001uh so good evening folks thank you for uh coming tonight we're starting using two public hearings the first hearing is on our code of conduct just as a reminder i think you saw the protocol down front we haven't had the ability to have um the public into our meetings for a period of time so we want to make sure people are clear on the protocols and we understand space invitation so we ask that you adhere to our recommendation to wear masks it's not mandy at this point in time but it is something that we're recommending uh comments uh are at the discretion board we do allow for public comments i believe most of you have had an opportunity to meet our district clerk amber lanigan if you request to speak on a topic um we
002ask that you fill out the form so we can follow up with you if necessary we ask that the topics be limited to 15 minutes per topic and indeed speaker has between three and five minutes so we ask that you be respectful of others in their time to a topic before we get to that um we will start with our public hearing for code of conduct our code of conduct is a document that allows us to formulate the plans for all of our school buildings at the k 4 5 8 and 9 12 levels there's a disseminated code of conduct that is available on the website currently each year we're charged by education law to review that plan and seek public input on any necessary changes to the plan in most years it's slight language
003adjustments things that come in like technology when baking first became popular it was changing things from tobacco to electronic cigarettes as an example this year the plan for the most part is language including electronic watches the apple watch that somebody has those types of devices are not allowed in exam settings for obvious reasons so that's really the adjustments that are proposed in this year it is available online if anybody has questions or want to provide some comments beyond this evening please communicate through communications escalante.org so ask the board members that are here if there are any questions on the proposed changes to the comments nope no no any community members on this code of conduct again this is a process that's vetted through um at building level through committees our board has a policy committee
004that reviews the code of conduct on a regular basis and each year it by law has to be presented in the public hearing i'm not hearing anybody from the audience i will look yes sir i agree okay no electronic uh places in the question thank you very much thank you um that would conclude the public hearing for the code of conduct our next is the public hearing of the district safe schools plan this is different than our reopening plan this is related to our plans for our fire drills and evacuation procedures and things like that mr libellotti is our assistant superintendent in charge of state schools he helps according to our district wide safe school committee which is charged with uh formulating and implementing the plan so i will ask if you would like to
005do an overview again this is a public hearing that uh allows for comments the plan will also be posted online for 30 days before it's officially adopted so just rely on them right so this opens the comment period for community members this the sig schools um district wide safety plan is there to reinforce secure sanitary and orderly school environments it's to maximize communication between and among staff parents and guardians if we ever found ourselves in an emergency or crisis situation to maximize the collection of information communication of any suspicious activity or behavior uh to administrative or supervisory uh staff so this is this is a plan like dr perry mentioned for our drills and our tabletop exercises with administrators the things we do with the children in schools to make sure that if an emergency
006situation arises they know the steps and procedures to to evacuate a classroom to evacuate a building they know where to go kind of muscle memory as it pertains to procedures and practice so to reduce uncertainty for for our students and staff and in a crisis situation to reinforce stability and to increase control as you can imagine emptying a building of hundreds of kids or thousands of kids does provide the opportunity for chaos at times but if you practice and you and you know the procedures and your muscle memory is there no one panics and no one's anxious and they can follow the steps we do have a state schools committees comprised of colony fire prevention members colony police colony ems board of education members district administrators staff from different buildings from transportation school resource officers
007school attorneys and parents from the community comprise the safe schools committee and we kind of monitor the different levels of planning that goes on and also any new strategies or methods for introducing different electronic uh or supervisory controls to to our buildings safe schools also has their own building level committees who drill down a little bit further beyond the larger district view so this plan encapsulates all those different ideas this plan gets updated annually and it's it's shared with the community for the 30-day window and after that it gets submitted to state ed we also provide a copy to the new york state police the colony police department all the albany county sheriff's so everyone's on board with our plans and the logistics of our buildings if they ever were called there for an emergency
008um some of the things that would also discuss is the e-visitor pass system at the high school in the middle schools we have new vestibules that went into our elementaries and we'll continue to work with those on the same type of visitor pass system so that those who enter the buildings are permitted to do so and should be there uh walkie-talkies for communication uh drop-off last year was obviously a little bit different and it could be this year parents choose to drive their children to school so those communications between inside and school and outside of school become important and the plan helps facilitate those cover some of this uh important staff trainings that we do with lockdowns lockout shelter in place and it also discusses some of the advances we made in surveillance both in
009and out of the buildings which continues uh and will continue this year and next year to complete the surveillance of the outside areas of our buildings as well uh it does this discuss some of our goals for 2122 which is to maintain high levels of training and support for our staff and students so that they know how to handle these situations and to continue to build our access card system in all our buildings so entry is not based on keys or doors being propped open or left open that all staff have the right access and the doors are equipped to handle that type of access in our buildings to me to maintain secure and safe buildings for all of our students that's kind of a quick summary of that plan it is online and it's
010open for 30 days of comments and and does the board have any specific questions about that plan as it currently exists no no no i don't believe all the doors are equipped with the actual swiper so the main entrance where visitors come and go from the main door but for other staff they wouldn't be able to get in other doors right now with their access card system and is the goal to have all schools to have all doors have that so you can if you need to do a lockdown lock everything remotely you can would be ideal to have that system inflation all right thank you um this would conclude the public hearing for our district wide safe schools plan again this would be online for a period of 30 days and will be brought
