001Please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the stands one nation for all. >> Um can I please have a moment of silence? >> Thank you. Um, may I have your attention for a brief announcement? Upon fire alarm activation, immediate evacuation to the closest emergency exit is required. The emergency exits are located doors. Please exit away from the building as to not interfere with the fire department and proceed to the evacuation areas. Please follow the school's officials directions. Once assembled outside the building, everyone must wait until the school official gives an all clear before re-entering the building. Um, notice is hereby given that this public hearing is being held in accordance with general municipal law section 6D on August 19th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. Um,
002this will be discussion of the district-wide safety plan to be considered by the board of education, public input regarding the reference above, and board of education comments and discussion regarding um the reference above. Um so um welcome everybody for here. Um we're going to give it floor over to Mr. Trenton and we're going to have the public hear on the school safety emergency plan and then we then start the regular meeting after. So it's all yours. Okay. Uh, good evening and greetings to everybody that's here. Dr. Morell, the board of education, our new board members, Mr. Rodney Pearson and also Miss Laura White. Uh, congratulations on your appointment. Also, our new principles, uh, Mr. Derek Robinson and also Miss Melissa, uh, Denowski. >> Mr. Dowski. I've spoken with him several times. I'll get that name
003right. Uh, great addition to the team. Welcome uh to our student members. I think I see Mr. Noah here and also Mr. Noah Kent and um I'm going to get this right to Mayota >> Okay. Um, last but not least, I'd also like to thank uh Karen Levino and also Peter Brown and the security guards in the department. They're always a pleasure to work with and awesome awesome team. So, I just like to uh introduce the um the district-wide safety plan. Uh that's something that we update every year. Uh as we discuss, we have a public hearing where the community can weigh in on any suggestions or concerns that they might have. Also, we share that with all of the members of the administr um the administrative team. We uh review it. We talk about
004anything that needs to be changed. And more than likely, the main uh changes that come in the district-wide safety plan are regulations uh via the state department. So, once the New York State of Education sends us down a couple protocols and procedures, those are the ones that we usually uh well, we don't usually, we always make those corrections to the plan. and then most of the additional updates are personnel. Okay, so at a glance, we just want to talk about a few things that go along with the safety plan. Uh we just talked about some of the changes to the state plan. Uh and again, those are mostly the standard personnel updates and the state requirements. Uh the district-wide safety plan is available on the district website under the security department and it's always available
005upon uh you just scroll into the district website. We're also going to talk a little bit about our student members. That was one of our requirements to add a student member to our district-wide safety team. We'll discuss a few current projects and we'll go into some future projects as well. One of the things that we talked about last year was the threat assessment team and we just want to touch on that quickly because that's actually been a that's been a protocol that's been up and running for about four years now. I think about a year and a half a year ago they made this a requirement on the state uh safety plan. So we were already ahead of the curve and this is comprised of every department in the district uh from the administrators down
006to the custodial also with the food services and transportation. We have our counselors involved, pupil services. Um every department in the district is represented in this student uh uh this threat assessment team and the reason for that of course is because there that there's never really a rhyme or reason behind any behavior and we all have to be a part of it. We all ask everybody to see something say something. So we actually empower everyone in the district to pay attention and also to come to these meetings and be a part of the court. The emergency preparedness is something that we uh changed over and this is basically a guideline of all of the safety requirements within the buildings. Uh if there's any kind of uh drills, if there's any kind of emergency procedures, if
007there's just a normal process with escorting students uh with uh with staff members, that'll be in the emergency preparedness uh folder. Now, that's something that we also update every year. And what we do is we we take those binders that they're in and uh we replenish the the documents every year and we make sure that they're all in all of the classrooms in every single building. The administrators have them. They're in the main office as well. They're read and they have a tab on it. In addition to that, they also have the emergency contact information and the bus routes for every person in the district. If we were to ever experience an emergency, that's our grab and go bag. that emergency preparedness is up there. It's in part a part of that bag and it
008makes uh makes life a little bit easier when we actually have to deal with a little bit of uh unfortunate uh and unforeseen uh situations. The MOAs that we deal with are basically joined with our community partners. Uh we have several community partners that we work with. The Southampton Hospital, the Presbyterian Church, Our Lady of the Hampton, and the Southampton Youth Services. uh we make uh these alliances or these partnerships with these community members and it's uh it's a it's a little duality in that we both share responsibility. Uh we have some responsibility with the South Hampton Hospital. We also have responsibilities with the Our Lady of the Hamptons as well. Uh so it's not just a one-way street. We actually work in conjunction with these members of the community and it's it's a pleasure
009to continue to work with them. some of the uh 200526 security initiatives. uh we are just talking about things that we're going to get into right away uh during the school year and some of the first things that we always talk about are the evacuation drills uh by the building and we just want to make sure that those are all scheduled and at the beginning of the year the administrators uh call security department in and make us a part of their scheduling and let us know all of the different drills and um emergency protocols that they might like to update and also make sure that are established before the beginning of the school year. This year, our district-wide evacuation is scheduled on October 3rd for the elementary school and October 9th for the intermediate school
010and the high school. And this is the combined drill where we both evacuate to our alternative site and then we go home. Uh the buses take us home. We want to make sure that we send out notification to the community and we'll follow our standard process that we have been uh fine-tuning for the last several years. We're also going to have an initiative working um on community um excuse me on communication with our safety teams. So we want to make sure that each building is in coordination with each other when it comes to our security protocols and procedures. And so we want to make sure that we're clearly communicating those expectations to the staff, to the administrators, and we're going to make sure that we continue to work with the staff and administrators so that
011we have a clear and concise uh and and we're saying the same thing to everybody in the district. I think that that's very important. So when we align that communication process, we want to make sure that we're getting the correct information to the correct departments, making sure that the building principles are aware of everything that goes on in the building and just reestablishing those protocols that basically make us go every day. Again, building plans are something that we talk about with the building administrators and more specifically if there's some concerns or comments or not comments, but if there's some concerns that basically a school may have with regards to a behavior or if there's a period of time where they need assistance from the security department, we would actually plan those things out and make
012sure that we can kind of be in concert with the building. Uh for instance, an example might be monitoring a bathroom or an area that might be um highly populated during a passing period. We'll make sure that we work with that building principal to address that situation. If they are going to ask us to uh monitor the hallways with the staff, if we're going to be in and out of the um of the uh hallways during the passing periods, anything that the the buildings need, we try to step in. But we do plan that at the beginning of every year. And uh that's also uh very important. And it also makes the principles uh they're confident in the approach when we go into the year. they know that we've already talked about all of these
013situations and we're actually prepared to handle them. Uh the districtwide safety team that's going to be uh comprised of our fire chief, our police chief, uh the ambulance chief, our superintendent, our assistant, our assistant superintendent, the entire um search team or the district-wide search team, and then our student representative. And one of the other initiatives that we added this year was a onepage emergency response sheet. And so basically what that is is just a one pager for our visitors in ancillary areas might not be in a classroom. They might not know our normal procedures. They're not a part of our drills, but they do visit our school. They do uh work with our community members. They do work with our administrators here in the building. And so we want to make sure that they are
014at least apprised of the emergency procedures and we can quickly reference it in a sheet where we can tell them about where to go during the lockdown. we can point out the fire uh escape routes and make sure that everybody's at least a little bit comfortable with uh evacuating the building if need be. Uh some of the New York State requirements that I talked about that were added into the safety plan again was the student representation uh well representation uh student representation and our student that we chose this year was Charlie Rouse. Charlie Rouse is a junior in our high school and he's also a part of our internship program. Uh we started an internship program maybe about three and a half maybe four years ago. Three or four years ago and uh this year
015Charlie Rouse along with uh Thomas Lubie was uh the two students that were actually helping us out in our internship program. And uh Charlie, he's awesome. He wants to be in civil service uh when he graduates. He's looking at possibly being a fireman or maybe even a policeman. Uh, and that's it goes in concert with what we do in our security department. As you know, we work hand inand with the uh the uh SRO in our in our building and also the police department. So, that's also a that that's absolutely incredible for Charlie. And uh Thomas is actually an inspiring author and uh he's worked on I think seven or eight books already and he's actually in his rewrite of his first book right now. So that's also um the emergency response team for accidents
