001good evening and welcome to the october 13th free village board of education meeting having attained quorum may i have a motion please to move into executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular person so moved second fall in favor any opposed any abstentions we move to executive okay i can't see good evening everyone welcome to the october 13th 2021 board of education meeting please welcome jennifer cabrera who will lead us in the pledge of allegiance please stand i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all changes to the meeting agenda replacement page schedule a6 that's it student recognition thank you miss valenka it is my great pleasure to introduce our director
002of music on mr anthony palera who will now do our favorite part of the business of honoring our students good evening please join me in congratulating the following students who have been selected for this year's nissma allstate conference thousands of students auditioned at virtual solo and ensemble festivals throughout the state this is the result not only of the students incredible talent hard work and dedication but a direct reflection on our music teachers commitment and perseverance towards excellence i'm going to call them by discipline by music discipline you can come right up front starting with the chorus all-state nominees dakota binder jennifer cabrera daphne chargle go right up in the front of the room cole napolitano and jacqueline winslow please join me in congratulating he's [Applause] i should mention that mrs cantino was unable to attend
003but a round of applause for her too for those students [Applause] the orchestra allstate students gabrielle choi come on in emma fleming ivan gee sahana gupta david huang alexander lin right up to the front of the room james catherine ma sophia mulligan victor pricklick kate sun jacqueline wu william yao lillian zee and their teachers phil gelfer and james hein congratulations [Applause] life together [Applause] and please join me in congratulating our band students owen dong justin dirko samuel giddleson aaron gorill stella connis shane mccoy joseph nisa claire yang dorizal and their teachers dan hayes and jason chapman congratulations exactly [Applause] and finally we have a very special congratulations to ava de la prietra on an incredible accomplishment ava has been selected as one of the winners in this year's nissma calls for creators competition and i've
004been emailing back and forth with the head of nisma over the festival his name is brian zeller upstate and this is one of the emails and i quote yes ava is one of the selected songwriters in the process of confirming i realized why i remember ava's name her songs were outstanding i really enjoyed listening to them and look forward to meeting her at the conference she's invited to perform her original songs at the old state conference congratulations [Applause] we thank our parents for being here and and we are so happy to honor our students they are incredibly talented and we also give a shout out to the parents and to our wonderful staff if the parents at this point would like to leave we we certainly understand you're certainly welcome to stay but if you'd
005like to join your children that's absolutely fine thank you okay moving right along next is reports riley meckley will deliver the student representative representative hello everyone there are many positive things to say about ward melville in the past few weeks pep rally involved lots of school spirit as all the varsity fall sports were announced and recognized every senior athlete and captain had their name read out loud followed by cheers and clapping from other students at the pep rally a mysterious elmo figure from sesame street was spotted wandering around the next day students were surprised to find it was mr bernhard in the costume he was all over instagram lots of pictures were taken to remember the famous senior chick day as we like to call it all the senior girls ordered the same white jersey
006that says the number 22 on the back of it for our graduating year many underclassmen proudly wore shirts made by seniors saying a senior chick loves me this day is always memorable because all the grades come together to show love and support for their senior friends the jerseys and making of t-shirts is the oldest tradition at ward melville and it is always one of the best days of each year homecoming had the biggest turnout in our school's history according to ward melville administration they have never seen a crowd this big coming to support the patriots prior to the game there was a carnival where clubs from the high school set up games and activities i know mrs pettisish and i worked together with other students to establish the district-wide theme this year united in spirit
007and it was very rewarding to see all the excitement all the excitement from the elementary schools coming together at the carnival the student section at the game was very enthusiastic they were all excited to be cheering together and the patriots win was followed by seniors storming the field our mascot mr patriot has been very popular this year everyone loves to give him high fives and take pictures with him he was at pep rally homecoming and has been seen at a few other games and during the school day the first homecoming dance was a success outdoors under the lights juniors and seniors came together and danced from 8 to 10 after the homecoming game a special thank you to the ward melville administration for giving us this fun memory and allowing it to take place fall
008sports teams wrap up their regular seasons next week and the week after and then they progress to playoffs which i will speak about at the next meeting on another note musical auditions have been completed and students were assigned parts for the production of les mis lastly key club has been working hard as their new version of trick or treat street comes closer this year it will be outdoors on october 29th the friday before halloween kids from the community are encouraged to dress up and walk the perimeter of the high school where clubs will have decorations set up and high schoolers will be handing out candy thank you [Applause] thank you riley okay next items for board action b acceptance of independent auditors report and corrective action plan jeff carlson uh thank you uh so the