011back to the world for final consideration for adoption uh per the commissioner's granulation so uh that concludes our two public hearings let me begin with our board meeting at this time any questions next we're going to have all right under new business um today we had our high school summer graduation it went really well we had one girl graduate early after a whole year early williams and i want to send a nice big shout out and congratulations to her she did a great job the other young lady unfortunately was not feeling when we couldn't make it okay having attended that also i just wanted to say that she had good support there from her family uh the staff and there was a little reception afterwards for her i think that she really appreciated it she's
012an excellent young lady and she'll uh uh it was great to see it's unfortunate that the other of you are here this evening so to give an overview of our covet protocols for the 21 22 school year as we shared earlier in the summer this is a combined joint effort with a reopening committee involving guidance from not only the cdc the american academy for pediatrics as well as our local departments of health we've been on regional calls with various superintendents of schools but our reopening committee has looked at a variety of resources first and foremost we're committed to reopening our schools and having our students back in person we recognize that our kids need to be back in school and last year we did the best we could we had k-6 in every day we
013had our students at 7 12 and a hybrid model but this year we're committed to having our students at all levels back uh each and every day so i want everybody to be aware that we're looking forward to welcoming our students back we've had some welcome back orientations today we had sophomore orientation at the high school uh we've had seventh and eighth grade orientation some of the middle schools we'll continue that process to uh reintroduce our students back to our buildings and welcome those that are new to our facilities throughout this whole process in addition to the the national and state level we've looked at guidance from the new york state education department we invented this with our school medical director dr lawrence silverman who is part of our reopening committee and we are looking
014at a tiered mitigation strategy tomorrow our plan will be posted once the board has a chance to weigh in and approve it but essentially we have a tiered strategy that will allow for a series of mitigations from a high risk zone to a substantial to a moderate and then eventually to a low risk zone and these factors in place model the cdc's recommendation for metrics it involves a capacity for positive rates in covid within the last seven days it also looks at the number of people that are being tested and the positive rates that are coming out so this information is all available on a variety of websites it's not anything that the district is designing themselves they are metrics that are adopted and recommended by the center for disease control and we will post
015those links for people so they can have access to it on august 11th the new york state education department came out with guidance related to school reopening plans again those guidances focused on recommendations from the american academy for pediatrics and the cdc as their primary guidance new york state department health as you were aware did not come out with guidance we understand the new governor taking her leadership role uh today is that she is directing the new york state department of health to come out with uh guidance related to school realty plans but as it stands today our tiered mitigation plan was developed as a strategy looking at a variety of resources predominantly the cdc american academy of pediatrics and the metrics surrounding that so i'll walk through a little bit of this plan and
016again the uh primary recommendations uh from the cdc are your mitigation strategy that does include mask wearing at some level depending on the transmission rate in the community currently always county is in a high transmission rate but we are seeing that the daily rates are going down so the daily rates are starting to slide to what we would consider a substantial or orange zone this substantial uh community transmission rate if we can reach that would allow for some relaxation of some of the requirements um so i'll go through what those requirements are to date the tiered mitigation strategy what they look like and then we will allow for um continuation our public comments section will be after the end of the new business so i'll give an overview of the plan and ask your patients
017i know we've got folks that want to speak on behalf of that point hopefully i'll be able to answer some of your questions um while our decision uh in this plan does not require mandated vaccinations of students we do recommend that those that are eligible both students and adults ages 12 and up uh consider vaccination it is one of the strategies they're recommended by the cdc and american academy for pediatrics for those that can the most prevalent recommendation and way to control the spread of the virus is masking and we are looking at a tiered approach to masking what that would be would be in the high risk zone that everybody is masking at all times on buses in transitions in the hallways and in classrooms in a substantial zone which was the next tier
018down if we can reach that again the metrics are looking promising it would be similar to what we managed during the summer school federal law requires that masks be currently worn on buses we would be asking for mask wearing uh in hallways and the transitions where we can't maintain social distancing if you've ever stepped foot in a high school you know that maintaining three feet is almost impossible when people were in a building but it would allow for a removal of masks when a student is seated and not anticipated moving around the classroom so if they're seated at their desk and they're listening to their teachers they could remove their mask in a substantial zone that's the orange zone in a moderate zone uh masks would be recommended so this would be again a tiered
019lower tier strategy if the infection rates are lower uh masks would be recommended they would certainly not be discouraged for anybody but they would not be required if they can reach the moderate community transmission zones this would be very similar to what you see now in the community where you started with masking and then now it's more of a choice than than not in a low community transmission zone the masking requirements would be very similar it would not be required they would be available and encouraged to those that want to and the social distancing of maintaining three feet would be the new one different from last year would be the social distancing requirements last year six feet became the priority everybody has to be six feet apart uh it was very difficult one of the