016in the transportation department was another requirement that we were asked to address. And basically this is just the plan. If there was an accident on the bus, we want to make sure that not only the bus drivers and the transportation department know how to handle the accident because let's face it, they already do and they've already been versed in that several times. We have uh bus accident drills all the time uh with them. But now we want to make sure that there's a plan for the district and make sure that we can respond and assist transportation in any way possible when there is an accident. Uh we want to make sure that our babies go home safe and sound and we want to make sure that we do everything we can to uh make sure
017that the parents are aware of what's going on. So we want to make sure that we're just aligned with all of our policies and procedures. As I stated earlier, uh our our department is very transparent. We want to make sure that everybody can see any and everything with our department. and we're also open to any suggestions as well. The last update that we have is our cardiac response plan. Uh this is uh something that we've also worked on already. I think this is going to go in effect next year. So we're already working on it. Uh we have something in our district and it's called a code system and that's how we address our emergencies. And for instance, if there's a certain emergency, if there's a a fire in the building, we're going to obviously
018call that a code red. And we have a protocol that follows that code. Well, that is shared with our search team, our emergency response teams, and also our um our district-wide uh safety team. So, the police chief and the fire chief and the uh the ambulance chief, they also are aware of the code process. And so, they actually know exactly what's going on when things happen. In particular, with the cardiac response plan, one of the adjustments that we made was bringing the AED to every emergency call. So our normal emergency call is code blue. If we have a medical call, we would always bring the AED. Now if there's any emergency call on one of the codes, we bring the AED as well. Our um our uh search team is already responding and it's already
019comprised of our administrators, our counselors, our um our social workers and also teachers as well. So we already have that team ready to go and quick to respond. So now all we did is just added another piece to it and the security department will take care of that. So anytime we have a code, one of the security guards will definitely bring a AED and that'll put us right in play with the cardiac response. Some of the current projects that we're dealing with, and I'll just run through these quickly. We have a door drop system. We we had it in the past. It seemed to phase out. We br it back. We want to make sure that we can uh be alerted anytime the doors open. U camera replacement, that's a continuing process that we've been
020working with. Uh the district's been very great with making sure that we can replace those cameras. Uh we're going to have to up to Annie on that as a lot of things have uh increased and we're looking at getting better cameras, but uh I'll talk to uh my boss about that, see if he's happy about that. Uh but at the end of the day, anything that makes the kids a little bit safer, that's what we're all about. So we've always been in advancement. Uh we're always been uh pushing the envelope in security and we'll continue to do it. Exterior cameras are a big big big concern of mine. I would like to add them everywhere in the district if I could that they'll be on trees. But what I'm saying is that we want to
021make sure that we can see every part of our district. And a lot of the times what we do monitor is inside the building, but things happen outside. So we want to make our our public I mean, excuse me, our students as safe as possible. And I feel like adding additional exterior cameras would definitely improve that. We talked about stairwell cameras last year. We're going to continue that with SES and SIS. We've uh already worked on our STO lock system with our uh lockdowns and our door locks. Now, we're adding the blue light and that was already installed. We've gotten a little bit of the training on it. We're going to continue to get the training on it. And once that's complete, we're going to actually roll that out to the district as well. Hopefully,
022that'll be before the school year starts. And we already talked about the emergency response. All right. Are there any questions or concerns, comments? >> Yes. [Music] >> If you go back to the last slide, can you just explain what is the blue blue light lockdown system? That's I'm guessing it's classrooms when something happen. >> Wonderful question. And I apologize for not allowing. So the blue light system is basically a signaling of an emergency. We put them all over every building so that anybody approaching the building know that we're in an emergency. >> So now the visitor can say, "Hey, maybe it's not the best time to go inside. Maybe uh uh they're away from the building." The lights are going to indicate the emergency and that's also going to be something that we can control
023inside the building. So, say for instance, if we went into a lockdown, if u if excuse me, Mr. Robinson was to hit his lockdown button at the high school, the building goes into lockdown. The lights automatically come on and they begin flashing. And then there's a stroke announcement that's also supposed to partner with that as well. And that was literally the the final piece of the new door system that we uh took on with the um I believe that's what advanced door. Um, so yeah, it's the signaling for any emergency to let people know in the public that something's going on. And if you were to approach the school, know that we're under an emergency protocol. That might be a little delay. Might not get right into the building. >> Thank you. >> A couple
024questions. Um, how many meetings do you have with the local agencies, fire, police, and ambulance to kind of put this kind of together? How much collaboration is there um and input that that goes into that with them? >> Great question. So normally what we'll do is we'll we've always partnered with the emergency response teams in the in the community to adjust the plan. So we always do that. The frequency for the entire plan might be maybe two times a year individually or in smaller meetings we do meet uh about other things but collectively as the districtwide safety team with all of those chiefs maybe twice a year. I would definitely like to see more uh collaboration on that. When we do have a disaster, an emergency, and I have a little bit of experience on
025this. I was the fire chief here in Southampton for a few years. It's very confusing. A lot of people run around, as you've probably seen at drills and >> in real life. in real life. Um to get them all on board when we do have a major incident if if we do is going to be a huge uh benefit for us and for you and your team. It sounds like your team, you got some good stuff here. I would just like to see that melted in a little bit with all the agencies. they're they're here and they're looking for um input and and to help you out with that. So, I'd love to see that during the year. >> Absolutely. Uh that was one of my big initiatives. I actually started working with those groups
026maybe about four years ago before I came and we run those guys together. They told me that they have not done that in such a long time. So, I'm right behind you. I mean, that's that's literally where I'm coming from. I know that I'm not the end all beall with security. And so, I am I I actually I am I always ask for uh any kind of suggestions or I let the professionals do their work, right? So, we go get the professionals that's in charge of all of those departments and we make sure that we're aligned and I will definitely push to even do that more. Absolutely. >> Thanks. Anybody before I open up the public home, anybody have any more questions? I just have one thing to say about the um the the bathrooms
027um in our school and South High School from what I'm speaking for. I don't know if we have any closures from the elementary school or the or the middle school if we're not able to use any, but um sometimes it causes chaos and lakes. Um, so I was wondering if we could um have like a security guard outside of each bathroom during passing periods at least just to get the kids moving instead of having all 300 kids use the same bathroom because that's when stuff can get um a little out of control and that could be like an increase of substance use because people are all in the same bathroom. Um so just trying to limit that and um just try to get people moving throughout the hallways a little bit better. >> Good point.
028Uh that's something that we can definitely address with the building leaders. Uh that's something that we can easily address. Not a concern. >> Um I just want to So we're going to open up to public comment. Um will be heard on the districtwide safety plan only at this time. The board of education encourages public participation school related matters at board meeting. Um any group organization wishing to address the board must first identify a single spokesperson. The presentation should be as brief as possible. Speakers will be appointed to speak for up to three minutes. Persons making presentations at the board meeting will address remarks to the president. They may they may direct questions, comments to board members or um other district officials upon approval present. So I want to open up to the public. There's nobody
029here that wants to comment. If not, I just want to end with um thank you, M. Trent. That was wonderful presentation. Um I I look forward to I know in the first few weeks of school we usually do safety meetings with the parents. Um I've attended those in the past and I know Chief has always gone to them and stuff and I know you know nothing's 100% but I you know some father with four little kids in the district safety is everything and I know you guys are trying the best and I I have faith and trust in your staff um and everything. And I just want to point out too that we're very blessed district because we are located in the village compared to being in the town. So we have a separate village
030ambulance and village police department that response times are quick. Um you know if you are to go into the town you know you're going to be dealing if our school was listed over in Shinik Hills um where you have town ambulance it could be 30 minutes to get an ambulance here. Um, and we have a three-minute response time with the ambulance and our police. We have safety officers too within the village. They designate to the schools that are walking the grounds at all times and we are within seconds of getting here and that would be the same thing with schools that are located in the town. You know, they have a patrol caller all over Flanders and be the closest one um to those schools. So, um that's something that we should we shouldn't take
031for granted with having all our districts in the village. So, thank you guys. Thank you your staff. Um, wonderful. I didn't add Jackie's got >> Can I just say to Franklin and his team as well, I would like to concur that safety is so critically important and we know Maslau's hierarchy they must feel both intellectually as well as physically safe. Your team is everywhere. They're boots on the ground. They're they're visible. They're moving around. Um they they help they're helpful and that's all due to your leadership. And I feel safe. I you know I believe our students feel safe and that's really important and I know I I feel like we are in good hands with the security staff here in South. So thank you. >> So before I address Yeah. >> One more thing.
