001my mic check my check mic check mic check mic check my check you know okay that's right over here um john if i could just get access to share my screen so i could put it on your host now so you'll just have to end the meeting when you're done um what about recording it what about we're already recording okay this doesn't look like it on youtube oh it's on youtube not on you gotcha gotcha okay yes you guys are right there right those two seats there girls aren't worried today good evening everyone please rise for a salute to the flag followed by a moment of silence for retiree timothy murray pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with
002liberty and justice thank you item d approval of minutes do i have a motion second second all in favor we'll now have our external order presentation good evening everyone i'd like to uh welcome marion van dyne who's here with us this evening marianne is our external auditor with rs abrams and she has a report for the board this evening welcome marian thank you for being here tonight okay thank you for inviting me to present the results of the two audits that we completed this year once again you received an unmodified opinion which is the best opinion you could get as a school district we had no problem giving you a clean opinion i wanted to thank anthony cedrone his team they do a great job with us and getting the audit done in a timely
003manner in addition to giving you a opinion we also look at your internal controls we felt your internal controls were very strong there was no material weaknesses and you do a great job so all in all i think you know you have a strong financial position you maintain to four percent which is where you want to be and you do have a very long term plan financial plan that's really important so all in all thank you for all your help and great results okay thank you marion any questions from the board for marion thank you mary okay thank you item f communications to the board of ed received from jennifer strauss marin and matt rich diane calabrese tricia stasi wendy zurch tara ferraro louis and lauren lagermarcine item g superintendent's report mr mcmahon thank you
004and good evening everyone thank you for being here tonight so you passed first test you found your way back here uh i know a little bit of a maze tonight so thank you for uh for joining us tonight we have our our school play uh typically our uh our meetings take place in our auditorium when you first walk into the building our school play is uh doing their final dress rehearsal tonight for their show this upcoming weekend so we shifted down here tonight um just wanted to start we have uh some congratulations uh to to give tonight uh we have uh accepted the resignation for the purpose of retirement from uh catherine kennedy who is with us tonight uh catherine is our occupational therapist in the district uh does an outstanding job for us she
005has been serving in that role since 2005. she we were really fortunate in 2005 to have someone with experience joining us she was coming from the east rockaway school district with a few years experience and also had some extensive experience prior to that working with adult population in that role really does an outstanding job for us and a really great part of the pbs team relates well to our students works really hard and we are certainly going to miss her we thank her for her dedicated service for the past 16 years and we'd like to wish her well in her retirement i believe she's joined here tonight uh with by her husband kevin and her daughter teresa and son thomas so uh like to congratulate her and embarrass her a little bit further by having
006her come up here and accept the plaque and doing a picture so if you wouldn't mind joining me up here kathryn thank you all right um one uh just a couple updates from me tonight for the board as uh we do uh each month just our cover 19 update um this is a current picture across nassau county uh you can see uh the the blue bars on there represent the per 100 000 number for our covet cases for uh wantagh and the orange nassau county you can see we're we're running a little bit above uh nassau county rates right now um these are the numbers since the start of code you can see uh over the past seven days there's been about 22 cases in town and these are the numbers for school we've had
007for our district we've had 101 cases so far since the start of the school year i know this slide's tough to see i apologize but it's a 101 cases total in the district uh 88 student cases and and 13 uh staff cases we've had an uptick you can see in november uh we've had 18 cases to this point which is up a little bit from october october we you know we certainly saw a nice decline we only had 14 cases in october uh after you know start with a bunch in in september where we had 56 cases for our students so that's where we currently stand and we'll continue to monitor it and i'll keep the board updated as we as we go um start off tonight with just a congratulations to our varsity girls
008volleyball team they were long island champs on uh saturday so congratulations to them the team leaves tomorrow morning yeah please applause for them it's terrific um i give our volleyball parents a lot of credit those are very stressful matches to sit through so and the girls just did an outstanding job uh really really proud of them uh the team leaves tomorrow morning uh around nine o'clock or so to head up to glens falls uh where they'll be representing the district they're one of just four teams left in their class currently playing in in in the state they have some pool play tomorrow saturday i believe and then if they're successful there they move on to the new york state championship game on sunday afternoon so fingers crossed hopefully the girls do well and we wish
009them well as they head up to glens falls um update uh mass requirement uh we had uh and i don't have a lot of information for you because i just have uh where we you know just really based on a newsday article that was was published this afternoon uh saying that uh i think most of you are familiar with that this you know the the initial mass requirement in schools for new york state was for 90 days and uh there was an article news day today that the commission that passed that regulation uh met this morning uh and they have an intention of passing that further uh of extending that further out so i know that's you know to the disappointment of many um that's where it currently stands but i haven't gotten anything official
010from the department of health yet i certainly anticipate that in the coming days i don't know you know what that extension looks like if it's 90 days 30 days 60 i haven't i don't have those answers for you at this point as i said that just uh is based on what i read in a a news day article nothing official from from new york state doh yet so some of you may have seen that so i just wanted to address that tonight as well update just a couple things uh wanto high school we had uh i thank dr gazon and his team we had uh an issue with power service on tuesday at the high school where we um we one of the phases of power went down uh we were running on partial power
