001e good evening everyone Welcome to our November Board of Education meeting could everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all please be seated okay the first item on the agenda will be the audit report and that's from our auditor Colin danowski and that's um welcome uh Mr William esterson to give us the audit report good evening my name is Bill oderson I'm the director of audit services with Colin danowski the external auditor for the district as the as the external auditor our job is to to express an opinion on the district's financial statements we conduct our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards set forth by the aicpa and government auditing
002standards set forth by The Controller General of the United States those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable Assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement while reasonable Assurance is a high level of assurance it's not absolute assurance that a mater that a misstatement that may exist uh will be detected tonight we are presenting the district's financial statements for the year ended June 30th 2023 the district's basic financial statements contain unmodified opinions for all funds with the exception of the extra classro activity fund where we have issued a qualified opinion that qualified opinion relates to the accounting records at the individual ual club levels uh regarding cash receipts we also issue a report on internal controls and we note no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in in
003any of the district's internal controls additionally we we issue a report on compliance with laws and regulations and we note no instances of non-compliance with any laws or regulations in in our Au communication letter to the Board of Education uh which gives an overview of the audit it communicates our responsibilities as Auditors and it's where we would communicate additional items to the board in that letter we note that estimates made by management were reasonable we encountered no difficulties with Management in performing our audit there were no disagreements with management and there were no material adjustments proposed dur in the audit overall we are pleased to report that the district has a good internal control control structure and is overall in Good Financial condition thank you thank you so much Mr erson for the report okay
004um next on the agenda can I approve of a minutes of October 3rd and October 18th 2023 board meeting board meeting um can I have a motion please uh Mr Breco seconded by m Levitin are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions thank you and Dr Ruel may we have the treasures report and appropriation adjustments yes as indicated in the treasures report the cash on hand for the month end September 2023 was 81,500 $23.93 it shows that all Bank balances for all cash accounts were reconciled to the book balances and were collateralized in accordance with the district's banking agreements and investment policy thank you thank you Dr ruo can I have a motion to approve Dr ruo's treasury report Mr um Mr Roto second it by Dr Park are there any questions okay
005ohen in favor opposed any abstentions all right before we move on to the do uh the superintendent's report and I do want to say something that feels very very close to me and that's very very important as a resident in this community and also um as a uh trustee on the board and having three children going through the school district and I have to um I really feel very compelled to um to make a statement DSi is a learning community we recently reach out to our community to address deeply disturbing incidents that occurred at hbt and saset high school we confronted these incidents with zero tolerance emphasizing consequences and education those who have faced bias and acts of hate in their lifetimes experience profound pain this pain is often in inherited from the experiences of
006our ancestors and must not be disregarded minimized or neglected we understand that the profound distress these actions have caused and share your concerns for the safety and well-being of our students these actions not only disrupt our Learning Community but also undermine the hard work that so many have put into making s at a place where everyone feels a sense of belonging the Board of Education established the Dei task force specifically to en enhance restorative practices curriculum and professional learning student experience hiring practices and community outreach regarding diversity and inclusion incidents like these reinforce the necessity of the task force and the importance of continuing this vital work we recognize that we are all feeling particularly ra right now and incidents like these are Amplified our deliberate goal is to create an environment free from Prejudice
007both in times of calm and during moments of Crisis this organization led by Dr Rogers is unwavering in its commitment to Unity and responsiveness especially in handling acts of bias and hate I reiterate hate has no place in our schools our district is dedicated to educating our children about respect and tolerance striving to eliminate all forms of hate we eagerly welcome families as our partners to collaborate with the district creating a nurturing Community for every child to thrive and Dr Rogers please please to walk us through some of the consequences and Punishment and the prevention parts of um part of the thank you Miss Chang I'm in my 10th year of leading this organization and I will say that it has been an honor and a privilege to do so uh I'm proud to work
008here and I'm proud of what this community represents and has represented uh for itself and in my life uh this work has felt to me personally like um a calling and the the work of a lifetime and the opportunity of a lifetime and I've made no secret of saying how proud I am to work in such a diverse community and how amazed I am at how hard this community Works to celebrate that diversity in such tangible ways so it's deeply distressing to me to find that we're in the moment that we're in right now personally because this has felt like a life's work to me and the moment is more perilous for others than myself I certainly understand that but it still has an emotional impact on all of us so I would hope that
009every member of our community was offended and dismayed by the events of last week I know I was devastated not only by the actions but by knowing the tremendous pain and sense of insecurity that I knew those actions would cause in our community and in particular among our Jewish families the actions we've experienced don't Define our Learning Community or its 7,000 children frankly the outrage those actions inspired more rightly does nevertheless these actions will have consequences punitive consequences for the individuals involved and educational consequences for our Learning Community as a whole in addition I know parents want to better understand our disciplinary process process they want to know that the school district applies consequences in an unbiased manner to the latter point we take our obligations under the law very seriously schools are constrained by
010the doctrine of viewpoint neutrality which dates back to Whitmer versus Vincent 1981 Supreme Court case which essentially requires us to treat conflicting viewpoints equally thus student conduct is evaluated under the district's code of conduct based solely on whether the conduct violates the code agnostic of viewpoint so I'll talk a little bit about student discipline first and then we'll talk about the educational consequences that we're working on the district has a commitment to transparency but that commitment cannot supersede the law the federal education rights and Privacy Act Vera precludes us from talking about individual students which involves individual student discipline what I can describe at a general level is the process involved when any serious misconduct is alleged during the investigatory phase school officials inform law enforcement whenever student conduct potentially constitutes a crime District officials
011do not make this determination on our own rather with the assistance of our attorney who is himself a former prosecutor from there it's up to law enforcement to decide if the actions are indeed criminal and how they wish to proceed through their legal process when actions rise to this level the district notifies the public to the extent Allowed by law school discipline also follows the legal process once the school's investigation determines that the district's code of conduct was violated section 3214 of the education law governs specifically how we proceed typically it takes about a week for a formal hearing date to be established where both the student and the district are represented by councel a trained hearing officer presides a court stenographer makes a permanent transcript of the proceedings and potentially Witnesses are called in
012general our attorney structures a disposition and presents the disposition to the family of the suspended student the parent can agree to or reject the proposed terms if rejected the matter proceeds to testimony in the hearing the hearing officer presides over the matter and makes findings concerning guilt or innocence if guilt is found the hearing officer then recommends an appropriate sanction to be imposed the district would have to have significant and defensible grounds to overturn the recommendation of the hearing officer it's difficult to outline what consequences might follow from various infractions because we're required to consider more multiple factors such as student disability status specific details of the incident prior disciplinary history the strength of the evidence the district has whether and how other students were involved whether the action was provoked or premeditated the age
013of the student and more school sanctions are limited to deciding the length of a suspension in 2017 when we were working with our partners at the Holocaust tolerance and memor morial Center they shared that their work included hosting one-on-one sessions with students who had been involved in hate incidents to discuss the incident and educate them about hate symbols while this sanction is something that law enforcement can direct it is not something the school district can impose unilaterally parents would have to agree to it in a structured disposition parents want to know that their children will be safe at school our psychologists are already trained to perform risk and threat assessments and last year the district began and participating in a new threat assessment team training alongside several neighboring school districts no student who poses a
014threat to themselves or others would continue in the school environment until that issue is evaluated and addressed as part of our restorative practices students who harm our learning environment must be educated as to why their behavior is so harmful and the impact of their specific actions now onto educational consequences and step steps the district is taking context matters a large segment of our community was upset about an incident in 2021 that occurred in the wake of a heightened emotions following anti-asian assaults in New York City and the killings at the Atlanta spas and massage parlor the current context places the events of the last four weeks against a backdrop of a glowing a growing rise in anti-Semitism which amplifies the impact of recent events at school last July I was invited by legislator Drucker to
015meet with the Nassau County task force on anti anti-Semitism along with nearly a dozen of my superintendent colleagues we each took turns describing for the task force the effort our districts make to fight anti-Semitism hate and racism and I was proud to share how extensive our efforts were and not surprised that my colleagues efforts were similar I have asked the building leaders in all 10 buildings to compile those efforts I won't go through them all tonight but we will be posting a summary online this week I will point out that we recently added anti-bias training for Staff last year Staff last year our administrators participated in a four-part training on diversity inclusivity and this year we've started a second round of training with another expert to build on that work the point is the school
016district has not taken our responsibility lightly but last week's events proved our efforts are inadequate so we will be taking some immediate steps and some longer term steps to ensure that our students recognize and understand symbols of hate and their history as well as the distinctions between Free Speech hate speech and disruptive speech in the short term our goal will be to reinforce explicitly and specifically what constitutes forbidden conduct and what consequences will follow including the potential for consequences through law enforcement no middle or high school student will have the will have the excuse of ignorance or naiv thank you over the weekend administrators and building leaders have been working on follow On th I know our teachers want to do this work efforts our teers know that should persons ofely they should always vocalize
017our values over the weekend over the weekend the over the weekend no over the weekend over the [Applause] weekend thank you for your patience with me over the weekend administrators and building leaders have been working on discussion guides for our social studies departments and we'll devote time while schools are closed tomorrow to prepare this talk with students on Wednesday with followup on Thursday I know our teachers want to do this work and we'll make great efforts to get this sensitive topic just right our teachers know that they should keep their personal politics out of the classroom but conversely they should always localize our values anti-Semitism and any other form of hate is always wrong racism is always wrong discrimination is always wrong intolerance is always wrong parents can be our partners by echoing and reinforcing
018these values at home after this immediate work we will soon be scheduling other activities we've been in contact with partner organizations like the Holocaust Memorial and tolerance Center to arrange programs for students and staff we will be providing faculty with additional training and materials through partner organizations and other resources to ensure they are prepared to appropriately discuss sensitive topics with our students we will be building on the curriculum writing from our previous test forces work and reviewing our curriculum for other opportunities to enhance our our incorporation of anti-bias programming we are already engaged in a review of our elementary social studies curriculum and I have directed that team to ensure that our update includes age appropriate ways to introduce these difficult topics to Elementary children at the secondary level we will place additional emphasis on
019media literacy disinformation and even how artificial intelligence tools are being used to misinform while we generally align lessons with holidays and other calendar milestones we will be begin to accelerate these lessons earlier in the year today president Chang and I had the opportunity to meet with leaders including the co-chair co-chairs of the Interfaith Council of clergy Rabbi Jamie shalet and Pastor Rebecca Sheridan as well as Dr us masad an American Muslim Community leader they are here tonight to show their solidarity with the community we had a Frank conversation about the very challenging moment that faces us but perhaps what was most remarkable about the conversation was the unanimity of what we believe we can accomplish together we all value this amazingly diverse community that lives in harmony despite our differences we all want scit's children