032So we are very fortunate to be here in the village. Um, I just want to say as an employee of the police department in the town of Southampton, we have sector cars in every area. So, >> yeah. Well, I was just trying to throw I know the school is a priority. I just I'm just saying the bill, you know, you know, >> we have cars in Southampton. >> Yeah. But, uh, but no, I know. So, um, Jackie, you got some comments? >> Okay. So, uh, the blue light system. Yes sir. >> Okay. So um the intermediate school and the elementary school have recess. Okay. And there something should happen when there lights flash. How long does it take the I mean how long does it take the doors to be I mean how long does
033the doors close so the kids because you have all those kids outside playing. So, how long do how much time do they have to get inside before uh the door is locked? >> Good question. So, it all depends on the protocol that we're going into. If there is students that are if there are students that are outside and there's a concern outside, then we're going to try to get those students away from that area as fast as possible. If you're talking about coming back into the building, that's going to be something that I can actually discuss with our administrators because as we set up, that's something that we can actually work in. So, if we want to say if it's 15 seconds or if it's 25 seconds, we can set the time in which it's
034engaging the locks. So, that's going to be something that we can we can manipulate, we can manipulate that system on our own. And that would be something that we would probably talk about with the building administrators and also with the safety team. And so once we actually en enact the actual blue light, we'll have that information and then that will also be something that will be out to not only the the school district and to the u the students and to the teachers but also to the community as well. So we'll make sure that that's out there. And that's an excellent question. >> And and Franklin, can I just add on to that for Jackie too? Um as a reminder, if the blue lights are strobing and doors close, that means that there's an issue
035inside the building. So if those blue lights are strobing and there's an issue inside the building, we have protocols that take our our students and staff away from the building at that time. So as Mr. Trent said, it really is situational. Um there's so many different situations, but in a scenario where you have a threat inside the building, we don't want kids and staff coming back inside. They they are trained to go move away from the building at that point. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um I'm going to close this public hearing at this time and and again I uh I I love our South Hamtown police and ambulance too and and everything and you know I know sometimes we'll understand and so it's it's good. So um I'm going to close the public hearing
036now at 710 and we will um reconvene the regular meeting at 711. Um the board is returning from executive session where employment history of particular person was discussed. Um will the clerk please call the role? >> Robert Zachary >> y here. >> Bradley C. Pearson >> here with Dudley is absent this evening. >> Jermaine Smith >> present. >> Laura White >> here. Ruthley White is also absent this evening. Noah Kent >> here. imitate. So, >> oh, thank you. Um, does the clerk have any additions or deletions to the agenda >> at this point? Uh, the counseling office update by Dr. Mark, the title has been removed. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And then we have two consent agenda items that we'll be adding later. Um, so president's comments here. The board of education will hold a
037regular meeting on Tuesday, September 2nd at 6:30 in the intermediate school music room. JV and varsity fall sports begin on uh Monday, August 25th. So, make sure you get out there and get your physical so you can participate. Um, grade fifth grade orientation will be held at 9:00 a.m. in the SIS and freshman orientation will be held at 10:00 a.m. in the SHS on Tuesday, August 26th. Um, teachers return on Wednesday, August 27th and Thursday, August 28th for conference days. The district will be closed on Monday, uh, September 1st, in observation of Labor Day. And the first day of school for students is two weeks from today on Tuesday, September 2nd. So, homaly, two weeks. >> Two weeks, you're going back. Um, so thank you. Um, well, we're going to have a cell phone implemention
038uh implementation plan. Um, >> hello. >> Hi. So, I'm gonna Oh, so I'm gonna throw it over to Dr. Morel and >> Yeah. I will introduce our dynamic assistant principles who have worked on this plan along with our director, executive director of technology. Um, I would like to just notate that Dr. Mitchell um has been on the ground floor of developing the cell phone policy from the very beginning um with us when long before Governor Hokll said it's it's h you know it's happening. We were already in conversations with our parents and students and families and and administrators and teachers and I just want to give her a big kudos for that. um because we're ahead of the game because of that. And now adding Dr. Eckley and um also to um Miss McCoy all
039work together for the implementation plan of the cell phone policy which you can find posted on our website. So at this time I would like to introduce uh Dr. uh Epley and Dr. Mitchell for our um cell phone presentation. and and Miss Bowski. Thank you. >> Thank you for that, Dr. Moral. So, uh, Dr. Eckley is, um, handing out your yonder pouches [Music] so you can see what they look like. Uh Trusty Proctor actually has one that's velcro only, which is a good thing to have for a demonstration because that's for students who might have um a medical need and they need to access their phone like diabetes. They might need to access their app to check their sugar levels during the day. So the one you have is actually I'm glad you brought that.
040Thank you. >> I just asked. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. I know. So at least the kids who need that have access to the phone don't feel like left out if everyone else has a pouch, right? They still will have a pouch. They'll be able to secure their phone. Um so we will get started. Um you want to start with first. >> Okay. So as you all know um Governor Hokll has initiated a distractionfree schools policy in New York State. Um, this means it's a belltobell ban on all smart devices, not just smartphones, but smart devices. So, what that means, it's smart watches, it's earbuds, it's basically anything that can connect to Wi-Fi. So, in front of you is how we're going to address this within the schools. Um, so when this band came into
041play or when talks about the band came up, the APs and the administrators in the building, we all met with M. Purcell. Um, we actually went over to Sag Harbor, our neighboring district, who was really welcoming and inviting to us. They let us into their building. Um, we got to meet with their administration team because they've been doing yonder pouches for the last couple of years. Um, so they showed us how their procedures went. They answered all our questions. Um, and it was really nice to see that um, in action. So over the summer, over the last couple months here, we've been planning what it's going to look like for students. So in front of you is a yonder pouch. So, um, we actually did a test run with our summer school, uh, students in
042grades 5 through 8 and also 9 through 12. We're going to keep it very similar. Um, we talked about, you know, being on the same page, both buildings. Elementary is going to be a little different, uh, because not everyone has cell phones down there, so Mowski can speak to that in a little bit. So, when students enter the building at, you know, before um, 7, you know, kids get here between 7 o'clock and 7:25, they'll come in. Um we're actually going to have um staff members at both entrances um and students will have their yonder pouch. So the students are going to get their yonder pouch. This is theirs to bring back and forth to school. So it's going to have their name in it. This will be on them at all times. They'll bring
043it home at night. They'll bring it to school every day. Um so it kind of be like their device, their Chromebook. Um so every day they'll have to bring it to school. They'll come into school. They'll show their yonder pouch, their phone to an adult and they will put their device in the pouch and lock it in front of an adult. Um the yonder pouches once they are locked, they stay lock, they stay locked. Um and the student will have this on them throughout the day. So no adult will have a student's yonder pouch. It's theirs possession. It's their item. So they will keep it on them throughout the school day. Um and it will stay locked. We're going to have unlocking magnets at the exits of all our buildings at the high school and
044intermediate school um as well as elementary too. Um at the end of the day at 2:30 when the bell rings, students will be able to um just go and just so it's the circle side. The circle side goes with the magnet and I just press the button. And um we actually tested it with our summer school students. We had about 40 summer school students in grades five through eight. They tested it for three weeks. Um they got it pretty quickly. Um we did we did a student survey and the student survey one of the questions was um you know how long did it take? Within the first day students were getting it. Um so we're going to have about four um magnets unlocking magnets at each station. We're going to have eight total in this
045building. Also we have portable ones where administrators are going to hold on to. Security's going to have one at their desk. So, we're going to have about 12 unlocking magnets throughout the school building here. Um, it's about the same at the high school, too. Um, at all exits. So, um, so we're prepared for the first day of school. We're all ready. Um, Miss Purscell was able to order everything in time for us. We have, um, hundreds of these in my office ready to hand out day one. And, um, that's pretty much all my question. >> Thank you. Um so we actually the first slide just kind of goes over um you know Governor Hokll's um plan for the state and then uh Dr. probably went over a lot of those bullets already, but if you
