001this is a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education good evening and welcome welcome to the brain Central School District Board of Education business meeting for December 18th 2018 to begin this evening as our usual custom we offer the opportunity for public participation any members of the public that are here in attendance are welcome to address the board either with a question or a comment it can be on any matter it does not never be a matter that's on the agenda we ask that you raise your hand and be recognized we'll ask you to step to the podium please give us your name and address and hold your comment time to approximately three minutes if you'd like to ask a question of the board for an answer to be provided at
002a later time over on the table at the side of your entry there there are cards and pencils and pens and you you're welcome to leave us an inquiry and we will get back to you so is there anybody here this evening that would like to address the board okay seeing that we have none this evening we have guests and we're walking we welcome all of you but we will move on then maybe we have approval of our agenda this evening second by Larry and seconded by Christina was it hi Adrian sir all in favor any opposed thank you a motion please for approval of minutes for the December 27th education meeting and the December 3rd specially 2nd moved by Julian seconded by Karen does anybody have any additions or Corrections or deletions for those
003minutes all in favor any opposed next up we have this evening a presentation from one of our student groups the climate Club and as someone going to light it should have asked us ahead of time is someone going to introduce the group formally are we welcoming them as a group this evening we were welcoming the climate club and they're going to introduce themselves Phantasy welcome climate Club representatives I will preface this briefly for those that may be watching at home the Brighton High School will pride in the club has written the Board of Education I'm the number of occasions with regard to a number of topical issues that they're going to talk about here shortly and we welcome their input and ask and ask for an opportunity to address the board and some detail and
004so that's why they're here this evening so welcome folks please introduce yourselves to us also hi guys my name is Vinay Singh and we are the leadership team for Brighton High School's climate club and my fellow leaders here to present to the board today Arlene Smith and Bayliss Stewart and we just first wanted to we first won't really want to thank you for the efforts that you've put in high school and frighten Central School District as a district together has done thank you again for the environment your work on the environmental committee as well as the zero waste initiative that has been implemented throughout K through 12 thank you to our sprite in high school school administration for working with us to implement last year's Earth Day rally which saw the attendance of over 100
005community members in Brighton thank you to the council wok for adopting a whale and thank you so much again for meeting with us today and taking a time out of your busy schedule to do that and why are we here today so as you know as you all already know climate change is a generational issue and this issue affects youth at a disproportionate rate than it does to the current generation and we are asking the brain Central School District today to develop a district-wide climate action plan in order to address our greenhouse gas emissions in our schools and additionally we are seeking an endorsement from this body to support carbon fee and dividend and encourage our current Congressman Joe Morelli to join the house climate solutions caucuses and these two points we will address later
006on in our PowerPoint so what would a climate action find entail and I'm gonna turn it over to by fellow leader Liam to expending some more Bayless to explain spore in detail okay so we as a student body representing the high school population are asking that net and at the district is craft and establish a climate action plan for the schools we already have the zero waste initiative but now we want something that is going to address specifically greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts so what would a climate action plan our cap entail that would be a written plan outlining a change or modification and utilities usage of those utilities and the educational curriculum to reduce our emissions and to promote sustainable practices also we would like for an analysis of the district's uses
007and emissions now and after changes would be implemented to be executed so utilities would include things like heating and lighting maintenance construction usage of those utilities using the buses using those equipped that equipment etc now to the educational component like the zero waste initiative which started in Council Rock then frezz and TCMS and up into the high school we want the educational component to go K through 12 so that students going through Brian and who live in the brain community and go through the Brighton schools have a comprehensive and extensive education about what this issue is what is climate change how are humans impacting our environment and how is that specific and relevant to the Brighton community so start when they're younger just emphasize that this is an issue and what is it and as
008you get older kind of understand the signs behind it and understand why the district is making these changes and acting as a role model for others in the community and nearby school districts and nearby institutions and with that comes along networking if making a climate action plan is something that is a big deal it's a big commitment but it's something that our district has the resources to do and has the community support to do and right at the bright this would be good for the brain community for Brighton students and for the Rochester area as a whole all right so on one hand we would like our school district to do more on a local level to address climate change but we're also asking you to do more to build support for climate policy on