020to have diverse groups of friends and to celebrate difference we all want our students to lead the effort to make the world a more peaceful place we all recognize that if consequences don't educate the wrong is just perpetuated we recognize the role parents play in part partnering with the district they have offered to provide diversity training to our staff as a team representing so much of saset diversity themselves and they're looking to recruit Partners to make it even more reflective of saset they agreed that emphasizing our diversity shouldn't make anyone feel marginalized it's an and conversation not an or conversation I asked for and received Frank advice about how to start teaching about how early to start teaching about hate and intolerance how to be transparent with parents about how we reproach this curriculum the
021tremendous negative impact of social media and especially how to navigate this particularly difficult moment knowing that with our tremendous diversity comes Amplified sensitivity we kept returning to two phrases this work is so sensitive it's best to proceed cautiously and our most important goal is to work hard so that even if if we stumble despite our best intentions we'll be caught in the act of trying we are also proud of what the sosic community has accomplished and what it represents and we all share deeply the hope that our commitment to diversity is stronger than this challenging moment I'm sure the Board of Education feels the same way thank [Applause] you thank you Dr Rogers I can't agree more and and it really uh makes me very emotional now thank you and I just want to take
022another moment to um um thank um Rabbi Jamie and uh Pastor Sheridan and also Dr say for being here to show your support appreciate that thank you and then at this point um would anyone else um like to speak from the board uh Miss enson please oh thank everybody for showing up tonight and um uh Susan Anna shaie and I wrote something in conjunction with each other and um we're going to share it but please bear with me because there's very small chance I get through it without crying and as people have told me before it's okay to not be okay right now so sorry saset is our home it's where we send our children every day it should be a place where they go without fear or hesitation we're different are celebrated in a
023place parents can feel secure in sending their children the past few weeks have taken away that security for a lot of us and that has only been compounded by the anti-semitic events of the last week in our school our work is cut out for us although we have started the process in our schools to increase inclusivity and learning as well as protective measures when instances occur we are not done by any means the current state of the world has only shown us we need to do better we need to partner with the community to keep everyone safe and just as importantly make everyone feel safe we need students and families to feel secure in reporting anti-semitic and other hate instances so they are not only heard but supported by the district the teachers staff Administration
024students and families all have to come together to create an environment of Tolerance inclusivity and kindness I am sadden to say that so many of us personally understand what Jewish parents are facing today we understand the fear when Jewish kids walk out their door and into the world the threats occurring on a daily basis in the streets of New York the college campuses where my son goes to school and most disturbingly in our community the Heartbreak when they learn that they are disliked not for who they are but because they are a certain religion or ethnic ethnicity as parents our first priority is always to protect our children anti-semitic acts are increasing and unprecedented rates we need to be not only reactive to events but proactive in creating a more inclusive and tolerant environment this
025should include programs beginning in kindergarten and continuing through graduation that are designed to bring the community together build Bridges and encourage friendships we need to educate on the dangers of anti-Semitism and all forms of hate and why it is so harmful recent days have shown that anti-Semitism is all around us and the time to act is now our response needs to be immediate and strong we need to demonstrate that hate of any kind won't be tolerated our number one priority needs to be the Safety and Security of our children zet is not immune to what's going on in the world around us no incident happens in a vacuum in 2017 my first year on this board along with Carol we also saw the anti-semitic graffiti incident at our school which prompted all the initiatives Dr
026Rogers and Carol um talked about multiple times and mentioned today however I think we all agree that the con context then was different from what we see now October 7th changed that social media free from fact checking changed that sadly multiple Long Island schools are facing antisemitic incidents right now and the list is growing we have a renewed problem in front of us and we must recognize that our schools must remain a place of acceptance inclusivity and safety anti-Semitism and any other form of hate can never be tolerated but right now we must focus on anti-Semitism [Applause] period we need to send the message to this community and to our students and families that they're not alone our Jewish Community is hurting and quite frankly terrified they need to know we're here to listen support
027and act we need to step up our efforts to create an environment in our schools where all our kids feel safe and proud of their Heritage our families need to be confident knowing that school district is standing with them and open to a true partnership and with the community to combat any form of hate and specifically the rapidly Rising anti-Semitism and I want to address this to our children we want you to know that our district believes your safety success and well-being are our unwavering prior prorities anything or anyone that poses a threat to you sadness and anger s more than words can express that is why it is important for you to understand that just as you are cherished by your family and friends the person you target has equal value in their in
028theirs and you cannot think only you have to be protected and others do not need to be protected that is why education is so important it is so important to learn and know what can what can hurt people especially those that are who are different than you please know that our priority has always been and always will be the well-being of our children thank you thank you Mr greo I I don't know how I can follow that um that was wonderful from from the four of you and I'll try to be short I'm not really the type of person that pretends to understand how people feel and that absolutely applies here I I do my best to try to listen and be empathetic and feel for those that may be experiencing anguish and fear um
029that I may not truly understand and with that in mind my demands for our school district will continue to center around doing everything in our power to ensure all of our students feel welcome in our buildings and that includes of course making sure none of them feel afraid we've had such wonderful diversity here and while that should be celebrated it also means our schools must be that much more welcoming and the focus must continue to be on understanding tolerance and inclusivity that that's always been my goal but candidly it is not easy work it involves teaching children about each other's differences early on and teaching them about the types of words or symbols like anti-semitic symbols that can cause real pain to others and unfortunately it also involves handling terrible situations like we saw at
030the end of last week so Dr Rogers I I know I can be very critical unfortunately that's my nature but I'm truly happy to have you leading this and leading our district through this at this time I I see how hard your team works at this and how how it must pain you to manage this type of situation and I'm confident that we if we focus on these recent incidents you'll continue to build on the prevention you spoke about earlier with both immediate step steps long-term steps both of which are critical and for that and for your team I'm I'm thankful and while it's heartbreaking that so many families are suffering right now I hope that we can and I don't want to sound naive but I hope that we can come out of this
031stronger and more understanding as a community thank you m dri very happy to see so many of you out here tonight I've always been a proud proponent of Civic engagement in the governing of our schools it's unfortunate that it comes on the back of incidents of anti-Semitism and other bias with hate seemingly gaining momentum in the world we have to make sure that we State loudly and clearly that all forms of bias regardless of who they're directed against are unacceptable in our schools anti-Semitism is an especially pernicious and Incredibly long-standing form of hate that I believe needs to be forcefully combed wherever it is found there's been an aggressive rise in anti-semitic incident since 2017 in America the rate of which has gone nearly vertical in last month coinciding with the start of the fighting
032between Hamas and Israel this context is crucial to understand the heightened sensitivity and fear that Jews like myself and my family are feeling as we find ourselves having conversations about our children's safety we never envisioned when we moved here three more quick thoughts first I was pleased to see that we've taken the first step in address addressing anti-Semitism in our schools which is to acknowledge that we have a problem this first step is often the hardest I'll be listening very closely tonight to try and get our best assessment of the magnitude of the issue we have here it can be difficult to accept negative feedback about ourselves and admit that there are things we could be doing better I believe we are ultimately more effective as a leadership team and as an organization when we're
033open to both Applause and criticism for things we're doing well as well as the opportunities we have to improve our willingness to hear the good and the bad and the example we set of always striving to do better filters down through the organization through the district and we need to embrace that culture if our goal is to make this the greatest organization of school district that we can second condemning all forms of hate are meaningful words because they communicate our values which is what the school board should be doing on a daily basis my job is to both communicate these values as well as to put resources and energy behind goals and priorities that support them I view the development of a decisive and a wellth thought out comprehensive anti-Semitism plan as a priority for
034the administration while our words and creating a form for people to express their fears and frustrations is helpful I believe we all should be focused on taking in as much information as we can from a variety of experts which should then be turned into a comprehensive set of next steps I don't want to rush a program to look like we're in a hurry to do just anything we pride ourselves on our model programs across the district let's make sure our anti-Semitism program is yet another we're citing as a model for other districts to follow let's do it relatively quickly and keep keep the residents updated regularly of where we are in the timeline of implementation and lastly Dr Rogers I want to communicate to you that I have a lot of confidence in you and
035your administrative team to do the hard work here managing the district is a Monumental undertaking and I want to make sure that there's no that no one's fear or anger about what has happened spills over into incorrect conclusions about the motivation or skills of the people up here to do the job no one should miss stake a complicated problem that still needs correcting with a lack of interest in solving it anti-Semitism has been around for thousands of years and all forms of hate are popping up like a whack-a-mole everywhere I sense that all hands are on Deck here at the district to make meaningful changes to address this issue in our schools and I'm hopeful everyone's efforts will be effective in offsetting at least some of what we're seeing in the world around us [Applause]
036thank you to all board members for such beautiful message messages I am I am very pleased to see that we're all United together and then to fight anti-Semitism all forms of hate and we want the community to know that um we're here to listen to you and uh please be patient with us as we plow through this it'll take some time but we assure you that we will try our very best to get through this together thank you and with that and with that um we'll have um the Dr Rogers to uh give us the uh superintendent report thank you I'm so I'm so sorry okay Miss kosia I'm sorry just real quick I just want to add on to the end of this because my colleagues all of you spoke very well about this
037topic and um so I just want to say that I'm not going to Echo what everybody said because we are obviously in agreeance up here but my concern for our community is that we can say that the school district is responsible and they are and they do a good job in um in trying to make sure that our children are safe every day and when they see a problem they try to fix it however I would just like to say that it is also the responsibility of the parents at home it is our responsibility that when our children are with us and we have conversations among ourselves and we have neighbors outside they watch and they listen to everything and they see how we speak to each other they see how we speak about each
038other and I think that's also an important thing just to say for tonight because our children learn from us and they we are our children's biggest teacher so I just want to end by saying that when you are kind to each other in front of your children you are fostering the behavior that we wish to see among all of our children it doesn't matter who you are what you look like we're all human beings and if we show our children that we get along that way we are doing the biggest service for our children so I just want to say that and also it's so nice to see everybody here tonight I'm sorry that you're here under these circumstances but it's so nice to speak to an auditorium filled with people and not empty seats
039so I just wanted to say that thank you thank you Miss koshia so Dr Rogers oh yours this will seem somewhat prosaic after the previous topic but the board has been working um for quite a while on facilities and we're close to finalizing a plan that uh hopefully we'll be able to start sharing with the public and getting public feedback on uh we feel some time pressure uh because the uh construction is so difficult to manage with the delays in getting approvals from the state education department offer often adding a year to construction time and then uh inflationary costs acre when that happens s so we are close to the end so this will be more of a summary conversation for the board ums so just updates from the last meeting um our team has
040been working diligently and continuing to refine the plan looking for places where we can uh do some value engineering and try to uh shave costs out of it we've identified ways that we can use the modular replac ments that the board uh directed us to move forward with last uh time to uh reduce the cost and scope of some of the uh visual inspection work that we identified so uh we were able to come up with some cost savings there uh we also developed in looking at the plan for how we'll replace the modular classrooms both at Bary Hill and Walt Whitman um our enrollment projections show a bubble and then uh enrollment should taper off obviously they projections and we have to wait and see if they play out but if we build the