011for about three hours or so uh dr gizona's team did a great job uh and our students and staff were terrific um it just had uh kind of an intermittent impact on the building impacted certain rooms uh and and certain spots in the building but it was an external issue with a power line that uh that comes into the building actually right behind the uh the athletic field uh and uh national grid was great they got out here they addressed it uh and got us back up and running uh by about 12 30 1 o'clock on on tuesday so i just wanted to update the community on that and as i mentioned earlier our school plays this weekend i hopefully come out and support it's nice to be back on the on the stage and
012and with a live audience so uh they're they're doing the show the outsiders so we certainly hope you can come out and uh and support our school play this weekend as well um and just from uh our administrative team the board of education would like to extend our well wishes for happy thanksgiving to our entire community uh we certainly hope everyone gets to enjoy some time with family and friends in the in the coming days so so thank you for attending tonight and i'll turn it back over to our board president mr greco thank you mr mcnamara item h h1 personnel actions instructional staff item h1a b c and d do i have a motion second all in favor item e f and g can i have a motion move second second all in favor
013aye item h2 personnel actions civil service h2a b and c do i have a motion second second all in favor item h3 contractual and other authorizations item h3a b c and d and i have a motion second second all in favor item e f and g have a motion second second all in favor and we'd like to thank the forest lake pta for their generous donation to the district item h i j k and l do i have a motion [Music] all in favor item i unfinished business we have none item j new business j1 approval of committees on special ed and preschool special ed do i have a motion second second all in favor aye aye i have a motion to adjourn to executive session president i make a motion to adjourn this meeting
014to uh executive session to discuss personnel and security issues second second roll in favor now we'll have our report from the student government emma good evening my name is angelina and i'm one of the student government presidents good evening everyone my name is jenna i am the public relations officer for student government and i'm stepping in for the other co-president who cannot be with us tonight because they are taking part in our awesome drama production first off we would like to again congratulate the girls varsity volleyball team who has done an amazing job winning the long island championship and will be moving on to states this weekend in addition winter sports such as basketball winter track boys swim and dive bowling cheerleading gymnastics and wrestling all began this week student government started a food drive
015this past monday for wonton families in need that will end tomorrow we are collecting canned vegetables soups and other thanksgiving food items the food will be delivered to the families right before thanksgiving so they can have a great holiday meal also during the past few weeks the key club held a book drive for the book fairies as well as a candy drive for soldiers we thank them for always helping out in the community on a local and global level the first quarter report cards will be coming out this friday the 19th additionally want a high school drama began performing the outsiders play this week and are performing as we speak they will also be performing this weekend so make sure to go watch it and support the students show times are friday at seven the
016saturday matinee at one and also later on saturday at seven o'clock the band is starting to fundraise for their upcoming disney trip if you are interested in buying candy popcorn or cookie dough to support the members of the band either contact the trip coordinator which is me or mr cochran this friday is the due date for sports night theme binders and ms grange and miss pepe will be announcing the sports night overall captains this coming monday we wish all the girls who submitted their ideas the best of luck wants third annual winter wonderland will be taking place the 27th at the old train station there will be food drinks and little stores for shopping and the tree and menorah will be lit we thank you for your time and wish you all a very happy
017and healthy thanksgiving thank you girls all right the foundation for educational excellence sorry i'm a little short um good evening everybody um i'm liz goober i'm here along with some of my board members on behalf of the wanton foundation we have some great updates and we have some mix we also have some awards that we're going to be providing to some of our teachers for our mini grants first our this month we completed our tech buddy sessions with our first graders and kindergarteners who just received their chromebooks and it was a great success and it was held at our foundation center we want to thank our middle school volunteers who took their time out of their saturday mornings to connect with their first graders and kindergartners and support them through the use of their chromebooks
018it was great to see the way they connected with um with the older middle school students and they were great role models and for the younger ones so we really do appreciate their time and it was such a success that we hope to continue it through the year the other thing that we want to also announce and um we thank the uh the administration board for allowing us to do this tonight is that uh today we are proud to grant the first mini grant um awards to four juanta teachers tonight as we announce each teacher we'd like them to come up and receive their grant monies and all this grant money is going to go directly to programs that they have created themselves and we'd also like you guys to stand up and take a
019picture as well so our first recipient is miss pearlstein for miss pearlstein's class the wanta foundation will help support the purchase of materials used to use for experiments for her chemistry class these items purchased will allow our students to see how items in their everyday life are related to science we thank you congratulations and stay up too with this we'll take a group picture okay our second recipient is miss ms stenson is a special education teacher in the middle school who's starting a life skills program this the wanta foundation will help support the purchase of materials to help start up a coffee cart program for our middle school students with the goal of teaching various life skills like taking orders handling money and delivering the right items to our customers congratulations miss dessen our third
020recipient is from sebastiano's class all the students in mr bashian's miss sebastiano's class will have the opportunity to study their own dna and use an advanced laboratory the class plans to go on a field trip in march and the wanta foundation will cover all expenses and no cost to our participating students the students will be visiting one of the most renowned sorry genetics research facilities in the world and it's a great unique opportunity so congratulations mr bastiano and finally i hope ms davis is here great i know she's busy with the production tonight for miss davis class the wanta foundation is supporting the building of a theater library introducing drama and theater resource books as well as supporting the curriculum for the middle school ela classes the wanton foundation purchased books of various plays types