009the national level because right now Congress needs some pushing there they're still not right they haven't passed any significant climate change legislation and so we're going to people like you local leaders to ask you to helps convince them to do more to solve climate change so the policy we're asking you to endorse is called carbon Fein dividend it's a three step proposal and climatologists and a cup and then economists alike agree that it's the best policy that we can take it's the best first step we can take to stop climate change so the first step is to place a fee in fossil fuels at the source point so that would be the mine the well or the port of entry into our economy this plan starts with a moderate fee of $15 per ton of
010co2 equivalent and increases by ten dollars per ton per year essentially it's just a clear market signal as carbon and fossil fuels become more expensive people will be incentivized to use less fossil fuels so renewable energy like solar wind hydro those become less expensive and more cost-effective so the idea is that people would start to use those more the second piece of this proposal is called a dividend so we returned all the revenue to households on an infant in the form of an equal in per capita check so every month you got a check in the mail it has an equal part of this dividend and the idea behind the dividend is that it would offset the increased cost of living Dula fossil fuels so people living the poor and the lower income people asses
011they would not be affected negatively by this proposal and then the third part of carbon fee dividend is called a border adjustment this adjustment basically just discourages businesses from relocating so where they can emit more co2 and in as other nations to adopt a similar price on carbon and that's the incident it's entirely the go of carbon Fein dividend it's just to encourage the whole world to transition to a clean energy economy all right so what will the effects of carbon feed evident be well in 2014 regional economic model has conducted a study on this very policy and their study detailed the effects of carbon fee and dividend into four major areas the first is emissions they found that emissions peak and turned downward so in ten years they'd be reduced to thirty one percent
012below 1990 levels twenty years that becomes 50 percent and keep in mind that's 1990 levels if you look at Kurt 2018 levels it's a lot more obviously we're emitting more carbon dioxide now than we were then so the reductions would be a greater percentage all right and in terms of the economy the dividend kind of just acts like a stimulus it's like the Obama or Bush era stimulus packages when you have this money in your pocket you want to spend it so in places like retail so it creates over 2.8 million jobs in 20 years and it would also result in a projected increase of one point three seven five trillion dollars to GDP over that same 20 year period also local government operations would be affected by climate change so like if you're cleaning
013up disasters that kind of thing so by addressing climate change we would also reduce taxes associated with paying for the increased costs of cleaning uh what we've caused and the third part would be our health they found that with fewer greenhouse gas emissions we have less air pollution and we have less deaths caused by air pollution they found that two hundred twenty seven thousand premature deaths would be prevented over the 20-year period by this policy and finally our income since that fee increases steadily the dividend would also increase steadily for time so family of four received two hundred eighty eight dollars per month after ten years into three hundred ninety six dollars per month after twenty years the important thing about this dividend is that it would offset the increased cost of fossil fuels so
014this study found that 60 to 70 percent of households would break even or receive more money from the dividend than the increased cost of living so essentially there's not really a good economic argument again it's carbon Fein dividend it's good for our economy it's good for our health and it addresses the issue at hand which is climate change it reduces greenhouse gas emissions and finally what have we done so far while we obviously don't have carbon Fein dividend right now but we have seen some progress in our government this graphic up here shows the climate solutions caucus it's a bipartisan working group in the house representatives that's dedicated to solving climate change they started in 2014 and they're already up to 90 members that's 45 Republicans and 45 democrats dedicated to solving climate change and
015dedicating to working together because this cannot be a partisan issue as it has been in the past and so they have yet to put forth a they have yet to like get anything through the house but this is a group that we foresee real action coming from in other nations we have Canada they actually passed what's called the greenhouse gas pollution pricing Act and that's essentially a carbon fee in dividend so that's what shows that carbon fee dividend has been considered by other nations and it's actually been put in place by Canada so why do we come to seek support from the school board again action begins at the grassroots and as some of the only members in within government that directly represent students and youth such as myself and my fellow leaders you are
016both connected to us and since climate change is a generational issue and it's going to disproportionately affect youth the most you have the most power to prevent that and to teach the next generation about the impact it has through education through literacy to prevent and to mitigate these effects again through education of climate climate change and climate solutions we can educate the next generation of leaders shift the debate around climate change to a more solution solutions based and in addition to helps further mitigate these effects and to preserve our future and preserve our future as an equal right that we have right now hmm all right so we're asking our school district to do a lot it's a big ask to ask you to create a climate action plan and it's also a big ask