041new space but don't demolish the old space uh we'll have some overlap time there where we'll have extra space and that will provide us with a little bit of breathing room to see how the enrollment plays out and then uh we can do the demolition at some point in the future or we can pursue uh if the enrollment continues to go up we can pursue the more expansive uh changes to the campus that we talked about with the board in previous meetings and then uh Dr rufo and her team have been going through uh all of the projects that we have to identify those that are going to come in under budget and uh basically pull those remaining funds to offset some of the Avi work and reduce the need to borrow so uh we've
042been working on the proposal that we discussed at the last meeting for additional gym space at the high school last meeting I uh Illustrated uh where we were relative to other school districts and the amount of space for the kids that we have uh more would be better but we think a 13,000 foot gym uh would accomplish a lot for the district it would be a little bit larger than the gym that we have right now uh so it would accommodate more Spectators uh it would create a bathroom facility that is U much closer to the turf field uh to serve families uh and would be a community space that could be isolated from the building so if there was Community use we wouldn't have to open the entire building so we wouldn't have to
043have security for the entire building uh if this new facility was being used and uh with this size gym you could accommodate lots of traditional Sports and lots of um upand cominging Sports so um I don't expect people to be able to look at this and uh see it the reason why it's in the presentation is so that you'll know that it is uh in the presentation for when it gets put online but uh the idea would be to have spectators seating on both sides that is comfortable for accommodating Spectators typically uh school districts try not to have uh fans sit behind the benches uh where the players are to avoid interaction between uh fans and players and coaches so uh a bigger space would allow us to accommodate more Spectators and still have that
044uh buffer zone and then on the right side are the bathroom facilities and just to sort of layout where this would land on the district's property this would be on the tarmac that currently uh is between the baseball diamond the pool and the existing gym so um my job is to give board recommendations uh board's job is to consider those recommendations so after all of the work that we've done over the course of the last several months um we've Whitted away at the Avi work uh the rest of the projects on here describe decisions that the board has already made uh one decision that the board made at the last meeting and I'm going to recommend that the board reconsider is the rehabilitation of the Woodbury school I know that we've been trying hard to
045identify a means of using that building and a way of uh using it to house uh administrators or free up space in Southwoods for classrooms but I think the cost of rehabilitating it doesn't justify whatever uses we'll be able to come up with for it there are just more costeffective ways of doing any of the things that we were uh speculating we could do at the Woodbury school and I think your money would be better invested the community's money would be better invested in uh facilities that face and serve kids um so this is again I don't expect people to read this too closely um the board's familiar with all of these numbers uh we'll continue to refine the estimates for these numbers but uh at the last meeting I felt like the board was
046giving us direction to try and stay under $100 million and I think we can accomplish the things that need to be done to accommodate our enrollment growth our existing uh facilities repair work and uh some of the student spaces that are really not adequate uh and stay within that guideline that the board has given us and so that concludes uh oh I'm sorry and then so basically this frames out is really just we're down to three questions for the board uh at a previous meeting you talked about uh considering doing air conditioning in the middle and elementary school gyms is that a project you still want to consider at this time uh do you have any sense of how you want to structure propositions and you have $8 million in your capital reserve and would
047you like to use that to offset the borrowing costs so I know that uh we're going to save that discussion for later in the meeting after we have the audience to the public and I'm sure we'll be able to put this uh back up uh when that time comes do questions oh sorry so uh just so everyone understands the next steps uh if the board gives us the final uh pieces of direction that we need tonight uh we will turn that into a draft plan and we'll make that draft plan available to the public on our website we'll hold some public information sessions and we'll provide mechanisms for people to ask questions or to offer us suggestions and uh that's so that the board can get feedback from the public before they uh adopt a
048final plan and we may take the feedback from the public and refine the plan uh that's what we did in 2016 with our last major project we got a lot of Fe back from the public we did make a number of changes to the plan uh based on those public suggestions uh before adopting the final plan and so that's what we would propose uh doing again this time around so uh next I was asked by the board to uh report on and we have done this report for the board at least three times in my recollection over the nine years that I've been here about how we uh per how we ensure that people who are receiving Educational Services here in saset are indeed residents of saset um we have a new assistant superintendent uh
049and This falls under his purview uh he is Adam kinishi who uh comes to us from previously being in the Manhasset school district and we'll talk about the efforts that the district has made uh how we uh investigate irregularities in res residency and enforce our residency policies and what things are within the school district's control and what things are not within the school district's control control so Mr Kishi thank you so the district takes residency very seriously so I appreciate the opportunity to talk about registration and The Residency office and all the hard work that goes into uh ensuring that the district does not serve non-residents so our residency policy it's not a one-off policy unique to our district um it's our policy is informed by Court decisions case law um precedence State guidance that
050that informs all uh residency policy across the state among public school districts so our our statutory definition of residency which I I projected on on our slide uh New York State education law uh 3202 um states that a person over five or under 21 years of age uh who has not received a high school diploma is entitled to attend the public schools maintained in a district in which such person resides without the payment of tuition so that's our state law and it's informed by various case law um uh including although not limited to a Supreme Court case uh decision in plier voo uh 1982 in which the ruling indicated that uh a school district in East Texas could not exclude uh students from attending the school system um regardless of their due to their immigration
051status if they met age uh and residency uh requirements uh on a similar thread our attorney general in the State uh issued a letter and investigated the the Westbury uh School District uh in 2015 uh and concluded that the district could not delay or exclude the enrollment of Migrant children who had moved into the district uh regardless of their immigration status uh and that the district and all districts um must register register regist within uh 28 24 hours so now we have our policy 5150 and the policy is aligned with New York State education law and regulations so the district requires that families appear in person to finalized registration submit original documents uh which I'll get into their residency documents in a in a in a future slide uh as well as reverifying and submit
052updated documentation this was a a policy that that the board enacted in and approved in 2017 in which in their Fifth and eighth grade years uh the uh families much must reverifying U residency uh through an online tracking portal that we have the parent portal um they also and then and it's important to note that a family is not required to rever ver ify residency more than once in a 24mon period uh for those families who have multiple children in the district and then lastly uh there it is required that that families reverifying upon a home sale or subsequent purchase within the district so some facts about residency um so by law as I had mentioned earlier that the district must enroll all registrants within 24 hours of establishing residency um The Residency laws and
053policy is um is based on on this concept that we refer to as the pillow test so residency is determined where the child sleeps each night um and there are some exceptions uh to this pill test um policy is that there are um nonresidents who are waiting possession of a new home within that 45 day period uh any non-resident whose waiting possession of a of a new home uh must Place their tuition in escrow should the home sale fail uh second if there's a court ordered child custody Arrangement a divorce or uh order of protection uh Etc in which a court issues uh um a an arrangement uh we would follow that and we'd work we are obviously work closely with our council with respect to the any court orders uh and then mckin vento
054uh in which homeless students uh who who are previously enrolled and an established residency in the district one example of this are some recent uh tragic house fires that we've had in the district uh situations where a family is forced to then um seek temporary accommodations um outside of the district due to that due to that house fire as an example um are protected under uh mckin vento so then we also have acceptable proofs to establish residency so this is displayed in our policy um and that we give to registrants um and so col you'll notice proof of ownership mortgage deed a residential lease notorized affidavit from a landlord or third party um that establishes residency and then you have column B with a list uh there as well and so upon enrolling their students
055families will have parents will have to choose one from a or and two from b or they choose uh three from B and this is uh our policy in terms of providing uh proof of residency and that the residency office also verifies and needs to verify the legitimacy of the documents of course and that's why we requ require those uh Originals so then there are these there affidavits um and so there are in some circumstances affidavits need to be provided to the district to be able to establish residency on behalf of a student so one so there are homeowner or leaseholder affidavits in which a homeowner or lease home or leaseholder who's not the parent of the of the student uh needs to submit an notorized affidavit listing the individuals that live in their address
056and the relationships with those home homeowners and then you'll notice below that I bracketed that we also have a resident a resident affidavit in which the resident who's living in that home needs to also sign and notarize an affidavit that list the people that are living in that home and so those are couples we also have a non-resident affidavit in reference to what I referred to before of a of a a family that's that's within 45 days of moving into to a new home they also and taking ownership of that home they also have to submit an affidavit and then the last two affidavits we have are parent and custodio and now th those are bracketed and I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about this the parent affidavit is in which
057a parent relinquishes all custody control and support for their student uh who is living with a guardian then the there's a custodial or Guardian uh affidavit that then that Guardian assumes all custody control responsib ability of a student including medical decisions or financial uh financial support or disciplinary issues that may arise in the building um and and that's an important distinction and so when working with with um with families who are and and with individuals and residents who are submitting these affidavits it's incredibly important that we specify uh what that means to relinquish uh custodio control um of a of a child so then some facts about irregularities so the district has the authority to verify residency to investigate residency irregularities and to exclude non-residents how we do that is through an investigation a residency
058hearing a determination of non-residency and then exclusion now code enforcement which could be in reference to Illegal accessory apartments or multiple families living in one dwelling or a single dwelling that in Code Enforcement is the responsibility of the town of oyer bay um when this presentation is posted onto the district website uh you will also see uh that there's an embedded link uh for for families to be able to and residents to be able to uh access the uh town of oyer bay website and then resid residency verification so it's important to know that that the district is always in the process of verifying residency and addressing irregularities and and we don't conduct these investigations Friv frivolously um these aren't fishing Expeditions we're always on an ongoing uh process of monitoring investigating student residency and
059and over the last six months the district has excluded 20 students and is currently in the process of investigating another another 35 students so since May um as you can see and I referenced there's investigations and then the students within those investigations so we currently have 19 that are open which uh we're investigating 35 students and then 17 investigations that pertain to 29 um but it's important to note that two-thirds of our investigations have resulted in exclusion um and that we will always have open uh uh investigations and that if we and that it appears that that more more often than not our concerns are substantiated or sustained through our investigation um process and so some new initiative we're very appreciative to the to the board of education for appointing a new executive director um
060who will their large function of their of their role will be supervision responsibilities over all aspects of District residency um we find that over time tactics can become more sophisticated and and going to require more expenditure and resources to illuminate these issues untangle uh schemes that may emerge um and so this gives us with this new position uh has given us the ability to apply some more muscle behind our efforts and so I'm happy to answer any questions we also have an email address and a phone number to our residency office um but I but thank you for this opportunity to present [Applause] okay thank you thank you Mr Kishi for making that um inform inform ative presentation um Mr kesi started just a little under a month ago and he jumped right in and
061started his presentation so we really appreciate that thank you and then um so the board will have a discussion um on facilities later so I would kindly ask everyone to hold of their questions until the discussion item and so that we can get to audience to public as soon as possible and I do recognize that there are some students in the audience and we if they want to speak we want to get to them first so then go home and sleep and come to school early tomorrow so um Tom oh I'm sorry no school tomorrow I mean they still need to sleep it's very important I'm in a different time zone sorry all right so with that if any board member has questions about residency um please go ahead you stay at the okay Mr