009uh financial statements and audit report for the year ended uh june 30th 2021 are completed and what you have in your pocket is the draft of the financial statements after acceptance by the board then they'll become finalized uh they're due to the comptroller's office and statehead department on october 15th so that's why we have it on for tonight for board acceptance uh we'll send it out tomorrow uh to the comptroller and state of department uh upon now after being accepted by the board you'll get the bound copies uh in another week or so at the next meeting october 27th our independent auditor will be here to make his report to the public and he will also be at the audit audit committee earlier that same evening if there are any questions i'd be glad to
010take them now thank you jeff can i please have a motion first dianna can i have a quick question question can i oh i'm so sorry so regarding the class i see some clubs has negative balance just try to understand how this balance works since this will be open public i guess yeah well so this past year as we all know is a very unusual year so a lot of the clubs uh at all of our schools didn't have much of a chance to uh take in revenue they operated as much as they could during the year so they spent money but didn't really take in money so some things such as for instance the theater performances a lot of the revenue most of the revenue from theater performances come from ticket sales well last
011year we couldn't sell any tickets so we still had all the costs involved actually and then some because we wanted to uh stream the uh the productions um so that's why a lot of the clubs have a negative balance now normally you would not see that this is just an unusual thank you can i get a second second okay all in favor opposed motion passes so my my glasses were fogging up and i skipped over number six so we're gonna go back items for board discussion nisba resolution take it away sue thank you so as we discussed at our last meeting nisba is proposing and recommending several resolutions we're considering 1 through 17 and we will vote on them as a block and i will take your vote as your delegate to their annual business
012meeting next week so may i have a motion to approve nisba proposed resolutions number one through 17. second any questions okay all in favor opposed motion passes let us say certification of results of the emma s clark memorial library budget vote and this will be inger germano district clerk okay this is certification of the results of the library budget vote on september 22nd uh the budget passed a total of 498 yes and 97 now thank you can i please have a motion first second any questions all in favor opposed motion passes letter d approval of district plan for school based planning and shared decision making kevin scanlon please yes under new york state regulations we must approve our plan for school-based planning and share decision making every year at the school board meeting this allows
013for individual schools to run their site-based management teams any questions i have a question so the parent there's the pta there's the administrator that you okay the parent part how does that get out to the community that they're looking for parents for those specifics by site based is that through the pta is it something posted um if somebody's not in the pta that would want to do something like that or it's typically done to the pta and anyone that's new to the committee each year must be trained so dr debrusky and i get the honor of doing the trainings each year at the special session for parents and students and staff okay appreciate it thank you can i please have a motion second and yeah all in favor opposed motion passes e curriculum writing projects
0142021-2022 edition kevin scanlon yes so due to the requirements that have come through the state education department for changes to the social studies curriculum or civics education we've needed to make an amendment to one of our courses so what you have in front of you is a proposal for that amendment remember back in last year in may you approved three curriculum writing projects for this year this came after that so it just has to be recently put up can you please have a motion second all in favor opposed motion passes letter f affiliation agreement with mercy college kevin yes uh three village because of our reputation academically has the ability to host a number of student teachers and student observers from a number of universities throughout the united states last year alone we hosted 150
015student teachers and observers from 26 colleges and universities in the united states so this is a a affiliation agreement with mercy college for doing some programs with them okay thank you kevin can i please have a motion okay any questions do you have did you get the first and second any questions could you just say could you just say first or second into the microphone microwave microphone send it into the microwave i'm thinking about my kids making dinner yeah okay all in favor opposed motion passes amendment to affiliation letter g agreement with the delphi university kevin so along those same lines we also have an agreement with delphi university but the this agreement has been long standing we have to make an amendment for this coming year can i please have a motion thank you
016thank you all in favor opposed motion passes letter h approval of agreement between the three village central school district the three village teachers association and the employees names in the attached confidential schedule a gary debrusky yes ma'am so this is a a resolution that's going to approve two and a half uh what we're going to call covenant employees as a result of us as of last week we had approximately 130 elementary students out as a result of needing to quarantine or waiting for test results so we needed to hire the appropriate staff to work with the elementary students remotely any questions all in favor opposed motion passes aye personnel matters it matters instructional gary yes uh instructional personnel we have a few uh first i'm sad to report the um pending retirement of joni zeller