017to ask you to endorse a federal policy but we know we have a district that can do this we put in place zero waste initiative a few years back and we've already seen other school districts adopting similar things I think Hilton I think it was the whole Ontario County Schools also have put in place composting so we can really be a leader in sustainability and that's what the climate club is asking you to do all right and we just review what we're asking for we're asking you one to create a climate action plan to to pass carbon feed even lights to encourage Congress to pass carbon feet up in legislation and then the third part is to ask our member of Congress to join the climate solutions caucus so that job representing of Morelli can
018do more to address climate change in regards to the climate action plan it would kind of formalize what the Environmental Committee has already been doing they seemed pretty excited to get some more guidance on what they can do and so that's a and they also are there are several members of the committee who are work with impact earth Cassidy and Sarah I believe and they've they've worked on climate action plans for new municipalities in the past so we have some people who can help write the actual language for the climate action plan because we can't actually write that we have some suggestions and the climate resolution we sent you but we're asking at the Environmental Committee in particular those members of impact earth who seemed excited to help out we're asking them to create the
019actual language for a climate action plan and to create the benchmarks that we would hope to achieve and finally we have a petition we have 182 students and community members and teachers who have signed a petition in support of our climate resolution any is to you I also have some online but I didn't fit them out so I'll email them out later fine if you just give them to our board clerk there's a LAN stream right here and she'll make sure we get copies of it all right copy to us thank you so again thank you so much for listening to us and thank you for taking so much time out of your busy schedule Britain is a trendsetter within the Rochester community and by taking a step forward and to combating climate change at
020the local level we can take the first step and become a trendsetter within the climate mitigation in the local area and I firmly believe that lots of times when you think about climate change you think about oh wow this is such a huge issue how can one individual or as a community come back this but it all starts with a local level and by are taking steps right here today to pass this climate resolution we can mitigate those effects and we can reduce our carbon emissions as community thank you thank all of you coming tonight and especially thanks to all of those other students that are with you not only climbing club is certainly environmental environmental club all those involved in zero waste you know I do think we are leaders and certainly you young
021people your generation and those generations to follow you are going to have to figure this out entirely right and our generation is going to have to do all that we can right now in the next few years to put us on a better path I think we would all would agree with that you've given us a lot of material you sent us material previously we've already begun discussing some of the material but I would tell you this evening that and everything you've supplied to us in the presentation that we had ahead of time gave us an opportunity to take a look and we'll take everything other under advisement we will discuss some of the elements some of the elements that you John do play into our facilities k-12 facilities plan for example that right in
022process right at the moment and some elements of that you know would be affected and positively by some of the material that you you shared with us so we appreciate your efforts that we encourage you to sustain those and we will at a later date be able to report out better exactly where we are what we're able to do and what elements of it might not fit either with our purview or with what the district is able to do given financial resources too but thank you very much for all that you've done and all the work they put into this so we appreciate it great job okay next up tonight we have another presentation from Carolyn or Anna on our student support services program an update in that regard so Carolyn welcome and thank you
023okay that's very very unfair I was whispering to people to to follow these professionals that are an incredible presentation that's really incredible I only present once a year and I have to follow you guys I'm not sure about that we appreciate all that you do - Carolyn okay well here I am I can't believe it it is this is my seventh year finishing my seventh year seven presentations and talking about what happens in Student Services office time really flies by and every year I invite faculty to highlight various programs around the district in the past you've seen presentations by the best buddies Club the st. John Fisher transition program the PHS coffee cart the special education P P TSA Coffee hours just to name a few and this year as promised at my last presentation
024you're going to get a more detailed look at our implement of second step and the role of our family navigator but first I will start the presentation with my yearly summary of the special education by the numbers who are students in Brighton the number of classified students in Brighton has been stable over several years you can see the numbers and in the parentheses that is arranged over the last five years we consistently have students identify identified across many areas of disabilities where their highest number of classification is also consistent over time with that being learning disability and other health impairments again you can see our numbers from this year and the last five years we also continue to place students in several areas outside of the Brighton school of the Brighton four walls over the
