Board of Education Meeting October 27, 2020

001this is a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education good evening everyone and welcome to the brighton central school district board of education business meeting for october 27 2020 and please take note that the board of education the brighton central school district in response to the continuing pandemic emergency circumstances caused by the kobit 19 pandemic and consistent with the new york state governor's executive orders we are conducting our scheduled public meeting this evening at 7 pm and held via zoom and the zoom webinar through our website in a moment we will offer the opportunity for public comment during our public participation section uh any members of the public who are listening in uh on the webinar are welcome and who desire to make a comment to the board either ask a

002question or make a statement or welcome to do so we ask that you go to the chat feature and sign in with your name and your address and we will call on you in a moment during that portion of the public participation meeting we also remind everyone that comments questions uh inquiries of any kind can be sent to the board at any point in time you can send them by email directly to me as board president or to the entire board or directly to dr mcgowan or to our district and board clerk kim lanes of fame if you prefer all email addresses as well as all of our phone numbers and our other contact information those are all listed on the website so members of the public are welcome to comment and participate in multiple

003ways not just at a board meeting so um again now first up we will this evening offer the opportunity for public participation dr mcgowan do we have anyone signed up to comment this evening we do not okay then we will move on then to the remainder of our agenda and our meeting uh board members please a motion for approval of the agenda for this evening some moved second moved by sue and seconded by larry all in favor and he opposed so we are seven in favor and none opposed motion please for approval of minutes from the october 13th 2020 board of education meeting some move second moved by andrea and seconded by karen does anyone have any corrections additions deletions to those minutes are hearing none then all in favor any opposed again that is

004motion is carried seven in favor and unopposed this being a business meeting we have our section of our reports this evening starting those off would be our principal reports and we begin with council rock and principal matt tappan hi dr mcgowan are you uh giving me permission to share or are you sharing my presentation you're muted oh sorry you are absolutely going to share hold on one second go right ahead mr tip great all right so good evening to everyone um it is hard to believe we are ending uh october in a few days um so this is our new council rock sign um that is out front um you can see the doors in the background um so thanks to eric gruner for snapping that photo today just things continue to kind of get

005finished up in the areas that are done and then a lot more work is still happening in the closed area so um so this month we have spent a lot of time not only getting to know our students um and who they are but also uh who they are as learners so um we did uh give the map test which is measures of academic progress to all of our first and second graders our hybrid students are wrapping that up right now and then our remote students will be starting that tomorrow it's been interesting this is an assessment that we've given it's all on the ipad students adjust to students as they answer questions it is in both reading and in math we do give the k2 version which reads a lot of things to them

006is very developmentally appropriate but as you can imagine giving it in the remote setting presents a whole bunch of challenges so we are thankful to jill millerman who works out of central office and has offered us support and i am always thankful to maureen jeffries our assistant principal who helps with this as well but it gives us really good information about where our students are what they know and then gives us what steps we need to take next to teach them and i think that's more important now than ever in terms of getting to know our students quickly and using that data so um this is a display that nicole yearlies and ashley youngman actually did on one of our temporary walls they prettied it up for me but based on the book the colors

007of us by karen katz this was an activity where students took and figured out the shades of their skin and really looked to celebrate diversity but also what is this uh what is unique about each of us but also what is the same about us and made this beautiful display several other second grade classrooms also did something with this book in terms of celebrating diversity as we've continued to try to bring diverse text to our students um as well as different perspectives so uh thanks to nicole and ashley for creating this beautiful display that their students actually created so uh we are in the middle of red ribbon week uh red ribbon week again is a little bit different this year it falls on halloween week which seems to just be stretched out this year

008because we only have students some of them on thursday and some of them on friday we will be celebrating halloween both days uh with costumes no parade but um costumes but red ribbon week celebrates healthy choices as well as kindness which is our focus so we wore red yesterday silly socks today and tomorrow um from the remote setting we will celebrate brighton believes in healthy choices wearing our brighton gear or our school colors um so students participated at school but they also participated from home sending in pictures and we will have lots of pictures to share uh that eric gruner is going to put together for us in a slideshow so halloween and fall themed work abound as i walk around the building uh just a lot of different really creative ways to use uh

009fall and different halloween kind of lots of monsters this year a lot of different monster use a couple really popular books but using it in writing responding to writing using it in math so just really great to see our halls filled again with student work and students so um i don't know if you know this but on wednesday so i start every morning on seesaw uh with a vis video morning announcements for anyone who is maybe not at school i'm doing the pledges and just uh introducing the day but on wednesday when everyone is at home i've continued with the i guess it's a tradition that started uh in march of my read-alouds um and i share read aloud with all the students uh this month we focused on kindness uh and um so every

010wednesday that's how kids get to start their days at home and i love it um i hope they continue to love it oh no i don't need to start it sorry um so uh this is where nature creations that were inspired again mrs yearlies it seems like she's making lots of appearances here but um there are other classrooms that did this as well inspired by a japanese artist who takes nature clippings and then creates these insects and these were um incredible designs that kids did i just saw them and mrs jeffries actually emailed me the pictures and they just they they're stunning to me they're so beautiful and i'm just trying to connect that out outside world back into the classroom um as much as we can so a huge thank you to the bef

011uh we did get a grant um as we entered late into the you know the recess season not knowing whether we're gonna be able to do recess and then coming up with so as you can see these mesh bags um what the grant provided was for every classroom it provides two mesh bags each with the same equipment there's a basketball a bouncing ball some jump ropes and a football and a frisbee for students to use and the reason we have two is that we have a bag for our monday and thursday cohort and then a bag for our tuesday and friday cohort after the students play with it on monday it quarantines and doesn't get played with until they come back on thursday and the two don't mix so it just is a creative way

012that we are looking to be able to have the kids have lots of materials and equipment to play with out outside again we are still without a full recess uh playground um and that will be coming in our final phase and be ready to open in september um but it is great to be able to get outside and it really has been an amazing fall and we're very thankful for it if it rained it rained mostly on a wednesday which was lucky for us um and we were able to get out almost all the days until it kind of turned a little bit colder and rainy this last week so a special thanks to the bef for providing us that grant so we have lots of new routines and as i walk around the kids

013are great with these new routines so greetings and goodbyes they've always been something that we did you know high fives and hugs or just a goodbye so they've come up with so many creative ways to do that air hugs the tiny wave um you can do a bow you can do an elbow and this is mrs bamberry and mrs linton's class who have created their own hands that was connected to the project um in the colors of us so they did the same kind of thing but they created these hands and then they use them in their morning circles to actually give the virtual high fives and they're using it to make sure that kids know each other's names and that they're connected in the community so um just another really creative way of getting

014around some of our regulations another new routine is we are very typically with our remote classes doing material pickups on wednesdays when it is quieter in the building because there are no other students um students uh families are coming through and our security is helping to um in a drive-by kind of way get the materials they need usually we've been doing it every other week for those classes and they're getting paper materials uh the art teacher has been providing any materials they may be needing for at home learning um but um you know i've gotten a couple comments that it's like a little present every time they get home and the students get really excited about what's going to come from their teacher so another routine that we didn't think we had we're going to

015have but we certainly do now upcoming events tomorrow uh council rock has its virtual town halls with dr mcgowan and myself 5 30 is for kindergarten and then at six o'clock kindergarten through second grade will join us um as i said thursday and friday we will be doing halloween celebrations in our classrooms and costumes are allowed teachers will have communicated other expectations then just a reminder that november 11th there is no school for veterans day and then we've moved our conferences and the first one um they've gone from the fridays to the wednesdays and our first one is november 18th and it's a first half day and we'll be communicating a little bit more about what that schedule will look like and teachers will be connecting with you to hopefully sign you up for a