046go to the next slide, um you go to the next slide. Basically, what we're planning on doing, like let's say a student forgets their yonder pouch, right? They come in, I didn't bring it, we will have loaner pouches available. So, each building is sort of different. Um but we don't want people to worry because we did create something on the school website that helps each building. So like the parents for SCES, SIS, SHS all have a lot of materials on the site. We're going to show you that in a minute. So we wanted to make sure we were as transparent as possible. All the information's out there to lessen the anxiety because this is a hard change for a lot of kids and families and we know that. Um so we wanted to make sure
047we gave as much information to support everyone as possible. So each building will have the laner pouches. The kids can come in, they can borrow them in the high school AP office. At the intermediate school, it'll be the main office and they just sign out the pouch for the day. Um, basically they'll be able to unlock them at the end of the day. In the high school, if seniors have senior privileges, they will be unlocked before they leave the building. We don't ever want our kids out driving a vehicle out in the community if they don't have their phone on them. It's a safety concern. So, they have to make sure they always unlock before they leave the building. Okay. Um, and then, you know, secure the phone when they come back in. And if
048a kid, you know, student comes in and says, "Oh, I didn't bring my my smart device, my phone, um, when coming in the building, you know, at the high school and all the buildings actually, they'll be accountable for that, right? So, if they say, "Oh, I left it at home." All right, great. Well, then we better make sure we don't see that out in your economics class later, right? Because you're telling us, we're going to trust you that you did not bring your phone to school that day. Um, so if the phone is seen during school hours, we will be confiscating the phone. It is a state law, right? So we will make sure we have that phone. We'll contact the parents. The parents can then get the phone. Um, we just want to make
049sure it's not in the building from bell to bell. Okay, I think that is pretty much it for that slide and then I'm just going to go forward for um, Miss Dowski to go over SCES because there are a few differences there. You're welcome. >> So, at SCES, we have we serve preK through fourth grade, which means that many students do not have cell phones. So, our policy as such, we have students turn their phones off and place them in their backpacks. Again, we are not liable for any devices that they might have, but this also includes earbuds and watches, smart devices, any smart device. The bus is also an an extension of the school day, so no devices should be out on the bus either. Um if a device is seen, it will be
050confiscated much like the intermediate and high school. Um we also every single room is equipped with a phone if there's an emergency to call 911. If a student does need to contact their family during the school day, they're more than welcome to join us in the office um and contact their families. Thank you. So, as far as the um high school students as well, actually, I think it's 7 through 12, the students do have the ability to email on the email system. So, my daughter goes to Pearson's, right? She has her phone on the pouch. Um and periodically I'll get an email from her during the day that'll say like, "Hey, you know, plans have changed after school, so at least we can communicate that way." So, parents will have that ability to communicate by
051email 7 to 12. um all the offices, you know, will have the phones for the students to be able to go make phone calls anytime they need to make a phone call. Um the other thing too I just want to mention in the event of an emergency, right, we have an evacuation and we have, you know, 500 kids in the high school who are leaving at the same time, we need to be able to access the pouches. We're going to make sure that our emergency search team um in partnership as well with security, everyone will have a magnet in their pouch um to open the open the phones. Okay. We can also, you know, honestly, there are some special scissors that um I think Miss Purcell ordered that can quickly cut in case it's a
052real emergency and they can't get to the magnets right away. So, the kids will have access in a true evacuation emergency. We're going to make sure they have their phones um in a civilized, organized way. Okay? So, you know, we just want to try to quell a lot of those concerns that I know the parents do have. So, I just want to go forward to and show everyone what we put together. I don't know if we can. Can we just maybe >> um click one of the links possibly? Dr. V, can you help? Thank you. So, what we did is each building we developed um documentation. If you just click the high school one first, that's fine. Is it clickable? >> Might have to exit and then there we go. Perfect. So on the school
053website, if you go to let's say the high school website in the top and then you go to parents and students, there's a tab under that menu and that's for every building. So SCES, SAS, SHS, we all have that tab. If you click on that tab for cell phones, we all made a very similar page so it looks similar. On the left is the um I can't see that far away. >> Yonder pouch logistics. >> Thank you. So the yonder pouch logistics. So each building actually we've mapped out like where the magnets are when you leave the building and all the specifics for every building. So we have the high school, intermediate school, and elementary has logistics up as well. So the parents can start to read those documents before school starts. Okay. It also
054goes through like the consequences in the event that a student does have a phone out, right? um that we're going to be confiscating it, but there are could be detentions as well based on how often a student is taking their phone out or having it on them. And then the middle tab is the Thank you. We actually just wrote out a PDF with all the protocols. It's a simpler document. It's all in English and Spanish as well. Everything's been translated for our families. And then the third tab on the right side when you go back is we worked on collectively all three buildings worked on a Q&A for parents um of frequently asked questions and that's also in English and in Spanish both documents. So lots of questions that parents have been asking you know
055what happens if my child leaves at home what happens if there's an emergency etc. So hopefully parents will feel a little better seeing all that info. Okay. Um, anybody else want to add anything to that or not? >> Yep. So, before we end, we also want to make sure all the parents are aware and the community is aware if we go back to that first slideshow, Dr. Vaughn, um, thank you for that help. Um, we do have some parent Q&A evenings planned and the newsletters are up on the I believe they're up on Parent Square. We have to double check to make sure that that information is up online for the parents. It's a >> It's okay. >> It's on a different too far. >> Perfect. Okay. So, on um we do have a parent
056two parent Q&A sessions planned. We have one next week on August 26th on Zoom. We wanted to make sure we accommodated the parents who couldn't physically come in. The Zoom is at 6 p.m. Just email mitchell at southamptonschools.org and I'll send out the registration link for parents to join the Zoom. Um, we are going to have translation at that on Zoom live so that parents can ask their questions if they have concerns. And then we're also going to have an in-person meeting on September 4th once school does start. So that'll be great because like okay, school started. We've been here a couple days. Maybe other concerns are going to come up. And that is at the high school auditorium. And these are for all three buildings together. This isn't like just for high school. It's
057for the entire community to come together and ask their questions um and share their concerns. So hopefully our families feel comfortable doing that and joining us. Okay. And then the in-person evening, we actually have um the representative coming out from the Yonder Pouch Company. So, um, Sarah is coming out to join us that evening as well, and we will provide translation that night, too. So, hopefully families can join us and air their concerns. I'm a parent of a child who had the Otter Pouch a couple years ago, and it was like we both were a little panicked in the beginning, like, oh, what happens if, you know, pickup changes, etc. Um, and I had a lot of the same concerns as a mom, but we worked through it. And honestly, at the end of the
058day, she's learning. She's in classes. she's their friends are talking to each other instead of staring at their phones. Um, so it's honestly been a remarkable difference in my own child's education. So, uh, we're all here for supporting our families. So, hopefully we'll see you in the Q&A. All right. Anybody else want to add anything? >> Also, okay, any questions? >> Does anybody else? >> Yes. Have you h have you coordinated you mentioned that you have scissors or uh staff or faculty would be carrying the magnetic devices to unlock in case of a real emergency. Have you coordinated with security to um do practice runs of that with the pouches? Obviously not going to cut the pouches but >> yeah with the magnets. Yeah. They they have actually attempted to destroy the pouches to see
059how hard it would be to what? >> Um >> but I mean regular training because when it happens in real life is it it's different than >> we're going to have this person at this door and this person at this door, >> right? >> Have you coordinated with security to discuss what do we do with these in case it's not just the safety of the kids, it's also this goes with the safety of the kids. >> Yeah. I mean for the high school I can say we did meet and talk about our individual building plan going forward as well with like our emergency drills and we are planning on with our first emergency drill incorporating that practice to figure out like you know we all know the emergency sur who's carrying the magnets and the