025last five years we've had between 40 and 46 students or 1.3 percent in programs outside of the four walls of Brighton students may be placed in another programme for a variety of reasons that include safety concerns the severity of a student's disability or a student with a specific type of disability or learning challenge that we may just not be able to meet those challenges here in our district classrooms they can be placed in a variety of settings that include but are not limited to the BOCES programs a Norman Howard school and the School of the holy childhood again the numbers in parentheses are those ranges over the last five years Brighton services ten private schools and these are some these are the private schools that we also have to oversee all of special education the
026number of classified students in these schools has shown a study increase slightly higher this year and has been creeping up steadily and that is because private schools are becoming more willing to enroll students with academic and behavioral challenges so we have to provide more special education services to those schools we currently have one full-time subscriber acknowledges and 3.2 special education teachers to service the ten buildings but that's not even enough in addition we contract with BOCES for additional special education teachers and service providers speech therapist OTS pts counselors we have a huge service agreement with BOCES to push into those schools we service all the classified students in these buildings regardless of their district of residence if a student is in one of the ten schools that need special education it's our responsibility to provide
027that service it's important to note however that the students district of residents is financially responsible for that students programming so we have we run the CSCS and any private schools and any of the other towns if we have Brighton students there they run the CSCS for those private schools and then we pay for our own students in those schools you'll also notice that the most public classifications in the private schools are learning disability and other health impairments our focus continues to be on how to create inclusive environments in all of our classrooms the question remains how do we continue to build a Brighton culture that embraces all students learning styles and supports all students social and emotional development and if you look at that picture you can see how do we do that how do
028we get everybody to see over the fence how do we get everybody to where they need to be how do we help each other how do we build those inclusive environments taking collective responsibility trust cooperation and collaboration and tonight we have our special guests kotero Reed Kimball and Kristen ha hee I'm gonna get that right no time are all here to tell you about the new initiatives that support the building to support our buildings and inclusive environments good evening I'm Kimberly viola and one of the school counselors at Council Rock and I'm Katara Rita I'm the part-time school counselor at counselor so as many of you know we've had an outside consultant come in and review our mental health services that we have in the district and one kind of overarching theme and their recommendations
029was to take a look at providing disease or a preventative and proactive social-emotional learning program of that be available for all students so looking at kind of getting ahead of things and being more proactive than reactionary so the mental health steering committee took some time to look at programs that were available and we ended up landing on second step which is a really well packaged comprehensive program for social-emotional learning for students right now we are in the full swings of implementing the program at Council Rock and French Road and the mental health steering committee is in the process of getting it up and running by mid-year hopefully at the middle school cateura we've been really lucky to hire her over the summer to start at Council Rock this year she has implemented this program before
030and has been crucial and kind of getting it running for us in the building and since she is very familiar with the program is going to give us a little insight look at what the curriculum really encompasses so I'm just going to give you a general idea of the the the reason for the social-emotional curriculum really what second step is trying to do is promote school success school connectedness and a safe and respected respectful school climate and one awesome thing that we've been able to do is not all school districts can implement this building wide and we've been able to do that obviously we're talking me to perspective and it's being implemented Kason at this moment hopefully to TCMS soon but we've had the opportunity to reach every classroom within our building so every student
031is getting the second step lessons they're all learning these different topics and really it helps to students strengthen their ability to learn there's a unit called skills for learning there's empathy we focus on up with you that's our current unit emotion management and problem solving so just a couple of things that are a part of those units is so the skills for learning focuses on assertiveness learning self-talk how it can be used to help be a better learner listening what listening rules and for the empathy unit we really focus on how to look for the clues about how someone is feeling and how to show compassion and care for those people when we notice that they're feeling down or sad or whatever it might be emotion management is really focused on that more internal perspective