020reasons we did not have everybody in the buildings last year we just didn't have the physical space um but with that uh this year the recommendations are to go to three feet uh point feasible uh so we will adhere to that as our social distancing guidelines for indoors um as a real simple gauge three feet is really just putting your arms out uh we don't stack our desks up like cord would so in classrooms in our standard years we have desks that are typically at three feet apart so we'll be able to maintain social distancing uh indoors uh in the majority of our locations um the exception may be the cafeteria so in situations where can't maintain three feet we will ask that a student or adult remains masked unless they're eating when drinking at
021that point we'll be able to remove the masks but again this is all dependent upon the level of community transmission rates if we get into a higher risk zone we're currently in the restrictions are greater than if we are you know a low transmission we are back open school visitors are invited and encouraged to come to our buildings if they have official business to be there so we expect that parents have meetings with with teachers or staff they're welcome to come to our buildings we will continue with community functions pta events events for our students concerts and things like that will go on this year which was different than last year we were not able to have those but we do understand that those events need to come with following our same protocols in place
022so those that have official business in the evening time building use permit we'll need to follow our same protocols for indoor use typical uh hygiene protocol hand washing um we'll continue we'll educate our students that is again a really simple ask for people and our kids did a great job with that wall hand sanitizer available as well as soap and water the quarantine rules are ones that are continuing to change and they look different on a bus than they do in a classroom albany county is our local authority they shared with us what the quarantine rules would look like the simplest way to look it is really draw a circle six feet around the person who becomes infected if you're looking at the individual who tests positive they will be looking at six feet around
023that person as a starting point for whether or not a child or an adult has to be quarantined if they're vaccinated that also plays into a factor in whether or not someone has symptoms also plays into a factor so in simplicity uh quarantine rules will still be in effect this is developed by the county it's not something that the school district has total control over but what we will do to mitigate entire classes or entire groups of students on buses being quarantined like last year is we will have seating charts in those locations and be able to identify with our local health department who is at the greatest risk again that six foot perimeter seems to be the standard that they're working through masking is also something that they're asking if you're not masked and
024you're within six feet you're going to get quarantined if you're a mask and you're greater than six feet the risk of being quarantined is much less so if your child is riding a bus and they're not in the back of the bus and somebody in front of us that's positive the chances of them being quarantined if they're masked is less we still in terms of transportation will provide for cleaning and disinfecting of our buses in between the roofs our drivers did a great job with this last year and we'll continue with that protocol those families that don't feel comfortable or have the capacity to drive their child to school it still is an option that still is a mitigation factor you know driving your your own personal car is a way to avoid larger groups
025uh reminders for students and staff if they're not feeling well uh stay home when sick um you cannot come to work or school not feeling well it seems common sense but this is something that we have to reiterate over and over again we have children come to school every year who are not feeling well we have staff members who come to school come to work and don't feel well they have to be sent home and follow the uh the guidance related to that um cafeteria this is another area that is changing for this year last year would the 60 department cafeteria three feet will be the standard um we will continue to allow students to uh move back into the cafeteria for eating at the k4 level they ate classrooms last year eating to the
026greatest extent possible we'll be in the cafeteria for our kids at all levels this year we did do some grab-and-go meals we do anticipate students going through the uh cafeteria tray lines uh again we'll we'll ask them to be massed up and to provide social distancing so they're not clogging up their lines but they will be going through the standard process for for meals and things of that recess physical education again the restrictions are lessening for those activities we encourage our kids to get outside for recess we will be able to allow them to interact with more than just their classmates we will cohort the elementary school that means staying together as a individual classroom group to the greatest extent possible but we want to make sure that our students have good experiences and can
027continue to enjoy not only recess but physical education outdoors last year for phys ed music the arts it went anywhere 60 to 12 feet depending on whether masks were involved that standard is now uh three feet music activities drama things extracurriculars in addition to our standard instructional day we'll have mitigation strategies uh music for instruments we'll have a bell cover which is proven to be successful uh for those uh instruments that are blowing there students that are in your course will be allowed to sing again this is all things that were different than last year when we started september off last year students will be allowed to sing if they're able to maintain greater than three feet then masks can be removed from singing otherwise masks will be required high-risk activities these include athletics they
028also include extracurricular activities such as drama our current athletic programs are all ago we have uh over 40 teams participate in varsity junior varsity freshmen and modified programs uh so we're proud that they opened up the start of the practice and trial season on monday when we report uh good turnout uh increased turnout the number of students that are participating which is a good sign for our return to some normalcy um with that part of the mitigation strategy for those students that are unvaccinated will include some uh random rapid tests it may include the entire team being tested this is the binax now nasal swab test that went on last year it takes about 15 minutes verifies whether or not somebody is positive or negative you may have read that some districts are requiring vaccinations
029for all their athletic participants at this particular time we are not requiring that we have a good percentage of students and staff members coaches who are fully vaccinated or above 70 with our student athletes and i believe we're above 90 with our coaches if not 100 at this time so those are also considerations when we looked at our plan and the reason for the tiered approach we want our students back in activities we understand that forcing a band-aid vaccine although recommended may also limit participation for students and so we wanted to look at that as a tiered approach our reopening committee weighed a variety of factors and that was one factor that we decided to pair on the side of participation so we understand that may um be a cause for some concerns uh for