062Greco thank you for that presentation um you know I know I know a lot of people are probably sick of me talking about residen well you're not sick of me talking about residency because you're still pretty new um so obviously residency issues you know permeate the budget but you know they're also pretty front and center now with um our focus on enrollment growth and I guess my question relates to the difference between District residency what you call the pillow test and the town of Oyster Bay's code enforcement rules and it it's probably the I guess the the the the issue that I hear most about where there's confusion uh in the public and and I'm wondering you know we obviously have board policy 5150 uh which is easily accessible uh anyone can go on our
063website and read that policy but I'm wondering if we should have somewhere else besides the presentation you're going to post online that sort of spells this out on our website um I think that's important and and I think you know having a a presentation posted online and having a board policy may not be enough and I do think that is probably one of the more Twisted parts of this so that that's something I would recommend I guess it's not really a question is it thank you thank you Mr drik sure but we can make it a question which is do you think you could spend a few minutes explaining the significant differences between those two things sure so there are circumstances in which um in terms of the code code enforcement in which there can
064be multiple families uh living in a in a residence or uh situations where there's a an an illegal accessory apartment that's attached to a a space and and the there are still Avenues in which a a family can submit documentation uh that's listed uh in which perhaps um they're able to live in that accessory apartment right that may not necessarily be a legal uh be created in illegal fashion so I think the the the challenge for us is being able to navigate the fact that we are um essentially we have a we we can verify residency and those documents can still be provided that doesn't necessarily mean that the the structure in which they're living meets certain codes and and standards which is why you know they the in conversation with families who' we've spoken
065to who've reported these concerns it's often that there's a necessity for them to reach out to if they have concerns or witness something need to reach out to the town of oyer bay to to report those violations that they're witnessing so I think I understood what you said but I just want to summarize that and then correct me when I'm wrong multiple families living in the same address is not a school district issue in the sense that if someone lives in the home they can come to school but if residents witness multiple families in a home that the correct place to call is the town of Oyster Bay code enforcement Division and in the presentation there was a a hyperlink is that on the website where there's a connection to the correct number to call
066correct there's a form and a number to call okay thank you for that and I just had one other quick question which is out of curiosity where do most of the referrals to begin our investigations come from so there are a couple patterns that we identified um one is we do have an online system so uh a quick way to check is when we do see that for example a lease expires we will um we'll contact immediately the Family Once once or when the lease is going to expire uh we have a tracking system to be able to determine that another that we've determined um are a pattern are our home sales or in which a family sold their home uh and has left the district but didn't notify the district that they left and
067so we have strategies and tactics that we use to be able to monitor home sales and such uh and then follow up with those families when we determine that they no longer live in that residence and perhaps another family another residence has taken ownership of that property so I would say those two in particular uh have been there's some patterns within those that we've closed those investigations that we closed that we've we've noticed um and then you know I I we're very um we we the registration residency office um examines and uh The Residency documents that are brought into the into the admissions office um and so we try to ensure that we're verifying from the get-go um but if there are any concerns that we notice um after the fact uh whether it's in
068communication with and we work very collaborative with our administrators or um or concerns that we have one thing that we notice there's a trend where if a family is not you know riding the bus for example um or coming to late to school these are red flags and so then that prompts us to look into those okay anyone else with questions okay thank you again Mr K okay there are no legislative items and now we moving on to audience to public so this concludes the audience to public portion of the meeting so for the last an hour or so to two hours I heard a lot of fear I see a lot of Despair frustration helplessness and also anger but I also see a lot of support collaboration partnership encouragement and most importantly love for
069each other the district has continue this work it's never enough but we're making progress slowly especially during times like this we want to do it right and that takes time so I do ask the community to be patient with we are not putting it behind it's on our top of the priority and that's what we're doing and I know Dr Rogers uh spoke about what's in place for the education part and that's what I heard the most today too and that's the education whether it's from top down or from bottom up and we hear that loud and clear and I'm sure Dr Raj has taken a lot of notes and we'll get get right on it okay and then um I know thank you Mr G so one speaker earlier said words do matter and
070I think uh a couple others pointed out a major fault in my use of words earlier and the last thing I ever want to do is let anyone here or anyone that was here earlier think that I'm not with them um it just what it may have sounded like I said just does not match what's in my heart and maybe I shouldn't have rushed when I spoke but that's no excuse when in this role um the bottom line is I'm not Jewish but I've spent a lot of time with my Jewish friends including my friends that are on this board with me and what I hear most from them and from this community is fear and anguish and suffering and what I clearly did not convey is that I cannot begin to truly understand how
071how that feels to feel that way solely for being Jewish and what I tried to point out after I said that is I promise to listen I promise to show empathy and I promise to do everything I can to feel and to work my butt off um for all those people that feel fear and anguish and and I I know you can't correct everything you say especially in this role but I just want you all to know that at least those that are still here tonight thank [Applause] you and I'll say for my part that I have also tried to convey my deep concern and understanding of how much everyone is hurting and how much everyone is afraid I've said all along that we do things incrementally here because we want to try and get
072it right and I think what you seen in the districts communication has been uh continuous Evolution and what I heard tonight is that the communication is better now than it has been so that reflects that we're listening and you may feel like there's room for further Improvement still and that's okay and that's why this conversation is important I will say that I'm not unaware of the fact that I've sometimes been afraid because of where I am but I've never been afraid because of who I am and I realize that our world the fact that there are people in our world who are afraid because of who they are is an incredible Injustice and it's an incredible tragedy and it is everyone's job to make that go away but especially in this role mine so the
073administrative teams worked all weekend so yes we absolutely know uh what we're going to be talking about with students and I want to thank them for giving up their weekends to work on this and the reason for wanting to move very quickly with what we're going to do this week is because we know that any one of these acts is a trigger for what it Associates with what has happened in history and the tremendous pain that it unleashes and so we absolutely want to try to do everything that we can to prevent anyone from having to feel that anguish that said that is the work of one week that is not systemic work and we want to get the systemic work right so what I heard from many many speakers was a request for the
074district to work in partnership with the Jewish Community uh that's a partnership that I welcome and look forward to and I'm fortunate to have gotten to know many of the leaders in that community and I'm going to be counting on them to make sure that I know what's important uh give me the resources in and information that I need to do my best work and uh to keep us um apprised of how the Jewish Community is feeling right now I agree with the speaker who said that uh anti-Semitism is evolving and the approaches that may have been I won't say successful but typical in the past may not be equal to the task in front of us and so we're going to have to evolve with them uh I don't claim to be expert I'm
075going to need to be advised by experts and I recognize that we're fortunate to live in a community full of experts and I said in one of my earlier uh messages we're going to approach this with humility um and I will be leading the humility pack uh in that regard um communication is difficult because when things happen where people need the most communication the communication comes in a a fire hose and particularly when it comes to student discipline and issues uh Communications all have to run through our attorneys for obvious reasons so it it's not a problem that's insoluble but it's a problem I need to put more attention and focus on to be sure all that said I hope that the work that the board does assuming it establishes a task force tonight allows
076that funnel that task force to serve as a funnel for ideas from the community um more comments from the community more feedback for the school district uh to digest and use to improve but it doesn't mean that we are going to be idle while the task force does its work there's a lot we can do there are Partners who are willing to work with us I've had uh conversations with uh several Faith leaders in uh saset Jewish Community who have offered that partners ship to us I fully intend to take them up on those offers and uh we will be doing our work even as the board does its work and we will be working to triangulate those two things together so as I know Miss changen just said I'm deeply committed to this work
077the school district is deeply committed to this work our staff is deeply committed to this work work and the pain that we heard tonight shows that we have a ways to go and so we've got to get moving on it okay thank you okay um moving on to uh discussion items and the first item on the list is the facilities it's okay have a safe night just go just go just go okay all right so the for the facilities discussion item I know some board members might have some questions for Dr Rogers after his superintendence report and if you still remember these questions please anyone you have any questions regarding the superintendence report on no always welcome no we are a second a second the second item no okay Mr asri sure I just want
078to make sure I'm I'm following what we're going to be doing we're going to do questions of Dr Rogers first and then that'll lead into the discussion that we're going to have is that do I have that right or are we mixing and matching okay um so the um the addition of the gym uh can you please remind me um what the structure that we're contemplating is uh for the the construction of the gym in other words we had gone through a number of potential choices I'm just I'm trying to refresh what this latest iteration is yes thanks for the question so um we considered essentially three different kinds of structure one an air supported structure a pure Dome like um the one at Hofstra for example that's across the street from the stadium uh
079the second structure that we considered was a fabric uh stretched over steel skeleton building uh more expensive but more durable uh longer lifespan before the fabric has to be changed and the third would be just regular construction stick buil construction uh the most expensive of all so where we landed was on um the fabric over steel seeing that as the best compromise between um durability because they're all engineered to the same safety standards but better durability uh for the structure and a longer life before the fabric part of the structure would have to be replac so more upfront cost but uh a better total cost of ownership over time for the structure and the original estimates that we had were just for the structure itself now that we're working on actually citing it on the
080campus and figuring out uh what that would look like and our code review identified that we would have to have bathrooms for it which adds to the cost but the bathrooms at least represent an opportunity for uh better service to the turf field uh but there's additional cost associated with those um building a corridor and building the bathrooms alongside the structure I can keep going so uh when we were going through historically a number of plans Rel relateded to uh the Barry Hill Construction right now we've landed on replacing seven portable classrooms with seven additional classrooms when we went through the possibilities of construction did we consider using land swaps next to Barry Hill with New York state did we consider building twostory structures not necessarily down but also up when we replace the Portables
081I'm just I want to sort of get a feel for how creatively The Architects and the team went through possibilities before we landed on um the particular either large project or the the the single portable set of replacement yeah I I'll let the Architects talk about um the short answer is yes we did consider all of those things um I'll say in terms of a land slap swap with the state uh I don't think that we would be able to get that deal done in time to be in a position to construct on it so I just don't think that that's feasible from a the wheels of government turn slowly perspective um we did consider putting a second story on one of the existing wings and I'll let the Architects talk about why we ruled
082that out as a possibility and the other kinds of ideas that they worked on so caver Megan if you wouldn't mind can you hear me when looking at the site we did evaluate all the potential options we looked at putting a second story on top of one of the wings um that wouldn't be recommended because the disturbance that it would have to the floor below um because the existing structure is not designed to support a second floor it would disturb the classrooms below the other options we looked at was replacing where you have your existing Portables to be able to do that within a summer is not feasible in that area because of the site constraints that we have we wouldn't be able to demo the existing Portables do the New Foundations and put the
083new pre-manufactured building in that place when exploring the existing site the only place that made sense was behind the existing multi purpose room yes we have to go into the existing uh Foundation there and build into that but based on the landlock that were there that's the best approach we felt when exploring all options and sort of one last question was regarding the Woodbury School the number that we came to at the end of 13 million um that was based on our most skinni down potential construction that still was sufficient to house our administrative uh staff as well as um I think if I remember right it was creating uh a single use room like a a community room equivalent something like that and there there wasn't a place to go below 13 in order