032or awareness of how am I feeling in this very moment can problem-solving that's pretty self-explanatory is solving those problems how to learn how to solve problems on their own or with their friends in those moments when they might be experiencing some sort of issue so yeah and as Kim said we are k5 at the moment and expanding to middle school soon what second step looks like in the classroom as I said before we're in the classroom one time for a cycle to each and every classroom it starts with a warm-up so we always do a review of what we've learned last time just to get a better idea of where where we might need to really focus and continue our conversations and then we do a brain builder which is a it's a game but
033it's a part of whatever topic we might be talking about there are brain builders called listening and concentration basically Simon Says what it's called follow follow again to promote that those listening skills and then we move into a story and discussion so each lesson comes with a picture which Kim is holding an example one of the visuals every lesson does have some sort of visual or photo car that comes along with it for us to be able to display for the children there's also some technology associated some of the pictures come so we can show them on the smart boards and some of them have some quick video clips so you know ahead of time or during the lesson as well so looks an example of one of the from using self-talk from the second
034grade unit that we have and we also along the way no pictures going to kind of go through what the lessons look like to show you kind of what the kids see when we come into the classrooms we have also taken time once per cycle to plan kind of how we're going to make sure that we're aligning people over the lines to make sure that we are aligned and what we're delivering and if there's anything else that we can do to supplement the lessons so we've also used some ebooks so I just held up the lesson edits for self-talk so we actually read a story to the children before that called what is a thought to kind of bring their awareness to kind of that cognition to better understand the concepts that were then going
035to talk about Anna lesson like that and escritura sound great now we're in the middle of the empathy lesson or unit sorry so we've done a lot of work with children on understanding putting putting yourself another person another person too so really kind of diving into not only what is empathy look like but how can we use that in our everyday life so this is another example of a story that we've used to kind of supplement those visuals that go along a lesson and we didn't bring them but we should note that Kim provided five person shoes for us to bring the each classroom and actually put yourselves in other people's shoes where we came up with stories for each of those pairs of shoes and so the the story cards are great because again
036it provides a visual and a story to jumpstart and jumpstart a discussion but it's we've really tried to do other things including the books and some videos some drawing activities and games to try to target those those kiddos who learn in different ways and just again enhance their learning so um so we always do something like the story and discussion and we may supplement and then we do well I guess that would be the skill practice is that supplementation or activity of whatever kind and then we do a wrap-up which again is basically a reflection of what we've done throughout the lesson and that's pretty much it so that's each lesson in a nutshell and so we have some plans for how we're going to collect data to see how it's going and so we
037have we did this for the end of unit one we did an end of unit review with the kiddos so we came up with questions to ask each classroom they all get the same questions I record Kim's classes Kim reports my classes and we ask these questions and we record how many hands are raised for whatever question it might be so we're doing that for each unit we're also planning at end of your teacher survey and we are going to sit down with teachers in a few weeks hopefully after break and talk with them about how it's going how kiddos are using the skills that we're teaching them in the classroom what they're seeing and how we may be able to improve the great part is that our teachers stay in the room while we're
038delivering these lessons they really value the messages that the lessons are delivering to the students and I hear a lot about conversations that they continue to have with the students in between the lessons we're not always there with them like their teachers are so to be able to hear about kind of the way that they're reinforcing the message are reflecting back with the students on something that we've come in and talked about has been really nice to hear so that second step in a nutshell thank you good evening my name is Kristin Hockey and I am the family navigator here at Brighton schools so I have been here since the beginning of the year on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and I'm from an organization called Delphi rise formerly known as Delphi drug and alcohol counselor maybe
039some of you guys have heard of that they provide a wide variety of services but including prevention in all schools in Wayne County and Brockport gates now Brighton and Penfield so I am helping to facilitate the referrals between Genesee and mental health and other community agencies and also working as a school based prevention counselor both at the middle school and the high school so I'm working individually with students have been referred for high-risk behaviors concerns of substance use family substance use or other family and personal problems and also working with kids who have difficulty accessing any kind of supports due to insurance barriers so then we have from Genesee mental health we have Sue Ellen Trumbull who's at TCMS on Mondays and Brian head who is at the high school on Tuesdays so they're working