021of acting methods and other resource theater resource books that our students now have access to congratulations mrs dessen and break a leg to them this weekend and the books will be delivered tomorrow we want to congratulate our four teachers tonight and we also want to thank all the teachers that have submitted their grant applications we hope to continue this throughout the year but we do want to thank our community for supporting this because all the donations we've received have come right back to our teachers so thank you and congratulations and we are excited for the new programs you're going to start thank you foreign hi everybody i'm mary beth reynolds i'm representing forest lake tonight um we just uh we have a cookie dough fundraiser going on right now and we are we have a
022wrapping paper fundraiser going on right now that's going to be ending uh this week we also just finished we're wrapping up our thanksgiving food drive and our holiday fair just ended last night it was a great success the kids were so happy to be back at the school and shopping and in person um it was a great time for everyone we had picture retakes and our fifth grade uh last week we had a reverse raffle that was very successful um congratulations to mrs burdick for winning the big pot um we also just finished our health night um for the fifth graders and we have an ongoing fundraiser for phil's pizza for the rest of the every wednesday for the rest of the month and i guess i'll do 612 while i'm up here too i'm
023the co-president of 612. um we have some upcoming fundraisers that we're planning um a comedy night in january possibly in january and um we're looking to do a santa con to um to um promote business for the local restaurants and um we're just wanted to wish everyone a happy holidays and thank you mandalay pga council sports booster bandwagon and drama i think is a little busy though and 6 12 she just did ladies and gentlemen we're about to convene into our public comment period at a meeting although state law does not require us to hold a public comment meeting we have chosen to do so because we believe it's crucial to hear from our community members about their concerns having said that please note this board is here to listen the public comment period is
024not designed to be a discussion accordingly do not expect the board to respond to your concerns or questions that is because we take our concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research all the issues if necessary we will however respond to your questions and concerns at a future date or have the proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time i also want to point out that under state and federal privacy laws we are unable to entertain comments or questions about personnel please know however we take our personal concerns very seriously on these matters we would ask you to go through the appropriate administrative channels we want our school board meetings to serve as example to our students and members of the school board and members of
025the community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect for one another in that spirit we will insist all speakers and members of the audience please maintain civility and respect we as speakers to address their comments to the board directly and not the audience it is unlikely become event that the meeting becomes unruly the board will recess the meeting finally i would like to remind everyone you may submit written comments to the board via email in lieu of speaking during a comment period if you so choose we will now entertain public comments for up to the next 30 minutes thank you good evening my name is marilyn rich i'm a wanton resident and my children attend school in the district first i'd like to thank superintendent mcnamara for the correspondence
026from october 29th regarding a survey from the new york state department of health asking how we would be handling vaccines for age vaccine uh clinics for ages five to eleven and he had answered us saying that at this time the um juanta district has no plans to host to host any vaccine event for ages 5 to 11. and i just wanted to say for the public record for people that may have missed that i wanted to confirm if that was the case that is still the case are there any plans at this point for ages 12 to 17 to hold any clinics at for that age group not at this time okay great thank you um i'm sorry i had some questions that i wanted to address to the board if i may the um
027on the wanto district uh website oops there is a document that i'm sure you're familiar with familiar with it's called the wanto union free school district board of education goals 2122 section 5 of that uh document is the communication and advocacy engage the community and legislators in productive ways to ensure support of district efforts uh line number b reads continue to hold community forums and survey the community around critical issues as they develop line number c reads continue to engage local legislators and elicit their support of school community particularly to advocate for additional funding for our district during this challenging time and line item d reads actively participate in advocacy groups such as the new york state school board association and the new york state council of schools superintendents i think that's what those letters
028stand for to ensure that our community's voices heard around critical issues that impact education in new york state in addition partner with community based organizations that can positively collaborate with our district uh with that said i had a couple of questions i'd like to leave with the board and i'm happy to email them uh if if that's more helpful at a later date so my questions in regard to this document that you guys have put together as your goals for 2122 first one being what plans have been made to survey the community or hold a community form to combat these vaccine mandates if any the second one which local legislators have been contacted to discuss the potential ramifications both financially to the school district and emotionally to our students if this mandate passes and we
029have to remove students from the public education system you will notice on your way out a bunch of parents had left shoes it was a coordinated effort with some parents this evening just to illustrate how many people will indeed pull their children out of school if a vaccine mandate occurs my third question local board of educations are now contacting the governor in opposition to the vaccine mandate stressing the financial ramifications as well as the impact on students what is our position on that and when do we when and if do we plan on contacting the governor officially on behalf of the wantour school district um as you know there are bills coming up in january uh one specifically bill s four two four four c would grant schools the ability to vaccinate children without parents
030consent if they're over the age of 14. so this i think is a very critical issue that's occurring right now in our community and there are a lot of people that want to know where we stand what our plans are going to be and i think a lot of people would appreciate a forum some sort of community gathering where we can all think together and figure out a way to contact the governor and everyone says the fight is in albany and i understand that and i think a lot of people understand that but it's the local it's the local effect that's going to get albany's attention and right now i don't see any local involvement from anyone so i think we need to start thinking about that in a serious matter and maybe make some