084to construct that way so I'll let Kevin and Megan respond I'll just Broad Ley say that there are two levels of you build it to B construction for business you build it to e Construction for education so there is a little bit of savings for building to be construction and maybe you can give us a ballpark for what the difference was between those two I would have to look at the numbers exactly but for that um the difference between a b occupancy which would be um the office space and an e occupancy which would be if we had education spaces in there um education requires a fire sprinkler um taking up that space for educational spaces also then means we can't fit the entire business office in there so you would still incur cost for
085renting out the space I just want to make sure I understand so we're saying that if we retrofitted it for business office space only we still couldn't get the entire team in no if you're doing it just for business and a multi-purpose room you can fit the entire business office in there um that was still the estimate that you saw for the 13 million right the difference the biggest difference um and thank you for jogging my memory between the B and the E is that you don't have to have sprinkler systems for the B but the sprinkler system for the building I don't want to throw out a number off the top of my head but it isn't going to be a a five or 10% difference in the cost there were range of um
086difference in prefab structure how did we come to this number is it at the top of the level of portable uh prefab structures or is it in the middle low end where are we with this numbers that we got good evening the structure that we went in price was a a well-built structure that was going to be pre engineered built off site and then brought to the site um we also looked at as far as the exterior facade of the different structures and that was going to be something that was either going to be brick or masonry that would be done on site which is like a split face block not split face block but a um a facade split brick that being put on site to give you more of a durable type exterior
087appearance the midddle or on the low I would say it's a middle to higher end type facility that we're looking at something that's longterm that's going to last okay anyone else for uh had questions okay Miss koshia I just have a question I have a I have a bunch of questions based on um Dr Rogers presentation but also on the um information that we've been collecting to have the discussion and I'm just asking if it's possible to take this specific discussion because it is very very important and there's a couple of very big items on for tonight is there any way to take this facilities discussion to the next board meeting I know we're on a time constraint to get an early vote but I feel like I'm sorry my brain I can't focus on
088this one thing this is so important but and I want to give the time that it deserves I don't know how the other board members feel or how you feel about it is there any way because it's also late and other things to speak about I'm just asking if not I'll pull it together how does everyone feel about okay so I have three people who want to uh wait until the next one anyone else who want to wait until the next meeting to talk about it to talk about the the facilities looks niic the the next phase of what we'll be doing is a public engagement so it takes two weeks off of the public engagement calendar but it doesn't mean that you wouldn't be able to still try and hit um you know as
089early next year as possible so that you can get the summer of 25 as a construction season it just means we would have to accelerate how quickly we uh do our public engagement on the draft plan can we push CD and to two weeks or does that have to be done tonight it's the um nisba fiscal governance Workshop the resolutions and the annual convention yes can we push that stuff so just finish for and the bi task force and call it a day that's just a report where those board members went to these events so that could wait um so then we can just focus on facilities and also the establishment of the anti-bias test is that okay or no no okay I mean miss kosha another way is that um I know you have
090a lot of questions and I know you're very passionate about it and then you always you know give very ask very very good questions and then maybe you can send these questions in the email form okay is that okay so we are going to uh continue with the facilities discussion is that okay with everyone okay all right so um at this point uh we need to uh give the administration a a more clear Direction on how to proceed how to um structure uh for for the B BM boat um so if the board members can refer to the presentation today uh uh so the district has a little over 8 million in Capal reserve and then we could use this fund to fund reduce the cost of borrowing right now the Avi plus all the
091list that the board the board had uh directed the administration to to that comes up to be a little under aund million so you by using that res Reserve um The Proposition is going to uh be down to 91 8 um so now the question is how do we want to structure that proposition one so that's number one and the number two and we need to uh decide uh what to do with the uh Elementary Gym the AC in the elementary school gym um so do we want to um uh do we want to uh um continue with this or do you want to use it as a preposition to for the elementary school gym that's that's thing and the last one is that um do we agree that uh with the recommendation to uh
092uh postpone addressing the warber school I just want to ask a question um with the first thing with the $8 million in capital reserve um Dr Rogers do you guys have a preference and is there a reason if you do have a preference uh I don't I think the the point of having the the capital reserve is to uh defay borrowing costs so that we incur less interest costs the public incurs less interest costs so that's what it's there for but um you know if the board was thinking that you wanted to keep it in reserve for another priority at some point in the future that's you know for the board to decide but um things are only going to get more expensive in the future so I think your $8 million goes farther in
093the present than it does in the future sorry I also had a question regarding the reserves if we use the full amount um is there a downside to that and how long does it take to replenish that amount because I know that sometimes we use that for rainy days so to speak so I'll ask Dr rufo to talk about what we've been able to put into that Reserve over the last couple of years it's been i' I'd like to say that there's an annual average number but it's actually been up and down because of the pandemic and um some of the federal funds that we got reimbursement for things that we did during the pandemic we were able to put that into the capital reserve so Dr rufo do you have a sense of how
094long it might take us to replenish that $8 million if we use it for this project I think the um the requirement or the maximum that we could replenish um or allocate to the reserve in any given year the max is 5 million and that was established when the reserve was created in 2020 so we've been able to put about a little over 2 million on average and as Dr Rogers said given uh the financial performance of the Year dictates how much um that we can put in going forward so if things continue continue as they have um then we should be able to um to fund it again we I believe it's up to 20 million we can put in that Reserve before it's exhausted so um there's a room I think for about
09512 million more if there's eight and um and again funding it uh we could assume that we'd have a similar financial performance um going forward then we could fund it um at about two million a year if that's that's the priority because we also use our other reserves and have to replenish those Mr Greco please I'll try to answer all three in order um with respect to the Reserve I I worry that this this round of facilities work is just the beginning so I I am not interested in using all of that money now but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be willing to use some and I'll just throw at half because it's late and let you sort of figure out the math but that would be my preference on two I don't think we
096should be adding uh anything else into proposition one as you set forth I agree with everything that's in there but if the board was interested in including a proposition to it would be my recommendation um to actually take the auxiliary gym and package it with the air conditioning as proposition two so that proposition one is more of a we have to do this now we have no choice and proposition two is a this would be really great if we could do these things um and then third question is yes I am I am ready to postpone addressing the Woodbury schools in line of what you you've said um okay thank you Mr Greco anyone else want to Dr Park in terms of the reserve um I have in mind to save money to renovate a
097rebuild Auditorium in high school in the need of all all the need that we have that are Urgent I wonder when we are ever going to actually work on our torum can is it possible to save money for that purpose so that we can continue with our projects with the uh propositions that will be passed on the budget that will be passed but save the reserve for the special uh construction and if that is so then I want to save the reserve and and in terms of incorporating the AC's in elementary and secondary gyms I am in favor of adding that to proposition one uh that will increase our total to 110 million right um so um I'm not sure if that's going to be perceived as too much work but I think it will
098be easier to pass and it's the AC's in gyms I think it's coming necessity rather than luxury so um I would like to incorporate incorporate that into proposition one and yes to postponing Woodberry schools thank you miss koshia the estimated total of 99.9 million million is that an estimate we haven't obviously we have to wait to bid out the jobs is there a possibility that these are high estimates and that when the bids come back that we're going to get lower numbers than what's projected in these um in this report to us I have a couple of questions but I'll do it one at a time just yeah all of the estimates include uh design contingency generally it's 5% % um so we're estimating it'll cost 5% more than what we think it'll cost because
099along the way we realize we need two extra bathrooms for Code Compliance or something like that um there's also uh 10% uh allowances in there for things that happen uh what I've experienced obviously our our team is more experienced than I but um when we're doing renovations unexpected things come up when we're we're building something new typically they go according to plan and you don't use the allowances as much so we have a mix of Renovations all the Avi work is renovation work um the library the gym these would be new and presumably fairly predictable uh structures uh so those design contingencies May yield some savings at the end so we're finding now at the end of phase two that there's a little bit of money left over um but we had to change scope
100because the air conditioning came in so high so what again I found is that typically some projects come in over what you estimated that they would cost and others surprise you and come in under and then over the course of aund Million worth of work the ups and the Downs kind of balance each other out so I know originally the idea was to demo the um the portable put up the new structures but now one of the ideas was to keep those Portables in the event that we have this bubble coming through it helps out so now I'm assuming that means we negate the demo cost on those Portables from the original estimates is that also shown in these numbers as well because the demo costs from what I remember were pretty substantial for four
101school buildings and if that's the case then what are we looking towards in the future do we have to worry now about allocating money in the future for possible demo cost for these these Portables if we decide five years from now we're going to take them down so we did not remove the demolition from the scope of work um because we have to justify the new space that we create with our enrollment estimates and so the enrollment estimates wouldn't support all of that additional space so what that means is we won't be able to close the projects out with SED until we finish the demolition of the Portables and until we close the projects out we don't get the state aid back from the state so we have this 42% reimbursement from the state but
102the state won't consider the project done until we demo the other Portables so the opportunity costs of the uh State reimbursement versus the cost of not having enough space turns out to be an economical way you you're going to get the same money back from the state it's just going to be delayed maybe a year or two um and that float allows you to have four extra classrooms to work with at the time when you're the fullest so it's worth waiting a couple of years for money you still going to get in order to buy yourself some flexibility so the the demo cost is still built in there because the demo is part of the project okay so then I'm I'm just going to run through the questions then um I'm also concerned about utilizing
103the 8 million in capital reserve because like you said there are things that come up and I'd rather have my personal opinion rather have the money sitting there goab bid there is a major thing that comes up we know that we would have that money sitting there in an kind of like an emergency fund for construction um I don't know if if putting in that 8 million taking that out of the number if that's really going to make a break uh number so to speak at the end um as far as the air conditioning for the gym I almost feel like it should be put into its own proposition too if the first proposition passes with everything else I would say I'm under and if I'm wrong please correct me that putting the AC separate
104which would be wonderful for all the students and faculty to have and parents for different events that happen but if we put it as proposition two and the Community comes out and votes if they vote for one then if they want to vote for two then they themselves are putting that extra on it's not just us we're saying hey we'd love to have it but obviously we're not going to push for the extra 10 million unless you vote for it so am I correct on that if we put that on proposition too okay so I'm good with that and then the other thing is the recommendation for Woodburry school I am very passionate about this building um and I know I've spoken about it before my concern is and I understand why you would like
105to postpone it I totally understand it um my concern is that every passing year that that building sits there it deteriorates more and more and it will get to the point where eventually it's going to be a necessary demolition as opposed to having the ability to save it so my question is is there a way to um as a Seline as we're doing all of this can we look into if there's possible grants we can get through any company or let's say State um state or federal funding I don't know if it exists to help with um Rehabilitation of historical buildings and if that's the case how much money could we get is it possible we can do an exterior renovation with that money temporarily to preserve the structure and then down the road work
