001back from executive and um at this point we will resume the public session and if you would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and Mr Trump would you mind leaving us in the church tonight I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so before we begin we just would like to remind you that the emergency locate exit locations are in the event of an emergency please leave in an orderly fashion through these exits immediately to the rear of the room and to my right and to your left um this is also a smoke-free District smoking is not permitted in the building or anywhere on the school grounds and you
002shouldn't smoke anyway that's my personal opinion this is also a double check got a message that you can't hear it you can't hear me from there are you here it's uh yeah it's not not very loud so it doesn't work there's no microphone there's no no for you no oh okay just up there Max are the one are they are the microphone's working okay do you just need me to project more is that what you're asking okay this is a hate free and Bully Free School District all right everybody just note the emergency exits in the event there is there is one um that brings us up also I just want to say I'd be remiss if I didn't say everyone who has family in Florida we're thinking of their safety right now so um
003the consent agenda the administration recommends approval the consent agenda items C1 through C5 we have a motion promotion by trustee Barry second by trustee Trent is there any discussion on the consent agenda discussion all those in favor please raise your hand [Applause] uh see in all hands raised it passes unanimously and now we're up to the superintendent's report thank you switch tabs I want to welcome our students and our board to our board meeting all right so I'm going to get right to it this is refer to my notes I'm going to begin with the Pre-K enrollment update as I've been providing the community at each board meeting right now we're currently um at full capacity in our full day program with 90 children enrolled we also have 12 students enrolled at our morning half
004day program and 13 enrolled in our afternoon half day program which means there are still some spots left for each of the half day programs the capacity is 18. so if you're still looking or the community members who still want to register their children there are still spaces available and we do have a wait list for the full day program currently at um moving on um I had the privilege of attending the niskis conference um a couple of weeks ago Michigan stands for the New York State Council of school superintendents and they had an annual fall leadership conference which was entitled Together We rise shaping education for today tomorrow and Beyond during my time there I had to get a Fortune of attending um various Workshops the keynote speaker spoke about education in a changing
005World um basically the world is changing a at an exponential level when it comes to technology mindsets perspectives so we really spoke about how schools need to adapt to this for the board's uh historical perspective public schools are established after the Industrial Revolution and we're kind of designed to create a Workforce that would be compliant assemblyn workers Factory workers and that model pretty much remained the same for a very long time since I was a public school student in my youth the whole Paradigm has shifted with the Advent of Technology social media so schools have to adapt um as well so we talked about education in the changing World diversity Equity inclusion Equitable communication data-driven approach to equity uh I'm sorry Equity diversity equity and inclusion Community Building adaptive leadership and there was a legislative
006report that kind of spoke to where the state was at and state that department was at um I also had an opportunity to meet both at a breakfast meeting and at a Roundtable discussion with the Deputy Commissioner Baldwin Deputy Commissioner Rosa to talk about the future of schools the one thing I took away from this conference which was fantastic is that South Country in many regards is ahead of the curve especially when it comes to our Equity initiatives our culture of care really the the resounding message from the state department was number one the importance of relationships in schools which is very kind of akin to what I spoke to at superintendent's conference day and the change in the in the mindset where school districts were placed on lists and almost a state department shame
007schools and to be better understanding that approach has been wrong and because when we talk about dip schools versus bad schools what is really the difference and how do you equate that so I think the state that department is going in a very positive direction in terms of accountability measures and wanting growth the doing so in a supportive Manner and that's kind of the impression I got from the deputy Community Center and the commissioner when I was there it was also a great opportunity to network it's a small picture but that's when I was sitting next to the superintendent from Lindenhurst on the day our football team walked to them so that was a very awkward interaction we showed his cell phone and showed me the scoreboard but it did not diminish by Clipper pride
008and we had a very incredible Victory the following week but very productive conference I enjoyed being there I want to give you a brief safety update just because school safety is on everybody's mind in our reorganization meeting in July the school board adopted our district-wide safety plan the district-wide safety plan is something that is a public public information it's accessible on our website it talks in generalities about safety plans and our response to potential crises in addition we have building level emergency plans that have been developed by each of our buildings and will be submitted by October 15th those plans are not public knowledge for obvious reasons we don't want the public knowing what our safety Protocols are however those building plans are shared with law enforcement including the fifth Precinct the sheriff's department and