031plans on how we can contact the governor lastly in light of recent events of the national school board association calling parents like myself domestic terrorists and initiating the department of justice into investigating parents i was curious being that you mentioned these groups in this goals document what is the role of the national school board association specifically in the wonton school district has there been discussions with the new york state school board association to withdraw from an affiliation with the national school board association and lastly do taxpayers fund in any way the membership to these organizations um and if so uh is there any discussion to um remove remove ourselves or talk about how they affect the district at this time so if you'd like would you like me to email you those questions okay i
032will send that thank you very much for your time good evening my name is jennifer strauss and i live in wanthal i have a couple questions and a bit of a statement for tonight my questions and statement revolve around three main topics a the partnership between our district and the anti-defamation league the implementation of the new york state board of regents culturally responsive sustainable teaching and the wanton board of education's fulfillment of its policies as outlined in their handbook the adl's no the adl is no place for hate so this program was created by a hyper-partisan group which is partnered with the southern poverty law center this is troubling because the splc identifies hate groups and seeks to censor those they disagree with interestingly some entities label as hate groups by the splc are jewish
033groups the adl was created to fight anti-semitism so their relationship seems curious but advances my speculation that there is no real attempt to foster healing as much as there is a mutual motivation to profit from division the adl inserts themselves into political into the political arena which is why i wonder why we partner with them it's clear you have talented teachers and very empathetic students so why not create an organic anti-hate group within wanton no outside affiliation have you vetted the adl's curriculum for the no place for hate does the district believe as the ad as the adl espouses that up until fifth grade kindness is good but after fifth grade students must move on from kindness and schools need to foster social justice have you ever reported an incident of bullying harassment or hate
034to the adl does the adl satisfy the new york state board of regents framework for crs teaching i was told by administrators that the district's partnership with the adl is loose at best so why even partner with them at all it actually defies logic the new york state board of regents culturally responsive to sustainable teaching framework in may of 2021 the board of regents published their urgent call to action in the form of the crs framework it's 64 pages i read every page and i'm curious about how how it will be worked into the wandell school district what if any programs have you initiated at wantal to satisfy the board of regents guidelines on del dei sel and crs teaching do you have restorative justice circles in any of the schools does the district agree
035with the board of regents when it states quote these national tragedies have combined to create a perfect storm a storm that is powerful enough to propel us beyond the systemic racism that has come to define americans in america's institutions this systemic racism pervades all aspects of our lives including policing education health care employment housing access to capital and almost every other conceivable realm unquote do you train teachers in crs pedagogy specifically as stated in the crs framework do you train teachers to participate in an ongoing examination of their implicit bias and interrogation of beliefs and assumptions do you the board use any third-party consultants for school climate surveys if so i'd like to know who those third parties are do you have any curriculum that satisfies crs framework which states uh which the state says
036should de-center dominant ideologies and pedagogies that ignore and marginalize diverse students specifically what phase of implementation is the wantal school district currently in regarding the board of regents crs framework and finally the board of regents asserts that it has the authority to ex to oversee the general supervision of education activities within the state with that said to what extent has wanta allow the board of regents to authorize any crs implementation the board of education and its handbook policies these are my questions what is the questionnaire the board used for its self-assessment has the board of education shared its self-evaluation with the public and stakeholders in the community has the board satisfied number 12 found on the community relationship goals page of the handbook specifically policy 1000 on page 63 which states the board should develop
037and maintain effective means of communication with the people of the district so what state and national school board associations does the wanton school board board of education belong i continue to wait on my foil request to better understand crs teaching and the adl within the school district please know i've already emailed you this document in the hopes that you will answer with specificity all of my questions i will continue to hope that you will be open to an honest and transparent conversation i continue to wait for that thank you hello good evening my name is trisha sazzy i have two small children at want elementary school one in first grade and one in fifth grade i'm superintendent mcnamara i appreciate your emails back to me i know you know my name um i appreciate that
038you responded to my countless emails to you and i apologize for that but i am like many of the parents in this room just a mom and i want to advocate for my children who are small i've also sent countless emails to the board of education as listed in their email and i'm hopeful to receive an email back anytime i am a co-admin of the wanton parental choice group we have nearly 700 members we're growing every day our members stand on both sides of the fence when it comes to masks and covered vaccines but we are joined together for parent choice here in wanton as in all my letters to i absolutely have no shame in begging this board to stand with the parents that elected you it has been over 20 months of masking
039there seems to be no off ramp to obtaining vaccine and obtaining medical freedoms college students are still in masks even with the mandate and we need you you are our bottleneck to the department of health the cdc and most importantly the governor's office we need you to take a stand in any way in every way to unmask our kids give parents their options back and to keep the vaccine mandate away from our children it can and it won't happen if we don't publicly voice montau as a district of choice at this point we all know the science we all know the risks we all know the absolute hypocrisy of masking our children at school when they are unmasked everywhere else they go we know that there are no guarantees to freedom with this mandate and
040i don't mean buying a cheeseburger in new york city i don't care if i never set foot in new york city again i mean my six-year-old going to school for another year on mass for six and a half hours a day and it means something to my six-year-old to be masked this long every single day and we know where this is going the cdc has already dropped verbiage of masking through flu season and i'm sorry but it's out of control and i believe that all of you that sit before us tonight are beyond intelligent enough to see what we all see here and i'm sorry but it's enough the parents in this community deserve a say our children deserve better after all of this time there are plenty of districts across the country beginning to
