001here all right welcome back everybody at this time i will recall to order the meeting of the suffering central school district for tuesday june 15th 2021. wherever board members are present either in person or virtually um we're going to rise from the pledge but i would ask that everybody please stay standing ask the pledge for a moment of silence for doug hampton for those who don't know um doug hender was one of the tragically one of the victims in the austin mass shooting over the weekend and was a suffered native so i'd ask please um remain standing for among the styles is thank you um our student report this will be our last report okay sorry are we ready to go okay okay so um for our last meeting we're just gonna go over some
002of the events put together for our seniors so last friday on june 11th was senior day and it was a huge success so the seniors started their day with an awards ceremony which then moved into a handball tournament and lastly there was a barbecue all the seniors had such a great time next week will be the start of our region suite the suffran high school music department is currently finishing up their recordings for a virtual concert that will be coming out shortly and lastly there will be a senior sports banquet on june 21st at 7 00 pm so in addition to that the village of suffern is holding a senior car parade in downtown on june 22nd on june 23rd there will be a bagel and yearbook pickup day for all of our seniors on
003june 24th it is our high school graduation and then june 25th is the official last day of school but then on june 28th at 7 pm there's our senior prom and finally i just wanted to thank you all for an amazing year and thank you for letting melissa and i speak at each and every one of these board meetings so thank you thank you both and bye thank you for watching the occasion and being here every meeting to give the student report and the answer is probably no but do you have any successors for next year yeah we're not quite sure about who's going to be taking our roles next year but i think mrs monaco will be in touch with everyone regarding that later on all right excellent well again thank you both for
004for doing this over the last year it's been fantastic and we really appreciate it okay 1.09 minutes of the regular meeting of june 1st do i have a motion doctor second second mr shapiro all those in favor signify by saying aye aye against any extensions okay miss heartless things okay i'm going to turn it over to you thank you so i have a number of comments tonight but the first is a recognition uh for three of our students who have earned the status of eagle scout this year which for those of you don't know is the highest rank a scout can earn and so we're going to recognize our three evil scouts in a few moments um and so we're just going to take a minute to sort of reposition ourselves and then um is
005jackson posner congratulations and then i'm going to turn this over to you jeff and just tell us a little bit about your eagle scout project and about the process of behavioral scout and mr coronado if you can forward it one slide so so i'll start with the description of my eagle scout project so the project took about a year and a half of planning and prep and permissions to get started and going i had to mark over 250 bedroom graves in the air mount lutheran church cemetery and redesigned a structure that ended up being placed in the cemetery for the american legion for my beneficiaries to use and so with fundraising money we ordered over 200 great markers which were then placed at each of the veteran graves in the cemetery as they were unmarked
006there is now a database for the american legion to use at their disposal which they now have ownership of that has a catalog on every single veteran grave that's in the cemetery each of their locations names words they served in and dates they've died which are something to this day based on you know current passings and the structure that we have placed is weather proof is described like multiple snowstorms and they can use that for whatever they wish it has a little plaster box so they can place anything they wish in a minute or two just talk a little bit about the not just the project project the project associated with being an eagles out but sort of the journey to become people so the journey to becoming eagle scout is not something that starts
007overnight it takes many many years to accomplish for me seven years you basically it's it starts when you first start scouting you start these little adventures with your friends with your troop make lasting memories go on trips see merit badges and wearing that matter of fact that has all the ones i've done you basically over time you accumulate badges work on requirements from older boys and our troop pass down the knowledge to the younger boys like i had a bunch of older boys probably spoke here in previous years teach me and i thought younger boys were going to end up speaking here in the future everyone helps pass down knowledge and we all help each other work harder and harder to reset their ranks and eventually become an eagle scout and what troop number troop
0082021 and that's based in southern new york thank you and next also i believe from troop 21 we have franchisone and frank if you could tell us a bit about your practice um so my project was the was the renovation of a memorial in brooklyn's park pool um it was memorial to daniel carter beard who is one of the co-founders of the voice cast of america um this is a place where you still live used to have a house there and society was in the like it was in disrepair there was an old sign there and it's generally not a nice place to be so we got rid of the old sign we put in a new one um we particularly created by getting our two very large bushes and we did like new landscaping
009on the site um when we installed a new path by the walk by the walking path nearby to make it more inviting for you for people who are walking in the walk around because it's right about the north so you're [Music] um so um either what inspired you to be in that scout or what um words of inspiration might you have for future people um by my father who just also and by all the equals compensating for me and my truth we have quite a few evil scouts um most of the older boys like the boys and me and the troops i knew went on to do people projects and party calls because that was really inspiring for me great thank you thank you third people gap this evening is rather exclaiming robert if you