009so we kind of keep those things up to date and they keep getting revised on a year-to-year basis a couple of years ago for example they had pandemic response included as part of your safety plans um but I will say this uh basically all of our schools are required to administer four lockdown drills and eight evacuation drills during the course of the whole school year um evacuation drills include fire drills so when we say Evacuate the whole point is to evacuate the building as quickly as possible in terms of drills and this is just for the trustees knowledge and for the Public's knowledge we have what's called a shelter in place drill that typically is when there's something going on outside of the skilled building that may present a danger not necessarily a danger from
010a human threat shelter in place happens sometimes when there's inclement weather a hurricane something in most cases things that won't happen in our region but one never knows considering there was a tornado out east this past weekend a hold in place drill is when you want students to stay in one spot I've done this in my experience as a high school principal when a student needed medical attention we wanted to make sure there was no student traffic in the hallway so we call for a hold in place which means everybody just stays where there are while we take care of whatever situation needs to be taken care of and then we have the evacuation drills which are basically fire drills um we will be conducting a more robust evacuation drill at Kramer at the end
011of the week where the kids will be evacuated and sent over to the middle school and again this is all to prepare lockouts we know is when there is a Potential Threat outside of the building um and so we lock everybody out and we don't allow access to the building from the outside and then lock down is when there's a Potential Threat inside the building and what I hate about all these drills is that they're anxiety provoking you know we don't want to talk about school shootings uh we certainly don't want to talk to young children about the need to to and there's three things that they emphasize and these drills that's a little difference it's a void deny defend the avoid pot is easy you avoid whatever danger by hiding and then when you
012do lockdown drills we try to make everybody become sort of invisible in the building the deny piece is to make sure everything is locked including constructing barricades to prevent whatever danger is in the building from accessing students and staff and what's different this year is the defend component where if your barricades and rates to the door is breached we've got to basically tell our students that you need to defend yourself and this is these are awful conversations to have in schools I do think that one of the side effects of these conversations is that it does produce more anxiety I certainly never in a million years would have thought about being shocked in my school going through the public school system but we did have bomb drills where we prepared for nuclear attack from Russia
013at the time um but those kind of Thrills were so sort of abstract that I don't know that it really affected us as children but these days with the amount of mass shootings going on um you know it is something that we need to be prepared for because I'd rather be accused of being overly cautious and not cautious enough and there's been hopes going around the country there's one hoax where uh someone with a heavy accent claims to be in the building and in possession of a weapon this has happened out Midwest we got a notification from the FBI to say be aware of this folks and then there's also a tick tock school threat challenge which again uh creates a lot of hoaxes and to that ends we I want to say again and
014always emphasize if you see something and by C I mean on social media you read something someone says something someone draws something you should say something because again I'd rather be accused of being over cautious than not cautious enough and from the district standpoint anytime there's a potential threat it's not going to be our judgment Call to determine whether or not it's real or not that's going to be law enforcement we'll do our due diligence in investigating it from school perspective but anytime anything comes up I just want to assure the trustees and the community that law enforcement will be involved even if we know it's a benign threat even if we know it's not real we're going through the process yeah so um I have a question about the emergency response list here all
015uh five of these items if they were implemented in any building I assume that the parents would be notified as well as the board so anytime there's a lockdown um my experience we haven't had it yet not a drill we don't notify the community when we're doing a lockdown drill but if there's ever a real lockdown or lockout robocall and email to go off to the community for sure so what about the the holding place and the not a hole in place because sometimes that literally could be like a two or three minute just please keep doing especially if you notice in your transition time so if you know the belt's gonna ring and there's a kid who needs a little bit of medical attention in the hallway you may call for a holding place
016it's very rare but that's when it would happen yeah if there's ever an actual lockdown or a lockout the community be advised and I'm gonna actually show the community a trick on how to get those messages if they don't have children in the school district right and we'll have our first actually safety health and safety committee uh next week meeting when we'll review these plans as well we do have a capital reserve vote coming up on October 12th we'll be doing a more detailed presentation but I just want to remind the board and the community members who are watching that the vote is coming up again as a reminder the capital reserve are funds that we already have we're not asking the taxpayers for any more money it's not a bond but we do need