106internally since that doesn't really affect the school year you know we can work on that anytime is that a possibility because I don't want to put Woodbury school off because I think it will be detrimental to the building uh we did several years ago um look for some uh historical renovation grant funds and were unsuccessful but that that was probably seven or eight years ago so um it may be that things are different now there's obviously been an influx of federal money for a number of things so it's probably worth looking for those funds again i' just don't know what's out there and what the magnitude would be relative to what the building needs the last thing just so I address everything I think that the gym for the the the high school is more
107than just a a want I think it's a necessity because without this gym we're having gym classes scattered all over the place I mean it's it's honestly it's a little bit of a disaster I think that this gym will help to organize Health fed for the school as well is now another space for sports we know that there are many sports that that can't take place because there's lack of space so I think it's a win-win in a lot of ways so I am Pro doing the gym as part of proposition one as well that's it I'll just answer the three questions uh I I also agree that I think using all the million may not be the best use but and I it worries me a little bit to not have anything there but
108a portion of it I'm okay with uh the part a uh and Part B being separated for um the vote I am on board with with the the air conditioning for the gyms in Part B and I like Lisa's go getness on uh restoring at least the outside of the school so that it doesn't fall apart and we do have options it is a historical building um if that can't be done right now I guess that I understand putting it to the side but I still like her go get a mess um and that's that's it three okay M Miss litan super fast because they made it easy for me um so I'll start from um everyone who spoke so far made it easy for me the 8 million the reserve I'm hesitant about you
109using all of it um I am willing to meet halfway and you know use half yes I could be on board with that um yes to um AC be um being part um um preposition two separate and cannot agree more with Lynn and Lisa I I too I'm very passionate about this building and it it's detri Al to to let a drag and just you know see it disintegrate essentially to the ground um so I would um try after all so many conversations about it and you know uh including the fact that um I thought we were really looking for to relieve this building a little bit and so so that problem is that going to be be an issue in this building now that we cannot move the business offices out of here um
110and making room for the classes um but outside of that yes I I am I understand the reasoning and but I absolutely am disappointed to see it go and I would like to fight for it honestly um if we can if there are resources out there oh the solution for the business uh office staff would be to put them in rented space somewhere but just um um the the cost of doing the rented Space versus the renovation cost the break even on that is 40 years out so it just the cost differential is so great to um to renovate that space and you get so little square footage back for what you invest into it that's what the problem is for $13 million um you might be able to get at you know at $1,000
111a square foot you might be able to get 13,000 some square square feet and we won't get that kind of space out of that building I'm gonna go first um okay um okay so um I agree about the reserves um I'm on board with doing keeping some and doing some that makes a lot of sense for the reasons everybody said um I also think that it's smart um to put the air conditioning in the second proposition especially for what Lisa said if because then it gives the community the chance to decide whether they want to do the air conditioning or not um so I'm on board with that um I I'm not sure if this is in the discussion now or not but I feel very strongly that we need the extra gyms SP space
112that the bubble is going to be a problem and that the the kids are really being hindered by the lack of gym space in so many ways from during the day to after school activities to clubs to sports to everything it's it's just a mess so I um fully think that the gym is 100% a necessity um for the kids so I think that was in it but in case it's not I think it should be um and the Woodburry school I'm sort of on the fence um I was originally going to say yes we should definitely put it aside but I do see the issue with um it falling to the ground and disintegrating do we know how much just the outside costs to do I would have to turn to Elite or h2m
113to answer that question we have to review um our numbers and see about just doing the exterior as far as M and also with the roof and all that need to be dealt with and we'll let you know on that regards so maybe we could Circle back after we have a price on how much the outside is so we could make a final decision or will that maybe we could Circle back in two weeks or will that screw you guys up in time so we'll still miss it if we don't make the decision now um I don't know what to do about that I don't know how we can make a decision without knowing the cost but I know we don't want to lose the time any suggestions can we we're talking about not including
114the Woodburry School Dr Rogers in the bond there's nothing stopping us from using excess capital reserve funds or budget funds to potentially do work on the Woodburry school you know in the near future correct this is just a discussion about whether we want to put that $13 million into our bond yeah it's a question of how you want to structure it it doesn't have to be paid for with fond receipts it could be paid for with reserve it could be paid for with transfer to Capital um it just needs voter approval in some way or form so transfer of capital is a form of voter approval um the voters have to approve any expenditure from a capital reserve so if it's part of a proposition and the proposition incorporates the capital reserve in the proposition
115which is why we need to know then um you know the board would structure it that way the whatever you do now is going to be a draft plan that we share with the community and get feedback on so you're allowed to to give feedback on the plan too uh and you're undoubtedly going to adopt a plan that is different from the draft plan um so as you learn more over the course of the next several weeks you may take whatever draft plan if you finalize one tonight and say we've learned more and we want to tweak the plan now because we have this extra information so I'll I'm sorry so in short I agree with everything everyone has said about the Woodberry School and I want to do something about it but I at
116the same time agree with your recommendation that it should not be part of this Bond at this time can I just ask you so if we put it in tonight in the draft plan and say okay our plan is to just do the outside so we're put so we're going to not spend the money now because we have so many other things we want to do but we're going to put it into just do the outside just to maintain the Integrity of the building and then we we find out in two weeks or in a month when we're having our discussions that it's $7 million to do the outside and we're like well that doesn't make sense We could decide just to take it out and that won't be the ultimate plan that we adopt
117if that's what we choose is that how that would work I think what we're going to try and do with the board's decision is build a lot of materials around that so there will be a brochure there will be PowerPoint presentations stuff up on the website Etc so um you always have the opportunity to change it but we also want to be clear in how we communicate with the public about what the board is recommending to the public for its consideration so I I worry about uh confusing Folks by having things in and out and um I know you guys don't know the exact cost any guesstimate like a range of something just so we have like an idea is the outside the bulk of a cost is it a small portion of the cost
118you know just any kind of not to put you on the spot but kind of putting you on the spot sorry if we're just looking as far as just Roofing uh Roofing and masonry some of the work that we're talking about will probably be around three three and a half million dollars okay um because there's also other things that you know we also have to have a discussion and say okay we're going to do window replacements or other different things that's be associated with the facility you know how far do we take it is there anything that we want to do with the site or we just want to stabilize the structure and the demolition is about 2 million was that right I think demolition cost give me one second let and then I'm throw
119it to you he explosions we were about 1.1 million for the demolition sorry and so he's sitting down sorry I I know it's not gonna like it um I'm sorry so just to be uh clear so the purpose to do this let's say uh we stabilize U we fix the outside exterior um and then later on we could stuff it so to speak you know the build the inside later on whenever we get to it is that is that a a scenar a plausible scenario is that what you know is that doable from the construction standpoint I think there's a lot of variables in that so if you fix the outside regardless the if the interior is not addressed if there's not the right heat the temperature you'll still have deterioration at some varying level
120and I think that that is a factor that has to be thought about the other thought that I think of is if you're putting let's just say it's five million into the building but you don't plan on doing that their inside for another 10 years you're throwing good money so I think that has to be thought through and just like Mike said how far do you go because if you do the exterior do the roof do the structure do the windows well are you going to put new windows in and not do the interior of the wall because you still have to do all the flashing in there and it kind of snowballs that's why I think there's you have to think of that sure so um in an effort to cement myself as the
121uh least popular person up here um I think we're going in the wrong direction just generally um first off I I think we should be prioritizing the elementary schools more I I I'm uncomfortable with the idea of us doing some of these swaps just generally and I made this point last time if I had my brothers to answer your questions I would move the gym space to a second proposition and out of the first proposition I would eliminate the El the elementary school air conditionings completely from consideration as a luxury and not as a necessity I like the idea of finding money for the Woodbury school but I'd like to offer a sort of a third way which is Bud a significant amount of money let's say meet half the demand and then encourage folks
122out in the community to start a 501c3 to fill in the difference because 6.5 million bucks probably gets us to about what Midway through your estimate of useful life so at $6.5 million this break even probably makes more economically rational sense from the district standpoint and then if we gave folks three years to raise raise the money but it didn't happen in other words there wasn't an ability for the 501c3 to raise the other half then we could raise the building completely and move on in other words that Third Way gives the option of holding it together but at the same time finishing it whereas right now it sounds like if we don't move now to finish it it it's never going to be finished that's sort of my point of view about the Woodbury
123school and further going back to my earlier point about the elementary schools I think we should put be putting 20 million bucks in a second proposition to do the larger projects at Barry Hill and Walt Whitman ideally I'd like to wait on the Portables at the other schools but I understand you folks really want to move forward with it so if I had my way we would have a $90 million first project proposition that didn't include the gym space and we would have a 35 36.5 million second proposition that included $6.5 million for Woodbury School $20 million for the two elementaries and the gym and eliminate the air conditioning again I I recognize the difficulties that I often create but I think ultimately we are moving the wrong way Mr Volo so I have to
124disagree with everyone on the Woodburry school I kind of feel like this is just wasting money um there's no real educational purpose to this um spending $13 million to rehabilitate a building that's a 100 years old I think is a responsible of the board um I think that money could be better spent with more educational space um I do agree that we definitely need the gym space um if Dr rufo if you're saying we have this $8 million capital reserve that we can borrow against right we don't need it right now correct yes right yes so maybe that 8 million then either can can go to overall reducing of the amount we have to do the bond or we could do the theater with that um you mighty SE out the whole Woodburry school and
125I would uh um doing either whatever way we want to do proposition two um I think also for the air conditioning is definitely a must because you saw what happened last year with all the um dust from the fires uh basically if we didn't have that filtration system the kids wouldn't be able to be in school they'd have to go home um so I think we definitely need the air conditioning I don't think we need the Woodberry school I would want it take advantage of that $8 million capital reserve because we have been able to fulfill it DOC and I know Dr Ru was very conservative with her estimat so this would not be on there if she didn't think we could use it um thank you Miss enson please um I just wanted to
126talk with what Jack said uh I fully appreciate that you see what's going on in Whitman and Barry Hill and I see it too I think from the graphs and the projections we've seen that the bubble is moving forward if we don't act to help with that amount of space especially with the high school and how cramped it is and and it's only going to get worse then we're not putting our money where the flow is going and what women and very look like they're at a peak going down so putting that much money into something that will go like this and it will come up again and will and obviously things have been flow I just feel like if we're not putting money into the secondaries and the high school where it's already tight
127and only going to get much that much tighter and the high school is extraordinarily tight that we are missing the most gain from our money at this point so I just want to be explicit about my point of view because sometimes I get accused of not really saying what I think the elementary schools aren't condition that I'd be embarrassed to show a third world person that my kid goes to school to they're 70 years old and haven't been meaningfully renovated period full stop and they're not functional all of our elementary schools need to be significantly upgraded I'm not saying we shouldn't do $10 million of classrooms for the high school I'm saying we should put $10 million for the gym in a second proposition but tie it to the elementary schools and six or seven
128years from now we should redo two other elementary schools and six or seven years after that we should redo six or two or three other elementary schools again the fact that those elementary schools have been bootstrapping it for a decade and every opportunity we have to throw money at the high school we take I think is a backwards approach if I heard anything in this room tonight it's that we need to increase the educational opportunities and space in the elementary schools to head off problems in terms of how we relate to each other and common spaces and well-functioning social spaces like cafeterias where the kids can be together all of the things that the elementary schools can't function properly doing all we do is Overlook it and we've been demanding of those principles that they