016virtual conference so that we can let you know how things are going at school any questions thank you so much matt it looks great and i mean i don't think i think we all need more virtual hugs but the virtual hugs and the long hands for high fives are tremendous so thank you so much that actually gave me a moment though where i thought i can't wait to go back to council rock i get to go back to council rock yeah it's a super school um moving right along and we're going to hear from another great school and french roads report and principal allison rio hello everyone hope you're having a great night thanks matt for that great update i had many different things in my report but as um usual i felt like a

017lot of the things that you had in there we could have shared as well which i think is awesome so um just some updates from frez i put a quote in here because as i started putting this together it made me kind of think like all of these things that we prepared for and have been working so hard to organize for the opening day and the first months of school but now we're kind of just moving on we keep moving on our kids are moving on they're still learning and doing great things at school although it looks different and that was kind of my theme as i put this together this is a picture of our pe department here at french road and um crystal forth led this for our team but we've put together

018some equipment bags for our remote families which have been really great because they have what they need at home to participate in pe lessons and that was kind of a learned experience as we started off and i watched some of crystal's lessons where she did an awesome job of teaching some soccer skills with a stuffed animal or a balloon or a pillow or a soccer ball kind of whatever you had at home and then kind of came up with the idea like hey let's get things out to people if they need it so we have over 50 families that have signed up to rent these bags of equipment to take home with them and i'm really proud of our pe teachers for thinking about things a little bit different for our kids and we have

019our french road kids back in their art rooms so our art rooms were remodeled over the summer and they weren't quite ready at the start of the school year and being safe we had art in the classroom to start off the year but our teachers have done such a phenomenal job of organizing the art rooms to bring the kids back keeping them safe having different rotations of kids coming in with cleaning and the kids have loved being back in the art rooms it's nice to be able to get up and go to a different space during the day as needed and have their art supplies they bring them along with them all individual that they use but it's really great to see them in that space and the art teachers are doing a great job

020with that it's really just wonderful to see it in use now and something else i have to brag on for a bit is our instrumental music lessons our im team has been phenomenal starting with their work over the summer once they heard that we were going into this hybrid and remote model just right away started planning and thinking about how to make this work best for kids and even for our fourth graders who would be starting off with a instrument if they if they chose to this year they came up with some great ideas of including creating a video over the summer to show the kids what the instruments were and letting them you know decide what they wanted to do and organizing the groups and working around their schedules whether they are remote or

021hybrid and i've popped into many instrumental music lessons now and um it's been pretty awesome so it almost feels like they're sitting right there with me at french road except they're all muted but they're you know their ability to play little pieces for us and listen to their teachers and participate has been great and this is a group of kids who was on their home learning day um participating from home so um really awesome that they could do that and that's going really well so i had to brag on them a little bit and also our teachers are continuing on their work um you know just as i kind of mentioned the beginning we just keep going we keep riding along and teachers are working very hard to adapt what we already do and what

022we the units we have in place to keep that learning continuous and consistent for kids so our fourth grade team for example always works on their personal narrative in the fall and that is consistent across every classroom whether you're a hybrid student or a remote student and so much of their work has been transferred into seesaw as needed and videos have been shared for kids and i'm just so proud of the work that they've been doing because our kids are doing just what they were doing last year at this time and it's been great to see no if i'm in a remote class hybrid class it doesn't matter we are still working on that work together and then our fifth grade i talked a little bit about this but earlier in the year but we

023have two new units or revised units that the fifth grade teachers worked on over the summer and last school year as well and uh one of them is overcoming challenges and the other unit is why should human rights issues be part of our conversations as global citizens and these are some of the books that they've substituted into the work that they're doing at french road with our fifth graders and right now many of our kids are reading a book called well the whole grade level reads harbor me and then can break out into small groups as they talk about challenges and uh the books we've picked have bit have different themes some similar to ones in the past but all newer literature diverse literature different characters and connecting to things that kids are experiencing right

024now and feeling right now and it's been pretty great watching the kids go through these texts in their class and i can't wait to hear how it turns out and thanks to a bef grant for french road we have some vinyl quotes going up in all of our bathroom stalls around the school it's a slow process because i guess i never knew how hard it was to put up a vital quote on the wall that's really big and there's miss o'neill putting one up for us but we've been kind of slowly chipping away at this for our kids and the bathrooms are just another place where kids can feel read a positive note and kind of internalize that as they're at school it's been great to see them we have them in all of the

025bathrooms in the third grade working our way through the fourth grade and the fifth grade right now so in the next few weeks they'll all be up for kids so thank you for the grant from bef and tomorrow night at french road we are doing it bright in the night drive-thru lit up carved pumpkin night so i'm not exactly sure how many pumpkins we'll get but we know we hear lots of kids are bringing their pumpkins into french road and we'll light them up tomorrow night starting at 7 p.m and anyone can not just french road anyone who wants to can just take a little loop through the front road bus loop and enjoy some carp lit up pumpkins for fall spirit and we hope to get lots of kids to bring in pumpkins tomorrow

026some upcoming events we have our bright in the night as i talked about halloween celebrations for two days with our hybrid learners and much is going on throughout this week actually for remote learners as i've seen already and we have a virtual town hall at french road on thursday this week at 6 00 pm and no school for veterans day as mr chapman mentioned thanks wonderful thank you very much elsa we appreciate that good luck tomorrow night and uh i think tomorrow's supposed to be a relatively dry day so the pumpkin drive through should work out really well so thanks for sharing that out again we appreciate it then we'll move over to 12 corners middle school and principal jim nunez jim you're muted still well thank you for that mark and thank you for

027all of those uh updates there allison from french road there for me it was quite funny when i saw there uh mr lapaglia in his phys ed class threw me back to 1989 when he was my wrestling coach in high school and i saw him in that same jersey so i'm glad things haven't changed and it doesn't seem like he's aged much either so things at 12 corners have been fantastic so far we really have been um pleased with the way things have been going our students have been doing a nice job but their masking staff has been working very hard at um with their wonderful lessons and keeping everything going here as mr tappan had mentioned earlier we as well have come started our nwa maps testing as well last week we did our

028first round of it with our ela groups and they did a really nice job with it getting through with the technological components having all of our students with devices we made sure that we had all of that in place and you know after working some kinks out everything worked out really well which really helped us prepare for the coming um math assessments in them starting to thursday and friday our remote groups on the other hand had a little more flexibility in when they were going to administer those and um they've done a nice job doing that out of their individual classes throughout the course of the week so far the updates have been things have been going really well and dr maloy has done a nice job in putting together that schedule and working together

029with our remote teachers to ensure that those were moving along smoothly here we had a a nice authentic learning experience for our students and miss maria casetto's class where she had two separate occasions where we had an author sarah sullivan come in to speak to the writing process and what it takes to be an author and we had an opportunity to speak to the students and read one of her books that has been published titled uh rising um the music down and um so that really was a wonderful opportunity for our students there along with another opportunity where they had a paleontologist vincent sentucci come in and speak to them regarding um fossil fighting and the process of being a paleontologist and the work that goes into that so i know that our students had

030a really nice rich experience with that that they all um enjoyed next stop student of the month we're going to be kicking that off um at the close of this month starting with our first group being named for the month of october um so with this we are recognizing students by department every department is nominating five students and we set those nominations up by our bright and believe attributes for this month we'll be looking at students displaying attributes of respect and so we're getting all those names together and we'll be dumb presenting our students with those in the cafeteria in every grade level and then for those students who are remote and who have been nominated and been named the student of the month will be delivering those to their homes so they can um

