know, some group of the kids at home watching and some group in live, you know, we've looked at that, the idea of streaming every class on every day, and just the pure broadband and technological needs that that would in case. So those are kinds of the things

106that we're working out now. And what I would say is, that's difficult to know exactly, what we will need in September, and we're doing our best to figure that out now. When I said preparing facilities in that slide, it was more about understanding what the state guidance was, and the spacing, and the cleaning, and making sure that the building is ready. And we have things staged in a way from the health and safety perspective, from a curriculum perspective. We are preparing now as is facilities through the whole year. That was more of a buttoning up the building for final start up. Yeah okay, I understand. In general, if there are opportunities that involve, hopefully not construction but upgrading whatever it may be, or even maybe things we need to do in terms of protection that

107we can do, making cleaning more easier and faster. Whatever those things are, those are things I feel like, you know, we don't need to worry about what the curriculum is gonna be necessarily do them. Right, okay. We've, Thank you. Just to give you an example, Drew and I have spent, and we'll spend the next couple of weeks, basically walking through every building with principals, focusing in on the areas where we need signage, the areas where we need standoffs, the areas where we need to put up glass partitions, the areas where if it is a shared room, is there a divider that needs to be put up here or there, you know? Arrival and dismissal working with principals to figure out, how to spread that out in a way to mitigate the crowds of parents and,

108kids coming in in the doors. So those are all things we're actively doing right now 'cause they are long lead time situations, especially since things like glass partitions are gonna be, being ordered by every business school and, you know, shop in the entire country. So those are things that we do have long lead times of. Another questions, concerns? I have a question. You mentioned adapting and moving nimbly being important. I completely agree with that. Do you feel that we've identified and addressed obstacles that prevented us from adapting and moving nimbly over the last several months so that we're prepared in the fall to be able to do that? We're certainly in that phase now. Looking at what were the biggest challenges to moving to an online curriculum for students, you know, I think, Edgar can

109talk to it as well, but, you know, the idea of having cohesion amongst teachers, especially so that they can share workload, and share teaching opportunities, and share the ability to jump in and out of different units quickly, is something that we're focusing on right now. And I don't know if Edgar you wanna. Yeah, now I think that, during this time of experimentation and innovation, we've learned a lot. And I think we've learned a lot about how to make it more sustainable. And, based on the feedback that we've gotten, we have some time to prepare to nimbly shift. Because we are looking through a prism. So we're imagining lots of different scenarios. We were also at a period of time when we were doing a huge cultural shift from being in a classroom to then suddenly

110being online. So that came with not a great deal of personal experience. One of the experiences we've had is we've been quite isolated, where we've had some e-learning at the high school, and sometimes at the younger level where kids who have done some distance learning and advanced classes, largely brand new to everybody. This is period of growth and experimentation. And there have been, at the classroom level, a lot of nimbleness where teachers have responded, they've learned, they've shared. Now we're looking more systemic way at how we can be, more nimble as an organization. And we've learned a lot. There's been some real exemplary practices, and we can take those and we can take some of the most successful structures, and we can go forward in a way that's sustainable. I do wanna keep a context

111in mind though. Ron, you know, it's interesting when we think about some of the biggest challenges that we faced in moving to e-learning. Some of the biggest challenges where some of the biggest benefits that our kids received in Scarsdale school district. And that's the ability of teachers, to look at the class in front of them, take them down a road that they weren't originally (computer chimes) work with them because of their needs and their understandings. And be able to, you know, practice and professional autonomy that allowed them to engage in a way that was novel and right for that class. As you know, there is some loss of that as we moved to much more cohesion in order to allow for this flexibility. So, you know, we've found good ways to do that and I

112think, but there is loss on, the other end when we need to be as cohesive as we're looking to be next year because of the need to be flexible. So just, you know, it's not a zero sum game. Yeah, thank you. Just two pieces that I think would be helpful, I think you're thinking about them that I think would be helpful as we communicate to the community or just discuss amongst ourselves or one. I think it's alluded to in, the communications piece. But, you know, ensuring that we don't lose our core values of this district. So, you know, we're having a lot of conversations. And I know it's the most important about plexiglass dividers and six foot distances and busing and all those things are important. But I just feel like sometimes we need to

113make sure we take a step back, and I'd even love to see it in the communications that we go out with, that, you know, they are certain core values of this district and about education, and we have to address all the safety pieces and the health. And I'm sure that will all be addressed. But if we lose those core values in doing that, we've lost a lot. And maybe this is a phase two of this piece, but in the similar way that we hear a lot of New York state talking about, "Okay, we have to get through this. "But we also are going to get through this better." I would love to hear a little bit, I know you guys have a ton of things happening. So I'm not saying tonight, I'm just saying in

114general, I know as a parent, I've done some things better than I'm gonna take with me with my own kids, that I would have never thought about, had it not been for this. And if it's a silver lining, it's a silver lining. And I would love to hear some of those. Because those might be things that we revisit as a district a year from that, two years from now. And I would hate to, not at least bring them up to the community and make sure the community shares them with their teachers, with the administrators, with the board, that they'd like to see. You're absolutely right. I think we might be a little closed for the, rear view mirror right at this point. But I do think we're gonna have learning experiences throughout all of next

115year that will ultimately find their way into whatever the or return to normal is. Absolutely agree with you. And I would say the work of the mission statement was absolutely trying to capture some of those pieces, so that not everybody's going to agree on what those priorities are. There was worrying about, you know, moving nimbly. But when you look at the priorities of folks, it was really around, safety, physical safety, emotional safety, it's around making sure that we establish and nurture the connection with the full school community, and fostering meaningful learning opportunities. So I would say those right off the bat brought other things that we have identified as being those core values, and it's guiding all of our work and all of the subcommittees. I'm just saying, if we had the safest school in

116the world in the health perspective, but our students weren't leaving there, receiving those values that they would normally get. You know, why be there? I think we all noticed it needs to circle back, and just make sure. Obviously people need to have their health and safety when they're in these buildings. But those other pieces are so important. And thank you for the work on all of this. And then the initial work on the mission and vision started with actually our district vision and mission. So, you know, it was at the core of what we were talking about. I agree with you totally Ron there, we need to keep our values, our educational system in mind. Thanks for your work in all this. Thank you. Any other questions? Oh, in terms of the timeline, we're gonna

117have a website as kind of the next big the. And then we will hear from the governor hopefully with some guidelines, for the plan creation. We do know that something's happening in July with a presentation to the regions, which is going to kind of impact a lot of plan component requirements, and guidance from the state so you know. Yeah, just as an FYI to the community and the board, the regions have developed Regional Task Forces, which start to meet next week and into the first week of July. So the idea that the school guidance is going to come out before the end of June would surprise me, just given that timeline. So I'm working under the assumption that school guidance will come out sometime in the middle of July with a very short turnaround window

118to school districts if you know, past is present. Our experience to date has certainly been that the governor has proffered some guidance that's been incomplete. It takes days to weeks to decipher sort of what the intent of that is. And then days to weeks to offer some alternatives, or some clear guidance in terms of practical use for school districts. So, I think these are the best intention timelines, but I think in much of the way that we've had to find our own way and be prepared. So I think Eric has certainly signaled to us, that it's full steam ahead in terms of planning, so that when the guidance and, you know, has been both given and clarified that we have appropriate plans that can be easily matched up, or at least altered to match up

119to those expectations. We laugh in the committee that is a collaborative process and an authoritarian timeline, so. And that authoritarian can shift from day to day. (loud laughing) And so will task forces will continue to meet. The Steering Committee has multiple meetings throughout the summer into August and, community members can continue to reach out to a parent representatives as best people and or Edgar and Eric. Yep, I they can reach out to district or building administration. You can reach out to the PTC on the website. We will have a full list of all the names on each of the task force. So you can reach out in that way as well. Outstanding, thank you. Very impressive and very thorough. Thank you very much. Yeah. So, next on the agenda is, item seven which is hearing