041unmask and not force the maxine and wanton should be no different and i would love for the people and leaders that stand before us tonight to not be silent to our comments and our questions i know that you mentioned before that you are open to taking emails and i've sent many emails and haven't received any back and i appreciate all the work you do for our children but we deserve to have a dyad we deserve to have a conversation with you and as marilyn said we're open to any sort of forum you just tell us the time and the date and we would be there because there are kids i know they're your students but they're our kids and we would love to have a say thank you [Applause] good evening everyone my name is
042gina dignan thank you for having us tonight i'm a resident and parent of two boys in the wonton school district um it was come to my attention that at the last meeting i read some passages from a book that were in the eighth grade classroom for voluntary reading it came to my attention that the audio from the last meeting was not on we had issues with av so everyone at home wasn't able to hear the passages that i read from this book so if you could just please allow me to reiterate and update you on my emails with dr scalari and miss rossly regarding keeping this book in classes for anyone who was not available for last month's meeting i discovered that my eighth grader last year was reading a book for um independent reading
043called ghost boys by jewel parker rhodes i urge everyone to grab a copy of this book if they can and read it um when asking my son what he was reading he came home and he said i'm reading a book called ghost boys tell me what it's about he said well it's about a 12 year old and i'll read the back 12 year old jerome is the latest victim shot by a white police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a threat so once i heard that i knew it probably wasn't going to go in a really good direction so just to give you some of these passages and i'll be brief um just here the the latest review from a person who claims to be a best-selling award-winning author ghost boys gently walks readers
044through the minefield of young black boys who have been killed due to racism dating back to the murder of emmett till so right here on the first page we are underscoring that this book is in fact based on racism and white officers killing young black boys just some passages from the book for everyone at home who did not hear it sue i'm going to sue says pop no sense why my boy is dead and those white men are walking around alive free emmitt just like emmett till says grandma or tamir rice then shouts pop 2014 he died in cleveland another boy shot just because he's black no justice no peace says pop since slavery white men been killing blacks there's another line this one's absolutely probably the most disturbing an open casket murmurs ma i
045want the whole world to see what they did to my boy isn't that what mrs till said isn't it i wonder who is they exactly did more than one person shoot jerome i didn't read that in the book maybe they're referring to they as being all whites i'm not sure next here now it's from the point of view as the jerome becomes a ghost he's now able to to speak with the daughter of the police officer who shot him he shot me my dad protects and serves that's what policemen do he didn't protect me everybody in my neighborhood knows cops do whatever they want that's not true he upholds the law i grunt upset the girl rocks back on her heels cops do whatever they want is a pretty bold statement that's a stupidest thing
046i've never had a friend like sarah a white girl i laugh it's so stupid die and a white girl can be your friend i never knew that blacks and whites couldn't be friends yes maybe someone might shoot me nah you're a girl and white is that it is that true i shrug my shoulders how many times had i heard be careful of police be careful of white people i was unaware that white people don't get shot by police heard prejudice can affect your thoughts actions whether consciously knowing or unconsciously i'm not a racist possibly you were responding to unconscious stereotypes of black men as large threatening dangerous i think that's a direct insinuation that white officers have an unconscious bias toward black men now remember this is being read by an eighth grader 12 years
047old hers is a fantasy world like a tv family and a huge house with plenty of money and food being poor is real does pop know officer moore gets paid for work for not working for killing me paid for killing me it's amazing it's not sarah's fault he says sarah can change what exactly are we changing about a young white girl it matters why my dad shot you why so you can feel better they were chanting outside the courtroom no justice no peace they carry signs that say justice for jerome black children's lives matter stay woke is my son next then there was a reference to the school librarian taking the daughter of the police officer to a computer miss penny types the word casket and till in the computer and hits search i know
048we all have phones i know our children mostly all have phones if any of you care on the board in the audience at home to google casket until you will find probably the most disturbing image you will see in your entire life 12 years old lastly at the end there were discussion questions many people have interpreted black lives matter as an anti-police movement does ghost boys strike you as an anti-police book how does the book portray officer moore and police in general what did you know about black lives matter and the civil rights movement before reading ghost boys i don't know about anybody in this room but by definition black lives matter is a terrorist organization and should never be equated with a civil rights movement so i had a meeting back in march with
049dr scalaria and miss rossly i my husband and i requested that this book be removed from the classroom even though it is independent reading and he chose this book my son should not have had access to something like this at 12 years old i was encouraged to read the book finish it because i would find that maybe there was some way of making this make sense to a 12 year old i did finish the book and i emailed dr scalaria and miss rossly and i said that i am still firmly against this book being in circulation even though officer moore was acquitted there were tremendous racial overtones that can't be overlooked or undone or unseen images that can't be unseen of emmett till in a casket officer moore is still depicted as prejudiced and guilty
050and there's an obvious theme of police brutality against black men that can't be unread regardless of the outcome i asked still that the book be removed i was told that um by dr scaleri as discussed at the meeting we will remove the book for this school year and reevaluate moving forward for the proper placement of the book and at which level we think it is best suited for at that time they did agree that this book was more than likely over the heads of a 12 year old and especially given the climate a year ago it probably wasn't the best idea to have this book on a shelf for a child to read i did ask for an update um in october i said can you please provide me with an update as to your