031wait for those to be coming their way soon as i've been noted earlier um redwood week is uh kicked off at 12 corners as well today was silly sock day um so that was nice to see kids walking around with their silly socks and enjoying that along with uh their brighton believes gear day tomorrow um for that and then with that coming halloween um thursday and friday have their opportunities to dress up in their costumes and had to make some nice friendly reminders of what those should be appropriate and i'm looking forward to see what that unfolds like this week at twelve quarters for my first halloween there so that should be fun next up schools to watch we'll be working on a redesignation process so we'll be looking at finalizing that process in the

032next month or so to have that redesignation application in by december to have all that paperwork in mr thomas was nice enough to have most of that process completed for me coming into the job so we're looking to finalize it with some of the teacher components of it and having departments work on their parts to finalize that process and then we'll be submitting that infrared designation for this year and then closing out with some updates we have our town hall with myself and dr mcgowan on the 29th we will be having on the second our retakes of pictures of tcms for all students in k-12 um and also having our pt uh ptsa meeting with the principals and counselors on the 12th which will be nice we've set up an opportunity for our counselors to

033talk about um students managing stress and learning in the remote world um for our family so that'll be a nice opportunity for them to have that conversation with our counselors our marketing period will be closing on the 13th and beginning on the 16th when we started the second marking period and with the close of the month with our thanksgiving holiday thank you jim thanks again for the look inside and uh you know again looking at the one slide that you showed the two virtual learning experiences you know it just continues to be just such a bright spot on how all of our folks continue to find ways to say yes we can and make it work you know and so thank you for sharing that with us we appreciate that yeah thank you you're welcome

034next on to brighton high school and principal tom hall there we go good evening everybody hope you're doing well um we are all about math squaring like everybody else uh so again continuing to emphasize we're hoping that uh the due diligence that all of us are doing in our buildings with wearing masks social distancing washing and hand sanitizing and you can't advertise enough but that's something we'll review quite a bit and again i would say k-12 the kids are doing an awesome job with it uh we're excited that we've taken some feedback you know we've been in school now it'll be almost two months uh we are uh with uh dr mcgowan's permission we'll be starting um other clubs and activities um from 3 to 3 45 for some in-school activities on tuesday and thursdays

035we will also be getting going our other clubs will be starting remotely or virtually on november 2nd as well so the kids are very excited about that for many of our clubs to get going some of our competitive clubs have started in september but most have not we'll also be looking to do after school and before school help starting november 2nd so we'll be offering again some help for kids who want to meet with their teachers if they're available between 3 and 3 45 starting on november 2nd and we're also on november 2nd we'll be piloting doing one flex period we had a meeting with teachers today trying to iron out the safety protocols that would be involved in that we'll be opening up several more spaces but the part of doing a one flex

036is seeing if we can get students to meet with all of their teachers or have access to all of their teachers currently with our split flex um you know kids will only be able to access certain teachers because um they're they might have a flex um which we call flex a but their teachers are doing flex b so they don't match up um we did that to try to keep social distancing but we we feel you know we're gonna put some things in place and we're gonna pilot it for a couple weeks and see if that helps i think that will help relieve some stress of students and faculty with just finding time to meet with one another in this hybrid world something we've um been doing and we started this at one of the

037blueprint meetings way back in shadow lake we developed this statement for committed um if we commit to the idea that we are brightening we do not want to reflect the general advanced course demographics of most of the country which includes low ses a variety of ethnicity data in terms of percentage of students who are taking advanced courses and we want to have more heterogeneous groupings in our all of our advanced and accelerated classes we've been viewing our ap data and i think i've probably driven debbie baker and aaron mesa crazy over the last couple weeks trying to gather this because we wanted to check kind of see where we were with our ap data this year coming into the remote in hybrid worlds so this slide here just shows the percentage of students the number

038of students who are taking at least one ap in grades 9 through 12. not a whole lot different between last year and this year about 45 percent of our student body is taking an ap almost 50 percent at least taking one ap course this slide i have comparative data from going back for a very long time when you look at our grades nine through 12 um and you're looking at um the breakdown um with ethnicity 75 percent of our students taking aps are white uh three percent are black or african americans this year last year five percent um four percent hispanic 13 asian and then when you look at multi-racial six percent um and our total black hispanic multiracial students is 13 so it's very close to last year in terms of the percentage you

039can see several years ago we're only at 10 when you added all of those minority groups together however so again that's grades 9 through 12 so all of our students 9 through 12 and the percent taking at least one ap the one thing i was very pleased with this year and we've been doing a lot with you know our poverty uh looking at poverty looking at racial and ethnic disparities and um and with all of the pushes uh and and um interventions we put into place to encourage ap participation um you know the things counselors have done differently teachers in terms of course recommendations um tapping students to challenge themselves to take an ap we've been doing this now for at least five years you know it's been a district initiative been in the blueprint

040we have and i didn't think this number would really change much but this year we have of our graduating seniors if they finish the ap courses they're in 79 of them will graduate with at least one ap that's compared to 70 percent pretty much the last three years of our graduating class so it's almost 10 percentage points higher from last year to this fall which i was pretty surprised at and pleased when you look at our graduating seniors with one or more ep courses who are low ses 95 of our low ses students will graduate with at least one or more ap courses i would dare say that's probably higher than many other uh communities when it comes to the lowest scs population our african-american students this year we have 18 out of 24 african-american

041students in the senior class or 75 percent will graduate with at least one ap that's compared to 22 going back to 1718 and similar to our summer failure data this is not happening by chance alone this is you know due to interventions and things that we have put in place at the high school and getting students prepared to leave us and you know go on to college and hopefully be more successful but at least have that college experience with the courses we've implemented and the opportunities we've given for teachers to work with students in classes to have a better opportunity for teaching all students i was afraid that with the hybrid year it's definitely going to be more difficult for all of our students because they're not having all the same face-to-face time but right

042now we're on a pretty good trip trajectory um highest number of um our asian students 100 percent of our eden students will graduate with one or more ap and 58 of our hispanic students which is down a little bit from last year but still up compared to three years ago so we had homecoming um a modified virtual homecoming that we did have student participation in but we did have senior nights last friday and we're going to have some more coming up in two weeks on november 7th for our cross country and swim teams but we had senior nights all the teams and their families came together on the turf nate merritt did a really nice job with his coaches and putting together the soccer teams girls and boys the tennis team and our field hockey

043teams and they all came together to take um pictures with one another their families were able to be there it was a really nice night a lot of positive feedback and just want to you know give kudos to dr mcgowan and nate merritt for helping to organize that and getting that idea going it was a really nice night kids are excited the snack line is now open it was not open at the start of the year if you're around in the building if you're in the building when you're an employee or board member or student you can stop on by great stuff we also we did have the virtual homecoming i would probably stella would agree not as much participation nearly as much as we would have if we had a regular homecoming um we

044had class theme days were um award spirit wear there was a virtual concert there were virtual competitions that stella will talk a little more about online apparently somebody was impersonating me on a zoom it was not me and i will not suspend you or kick you out of school if you answered a question wrong so but apparently i was saying that to people there are t-shirt orders being done for our classes all the kids they put together designs so that's exciting red ribbon week is happening at the high school too we've worn red the last two days we're looking to wear brighton gear and team spirit wear on thursday and friday we have a we had a town hall meeting tomorrow night 7 15 with dr mcgowan and our marking period just like the middle

045school ends on the 13th and we're ready to start the second marking period already unbelievable and that's it thanks tom you're right that does sound weird the second marking period starting but uh you know i i think first of all congratulations i mean the ap data on seniors with ap and the numbers and the representation i mean we've been working on this for a long time this has taken a lot of effort and continues to take a lot of effort by everyone to make that work we made the commitment to it and everybody has followed through and made it work so congratulations it's great to see that um also you know making i said earlier first of all i think we should add principal reports not that i need to give you something more to