120from those present. We know many attendees have questions for Eric, Thomas and Edgar, but this board has been sitting since 5:30. So it is my recommendation that we take a five minute break before public comment. Stretch your legs and get back here for public comment. All right, so everybody can take a five minute recess. We'll mute video off. Okay. All right. So we will restart our meeting with, hearing from those present. And again, we have a policy on public comment, which includes the request from the board that you keep your comments brief, that they relate to district matters, and you avoid to a particular personnel. So with that, let me get going, with the hand raising selections. So I will promote you to panelists. Please, when you're unmuted state your name and address, and if

121you're representing any organizations. And I believe I'm promoting Hae Won Sung, to panelists now if I'm lucky. In one minute until you're unmuted. (computer keyboard click) All right, you should be able to speak. And we can see you just for fair (chuckles) notification. Go ahead. Hi, my name is Hae Won Sung. I am an upcoming senior at Scarsdale High School. Could you please invite my other friends as a panelist as well? 'Cause we have a joint speech prepared regarding Title IX. Their names are Vivian Guo, Lea Reisel, Nolan Bansal, Daheun Oh, Neema Mwamburi and Elliot Weinbaum. I may ask you to repeat those because it's (indistinct) So one at a time. (overlapping chatter) I've got one. I've got Vivian. We have Lea Reisel. There she is, thank you. One second. Lea's coming up. Nolan Bansal

122Okay Nolan. Daheun Oh. One one more second, one second. Let me just unmute Nolan. They want Oh, okay. Neema Mwamburi. Oops, I might've promoted the wrong person. Okay, anyone else? Elliot Weinbaum. He's the last. Elliot. What's the last name? Weinbaum. I don't see Elliot with a hand. Oh, I see no hand, but I hope (indistinct) that person. Is that everyone? Can see everyone there? There is one, two, three, Yeah four, five, six of you. Oh, wait, Daheun is not. Is missing? Daheun Oh, D-A-- Thank you. Daheun is coming one second. One, two, three, four, five. Seven of us. Seven of you. Okay, do you need to all be unmuted at a time all at simultaneously? Okay. Yes I guess I believe so. Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to speak. Okay. Thanks

123everyone. So I guess I can get started. So first I would like to say thank you to the board for hosting this meeting and for your time and attention for this public commentary. My friends and I are concerned about these new federal changes to Title IX. So as I'm sure many of you know. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that makes schools work towards gender equality and have established procedure against cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault. So on May 6th, the secretary of education issued new changes to Title IX. And we believe that these changes, tip the scales against your survivors. And these new changes require schools to account for what we think are only the most extreme cases of sexual misconduct. And we would like to know the board's current stance

124on these changes, and what they're planning to do before these new changes are enforced on August 14th. The most glaring example of these backup regulations is that they're definition of sexual harassment. Under the new changes, sexual harassment is defined as quote, Severe pervasive and objectively offensive. Previously, the definition was severe or pervasive. If for not this, for example, severe and pervasive when not objectively offensive, it will not meet the definition. Schools are not be obligated to consider sexual assault and can't sweep cases like these under the rug, even if it's proven that the accused did commit these acts. We spoke to Mister Patrick, our district Title IX coordinator. And he said that, "Well, many of you are aware of the new changes. "There's not been much deliberation." We urge the Scarsdale Union Free School District

125to commit to taking sexual violence seriously, and reject certain clauses of the federal changes. We understand that we are luck to live in a district where other laws protect us as well, such as the Dignity for All Students Act and boards and policies, but many other communities aren't guaranteed the same protections. And it's important for the board to listen to it's students and set a model. We compiled a list of eight demands that we would like the Board of Education to implement to the best of its ability. The board has the flexibility to choose how it interprets each clause, which means that they have the power and obligations to stand up for survivors. We (indistinct) on email and in the last two days, that we posted a petition and it's already accumulated on more than

126200 signatures for concerned citizens. The first demand is to reestablish the preponderance of evidence as the standard of evidence within these cases. With the preponderance standard, the burden of proof is met when the party with the burden convinces the fact finder, that there was a greater than 50% chance that the claim is true. Now, while this is a little jargony, basically what it means is that both the accuser and the accused are on a level playing field in terms of the burden of proof. The new regulation shanks to clear and convincing evidence, meaning that the burden of proof is placed substantially on the accuser. As Title IX cases are by definition civil cases and civil cases are overwhelmingly conducted under preponderance of evidence, we implore the board to revert to it as the only standard

127that values the voices, of both complainants and respondents equally. Our second demand is to maintain a time limit of 60 calendar days to complete all sexual misconduct cases. Lengthy investigations are emotionally tasking on both survivors and, the complainants and often cause students to drop out. The third is that even during the pandemic, we urge the school district to continue to respond promptly to reports of sexual misconduct. The board demands to give students protection, no matter where they are. New regulations say, schools are not responsible if misconduct took place off school grounds for outside of school sponsored activities. Students need protection, regardless of where the incident occurred. Our fifth demand is subpar the use of informal resolution mechanisms, such as letting the Title IX accuser and the accused interact externally. Informal mediation in cases of sexual

128assault is widely agreed to be inappropriate, even on safe measures in these types of situations. The sixth demand is reinstating the department of education's rescinded 2016 guidance on protecting LGBTQ+ students. This ensures all students of gender identity or sexual orientation have equal access to a safe learning environment. Our seventh is to give students training on online sexual harassment. When schools move online due to COVID-19. So do sexual harassment. It's important for the school to set specific boundaries on online sexual harassment and educate students. Our eighth demand is to elect Title IX officers in the Scarsdale High School Student Body. These elected representatives will represent an advocate for their schoolmates. In conclusion, we demand the Board of Education adopt these eight policies to uphold student rights and commit to an inclusive space. As dedicated members of

129this community, we believe it's up to school districts to assume leadership in protecting students, especially when the federal government is failing us. We really appreciate you all giving us this platform to voice our concerns. We look forward to seeing the boards issue a public statement in coming weeks. Thanks, thanks to all of you. Well say you now, it might be something new and different for you. During public comment. We hear from our community members, but we don't respond specifically to the comments until the end of the meeting. You might have seen that in the agenda in wrap up to public comment. I know that there are administrators who are prepared to speak to this. And I can speak to it a bit about what might be happening next on behalf of the board. So unfortunately,

130you're gonna have to wait a little later for specific response to this, but we really appreciate you coming forward, sending us your letter last night, and then again, reiterating everything today. It's very helpful for us, thank you. Thank you so much, we appreciate the platform. Thomas, do you wanna say something now? Or are you just saying hi and goodbye? You're muted so we can't hear you. (chuckles) Okay. I know, I was just thanking them for being here and participating tonight, thank you. It means a lot. Thank you. So I'm going to go to the next person whose hand's raised. And again, we'll be in touch with you. Marshall Kotain, I'm going to raise your hand. I mean, I'm going to promote you to panelist, unmute you, please state your name and address. Marshall, you should

131be all right. Thank you. my name is Marshall Kitain on 11 Butler Road. I'd like to talk tonight about the restarting information presented. The shared vision statement is on target, I believe in terms of the right goals. But the alternatives and scenarios presented do not fulfill that vision. And I'm concerned that we are not creatively thinking about how to solve the problem of reducing density. And if we fail to get creative, then we are resigned to pick only between subpar options. I approach you tonight you know, as the parent of an elementary school learner. And the hybrid and full e-learning scenarios here do not and cannot fulfill the vision around nurturing connections or fostering meaningful learning opportunities. And I'm deliberately using your exact words from the vision statement. I can go through an enormous list

132of the problems and heartache with Zoom school. But at its core, e-learning is a very poor substitute that leaves kids uninspired and demotivated. And even as I say those words, that does not begin to convey the sadness that I've seen my daughter when she desperately wants to participate, but no she's not called on because she shared something last week. Last week! This is not the form of individual teachers, no that's heartbreaking to see at the youngest levels. It's heartbreaking to see your students become this uninterested and unenthusiastic. And speaking to the, you know, the adults and the people in positions of authority, I recognize that you were being honest, you being thoughtful, you were preparing a detailed agenda, But it is not bold, it is not innovative. And this is not a problem that can