051re-evaluation of the ghost boys book in the classroom for this in the classroom this year will it be removed completely from the classroom i received an email from dr scalari hello mrs dignan i hope as well with you and your family i apologize for not getting back to you sooner as i was out of the building after a discussion and evaluation of the social studies and english curricula with mrs rossly and dr ferris it was determined that this book is indeed properly placed in an eighth grade classroom years old although we have not yet replaced this text i reply that i am absolutely astonished at this response especially given your agreement with me back in march that the content and grade level were likely inappropriate that was actually verbalized to me by dr scalari i
052said what has changed in the last six months mr rossly replied to me nothing has changed in the past six months although we did review ghost boys as we said we would do in our conversation with you last march and determine that this book is appropriately placed in the eighth grade based on the social studies and english curricula well i vehemently disagree with that maybe instead of worrying about the social studies and english curricula we should take that and put it aside for a moment and think about the real life situations that our our world are in the people in this community that are a very high majority or a very high percentage police officers maybe we should stop for a moment and think about the way our children are perceiving something like this i
053don't care if it's a reading level for an eighth grader that means nothing to me the content of this book does not belong in the 8th grade 9th 10th 11th or 12th i wouldn't read this book if you paid me but unfortunately i was forced to because this is what my 12 year old was reading i am again asking every person on this board and everyone asks everyone in this audience to at least send an email and request again that this book be reviewed and removed from the shelves we're not doing anything for our children by allowing something like this to continue to divide us we need things that are going to bring us together this is not one of those things and i think you all know that so again please consider removing this
054book from your library and the shelves thank you this is written on both sides it says no mandates don't lose your freedoms we must fight for them the other one is freedom to choose i just wrote this so i hope this is going to be okay reading this can i bring this down how do i do that it's very well thank you that's better an article from cnbc.com on 10 821 the headlines read finland and sweden are limiting the use of the modern covin 19 vaccine in young people over concerns around the cardiovascular side effects iceland also on 10 821 stopped the use of the moderna covin 19 vaccine for all ages over heart inflammation concerns november 12 2021 from lifesite news they stated taiwan holds the second pfizer shot for teens over heart health
055concerns for 12 to 17 year olds taiwan [Music] is not considering the shot for 12 and under at this time all three of these vaccines in the u.s are still emergency use and yes that includes fisa you can call each of them and they will tell you they are emergency use only the vaccine that has been approved is commercial community whatever community is still in production how would a vaccine that is approved still be in production that is the million-dollar question how are the mainstream media the governor and our government officials saying fisa has been approved when you can call fisa yourself and they can tell you it is classified as emergency youth authorization and my friend did that she did that i couldn't believe it i pulled up the ver's website and it was
056only through november 5th 2021 that i looked at when i last looked it stated 18 461 deaths technically only one percent is reported to the vares system you really need to add two zeros to that that would be one million eight hundred forty six thousand and one hundred people dead a family member was diagnosed with cancer and she was given a choice to treat it or not to treat it she was given a choice why are we being forced to take a vaccine that we don't know anything about when there is a 99 survival rate this is unconstitutional another interesting fact that came out in the news the fda asked the federal judge to grant it until the year 2076 again to fully release fisa's coven 19 vaccine data the federal government shields fisa from
057liability gives them billions of dollars makes americans take its product but will let you see the data supporting its safety and efficacy who does the government work for certainly doesn't sound like for the people people all over are begging for help because of the adverse reactions they have experienced where is the government where all the doctors helping the people again certainly doesn't sound like the government is for we the people we know who the government works for they work for themselves when they should be working for us who does the board of education work for the last i checked the board of education is supposed to support and help our kids kids under the age of 18 still have to have parental approval us parents are here to support and advocate for our kids i
058would like to know why the school and the board of vet are not working with the parents to help us find a solution together to fight for choice and freedom from dictatorship mandates i'm going to repeat that again why the board of veteran and the school not working with the parents to help find a solution together to fight for choice of freedom from dictatorship mandates and terrible curriculum choices that will only hurt our kids the board of the the board of ed's handbook policy one hot one excuse me the board of ed's handbook policy 1000 on page 63 number 12 develop and maintain an effective means of communication with the people in the district so far i don't think any of us have seen this there are several people who have spoken at these meetings
059stating they have written letters and have not gotten any response from the board of ed you made a decision to volunteer but we [Music] that we have but what have you done to work with the parents for the students you claim to support you don't get back to anybody what can we do together to change this again according to the policy 1000 on page 63 number 12 the board of ed is supposed to maintain an effective means of communication with people in the district so i'm hoping you're going to think about this and find a solution perhaps there should be an ongoing meetings here at the high school on how we can effectively go against these mandates that are unconstitutional we really need to work together in the wanto board of ed handbook another policy
060300 page 16. this says it is the board self-evaluation to the public i'm curious if the board's evaluation of itself matches what the community thinks of how the board operates the board is not transparent and we don't feel the board is forthcoming with answers so we would like to see the board communicate with various topics that we are bringing forth tonight and on the other nights that we've spoke on these things these these things really must change if you all notice the operation shoe drop that is happening right now outside have you ever seen such a time where people go to the trouble of expressing their right to freedom and parental choice parents are frustrated and we don't know what else to do we're coming to the board meetings writing letters and protesting what else