046do but we should probably have these at least twice a month because seeing inside the building seeing our kids seeing teachers and kids we all need more of that right we all need to follow our kids but being able to make homecoming senior night work in some fashion is just tremendous to see that and you can't help but smile and i have to think that down the road parents and grandparents showing kids and grandkids photos from their senior night all masked up is going to make for some really interesting conversation and dialogue but it's hard to see that right now of course but anyway thank you to all four of you and the look inside the buildings and we'll hear from stella a little bit but hearing and seeing our students and teachers has never

047been more important than it is right now so thank you all we appreciate that uh moving on to the remainder of our reports which are not generally as exciting but we are items of business that we were going to handle um we have uh our reports our financial reports start off the reports section we have and posted online the treasurer's report uh from lou and dahlia for the period ending august 31st 2020 may we have a motion to accept and receive that treasures report please so moved second by karen and seconded by sue i think does anyone have any questions or of lou or comment and again all this material for those watching is posted on the agenda link under the board of education tab on our webpage uh all in favor aye any opposed

048thank you that seven in favor and unopposed uh next up this evening we have uh we're we're going to talk about this in a couple of ways but uh the annual independent financial statements and management letter from our auditors um the uh we have a there's an agenda item 5b that we're on right now there's also an agenda item nine uh approval of the audited financial statements so i'm going to ask the group for a motion in a moment to combine that together because it's the same package of data so first of all can we have a motion please for the acceptance and approval of those statements and the audit please so moved second by larry and seconded by andrea and for those we have this all this information posted uh audit committee will have

049a report out in a little bit on audit committee we review this information at our last audit committee meeting this is provided to the district by uh tom zuber as our cpa with ray wager cpas which is division of mango metzger bar and company and it is a package of their audit of our financial statements the executive summary and the communication of the internal control related matters and i will tell you that it's a long full package but our folks are doing an excellent job and our accounts are pleased and we appreciate everybody's work in a diligent way from a financial standpoint does anyone have any further questions or comments anybody have a question of lou specifically that we want to talk about all right then hearing none on that all in favor please of

050that acceptance and the approval right any opposed that would be seven in favor and none opposed thank you everyone and next up back to the very positive side our student representative report and stella is here on my screen so we're gonna hear or she was on my screen she's still on my screen okay there you go got it hi um first i wanted to talk about homecoming which was last week um we had our virtual events that we worked really hard to plan and i think they went about as well as we could have expected personally um our quiplash game which is kind of like a game where you try to make jokes and then you vote on whoever has the best joke it was actually really fun we had about we had like 52

051participants at the most which was a lot more than we actually expected and yes we did have someone impersonating dr hall but i don't think anyone believed that because he was filling some words wrong um we also had a scavenger hunt over the weekend where we kind of sent out some clues for students to look for and take pictures of um and we had some participation with that obviously would have liked to have more but i think the students who did participate found it really fun and um we got some good pictures to look at um for spirit days they were definitely less successful than they have been in the past years um which is understandable because of the hybrid schedule and it's i don't know everything was kind of weird and messy this year

052but i think we still pulled it off well um i think maybe it would have gone better if there was a football game um but i know we can't do a football uh homecoming game so um there was talk about possibly doing a homecoming game during the fall two football season so that's definitely something we're gonna want to talk about um as far as clubs the ones that have been meeting virtually um have been really successful and participation has been pretty good so i'm super excited to see when we start having club meetings in person um how participation is going to be and um i think it's gonna i think it's gonna be great um as far as safety i think we're doing a really good job adapting to the new normal um i think

053even with the colder weather and not being able to go outside as much we're still able to social distance i think we've really gotten used to it um and always wearing masks except for when we're eating and even then students are being really really careful um and then we had a question about lockers since the weather has been getting colder but um dr hall thankfully is letting us use our lockers if we need to to store codes so that's really exciting and awesome um for sports the senior night celebration was really powerful because i think seniors got to feel super honored even though this is definitely not a normal season so i was really excited about that and um as far as playing playing sports while wearing masks i was talking to a lot of

054athletes and they said that it really wasn't as big of an issue as they thought it was going to be and uh it's been going pretty well overall um so i think we're all just really grateful for our uh flexibility of the teachers and we're super excited for what's to come in the next couple months wonderful thank you very much stella we appreciate that report out and uh again a continuation of our principal reports and students making it work along with our our staff and teachers so thank you very much for joining us tonight and bringing that look back to us uh next up we have our board of education reports including first off our monroe county school boards association standing committees and i will tell you that given the unusual nature of this year

055as we've gotten started the committee work has been a little scattered if you will most of these have been held in in person and uh attendance seems to be pretty good but there are also uh conflicts that have arisen due to the fact that these are being held on wednesdays right now so it's it's made it a little bit more difficult but the labor relations group um i'm not sure if anybody has a report out for us i can tell you that on september 23rd they discussed emergency response drills and on the 21st of october they discussed coven issues related to unemployment insurance and unemployment benefits which is a huge issue for all districts right now on top of everything else was anybody able to attend that one i don't think we were able to

056get to that one and the next labor relations meeting is on the 18th i don't know if we have a topic for that yet yeah it's labor issues during catastrophic times well then there you go timely another timely uh blue you better get to that i'm just uh we're covered too all right thank you andrea i appreciate it i missed that one uh information exchange uh information exchange again since our last report out there's been two meetings on september 23rd was a virtual learning presentation including our own debbie baker with a panel i believe that we have three other experts in this field and it was an update on virtual learning and i did not attend that one but i understand it was very well received and went very well dr baker would you agree

057from your standpoint no i presented along with my colleagues from west irondequoit and from hilton and the general theme as you said mark was you know what have school districts to done to respond to the virtual learning environment we each had a similar story but yet um you know some different examples for what we had done and and that like you said um it was very well attended and um you know i felt like there were some good questions at the end which always is kind of an indicator that people were engaged and interested in the topic right and i heard so they got they had the school uh the boards of school board association got really good feedback from that presentation debbie i do know that and then also the latest uh they did

058meet on the 14th that was again topical and i think the group has done a great job of trying to revise topics over the summer very specific to the issues that we're all dealing with right on the 14th it was about mental health issues and supports regarding reopening school and the way that we've all had to do it and i did not attend that one i don't know if we had anybody at that one but again it was pretty well attended and um good feedback and i will remind our board members that the labor relations meetings and the information exchange meetings are being taped and are available shortly thereafter within a few days on the school on the school board's website under the members only section so if you need some assistance on that just

059send a note to becky i think there's a credential everyone is maybe not unique but anyway we'll we'll figure that out so so uh that's information exchange there is a meeting uh november 18th this should be pretty fascinating it's two tech uh tech individuals from rcsd on the digital divide that they're going to present on on the 18th of november uh legislative committee met on the 7th of october and it was a legislative update from sherry as always mostly talking about election and candidates things like that sherry does a great job of reaching out to all candidates offers every candidate running for every area assembly and senate seat house of representative seat she offers them the opportunity for a legislative briefing and most take advantage of that so she does do that we had a

060discussion about the resolutions for the nisba convention which is ongoing right now the business meeting on saturday coming up we finalized legislative priorities we got a report we are legislative committee and then subcommittees of the membership are updating a number of the position papers of the association and that's in progress right now uh three have been completed and i think two more in process and then the other remainder of that meeting was spent on topics and questions for our two local regents because our meeting upcoming on the 4th of november the entire meeting will be the legislative committee meeting with uh regent brown and regent uh norwood um we have not had them at a legislative meeting in quite a while so uh that that will be interesting and we look forward to that so