133be solved with better training or better curriculum. In our hearts, we should know there is no replacement for the magic of a classroom for young learners and our students deserve that. So if we start from the place that our youngest kids deserve more than an online education, I think we can find the strength to reject easy answers and focus on what matters. How do we get back kids to school safely? So proactively where I would like to see is this board and administration engage the community to aggressively tackle the real problem. Safely reopened schools on a full time basis. And if physical capacity is the problem, then let's solve that problem. Let's talk about habit, add outdoor classrooms. Let's talk about tents. If that doesn't work, let's talk about restructuring the school day. So kids

134spend half their day inside the classroom and from half a day in small groups somewhere else on the campus. Let's talk about how we utilize these aides in different way that help reduce density to utilize specials differently. All of these in my opinion, are infinitely better than, you know, solutions that are, you know, alternate between online school and real school. And I recognize that there are some students and teachers who are high risk and that they may need distance learning as an option for a longer period of time. But you know, for those, there should be an option to pair those teachers with those students and give an online option, not for everyone, but for those who want it. And so as a society, you know, this whole COVID thing is not just the healthcare

135crisis, it's the biggest educational crisis in decades. As a parent and a tax payer, I urge you to focus on what matters and not accept answers that fail your own vision statement. We do not need things like stadium lights, what we need need is kids in school. And also if I can add, you know, while we are talking about an issue that is enormously profound for the lives of all of our stakeholders. And I challenge the idea that you've received sufficient parent and student engagement. Even right now, you and I are not having a dialogue. I've been on the phone for almost two and a half hours to make my point tonight. And I'm not going to get a response anytime soon, I have to wait until item 16 on the agenda. And even then

136I won't be recognized to respond in dialogue with you. That's unfair. And this process is an insult to the parents in this community who are beyond stretched right now, and don't have the time to devote to this like I have tonight. So I urge you to offer dedicated listening sessions as soon as possible and to not cherry pick voices, but aggressively seek other voices. Without that, I fear this entire discussion is missing the forest for the trees. E-learning for young students was not a success. It may have been necessary. It may have even been better than what other districts did, but it was not and cannot be a Scarsdale education. We can do better than revert to online or partially online young learners. And I urge you to think creatively about how we can use

137all of our campus, all of our resources, to reduce density and get young kids back where then you could be, which is in the classroom. Thank you very much. Yingyong Chen, I am promoting you to panelist. One moment please. I believe. Check. Yes I can hear you, go right ahead. Name and address please, then go ahead. Thanks Pam, this is Yingyong Chen from 122 Fox Meadow Road. First I wanna thank the board and our school district and our teachers and the staff obviously for all the hard work, and for the election and for everything associated with that. And then I want to focus on the e-learning part. As I have spoken a couple of times in the past. And I echo a lot of the sentiment expressed by the previous speaker. Our e-learning, especially at

138the elementary level was not a success, was far from one, it's a failure. So you call it e-learning. I told my kids it's a F-learning. How do we tell (indistinct) its failed? How can we tell? I asked my son who was in fourth grade in fourth (indistinct). Say, "Hey, how was your third day of the vacation?" He said, "Do you mean that third month?" So I think that tells a lot. So we cannot call it real education. When our teacher are spending two hours a week or maybe three hours a week with the kid. They normally spend 20, 30 hours a week. And we can not sit with the all the education waste. This is impossible. The time just doesn't add up. And we have special sessions that's 30 minutes every two weeks. I mean,

139we cannot learn Spanish that way. And we have other special session that's 15 minutes a time. And once every two weeks. That's basically five minutes saying hi and five minutes saying bye. And the other five minutes muting and unmuting each other. So, I mean (chuckles) I want to say three points I only make, One, whether we're gonna do e-learning or live in person teaching or hybrid or both, that's going to be largely determined by the whole situation. So it's hard to predict. Our district should not forget our objective and our expectation. Our objectives should be the same, whether it's e-learning or live in person teaching or hybrid. We should strive to teach the same amount of education or instruction to all our students, whether it's, you know, a physical classroom or is in a Zoom

140classroom or whatever we maybe have to do. The amount of learning or teaching can not be reduced. I do not think that was the case this past semester and far from it. So that objective should be always kept on our mind. And two, I agree with the board, Pam, and I think Ron both mentioned accountability. What our plan, we, the school district device for this e-learning whatever learning process for the fall, I propose, or I suggest the board needs to be able to review and approve, so that there is a clear accountability. And also, within the semester, we can measure how we're doing, whether the district is delivering a sufficient education to the students. I certainly do not think we did that last semester. And I wasn't alone. I can tap that. So I suggest

141our board take a very active role in monitoring, both in pre approving the plan, that will be proposed by the district, and also keep an active role in monitoring and then, correcting any issue in the semester, that's two. And three, I mentioned this a couple of times in past meetings, we need to avoid try to have the most wonderful most complicated process, for something that can design a rocket, but then ended up delivering a bicycle to the community. We need to keep the objective in mind and we need to have the full education and then deliver those to the students. Again, we may have to do it in a physical classroom, or we may have to do it over Zoom, but we do not want the process to clout out the actual product. And then

142we want the community and particularly the students. I really do not see our kids, especially the younger one, getting the kind of attention or education or anything in this process. I think our district is responsible for delivering that. I do not think. So our districts says "We're Scarsdale." I do not think we were Scarsdale. This semester has not been Scarsdale standard it's far from it. And last one, a short one. Why we cannot be sure we will be able to return to school have physical teaching, school district needs to start to prepare now and budget for PPEs and disinfected and the equipment and the personnel. So that just, if there's 10% chance we were returned, we should have all this equipment and all the funding available so that we have then our staff member can

143safely disinfect our classrooms, and our rooms can be rearranged and our activities can be carried out in a safe and found manner. So, I want us to start really budget plan for that as soon as possible. Again finally now I want to thank everyone for all your hard work and I think we all have the same objective. We need to deliver the better education experience for our kids. Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks Yingyong. I'm going to promote Ada Carlucci at this point. And let me unmute you. And please, there you go. State your name and address, or if you represent an organization, go ahead please. Hi I'm Ada Carlucci at 258 Fox Meadow Road, and I have two elementary age children at Fox Meadow. A lot of the comments I was going to make

144Mister Yingyong Chen also, you know, touched on them. My concern is as we're planning forward, I wanted to know with the Steering Committee, I guess I'm not sure who was on the Steering Committee or who was invited into the Steering Committee, but I wanted to know whether there were any medical professionals or infection control professionals on the committee. I know there's quite a few medical professionals in Scarsdale that were on the front lines with the COVID crisis, and they have a lot to say. And I know that there are a lot of concerned parents on Facebook Moms that also have a lot to say, and a lot of us are wondering, who's on the Steering Committee and what's going forward. And I think there's a lot of concern, myself included about the school's disinfection processes

145because our past few winters in dealing with the flu were not that successful. So we're wandering now in the fall with, you know, the US medical professionals, as well as other countries medical professionals, all concurring that the fall will bring a second wave. What the school's disinfection policies will be. That's it. Well that's firstly, second thing is I do agree with Mister Yingyong Chen. We're wondering about the PPE, whether that's going to be possible to find, especially in the children's sizes, which as you know, with the masks, they have to be certain sizes and they have to be sized to fit on the face. So now I imagine every scenario that the children will be in school at least part time. So what procedures will be in place to make sure children are properly fitted

146for the masks. Okay, that's it. Right, thank you Myra, I'm promoting you to panelist. One moment, please. There you are, let me unmute you. All right, you should be good to go, Myra. Hi, good evening. I'm Myra Kirkenall-Rodriguez also Fox Meadow Road. Thank you very much Doctor McIntosh and Doctor Rauschenbach for your presentation on planning. Definitely unbelievably challenging with a level of risks, which are things that we can measure, and also the level of uncertainties, which unfortunately cannot be measurable. Thank you very much for taking into account parents and our family lives as you do this planning. That's obviously very important. And thank you very much, Scott and Chris for being so respectful and considerate of parent input. My husband Bryce and I are really gonna miss you. I hope after this pandemic you'll come