010could please tell us what troop you're from and what your project was about i am from troop 121 in greenwood lake for my project i built a modular mass conference course for the slopes of the fire department which trains which uh trains them and gets them confident with removing their pack and crawling through tight fine spaces that you would face in a real fire in a house or in a structural collapse and how what was your inspiration for this project it's very unique in the ones i've seen so i am also a member of the solution fire department i know getting training and going to the kind of the rockingham training center it's a long process it's not easy to get the training the time and where you don't have this much money so we
011lack training so that's i asked my chief wanted me to do uh i could do anything and yes i could build the training uh something that we could train on and that's what we came up with very exciting congratulations does it come from completely or is it modular and you're storing the maps so there's three different boxes and that's what's inside of is it operating obstacles out where they can change the orientation of the boxes every time you go through something and how big how do they give a spacing for them so is there any part that it gets narrower than the three feet yeah there are apartments down below right so there's parts where you have to take your pack off and all of that yeah [Music] my scba to go through it please
012like i'm dying to do it dr pista was a very experienced volunteer firefighter so i'm sure i'd like to congratulate all three of our eagle scouts and just i also just want to recognize that this is the first time we have celebrated anyone in person in a year and a half so thank i guess we didn't even mention that you did this during academics so way to stick with it great job and i do have a couple of other comments um my email is currently blowing up because the governor the governor spoke today and when the governor spoke today he seventh grade 70 in new york everything's lifted except schools and large scale events so my email is currently blowing up with hey we can invite everyone to graduation we're in boulder stadium we need
013more than and unfortunately at the moment the answer to that is no i'm going to read verbatim from an email i received this morning from the new york state department of health which talks about how when the governor lists the restrictions schools are still restricted hence why we all have our events on and we will all have our masks on in school tomorrow and um the large-scale event so i'm just going to read directly from the email i got from the department of health as announced by governor cuomo on june 6 most of the remaining copied 19 restrictions will be lifted once 70 percent of new yorkers aged 18 or older have received the first dose of their code of 19 series when nato reaches that threshold most of the state's health guidelines including capacity
014restrictions social distancing cleaning and disinfection health screening and contact information for tracing will become optional underlined with two exceptions that apply to end of year academic celebrations masks will still be required for unvaccinated individuals large-scale event venues defined as venues that will have an indoor capacity but greater than 1500 or outdoor capacity of greater than 2500 will still follow the state's existing health guidance for large events that means we are still restricted to 2 000 participants at boulder stadium based on their capacity which means we are still restricted to four tickets per family if that should change we will let you know right away um it goes on to say that please note even when 70 of new yorkers aged 18 or older have received the first dose of their kobit 19 vaccination series the
015department of health insurance guidance for in-person instruction at predicated grade 12 schools during the copic 19 public health emergency will remain in effect that means all of our current guidelines around mass and and other protocols in school will continue so i know i have i have a slew of senior parents emailing me today i'm sure we'll have tomorrow i will put out something official probably by the end of the day tomorrow but unfortunately for now until we're told otherwise it was we're still restricted at 8th grade and 12th grade graduation to afford tickets per family um i don't like your name and saturday at the suffering middle school um field we celebrated three sectional championships which is the um highest championship we had the opportunity and to participate in this spring uh the boys track
016and field team the girls track and field team and the girls little prince team all won their section championship so that was really exciting and then today our fifth grade district live concert video was released i recommend it's a little long but i recommend watching it it's really cute each of the schools did a different piece and each story shows their personalities um i'm the fifth grade district-wide concert is one of my absolute favorite events um i can't wait to see it again in person next year when that whole class comes together for the first time um i know i have twin fifth graders so i was excited for them to participate this year they participated virtually it's not the same so i think you know next year's fifth grade class may have a few
017extra visitors like me but check it out it's on social media and it's really it's long but it's really cute so thank you to our music teachers for putting that together that's it cool thank you very much for all that and thank you and will not thank you congratulations to our to our three eagle scouts tonight um is it it's like extremely loud or is it just me no that's cute all right um all right moving on uh before we get to public participation um we we are going to make a board statement so this this board does have a statement that we you know collected wishes to read um i'll read this and then i'll send it to you heather so you can put in the record tonight is the final board meeting school
018year and while unfortunate timing and matter of concern needs to be addressed six weeks ago it came to the attention of the board of education that one of our colleagues had exceeded his authority as a board trustee over an 11-week period beginning on february 18 2021 angus mckenzie scheduled that took part in four meetings on the topic of recovery schools without approval from this board these meetings included individuals from local and state advocacy groups suffered central administrators and new york state assemblymen and state senators mr mckenzie organized and conducted these meetings in his capacity as a board member communicated and scheduled them or emailed and invited some employees to attend during work hours while on the surface these acts could be viewed as positive interests for the district then the concept of recovery schools might