061that is update on those three different committees does anyone else have anything to add on that i know we we've been struggling to try to meet and or cover all those meetings and have been to try to do some things virtually but anyway um our i also our boces report all of you will recall recall fondly that dr marv sacks would give the boces report based on what sora sax our board member representation to the boces board would give him in notes sora is now continuing that tradition by sending the report directly to me so we'll make sure it's in the minutes but a couple of quick highlights uh monroe one boces got their internal external and payroll audits back that all looked very good uh similar to all of us their instruction has changed

062greatly um they have combinations of uh you know hybrid and most programs are meeting in a hybrid method and uh they're they've added some additional emotional and social supports to the students that they're dealing with um you know the [Music] emcc students the career component of that school are meeting remotely they may need some additional time to fulfill their lab and hands-on requirements as you would imagine you know given the career training that they are taking um the other note that she gives me is that the capital project you recall two years ago we approved our contribution to that capital project is on schedule and several programs in the career in technology education will be moving on to different rooms or buildings with newer equipment and updated facilities and so like our construction project one

063of the things with pandemic situation has allowed them to move forward on uh construction the other thing i will mention we had talked about this year would be a year we would visit boces that's not going to happen anytime soon obviously i i guess it's possible we could get it in late in the year but i'm thinking that we won't be visiting boces until the next school year but is kevin's shaking his head at me on the screen so anyway that's uh update from boces at the moment on that then other board member reports and before we get to individual board member reports i mentioned earlier that the audit committee met for the first time during the school year and uh karen or larry would either one of you like to report out on that

064meeting sure we were able to get a a clear view of where we stand with our audit report and talk about the fact our auditor was was clear with us that our strategic reserve planning actually puts us in a a good place to help weather this storm um where we're looking at changing revenues and issues with receiving our aid from the state in a timely fashion that that our reserves will help keep us in as good a spot as we can expect while still potentially facing challenges ahead we talked about things like expecting an increase in the coming years and the rate paid to the teachers and employees retirement system and how our reserve planning again really does make a difference when when those spikes come and that any any kind of savings we recoup

065during shutdowns will go towards changes in um ppe and cleaning and one-to-one programs um and that that's positive for long-term that's positive in a long-term financial planning kind of lens that that you know savings savings are aren't necessarily a windfall but then will be used to make these expenditures in unexpected areas so all in all a decent place to be all things considering yeah i did i did just quickly mark uh credit to dahlia and lou because the other thing we always look at is the day-to-day stuff and during this with people in and out of the buildings all the time they continue to do a great job not only watching the big dollars but the small dollars so that day-to-day sort of tactical stuff we continue to be really tight on which is comforting

066as well yeah that's a great point larry and just for those of you just an update the audit committee is a subcommittee of the board that's uh consists of uh karen and and larry and i and and and as part of that committee it's uh lou and dahlia watts our treasurer and also our internal claims out here michelle norton we review her reports and then normally one of our cpas either from our external or internal audit firms are there with us and this tom zuber from ray wager uh was there and we reviewed all those documents at that at that item at that meeting also so again thank you and we'll continue to report out on that to the board after those audit committee meetings um other board member reports so this is an opportunity

067that the board takes to quickly go around and update the community and the staff here this evening and any individual activities or initiatives or whatever that individual board members would like to uh to bring up so i guess i'm seeing julene's hand so i'll start with julene i attended the first wellness committee of the year last week and our focus this year is going to be trying to find ways to support students family and staff during this unusual time mr tappin was there as well i don't think anybody else on the screen was there last week but we're planning on creating um a wellness suite which will be online coming rooms activities that can be used by individuals at their at their leisure at their discretion that um might just bring some balance and some

068some needed calming to their their lives during the stressful time our next meeting is november 12th and some folks are already doing some research on that and we'll have more to report a month from now all right thank you we appreciate that larry you had something yeah just real quick on the construction side mark you may be aware there's work going on in all four buildings i had heard that yes um but uh and the principals always do a great job of touching on that and again as always it's a combination rather of modernization but also infrastructure stuff what we refer to as the stuff behind the walls that you can't see so really quickly and this is exciting in the high school the seats were delivered to the auditorium so that's getting closer to

069finish that's really great news on a different front the science classrooms are about 95 complete punch lists are being worked so you're going to see real progress there uh tcms the art rooms and the library there's continuing to be progress there um in fres and i think allison touched on this but i don't remember we were utilizing some swing spaces which is a term for you move uh some students and learning into another space so that you can work on the space they were in so we're moving people around a little bit on that and it seems cruel to say this now to principal tapping but the air conditioning is working in council rock and that was something we didn't have before so come may or june will be ready for everything and there is

070utilization within the new south wing so a long ways to go there yet and there's still work to do in all the schools but really great progress i'll continue to say that that our our buildings folks who are working with these contractors are just doing heroic work in terms of finding problems often times before they get real big and big credit to lou because these large projects always have unknown expenses and lou's been doing an outstanding job we obviously heard a little bit about this mark and karen and i get audit but just a ton of work you've got four buildings and a lot of work going on there's safety issues to be on top of and there's expense issues so i'm i'm continually impressed with the work that's being done but you're beginning to

071see a lot of visible progress um and you won't see all the stuff behind the walls but there's a lot of good work during uh being done there as well fantastic thanks larry andrea did you have something so um i we had our first curriculum council meeting october 1st uh where we reviewed what what we've done up to uh today and then what we will be doing the coming year based on blueprint uh we discussed ready for rigor framework and its relationship to the culturally responsive practices we explore definitions for terms of race racism and bias so we could create a common language and then we defined a course of action for the coming year our next meeting is november 12th we've got a group from nyu and debbie you probably know that they have

072a specific name but they're coming in um they're from the i think the office of global inclusion and faculty mentoring maybe no it's enough it's the nyu metro center for equity and transformation in education okay and they'll be coming in to our meeting on the 12th and then uh this week we'll be having our first uh diversity and equity meeting um i think on thursday thursday the dei committee and then the three subcommittees will break off at the beginning of that yes thank you brandon all right thanks andrea anything else i have um a little report too yep so as the new board member um you know i'm sure you all remember current board members um that you have to attend your mandatory new york state financial training so a little six hours saturday spent

073a couple weeks ago i learned more about accounting than i ever thought i would um but it was time well spent i'm still chugging through this thing um what else have i done another uh what's what somewhere you can join the audit committee when you memorize that goal exactly right um i also um have the privilege to attend um the ptsa meeting of the diversity equity and inclusion meeting um as part of the ptsa um and at this meeting they welcomed a new co-chair dr tamika wagstaff who's joining from rit um she's a doctor at rit and um again this is the ptsa part of the diversity equity um and inclusion group and they're really focusing on leadership support encouragement um and district initiatives for all families so sort of from the parent teacher association

074side um and then tomorrow night i have my first meeting with the teacher center policy board as the board representative to that so that is new for me as well um dr saks used to do that and i'll take over tomorrow night fantastic thank you very much sue christina did you have anything you wanted to bring up tonight no i'm good okay karen anything further tonight you did audit but uh diversity equity inclusion committee meets for the first time on thursday so i'm looking forward to that and you can expect peggy to join me so oh good toddlers and pets we enjoy on zoom meetings i've got both sometimes they're in my lap at the same time okay thanks a couple of things i just wanted to bring up one of the things that we've