017she has been a long-standing uh guidance counselor for us since 1983 and sadly she has decided to retire so we're in the process of starting an interview process in addition we have several instructional resignations they're a result of those folks uh accepting permanent positions we've hired four additional instructional substitutes this section also has 43 district coaching positions as well as 36 sat nact proctoring positions thank you can i have a motion second second okay all in favor opposed motion passes non-instructional gary yes um another retirement of a long-standing clerical of ours sadly after 20 years lorraine rosa will be retiring at the end of this school year we have a few other resignations from food service and child care and the appointments on the b6 are approving some of those subs into those positions we
018have seven additional sac workers and we have a couple of status changes one kenneth nichman he's been promoted to ground keeper one and we have um uh john sattlefield who was transferred from head custodian uh from mount to minnesota it's just a lateral move thank you very much can i have a motion second any questions all in favor opposed motion passes letter j recommendations of committee on special education subcommittee and accommodation 504 plan meetings of can i have a motion good any questions all in favor opposed motion passes recommendations of committing on preschool special education meetings of can i have a motion second any questions all in favor opposed motion passes letter l nisba annual meeting proposed resolutions can i have a uh can i have a motion please oh we did what he's doing
019down there oh you okay got it so noelle okay so next is informational items of interest does anybody have anything to go you want to do first yes okay so um inger's going to uh our district clerk is going to talk about board docs okay so hopefully as of the next meeting on the 27th we'll be um converted over to board docs board docs is a platform where all of our uh board of meeting agendas and our policy our minutes our videos everything policies everything will be on that new platform so well the information will go straight from the agenda setting over to the live meeting where you'll see the members vote live and then it'll go over to the minutes and also the policies will be worked through through um nisba through that through
020that platform so the we're setting up the training for the board members currently so hopefully within the next week they'll be training and then we can go live on the 27th if not the november meeting depending on how it goes and then the policies uh we scheduled in the past with the policy meetings we always scheduled it as the policies came up for for review this year we decided to do something different where we set policy states throughout the year so and every policy that hasn't been reviewed or adopted within the last five years will be set on the schedule to be reviewed by the policy committee going forward so and i think that's really it excellent thank you very much anybody have any questions springer we're good okay um jeff claussen suffolk county shared
021services grant from new york state 31. yes uh a few a couple of years ago suffolk county uh contracted with a um company to uh put out a uh an emergency uh notification system it was known as the rave app uh and uh jack blaum actually um was a we were the first district to get it up and running uh thanks to jack um and it's really a fantastic uh uh platform for emergency notifications it was fully paid for by suffolk county uh for all school districts in suffolk um as part of the uh suffolk county's shared services program they applied for a grant through the from the state for it um and we're actually going to now uh reap even more rewards from that um we get 31 000 the cost was 62 000
022that suffolk county paid for that uh as a result of the shared services uh the state is going to award us half of that money again 31 000 and half back to suffolk county so uh works that we get the app for free and then we're going to get another 31 000 so and that was uh all jack's doing so thank you very much mr blam good job okay uh kevin finnerty our athletic director was honored with the ward melville school of distinction award from the new york state public high school athletic association this honor was earned as a result of ward melville having a hundred percent of our varsity teams qualifying to receive the scholar athlete team status during their respective athletic seasons last year for a team to earn scholar athletic athlete status
02375 percent of the team must have a gpa of 90 or greater only 67 schools in the entire new york state and 13 in suffolk county earned this award great job to our student athletes kevin finnerty and of course the coaches um one more thing i have is um just to announce that the uh human resources facebook page is up on facebook and alive so there's uh lots of open positions and [Music] tell your friends and apply i guess okay does anybody else have anything are you laughing at me okay oh it's got to be complete okay all right okay so we have just concluded the business portion of our meeting thank you very much so before we begin the public participation component of our meeting and prior to starting the clock the board would
024like to offer some remarks for starters please note that the blue public participation forms may be submitted to the district clerk mrs germano throughout the meeting and will be processed as per long-standing policy first with the priority to agenda items and then in the order received so it's a first-come first-served kind of thing please do not hand them to anyone other than the clerk or you won't be called to speak next we want to clarify a few things from the last meeting most importantly we want to make certain you know that the lines of communication are open and are indeed two-way if not necessarily in this venue you have the right to respectfully share your opinions critiques and suggestions on any topic that pertains to our school district and we welcome that feedback as we