040one-on-one with students providing mental health counseling for a variety of mental health reasons they also do have a license on depression scales or suicide scales and are also able to hook up services for kids through psychiatric evaluations through gmh which I'll tell you a story about later it was really really cool what happened with one of our kids right in high school so our referral so far this year so for Genesee mental health I'm for Brian head at the high school he's had 16 referrals and then seven through the middle school through Delphi rise myself being able to see kids at school 17 referrals through the high school and for referrals at the middle school and so for kids accessing services for Genesee mental health they are identified by their school counselors who reach out
041to the families and let them know that we have somebody who's in the school that can meet the kids right in the school building during the day after they are identified I'll reach out to the families let them know a little bit more about the services and what's all entailed and how their next steps in the referral process go send out the HIPAA consent form which they need to sign in order to be able to be seen at school and then refer them on to Sue Ellen or Brian for their intake and for gmh to collect their insurance information and set up that intake which can either be done at the school or they can go down to Alexander Street to complete that intake there so really a lot of help for families and meeting
042them where they're at for myself counselors have been referring students to me and all they need to do is fill out a referral form and I'm able to see those students so under Oasis regulations confidentiality is a little bit different so it doesn't need consent from families nor does it go through insurance so it's just a really really great thing to have for kids who are seeking services who might have insurance barriers or want to be seen confidentially so that's what our services looked like so we've seen obviously a lot of positive outcomes of having these kids be able to be seen right at school so we got rid of any transportation barriers that might happen in the families as kids can be seen right at school some financial barriers that are taken away we
043actually had one student who was able to Brian was able to hook them up with services by going through financial aid services through jmh I would have never been able to be seen that quickly and jump through so many hoops in order to get that service and like I said before the confidentiality barrier of kids just being able to seek treatment on their own and those insurance barriers and so this story about one of our seniors a current senior who the school had tried in a lot of different ways to get her a psychiatric evaluation through different people through different organizations and the parents just weren't able to make that happen for her for a lot of different reasons she was referred to Genesee mental health and when Brian met with her fast tracked her
044right away got her a psych evaluation within a week and she had medication that same day so just that fast tracked ability to get her the help that she really really greatly needed she transitioned to the aim program and from what I have been hearing she's been pretty successful there so the counselors are extremely grateful to have other people to refer to in the building especially some of their frequent fliers um I just have the support of extra three mental health staff within the district it's really really awesome I wonder and again this is such a fantastic report out and we've talked to Carolyn about this and we've had this information I think all of us in the school community are so happy to be able to provide and have on site what subscribe today
045and look forward to the next levels in the next steps and and see how we're interacting with kids and families I wonder about the community at large are we doing better in the community providing services in other words referrals that need to go out beyond into individual providers be they mental health medical health social emotional addiction are we getting better as a greater Rochester community in having service providers and beds and spaces is that improving yes okay it is specifically I can speak probably a little bit more to adults Delphi has recently worked with other organizations who provide drug and alcohol treatment and opened up that what they call the open access which is open 24 hours and they believe adolescents can go to to receive services okay so they can access that 24 hours
046a day and some people are getting into beds like Reed that's within 24 hours which is amazing almost unheard of yeah so certainly there is a community push especially because the opiate epidemic for that stuff to be happening as far as referrals to other agencies for sure I have to commend the counseling teams at both schools working with the counselors who are there they are super professional and full of knowledge and just thinking that they work that they do and providing referrals themselves for these families is really really awesome I've worked in a lot of districts this is a really really great thank you very much thank you for your work ok no thank you to all for the report out this evening and all those elements of our student services program will be gone
047to our report section this evening financial reports we have from Lou and Dahlia the executive summary budget see this report along with the treasurer's report do we have a motion to receive and accept those reports please second does anyone have any questions are anything further on there any opposed if you are student representative report yeah pull chilly outside it's chilly here that's true yeah we're kind of getting to that time of year I feel like so with the students we're all so cold it's um about the middle of the second quarter and you know Christmas break is approaching so everyone's kind of getting ready for that and in the spirit of that I think students are finally starting to really get into their schedules and everything seems to be moving pretty smoothly at the high