075all discovered is uh you can actually attend a lot more things that are virtual than when you have to leave your house because you have no excuse anyway so uh i've been able to join in a lot of different things going on lately i just want to highlight a couple of things kevin will bring it up i'm sure but the um united way 21 day racial equity challenge we have signed up as a district i think most monroe county school districts have signed up as districts kevin if i'm not mistaken but i will tell you that if for those of you that haven't checked in yet it started on friday as day one it's a tremendous amount of material each day it's way more than one day's worth of material to check in review and

076take a look at i think it's great material it's interesting because so much of it we've been through the basic stages of but there's a lot of resources there that will help i think all the different work that we've done also i was part of the rochester urban league ran a two-day seminar last week virtually on interrupt racism and i signed up and always took part in that and that was fantastic it was mostly academic business and not-for-profit folks who were involved in it but again what i what struck me and i have a lot of source material from that a lot of new folks presenting and having conversations that i had not seen before and had not listened to before so again more voices more points of view more outlooks sharing more information it

077was just a great thing um and the other thing i did want to mention to the group i haven't mentioned this much with the group but i am also a member of the town of brighton's idea board that's the inclusion diversity and equity advisory board that group is a group of 16 brighton residents we've been meeting now for almost two years our work is to create and deliver a diversity plan to the town of brighton and there is a web part of the town of brighton website lists this material but we've held three virtual world cafes that residents have attended and we're getting closer and closer to a point of putting together some preliminary draft plans and then putting that online and out for community involvement and input and i'll remind the group of that

078later too when that's available and uh if you like you can weigh in and take a look at that so so anyway that's some of what i've been doing the last couple of weeks or a month or so anyway all right moving along then we will turn it over to our brighton teachers association and the report from nicole hi everybody how are you welcome thanks so i normally don't read word for word from the report but i do want to read this particular part which is a thank you from the bta um so we've been working really hard 350 plus teachers to provide the best experience for our students and families and we would like to thank the families for their patience and for working as partners we would like to thank the um the

079other staff that we have but we'd really like to thank our school nurses who have just worked so hard so diligently compassionately to support the students the families and the staff and we're really proud of them so a special shout out to the nurses um i'll do quicker pieces on the others we did participate the bta participated in the adopt a highway program we collected eight bags of trash and many car parts um we'd like to thank the brighton merchants who keep so many of their properties clean um but the bta really enjoys being a part of this every year we also as the bta participated in the making strides through having a team it was making strides against breast cancer it was very different we there was not the big block as there usually

080is but we did still raise some funds to donate um council rock so if you looked at your report the one picture from council rock with all of the timers so the remote teachers have found that if they give kids timers that that helps them know how long to read or how long to work on writing because some of them might write a couple of words say i'm done um so they've really been working on independence and stamina with the uh timer so that was a great photograph that it was in the report so lacy leaping out uh put that piece in ashley youngman contributed that one of the things we're really trying to do is be very thoughtful about how we speak to the class about their cohorts um and to really use language

081that unites us so some of the action pieces that we've done are we asked this is young man and i work together but we have sent all about questionnaires home and then these students have been writing back to other friends in their cohorts so each month we switch pen pals and that's a way to build community um one of the things we did was the the hearts um but what's really great kind of the the result you see in our seas in our um zooms on wednesdays the students are now greeting their cohort partners they we're one big class and that's just the best feeling ever it's really noticeable to see them connect with each other even though they haven't actually seen each other in person robin ackerman contributed that as a remote teacher this

082year she's really trying to do what each child needs so she was able to get osmo kits from the brighton education fund and and deliver them to learners who were very interested in mathematics um but she really is trying to personalize that home school connection so there was a little picture of that smokehead um hopefully you were able to click on the link for the council rock outdoor observer so this is what the extended studies is putting together um to share what they are how they are connecting their habits of mind to observations that they are making in the world um so that's a really great thing that andrea young submitted and then i hopefully got to see the movie of the kids dancing if you clicked on the zoom link um so the zoom

083link was the music department has just been incredible everything is on a cart and they come into the classroom and they have the kids up dancing and singing and things that they would normally be doing interactively they they're doing still with some distance between them but it was it's really great to kind of be the fly on the wall in the classroom and just see what an amazing job our special teachers are doing uh at fraz lanny masarowski shared about how she is keeping her community circles going so she actually has a representation of her circles so that the kids know who they're going to greet next and it's just like a circle i know that you all came and visited classrooms it runs just like a circle in the classroom where they know exactly

084who they're going to go to um and again that that idea of classroom community is something we're really trying to work on and keep going mrs harp's technology classes fourth and fifth grade classes are learning about cubes and properties so they made mobiles out of wire clothes hangers and to talk about how to do wants and needs and they're going to construct tiny houses out of shoe boxes tape and recyclables and then they're going to electrify their tiny houses using play-doh leds and batteries i can't wait to see that that sounds pretty amazing um at tcms similar to what uh allison shared with the frozen teachers tcms uh visited teachers are trying to get their classes exercising at home they're using gallon water jugs laundry baskets for weighted bars cans of food grocery bags towels

085on a door as a pull-up barn so they're they're being very inventive with what they have and those are workouts programmed by the pe staff um maria coutose's sixth grade class had the author visit which um mr nunes shared and talked about being an author and then there was a shout out for laura sarshay who's the remote special ed teacher and what a phenomenal job she is doing with her students she's working on incorporating mindfulness and math lessons and trying to make sure that she is bridging the gap between home and school and being virtual bhs really the counseling department submitted something to give a huge shout out for the seniors this year and how they are adapting to the difficulties that they are facing canceled college visits canceled exams changes in how they go

086to visit or learn about where they might like to go to school and they really wanted to give a shout out to the positive attitudes that they are seeing um and how they're being role models for the underclassmen and they are crushing it is the quote that i have they're crushing it um so way to go class of 20th spell was like yes and then the last thing was a submission by um uh sorry i lost it for algebra 2 honors by andrea doyle and they are coming to you they're doing all of their work on their zoom and electronically and working in groups so again a lot of community work even though there's a lot of virtual pieces to it we're making the best of it so thank you always thank you to the

087board for all your support um it's great seeing this thank you nicole it's a it's a great report it's a great companion to our principal reports and thanks for including you know the links and the photos and things that you're all that you were able to put in there again like i said earlier being able to see teachers and kids together it's just such a great thing and the ingenuity that continues to you know be a part of every single day so thank you so much and again making it work is as best i would i guess categorize it as so thank you our ptsa report in eleanor welcome thanks mark um hi everybody i have a pretty quick report the ptsa is still plugging along um they had their first speaker uh last this

088month uh who was um pam spalachi who spoke about sort of learning and she is a social worker and about kind of how to get through this as a family and kind of to look at all of the positives and be grateful for what we have and it was a great talk next month we have calvin eaton who will be joining us and pairing up with our dei committee um that sue mentioned earlier and met last week and they had a really great conversation and we welcomed tanika wagstaff as the co-chair to join crystal in all the great work that she's been starting as that new committee under ptsa and i know they're working closely with kevin and with the board and everyone for all of the diversity equity and inclusion work that needs to

089be done across the united states and the world probably also just to mention picture retakes as all the principles mentioned earlier in their reports are happening starting thursday and friday this week at the high school and then moving through all the schools over the next couple of weeks we did remind parents if the parents are looking to see what the pictures are and they still haven't received theirs they can log into school tools and all the kids new pictures are front and center on their profiles that everyone can kind of see what they are to see whether or not they want to have retakes be done i also was asked to mention that brighton count ptsa calendars are still for sale they are for sale at rs market as well as if you order them

090online one of our lovely members will deliver it right to your house for you and so it will appear on your porch if you still would like to order one they are available i think that that's about it in terms of the reports uh as um again this went out over email but festival ideas of sadly has been canceled this year which we know is a very popular event and that made a lot of um coming into the decision it's the right decision to make but it was definitely a challenging one um please look for there are ways that we're looking to try and keep the spirit alive of the festival of ideas and kind of move forward with that so there will be more details coming up thank you very much eleanor and you're