060bags um and we're hoping to plan that out so we have it planned in the actual drill so that in a real emergency we're going to be prepared um so I don't know if the other buildings were you know had similar meetings I know I did last Friday. So, um, yeah, we haven't had practice yet, but we're hoping too soon. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. You're welcome. >> No, you have a question. >> Um, I heard Mowski, my school principal. Um, I don't know if I heard you right, but they couldn't unlock their um the the phone devices. They couldn't take out the phone devices on the bus. >> No, they cannot >> even like going to school and going back home. Okay, sounds good. >> Money. >> Oh, yes. I just had a
061question about the flow of like coming into the building and leaving out like is there enough people that are going to have these discs? >> Yeah, the seats. Um, and like when the students in the high school are leaving and coming back, are the security guards going to be there at the door to open them? Then they come back for lunch, open them again. Yeah. Do >> we have station people for all of these? >> Yes. So arrival, we do have staff that have actually flex time. We have our aids and TAs um as well as um our student supervisor was part of it. So at in school, we're going to have two entrances. We're in the fifth and sixth grade entrance in the cafeteria hallway over here. Um we're going to have seven eight
062come to the front entrance. So that narrows it down to about 150 students per entrance. Um and we're going to have about two or three staff. So in the morning um when they get off the buses, the buses are really staggered. So they enter between 7 o'clock and 7:25. So there's never a big line of students coming in the door at once in the morning. Um I'm usually right there in the front as with Mr. Benson. You probably see me out there. Um so we're greeting the students. We're going to direct them in the right direction. Um on the website, it has the actual shows arrows on which way to go. Um so it has it all on the website for the parents to see how the flow is going to be on the way
063out. Um Yonder suggested um about I think the number was about 60 students per magnet for the exit. So we're going to have eight on the wall um and then a few at security. So we're going to have 10 to 12 magnets at the exit at the end of the day um so the students will know um where to go. So that that'll um you know it's something new to the students. But the numbers wise we do have enough magnets according to Yonder um for the exit. Um fifth and six are exit through there, seven, eight to the front. Um, so we're gonna, you know, be visible. We're going to be directing students in the right direction in the first couple weeks. And it's one of those things that I think after a few dismissals
064and arrivals, it'll just be, uh, you know, after talking with Sack Harbor, they've been doing it for a few years. And, you know, they said it. We watched a dismissal. >> We timed it, too. I timed it. I was like, because I'm curious, like for Pearson, they were actually dismissing 6 through 12. um their buildings combined and it took 2 minutes and 45 seconds for the entire building to dismiss 6 through 12 um and you know it was pretty fast. The only thing that took a little while were the students actually returning their loners uh you know because then they had to like check off on the notebook. So I mean you know we have concerns you know it's going to definitely be a learning curve with the students my main concern is the students
065coming in in the morning you know we're already trying to reduce the latenesses so you know we want to make sure they build in those extra few minutes. A lot of kids saying, "Oh, school starts at 7:25." Well, that's your first bell. Like, you need to be in class at 7:25. So, you know, that yellow school bus gets to us on time all the time. Um, so hopefully, you know, kids will take the bus as much as they can and then they're in a little earlier to get the pouches uh closed. You know, they don't need the magnet in the morning. The other thing, too, is the the one you were holding up, the magnet actually screws unscrews from the plate. So, yep. So, the security guards and the teaching aids and assistants that are
066going to be helping us can actually unscrew them once the kids are in so that kids aren't like, you know, going to the magnet during the day to like do a quick little unt, you know, open um so that they're only up during the times that we need them up during dismissals with lunches and uh whatnot. We are going to also provide magnets to like the guidance department. Um, for my for our building in the high school, we've got kids who need to like do their multiffactor authentication for like Navian, Common App. So, when they're in a meeting with a guidance counselor and they need to open their phone, they'll have access to the magnet right there. So, they're not wasting time going back and forth to the door. Um, so, you know, the nurse
067will have one, we'll have one in the AP office, the main office. So, there's going to be plenty of spaces to be able to access them if they really need it. So, hopefully, no, it's going to be a learning curve, but we'll we'll get through the the bumps. Uh yeah, just a quick question. Might sound funny, but I can't buy this off of Amazon. Correct. >> Oh, you I'm sure there are magnets online, but guess what? >> Guess what? Funny story. We learned about a student in um another school district um where a student did purchase a magnet. They're very powerful, by the way, and they do damage phones. So, if a student buys their own magnet online, they might damage their $1,800 iPhone 16 Pro Max Plus, whatever it's called. Um, just a fair
068warning. And then a student in another school, they found out he had his own magnet because his magnet got stuck to the the handrail in the stairwell and he could not get himself off the stairwell. So, he was clearly in some hot water. Um, my lanyard got stuck on it the other day, too. Like the, you know, the, yeah, the metal on I was like playing around like trying it out. All of a sudden, I'm like stuck on the magnet like And you really, it's very hard to get off. Like it's a very sharp magnet. Um, so I would not recommend that because it does damage. >> Yeah, they're Yeah, they're strong. >> Just a quick question regarding after school activities. So that class bell rings after 10th, 9th period. >> Yeah. And they're off
069to clubs. >> They're opening. We're the our policy um states they're opening their pouch. So if they're in a club or a sport activity after school, they're opening their pouch. It's the ban is bell to bell. So it's high school 725 235. So it'll be up to coaches and club advisors, etc. to be pretty firm with the kids. All right. You get two seconds and then put it away. We have to get back to work. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Well, I just want to thank you guys and thank all the administrators. I know this has been a whole year of work and meeting with parents and trying to get parents to show up to the meetings and all the different policy stuff. So, I know there's you guys thought about a lot of different angles
070on this. I'm sure some of these kids are smart and things change, but we'll we'll adapt and move forward and we'll find a way. So, thank you guys for coming in today. So, I'm I'm excited for this. >> Thank you. So at this time we're going to have um public comments to be heard on agenda items only at this time. Um so the board of education encourages public participation in school related matters at board meetings. Any group or organization wishing to address the board must first identify a single spokesperson. The presentation should be as brief as possible. Speakers will be permitted to speak for up to three minutes. The board will not allow public session discussions involving individual district personnel or students. All speakers are to conduct themselves civily. Obscene language, lies statements, threats of
071violence, and statements advocating racial, religious, or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated. Persons making presentations at the board meeting will address remarks to the president. Um, they may direct questions or comments to board members or other officials only upon the president's approval. Um, so I don't think we have anybody made comments, so I'm going to throw it over to Dr. Morurell and um for her superintendent report. Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, good evening community. It's been um such a pleasure this summer with our summer reading program. Um, we had 60 stu we had Thank you. That's using my cafeteria voice. We have s we had 60 students participate in our summer reading program and I'm so very proud of that because it was our first year and we had great participation. Um
072all students completing the summer reading program there were 26. So we do need uh more students to complete but we're proud of the ones who uh did work on it you know period. But it was it was a nice um culmination program on the 14th and our students walked away with some really great prizes. Um but we're more proud of the fact that we know they were engaged in summer reading all summer long and we're just very proud of that and and know that that helps to contribute to our academic achievement. So, we just want to say to the families that participated and the students that participated, thank you. Keep up the good work and read, read, read. It is the key to success. Um, additionally, I would like to just talk about preparations for
073the new school year. Yeah, summer's kind of winding down. I can't even believe in myself, Amalia. I I don't know how this happened so quickly. but it is here. And um just a reminder, our school supplies lists are posted on the website for each of our schools uh and your preparations for that. Um just a reminder, it would be a good time to start getting to bed a little early now so that we have 8 to 10 hours of rest each night as we prepare for the school year. And um I just want to thank all the staff uh the teachers and um administrators and um our um custodial staff, our clerical staff, our security staff, everyone who is preparing for our opening of schools at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for
074the work that you are doing and will continue to do uh as we launch and open schools on September 2nd. Uh we'll see all bright shiny faces on September 2nd early in the morning. Um and I I'm excited. I love the start of school. This is one of the first, you know, it's one of the most important times of the year for me. I love the beginning of school year. Um, and finally, we have some pretty great data coming out of the Southampton schools of which we are humbly proud. Um, we have we're seeing gains across a number of um variables and grade levels. um with our New York State ELA and mathematics data. So just at a high level, I'm going to ask Dr. Zan to um come up in a moment, but just