030some but again that was one of the factors that we weighed in our decision as we looked at a variety at the end of the day um there's a number of factors there's a number of resources to look at um you know a lot of opinions that are out there we're attempting to make the best decision for all of our students and staff all of our community members there is no one perfect solution we think this tiered strategy is an approach to providing for the most normalcy for our schools and the most opportunities for our students this year that's really what we're looking for yes dr perry could you please uh discuss transportation for example a 66 passenger bus how many students can we put on the bus and can we get all if in
031fact every student wanted to come just want to have a ride would we be we have the capacity to do so yeah so we are no longer restricted on uh capacity on the buses so we could put 66 students on bus um and they would be required to wear masks and we would transport them to and from in most situations we've been able to reduce ridership through people who are volunteering to drive their children to school and also by adding additional boots in the transportation department so that is one of the things we will look at in most cases we do not have our buses scheduled at 100 capacity so they are already at limited capacity last year we started the school year off at about 50 capacity that will not be a requirement for
032this year um so we will get more ridership audits as we start the year but we will have a larger um capacity on our buses this year there's no restrictions on reference question anybody else and just a quick reminder about the five minute per person 50 minute per topic and i have rose stuart yes all right i want to thank the president of the board for allowing me time to speak um i'd like to begin by highlighting the common ground that we all share i think it's safe to say that everyone in this room is invested in the well-being of the kids in our district we all want what's best for them and i think that passion has been particularly highlighted across the region and country in recent days in a situation that changes as
033frequently as the one we've collectively been facing it can be difficult to know what that is but we do have several sources of information to guide us one of the sources of information is what has happened in other districts this month i don't know about you but as a mom i am always trying to get my kids to learn things the easy way learning from the mistakes of others that we don't have to repeat them august 2nd 2021 was the first day of school for the lebanon special school district in tennessee masks were optional yesterday the district announced they were closing for the rest of the week because proven infections and quarantines have made them unable to stop their schools when schools reopen on monday the district will be moving to amass requested status august
0343rd 2021 was the first day of school for students in the indiana scott county school district 1. masses were optional on august 11th the district announced that due to the high rate of positive cases an extremely high rate of students in quarantine it would switch to virtual learning starting on wednesday then the district began requiring masks august 16th was the first day of school for the davidson county school district in north carolina masks were optional in the first five days of school 58 students and 31 staff tested positive recovered and almost 400 students and staff will require the quarantine yesterday the school board voted to change course and require masks for students and staff for the next four weeks august 10 was the first day of school for beverage public schools in florida masks were
035optional by august 16th only six days later 69 staff and 293 students tested positive for covets and more than 3 thousand people were quarantined but as dire as those numbers seen it got even worse the numbers we have today bring the total number of questions to over 2 000 cases quarantines now total over 11 000 for students and staff in that district why is kobe tearing through schools at such an alarming rate right now as you many of you already know the arm out of the disease is the rate of infection we are not of the original strain impovement we were dealing with last year was between 1.4 and 2.4 which means that each infected person was likely to infect one to two additional people while we're still learning more about delta now some estimates
036have that the arm of delta is an alarming eight making it exponentially more contagious than what we faced last year as a district are masks perfect at preventing the spread of disease they are not neither are vaccines but a good mental model we can use is that of swiss cheese each layer of precautions and perfect on its own slows the spread of codeine masks help to decrease the number of particles released into the air by someone who is sick social distancing can prevent sunfire as particles from spreading from one person to another with ventilation filtering open windows all these things help um vaccines help the people fight them off that fight off the viruses that have it and this brings up another point of personal concern for me the vaccine provides a significant amount of
037protection but it has not yet been approved for anyone under 12 my kids um the 10 self-calling schools are 11 and 8. they might have a chance to get the initial vaccine in october which means they could be fully vaccinated as early as december in the meantime they'll be facing a virus that is so virulent that breakthrough cases mean that vaccinated people are giving it to other vaccinated people and pediatric hospitals across the south are filling up with kids fighting for their lives in the face of this situation i want the school board and our new governor for that matter to know that you will have our family's full support in mandating masking for everyone endures at school regardless of vaccination says this could buy us a few more months of instruction while we wait
038for the vaccine to become available for our kids i think most of the people in this room believe that in-person instruction has irreplaceable benefits for the children of our district we want our kids to be able to see their friends learn from their teachers and for the love of pete who laps around the playground instead of our living rooms universal masking is a powerful tool that can help us give us better odds of achieving that united goal thank you thank you okay our next request is from michael craft so people understand how long that was as we go on that was 4 30 before and after so give you kind of an idea there's an idea that i'm a time keeper michael thank you practice and uh everybody in the school board good evening um
039i came tonight as a citizen and as a parent of two kids in this district um i had a few things that i wrote down but i'm not going to go by this i'm kind of just kind of like okay um the past 22 months have been absolutely ridiculous i think the covid uh restrictions and protocols that have been implemented by this district are ridiculous okay um there's a lot that needs to change okay uh dr perry you and i have had a couple conversations on the phone um i've dropped a little bit of knowledge to you i've got some logic to you um we did nothing about it okay we sat and not watch these kids have to be in 10 foot boxes outside recess you know six foot distancing masks which by the