091right i mean the festival ideas i mean i don't think none of us were surprised right when the note went out and i think the ability to try to make a a cancelled coveted t-shirt to keep the t-shirt string growing is a great thing and you know this has nothing to do with us but again another experience today of getting an email from tuba christmas being karen i'll laugh with karen but tuba christmas sending a note out today for all of you those of you on the wait list and on the ticket list sorry not until next year from now but keep keep playing the horns and keep working on the uh those holiday tunes but anyway dr mcgowan super tennis report i can't imagine that a year ago if you told me tuba christmas

092and covet cancellation her covert casualty would be mentioned in a meeting i would have no idea what you're talking about on either account but right yeah even none of us right none of us could ever have figured this out you know pretty remarkable this was even possible right and not remarkable in a great way of course and and uh i joined the counseling department and talking about the seniors and crushing it and i know we said this a lot last spring with the class of 20 but again the class of 21 is experiencing this as well and with a different challenge missing you know the fall of their senior year in a different way especially the impact that that has as they leverage that period of time towards next year and and i would feel

093awfully badly for them regarding that and and all of our students who aren't able to participate in the same activities as they normally would and as dr hall mentioned i'm really glad that those are going to start on monday the other clubs and activities some limited athletics happening and we keep thinking about ways we can strategically reopen safely which leads me to the first item that i wanted to mention a thank you to our community all of our staff members our parents our kids for taking this as seriously as they have been we have had very limited very limited issues relative to quarantine and illness the dashboard numbers are public numbers the community knows that we had a a single positive case not related to school and although there was a limited quarantine based on

094some exposure because we have the only time we have kids without masks is during lunch um that has not been an issue in terms of infection spreading either so precautionary quarantine based on health department guidance and that's worked out well so i say all of that to tell people that that could change at a moment's notice we know that we know that this is an insidious infection and a virus that does not discriminate and it could could tomorrow be different and we could be talking about different strategies relative to kids education immediately and there's not a moment that that goes by that we think that we've passed that i just want to say thank you though to people and encourage them to keep doing what you're doing because it is working keeping vigilant and as

095we approach the holiday season the small intimate family gatherings are concerned that has been brought up by the cdc and by many health experts please think about that it's not our place to talk to you about what happens in your homes and that's obviously a personal and family decision we would just continue to reinforce the messages though sent by public health experts i say the real doctors who are asking people to contemplate those choices carefully i'd also say keep masking keep distancing get your flu shot all the things that we know are important right now to keep people healthy it is working it is not easy and kids are doing an incredible job at school if anybody doubted that for a second they've been proven wrong by children and how they've approached this by staff

096members how they've approached it and by parents who've been really thoughtful about this so thank you thank you thank you we appreciate that also thank you to our staff members for the work they're doing to provide a really wonderful program for kids given the limitations we have in place and the the difference in terms of online virtual opportunities for kids this notion of hybrid learning again talk about things that a year ago we wouldn't have been talking about or known or weren't part of our vocabulary you know for systems that have looked very similar for going on 100 years in so many ways we are in a whole different space now than we were a few months ago and that's because of the effort of our staff the commitment of our staff the talent of

097our staff and i i know it's overwhelming and difficult and a challenge each and every day and would like just our community to know how much we appreciate what's happening from our staff and as the people who are charged with observing and evaluating that i can tell you they're doing it they're doing it very well and they're putting a tremendous effort into it and we want to make sure the community understands that as well that being said we're also looking forward to hearing more from our community at the virtual town halls and through the exchanges that are out right now so as was mentioned by the principles those will happen tomorrow night and on thursday the exchanges continue to be open we really appreciate the feedback it is very helpful for us and there is

098a tremendous amount of positive feedback so this isn't a phishing expedition for just compliments we want the constructive feedback too we also always hope people are patient and thoughtful as they enter that feedback and constructive in the feedback but overwhelmingly in those exchanges right now we're hearing a lot of really good things and good suggestions and so we appreciate that and would like more of that and we'll dig into that conversation with you tomorrow night and look and look forward to an open conversation back and forth so we can learn from that as well as this continues to progress and we continue to learn and grow so thank you for that we're really narrowing our focus this year it's been mentioned many times by several participants this evening around anti-racism anti-bias training professional development curriculum

099and the work in the diverse equity inclusion area and so that first meeting as karen mentioned is happening this week and that training that's been happening has been so important to us including working with the experts from nyu i'd also like to say thanks to the board publicly for engaging in a book study with debbie lou and i around unconscious bias a book that the leadership team is reading and working on as well i think that's such a productive experience for all of us and helps to add to our discussions your group that i know we mentioned this during the school board appreciation recognition at the last meeting but i need to say again our group of continuous learners that are an example for all of us and understand your role as policy makers can

100be informed by unconscious bias and understanding that in yourselves exploring that understanding that about the organization is a big part of this work from a leadership perspective so thank you for that and finally on the 17th november 17th we have our forum that's coming up the uh community forum at seven o'clock the board meeting the regular meeting at five o'clock will include blueprint updates a safety plan hearing which is an annual um requirement for us to host um and also the financial outlook going into next year that's at the five o'clock meeting the seven o'clock meeting will really just be an open forum for the community we've done these all different ways over the years in terms of it being wide open or a topic based event i would expect that i'll give some update

101on where we're at relative to virtual learning and people's experiences in the hybrid versus the remote based on the feedback from the next few town halls as i said on wednesday and thursday so that will probably help us get part of that conversation started off uh but other than that it'll be a really wide open experience and yes as mark mentioned we're participating as an organization in the 21 day challenge again part of that notion of anti-racism anti-bias building our own capacity in the diversity equity inclusion area and looking forward to continue to take on that as the primary focus of our work this year outside of that primary notion of delivering a quality program in the midst of a pandemic so thanks to everybody and the opportunity to report out on those mark that

102was muted there thank you we appreciate the update and thank you for the reminder to folks that over the next two days your town halls with the building principles to be able to gather and listen to parents in each individual building i think that's a great idea and we look forward to being a part of that also so thank you uh next up item agenda item number seven uh we have approval uh we seek approval tonight for the first read on three new policies and i'll remind the group that uh when we last dealt with two first reads uh two meetings ago three meetings ago now i think we talked about the need to do some policy update work early in the school year to make sure that we are aligned and have covered all

103of the situations and circumstances that we find ourselves in right now and to try to sort of uh accommodate what may occur as we move forward through the school year and that's what these three first-rate policies are all about uh we're going to talk about it briefly but i i think the best thing to do these are first reads so if approved tonight they come back for a second read they stay open for comment from the public internal comment from any of our folks so i i'm comfortable asking for a motion to approve first read on all three policies and then we'll have some discussion if everyone is okay with that uh so i seek a motion for approval first read and those three policies that are listed there abc so moved i can't move

104by karen seconded by christina and you'll notice that uh the first one policy 3520 it's under community relations extraordinary circumstances and again these all three are posted uh it's a situation that ties our policy work and our actions through any emergency situation so this is designed for coverage of whatever we have to deal with and it align it allows us to align things as we need and as things shift the second one is a policy 6570 under personnel it has to do with remote working and again you'll see when you look through when you previously looked through that and read it carefully uh that it aligns to where we are and and the other agreements that we have in place with everybody for remote working and again it ties to continuing possibility of emergency circumstances