147and visit us, mi casa es tu casa. I was really hoping that perhaps this evening, or maybe later on in the week, you would let us know if the Steering Committees have been fully staffed already. What parents are in the Steering Committees and groups? Is it only parents who are in the PTC or chosen by the PTC? Were other parents not in the PTC or PTA executive groups informed about these volunteer opportunities? Were emails sent to all parents? Did the information appear in local media? Are the parent volunteers chosen thus far representative of Scarsdale demographics? What are their experiences and or professional expertise? Are any of the parents right now in these committees from dual working families? That is dual working couples? Are any of them single parents? Are any of them parents of children

148with attention deficit disorder children? Or parents of children with special needs? Do you believe Doctor McIntosh and Doctor Rauschenbach and Doctor Hagerman. Do you believe that these groups have a good level of cognizant diversity? And how are you identifying and measuring that diversity? Also, when will the objectives and metrics to measure success for these different committees and groups be released to residents? On e-learning, I first read on Facebook Scarsdale Buzz, formerly Scarsdale Moms, that there were focus groups for e-learning. It's possible that I missed an email, I've been a bit busy lately. But I am curious how parents were informed about these focus groups, what communication methods were used to find volunteers. would you kindly let us know how these groups are formed? We're volunteer sought for the community at large? Who was chosen? Have

149they already met? What happened at these focus groups? Who designed the questions? Another point on e-learning. Many of us have already spoken either this evening or in previous evenings about the challenges of e-learning, especially at the elementary school level. When I hear Mister Katain whom I've never met, when I hear Mister Chen, Miss Carlucci, believe me, I can empathize. I have two elementary school children myself. I am very glad to hear Doctor McIntosh that you're thinking about small groups. When I do distance learning mind you it's for adults, smaller groups certainly work best. What about the potential joys of e-learning however? I know we're aware of the challenges, but what about some of the joys? What are your thoughts and plans about improving math at the elementary school level? In my personal experience, and when

150I compare the math curriculum here in Scarsdale at the elementary school level, with what I see in several STEM schools around the country, and in other countries, there's not enough math at the elementary school. For example, I personally see very little in the elementary school curriculum in the area of financial literacy, not a lot about data visualization or interpretation. Is it possible that maybe we can use e-learning and ways to supplement for those kids who are ready for a lot more math and different kinds of maths? What about taking this time to improve and add to the romance language program in elementary and middle school level? For example, why should children who already speak Spanish or who learn it quickly? Like our largely growing Brazilian population? Why should these kids have to sit through beginner

151Spanish at the elementary school? Why not use e-learning to take another language and make those students' time better spent? What about the middle school? Why should students be restricted only to romance languages like Spanish and French? Is it possible that we could deploy e-learning and have these students be able to take tougher languages like Mandarin, Arabic, or Hebrew? Thank you very much for your time. And I look forward to hearing from you about my questions pose this evening or in the near future. Thank you very much. Thank you, Myra. I heard a lot of questions. I'm wondering if there's a possibility you could send a document to us with all those questions because we would appreciate seeing them listed so (chuckles) so we can be sure that we're considering all of them and getting back

152to you when possible, if you don't mind. I think I don't see any other hands up, so, Oh, there's one. Bob Harrison promoting you. I don't see you. There you go. One moment, please. Let me unmute you. Okay, I can hear you Bob go ahead. Okay, good evening. Thank you, Bob Harrison, 65 Fox Meadow Road, chairman of the Scarsdale Taxpayer Alert. I'm sorry, a little late to your meeting. And there was a Fox Meadow Neighborhood Association meeting at 7:30 with mayor Samwick and trustee Arest, which was important to those of us who live in the Fox Meadow neighborhood. So, can you say how many people are your call on Zoom approximately? Hello? You do it at the end though. Okay, all right. I mean, you know, it is what it is. So anyway, I got

153on when Mister Kotain, I believe his name is Marshall Kotain was speaking. So I don't know he was the first, speaker in public comment. Can you say that or you don't wanna say? (chuckles) Hello? (chuckles) Anyway, whatever. Can you hear me? I can hear you. I keep showing you motions with my fingers. He was the second speaker, go ahead. Okay, good. (chuckles) sorry, I wasn't looking at you. (laughs loudly) Did you discuss the contract negotiations or is that coming up later? Hello? (chuckles) That's later. Okay all right. Anyway, because, you know, if it took place already, sorry, I missed it. But it looks like I didn't miss it. Okay, I'll get into my thoughts. And, first I want to congratulate superintendent Hagerman and Honore Adams, and, the whole team that managed the election for the

154budget and for the candidates for school boards. It was a challenging effort with, if I understand the newspaper 4,161 voters. And, congratulations on the passage of the budget by a good margin. Shows the support for education by our community. And, as you know, the Scarsdale Taxpayer Alert would have liked to have seen a budget with no increase, but 1.5% increase is a lot better. I think we started out with about a 3.5% increase. So there was some excellent work that was done by staff and the board to get the increase at a, more moderate level. And that's probably why it passed. And, although one could say that, you know, what happened to the other approximately eight to 9,000 voters who didn't vote, even though they had a ballot in their mailbox, the silent majority maybe

155versus the 44,161 that voted. Anyway certainly, the budget passed and, onward to getting involved with the teaching our children, and the problems of e-learning. My wife is a professor at City University teaching French. And, had to teach by e-learning this past spring. And it was quite difficult. Difficult for her after 40 some years of teaching, and also difficult for the students without the face to face contact, particularly in teaching a language. So, I know there have been a, some suggestions made by previous speakers, and I hope you will look into them. And, it's challenging. There's no question about it, and hopefully we'll get a vaccine sometime and, we'll make a lot of progress and try to get back to normal life in the United States of America. But, it's difficult. So anyway, I, again, congratulate

156the effort by the staff, Honore Adams running the election, a tremendous job, tremendous effort. So thank you for all your effort and all of those that, I guess it was quite a team as I read in the newspaper as to how a Doctor Hagerman and the administration did all the counting and careful counting. So once again, thanks for the tremendous effort. I hope people appreciate what you did. And then the, I guess that hasn't been discussed yet, but there's an indication that, I guess it's on the, I had trouble trying to, print out the agenda for this meeting. I wish you would make it simpler on your website, unless I don't know how to do it but, I spent a lot of time and seem like I had a (indistinct) (soft chimes) Bob have I

157lost you? He maybe having those phone difficulties. You hear me? Hello? There you go. Okay sorry. So I don't know if you heard me say I had that difficulty, binding the agenda for your meeting tonight, and I would hope in the future could be simplified. And, you know, we can talk about that on the side, Pam. You and I had a conversation today. Anyway, so, you know, there's an indication that you made great progress in the contract negotiations. So I want to compliment you, I'm sure, you know, many meetings and your meetings when, what do we call your meetings when they're not public? (chuckles) Those meetings to discuss contract negotiations. And so from what I hear, you were successful as both sides giving and, you know, a fair contract from both sides, the teachers and

158all the staff and employees of the school system. So congratulations and maybe we'll hear more about that later. And, so, if there's anything else I have to just say here, I don't think I do. And so I congratulate, well, I do have, I had said it at a previous meeting, I want to thank, the time that Scott and Chris put into their six years on the school board to three year terms. It's a lot of effort, a lot of time. In case people don't know our school board members don't get compensated and, they put in a tremendous effort and we should all appreciate the time and effort that they've done and, like to thank Pam and Alison for their leadership, of the board and look to the future. And, I think that's it. So, good

159luck to everybody. Thank you for your efforts. Did you hear me? Yes, thank you Bob. (laughs loudly) Thank you so much, thanks. Lauren, I'll be promoting you to panelist and let me unmute you. Okay, you should be able to speak, go ahead and state your name and address please. All right, thank you. I'm Lauren Kitain and I'm on Butler Road in Fox Meadow. And definitely not looking to repeat everything that's been said. I recognize my husband, Marshall did speak earlier tonight, but I was doing bedtime when he was speaking and just, I really did wanna take this opportunity to speak because I feel like the opportunities to have my voice heard have been very few and far between. And I can tell you just that, I've been speaking with many, many parents over texts and