019be noble no individual board member has authority to conduct business of this nature without the board's formal approval to be clear the topic of recovery schools has never been discussed by this board nor has it ever been discussed in an advocacy committee meeting or by any other board committee additionally it is beyond the authority of a board member to pull district staff away from their paid responsibilities as stated in policy 2160 school district officer and employee code of ethics quote board members officers or employees shall not make representations on behalf of the district unless it's specifically authorized to do so by the board end quote when individual board members have assumed authority without authorization affecting the daily operations of the school the commissioner of education has not hesitated to remove said board member from office
020however due to current circumstances this board chose not to pursue proceedings against mr mckenzie it is vitally important that board of education members follow their duty to act as a whole corporate body not as an individual unless the authority is formally delegated by the board through either district policy or resolution voted on a public meeting a single board member has no authority to work on behalf of the board even with the best intentions without such board authorization no board member including the president and vice president have any more authority than any of the other members the seven elected officials that stand before the community can only function properly and positively if we work together and follow our policies guidelines and that practices provided to us by organizations such as this book it is our hope
021that going forward this can be issued i'd like the opportunity to respond to that i would like to say that i don't believe that what i did was wrong i was simply responding to the needs of the community as we have had several tragedies in our community this year there are addiction issues in our community that we as community leaders need to address that is what i was attempting to do the board of education feels that i was i accept that however i will continue to advocate for this recovery school and hopefully it will come to life i apologize to the district and this board if my form was improper but the lives of our children are more important to me than the rules that they feel that i have violated thank you okay thank
022you okay um as this is not a topic for discussion or debate we're going to move on to public participation this is public preparation for action items only okay okay i'm guessing that's nobody here in 15 months so um good evening everybody i would love to take this off it's silly to me that we're wearing this if we're all vaccinated and then it was something really sad for me to see these accomplishments by these amazing young men having to take photographs of board members with their desks on that's not what i came here to say today but i'm just sharing with you the way that i feel i think it's just you nuts so um my name is hankersh i'm suffering okay i thought i'm gonna need it because i talked a lot my name's
023ann church i'm suffering resident i lived here for 23 years i've got three daughters two of them have graduated public school system here at suffering i've got another one who is finishing up her sophomore year the reason that i came here to speak today and by the way just before i do thank you mrs weber for our phone call a week ago and thank you for calling me today to tell you that the venue has changed here i'm very concerned as all of you know to watch the news that there's definitely a trend that's been occurring uh throughout the united states we've hit several school boards with critical race theory and although it hasn't been implemented in the sovereign school districts yet there certainly has been a constant theme over the years that i've seen
024where we are focusing on race we're focusing on ethnicity we're focusing on gender and we're focusing now on the word equity which doesn't mean equality it means the same it doesn't mean equal opportunity which we all grew up as adults learning that that's what was really important equal opportunity now we have a formalized approach to change education and see everything through critical race theory and other critical theories as well that are coming down the war this is politicizing the education of our children now new york state regents is promoting the adoption of policies that from what i understand this board is going to be reviewing i'm here today to say i'm encouraging the board members to reject such a policy i've lived here for 23 years suffering is a very diverse community i've never seen
025a problem everybody gets along and suffering we have a tremendously diverse uh population here i don't see the need that we need to now change education to focus on such a thing that doesn't mean that you're not respectful to one another that means it just doesn't become the focus of education education should be about learning learning subjects like math science english history proud history of the united states preparing our children for secondary education and careers and that's not what's going on today throughout the united states i'm hoping that this district will take a different approach so i'm encouraging the board to reject critical race theory as it's being introduced by the new york state board of regents under some other title i'm encouraging educators who hopefully are watching on youtube to also reject it i'm
026encouraging parents to reject it i'm encouraging students to reject it as well so this is what i came here to say today because i feel really passionately about this if the board doesn't have such a policy if my child is taught that they're privileged in some way and i don't mind saying that i would pull my kid right out of public school whether she wants to stay or not and i know she wants to stay because she has friends she has roots but this is too important thing for me personally and for my family so sorry for the impassioned speech here today some of you may agree with me some of you may not but that's how i feel and i feel that a good member of our population here in southern does agree with
027my uh sentiments that i shared with you today so i'm not sure if i've seen my three minutes if i haven't i've got i can keep going but i won't so anyway thank you so much everybody for listening to me and have okay so being as i missed one is there anybody else that wants that is here probably to speak okay and i'd like to apologize i'm so used to it after all these ones nobody's standing up okay uh then we'll close that portion of the meeting we'll move to uh action items so we have quite a number of agile tonight so what i would do is call for a content page this is active 2.01 room 2.38 are there any items that anybody wishes to call at this time 2.16 2.16 2.17 seven and