040way do not work okay trying to uh keep a virus out of your body using a mask is like trying to keep mosquitoes out of your yard using a chain-link fence because it comes down to particle size i don't care if you're talking about a net gator or a bonafide n95 mask now the reopening plan and the protocols that you guys have been using for over a year now you say you've taken guidance from the department of health the cdc the academy for pediatrics well let's just take a look at some of those things okay department of health i can tell you i got off with i got off the phone with howard zucker's office yesterday he's not he's not making a call on this he's giving he's leading it up to the districts okay
041so it's up to you okay the cdc has been wrong about a dozen times in in the past 22 months and i'm talking about wrong and what i mean wrong i'm talking about like fudging numbers and coming up with like scaring us all with numbers talking about everybody's dying okay when really it turns out six to ten percent of all those deaths were actually caused by colgate and all the other ones were caused by other underlying conditions or pre-existing pre-existing conditions okay so because knowledge has been dropped on you and logic has been dropped on you you did nothing okay it scares the heck out of it it scares the heck out of me to know that you people here are in charge of policy making and the education of children okay and you did
042nothing for the past 22 months except for be compliant and obey what your superiors told you which tells me that in the future anything your superiors told you to do to my kids you do it okay if it meant slapping each other in the face comically speaking if they've been slapping each other in the face 12 times a day to prevent cold day not only do i believe that you guys will be doing it but you'd be yelling at my kids to do the same thing all right executing no logic and no smarts and i believe a few years have doctorates here okay it's a heck of a long have a heck of a lot of time going to school okay it's a nice little piece of paper to have only to make the decisions
043that you've made in the past 20 months 22 months is pretty disgusting okay now let's talk about a couple things like mandated vaccines that you're willing to so accept possibly in the future okay let me tell you about mandated vaccines you know what it goes against the nuremberg code okay if you don't know what the nuremberg code is please look it up because it's what we prosecuted the nazis for after world war ii okay and if you want to talk about numbers all right with that little nose swap test okay the guy who invented that swag test straight up said it doesn't work there's too many chances for false positives because that nasal swap test doesn't pick up coping it picks up mere segments of a protein segments of a protein that are present in
044so many other things including influenza okay so the numbers that we've been seeing first of all are fudged and you all went by that right past 22 months do you know what six percent of all those deaths mean that have been like reported you know what that means six percent twelve percent thirteen percent i think what we're dealing with it means there was no pandemic there is no pandemic okay you need to reevaluate what we've all been going through all right for the past 22 months because you involved my kids my involving my kids involved me okay we're done okay you got 30 seconds coming to your mind what you're just saying you know you you involved my kids in doing so you know it was kind of a little bit of a torture you
045might you might say restrictions and protocols be lifted right here at the south courage tower fight for our kids all right i know you're new here you're worried about your job but you know what you do it and i bet you every superintendent around here will follow suit and you be the legend be a legend my man on you look legendary so you won't mandate the vaccines ever not if it comes down the road say right now on camera you're gonna refuse to mandate you will not force our kids that is our decision yes thank you very much um i do have something that i wrote i'd like to stand up i i did find it kind of discouraging i don't know if there can be dialogue but i'm not sure why 10 minutes before
046the meeting you guys are all out masked and we are we were wondering that too yeah just if you can understand where we're coming from what we're trying to push for you guys are all sitting in here and all of you walked in except i believe for two gentlemen without a mask on in and out a couple times they don't work it's just i'm not concerned about that but my point is it's rather discouraging for a parent to see that that's all um i do want to say thank you to amber we talked a lot last year she was very kind and understanding and mr backus and i have spoke a couple times um i just want to say good evening to fellow parents good evening board members uh deputy superintendent backus and superintendent perry
047i just want to first thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight um just a little joke my wife was wondering where i was going this evening because i had a collared shirt on and some dress pants and i did say i had an important date which is an important day to be here um my name is jeremy rondell i have three children in our school district two are going to be attending sand creek middle school one is attending shaker road uh for the past 17 years i have proudly served as a police officer in the city of albany and i've proudly served that job [Applause] as you can imagine 17 years in the city of albany i have seen some crazy things i have seen things that just don't make sense and that leads
048me into what currently we are dealing with right now with our children and asking them at our school to me that just does not make sense it doesn't make sense we're masking our children to protect them against the virus per the cdc it's my only fact that we'll tell you that has a survival rate of 99.998 percent i believe they have a better chance of getting struck by lightning fbi sets until you have a better chance of getting kidnapped and not be found than diet coke but yeah we're going to continue to mask our kids i want to share a quick story about my daughter amelia she will be entering the fifth grade amelia was a third grade student who loved school amelia unlike us she hated fridays because she was gonna leave school and
049not go back for a couple days that was in third grade i will fast forward you to fourth grade after leaving early in third grade from march school shut down everything shut down we were all shocked by that amelia went back into fourth grade very optimistic very excited to see her friends um that quickly changed quickly her teacher enforced so many masked rules and restrictions on her it was it was it was almost child abuse i had spoken to her teacher i had spoken to the principal nobody wanted to listen to me but as a man and a father to sit there on numerous nights and to put my child to bed crying that eats at you as a human as a father to sit there and hear your child sobbing because she has a
050headache from the mask she can't visit with her friends she's put in a box at recess and they throw stones at each other to keep themselves occupied i'm sorry to say it but prisoners have more freedom than our children did that is that to me is sad and again if anybody can relate to that please i know there's four out of nine of you on the board that can relate to that and if you understand what i mean by that you have children in the school district the other five do not i'll finish up by saying that there is a simple solution to this whole thing and i hope that you can be understanding of each other and act like adults again it was very discouraging to come in here 10 minutes after i saw