017public approval to use those funds and typically as a quick just sort of educational piece school districts put aside a little bit of money each year for these projects the other friends benefit of capital Improvement projects and this has basically a focus on safe and secure whether safety in terms of student athletes in our turf field or computer enhancements just because technology keeps changing and we have to keep updating it also is a source of revenue for us because we're looking to spend a little over 2.6 million dollars on all these projects which we already have in our capital reserve fund so it's not new money but it's also aidable by the state at a little bit over a 60 76 percent so these projects actually generates revenue for the district because 76 percent of
018the Clause will be covered by the state so it's a way to increase Revenue although that's not the intention of the capital is our vote it's really to make these security enhancements so we'll have a more detailed presentation on October 12th but I just wanted to keep it in everybody's Consciousness the science have been going up we've also will be mailing a newsletter out to families that you should receive about two weeks prior to the vote moving on with some soft Country School happenings I'd like to share good news uh Bellport High School had its Club Fair promo reports it was really well attended participation in clubs and um extra interest classic Sports has increased this year which we love so I love the fact that we have a lot of variety in terms of
019our course our club offerings at the high school um some Bellport high school students also volunteered at the VFW again doing the right thing we have students multiple schools participating in our 9 11 Memorial event down in the village It's featured several of our students one AP student uh Rachel Lee actually scored a perfect score on the AP research paper exam and so she's in the top one percent in the whole nation so it's a really remarkable score to get a little round of applause but tonight I was appointed a superintendent she was here making a presentation about specialized schools and it was pretty awesome so um kudos to her and everybody involved in helping her achieve that Milestone we also had some South Country student musicians named Allstate so again we're continually getting these
020accolades for our students because there is a lot of things to be happy and proud about in South Country moving on our meet the teacher my age we're really well attended so we're really pleased about that I was able to attend the four of them attendance so here's some parents and also really pleased with the ptas and their involvement in those nights and I want to encourage community members to join their respective ptas joining the PTA doesn't mean that you're obligated to attend events but you'll be kept in the loop with school news and it's always good just to have sort of a foot in the door through our school so that's a great mechanism by which you can kind of keep informed as to what's happening in schools but our meet the teacher nights
021were very very successful um one of the things that we're doing as part of our second step initiative is having kind of a collaboration between high school students and Elementary School students specifically third graders so this is something that was organized by Mr Watkins Mr Hayes our athletic director where we had high school students receive training and how to speak to their younger counterparts and just provide relationships to bridge the gap between high school and middle school as part of a restorative approach again it's about fostering positive relationships and it went over really well elementary school kids think high school kids are celebrities so when they walk in especially when they're wearing their jerseys and stuff it was just a lot of fun you can see me in the back I think I was having
022a little bit more fun than the kids but um great to see the interactions and that camaraderie and I'd love to bring more experiences like that to the district this is a Hispanic Heritage Month it goes from September 15th October 15th schools are doing multiple events especially through our world language department but there's a couple things coming up there will be a student assembly on October 7th Friday which I'll be presenting a little bit about Heritage not only am I about my Latino Heritage but just the importance of knowing your heritage in general one of the things I've discovered in doing DNA elect analysis is that I'm really a mixed bag you know I have Scottish ancestry a French ancestry Irish in addition to my African and Spanish and Portuguese ancestry and so I think
023while we celebrate Hispanic Charities this month you know my point is everybody should really be interested in where they come from and their stories because you learn things about yourself that um sometimes are just mind-boggling and I'm really curious and I'm gonna speak a little bit about my family tree I was able to trace it back and mind you I never really I never knew my father I was raised by my mother who's not very open about her history so I thought I had an old tree and right now I've gone back into the early 1700s immigrants from France so it's pretty cool to see and it's really exciting because it speaks to the fact that while we have these sort of exterior differences is so much more commonality and in us that um I
024think we should celebrate so it's gonna be a celebration of Heritage I will be also presenting at the Middle School's event which is going to focus on flavors and traditions of Hispanic heritage since October 13th and Brookhaven Elementary School is inviting an author to their school to speak for the kids of Hispanic heritage in addition to this talk about celebrating students in debt success just this afternoon we had our Center of Excellence induction ceremony our Center of Excellence as a club that's catered to students from underrepresented groups who may not have all the resources um at the disposal but when they're doing the College and Career planning so it's a great um sort of premise for a club and today we had an induction ceremony I want to thank president Feliz for speaking at this