160you know, socially distance when we're out, you'll catch another parent on a street corner and across the way, and people are frustrated. And I can tell you, by the end of the day, being home with elementary school aged kids, two and a half hours on Zoom, parents, I was pleading with them, "Please come have your voice be heard." They have not been happy with e-learning. They do not see it as a success. I know that there's been a lot of congratulatory. "Hey, look at what we've developed." Yes, it's been a lot, but for the youngest learners, I can just share with you that my kindergartner or my future first grader, has such Zoom fatigue at this point, that I cannot imagine going back to her and saying, "Hey, you're gonna have more Zoom in the

161fall, and it's even going to be additional time." She literally had 15 to 18 minutes per day, and that was too much. And I recognize that maybe it was my job to be her cheerleader and motivate her to stay on Zoom and be excited about being on Zoom. But no, I don't want her on a screen every day. And we are not a screen free family. And yet it was too much. She was demotivated, she got frustrated on the verge of tears. And I was with her there all the time, connecting her, making sure when she un-muted herself, muted herself. "There's a problem mommy. "I lost the screen. "I don't know where my class went. "My teacher can see my hand reads. "She only sees my chin." I mean, we here on this very call

162the problem with technology. Picture a group of five and six year olds. Those problems are only compounded. And for example, yes, I know that there was wellness day and field day. I asked her, "Do you wanna participate in field day? "They created an awesome video." I was super upbeat. "No mommy, I'm done with Zoom. "I don't want more Zoom." And I said, "Okay, so let's go play in the backyard then." And I am a stay at home parent and I had that time, but I also have a three year old. And that three-year-old was running around in the background. And no, we don't have a nanny. We don't have a babysitter. I think there is an expectation that every student, especially at the younger ages, has a dedicated, competent person an adult at home to

163hold their hand and work with them on every lesson. And that is just not the case. I can speak here on behalf of the families with two working parents, who are stretched beyond thin, that their kids, a lot of the lessons just did not happen. I will be honest specials did not happen in our house. They were glitchy. And I appreciate for sure all of the effort that was made, but when are the first two times did not connect, I don't mean to get into the weeds too much, my daughter said, "I'm not doing this again." And I can't blame her because for that 15 minutes, that upset our entire day and our flow, and my three year old and there were tears, it was not worth doing. And that's why I've been listening to

164all these comments. And this is the second board meeting I've listened to. And I've been emailing. The weeds is not where the board is. And this is where the parents are though. And they are dealing with all of those Zooms and connecting and glitches. And it's been an incredible problem. And my daughter was always the most enthusiastic student. And I am on the verge of tears, that she is the demotivated from listening and doing work. And I've been in touch with her teacher over email, and I'll get responses. And the teacher stresses to me, "Yes, repetition is the key." And I know it, every day in kindergarten, she would go in and have 20 minutes of math at the start of the day. If I was able to get five minutes of math a day,

165I was happy. And in terms of repetition, that just did not happen. I worry that she has such a shaky foundation in basics. Her subtraction solely came from me. Addition that was parent led. And I wonder what will be then for her future when your building blocks are in such a shaky foundation. It's very, very frightening to me that, I don't even know what expectations are. The parents have not been told where your kids should be. Legitimately, I don't understand how teachers would even be able to judge. I look at on Seesaw, there are many assignments where, maybe half the class and that generous, has completed an assignment. And no, I don't think you should be failing kindergartens if they didn't complete an assignment on Seesaw, but by the same token, how could you possibly

166assess if they're learning anything? My daughter was normally, "Let's get that "check mark on Seesaw so I can go out and play." And that was just sort of, you know, let's finish it and move on to the next. There was no repetition happening. And just so much time has already been lost that I legitimately do think, we need to get back to the classrooms as my husband stated, get creative. Scarsdale stresses being creative, being bold, being thoughtful. And I recognize that, yes, this is a pandemic, but objectively learning is not happening (indistinct) this way. Thank you for listening. And that's where I would love to be able to offer up some comments in more of a forum. But exactly it's after nine o'clock and I appreciate you sitting here and listening everyone. I know yourselves

167included are stretched so thin that people they're interested and they're frustrated, but to take hours out of an already long day to further comment, it's tough. Everyone is just kind of done. Thank you, Lauren. Claudine, let me promote you. One second. There you go. I can hear you now claudine go ahead. (indistinct) Okay. I wasn't planning on making a comment, but when I just-- State your name and address, I'm sorry. Oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry. My name is Claudine Gecel and I live at 10 Kent Road in Scarsdale. I wasn't planning on making any comments. I was just curious about the reopening plan and I wanted to hear about the bargaining situation as it relates to our budget and our taxes, but I'm listening to the other parents who are my neighbors. And I wanted

168to share this at this time, because I'm not on any of these committees. Our family is very involved in the health care, part of this problem and the healthcare solutions have changed radically from January to today. And they will be quite different from today into the fall. You know, people are complaining about the Zoom learning, and I sort of get that. And I don't wanna repeat anything anybody said, 'cause it is late and we're all tired. But, the opportunity unity for everyone to go back to school is better now than it was in January or February or March. It's way better because, most of the medical thought leaders in the country that are involved in infectious disease, have better protocols now. So if someone gets sick now versus a couple months ago, there are much

169better options. And the only approved medication for this inflammatory cascade that can happen in children is now they're doing the dosing for the children. Now the dosing study is starting. And they'll have dosing information by September. And we have a good medical center right near the school, White Plains Hospital. They do superior triage for small children. We'd been there when we thought our son had appendix attack, and that's you know, emergency surgery. They triage the children very well. And if the children, any of them got very sick where they needed special dosing of experimental medication, they could immediately be transferred to Columbia or NYU or a place like that, where they would get the best care that exists. And that's also a rare occurrence because even in New York City where there's about 2 million

170kids, like a 150 got, you know, sort of the severe cascade. So the point is that the Zoom learning for most people, most children is not regular school. And I think there's quite a ground swell of people who want regular school. And if the school could step up and we all know the school sort of clean, but it's not super clean, it's not really clean. You know, you walk in and you can tell that. If there was you know, people who were more professional cleaners, cleaning the school properly, given the pandemic situation that's still out there, and we had the right masks and everything, and the health care is way better. You could, open the school. I mean, governor Cuomo is gonna have to decide but, we could be there. I don't think people should

171be so negative. So I guess that's what I want to contribute to this meeting today and I'll sign off. I don't think we should be so negative about reopening. The healthcare is much better, and we could become cleaner. And that's it. Thank you Claudine. Any other members of the public can speak. Okay seeing no hands I'll move onto written communications. Alison. Thanks, Pam. We received 23 written communications, six emails were questions about the election procedure and requests for absentee ballots. 14 emails were focused on e-learning issues or were suggestions for how we could be reopening school in the fall. Most of those comments offered suggestions for how e-learning might be improved, and argued for us to consider in-person learning in the fall. One email alerted the board to a student who had received an academic

172achievement, one email inquired about policies for registering for school in the fall. And finally, just tonight, we received an email from former board member of Bill Nappanee, who unfortunately had another call and couldn't stay on for public comment, but he wanted us to share his thanks to Doctor Hagerman to the members of the cabinet, to all of the faculty and staff for the wonderful job that they did this year. And he also wanted to congratulate Chris and Scott on their six years of service to the school district. I want to just thank everyone who took the time to submit written comment. We take written comments very seriously, all board members read all emails to the board, and we consider those opinions when we are deliberating and making decisions. So thank you. Thanks, Alison. We'll move

173into the consent agenda, but before that, just want to do the preamble, which is just letting everyone in the community know that, I can sign a consent agenda placed there by the vice president, the president and the superintendent during our agenda setting meeting, if we feel that there's no controversy regarding them and there's no need for board discussion. The items on the consent agenda all do have the same background materials as ordinary items in the board agenda. And if at any time a member the board feels that any item on the consent agenda requires discussion, that member can remove the item from the consent agenda just by requesting the same. So at this point, if there's no requests to remove an item, we'll move forward with Scott and the consent agenda. I feel like this