051all the mask lists to have you masked up it just that this was so discouraging but i do feel the resolution would be to give it up to the parents like a parental choice let parents make the choice when it comes to our children if the parents who want to mask their children if that is your safety valve for your child then your child should be safe that mask is your answer that will protect you from the child that does not have a mask on and i understand now that you briefly spoke about the you know the opening plan i understand there's some things in there to slowly hopefully get things back tomorrow and i understand that i respect that but i just feel that a simple solution is to leave it up to our
052parent up to us the parents and what's best for our children and what we have been doing for decades okay again thank you for your time god bless our children god bless our faculty and staff [Applause] today so i know that there are four different zones that you talked about so if we went to school tomorrow we it sounds like we'd be in that high risk redstone rack current metrics yes okay so in the red zone is when you're saying that they'll need to be masked for the full day um sitting at desk and also in common areas um and then once if we reach that orange zone which would be a step down from the red and the other three are you saying that if they're sitting in school learning math english whatever they
053can remove their math once we reach those what is the plan under the orange or substantial correct that i appreciate and i and i can work with although i would prefer to have my child not have to grow math i can at least appreciate that you have thought about that and that in a situation where they're learning they at least can take their mask off for that time period so my question in the zone that they have to wear their mask of their desk i think all of you guys know unlike this club this room has air conditioning our buildings are not air conditioned in the months of september in the months of october and the months of may in june it is excessively hot in our buildings and there are some classrooms that when
054i say accessible cat i mean like a hundred degrees because they're on the second floors they're getting sunlight what are we doing to protect the kids that i have to wear a mask all day in those classrooms i really hope you guys have actually thought about that so just a quick response to that is we have added additional air conditioners it's not enough for every classroom i can guarantee that but throughout the summer we have implemented 20 additional cooling zones or air conditioners in the classrooms much like through all the buildings again it's not nearly enough to have air conditioning in all locations but it is a step in the direction of trying to have additional classroom space so what what is the i'm assuming that you guys have talked to different medical professionals and
055you have all this guidance what is the guidance any what temperature can these kids wear a mask for an extended period of time before they're going to pass out have a migraine all these other things and then you know what is that temperature who's con who's keeping track of that temperature does everybody care about how long that they can wear the mask i'm asking because my daughter was in a very hot classroom last year i pulled her out in june on multiple days because she gets migraines she could be in school only for two hours in the morning and then i would pull her out and nothing was done so i'm just really hoping that you guys actually thought about that for you know we're not a district that has temperature controlled rooms so i'm
056hoping that when you release the plan or at least before school can you come up with a solution of is it an hour can they be in a classroom that's 80 degrees for an hour with a mask on and then negative 15 minutes right there has to be some sort of guideline that you give us parents as just like a reassurance like okay we're forcing the kids to wear a mask if we're in this zone i can accept that i don't want to but i can accept it however last year it was left up to the teachers to control the mass breaks there just needs to be some guidance on the mathematics you have to come up with like a standard that everyone should have to follow um especially in one classrooms somewhere in days
057so i'm just asking if we can if you can really think about that my second question is regarding quarantine so last year quarantine was what 12 days kids would be quarantined for do you have a period of time if they don't have to be quarantined do you know that is it currently the quarantine is 10 days okay that may be mitigated by the contact time that department health accesses and determines when the exposure took place so if they get to you three days later they want to reduce the seventh um but the standard right now is ten days okay without a hybrid model how are you educating the kids for 10 days while they're on quarantine there's a variety of options um and i and i want to go full time so i'm not saying
058bring back the hybrid i'm just asking if my daughter happens to be within that six street radius or my son how do they and they're unquarantined for 10 days it's a very long time what are we doing to educate them there are a variety of options to be free for that one of the options is if teachers are comfortable they can have a live google beat allow the student who's home to join in the classroom but that will be up to the teacher it will be at their discretion at this particular time it's a difficult thing to be in both places we lived at last year right uh there may also be additional resources provided on google classroom whether a pre-recorded lesson or office hour time additional time where students who are home due to
059illness or quarantine can connect with the teacher and provide some instructions so those are three options right off the top but we will continue to provide as much flexibility at each instructional level as appropriate of time on a google me for a kindergartner difference right but i'm talking at you know middle school and high school levels with these kids 10 days off from school means you've missed a lot of material for a test a lot of material quizzes i mean how do you catch up a kid who's on hunting for 10 days if there isn't a teacher that's you know available to them and i and i and i not just i mean i don't have the answer i'm just asking if you guys somebody should we'll we'll continue to look at uh each individual
060case that comes up we can provide things like uh medical home instruction if necessary it comes from a long uh manner and and when a student gets back to school and they're healthy we will get them caught up as well so that may be additional time with a teacher or a tutor to get them bottom line is we want to be able to educate them when they're healthy so if they're on quarantine and they're healthy enough to learn and we can treat them differently than if they're quarantined in an updated one right anything else i realize we've got to get it hi my name is michael farah i've been a colony resident since 1965 i grew up in north colonie and i graduated from there my children were raised in south colonie and they're both