025will as will be explained in a moment our long-standing policy has been to preclude any discussion by the public during the public comment period of any student or staff member that is to protect the privacy of our students and staff separate from that we amended our policy on august 11th to extend that exclusion of allowable subjects of discussion to members of the board of education upon further evaluation we will be considering a resolution which removes that amendment at the next policy meeting to be held on november 10th additionally the resolution we will be considering removing the superintendent of schools as well as an aside though please remember that with only rare exceptions we are not going to reply to any comments offered during the board meeting that is in no way meant to be dismissive
026established best practice is for a board of education and or superintendent to make note of your remarks and then do the necessary research and follow up after the meeting if this pertains to you you should you should expect to hear back from the appropriate person in a timely manner now back to the issue of speaking about staff the logical question has arisen if you can't talk about staff here where and how can you a tab is being created on each school website which will help you navigate how and to whom you can best share your thoughts it will be labeled personnel and functional by the end of this week in addition to this anyone can send an email to the superintendent and or the board of education each one will be read and responded to
027please note if your correspondence is addressed to the superintendent she will be the one to respond to you if your correspondence is addressed to the board the district clerk will direct it to the appropriate person for a response next there's been some confusion about moving the placement of the public comment period during recent board leadership training by the new york state school boards association it was recommended that it's been that it's often beneficial to the public to observe all of the board's business know how votes are called and hear all presentations before the public comment period this is because many questions may be answered in those agenda items for you in addition having the comment period later allows for follow-up questions or requests for clarification our public comment session begins with 30 minutes but we
028do have the option to add two additional segments of 15 minutes each to be clear this recent consolidation has not precluded any three village community member from speaking we have allowed each one who signed up the time and opportunity to speak it will always be our intention to do that within the parameters of the policy another matter of concern was the absence of an overflow room at the last meeting our superintendent will provide that explanation thank you ms pavlinka it's important to understand that the lack of an overflow room at the september 22nd meeting was not as a result to preclude members of our community access to our district facilities or in-person participation with the board of education at the august board meeting there were frequent disruptions in the overflow room which resulted in the
029board having to intermittently stop agenda business to address the issues in an effort to prevent future disruptions and the fact that a decision was made to continue to live stream the board meetings an overflow room was not offered in fairness to the board and to the administration we were not made aware that former students as well as other residents were outside in the parking area until the information was reported during public participation when that information was reported the individuals who were in the boardroom and had already spoken kindly gave their seats to those outside as you know we have covered protocol rules as you can see the seats are clearly separated here from this point forward we just want everyone to know there will be an overflow room will be available to our community residents
030and board meetings will continue to be live streamed thank you very much i'd now like to introduce chris mastechi of garcia guercio the district's legal counsel after attending new york state school board association leadership training it was learned best practice in many school districts to include the district legal council in public session mr mastechi will be joining us for our meetings going forward so that as question in his purview arise he might be able to give us some immediate response and guidance for starters mr miseki will explain in a bit more detail the policy issues i mentioned earlier and after that we will begin with your comments mr mastechi sure thank you uh thank you for the opportunity to present to the public tonight uh the board has received a requests from information from members
031of the community as to their changes in policy uh with regard to public participation that's policy 1230 those changes were made by the board at the august 2021 board meeting specifically the public members have inquired as to whether the board recently implemented changes in policy to prohibit the public from discussing individual district personnel in short the board has not made changes to the policy regarding discussing individual district personnel the board's policy has historically prohibited such discussion um the board's last amendment to this policy prior to august 2021 occurred in march of 2018 we have also reviewed revisions to the policy going back as far as 2008 since at least 2008 the board's public participation policy has consistently prohibited public discussion involving individual district personnel and students the august 2021 policy change did however add a
032prohibition against discussing individual board members during public participation and further changes to the policy address the ability of the board president to address yelling and disruptive behavior in public and uh the movement of the public of comment period the board's policy has been reviewed by legal counsel and as legally sufficient as written thank you very much and we look forward to working with you in public not just an executive going forward so now we're ready for public participation and i have a statement that i read before each time each board meeting at this point in time the board will now allow for public participation uh public participation is encouraged and will be permitted for district residents for up to 30 minutes it is the collective expectation of the board of education and district administration that