028two point zero one two point okay so and as you said 2.01 2.16 2.17 that's correct okay tommy said 2.12 correct okay any anybody any others okay okay all right then what we'll do is we will call for a consent agenda for action items 2.02 through 2.11 2.13 room 2.15 and 2.18 through 2.38 okay okay uh so uh do i have a motion for action items two point zero two two point one one two point one three two point four five and two point one eight through two point three eight okay dr nick paul second second uh mr parents all those in favor signify by saying aye all right all those against any obstacles okay uh 2.01 professional personnel report do i have a motion mr mckenzie do i have a second mr shapiro any
029discussion i can't vote on this because my wife is on it okay any other lesson okay um all those in favor signify by saying hi all right so 2.12 this is the resolution for the security guard services rfp do i have a motion mr donnelly second second mr shapiro any discussion yes i am going to ask the board if we can table this item um i just feel that we've been working with this brigham corporal corporation for the past six or seven years um and we've built a relationship with them uh i know under the uh three request here that uh they'll keep the same personnel on however i don't think that is addressing the issue i'm sorry usually i don't need to my voice carries like the gentleman it was just people uh i
030just don't feel that because of a couple of dollars uh we should be changing companies so i like to table this see what the real reasons are why why we're changing companies it's only for a couple of dollars i don't think it's worthwhile uh going in that direction when we have a rapport with the company we can call them uh have our personnel uh responded it's just a convenience uh for us so uh i'd ask for this to be enabled and visited the at the second meeting okay so since this is being requested to table um is there mr donnelly making a motion at the table is there a second to table second okay so so all those in favor is there a chance for more discussion not only not when there's a table okay
031the table one steps once there's a motion to table it's just you vote for table or you don't quote the table okay so um so to table this item all those in favor signify by saying hi can i just you know continue just to answer the question then yes okay could we have this into the next executive session if it's so if if the majority votes the table right now yes then yes okay yeah the jordan doesn't vote the table then yeah right okay matt shouldn't there have been a discussion prior to you addressing his motion though no there's no opportunity to do that once once the motion to table is made there is no further discussion remember what angus is saying before the motion you've asked this you said is there anything i thought
032i asked discussion but then tommy made a motion to the table that's it that that ends it it's i mean i know it sounds silly but it's like as soon as you say that word so again motion on the floor is to table this item all those in favor signify by saying hi okay thank you all right um 2.4 2.16 2.16 employment agreement for candy guccione the motion move mr mckenzie go ahead second mr shapiro can you discuss it all right um all those in favor signify by saying hi [Music] all those against mr and the mckenzie okay 2.17 employment agreement for andy mckenzie do i have a motion um i can't vote on this she's my wife okay she has a bigger vote i'll second that ah all those in favor signify by saying
033aye all those against any extensions i can't okay i think that was everything yeah okay all well right wraps up that work all right information items 4.01 uh to give an overview of the esser and arka funds these are the federal funds uh supporting schools uh they're funneled through the state but they originate at the federal level and um of what they can be used for and um the process thank you acting superintendent whoever i'm going to take about uh give you the 30 000 foot view about 300 pages of guidance from the federal government and state government and believe it or not we're going to do this all in three slides so uh enjoy the coronavirus uh response and relief supplemental appropriation act better known as curse act now uh the chrome virus we've
034actually released supplemental appropriations act provides about 82 million billion dollars i'm sorry billion dollars nationwide in the education stabilization fund to prevent prepare for and respond to the coronal virus there's also another cloud of money that the federal government just recently signed in to law of the federal american rescue plan act arc of funding uh what this does is provide about 122 billion nationally in elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds and this is called arc esserg as as you know not to be confused with this year's funding from the cares act that was put in our budget by there by our state government uh to supplement our foundation aid uh as well i'll go one more slide here is the timeline that actually happened in december of 2020 the president signed in the fraud
035relief act that you see on the left and that turned actually into two pots of money will stay on the top uh and the state and local education agencies which are us that suffer and all the other school districts in new york state uh and ether and gear funds which uh are current uh monies on the bottom our arp act that's also there that's sr1 now not to be confused with year and lesser in the cares act that we're doing right now to rather very quickly though we need to develop a three-year spending plan which is what's now going to happen uh esther 2 on the top the lea is us suffering uh we received 1.9 million dollars uh to be able to [Music] spend and uh in the esser and gear what i want
036to say esther esther in year uh guidelines uh for learning loss and things like that you'll see it on our next slide uh but basically the state funding was almost two million dollars you'll see the 1.9969 will which they actually supplemented to us in foundation aid if you remember we received about a 2.3 million dollar increase in foundation aid well over 80 percent of that was supplemented by using estrogens the state took their their portion and gave it to us that way now just do a little math we have almost two million dollars worth of esser funds now in our foundation age you've got about six hundred thousand dollars this year that was plugged in one shot revenues um so now we're up to about 2.5 million and now over the next two years this