174is a cruel joke in my last meeting, but there's 15 items on the consent agenda tonight for our consideration. Items one, two and three and four are minutes of business meetings and special meetings on June 8th, June 10th, June 15th, June 16th, and June 17th. Items, 10.5 and six are personnel reports. Item 10.07 is our annual agreements with non-union administrators, which is the cabinet, including their salary and health contributions for 2021. Item 10.08 is our annual agreements with non-union managerial confidential employees, including their salaries and health contributions. Item 10.9 is maintenance bids, contract renewals for the buildings of grounds department. Item 10.10 is a plant improvement bid for the high school science wing elevator decommission project. I am 10.11 is the ice time proposal for the hockey program. Item 10.12 is the alteration of attendance

175by certain non-resident pupils for the 2021 school year. Item 10.13 is the establishment of the tax where she already reserves for the years from 2008, 2009, all the way through the years, 2020, 2021. Item 10.14 is a special education contract with a consultant for 2021. Item 10.15 is a stipulation of settlement concerning an impartial hearing in the special education arena. All those items make up the consent agenda, which I now move that we adopt the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Scott. Is there a second? Second. Oh Chris, give it to Chris It's Chris's and there is the roast for the toast for the two of you. We couldn't do anything more evil than that. So, (chuckles) all in favor, Alison. Yes. Carl. Yes. Chris. Yes. Karen. Yes. Ron. Yes. Scott. Yes. And I'm a

176yes. So the consent agenda passes and those items are accepted, and now we'll move into the information items and discussion number 11. Thomas, you're gonna start with that or go straight to Edgar. (indistinct) Yeah so, the first one is proposed new textbooks for the high school. And I'm gonna ask Edgar to review those for us quickly. Yes so, all textbooks that are being recommended. One of those called "Give Me Liberty" for AT history by Eric Foner 2020. Emphasis on historical thinking skills. And this new edition actually, features a discussion of inclusion and belonging, which Doctor Hagerman mentioned is an emphasis in our district. I recommend the adoption of that. There's also, for AT psychology by Liliana Mason, 2018. A book called "Uncivil Agreement." And it discuss the social type of polarization in American politics. And

177actually, looks like a very interesting read as well. Another one for AT US government, "Where Did You Get This Number?" And it's a pollster's guide to making sense of the world 2018. Another interesting book, former CBS news surveys director, makes it understandable, and, give some clarity in a time when political divisions can run so deep. And then finally a US AT history, "American History" A very short introduction by Paul Boyer 2012, which is an overview from the beginning of American history all the way up to the presidency of Barack Obama. And it looks actually really engaging. And I recommend all of these textbooks and I think again, they represent, a department that is really leaning into, interesting and provocative work. So thumps up from here. Right. Thank you Edgar, I appreciate that. Bullet 11.02 is

178the annual gift reports. There are two backup documents. You wanna see if there are any questions I can imagine there Oops sorry. (indistinct) Textbooks. Okay, hearing none. We'll go on to 11.02, which is the annual gift report. This is a reporting function that, the board and the, it started with the PTC and the PTA, but has expanded to, be an acknowledgement of all the gifts that the district receives. Both in any given school year and as an aggregate over the last couple of years. So the first document details the, 12 gifts that were accepted as part of the 1920 school year. I should start off by saying that there was, to be a gift from the (indistinct) for the sound system for Butler Field that is needed to be removed, due to some details that

179need to be ironed out before it's ready for board approval. So that had originally been on the agenda has been removed at this point. The board can expect that to return at a later date. In the meantime, the 1920 gifts. You can see here that there are about 12 gifts that have been given to the district to various schools in the amount of essentially about $750,000. And you can see that part of our process is, having the cabinet approval, the superintendent approval and the board approval on each of those. They're all outlined here along with the accompanying details as appropriate. And the second attachment is an aggregate that goes back to 2015, 2016. And it shows, that gifts by school, as an attempt to make sure that we're looking at equity issues over time and

180the total contribution of gifts that had been received by the district. And certainly welcome any questions about either of these two items. All right, hearing none. I'm actually gonna switch the order if you don't mind real quick, jump to 11.04, which is the STA MOA. And I'm gonna have Drew talk to us about that briefly before we move into the board succession information item. Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate it. So tonight we are, presenting the outcome of, our collective bargaining with the Scarsdale Teachers Association. We began that process way back in January in a very different world. And we've come forward today with a memorandum of agreement with the STA, which they have ratified. To summarize, this item includes what I will review here for those who want to read it. First on, it is

181a one year agreement. Teachers' salaries. There'll be an increase on the teacher salary schedule of a flat $750. And all teachers will also receive a non-recurring supplement of $750 for the 2021 school year. For nurses, the steps on the salary schedule will be increased by $750. And we will be adding two new steps that are 2% higher than the prior step. There'll also be an increase in recognition of their achievement of a master's degree, from $400 to $1,500. Our one occupational therapist salary that will be increased by $2,100 for next year. There were a large number of changes associated with the health insurance program. As many people know, we do have a district wide Health Insurance Advisory Committee that meets on a regular basis, along with our consultant and our third party administrators of our

182medical plan and our prescription drug plan. We've been working since the beginning of the year to discuss cost share and the sort of long standing, idea in the district of maintaining cost share which can sometimes slip when, the inflation rate of health costs is greater than the contribution share. So we agreed on an understanding of recognizing a need to fill about a $520,000 hole. In combination of increased contributions from the users of the plan, and a cost savings associated with changes to the benefits of the plan. Of that 520,000, the Scarsdale Teachers Association is responsible for about 420,000 of that. There's a long list of changes primarily in the prescription drug arena, including some utilization management and clinical advantage plans that help keep costs down by, more closely monitoring what prescriptions are being prescribed. An

183increase across the board in our different categories of co-payment and co-insurance rates for prescription drugs. It also includes an increase of a dollar to our PPO co-pay to $46. And an increase in one of the deductibles by $75. In addition, the agreement expands, the STA's access to a crisis bank, which is now renamed the family leave bank. And it's expanded to include, the use of personal time for bonding with a newborn or adopted child. It increases the number of days that can be accrued into that bank, but it assigns a new ratio to how those days can be accrued. Currently it's a one to one ratio, but that will increase to two to one for tenured faculty and four to one for non tenure faculty. We also included a, commitment to gather a group representing

184the STA, the district leadership and parents, to form a committee to improve parent teacher communications. Particularly focused on, parent teacher conferences and those types of meetings. And we also reached agreement on a new goal setting process, that will be established, that includes in addition to setting goals annually by each faculty member, an expectation of five hours of, goal work outside of the school day toward those goals. And that summarizes the changes with the one year agreement. Of course the health plan changes stay. This is a one year agreement, but those changes persist beyond the one year. Drew a very comprehensive review of the agreement. Thank you very much. Are there board questions? No question, I just want to, we've of course gone over this a lot in executive session, but I wanna thank Drew very

185much for working through these particularly the Health Advisory Committee for working through all those adjustments and recognizing that, as healthcare costs go up that share, need to be readjusted and for putting the effort into finding the, working levers and balances to that. That was great work by that committee. And, thank you for that and thanks to the STA leadership for, being so professional and respectful, and welcoming of our discussions. And I also echo those thank yous. So thank you Pam. Any other questions or comments? All right, hearing none. I will ask Pam to complete the information items with 11.03, which is a discussion about board succession, prior to moving into action items which is agenda item 12. We just put this there to make sure that everyone who's a member of the board now or

186member of the board to be. And the community understands that, leadership, the officers of the board, the vice president and the president will be determined on July 7th by the board that begins on that date. We have two new officers or two new board members coming in, and then there will be a discussion on that date about succession which will include, discussions of names of those board members who would like to continue, or who are interested in officer positions. And at this point we have pulled the board, couple of times over the past month and no one other than Alison and I have decided that it is something we're interested in doing next year. So at this point, Allison and I are still considering the option. But any board member can still, come forward and