075at a high level, we're seeing gains in ELA across subgroups. And we know that our intermediate school um has um we we have achieve we we we're experiencing a school in need of improvement um across our economically disadvantaged as well as our Latino student populations. And I am happy to report that we have made significant gains with both of those subgroups this year in the 24-25 school year with ELA and math. We can also see those same gains and performance at our S at our elementary school. The state assessments are grades three to eight. So we're talking elementary school gains as well as um intermediate school gains. We can actually see equity and progress as we see that in our current data, many of our historically underserved groups such as our black African-American children and
076our Native American children also demonstrating significant improvement in both English language arts and math um as well as our Latino students. So there's positive momentum with um academic data at this time and we want to continue to um expand upon that momentum and we're committed to uh achievement continuous professional development as we roll out our district's our set our set cell sore district strategic plan um this year as we begin to look at that literacy math science uh uh social studies steam and all those other things that are adding to student achievement. So at this time I would like Dr. Zan um to get in a little bit um more in more detail about what that assessment data looks like. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you so much Dr. Morurell. So as Dr. Morel stated
077that um recently we did did receive our 3 to8 um assessment scores which those scores were embargoed for a short time. they are. We are now able to discuss them globally. Um in the coming days, next month, I will be coming back for a full performance um report for you that will really go through all of our assessments, break down all of our um subgroups and everything else. So today, uh as Dr. Merl stated, we're really just looking at a very high level, um you know, kind of introduction to this this data. And I have to tell you, as Dr. Morell stated, we are really really excited about it because we've been seeing some great great progress. So taking a look at our three to eights and looking at the elementary school starting with ELA
078when you look at the overall performance of our students from 2023 to last year's 2024 2025 school year we saw that we had a 10% increase from one year to the next of of performance. So that is a really great um increase from New York State. New York State, you're really typically when you look at these improvements, you're thrilled when you see 2% gains, 2 and a.5% gains, 3% grant gains. Here, we're looking at double-digit numbers, which is just phenomenal. So, we're really, really excited about that. When you look at grades three and four, math as well, we're over that. We're at a 13% increase uh overall when you look at the building. Of course, I did give you um numbers and we did give you numbers when you look at the grade levels individually
079and of course we'll break that data down even further next month, but just taking a look at this this macro data, it gets us very very excited about the progress that we're making. Um, looking at and moving on into the intermediate school year, uh, again, when you take a look at the ELA scores in the intermediate school, you're looking at an overall 10% increase from one year to the next of student performance. That's that means we have 10% more of the students who took the test um, score at your passing rates above a level one and two. That means they're three, four, in this case, five. So, very, very happy about that. Also taking a look at math, seeing some great trends there. A 14% increase um from one year to the next for our
080three to eight assessments, which is just tremendous. So this is uh again a big big testament to the to the to our teachers that are in the trenches, the work, the curriculum work that we're doing uh at the district level. And again, the teachers that are carrying that burden every single day in the trenches. um you could see the the fruits of their labor. Looking at the high school and moving on to the high school level, um we had our grade 11 ELA. So that's all students that are in grade 11 plus some additional students that have to take the exam, whether that's for a retake, trying to pass again, or boosting a score. Again, we had a 6% increase from one year to the next in ELA, which we are really, really happy about.
081Um, taking a look at mathematics, uh, we did notice that we did take a little bit of a dip in alge one and that was a trend that was across the state. There's been a lot of chatter, you may have heard already about the algebra 1 exam. Um, and just again, as a high former high school principal, that was all the talk um was algebra 1 at the end of the year because I think many schools um saw a bit of a dip here as we did. So, we're still waiting to see what the New York State uh passing proficiency rate was um for this year. Definitely something that uh we've always been over it, but we are definitely looking at that alge one score. Now, also, you're just looking at alge one at the
082high school level. This is not all students that took algebra to understand here. We had many students almost our entire eighth grade take the um the algebra one regions and that performance was um upwards of over 90%. I believe Megan it was 90% off the top of my head. Yeah, 90%. Um, but you can see at the high school level, which I just showed you, these are students that are are not taking algebra 1 and eighth grade with most students, there are students that may be um struggling in the area of mathematics, may have um special programming, they could be multil- language learners. Uh, and again, these are students that usually take out one in ninth and tth grade. So, when you combine our overall performance with the district, you would take that 90% 57%
083that would give you the number. here I was just showing you at specifically for the high school level. Um so I just wanted to note that with algebra because algebra one is very unique in that it acrosses both schools. Um geometry which we were very uh very happy to see these results because geometry is one place that has the lowest level of math proficiency and math success at the high school level. Um but last year we scored at 57% proficiency which is actually much higher than the state proficiency level. And when you look at what we did this year, we had a 9% increase um there in geometry for students that were taking geo for that advanced regions diploma. So we were very very happy to see that increase. And taking a look at algebra
0842, our numbers are just remain phenomenal in the area of algebra 2. Um just so proud of of our math teachers in number one increasing the participation in algebra 2 and taking a look at those results for students that are sitting in that course. they are doing phenomenal and again we continue to to lead the pack with algebra 2 scores. Um so again just I I can't say enough of the efforts uh of our teachers and what they are doing in the classroom and and again I think that's under the leadership of the administration the district strategic plan which I'll speak to in a in a little bit when we speak about our u what we're doing over the summer. Um, but again, you're seeing these efforts and the fruits of these efforts pay off.
085Um, and I'm looking forward to coming back next month and giving a full performance presentation. >> Thank you, Dr. Zan. And we know that we still have a far, you know, we have a lot of work to do in terms of our academic achievement and becoming a district in good standing and then finally a blue ribbon district. That's that's our goal. Um, we we know we have a lot of work to do. However, I want to just say thank you to our parents because they're key in this. Making sure that they kids go to sleep, do get to fit early, turn off the cell phones, homework committed, two to three hours of study each night at the high school, an hour of study at the elementary school, two hours of study at the intermediate school
086each night is appropriate, making sure they get up early, get to school. um got to just thank our parents, but our teachers definitely are the heroins, heroes and heroins in this game. And so I just want to also publicly thank the teachers and the administrators and the board for all you do. Everyone contributes to this. This is a village accomplishment. Without our board of education providing the resources and giving us the access to do the interventions and all those kinds of things, we wouldn't be here. but we wouldn't be see these numbers going in the right direction that we want them to go in. So I want to thank the board as well. But I just, you know, at the end of the day, it really the rubber hits the road in that classroom and
087what's happening. So again, thank you teachers. You're doing a great job and I'm extremely proud of you as well. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, I know they're going to be doing a more intensive in a few weeks in presation. Does anybody have any quick questions about some of these scores that >> Yeah, I just want to congratulate uh the administration and and your whole team on uh getting these scores going up 10%. That is unbelievably great. What a great job. And I just want to shout out to Dr. Boucher and Nicole Fernandez who were involved in that all year last year. did a great job with getting those numbers up. And to our new team who is in these positions, let's keep it going. Very important. >> Thank you, Chip. Yeah. Um I'm very
088excited. Like as I said, Rome is not built in one day. So everything is going up. Um it's good. I'm looking forward to the report that you guys are going to have about this and everything. And very excited. And you know when you when you look at this data too you you look at the grade it's kind of like a diagonal across because your grade three and 23 24 is now grade four this year you know so when you start to look at some of those numbers and you look at the grade three the fourth grade now which is going to be the fifth grade going up 22% on their scores the next year and stuff like that. So um congratulations thank you. We're got a long way to go but it's all great stuff.