037is going to happen once again and for about the same amount so there's there's a situation here being created that's kind of a scary situation in the new york city economy doesn't come back to be able to replace those funds so keep that in the back of your mind uh and on the bottom they are funding this this is estimating that that actually came directly to us through the state um there's a three-year spending plan again that will be on on our website believe it or not by july 1st we actually have an extension since july 15th um but they're calling that lea or esther fund of about 4.5 million dollars rounding it up because these numbers aren't exactly accurate either because actually they're changing as as as the numbers come out every month they're
038changing slightly with their math so what can we do with those funds well on the left the insiders allowable use of funds and we talked about always about structurally balanced budgets and we talked about listen if you have non-reoccurring revenue you should should fund non-reoccurring expenditures and they were actually they came out with some guidance and said listen allowance these funds should be for not reoccurring expenses uh which is good and they gave eight moments that we're going to be following um safely turning students into in-person instruction actually we've already done that maximizing in-person instruction time they're doing that a lot of these things we're already doing purchasing educational technology um addressing the impacts of covet you know ppe we've done all this implementing evidence-based strategies to meet students social emotional mental health and academic
039needs we're doing that every day uh offering evidence-based summer and after school and other evidence extended learning enrichment programs we're doing that this year will be a first summer school that we've had in quite a while and supporting her early childhood education we're doing that through our upk and pre-k funds now i also highlighted in yellow in the bottom too because again very very widely the guidance from the government says listen any programs that are expected to continue beyond the availability of these federal funds you must identify your local funds that will be used to maintain these programs into the future i hope all those conditions they follow that now on the bottom is very important in the black highlight is the expenditure in the interval is the first day we went out on on
040code which is march 13 2020 and it will end in september 30th 2023. that's the expenditure individual that we can extend these funds and give reimbursement very importantly our strategic plan is on the right hand side i pulled this out of our draft plan now the things that you see those allowable uses funds fit very nicely they don't tell perfectly into into what we're doing for targeted resource use for our staff development family community engagement our social emotional learning and academic success for all students so that's the 30 or 40 thousand foot view of uh these three pots of money um i hope i didn't confuse you too much but basically where we are now we're in the karazak funding act right now in this year's budget and now we will be moving into these
041other classes of you don't believe that right yes steve could you go back to slide number two yeah this this bottom right hand figure the four and a half million that's the total package that we have to come up with a plan spent that's just for the american recovery act plan right and that's hope that's that's not right that's there's two there's two there's two separate one you see the time do you see the time when you see the dotted line yeah yeah below the line is just the artifact that's one act by itself and one plot one right 4.476 million on the top is the cursa act which which then got funneled through the state and they created two separate acts called sr2 and gear2 okay okay and you'll see that you see if
042you keep going to the right the two pots of money turned into from the states um by supplanting our foundation aid of 1.9 million and then giving us 1.9 million basically to do it as we see fit within the guidelines okay the three year spending plan for the four and a half million that's total enough like we've yeah and we're already working on it right right it's not 45 million each year over three three years yeah it's a three-year spending all day i'm not going to tell them correct you're absolutely great thank you for pointing that out that's a very very good i'm not sure what [Music] that is a plan that will be going up on our website july 15th it is closely linked with our strategic plan so if there is any input
043from the community feel free to answer email mr schleich feels free to email me um and you know it's it's it's you know it's our money for our kids so um if you have thoughts um you know we're looking to keep it all consistent with the strategic plan but if you have thoughts beyond that please let us know okay thank you all right um board member comments yeah i'd like to start out by um giving my condolences to the cantor family the passing of this on doug it's a horrible situation and um it's a difficult thing to get through but hopefully our community and our district can help you do that um i'd also like to acknowledge the cash crew and the faculty involved with the production of beauty and the beast um proud karen
044my uh son angus was a part of the play and uh it was a tremendous play i went to go see it with my family on sunday and i really enjoyed the play and i think that um you know mr republic mr mccarter and mr schwartz both put in a tremendous amount of work to produce the product that they did and uh they didn't miss a beat it was fantastic um i'd like to say um congratulations all to also to the rotary scholarship recipients they um did a parade the rotary going around to acknowledge each and every one of the uh rotary scholarship recipients and started blowing horns and wet hits it was a very nice thing uh for the for the students and for the rotarians that did that um i'd also like to
045acknowledge our eagle scouts today for achieving that rank uh my son is also angus is also working to try to become an eagle scout and i'd like to acknowledge uh jackson posner frank tassone and robert fellaini for their hard work because i know what it takes for them to uh get to that level and it's a tremendous tremendous amount of work so who goes to them for doing what they did um i'd also like to acknowledge a woman who's on the personnel report retiring tonight mrs barbara bitty she spent 50 years in the school district plus between her and her husband joe the two of them have a century of service to our children and um they did it with class and style and i think that that definitely deserves to be individually acknowledged they