061can we do we really need everyone here at the school district and the board of education to work with the parents against these forced mandates it would mean a lot to us parents to figure out how to fight against these mandates they are unconstitutional i would like to know why the school is not getting involved in the lawsuits if other schools are why can't we join them i love my daughter and i don't want to see anything happen to her we do not know enough about these vaccines that we should be forcing it upon people those who want to have the vaccine that is completely fine that is great that is their decision i'm happy for them my parents got it in the last 30 years all these vaccines combined that have been put on
062the market they don't have the same death toll and vaccine injury as the coca-19 vaccine has which has been out for such a short period of time [Music] many parents are asking for help we need the school we need the school's help to fight against these mandates us parents are going to be forced to pull our kids out from school and homeschool them those shoes outside signify each kid that will be pulled from the school and there probably will be many more once it comes upon us because we're going to be forced we all need to come together in some kind of a forum to see if we could figure this out together so we can be one unit they're trying to divide us and as you can see it's working and we can't do
063that we all have to stop fighting come together and speak kind to each other lastly i i really want to add lastly regarding what jennifer strauss has been doing with the amount of hours she has put in writing and doing foil requests and bringing it to our attention i really would love that's another thing i really would love to have her all of her answer questions answered as well as marilyn rich and also gina diegman that book is horrific i read books my whole life and i'm horrified with all the books my daughter has read and i've come to this board with the book and i was the woman i was speaking with i don't remember her name she was incredibly nice in the beginning of the summer when i spoke with her about the
064book and she made a mention to me about another book at the end of the year i called her and i was horrified how strong she was with me and nobody complained about this book i was really upset to hear that i was shocked i can't actually imagine and it was apocalyptic everybody uh for those of you who was a book on i forgot the name of it but it's it was all about after coming out of kovid um they were stuck in their houses boarded up it was suicides left and right and they're going to keep that on the shelf so i'm starting to think we need to do an audit we need to have an audit of all of our books because i can guarantee every single one of you and every single
065person in this place have never read these kinds of books growing up so i think we need an order of all of the books because we need to have better books on the shelves for our kids something positive something uplifting and the person that i one of the people that i admire is ben carson he came from poverty and look what he is now i mean read a book like that a story of a person's life who made it into something so we need to have choice we need to come together i really think we need to start having forums hello hello how are you matthew rich i don't speak as well as my wife but i will try to get my point across um i think the bottom line is that everybody here has
066asked the board questions over month after month after month very rarely do we get answers uh we asked to meet with people uh they don't have time to meet with people uh you know it gets down to the bottom line that we didn't elect a school board to be silent you're supposed to be supporting us we elected you right if we elected you you should be supporting at least talking with us about what we want right not just what you want the politburo right you guys are in charge you get to make all the decisions and that's it well it doesn't work that way right i guess it does i in the uh school board on the website in your um rules regulations there is a citizens advisory committee that can only be created by
067the school board uh this is a citizen advisory committee would have an advisory only no powers may be enlisted to help recommend policy hey any idea of thinking about that maybe you guys can you know engage the community and what our problems are and what our issues are think about it because you sit there silent month after month do something about it stand up have some courage thank you hello i'm a student at wantagh high school i believe you've seen me up here before uh back on the subject of emmett till in that book back in eighth grade we actually learned it in class and our teacher showed us pictures of it through a video and we were asked to say what was the goal of the magazine who published it and what it means
068to us and what they were trying to prove this shouldn't be teach the pictures are horrifying and i saw this last year i was born in november which means i was 11 at the time which is younger than most students who are 12 or 13 at the time so is an 11 year old really supposed to see a bruised and battered face of a poor boy and be taught that it was white people who killed them just because they're white and they're black that is not how the world is supposed to be seen i went to school in the city i went to school with many different people and kids they were all my friends i had i'm white but i didn't look at color for anybody i said oh hey nice to meet you
069thank you you are my friend now that's not right i'm back with the subject of the mass and vaccine mandates i'm a student i don't want the vaccine in my body right now i already had covered i survived as most kids do so why would i need a vaccine just as the cdc just put out that says people who already had covet cannot spread covet so if if it's my body my choice why should i put the vaccine into my body if i don't want it thank you for having me up here i hope you hear my opinion like many other students who do not want that vaccine uh i have a daughter in mandalay um i just wanted to be clear that people have opinions i have an opposite opinion i do not want
070the parents in this room making decisions for who educates my daughter i want the school board to make decisions i want the teachers i want the principals to make decisions because i do want a well-rounded education for my daughter and though it's extremely unpleasant to learn about the holocaust and and see pictures of people being tortured and killed it's incredibly important because we don't want these things to be repeated so i do want my daughter to learn about the terrible things that have happened in this country i love america america's greatest country in the world but it's not perfect and she needs to learn that you know what sometimes people do bad things and that's okay that's how we build compassion and that's how we build empathy wanto is a great community i love living