089So thank you. Um we'll we'll move on now to the assistant superintendent for business report. Jean, do you got anything? >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um no, I don't have anything um tonight. I will seat my time to the gentleman to my left. >> All right, back to Z. >> All right, back again. Um I just want to start off with um my report uh by talking about our summer programs. summer summer programs did conclude August 8th. Uh so very successful. I spoke a little bit about them at my last presentation. Um and again we just had a really great ending to the to the year. One of the things that I was able to um see in our since we last spoke was um I was able I was invited into a classroom to
090see some pilot lessons for our uh Shinik infusion project at the uh elementary level and I observed two lessons. I was invited into um Miss Hopson's class who's here tonight uh also with Mrs. Bower and under the supervision of assistant principal McCoy, uh we all joined into Miss Hopson's classroom and we saw two phenomenal infusion project lessons. The first lesson was all about Native American drumming and learning about the importance of the drum in Native American culture. And the second piece um and the second lesson was all about artifacts and um traditions. So, in terms of that that lesson, we had students um learn about some of the Native American artifacts and traditions and then were able to take home um a a bag, a take-home bag that was um developed by our Shinik curriculum
091liaison, Nature Rashard, and students brought them home. the parents were able to take a look at the bag um for for uh that represented the Shinog Nation, learned about it, and then kids and families were able to place things into that bag that were important artifacts for their families and they came back into the classroom and gave little mini presentations about the importance of their traditions and artifacts and it was so well done um by our pilot teachers. So, just congratulations. It was a great effort by our teachers. Can't say enough about the work by Mrs. Rashard. So congratulations. It was a great um also just to wrap up with our summer programs, Dr. Mitchell has been very very busy at the high school. Um last week although the summer programs ended, our review classes
092for the regions exam started last week and Dr. uh Mitchell was there all day right up until the point of this uh this meeting administering regent exams and she'll be back at it again tomorrow. So we do have our June regent exams taking place. We do have students that are um coming to the high school taking those exams just like they do in June. We have students that have multiple accommodations. They could be testing up until 6 7:30 at night um each night. So we'll see what tomorrow brings. But >> I did have some walkins by the way who students who wanted to improve their previous scores from June. >> Oh, we love that. >> Happy to see. >> We love that. So, I want to make a shout out again. Remember parents and students,
093you can take those regent exams after you take it the first time. You can take it as many times as you want to boost those scores. So, don't forget that. Um, so again, another day of regent exams and thank you for the efforts uh from Dr. Mitchell. Um last week we did welcome our new teachers. We have nine new teachers that are joining us here at Southampton uh Southampton schools and we did welcome our new teachers for our new teacher institute that we um actually was the first time we got to showcase our brand new professional development room in the district office. So everyone was a buzz about that new room which was very very cool. I was even uh excited to test out the technology in there. But uh it was it was fantastic.
094Um and again two great days where we were able to uh welcome our new teachers on for them with all their they got to meet all of our um staff from various departments. of all of our departments, whether it's from our business department all the way down to the PCON teacher center and the teacher working with our teacher leaders all had a chance to spend some time with our new teachers um to really kind of introduce themselves, talk about their roles and help them learn Southampton. Of course, the new teacher orientation was ended with the very very famous Juny bus tour. And uh again, Judy did bring a very special guest with him. um this year. And where is she? I know she's in the Oh, she's Oh, there she is. Miss Jackie, she's hiding
095back there. But Miss Jackie was our very special guest on the bus tour. Um and she assisted Juny in really um educating our our new teachers on Southampton, the geography of Southampton, moving all around the town in the village and just getting the history of Southampton so our new teachers really understand um our home here. So it was a great two days and everyone came off the bus with Hanks cider donuts um flowers. So, I don't know. All of the stops they made uh were phenomenal, but I did get great feedback because they made several stops to um local farms. They were at the Parish Art Museum. They took pictures at the SAM, which was amazing. So, they all were at the Southampton African-American Museum. Um you name it, they were there. And they came
096back just so excited about the tour and the opportunity. And of course, they're amazing hosts with Chuny and Jackie. uh that pushed into this week where we have now 60 over 65 teachers here every single day uh Monday to Friday participating in our summer PD institute. This is the first time that we um that we did this and um spent some time putting the institute together um really promoting it to our teachers and we were able to it was a sellout. It was a wait list only for it um which is just awesome. So we have five days of five different presenters coming to work with our teachers on various topics that include um the science of reading and structured literacy for K to2 classrooms. We also heard about meeting uh they're learning about meeting
097the needs of multil multil- language learners um culture responsive and sustaining education and social emotional learning in the classroom understanding AI and how to effectively use AI in schools. um and also how to implement restorative practices in circles in the classroom. So each day we have just phenomenal trainers that are coming from uh many places whether they're Boseies trainers or trainers from uh reputable organizations around the area. We're just really excited to work with them. We're getting great feedback from our teachers as well. Um so we're really excited and it's just been a great great week and uh we have a couple more days to go with it. Um so again it's been very busy. We're really excited and uh I think our teachers are going to be really charged up to start off the
098school year. >> Thank you, Dr. Brown. >> Um >> so we'll um move on now to the um committee um reports here. I know audit and finance we haven't had any new um meetings, personnel committee. Does anybody want to report on anything from that? Um, no, the merger facilities wellness. Um, so, so August is a little weird because we have two official board meetings. We don't have a work session um because usually there's some personnel stuff that needs to get approved and ready for the district. So, that's why a lot of our committees have not um met yet. So, I think that's maybe we'll go um policy information. We have no new policies to go on. That will bring us to the consent agenda items. Um, we have two new we have two consent agenda
099items that we we'd like to add on here. So, can I have a motion to add consent agenda items 12.11, the recommendation to approve resolution regarding employee A to the agenda and consent item consent agenda item 12.12, the recommendation to approve the New York State contract for grants between the Southampton Union Preschool District and the state of um the state of New York effective 7124 to 63029 for the Native American tuition reimbursement as presented. motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. Um, anybody want to have discussion on this? I know. So, so we finally got the um the New York State the tuition contract back from the state um today which was reviewed um sent it to our attorney. Um he looked at it, everything was in there. It's mostly just a cookie cutter
100beginning part and then um the appendix D which now is considered attachment C on there. So they they change that. It's all in place. Um so I know we've been waiting on this for over a year and this is for our tuition to get reimbursed on the tuition from last year still and then continue. So um it's exciting. I talked to the attorney about walking it on tonight and he thought this was appropriate to do and and concerning with that. So I don't know if anybody has any questions um or in discussion. If not, we'll um we'll have the clerk uh please call the role vote to add these two items. Yeah, just to be clear, this is just to add the items to the agenda. >> Okay, so Robert Zachary, >> yes. >> Rodney
101C. Cleman, >> yes. >> Proctor, >> yes. >> Assume is absent. Jermaine Smith, >> yes. >> White, yes. And White is absent. >> Great. Um, so are there any consent agenda items um from 12.01 through 12.12 that any member wishes to discuss or has questions about? Yeah, I'd like to hold out >> Yeah. >> 1210. >> Yeah. Um, so I will hold out consent agenda items 12.11 and 12 for separate action and Chip will be holding out 12.10 for a separate action. So, may I have a motion to approve consent agenda items 12.01 through 12.09 as presented in the agenda? >> Motion. >> Go around. Second. >> Second. Um, will the clerk please call the role? >> Robert Zachary. >> Yes. >> Bradley C. Pearson. >> Yes. >> Monique Proctor. >> Yes. >> Jermaine Smith.
102>> Yes. >> And Laura White? >> Yes. >> Um, may I have a motion to approve consent agenda item 12.10 as presented in the agenda? >> Second. Laura. Um, will the clerk please call the role for a vote? >> Robert Saki. Yes. >> Bradley C. Pearson. >> Abstain. >> Monique Proctor. >> Yes. >> Germaine Smith. >> Yes. >> And Laura White. >> Yes. >> Um, may I have a motion to approve consent agenda item 12.11 as presented in the agenda? >> Motion. >> Second. Germaine. Um, will the clerk please call the role for this vote? >> Robert Zach. >> Yes. >> Rodney C. Person. >> Yes. >> Proctor. >> Yes. >> Germaine Smith. Yes. >> And Laura White. >> Yes. >> Um, may I have a motion to approve consent agenda item 12.12 as presented
103in the agenda? >> Motion. >> A second. >> Second. Um, will the clerk please call the role for the vote? >> Robert Zachary, >> yes. >> Brad Pearson, >> yes. >> Monique Proctor, >> yes. >> Germaine Smith, >> yes. >> And Laura White, >> yes. >> All right. So, carried on all motions. Thank you. Um we are going to move on to personnel items here. Are there any personnel items um 14.01 one or two that any member wishes to discuss or has questions about >> I'd like to discuss uh 14.02. >> We're not there yet. >> This is 0011 and two. So yeah. Okay. 1402. >> No, 14.01 and two. Um, we have to get to 14.02 before, right? Is that So, you want to pull up? >> Okay. All right. So, 14.01. Um, may
104I have a motion to approve personnel items 14.01 and two as presented in the agenda. >> Have a second. >> Second. Germaine. Um, will the clerk please call the role for a vote? >> Robert Zachary. >> Yes. >> Rodney C. Pearson. >> Yes. >> Proctor. >> Yes. Smith. >> Yes. >> Um so um I would we're going to Are there any personal items on 1401 3 through 121 that any member wishes to discuss or has a question about? No, should be two, right? Oh, sorry. I think that was Yeah, I'm sorry. On 14.023 02 3 through 121 that any member has. Sorry. Yeah, no problem. >> Yes. Uh 1402 number 114 is my first one. Um it's a new position and I just wanted to kind of get a uh idea what what that's about,
105what's going on there. >> I Yeah, I think that's the in the science room that I had. I don't know if you want to go ahead. >> Yep. Um that position actually uh Mr. Pearson is not a new position. We our biologist uh was just hired our biologist who we love very much u Miss Patine was actually hired as a new teacher and she'll be moving over into our science department as a living environment teacher. With that we did have to replace our wet lab um biologist or lab technician. So, um, Mr. Tilkin is someone that actually came in, uh, during Miss Betain's maternity leave and did a phenomenal job of of the system. He's one that worked in the past at the Wall Aquarium. Uh, very much trained in our saltwater systems, one of
106the few people that could come in and actually work on the system. So, uh, our job when Miss Betain uh, moved over and this job became available, he wanted to join the team here permanently. So, he did leave choosing to leave the aquarium to come with us to replace Rachel. >> Just a point of clarification, he's hired under a different civil service title because he doesn't have the credentials to be hired as an apparist. Is that the term? >> Aquarist. >> Um, so he was hired as a laboratory aid, >> which we've used those two titles in the past. We've had laboratory aid, biologist. We honored Rachel's um advanced degrees and that's why she was able to earn under civil service that biology biologist. >> So this is in the budget. We've had it in
107the budget. It's >> yeah basically she's replacing teacher who was retired and her position is being backfilled with the laboratory >> the ship did. Is that the only question? Uh I have one more. Um 14.02 O2 number 62, Alejandra Hopson. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, if someone can just explain to me the on July 1st, we had hired uh Miss Hopson and her scale and step was different. And then we were doing a doing it now um because she's moving up as a as a first year teacher and her scale and step is different there. Could someone kind of explain to me how that um works? >> Yeah. Um >> go ahead. >> Yeah. So, um what I know is that Miss Hopson was hired as a leave replacement teacher for a short-term leave replacement.