046gave more than half of their lives to our children to make them better people and uh that's a very very special thing i also like to acknowledge see cario um i went to high school with sue and she worked here in our district for over 20 years and worked in our administrative building here for uh the last year and uh you know she's moving on to pearl river to be a principal there and i'm sad that she's leaving she did a tremendous job for us but i'm glad to see her grow and move on it's a tremendous thing and thank you for all the hard work that you put in soon this is my last regular meeting with the board of education and i just like to thank a few people i'd like to thank
047all the people that supported me on the top of that list is my family amy my wife and my three boys in english james and rory their support allowed me to make difficult decisions with my heart i'd also like to thank the people that i served with on this board and welcome the incoming board congratulations to each and every one of you daryl and jen that are here and marlo that will be here next oh tomorrow i didn't see that you're here congratulations to you too um i'd also like to thank the administration um they've done a tremendous job and we've come as a board a very long way um when i came on this board there was not a lot of people in this building we were lacking an assistant superintendent of hr an
048assistant superintendent of business a director of facilities and a director of enl inequity and as a board we selected these two gentlemen to my left who have done a tremendous job in those capacities and john palmer was not here and uh i just like to thank you all for the tremendous job ms webber serving with as as the assistant super the superintendent for the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and also as the acting superintendent tremendous job and i really appreciate the hard work that you uh did so thank you everybody thank you for all those wonderfully kind words to everybody um anybody want to follow up on that anybody have other other comments yes hello everybody this is also my last official board meeting and i'd like to also also offer best wishes to the
049soon-to-be newly reconstituted school board uh and suffern's new superintendent dr gerstin uh i wish really wish them the best you know for the next uh 10 or 20 years whatever it may be um during my time three years i really had the opportunity to accomplish or achieve nine different items for the community the teachers and the students i think my legacy items probably would be number one the led lighting which is someday going in once it gets past the state and hopefully some board member will also then push forward for the solar panels all of that work will will be achieved and save the district over 30 percent in utility bills the other item i think really is most important legacy and that would be bus transportation for the suffering clubs which is really a
050safety requirement for students and also less liability for the district uh if you can afford to uh have buses for academics you should certainly afford to have buses for absorption athletics you should certainly afford to have buses for the academic teams with regard to my specialty which is history i was delighted to bring in uh and uh to help bring in uh joe allen who showed his film the two schools about the segregation that was going on in rockland county and also uh to inform so many students a little bit more about thurgood marshall who really started off here it's it's such an opportunity for the school district to you know really present civil rights from a local issue as opposed to simply you know the board versus brown uh brown versus the board of
051education and secondly and lastly i think the students again i was able to help arrange for the 9 11 visit two years ago for 80 students down to the 9 11 memorial which i think should really be something both of those items really should be something that the school district should continue um we were involved with civil rights issue and unfortunately uh some of these suffering firefighters and police also passed away or perished because of that attack on 9 11. so uh it's been an interesting three years the first one and a half years i think as angus said we're very political uh which was not my forte really mine is in education more than anything else but the items that took place and what we did really had to be done and i think
052the district really is better suited now to go into the 21st century if okay you continue supporting the robotics team okay uh which is really 21st century education and just as a point lego land is opening this year our elementary schools should be bringing in lego programs in our elementary schools now and i quite i know that there are grants out there for them so you know i'm hoping the district will continue to move forward uh and be as successful as it was for my two children who went here years ago but they got a great education and i think the students today are still getting a great education and hopefully for the future so thank you very much for the opportunity to serve uh it's been you know an interesting and enjoyable opportunity meet
053you know working with the school board and you know thank you very much for that opportunity so thank you this is sparrow yes um i'll echo uh oh my who's mine who's the backpack oh [Music] i'll echo angus's comments about doug and the lost of his life it's um this country has to get itself together and i hope somehow it will but what a what a senseless loss as most of all these losses are um going back to what lee said earlier i actually went on a date saturday night i took my wife to a lacrosse game it was her first and um she had never gone to a lacrosse game before and it was an incredible game suffering girls across is awesome it's just that simple and the fact that we want to became
054section champs the same day that the boys spring track team and the girls spring spring track team also were section champs that's uh it's pretty amazing that one hayden high school had three section chants in one one day as leah said earlier um angus and don i'm going to miss you guys we really have come come together we might have been on different sides in certain issues but we were always there for the students and that that was the main main thing and even even though don and i worked in the same school district when we did work uh we really didn't know each other and i'm very fortunate that we got to know each other here and angus um you know really seeing seeing your kids and being a facebook uh junkie in a