105or other extraordinary circumstances and along with the third policy which is 7150 under students with remote learning and again the use of remote learning in the district and again same criteria that i mentioned earlier so does anyone have any question or comment uh on any of those three policies the way that they are written currently any board members i mean at this point then if if no further questions uh i'll call the question and again remind folks that it will stay open come back to us at a later meeting for second read and is open for comment from public or internal individuals between now and then also so all in favor any opposed so we are seven in favor and none opposed first read of those three individual policies next please a motion to approve

106a resolution to adopt lgs-1 records retention schedule some move effectively i can't move by andrea and seconded by think by larry first on that and this uh again you have this in your in your one note um new york state has adopted an updated retention and disposition schedule for all new york local government records so this is a housekeeping issue we have to update and with it all boards are required to approve this as their operating procedure going forward so really not much to discuss on it it's a technical thing and between lou and kim and everybody else involved in records retention they're taking care of it so does anyone have any question on it all the time um hold on mark just one second where are they stored do we just store them um

107the actual records right at district office they're in lou's basement no i'm sure yes right right district office yeah perfect thank you they are stored in the and and one of the things that we have done i'm glad you brought that up when kim came on board as board clerk district clerk one of the things that she undertook was an effort that kind of was ongoing but really to call out an archives if you will of boxes of material it has got things to a point where i believe everything paper is binded up i think virtually almost everything correct me lou or kevin but i think we've scanned in most things that we need to have scanned in so that that effort has been over and ongoing over a number of years and so we're

108in good shape i believe on this situation um i don't know if either of you have anything further on that doesn't mean not all records are in in my office some are at the buildings on that but anything that's permanent records archives is housed at central office or digitized and permanently backed up and as kim had said to us i think in an earlier memo we were complying with this new record standard anyway but we needed to formally adopt it and make sure it's part of our record going forward so any other questions that all in favor any opposed thank you that's seven in favor and none opposed agenda item number nine we approve that as part of the same approval that we did on ninja agenda item five and b that has to do

109with the audited financial statements uh item agenda item number ten a motion please to approve a tax rate calculation error some moved second by julian seconded by larry we have uh included in the agenda item the agenda items tonight the material for this i will briefly mention that in the calculation of the tax rate for this year that we are in there was a slight error made with regard to properties in the town of pittsford who are in our district having to do with a mistaken equalization rate uh of the town of pittsford and so we have to correct that error and the corrective action is outlined in the memo to us from lou through kevin and essentially the the only provision to correct this is will be contained in next year's tax billing so

110brighton residents will see a very very small reduction because of this but those pittsford homes will see an increase for this year because they're actually effectively under represented underpaid this year and they'll have a slight increase on top of next year's assessment we are going to notify all of those pittsford residences addresses with separate letters am i correct lou is that what we decided that's what i recommend just to give them an opportunity to uh to save up and set that money aside as there'll be an increase in the next year's tax bill yep and and if i describe that correctly and appropriately yes okay and it can have information if you need it but you summarized it correctly okay thank you and again we will reach out and all of those homes will receive

111a letter and if anyone has a question or uh item of interest lou will handle that and again it was just an error that was made in utilizing the proper equalization rate and these things can happen and we're upfront about it and transparent about it it occurred and we're we'll be notifying everyone on that so the very uh i'm just point it's a very complicated computation and ends up that way but also uh lou said for people to be able to save up we do want to give people plenty of notice so they're aware of that however i want to make sure people understand it's a relatively small dollar amount and so i don't want them thinking either that they're getting like a double tax bill next year when we talk about saving up so

112it's a good point though in terms of order of magnitude do you have a sense for like a ballpark amount people might see you know it's hard to say because values are so different but yeah so the shift and essentially we over taxed um if you want me to pull up the powerpoint i can just briefly go over it just to show you the magnitude it's up to you by the way this might be helpful just to show people so they have a sense if you don't mind mark i think we should no not at all can you see that okay is that the presentation yep so essentially what had happened is the as mark suggested is the equalization rate we missed that as we did the allocation pittsford dropped from 100 percent to 95

113percent which is a pretty significant drop in assessment for those in the town of brighton we went through that over the last couple of years it was dropping um over a number of years went from 98 percent to 95 percent down to 91 percent and then there was a town wide reveal the state and how they look at equalization and the value of the homes in our town of pittsford right in central schools but the town of pittsford the actual values had caught up and they changed the equalization rate this year so just to put it in in summary this is a chart of the computation so what the board of education is responsible for is the tax levy that doesn't change but what the equalization rate does then is it it prorates the amount

114of levy that's raised for each town so the top part of this chart is the amount and the computation for how much was raised from the town of brighton in pittsford you could see 98.57 percent versus 1.42 so pitzer is a very small part of the overall um share of the tax levy when the correction was made and it dropped from 100 to 95 you can see it's a very small shift in the percentage due and it results in forty thousand dollars that was essentially over taxed in the town of brighton and under taxed in the town of pittsford so given the magnitude of the assessed values relative uh for the relative towns it's only two cents per thousand in the town of brighton but it's a dollar 35 in the town of pittsford which

115is a little bit more significant what does that mean for the average homeowner then is two cents on there is about four dollars for the average home of of 220 000 in the town of brighton and it's close to 270 dollars uh for the town of pittsford so had that equalization rate have been caught earlier in and computed as part of the tax rate computations back in august residents in the town of pittsford would have seen a pretty substantial increase relative than what was advertised in the school budget so that's why we want to provide that information now because it will be 270 assessed on next year's tax levy in addition to any uh changes in the levy and resulting tax increases next year that help put it in perspective or relative magnitude yep yep

116that's good lou and you can see you can see how how few homes relatively few homes really were talking about as a total in pittsford when you see the the wide discrepancy and percentage of levy on those homes in pittsford and those in brighton so so that that's uh that's where it is and uh and again we'll be notifying all those uh homeowners in the town of pittsford part of the brighton school district so that they're aware any further questions of lou or kevin on that anybody have then all in favor of that approval please [Music] any opposed and that motion carries seven yes and zero no thank you very much um we also have one bid this evening motion please to approve the bid for the cooperative bid for fine paper for the school

117year so moved by karen seconded by sue and this is the competitive bid you'll notice if you look at that i just want to make sure for board members it's quite a large number but that's all monroe county districts together on one bid uh our amount in brighton is a not to exceed amount of i think it's 80 it's 80 000 so that 800 and some thousand or whatever the total bid or 900 000 or whatever it is is for the entire county uh as as as part of the bidding process so it will likely be less than that but anyway it's not to exceed and again part of the cooperative bidding that we do as a group allows us to get the best possible pricing on so many of these commodities that we do

118and that's how we all buy so does anyone have any questions on that at all in favor anyone opposed seven in favor and unopposed and then finally for tonight our consent agenda a motion please to approve the consent agenda some move second uh move by julian was that andrea andre i'm sorry and seconded by karen uh one one uh a gift this evening that we want to make sure we acknowledge a gift from mr and joe wyden i believe i apologize if i have it wrong to the visual and performing arts department uh of an acoustic guitar with case two open hole flutes with cases and a rubank elementary method book not being a musician myself i have no idea all of those things but we appreciate their gift and they will go to good

119use with our brighton students so thank we thank them and uh we appreciate that gift all in favor of the consent agenda any opposed at seven in favor and unopposed uh board members anything else this evening items dr mcgowan anything further no i think a motion to adjourn to executive session for the board um to discuss a matter of uh specific personnel employment of specific personnel uh to the members of the public we will adjourn from that meeting we will not come back to zoom so uh and board members the link is in your onenote so a motion please to approve adjournment to executive session seconded by elaine eulen thank you very much all in favor aye aye any opposed thank you very much everyone we are adjourned this has been a special presentation from

120the brighton central school district board of education