025ceremony Ms Doyle for speaking at the ceremony and one of the things we discovered from each of us speaking is we have a lot in common um some of our stories are very similar and it's about overcoming adversity and really keeping your eyes in the prize so really happy uh to have attended that event this afternoon I want to thank Vice President Hayes for being there and supporting uh the event as well thank you uh moving on selfies with the superintendent I've been trying to get around to all of the buildings I'm causing a little bit of a disruption sometimes because now kids are requesting the Selfies uh but I love being around the students I have high school students here I almost called you kids young adults my bad um but it's been great
026just going around and um despite my having started July 1st and school only have been in session for a couple of weeks I feel like I already have been here forever because I'm not saying that as a negative I'm thinking there's a positive I just love the community the students have been awesome at every grade grade level but they may have taken it too far with the cardboard cutouts they're taking today so if I'm not available for a selfie there's a cardboard cutouts so um but they've been great we have great fans at the sporting events my guys live has been so positive and I believe that's it again follow me on social media I have a Twitter handle I have an Instagram handle my blog is also available on our website I'll show you
027how to get it really quickly again there's various Twitter handles that you can follow from the different departments in our school district they're all doing fantastic things I suggest you follow them and then October 6th I'm going to be presenting to the community uh the presentation I did for our staff which was entitled teaching and learning in a polarized post pandemic encounter into this world so that's kind of the the main title of my presentation to be open to the public and by everybody coming in to hear my Spiel and to get to know me a little bit more again that's October um seven and again if you want to access October 6th sorry thank you president Felice if you want to access the superintendent's corner you can go to The District menu here and
028just highlight where it says superintendent's corner or on our main and that will give you the superintendent's quarter which will have a monthly update and it also includes my contact information along with Mr felody uh if you're gonna contact me I suggest you contact her as well just because of the bottle of emails I get to make sure I get I get to all of them it has my Twitter feed on that page as well and it has my weekly update which is sort of a Blog uh sort of Entry that's updated on a weekly basis so the community has a lot of access to me in the school district and in addition to make it easier we added a quick link to access the community portal when you hit that link you'll be asked
029to create an account this will enable community members who don't have kids in the district to receive Communications that go out District One so we made it a lot easier to access that means of communication for community so we're making strides just in terms of being more transparent and um and getting people just sort of informed of what's happening in the uh the school district um and that concludes my report thank you very much yes sir I just have more questions Mr Santana how um how are you advertising your meet the superintendent event on the six are you like sending out some kind of like um Blackboard connector I'm going to send a Blackboard connect the Monday of that Thursday so sometimes I feel like you're doing too early and I'm also going to be
030posting into my social media as well and it's already posted on the website and I will tell you it did already appear in bellport.com oh it's good um on Tuesday yesterday [Music] okay all right we're up to the trustee and advisory committee report so very would you like to begin I don't really have a report I did want to acknowledge that I'm wearing an orange tie today for those of you don't know we're wrapping up Hunger action month uh today and because it addressed it earlier today and you know ultimately that's a real issue on Long Island and even in the school district and for those of you don't know I work Island Harvest we're out there working with folks to address that every day thank you trustee Barry Justice yeah um so there were
031two Nassau public school board meetings uh one was the a meeting of the legislative committee which I'm a member however I was not there because it was back to school night at Bellport Middle School but last week uh we did have a regular executive committee meeting and the purpose of these two meetings was to go over the nisbah recommended resolutions and uh for the Nassau Suffolk School Board to review each one and decide whether they're going to support it or not tonight is the resolutions dinner where those resolutions will be voted on by the full membership so I would think at some point in the next week the clerk will get a copy of those resolutions that will be supported um if they don't include the ones that were not I have it I just
032have handled notes on it but I do have also rebuttals from the districts that some of the resolutions were rejected so if anybody wants to see that that information I could pass that along also at that meeting the board president from uh Glen Cove was became a member Maria there you go and she was accompanied by Dr Maria Rihanna and she spent a little time talking about how disappointed she was that we hired Mr Santana away from her but she had a lot of wonderful things to say it's my first time getting to meet her has just wonderful things to say about our superintendent Mr descent and I thought I'd mention along that as well and I also learned that she was a dean while I was in high school in my high school and
033I did not know that so I guess that means I was a good kid or that the football coach was the other Dean so I got in trouble he dealt with it but uh but I did not remember her from school so we had a nice conversation and she was in the district my wife was in for a while so lovely educator who thinks very highly of Mr Santana um the other thing it is and I think I mentioned it last week the Nassau Suffolk School Board is hosting a workshop in regards to the wind energy and the wind projects that are taking place well about Shore it's going to be at the Cradle of Aviation Museum I don't know the date it is in the middle of November I think it's November 15th did