061from the 30s and that officer casey you may have been a resource officer at their school at some point um way back yeah so when i grew up i grew up north county we were south county things were different back then we didn't have to worry about some of the things that i'm worried about today and i know a lot of other people that are worried about um i see it online a lot i see people uh parents showing up at school board meetings just upset with in fact i wanted to discuss something you said something about the definition for the code of ethics you're talking about so in the code of ethics i looked online today there's dignity for all students prohibiting discrimination mental emotional and physical well-being is important uh intimidation or abuse
062based on a person's actual or preferred race color weight national origin ethnicity religion disability sexual orientation gender or sex is not allowed i want to know why school districts are allowing critical race theory to be taught to our students and just about everyone i mentioned critical race theory to does not know what it is they say oh i've heard of it but you know really what is it critical race theory uh actually trying to disguise it now lots of times you'll hear about diversity equity inclusion initiatives uh things like that but it's critical race theory and if you look at the bare facts it's teaching children that because you're a white person you are inherently racist now i want everybody to look this up please this is important it's not right to teach anybody that
063especially young children they don't look at color kids get along so you're going to teach people at a young age that because i'm white and that's that now it's the other way around now we're going to say that you can pick out a color you say i'm a bad person because i'm white but i can't pick out of their color because you're black or any other ethnicity uh this is not right and it should be stopped i don't know if you're allowing this in our school district i'd like to find out what the curriculum is uh to discover if this is being taught is anybody familiar with this have you heard they are doing it it's under their diversity inclusion and it's already here it's starting yes they're training in the fall they are doing
064it let me ask everyone here does anyone think it's right to be to tell a child that a white person is no good they're inherently a racist person is that right it's under their cultural proficient action plan is how they they have it so that's in return what is that i don't have a search for it this is wrong it should not be allowed in earth it should not be allowed to be taught anywhere is it anywhere is okay dei is diversity equity and inclusion so that's the new term you don't know anything about it you come to our door looking for votes now when we need you silence they just passed this and shown my school district yesterday which that's why i'm here today i've never done this before this is outrageous everybody here
065should be more pissed off than i am this is not right isn't this what you guys do though isn't you approve the curriculum correct of what's being taught why would you approve that do you think it's right i just want to understand this let me answer have you approved that all right so let them answer do some research does anybody here know a critical researcher have you really delved into the facts do you agree with it do you think it's a good idea to discriminate against somebody because of their color is racism at its core you have to literally let them answer the question okay they're only listening one gentleman christopher roofo very educated man if you google that name r ufo uh there's a whole story it's eight pages long i can't read it
066to you uh but he has done a lot of research this year i produced another series of reports focused on critical race theory education california locate themselves as oppressors which we are we would be awaiting english-speaking christian males they're members of the oppressor group and they're associating with covert white supremacy um in philadelphia elementary school forced fifth graders to celebrate black communism and simulate a black power valley to free 1960's radical uh angela davis from prison where she was once held on charges of murder and in seattle the school district told white teachers that they are guilty of spirit murder against black children and must bankrupt their privilege and acknowledgement of their thieves inheritance so it's an all-out assault on everyone because you can never not be a racist in our society this is what
067to tell us and this is this is uh marxism and communist teachings this is not right in our society every one of you people should be outraged can i get an answer can anybody answer if that was approved did everybody know one more thing did any everybody here know what critical race theory was before you voted today so this isn't a dialogue that can follow so you voted it in knowing knowing that it's racism racist we have an online comment from kristin clancy she has expressed her displeasure with the lack of plan for students to know who the teachers are in the middle school it's a huge transition to go to fifth grade and she would ask that the district show care and alleviate some worry by allowing fifth graders to know who the teachers
068names are and do a meet and greet show that you care about mental health by taking student-based decisions into uh consideration so thank you we did follow up with ms clancy and inform her that there's an orientation going on tomorrow next comment came from jennifer houlihan she's employing the board of education to follow all current guidance regarding the kobe 19 including guides for sports to not follow the guidance affects all students not just athletes it affects our medically fragile students who may have no choice but to attend school alongside those athletes given the grossly insufficient virtual option at the secondary level that will likely delay graduation for any high school participant and excluded students with disabilities and english language learners or compromise the services to which they are entitled mrs coolan sent a second comment
069in that asked that the public comments online be increased in the number of characters to 500 or more because she wanted to be able to honor the full three minutes that the board provides in first last comment came from brian roland as of today the cdc recommends children to wear masks in school recommending is not a mandate or a law and so the decision to have children wear masks is a choice made in the local school level you plan to make children wear masks this year i'd like to know two things who actually made the decision and what information to use to make the decision so thank you to mr roland we provided that information this evening as part of our presentation all right reports and reformation actions dashboards for mr ryan so can i
070just speak all favor community reports and action items yep that's me policy 9290 supplemental compensation rates we approved this policy at the last meeting of this were related to the capital region teacher center they had come to us most recently with some updates to their budget and suggested that they arranged the rates that did not make the last approval crisis so that is the change this is uh money that is provided to the teacher center as the lead education agency we are the conduit to extending those funds its money and money out based upon their state grants very good all right as um the president or the committee chair of policy committee i recommend that policy 9290 supplemental compensation rates with the revisions made above be approved as presented facilities transportation plan sure okay i'll