187decide that it's a position of an officer, something they're interested in. We can discuss it again on the 7th, and then that board will be voting in the officers at that time. That's really all I was gonna say. It's awkward that board members have to choose officers when they barely, you know, on the board and know us, but I know, many be candidates for board members through the spring do pay attention to the board meetings and get a sense of contributions and what people's interests might be. So just wanted to share that now with everyone. Good? Okay. Then we will move into the next item as Thomas said, and that's action item 12.01, the approval of the STA memorandum. Karen. Okay. Whereas negotiations have been ongoing between the bargaining team for the Board Of Education

188of the Scarsdale Union for School District, and the bargaining team for the Scarsdale Teacher's Association, to review the terms of the 2016 to 2020 agreement between the parties. And whereas the negotiating teams have negotiated in good faith and have agreed to modifications to the existing agreement. And whereas those negotiations have resulted in a tentative agreement contained in a memorandum of agreement dated May 22nd, 2020. And whereas the membership of the association has ratified the terms of the memorandum of agreement. And whereas the Board Of Education has reviewed the terms of the memorandum of agreement, and finds that the terms contained therein are in the best interests of the school district. Now, therefore be it resolved that the Board Of Education hereby approves and ratifies the terms that, the fore said memorandum of agreement and hereby

189authorizes the superintendent of schools and the president of the board, to execute an agreement consistent with such terms to take all actions consistent with the terms thereof. I recommend that the board approve the memorandum of agreement and authorize the execution of an agreement (indistinct) of the memorandum of agreement. Thanks, Karen. I just lost you a bit, but I'm pretty sure you made the motion to recommend, so I will (indistinct) for a second. (laughing loudly) I'll make a motion (indistinct). I just lost a bit. Is there a second? Sure I'll second it. Thank you, Carl. Is there any discussion on this motion? All right, seeing none. We'll go ahead with a roll call vote. Alison. I'm adding my thanks to Thomas and Drew and the entire cabinet and to you David, Gerald and the entire STA

190leadership I vote yes. Thank you, Carl. Yes. Thank you, Chris. Yes. Karen. Yes. Ron. Yes. Scott. Yes. And I'm a yes. So the motion passes and this memorandum of agreement is approved. Thank you everyone. Moving forward, there are no gifts. So we'll go to public comment again. And public comment, same rules apply. We, ask you to keep it as brief as possible. We have a lot of work ahead of us still and we hope that you keep it to district matters and avoid speaking about particular personnel. And I believe I've got Robert Berg coming forward. One moment, please. Let me unmute you. And if you'd give your name and address, and then you're all set. Good evening, Robert Berg, 32 Tisdale road. I'm very pleased that the STA and the board have agreed on a

191contract and the parties very sensibly settled on a one year deal. The world is just too crazy these days to, cut a deal for a longer period of time. Can you tell us what the impact of this new STA contract will be on the 2020, 2021 school budget? And that's all I have to say. Again, thank you, Chris. And thank you, Scott for your great service for the community. That's it. Okay, thanks Bob. (loud laugh) Thanks Rob. (indistinct) Anyone else no other hands? All right. Going once, twice. I see no hands. So I'll close the second option for public comment, and we'll move to item 15, follow up to public comment. Which means I am going through my book and Drew, would you like to start with, perhaps any kind of comment towards the student's

192presentation on the new federal changes to Title IX? All right, I'd be happy to. So that group of students have reached out to me as the district Title IX officer and expressed an interest in kind of finding out what the district's position was, what you heard tonight, what the board's position is. And basically understand where or how they might be able to influence whatever changes we make. I did have the chance to meet with, at least some of those students last week over Zoom. And I first listened to the concerns that they had, and we engaged in the discussion to first understand how board policy is made, how it works, and which policies might potentially be impacted by this federal Title IX change. The board wrote to you as you know, I'm sorry, the students

193wrote to the board to you as you know. And, I have shared that message with our attorney. I actually have a call tomorrow with Pamela Bass at one of our attorneys, to talk through a game plan for how to, one, approach our own current policies to make sure we have a clear understanding of what we're compelled to, at least consider in terms of changes and not. And how to include that group of students and even others in being involved in that process now. Certainly the public can be involved through being able to review and think about any readings of policy changes. We thought this might be a nice opportunity to really engage that group of students and in weighing in, and just making sure they're aware during the process of what kinds of things, we're

194compelled to do and what kinds of things we actually have a choice over. So we're really at the beginning stages of this. And I look forward to engaging with that very compelling, you know, set of arguments, set of demands really that they had. It was really exciting to hear them come forward and make a public statement and express their concerns. It was a wonderful experience to see that from them. And I think on behalf of the board, we're looking forward to working with you Drew and the students to accommodate all of their interests and concerns and work forward, probably with policies. As many of, you know, we are doing policy review in what we're calling tranches, where by number where, you know, the thousands and the 2,000, and the 3,000, and these might be in

195different tranches and may be mean different attention, but perhaps, you know, there's ways to look at them differently. Maybe do a tranche with just these policies, since there may be some particular adjustments. So I know we'll talk through those and you're thinking through those. Unfortunately, I think that means most of the work is a fall effort however, 'cause the board policy groups wouldn't be meeting over the summer to do that work from our perspective. So, you know, I don't think we as a board, were we looking into pick this kind of work up until September? Is that right Drew? Let me get back to you on that after the conversation with Pamela Bass. You know, there is an August 14th date in the, changes issued by the department of education. Whether or not I'm still

196not perfectly clear on whether those are gonna apply to which policies of ours, so. I will have a better answer for you tomorrow. Thank you. And Pam. Just so the bored and Drew are aware and the students. I know that the attorney general of the State of New York has sued the department of education, regarding the implementation of these changes. And in fact, I read it at letter today that they sent to the court, indicating that they'll be seeking a preliminary injunction in the next day or two. So that doesn't stop us obviously from doing the review that Drew was talking about, but it is possible that, whatever August 14th date may come, and there may be some court intervention before those, new provisions of title IX they take effect. Good to know Scott, thank

197you. I didn't know that. All right. So thanks again to those students and, we're ready to move forward with that work. Then Eric and Edgar, there were a few speakers, Marshall and Yingyong and also, Ada, Lauren and Myra had questions. So do you wanna kind of move generally to their comments? Thank you. I'll address first the parent representation on the committee, which I believe we heard questions from a couple of speakers. The PTC has staffed or staffed or found volunteers for the, task groups and the Steering Committee. They have come out of the elected representatives of the PTC with the thinking that the parents had elected, these parents represent them through the PTA and they would be able to do that on the Steering Committee and the task groups that we formed. Those are the

198way that the group was staffed. Edgar, do you wanna go over the feedback loops that we've had over the past four months for e-learning? Sure, I did actually have some focus groups, with some elementary parents, and I also went through the PTC, to make sure that I have representation of, kindergarten through second grade. Parents at each one of the elementary schools and third grade through fifth grade parents. And my request was that, the parents had a diversity of experience with e-learning so that we could have a rich and interesting discussion, which we did. And it was a way to supplement, if the surveys, if it provided more back and forth with a smaller group. And it did in many ways, affirm, many of the themes that we've been seeing in the larger surveys. It is

199interesting though because, you know, as you hear there are themes that sometimes conflict. So we hear about parents who would request longer sessions on Zoom, and then some who would prefer to have shorter sessions on Zoom. There are some recurring themes so around small group work for example. That is something that there seems to be a lot of agreement with. But there is a lot of agreement with, and when I communicated with Kaitans as well, is that we would really love to have our kids back in actual classrooms. I mean, I don't know if we say it enough, we're working and all the different scenarios, but we know that there is something that's so incredibly nuanced, important, socially (loud beeps) play, and educationally important about, being in a company of students. So, you know, governor