055certain way and watching and seeing all the pictures of uh kids as they grow up i mean i just i just look forward to it so uh you know when when james is six lying and playing for whatever college football thing he's gonna be playing for i'll i'll be up there moving for him unless he plays pit and i will not be um and to the new board members um you know it's gonna be fun working with you uh you may not feel the same way about me but i'll feel that it's going to be fun working with you and this has been a an interesting year and an interesting year and a half and kudos to our from staff administrative staff to those people who work in this building um to all of the
056administrators and the other seven buildings and to all of the teachers and the custodians and the um food workers and if you have anything to do you all went above and beyond this district is an exceptional place and we probably you know we talk about it but if you work in another district and then you see what goes on in this district you really see wow it's it's just amazing and um just thank you to the entire staff of uh suffering set the central for getting us through some tough tough times there were some school districts throughout the country who can only dream about having a staff like we have here so thanks to everyone and hopefully when september rolls around god willing like wood um things will be back to whatever the new model
057is going to be thank you thank you yeah i just like to uh recognize well our retiring employees uh i wish them all well um in particular i'd like to say good luck to bob walker and uh bobby develos uh did with two fellas that you know i had time at the high school i know bobby was transferred out to a different school but it was cherry lane uh but it was really a pleasure and i wish you all a a very healthy happy and long retirement on late i just want to thank you for for the effort that you put into this uh position uh i know you're still in the chair for a few more a few more days but um really you did a tremendous job uh i i just i i
058can't thank you enough uh i appreciate everything you've done uh and to angus and don uh i wish you the best um just good luck thank you thank you just a few comments from me tonight um first excuse me first and foremost i'd like to extend my condolences to the kendrick family they are in our thoughts of prayers uh congratulations to the eagles eagle scouts amazing accomplishments very impressive in terms of what they've done and then the commitment that they've showed uh through their process while becoming eagle scouts uh i'd like to also congratulate the sports teams that won the sectional titles um recently but also all the sports teams just just for participating and having season um it wasn't a few months ago that we had a lot of discussions about you know should
059we let this go forward should we support sports teams and i think um you know retrospect it really was the right decision and i think it was really valuable for the kids to go through um their sports seasons and have some competition and have some activities outside of school so i just wanted to acknowledge all the effort that went into that um all the way from uh yeah director all the way down so i don't want coaches um and lastly i'd really like to thank lee webber for for her work and uh just the efforts that she put in uh this year and i can i can certainly appreciate the challenge of having information come at you having to distill it having to put it into a public policy and then having to implement that
060so i i really can appreciate all the stress that causes and all that personal um angst that it causes um and you know when you get conflicting information all the time too it doesn't make that very easy so so just just as someone that deals with that as well i can i can personally appreciate your efforts and and really your consistency in your approach which i really respect and just wanted to thank you for all of that and all of your staff too and everyone and all the teachers that put in all the efforts too but i think uh you know really was a remarkable run and so i thank you for that and uh that's it thank you and i just want to thank you for all those phone calls all that conflicting information
061dr nikon often often help me sort out the conflicting information so thank you very much for that all right thank you do anything you don't have to start i want to thank angus and i want to thank don um i have two kids in the district as you know so the big undertaking to volunteer your time for three years to serve my kids so i appreciate that so much and of course to lee for what you've done over the past couple of years to take this on particularly with the pandemic i think has been really remarkable and again with the surface of my children and the entire district they really appreciate that all right i guess i'm going to like everybody who kind of likes club all right so some of you already uh stole
062a little bit of my cover but i was going to devote my comments today to you and really just take an opportunity to say what happens on behalf of this board thank you for all the lord that you've done over the last two years um i can only imagine actually only imagine how challenging it is to come into a situation you know under normal circumstances but over the last year with the pandemic and kovis um you don't determine this job and like i said people already stole some of my thunder here but um you know on behalf of the board again i wanted to say thank you thank you they smelled they looked beautiful the smell from the point there yeah so you know again um this board is extremely grateful for the dog and
063um you know like really you know and for me personally it has really been a pleasure to work with you um you know it's a lot of strange family phone calls and texts and that's okay i mean i think um you know the report that we had really helped move our district forward especially during you know the last year so many challenges and so many questions and you know what do we do and do we you know i'm like i don't even but you know lots of school closures and notifying this and you know a lot of heat that you probably took from a lot of people whether their parents or staff it was a very challenging year and again just wanted to say thank you and i also want to say thank you to
064our district clerk because for those of you that don't really know um heather does a ton of work for this board and for this district behind the scenes that nobody sees or hears about um and this year you know pandemic or no pandemic um she has a tough job at a regular job not to mention being this declared a regular job and um you know i wanted to extend my personal thank you but also thank you on behalf of the board of education for all of your hard work and dedication that is born and i'm gonna come over and give you just a little something just to help with your caffeine habit on behalf of us in general it really is a pleasure to sit at this table um with six other board members and