034we get it in the update we did right we talked about that quite a bit and I wasn't really thinking it because I do think we do have a meeting that night but it was also recommended to invite our business department our stem Department our Administration the business Community is going to be that is going to be a lot of focus on this but it sounds like it's going to be a significant event so uh might be something to pass along some of those departments so and that's it thank you okay thank you very much trustee Cavanaugh I do not have anything to report anymore okay thank you that's president only a couple of comments um it was a pleasure being at the induction ceremony this afternoon for the students who were inducted into the
035center of excellence there were 33. the room was packed and there were a lot of family members there also which I thought was really impressive given that it was in the middle of the afternoon so this was something that was very important to not just the students but to their families and I also had the opportunity to speak to some before it started and and also the um teachers who were the advisors for the club for the center um and they were talking about the different activities that are being planned and this fits in with your report about the Hispanic heritage activities there the center of excellence is going to be having tables at a presentation in the high school of um you know different um Heritage issues that they're dealing with and also members
036of the center are going to be going to the Boys and Girls Club to do some team building there so I am just so gratified to hear about how all parts of our district are working together now and also to say thank you for your report about your Leadership Summit because it sounds like you your group with the superintendents was getting not exactly the same information that the school board leadership uh conference provided a month ago but it's all basically the same in terms of topics and you know in terms of um all the presentations talking about the the modern world and how we're not made for a nine to five uh sitting a sit on a assembly line anymore and they talked about equity and the culture of care and my conclusion from the
037leadership conference that I had attended had been that South country is ahead of the curve the same conclusion you got from the presentation you went to and in particular on our social studies end which is a Focus From New York State and with our generation citizen projects and our seal of Civic readiness this was coming up at the conference that I had been to last month and it fits right in with what you were saying about how South country is really you know at the Forefront of some of these things I think there's a lot to be proud of there is thank you very much I will Echo those comments that were made about the center of excellence today it was it wasn't a wonderful event and it's always nice when you see family members
038there supporting their students and they were very very proud and I was quite taken at how many wanted to Stage their own pictures after with administrators um and their and their students they were really very very proud of what their students were able to accomplish today and I um and I look forward to being invited back to see the progress of these students and how they are progressing along the floor we reached graduation time so that was today [Music] um also need to report to the board that on Friday September 30th I will be attending the board officers Academy in Melville this is the first time it's live since the pandemic also I will attend two virtual meetings on October 6th um and October 17th for the voting Delegate for the New York State School
039Board Association we will get a set of proposed resolutions at bylaw Amendment those will be circulated to the board and if there are any comments or changes that you would like to see please get those back to me before we actually vote on them for the 17th we will uh we I'll briefly discuss them at the meeting of the 12th on Friday September 23rd and also just for the Public's knowledge uh in our consent agenda we did approve an Ida spokesperson and that will be uh the board president whoever the board president shall be at that time for the purposes of attending meetings of the Brookhaven Industrial Development Agency for those of the public that aren't aware Board of Education members cannot speak on behalf of the board unless they are authorized to do so
040by the board and so that's why this resolution was necessary so that we can make our feelings known once the board approves it and then appoints a spokesperson to do so so we did make that approval tonight uh I did however attend this meeting before this resolution was um was in place and I voiced my opinion my opinion as a as a personal resident as did uh Vice President Hayes she sent in a letter um uh stating her feelings as well but going forward we will Advocate on behalf of um of the Board of Education and so in attending that meeting there was an Ida project for solar farm at the landfill requesting a hundred percent tax exemption for the next 30 Years by the time our last meeting took place on the 14th until
041today the Ida held not only its public hearing but also its full meaning where that exemption was approved unanimously by all the committee members we have much more work to consider in speaking out against these tax exemptions and reductions which take away millions of dollars in funding from our school the rationale for the exemption used by the committee that day was that the land is located on public property and since the property is a landfill nothing else could be developed on it the residents and especially the school district are not receiving their fair tax dollar um for are not receiving any tax dollars from this location so they shouldn't miss any money coming from it in the future further it was stated the community will eventually benefit from being offered green energy and lower energy