129bootstrap it make it work however they can for as long as they can but every time somebody needs something at the high school we are throwing money at it like crazy I just can't in my mind reconcile those two facts that's all okay all right um everyone has the chance to uh share their thoughts right okay all right so for me um for the first one uh the proposition um I would like to use the reserve and then if I remember correctly once we deplete the reserve we have to uh get the voters approval to pass to create a new one is that right or we can just replenish to this one is going to zero so the way the reserve works is the voters approve an initial amount and an amount that can be
130added every year so I believe this is a $20 million Reserve with a $5 million per year cap there's 8 million in it so it means we can put up to 12 more in but even after you use the eight you can only put 12 in so you can not put more than the initial amount even if you take out of the reserve and it's not like it's a maximum funding of 20 it's only 20 can pass through the gates and then that Reserve is is exhausted and you have to go get new voter approval for another Reserve all right thank thank you um and I hear a lot of board members saying that using half of it I I actually want to use out of it this way we can alleviate the U the
131tax um on the community members but I'm okay also using a portion of it the bottom line is let's use the reserve to fund the capital Improvement and number two is um um I agree that we we add the AC the elementary school AC to the proposition two and number three I was a big proponent for the liary school from day one from years and years ago and I really just hate to see that building you know crumbling and then to a point that we have to demolish and then rebuild and all that however knowing that we can knowing that we don't want to go too much into the bond to to take off on the bond and knowing that um the high school is experiencing the bubble and having that high school gym is
132just so important I I I I can pass my mind that that high school gym is going to be used by hundreds of people students every day before school probably during school and possibly after school and Al also during the weekend whereas the whbr school we're talking about you know having the space uh for no more than 50 staff members um I just don't see you know uh the the the the bigger picture of the benefit of um putting that money even more than building the high school gym into the OR school so for me and also knowing that um putting three and half million dollars into it but seven years later we need to redo it we might have to you know repointing repoint the the outside of it so I don't I don't
133know if that's going to be you know worth throwing in three and a half million dollars into it now so for that I I'm going to choose to just drop wberry school for now okay all right um anyone else and Dr Rogers do you have clear direction from the board for this or if anyone else wants to add anything to it um I'm just trying to count to five here so um in terms of using the reserve uh you there are five people who have coalesced around using part of the reserve so I think that's clear Direction um for proposition two there are six people that coales around the idea of having a second proposition but just for Elementary and Middle School uh gym air conditioning and a lot of ideas were shared for what
134to do with the Woodbury school um but really um I don't think that there's enough consensus to try incorporating it into any of these propositions so I I do think that I need a a little bit more Direction on whether you want to just do stabilization funds knowing um because folks were saying what if we just did the exterior and there was some interest in pursuing that but then we had the report from The Architects that said very hard to stop once you start touching the building and I just want to see where folks are now how do you guys feel about that I don't um it's painful to say it but I think at this point we should let it go there's so much else to do in the elementary schools the high school
135the gym everything that it just I don't know we could and only getting 50 admin there it doesn't it doesn't make sense so I would much rather use it for the gym for the kids for that unfortunately so I I'm okay letting it go for now and if we win the lottery then you know maybe we'll add it back um I know it's getting late and we we still have one more discussion item but I do want to invite one of our audience member to come up to speak and that is Rabbi jimy who we met today and who's going to be partnering with our district uh on you know educating the staff members you know with the Interfaith so um I'm going to uh just invite her to say a few words so that
136she can return home she's got kids home and thank you thank you for your patience no problem they're asleep so that good for them um I just wanted to say I'm not a I'm not a sosin resident I live in plan view so I didn't have the right to speak before and it wasn't really for everyone else's uh ears anyway it's just for your ears people process through telling stories and that's how we process our fear that's how we process our happiness and what we tend to do when we listen to other people's stories is just think about our own stories and then cut them off to tell them our story because that's how we process what they just said and we witnessed that a lot today so there were a lot of emotional stories
137that were told and you know I'm a rabbi I'm a Jew I I'm a mother I'm a Jewish mother which is crazy on its own self and uh I can understand and I just wanted to say to all of you you were the receiving end of a lot of emotion that people don't know where to put right and deep down everybody knows that you guys are doing an amazing job that you're standing in front of like someone said 5,000 years of anti-Semitism and hatred that no one has cured that ill yet and no one expects you to cure it but I wanted to say thank you on behalf of everyone everyone's emotional outbursts and to say that they did this because they care and we know that you care and what was so amazing and
138impressive about you was your lack of response uh at the moment as they were screaming at you so I just want to commend you for that and say that as a non-resident of saset but I I'm at norshore synagogue in saset so I work here I just don't live here and I don't have kids in your District you as the board and as human beings can come to me Dr Rogers knows my number he knows my cell number please use it because it's going to be difficult for you to know where to turn sometimes because they're not always going to see you as people they're going to see you as board members um but you are people and you do need support as well so I'm just putting myself there for you to say I'm
139here I'm here to listen and not one up you want a story and you could tell me your stories and tell me your feelings and and I'm just here to listen and help you with that so thank you for being so calm at also some non-comm times as well and for then continuing with the dayto day that you have to do to continue running the school they really are lucky to have you so thank you very much that's all and enjoy the rest of your evening thank you Rabbi jimy we look forward to our partnership thank you have a nice evening thank you all right so we now we're going to um move on to the second discussion item which is the establishment of an anti bias task force and then earlier today or later
140today uh we reive a memo from uh Dr Rogers and then uh for that we will have to uh um give Administration um a direction you know uh regarding the charge uh the timeline the membership um leadership and the work um that's going to be involved um you I don't know if anyone has um anything to share um to talk about the charge at this point and then again um I just want to remind everyone that this is for a longer term meaning not tomorrow or not end of this week we're talking about three four months so you know um the educational part that's going to take place this week that's already planned and this is for a a couple weeks you know a couple months down the line um so just keep that in
141mind and this is a longer term rather than immediate okay m m uh Mr asri I was just going to ask what we're going to have a discussion what what are we trying to accomplish at the end of the discussion so I understand how to frame questions statements Etc I think the most impactful thing that the board could do would be to really articulate the charge to the group uh I laid out a series of ideas of people who represent large groups of people that are in our community and would be able to identify uh folks who could represent those um that cross-section of our community so um there may be some tinkering to do with that list but I I think that list is probably not going to change much uh but what's going
142to be most impactful is if you can give us Direction on what you want this group to do uh so that we can Define the work that they have um somebody said tonight that you have to define the problem in order to solve it I think having the board's help in defining the problem will make the task force the most productive it can be and I'll just let the rest of the facilities team know that if you want to take off we certainly appreciate you staying as late as you did okay Miss mol go ahead um so I I think putting aside the immediate necessary things that we're planning on doing that we have to do starting tomorrow um if we're looking for longer term goals I think addressing the systematic issues that are clearly
143evident in the schools um has to be a priority to figure out um where exactly it is how it how what's occurring and um figuring out how to address it um I also think that education long-term educational plans on addressing K to 12 on um first of all what they're experiencing educating how others feel um giving them a voice to to share when they have been the victim of some kind of um discrimination um and also I think that we have a serious need for creating an environment that Fosters inclusivity and kindness and that we really need to um address methods and ways and have a plan in place and when I say inclusivity and kindness I mean across the board for everything from um discrimination for I mean I guess this is specifically to
144um for discrimination so I'll leave it at that but I I think that um creating working on creating the environment of inclusivity um will hopefully also have positive benefits when we talk about bullying and that kind of stuff which I guess is not what this task force is actually for but hopefully it will have positive benefits with that as well Mr br for so I would say that that's a I'm sorry I just jumped all over um it's it's like 12:30 um I don't want to wait on anything there's an immediate need to start looking at this now for long long term and shortterm there is an immediate need for us to get I mean there are things that exist currently from each of these groups especially um written in regard to anti-Semitism because with
145with what's going on but from each of these groups they have they have learning materials that help combat hate from all of them so we can start implementing and start learning about each other's cultures immediately and we can start fostering with different things that bring our community together immediately I don't want to wait I don't want to sit on this for a year I don't want to I think there's definitely long-term goals that we need to look at but we need to get our community together immediately we need to they everybody needs to start seeing each other as human beings and people and feeling that they need to be supportive and they need to get together and that's if we don't start bringing each other together as soon as possible it's not g to stop
146so that's how I feel about regarding this uh task force um what would your CH what do you want the charge to be you know because right now we have the immediate action that's going to take place already right away so the task force should probably have a twofold look and first I think they should be obviously education which is it total it's learning about each other's cultures our differences accepting them understanding them celebrating them is going to stop a lot of in my mind hopefully it'll help people Embrace each other it'll help people celebrate each other so I think education and learning about each other and being a part of part of each other's celebrations is going to help bring people together so I think that's a humongous part of this long term short
147term it has to find ways to bring this community together um in the immediate I mean whether it's rallies whether it's putting a cooking class together I don't know what the immediate is but this it has we have to start feeling like a community again unless they're over here I'm over here we're not supporting each other there has to be support within the community so I guess it's a twofold sorry all right Miss kosha and Mr asri so I I totally agree with Lynn I I think that over the last I would say five to 10 years we have Incorporated the celebration of Multicultural holidays and festivities in the schools I think we could do more to Foster it for every culture that's in the school I to totally agree um I'm having a tough
148time separating this from the Dei task force and I feel like are we is are we being pro more proactive to kind of join the forces together with this and Dei because at the end of the day I'm thinking what we're looking for Dei to do is the same thing we have education as part of it we have you know representatives from all over we could add more to it and just combine it and make it a little bit kind of bigger than what it is and kind reformat it but to have a Dei and have an anti-bias task force I'm not sure I'm just having a tough time maybe because it's 12:30 I'm not sure if that's what the problem is but I'm just having a tough time with the two different things I
149feel like they're very much connected that's all um actually I I find myself agreeing with Lisa it's it's unclear to me how we differentiate the work between these two things here's what I'd say I I cannot remember off the top of my head what the curriculum recommendations that the Dei task force had made and I assume that they made made significant recommendations that were already Incorporated to some extent or were continuing to be incorporated into curriculum over time but some of the things we heard today I don't know if those were part of those recommendations or they were different I guess if you ask me what the number one priority for this task force would be is its curriculum and you know I don't want to get into the business of micromanaging that because I'm
150not not an expert but one of the things that I heard or that I thought I heard was that there's just not enough of an understanding of um I guess you could call it a toolkit right like what things are available what people know or don't know what they um understand about one another that has fallen out of curriculum over long periods of time so to my way of think think changes to curriculum are the number one priority the second thing I would say is in terms of what I think is prioritized is the ease the followup the reporting of bias Dosa whatever complaints there are that it is EAS easy to find easy to understand reacted to quickly followed up on and pursued vigorously investigations which I think we do um but there seems
151to be some confusion as to what the process is and the clarity of that process and I look on the second page of your memo you talk about um simplified codes of conduct and ex uh streamlined Dosa reporting procedures so if you ask me what my second highest priority would be that those areas uh are the the charge that I think would be number two in terms of legislative lobbying um I almost feel like that's wish list and I you know I almost feel like the task force would be or the legislative lobbying would probably be better served in terms of outside of our district and in other words a bunch of folks coordinating a legislative push to change things out you know outside of in other words a multi-district effort at legislation I'm not