071here and i want my daughter to have a very well-rounded education guided by professionals who have gone to school for years and years and years sometimes even a doctorate level degree have written dissertations on education and understand the development of a child i don't care how many books anybody reads when you study education and you go through the process of learning how kids develop psychology the pedagog the pedagogy this is how you learn to work with children i will teach my daughter my values at home and i encourage everyone in this audience to teach their values at home but i want my daughter to have a well-rounded education where she sees both sides of an issue and understands that there's good and bad in everybody and understands that yeah sometimes good people do bad things
072so i implore the board of education to listen to my opinion and know that i'm sure i'm not alone i may not be as energetic or as entertaining as some of the speakers tonight but i do have an opinion and i'm sure it's opinion of other people in the community it may be not as loud as the people we saw here and that's okay too but i live here too i pay my taxes i'm a very proud american and i also want the best for my kid and at home like i said i will make sure that i teach her my values but when she comes to school i want her to get the proper education which means a well-rounded all sides of every issue and unbiased learning of events and yeah sometimes those events
073are difficult so i implore the board to continue to make decisions based on what is best for children thank you so much have a great evening i'm i already know i spoke already i just wanted to say one thing um because we are all parents in here and i've been an educator for 21 years i have four degrees but when it comes down to it no one cares i'm a mom and these are my kids and like everybody else in this room we're happy we are happy to work together with this board in any way so we're all respected and that we are all have a voice when it comes to our kids no one's saying push one out push this one out we want to be included that's why we're here that's why we
074write letters to you i'm sure when you see saza you want to delete and i'm sure and i respect that because i get what you're doing i'm in education too at the end of the day we just want to be a part of what's happening with our children it's our community so no one's asking to be excluded we're asking to be included in this we're part of the pta it's parents and teachers it's not one or the other so like i said before say what and where and we're all here for it we all want to be a part of it thank you all right seeing no one else that'll uh close our our com our public comment period just a couple comments for me uh first of all thank you for uh everyone that
075uh shared some of their uh their thoughts tonight uh just uh mrs rich just to give back to a couple things there's a number of questions in there i'll uh please forward that email to us i'll i'll answer those just a couple of points on that you know in terms of the advocacy uh we work with uh our local folks uh you know senator brooks and dave mcdonough those are the folks that we have regular conversations with about a whole host of issues and a lot of that advocacy work is about uh finance and funding you know and getting dollars for our school uh senator brooks was instrumental in in helping us uh even just with some of the federal funding that that we were shorted uh not so long ago uh we'll have uh
076extensive work done at our middle school in our art rooms uh coming up this summer as a result of almost a 200 000 grant that he helped get us so we have regular conversations with those folks and yes the uh the board is part of the new york state school boards association and they do pay dues to that uh that organization uh they represent uh us on a you know a whole host of issues you know certainly beyond just covert related issues uh they also uh help us uh in terms of policy development you know they uh they have a whole policy division and they're instrumental in keeping us up to date on on various various policies and then the other one you referenced to was the new york city council of school superintendent and
077i am a member of that organization as well and same type of thing from providing professional development updates on the latest in terms of legislation um mrs strauss i know uh you had uh you know a number of questions in there uh i will certainly look for that email from you i know you had the opportunity to meet with dr ferris i know you had an opportunity to share some of your concerns there about the uh the uh no place for hate uh it is a program that we are extremely proud of we have a you know hard-working staff at the middle school that really does an excellent job in terms of bringing that that concept to the forefront uh really you know advocating for kindness and and uh and really having our students work
078together and respect one another and that's really the genesis of the day uh they really uh it really a big part of it is a grassroots effort uh the the staff member responsible for that works with the other staff members to put together a whole host of activities on that day to to really help spread uh respect and kindness in our schools and really takes the time to relate to the curriculum the items that they'll be working on and really tailors lessons on that day to each curricular area so i certainly applaud their efforts once again number of questions in there that we'll uh we'll look to respond to uh ms stasi i know uh we've had conversation before via email i certainly understand your position where you stand regarding the mass issue and certainly
079uh thank you for your comments there uh we'll continue to uh to you know update you as we learn more i just had a real brief update uh you know for you tonight in terms of where uh where it looks like things are heading uh but i as i said i don't have anything official there yet um uh and uh mrs degen uh once again uh understand your comments regarding the the book i know you've had ongoing communication with our staff uh regarding that um stevie asked you a number of different comments there i believe you know just in terms of uh the vaccinations i really don't have comment there um but in terms of uh you know the mandates uh those those come from albany you know and in terms of you know what
080we'll continue to work with our local representatives um but those are the folks that you know have a direct line there uh you know and i know you know who those folks are i know you've reached out to them uh but certainly uh they're they're certainly uh receptive to those conversations i've had those conversations with them as well um mr rich i know you uh referenced the citizen advisory committee that's you know the board will call advisory committees on various topics at various times and you know for example we're we have an advisory bond committee that will be launching in january so we do that i understand that the request about around masking and vaccinations that you know that's really what you're looking for um and uh to to mr fuchs point you know there
081are diverse opinions around that you know and i certainly just want to respect and and and hear those diverse opinions um uh and we'll continue to to do that uh i respond to all these comments i know there was a running theme uh tonight that they haven't heard from the board i respond on the board's behalf to you know to comments made at meetings i'll reach out to folks afterwards and content will continue to do so and i know i've had many conversations with with many in this room tonight as well so then once again thank you for attending tonight we appreciate you taking the time with us and we wish everyone a happy thanksgiving once again you