042costs as a result of the solar farm one of the other rationales was that this money uh from the lease program was going to supplement the loss of funds from the eventual closing of the landfill a number of people who spoke in opposition of this exemption said their feelings were the same that if a for-profit company was going to be utilizing public land no tax exemption should be warranted but they also did point to the environmental and health concerns about remediating the landfill before anything is developed on it the executive director of the Brookhaven Ida Lisa Mulligan did offer to come in and speak with the school district directly on the process involved with future application and often that I think the board should consider as we go forward just also FYI for the board
043there are currently five Warehouse projects and applications that are pending for further tax exemption and or payment in lieu of taxes with the Ida one project has two lots one of which is located in our school district the other in the Longwood School District so that makes it six and of the six three are located in the South Country Central School District we need to start our action now to fight for our fair share of tax dollars for our district and that's what this board is in the process of doing going forward all I have for my four I just want to acknowledge um before we continue that our ex-officio student member of the board is not here for good reason it's Brian Johnson's uh birthday so I just want to give her a big
044fat birthday shout out absolutely I doubt she's watching at home but people can report back to I wish her a happy birthday right that brings us up commentary agenda item and I've been I guess is this one this one two good one just one uh one matter for probably comment and in doing so I just need to mention that everything all right I'm not seeing the guidelines on the three-minute limitations but we all know what those are and um so without further Ado is the podium available and just place it enough so that the camera or the streaming can see the speaker have with us Korean Vodacom thank you this this section of the agenda gives the public an opportunity to comment on the agenda items only maximum time for each individual is three minutes
045with a total time for all individuals of 30 Years thank you hi I'm Karim oticon I'm a dad of a second grader at Brookhaven Elementary and a fourth grader Frank P long um I just wanted to say that last week this board abdicated its fiduciary responsibility to the children of South Country by failing to submit comments to the Industrial Development agency's public comment for the 30-year tax exemption for the for-profit solar farm that was put on top of um that was approved yesterday or yeah yeah sure um you know this is many of this board was majority of this board was here in December of 2021 when the board also abdicated its fiduciary responsibility to the children of South Country to the tune of 20 million dollars in tax expenditures by doing nothing um and
046for a warehouse that it has not been built and since then the yesterday the town Ida had a presentation by their fifteen thousand dollar consultant who told them that it's basically bananas to be giving incentives to warehouses in this community so here we are we just gave away the farm in December 2021 and we gave it away last week um and I know I think it's I appreciate president Felice and Vice President Hayes comments but the first question CEO Mulligan asked are you here as a resident are you here representing the Board of Education and I see going forward that that's going to change um but I don't know what else to do I email you guys I come out here it's been 10 months since I brought this up the first time I emailed
047you guys before last board meeting I emailed you before the uh public hearing um and to be honest you know like we talked a lot about Equity when I look at our school district I don't see uh I see a lot of great movement uh but I also see a lot of work that has to be done when you look at like Regents with Advanced um designation there's huge disparities racial economic how people are uh in the goals that our children are achieving and to to address that takes money and you know we really it's very frustrating I also shared with some of you guys like I have um uh airf who's asking for a tax exam exemption for a Station Road Warehouse on tape saying that they don't even need this tax exam so
048the idea that we are not doing anything while the town of Brookhaven Ida continues to take money out of our school coffers is unacceptable um and you know it's it's even worse for me because during our last election I spoke to many of you um who were running for election and you guys told me that you would address this issue and here we are and it's been months you guys were elected in May right it's four months later and again we're by ourselves and again I appreciate your individual contributions but you are an affected tax jurisdiction it is your fiduciary responsibility to step up for these children thank you uh we have one more speaker Lisa DeSanto he's going to speak on a normal agenda but I actually have to uh comment on what was
049stated I served on this board for 11 years and I was so frustrated by the lack of a legislative committee and it was stonewalled for many years and we've given away more than millions of dollars because uh as a group this particular body can't get together and quite frankly Advocate and it was a very much a source of consternation for me and since I'm no longer on the board I will be here talking about that as well as many other other issues that need to be addressed I did put in my card that I was going to talk about on a non-agenda item which is having to do with uh General participation in the school district in terms of bringing the community together I thank you superintendent Santana for your efforts I do see a