152sure an internal District L legislative effort um is probably the thing that I would want to charge our folks with I really would rather they spend as much time as possible coming up with things that we can teach students immediately at all levels of school as quickly as possible um Mr Greco please so I agree completely with Lynn's entire statement about the timing here I'm not exactly sure how to marry that with Lisa and Jack's statements about not really understanding the charge as compared to the Dei committee um the one thing I'll say is eii is focused on diversity equity and inclusion um this is a an anti-bias task force which is really focused on inclusivity so the the point that it's number one charge is to make recommendations to us with respect to action
153items we can undertake to address issues of bias is is a no-brainer and I don't see why we can't get something start started immediately on what are the more obvious charges and then amend at some point in the future so as we don't have this discussion for three months before we get anyone moving I me it's going to take time to form a task force so we should be thinking now a week from now two weeks from now that this gets formed and then if we feel we need to expand its scope we can do so later yes I agree that uh with Lynn um and Brian um I think we all agree that you know there is an immediate um Tri triage if you will situation in front of us and then there is
154a systematic long-term work so we do have work um Tools in place um Dr Rogers you employed um our staff our teachers um to start immediate work in every building correct so can we work off of what we already have to address the immediate um situation and perhaps I'd like to see more Community involvement and engagement um like working off of this list this bullet points here as far as membership I'd like to see bringing in um the community closer you know really were close much more closer um interact much more closer with the community and because just today on on this particular um the anti-Semitism issue we had um amazing multitude of ideas just in this room um and so you know the young gentle the young um what's his name yeah I mean
155he could be president of this he should you he should run he amazing outstanding and I'm sure there's a lot more um students like him um out there that could absolutely um be on board with this and and work closely with the teachers with the community members with all the local organizations everything you men that is mentioned here and start immediately and then um it's going to be an evolving process going forward but whatever we do obviously has to be um you know uh revisiting what we have in place and what's working what's not and building work off of that um I wanted to I was going to say also about the student students I think that we should definitely find a way to incorporate the students because I think they can best tell us
156what they're experiencing and um and that will make it easier for us to address you know what's going on and to know what we're fighting so I would definitely love to include the students on it I also would like to add something else about um making sure that all of the teachers and the administration are on the same page with how to address address incidences because there were some some stories that people shared tonight um that I'm sure if they are accurate and true which I'm assuming they are um gave us all pause on how things you know could be handled or would be handled so we want to make sure that everybody is on the same page on if something happens in your class you know this is how you handle it and this
157is what you do and I I think we definitely um need to make sure that we have the proper training and education to make sure we're all on the same page Susan took my point but um the te training further training for teachers and staff and un and and understanding how to deal with it in understanding the severity of certain things things um and recognizing what's going on in a classroom or in a hallway and being more proactive about being eyes and ears where where there are the holes um it's imperative so that should be part also and Lyn you took my point so that's that's fantastic so yeah I mean in terms of the reporting streamlining that was I totally agree that was the second thing that I said in Lynn and I'd expand
158on your point just a little bit which is it's not just about um teachers um being an extra set of eyes and ears and actually I think that was really insightful because that idea had not occurred to me but I was thinking just in terms of the third priority would be staff faculty training that would be the you know and materials for that that and and certainly that would s u Lynn's point would would be an important part of that and I was just thinking in terms of um just training in terms of uh how to present curriculum and how to make sure that we're not um find ourselves in a situation where somebody is teaching a book that is outside their expertise and doesn't really know where to go for knowledge um I don't
159want to I don't want to repeat that if we can avoid it so um I guess that would be my third priority just building on that um I like to use um the buckets that we use for our facilities right so I see it as putting this um task in front of us in buckets there's a there's classroom there was a hallway as someone um rightfully put you know your experience your one experience is is in the classroom when the teacher is in front of you everyone is hopefully on their best behavior and then there's a hallway and then there's a playground and then there's social media space which could be a whole separate bucket in today's reality right and then you have families so in other words what we need to we need to
160find what's missing the link the missing link if you will um what happens after a a a a wonderful teacher passionate reads a wonderful book and then the kids go play and then the kids go home what happens there what happens in their chats Tik Tock you know in other words we need to um the the teachers got their marching orders already right so now we have to build upon it and I using Junior day as a perfect example of how to engage all the kids they love those exercises and they could run with it and they could be creative with it we should learn from our kids especially talented and and uh you know someone like him could be a brilliant example for everyone else um and so this way maybe if we compartmentalize
161you know it will be easier to see um how to connect the buckets or whatever you want to put these categories call these categories so that's how I view it we need to see something different clearly yeah so okay all right um I can agree more with everyone else you know about this that the time is now we don't wait on this and this this we hear from the audience and we see it and we we know this is the perfect time to do it I wish it's not this time but that now is the time to do it and there's a um there's an urgency in doing this um and then it sounds to me that uh uh after each board member has expressed their opinions most board members have expressed their opinions that
162it sounds to me that everyone um wishes everyone wishes to focus more on the internal education meaning within our organization rather than outside of you know making recommendations that the on the legislative levels so it's education not only the staff the students and then um we're going to do primary and secondary and all of that am I getting that right from um from everyone so so with that um I think Dr Rogers that's going to be uh you know the very important charge for this um uh task force uh from there and then um and then the timeline you know um it's going to be a couple months and then to uh to report back to the uh uh the Boe and then in terms of the membership um besides what's listed here I also
163hear that we want more students to be involved right more more students involved and then and then hopefully we can reach out to the broader Community too besides the students and then also the community members to reach out to the Brad community and then in terms of the broad Community you know I'm just thinking um you know to for this task force um how many people we want you know a membership or or once once the task force reports back to the Boe then we can also dissem that to the bigger Community you know is that going to be more effective right so I think I think it's just important for the community to know exactly where to go um they need to have an outlet you know and also perhaps it's a good idea
164to um check um with other affected um school districts Dr Rogers out there I know with three you know now that they everyone had the incidents send out home letter letters what are they doing now I mean let's learn from each other and let's you know have the kids like the kids in Breaking borders do they they go to other school districts and they sit down at one table so you know that's another Avenue good miss kosia and then miss abenson now I'm just thinking you know I think one of the issues I'm I'm sorry to continue to bring up Dei but I think one of the issues with Dei is that there's so many members in it I think there's a hundred if I'm not mistaken if not more that it becomes very difficult
165for people even though they're broken up into different groups it becomes difficult for them for the the task force to be as productive as they'd like it to be so I'm just throwing the idea out there that we have a list of maybe you know uh let's say 20 ideas from the Sasa Faith Community all these people if we start the task force on a smaller level of 20 people ranging from these groups that we have here in the bullets and get the input from this small not small group but it pretty much is representational of all of the facets we're looking to hear from what if we heard from them first like tonight but a little bit in a more or organized manner put their ideas together of what they think is needed you
166know suggestions and kind of go from there we can always add people to the task force add more groups but I'm having a tough time again because if we're looking for this task force to implement curriculum how is that different from Dei we have a group there that's also implementing curriculum we have a group there that's also helping teachers with their professional development classes I'm I'm just having a tough time separating the two how can we join forces can we make an anti-bias section of Dei and join after we get the recommendation from these these leaders and and community members can we then take it and figure out from there what to do with it possibly using Dei since we have kind of a basis already and a charge for each individual facet of it
167I don't know if that makes does that make sense what I'm saying okay okay all great all right um so now that everyone's got a chance to uh speak and then we can um we can uh appoint the Boe can appoint a chair uh we don't have to do that today because I don't have any list so uh and then and the district will also approve the the staff Le is on um not today um that's going to be something that Dr Rogers will work on and um and then um so now that we had the discussion about creating this task force we do have to pass a resolution and then um I think everyone sees that um I'm there in front of them um so it's the uh resolution to authorize an anti-bias task
168force okay um the authorization in charge and Dr Rogers will work on uh this war Smith um and report it back to the board but for now it's is passing the resolution so my suggestion would be rather than adopt this resolution which was just a draft that you uh direct us to put together uh a resolution reflecting the conversation that you had tonight but you can uh do a resolution directing us to do that so you will have Tak an action tonight but I think you would probably prefer to have something that's a little closer to the conversation that you have tonight um so um so we'll do a resolution to uh direct Dr Rogers to um you know uh come up with the uh the the description for the uh task force okay uh
169can I have a motion Please Mr Roto second by Miss koshia are there any questions um all in favor opposed any extensions Okay resolution passes thank you all right so moving on um there's no unfinished unfinished business and the following is new business a items A1 is the approval of the appointment of staff changes certified staff for November 2023 can I have a motion Please Mr Mr greo seconded by Miss Levon are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions A2 is the approval of stiens and hourly rates for 2023 and 2024 may I have a motion Please Mr Rolo seconded by Miss kosia are there any any questions all in favor opposed any extensions A3 is the approval of coaching recommendations winter 2023 and 2024 may have a motion Please Mr greo seconded
170by Miss fov are there any questions all in favor opposed any abstentions A4 is the approval of of the authorization to execute a site letter agreement between the district and the ca can I have a motion Please Mr Rolo second by Dr Park are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions B items B1 and B2 can be taken together they are the approval of the committee on special education and committee on preschool special education recommendations can I have a motion please miss Leon seconded by Miss Miss Falco are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions B3 is the approval of student Club Charters 2023 2024 can have a motion please Dr par second by Miss Eon are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions B4 is the approval of
171authorization for contracts for federal Part B funds can I have a motion please M Levon second by Mr ostri are there any questions all in favor opposed any abstentions B5 is the approval of settlement agreement and release can I have a motion Please Mr Rolo seconded by Miss koshia are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions B6 is the acceptance of audit report year ending June 30th 2023 can I have a motion please miss lton seconded by Miss Falco are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions B7 is the approval of appointment can I have a motion Please Mr Roo seconded by m abenson are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions C items C1 is the authorization for service contracts can I have a motion Please Mr Breo
172second by Miss Falco are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions C2 is the authorization for of special education and or nursing contracts can I have a motion Please Mr too second by Miss koshia are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions C3 is the authorization for picky packing JC bord can I have a motion Please Mr greo seconded by Miss fov are there any questions all in favor opposed any exensions C4 is the authorization for conduct change order e02 sou with plers can I have a motion Please Mr Roto second by Miss koshia are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions C5 is the authorization for type two action secr random uh radom mitigation system South grou can have a motion Please Mr greel second by Miss levam
173are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions C6 is is the authorization for emergency repairs at South Grove Elementary School GM office rad on medication system are can I have a motion Please Mr Rola second by Miss koshia are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions C7 is the approval of disposal of broken Sur Surplus and or absolutely equipment supplies and books can I have a motion please M Lon second by m valov are there any questions all in favor opposed any extensions may I have a motion to adjourn thank you everyone