108Um in this position, she would h she was hired as a probationary teacher. So when she met with um human resources, she was able to provide uh just as we do during that process when you provide all your transcripts um years of service, everything. There's almost like I guess a little bit of a calculation that human resources puts in based on looking at your years of service um and also your creditwise. So for the probationary status, that's where she would she would be hired, which typically in the past, we would range up until step five or so for that probationary hiring. So based on her credits um and her experience, she did land appropriately on that scale for a probationary position. >> Okay. [Music] We'll get to you in a second. Um all right. Um
109was there no more any anybody else that would like to hold anything up for a separate action? >> Yeah. 1402 uh 100. >> Yep. >> All right. Awesome. Um so can I have a motion to approve personal items 14.02 3 through 99 and 101 through 121 as presented in the agenda. >> Second. Laura. Um will the clerk please call a roll? Vote. Robert Saxley, >> yes. >> Rodney C. Pearson, >> yes. >> Proctor, yes. >> Germaine Smith, >> yes. >> And Laura White, yes. >> Great. Um, and um, can I have a motion to approve personnel item 140100 as presented in the agenda? >> 1402 uh, 100 as presented in the agenda. Need a motion. >> Motion. Second. Um, will the clerk please call the role for a vote? >> Robert Zachary. >> Yes. >>
110Rodney C. Pearson. >> Yes. >> Proctor. >> Yes. >> Germaine Smith. >> Laura White. >> Yes. >> Great. Um, the other stuff is right. >> So, I'm going to hug your mom now. She's pro. I know you guys been sitting there for a while. I know Dr. Morel has something she'd like to to jump there. So, give your mom a hug. Come on. What are you doing? >> I just want to say welcome to the ranks of teaching. I'm so happy and proud to be part of your rise. Um you're such an amazing educator and we're just so blessed to have you here in Southampton. um want to thank your family for all the work that they do in supporting you and for allowing us to sharing her with us so we can share her
111with the children. But what an extraordinary uh educator. Thank you so much for uh being a teacher here in Southampton. Thank you. >> Thank you. We're we're very very excited to have you. Yeah, you've been in the district for a while and been trying to get to full time. Welcome board and you know, you're very involved. You do a lot of PTO stuff and great. So, we're we're very excited. Um, so um so we're going to move on to action items here um so can I have a motion to approve the minutes um for the um for the 8525 regular meeting as presented in the agenda? Motion second. Laura. Um, will the clerk please call the role for the vote? >> Robert, >> yes. >> Ronnie, >> yes. >> Termaine Smith, >> yes. >> And
112Laura, yes. >> Um, that brings us to the second round of public comments here. Um, so public comments will be heard at this time. The board of education encourages public participation in school related matters at board meetings. Any group or organization wishing to address the board must first identify a single spokesperson. The presentation should be as brief as possible. Speakers will be permitted to speak for up to three minutes. The board will not allow no not allow public session discussions involving individual district personnel or students. All speakers are to conduct themselves civily. Um obscene language statements, threats or acts of violence and statements of Afghan racial, religious and other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated. Persons making presentation at the board meeting will address remarks to the president. They will direct questions and comments
113to board members or any other direct district officials only upon the approval of the president. Does anybody have any public comment? >> Oh, Jack, you come back. Yes. >> All right. [Music] Board of Education and everyone sitting at the table, everyone sitting here knows that's listening. I would like to encourage us to uh continue to keep our children as our first focus. Um I was thinking because I've been doing board meetings for a long time and there was one board president and at every meeting he says so how the children doing how are the children doing so we need to just make sure we keep them first and foremost. Okay. Another thing I would like us to start doing is when we thank the teachers and everyone else for doing their job, let's thank the
114kids also for doing their job because they're the ones that's doing and being making progress and we're helping to grow. So let's start thanking them too. Okay, that's it. >> Thank you. And and Miss L, I have to ask what school year is this for you coming up? How many years now? First day of school. Okay, I'll answer this question. Everybody else keep count. I don't. >> All right. Awesome. Um, so this brings us on to the new business and and talk about here before I we kind of get to the report here. I know um under new business we discussed the student board members last time and um assigning them a mentor. Um I you know I kind of we thought about talking this I truly think Mon'nique would be a wonderful mentor for
115the board members. Um, so I don't know if anybody has any comments. It's something that we prove and then as direct and anybody everybody good. She goes to a lot of stuff. I think she'd be good and um I don't I don't want to speak, you know, but um Mala Bear wants to take him under her wing and um yeah. So um I think that'd be wonderful Monique. So we'll we'll sign we're going to sign Monique as the mentor to you guys. So at the meeting, you know, grab her number and stuff and any questions going through stuff. So awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you. I just want to thank you for asking and giving me the opportunity and I hold it in high regard. So I'm very excited to work with the two of
116you. >> Awesome. So we're we're excited, too. So um brings us on to new business. I don't really have anything um to report here, but I want to run through. Um Chip, you're up first here. You got anything you want to add? Oh, I have to mention too, we have to go back to executive session for like five minutes after this. We missed a personnel item that we have to discuss, too. Yeah, I know. Sorry, we were passing notes here, but we uh um No, nothing really off the top of my head. I just wanted to uh say good luck to everyone uh with the school year coming up and uh hopefully the kids are are ready and the uh our administration seems like they're on top of everything. And uh um good luck and
117and have a good year. You got anything you want to >> No, I just want to say the first day of school last year for me, Zach was with me. >> I'm not going to wear a cashmere sweater when it's 80° out. I'm excited for all the students, all the staff, everyone. I am excited for the evolution and the transformation that is going to continue for this district. So that's it. >> Awesome. Jine, do you have anything you want to >> um do we have extra support staff for the withdrawals from the cell phones? >> That's for the teachers, right? >> No, have a great year everyone. >> Awesome. Um Laura, do you have anything going on? want to say congrats. >> Congratulations to Miss Huff and welcome to the family. We're very happy for
118you. And also thank you to the audience members that are here tonight giving off their their Tuesday evening. It's nice to see you here each uh each meeting. So, thanks for being here. >> Awesome. You got anything? >> A successful meeting. Awesome. >> Okay. Awesome. Um so I am actually um going to make a motion to go back to executive session um at 817 here to discuss a um a personnel issue. Um so do I have a motion Laura? Second >> Germaine. All in favor so we are going to move in. Um, thank you guys and we'll jump in the conference room real quick and >> Yeah. Yeah.