071uh you all have a copy of the uh of the minutes in front of you this meeting was uh took place uh over a month ago and since then we had uh a subsequent meeting which addressed a lot of uh other issues a lot of these issues further i just want to touch on a couple of things and uh first of all uh mr funny being recognized of the new york people transportation association award at the recent conference we congratulate him and i do not have any updates on the stop on canberra legislation for the school buses i don't believe anything let's move forward on that noaa change script okay that's status quo uh the outside walk-throughs are complete lists of these have been made and we have a number of items to attend to
072but they were all in all the buildings and we will work on those lists some things will be done quicker than others but they will all be gotten to uh in terms of the capital project updates uh we've had that was what basically our last meeting yesterday was about and there has been some updates uh uh some progress made i don't know what we're gonna link to that now dr carrier just briefly we are still continuing to look at the property on broader street for consideration for secondary egress we're working with our architects to design a egress that does not travel through broader street which is one of the areas that our communication with the villager colony expressed concern so we are trying to address that and look at some alternative routes so we are
073going back to plans and we present several options to the boards of education as long as as well as the cost factors associated with each of those potential second address so that that continues to be a major major project for the committee and the board uh one other thing just wanted to bring up two other things the archway football field is moving along very well it's gonna look really nice when it gets done preparation and we're going to branch improvements to our playing fields uh i can tell you that the baseball field is going to be uh set up the sprinkler system but as we said i think 70 heads baseball ensemble feeling isn't there needed to be addressed let me take some time back but we're working with a uh soil company to improve
074ph or whatever it needs to be improved we're working with sand a lot over there too but that's been worked on and we'll have a further update next to the next week just a question ms mcallister has the funding for the archway been settled for the yes um the our play is being funded by the donations by the county raiders football organization um majority of us being funded from that um that is all paid for um the final piece of the archive is going up next week and then which should be the only cost of the districts were related to some new fencing along that that area we replaced the fencing and connecting the asphalt from the existing asphalt it was a triangular area that we felt was a need to i believe september 17th
075is the plan uh field naming yeah so we are on track for i have to be able blocks are starting to go in and that should be completed and we will be getting a list of all the donations that went toward that um for public um thank you anything else that's it actual items that we think the three days of building walkers yeah thank you all right number nine reports and recommendations for action and i have a motion this is spoken in a second and that's pages five and six eight through h going through it and if you have any questions come through i never really know how far the claims are going to go beyond me seeing what the issue is and identifying it insurance but staff fills it out turns it into building
076turns into the office the decision whether it's at 100 75 percent handled by the [Music] starts when an employee has an injury they report it to either the nurse or thought that public foreign level that then comes up to the business office to start the process right i'm just looking as far as you know twenty thousand of the year if it's two planes versus twenty planes versus two hundred is understand and of course thank you to everyone who deserves it for our donations here anything else maybe this is coding secondly all in favor i'll get you next 11 through 18. question mr robert i got an email today that we've got some positions opening uh science and something else are they included in this um we just posted it i don't know if they were
077intelligent we're searching for a search page okay thank you one of the resignations we are actively searching for two uh science teachers namely the environment is 15 years of service to our district a value member of our maintenance mechanics staff very skilled i believe he's our plumbing guy and uh he's going to be great but he's worked hard over his career and certainly deserves some time we had a nice conversation he's just ready to do some other things so we wish him the best clients you just certainly always miss your plumbing guy any questions on the motion made famous 50 seconds all in favor yeah we it was a it was a tough um piece of information for our district to to learn a couple weeks ago but one of our drivers passed um after
078a battle with some health issues he worked for us for over six years i get to know joe as a parent first with one of his daughters the high school um great guy i know he made lots of friends with the families and students i've been transported and he will be certainly missed in ways that we're not talking about a retirement we're talking about forever we're going to miss him and we wish his family all our thoughts and prayers as they get through this tough time thank you 12 resolution the opening [Music] 13 resolution for the school calendar amendment uh there are no changes currently this authorizes myself as a superintendent to make adjustments to the calendar in between board meetings if necessary due to uh cobid or any type of executive orders last year
079we had a series of executive boards that came through we don't necessarily anticipate that but this will allow us to make those adjustments go to a virtual or remote environment if necessary to do uh detect communication so hopefully we won't need to change the camera 14 professional development plans may i have a mission busy we've added some things where we start to adjust to students coming back so there's nothing related to learning gaps there's things related to second steps to social emotional we also have the adoption of the ready math at the k-8 level uh that we're going to emphasize as well and we continue to hit our balanced literacy we continue to hit supporting our self-education our steam and our google integration along those lines as well so they were all listed in the
080professional development plan and the report looks like last week oh um are there any questions yes well it passes nine to zero the last i've ever heard our resolution may have a motion patriot day obviously in remembrance of september 11 2001 uh this year's special significance being the 20th anniversary uh the work of the buildings on what recognitions we will have uh related to that uh age-appropriate obviously um but we'll see what we'll do in light of the 20th anniversary thank you any questions unless you made the mrs gizzy second ladies post saying if everyone can take a look at future meetings any questions about those okay the other motion to get that sound i know now i just saw one note um as we get into the fall our regular board needs to move
081back to the seventh room um oh uh yes