033appropriate decorum will be respected and followed at all times under state and federal privacy laws we are unable to entertain any comments questions or discussion of individual district personnel or students inappropriate language shouting and behavior that is disruptive and disrespectful will not be tolerated any individual demonstrating disruptive and disrespectful behavior will be ruled out of order and asked to leave or will be removed from any board meeting the 30-minute public participation period begins now you do have three minutes and there is a timer and our district clerk is in control of that so without further ado our first speaker susan walhart good evening susan my name is sue wallert i am a resident of setauket good evening members of the board and mrs pedezic tonight i am here to speak my truth while you and
034the public will interpret what i say in your own way i am here to invite thought and encourage conversations dr terence roberts was hired as a consultant to the three village diversity equity and inclusion committee of which there are 54 members as listed on the district website i am not part of this committee currently his personal experiences as one of the little rock nine allows him to share profound insights into the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties while listening to the april 2021 meeting with the elementary dei task committee i took notes gathered my impressions and will share one major thought with you this evening and i quote dr roberts conversation is an exercise in diversity after witnessing last month's board meeting i saw the continued decrease imposed by the board and not
035allowing people to show diverse views by one closing the overflow room which held people who have meaningful opinions two the board reawakened and this an existing rule which appeared to be put into action at a time when the overwhelming majority of speakers were unable to clearly speak their truth it was heartbreaking to watch as speakers waited out in the parking lot the board's rationale for discontinuing the overflow was based upon current news reports of out of control board meetings at that moment we became victim of other people's behaviors sort of like when a child does something wrong and the whole class is punished for one person's misdeed how do we as adults set the example of being inclusive and show that three village can be diverse in thought for the benefit of our children shutting
036voices down does not bode well for the board said hope for sincerely wanting to hear what people have to say yes people are angry and people will not agree with all you do but as dr roberts expressed we need to learn to have these difficult conversations to enable us to understand each other's points of view i encourage the board to re-watch previous meetings to examine how certain board members receive people's comments ask yourselves the question would you feel like you're being heard if you were in the speaker's shoes we are diverse in our thoughts and that is what our country is based upon now that the overflow room is reopened my hope is people will use it efficiently and responsibly responsibly sorry conversation is an exercise in diversity thank you susan walhart [Applause] wallet i'm
037sorry next up jim soverio probably show that room too good evening our first amendment right to free speech is becoming increasingly under attack more and more people beginning to feel like they're living in george orwell's words with precise meaning are linked with other words that make meaning less clear a case in point is social justice meren webster defines justice as a process of or result of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes in principle and criminals definitions of social justice are much less precise while they include terms like virtue fair compassionate personal responsibility and none of the definitions that i see the word law which brings to mind a troubling question how can someone link words social injustice when there aren't any references to statutes or time-honored protocols as to how someone is found
038guilty or innocent of violating the rights of others who is the final decider right and wrong if not a jury of your peers and to cancel culture where someone taking offense to remark can go on social media and literally ruin another person's life the offended party has only to think they've suffered from someone's words they may make their argument based on perceived microaggressions there's no trial judge or jury which brings us to george orwell and the three village anti-racism racism and social justice task force the definitions page social justice is divided into four main principles human rights participation access and equity there's no specific definition of social justice oddly enough further down the same page microaggressions are clearly defined as the everyday verbal nonverbal and environmental lights snubs or insults whether intentional or unintentional which
039communicate a negative which communicate negative messages to persons based solely on group membership back to orwell winston the main character explains whether he went on with his diary or whether he did not go on with it made no difference the thought police would get him just the same he had committed the essential crime that contained all the others in itself thought crime they called it even a facial expression would serve as proof it was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in public space or within range of a telescreen think today's iphone and internet a nervous ticket unconscious look of anxiety a habit of muttering to yourself anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality or having something to hide the worst of these was known as a thought crime and
040it's pretty much what it sounds like a thought crime thank you very much okay so the next board of education meeting will be october 27th the next policy committee meeting will be november 10th at 6 pm right here at north country can i have an adjournment motion okay good evening thank you