200willing whatever the status is, that is something that absolutely every single teacher prefers, with safety and, the correct guidance. You know (overlapping chatter) I think it's also important to understand from the vantage point of our district, and it's requirement to follow state guidelines, that our school district does not have a choice to be closed right now. It was closed by the state, by the governor. Ultimately the governor will make the determination whether or not schools can open in a live setting. He will also make the determination on what level of population density is there. We can be creative within those guidelines, but those guidelines will dictate whether or not the school can open in a live capacity and when. And they'll dictate what are responses to additional COVID diagnoses maybe. I think it's important to

201just say that again and again, because we've had a number of parents who have written to us who have clearly been frustrated by the fact that, we receive guidance every two weeks. And parents are really clamoring for a longterm educational plan. And for obvious reasons of being able to do family planning. Unfortunately we absolutely must must follow the guidance that is given to us from the governor through executive orders, and from the CDC, from the Westchester County Health Department. We have no option other than to follow that guidance. And whatever that guidance is, we will do the best within our abilities. And as Eric said to be creative around those. But we will absolutely be compelled to follow that guidance, and we will not be able to stray from that. And I realize and recognize

202that, that's a frustration on the part of many families within the community, but those are at absolutely things that we will have to abide by through our scenario planning and our restart efforts. There was also a question of whether there were medical professionals on the Restart Committees. Our school doctor does serve on both the Steering Committee and the Nursing and medical committee. We do have a parent who's a physician on the Nursing And Medical Committee. We have not brought in separate epidemiologists or infectious disease doctors, as we are following the health board guidance on how we should be mitigating for COVID within the schools. And that includes both the cleaning aspect, social distancing aspects of that work. So we need to follow those guidances and use the New York State Department of Health as our,

203and the CDC, as our baselines for those. Yeah there was an additional question about disinfecting. That is something that we've reported out on, we've spoken directly with Ada about those concerns. If there are continued concerns about either products or processes, I would encourage anyone to write to us directly and we'll be happy to address those issues directly with the community. Pam. Yeah, I'm gonna keep going Carl yeah. Can I just interject one point very briefly or question for Thomas? I think that what Tom has just said is important in terms of I'm going back to his last comment about, we have to go with whatever the guidance is from New York State. It's not just like guidance recommendations that we're getting, it's going to be requirements number one. They are directives, absolutely. But, sort of

204the counter to that is, I believe if we can open to whatever extent we can open and have students, we intend to do that. We are gonna be, you know, pursuing that. So people shouldn't, you know, even if we could open, we might think it's safe or whatever, where our current plan anyway would be to avail ourselves of the opportunity to have students into the school. The guidance, it's been unequivocal in terms of you're open or you're closed. There's been no guides that says, "You guys can kind of open if you want to, "or you can have half capacity if you want to." It's been very clear guidance and I expect that to be absolutely the case moving forward as well. Well I think there's potentially a little bit of confusion because when we first

205closed based on the circumstances, it wasn't quite like that. So people need to understand that that situation does not equate to what the current situation is or what we anticipate the future situation to be. You're absolutely right Carl, we were in front of the issue, in the sense that we had one of the first confirmed cases of a staff member being infected. And that was prior to any real guidance that was given to us by the governor or by the Westchester County Department of Health, or the CDC. Since that time, they have absolutely stepped in, and provided that guidance on in a two week increment. And we've been following that ever since. I think that's a really important clarification to make. When we did have the positive case, then we did get a very direct

206recommendation from the County Commissioner of Health, that told us we should close. So I don't think we were in a position where we could have said, We're going to stay open with that recommendation on the table from, the department of health. I would just like to add to, there was a comment that we did not have professionals cleaning our buildings. We do indeed have professionals. They're paid to clean and disinfect our buildings or custodians and cleaners That's what they do. So we have been on top of this, you know, procuring materials and cleaning items was challenging at first with all the high demand from across the country. We were able to keep up with that, and we have been procuring these items since that time and building up stocks. Not only for disinfecting and all

207of that, but also for personal protective equipment as well. Thank you, Drew. I think we hit all the major points. (overlapping chatter) I don't see anything other than just the particular budgeted numbers for PPE and equipment, but, you know, Stuart mentioned that, that is a primary focus of the district. And there's investment in the budget to account for all that we might expect necessary. I wanted to just respond to Ada who talked about stuff that's happening on Facebook. And I just would urge all community members, particularly about issues as critical as e-learning and your children's experiences, and distance learning and restart, to reach out to district representatives so that your questions and your comments and your concerns are received and processed in a way. You know, we don't monitor Facebook in a way that is

208an official process, and we need to be reached out to officially. So please don't hesitate to send the board of education, an email at [email protected] or any one of the cabinet members or your administrator so that we get as much input from you, and we can answer your concerns and you don't have to kind of be living out there with questions. We can get these answered for you at the earliest convenience. So please, I just want to stress that. Thomas, did you just unmute for a reason? No? Okay so another thing was, Myra (indistinct) Can I just make one comment. I don't believe that most administrator's contact information is on the district website. So I'm not sure. It is (overlapping chatter) under contact page. (indistinct chatter) District information contact information website directory. (indistinct) It has

209contacts. It's district information, and then down at the bottom contact information, It has phone numbers, but maybe we should add emails if we're asking people to reach out to these folks so that they have a way to easily. Yeah, they're all hyperlinked as you know-- If you click our title that goes directly to our email addresses, Ron. Like if you click my name, it goes directly to an email. For some reason. (computer keyboard clicks) All right, sorry. It's not working for me. I don't know (overlapping chatter) anyway, another time I just wanted-- Click our names, It goes directly to an email address. That's good for some people to know. The reason why the way they hyperlink, this so that the scanning software to pick up email for spamming. Won't pick them up as easily. So

210they're purposely hyperlinked. All right, thank you for pointing that out thanks. Welcome. Super. Rachel, how many attendees. Currently 42, but they were about 64 at some point. when after the meeting, I could check and total, but it was about 64 or 65. Thank you for that. And Drew, would you be able to answer Robert Berg's question about the impact on, the 2020, 20, 20, 20, 20 (indistinct) (chuckles) Yeah, absolutely. The overall net impact additional payroll costs when we take into account the, contractual step increases and the recurring and non-recurring payments that we described, minus the healthcare savings that is attributed to this group is $1.172 million of increase, or it's a 1.84% increase, not taking into account breakage. And for those who don't know what that means, when we have teachers retire, It tends to

211be that those hired to replace them come in at lower salaries. So that 1.172, doesn't account for some reduction in the amount of salaries we would pay next year. Drew, two things I guess. One is, that's just a rough number that you gave without context necessarily of like what they would have gotten if we didn't have a contract agreement, you know, when the Triborough Agreement and Taylor Law. Yeah, would have been $900,000. 900,000 of that 1.172 million is guaranteed by the, Triborough amendment of the Taylor law. The other piece I just want, you know, I'm not sure exactly what Mister Berge was asking. I know what he did ask, but that's not additional to what the budget that was passed last week. In fact, there was a placeholder in the budget for this type of

212expense. And I don't know the exact numbers, but we're actually gonna be a little bit under budget I think, by some number, from what our placeholder was with this agreement. Yeah, I think that's right Scott, thank you. Okay, I don't have any particular issues, that still require a wrap up from public comment. Anyone else have something that I missed? Okay, then we'll move on to the next item, which is item 16, wrap-up items. A little different things that aren't related to public comment, but we have moving forward for the board. And all I can think of is succession, succession, succession. (chuckles) Anything else? No, right? Okay, so no wrap-up items, then meeting dates, Alison. This is our last meeting with this board. So once again, our thanks to Chris and Scott. On Tuesday, July 7th,

213the board will have its annual reorganization at business meeting beginning at 6:30. And at that time we look forward to welcoming and swearing in our two new board members. Thank you, Alison. The next item is a adjournment. I will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session to discuss matters of collective bargaining. So moved. There a second, great Carl. Any discussion? All right, Alison? Yes. Carl. Yes. Chris. Yes. Karen. Yes. Ron. Yes. Scott. Yes. And I'm a yes. So, we will adjourn to executive session using the link from earlier this evening, with a five minute moving break. Bye everyone. Thanks everyone.