065administrators and um and leave here most days feeling like we've accomplished something um some meetings are harder than others some data harder than others but um it feels good to walk out of here a lot of nights and know that we've made decisions that are going to benefit the students of this district so you know again this being the last meeting of this school year um thank you again to everybody that's contributed and that's helped make this very strange year as successful as it possibly could be and um you know um thank you angus and dawn well for all your hard work and dedication over the last three years and i welcome working with our new board members come july and that's that's all i have so we will move on public participation on district
066any distributed business uh there's nobody left unless one of the three of you would like to say something okay uh heather is there any coming up nothing okay so close that portion of the meeting call the comments and here are these two um first i'd like to congratulate our retirees my apologies for not having our video ready tonight the retirees were still rolling in late last week um so we ever becoming a supplemental video um to recognize um this group of retirees and i do want to mention um in addition to those that have already been mentioned i do want to mention that mrs hammond is also retiring after 48 years in the district she was one of the first people i met because i first people i met when i started working here and
067um really just made it literally made an impact on me from the moment i met her so congratulations to all of our retirees and we're not done celebrating you yet i did want to take this opportunity since my last time sitting up here with my own microphone to share a few reflections on the year the next meeting i'll be sitting on the sides there so i did also want to express my sincere condolences to the cantor family and the loss of dove this year year's been challenging in many ways um particularly the loss of life sadness grief and disbelief have truly been overwhelming at times i know that i and many others have drawn on each other and our entire community for strength to get through these challenges i've never been more grateful for the
068caring and support of our saffron central community i'd also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the board of education for allowing me to lead this amazing district for the last two years it's been an honor to get to know so many of our staff our students and families in many ways our staff members have stepped up frequently going above and beyond which truly has a new meaning in the pandemic to support each other our students and families our students have shown unbelievable resilience flexibility and independence our families have also shown resilience and flexibility and unbelievable support for each other participating in food and necessity drives supporting gofundme accounts and taking care of each other and while we don't always agree remote in person mask no mask we maintained a civility and
069respect for each other's beliefs that was not the case in verges and all districts but it was the case here in saffron i also want to highlight a few of my favorite joyous moments from this year starting with students excitement to return to in-person school some in october some not until may some seniors not until last friday the amazing ways our teaching staff innovated and navigated hybrid teaching and i would walk into classrooms and honestly it didn't matter if it was kindergarten or first grade or 10th and 11th grade and the teachers would talk to the kids and say let's let's let's include let's see what our online friends have to say and it really didn't matter they were all working to build a community in the hybrid environment the smiles on kids faces as
070they ran track in the palisades parking garage walking past the gym at the high school this winter and hearing basketballs bouncing for the first time in a year seeing our older students to continue passing down the pride to our youngsters through events like civics day heroes and cool kids and our recently implemented fifth to sixth grade google me conversations to help students transition to middle school seeing kids who've gone three or even six inches since the last time we saw them the return of hands-on learning this spring including lots of bugs and dirt and just this weekend the senior day and barbecue at saffron high school the three section championships and the amazing real life to video production of beauty and the beast i look forward to our remaining end of year events moving up
071ceremonies graduations parades and the crime as we get to do all of those these things that we didn't get to do last year they may not look exactly as they did in the past but i know that i will cherish each and every moment i look forward to returning to my role as as assistant superintendent of instruction and working with dr gunderson to help southern central to continue to grow and shine our first summer school in nearly a decade students returning in september some of whom will have been remote for a year and a half all of these will present new challenges i look forward to working with our amazing staff and leadership team to ensure our students the necessary opportunities and support to learn over the coming year i'd also like to thank dr
072costello mr schleger and mr matone um who i think we really created a great team together and i look forward to continuing to work as colleagues and i'd like to just wish everyone a wonderful end of the school year be safe make the choices and have a relaxing rejuvenating summer thank you wonderful cause um all right so our next meeting will be tuesday july 6 6 or 7 tuesday july 6th um reminder for those of you that might be attending or watching that that's typically two meetings there's a rework meeting then a recess for you know like a regular executive session and then regular meeting so you know typically on that day we'll probably be starting somewhere around five o'clock so for those of you who want to watch or be here in person because
073who knows you know maybe there'll be restrictions lifted and we can actually have a full room of people which would be wonderful um look forward to that and um you know congratulations to everybody and congratulations to all the seniors who uh we'll be seeing in uh in a couple of weeks at boulder stadium and that's gonna do it so do i have a motion to adjourn mr shapiro there's a second all second in favor signify by saying aye aye anybody want to study all right then this meeting is adjourned thank you all very much you