050very different board meeting and a very different outcome in that respect one thing though I find very very concerning because I was a board member for 11 years and I was behind the effort to actually bring back advisory committees and I see that you do have advisory committees on your calendar unfortunately they're at 4 30 in the afternoon so you really eliminate the participation of many working people in this District including myself I could not possibly make a 4 30 meeting because I have to work in order to pay the taxes to live here so I'm hoping that you might address that issue it's nice to have an Advisory board but if the majority of the people who live in the school district can't attend it well then you're only allowing a small percentage to
051be represented and that's a problem we have right you can't have a diversity and you can't have inclusion when you exclude people who even work nine to five and happen to work a half hour away when you have a 4 30 meeting so I hope that at some point those Advisory board meetings will go back to the way they have been oh my goodness maybe 10 years ago when they were at 7 or 7 30 like a school board meeting so those residents who actually have to work for a living might be able to get home maybe put dinner on the table for the kids and come out to participate in their school district and you know I hate to say it but it's the truth and certainly the the town made it very obvious
052if you hadn't noticed they split your the tax bill now so it's very separate they very much call out that oh look at all your school board taxes so please be prepared that people will be coming out to vote against anything having to do with the school district because the town called you out on that so while they're taking away your Ida money they're also making you the target of any potential tax pack movement so please keep that in mind the town is not friend of the school district it never has been and probably never will be so please do advocate for all of the taxpayers which in essence then is an advocating for our children because we do need those tax dollars as whose previous ly stated so um I hope that I did
053not come across as two uh too much of an adversary I am an advocate for this school district and I welcome anyone who is willing to do whatever it takes to move South Country forward we are the Hidden Gem between the larger school districts and there's much that we have accomplished and there's much more that we can accomplish so thank you very much for your service thank you and out of out of respect for your past service on the board we took your your non-agenda item up first and didn't let you wait till the end all right um just a few comments the the efforts of the Board of Education things take time you heard my brief explanation as to how Board of Education members have to speak only with the authority of the board
054and that takes some time the other the other issue I will I will say with respect to any action that we have taken is we've been in transition this year we've been in under a very big transition with going from one superintendent to the other uh this board and the three of us who are here who participated in the superintendent search were very much in favor of someone who was going to enhance community and that's something that we have done and are continuing to do and you have which is evident in the superintendent's report that you've seen and the action that we are are going to take on the Ida is because the board is in agreement we have to become more involved so your advocacy for not only yourself um doctor is and and
055many others out there has been heard and we are going to be moving forward in a much more proactive way and all of your reports I on a personal level I think your reports are and your research are second to none and I share them uh with if you don't send them to all the board and you only share them with me I share them with the board so thank you for your service as well and Lisa thank you for your past Service as well you can move that um now if you don't mind I know okay so I also wanted to briefly mention and I apologize to the doctor for not responding I've been in the loop with the emails um you know one of the things that's um sort of a fine line
056for a school district is its involvement in the political process for things that really are under the purview of the Town versus school district and then my just started this position and really gaining an appreciation of that process I have been a little bit more deliberate and slow and to see exactly what my Approach is going to be having said that you know anytime there's a development in the school district's Community it's imperative that the school district research its potential impact on our learning community and when I say Learning Community I mean everybody our staff our students and community members this includes attending public hearings and obviously held by the Ida and potentially working with elected officials in our advocacy again for our district again and I said this at a couple of meetings that
057you know so that's the ones that we're aligning ourselves with any political ideology or campaign but we want to advocate for our students and for the school district and that really involves when we talk about the impact that these um you know development projects have you have to look at environmental impact whether you're going to be any health consequences to our community based upon these industries that are coming or not you have to look at um potential costs to the district especially when we're talking about housing developments which has increased our enrollment which again is across associated with that we also have to look at educational and employment opportunities if they're getting tax breaks what can these organizations do for our learning community and our students if we talk specifically about this array of solar
058panels that's a great engineering feat that I think we should reap some sort of benefit from and ultimately the the idea that it might be increased revenue for us that we're always searching for so yeah so from along those lines we're certainly going to advocate for the school district you know I'm you know committed to being politically neutral in this and certainly something that falls under the purview of the town it's going to be a town concern but anything that has any potential impact in our school district and our students and our entire Learning Community is certainly something that we're going to take seriously so to make that come [Applause] that brings us up too all right our first item for discussion are two running adopting our 2022-23 uh board priorities um I brought this
059up at our last meeting I'll display them again for the benefit of the board um there are some questions that I know some trustees had asked just to be able to kind of preview them again um so at this point I'm going to turn it over to the Board of Trustees the president police and see if there's any uh input or we're ready to make a vote to adopt these priorities thank you all right so they've been before you there were some uh changes that were pointed out at the last meeting that we needed to update the calendar year in the board priority so that was done uh that we received no other comment on changes that you wanted to see so unless there's there's any now we're ready to vote on adopting our board
060priorities for the 2022-2023 school year any other comments or additions no we're good yeah we're going to do this individually are we going to do it with this superintendents evaluation is that getting voted on tonight yeah it's not a consent agenda these are separate items to discussion so yes so we will take the first item which is um so we need a motion and a second to adopt the 2022-2023 board priorities motion has already been made by Vice President Hayes seconded by trustee Barry any further discussion so you know further discussion all those in favor please raise your hands seeing all hands raised the motion passes unanimously now we're on to the superintendent's evaluation and um the Board of Education discussed those matters that were of executive sessions in executive session and have adopted the
061New York State have have chosen to use the New York State School Board Association superintendent evaluation uh form and then we are in the process of doing the evaluation consistent with what is required of the Board of Education and also required of our contract with the superintendent so just to let the public know that we are in the process of Performing that evaluation and we'll report our progress accordingly do we have to formally adopt that we're using that tool should we do that the actual tool you can you can put forward okay so then what so then under advice of council we will formally adopt the New York State School Board Association board and superintendent evaluation tools can we have a motion and a second motion by trustee Cavanaugh seconded by with Tennessee Trent did
062you raise your hand any further discussion so you know further discussion all those in favor of the motion raise your hand thank you for uh see on All Hands raised the motion passes you're not and next next all right so the administration recommends approval curriculum items uh reflected in schedules D1 through G G1 through G2 need a motion and uh and a second anybody want to make that question Christy Barry seconded by trustee Flippin any further discussion seeing no discussion all those in favor please raise your hands thank you all hands were raised so the motion passes unanimously and next we're up to item H the administration recommends approval of personnel changes or items I apologize reflecting items H1 through H9 I just want to make a comment s listed on the agenda yeah on
063the on the agenda it's just listed it's h one yeah the attachment has the attachment has all the this is everybody because of what's on the agenda each one but it's really not age what did you say it was okay motion and a second for H1 section and buy trustee uh any further discussion so you know further discussion all those in favor please raise your hands thank you very much all hands were raised the motion passes unanimously up to I the administration recommends approval of business items reflected in schedules i1 through i5 a table the item I three so may we pull that out separately is it sir we don't need a motion to separately you need to motion to table it right right you take a motion for one two four and five then
064take a motion to the table so we'll do the one okay so then okay I'll do my recommendation again amended so the administration recommends approval of business items 1.1 1.2 1.4 and 1.5 okay another second I knew that we've located the motion motion by Vice President Hayes oh it's Mr since uh trustee uh Cheney pointed it out would you like to make the second sure um all right so we have a motion and a second on the floor for items I one two four and five any further discussion all those in favor please raise your hands thank you the motion passes unanimously and now uh motion we need a motion to table I three motion to table I3 is uh by trustee Trent seconded by trustee Cavanaugh uh any discussion all those in favor of
065tabling I3 please raise your hands four all hands were raised so the motion passes unanimously I three will be tabled until the next week go back to uh public commentary for Eddie we have no other further cards all right okay we have closing remarks any closing remarks yes yes um I just wanted to ask the superintendent um will we continue to receive the the attendance data and the discipline data as well as the pass fail um reports that we got last year every every month and every quarter yeah whatever the practice was uh we're keeping that practice so at the end of the month I believe it's monthly that you get that data report okay excellent all right any other closing reports I don't have anything do you have anything before we adjourn I don't
066know just a shout out to the high school students who are here get that participation in Government Credit that's why you're here credit granted for tonight do you want a selfie with the superintendent before you leave to really prove that yeah you're tired all right so we have no other uh agenda items to discuss we'll take a motion to adjourn why should my trust each second if I trustee Barry all those in favor