048school some of the things that I want to bring up one of them is the meeting that we actually had today with dr. hall and some other leaders of different clubs at our school it's fresh on my mind so I wanted to mention that we just wanted to improve some of the circumstances that are going along with like clubs and make sure people have good access to them and eliminate some of the stigma around clubs and just who can be members of what clubs and like for example like Muslim Student Association they feel like there's a stigma around that only Muslim students can be a part of it but we really want to start incorporating more diversity in all of our clubs and get everyone on like the same page for improving clubs in general
049and not just sort of creating more of a division with it then there already is so we kind of worked on like getting feedback for those and one of the things that came up was a lot of the racial disparity that some people are feeling recently with like punishments and also just treatment in general at school black students so like Student Union actually brought up that like they had a statistic which I can't remember at this point but it was a statistic about the disparity between punishments for blacks or no no you know what it was it was I think it was students write in and then there were two other schools that black students were nine times more likely to get to spend it than white students so we were talking about that a
050little bit we were also talking about how students of color feel like they're just being treated differently like in general like in the hallways they feel like students of color being more consistently asked if they're meant to be somewhere else or if they're doing what they're supposed to be and like they're being closely watched more than white students so we talked about that a little bit which wasn't actually the point of the meeting but I thought it was an important conversation for us all to have some glad that that got to be brought up and I know dr. Hall said that that was going to be discussed um privately more in depth so that we could focus more on that but it was nice because everybody got to bring up some of the issues that
051they felt was going on with Brighton and clubs so I thought that was a pretty important part of the school day today but also just this year in general and moving forward and improving our academic life for students another exciting thing is we got our bright beliefs or Blue Ribbon award the other day so um we have that hanging up outside the office now and everyone was really excited about that we heard some very touching speeches which I thought held a lot of truth about Brighton and won means to be a high schooler up right and and everyone spoke really eloquently about just different attributes of Brighton that they found really helpful to them and that made them feel like Brighton was home and it was very nice to hear that I was exciting that
052we got recognized for all of our achievements and also Student Senate a little I mean you guys already kind of know about this because of the climate club presentation that you just saw but one of the 182 students teachers etc who were in support of this resolution it was Student Senate all of Student Senate passed a resolution in collaboration with climate club that encouraged the Board of Education to further discuss the climate action plan that was brought up which i think is pretty impressive everybody was really I mean you saw them they were amazing but everyone was very on the same page about that and I thought they did a really good job at presenting all the facts and why we should look more into that just in general I think the air Brighton is
053very excited as a lot of seniors are hearing back from like their early colleges which is excited for everyone and in general that's sort of how the school is going right now our Board of Education reports from the Monroe County School Boards Association standing committees labor relations we're all dead last night you know we're a little out of sync in some his reports yeah that was November 28th yeah I was on the wrong way everyone say Lu was our only representative that was there that was on it was that feels yes and the next meeting is going to be on January 16th on sexual harassment regulations how they've changed and what does the improve does the new what does the new implementation look like we say yeah thank you very much any area information exchange
054yeah the next meeting is in January the 9th and the chief diversity officer at the college for Brockport will be presenting on cultural responsiveness and how it affects the success of your students that both a November 14th who just to make note because that was the last meeting yeah and that was the only reason I want him to bring it up because Douglas our another scare heart would have arteries from Harris Beach reported out and presented on social media attacks and things like this we weren't galleries I was think that was really hoping I didn't a couple of folks at that and the one note as Christina said the January 9th meeting and cultural responsiveness for the things that I think you'll find very interesting is the remainder of the information exchange sessions that are
055booked this year had me on the theme around diversity equity and inclusion with a number of recognized experts from not only this area but a couple from out of the area so I think information exchange is really focusing on that topical area because all suburban districts are focusing over that area so was I think it would be great professional development for all of us as we go forward year two I know I'll be attending that one yes big bloke a big crowd that night did I just protect your bacon roll between there they participate yeah so so thank you for that report out on that legislative committee well we spent time first week in December talking about the preparations we were making for our legislative field trip to Albany which was canceled we can't if
056we we discussed at length how the changes change in power is going to make things a little touch-and-go for a while not necessarily in the legislation we expect but just in how we are interfacing with our represents getting their feet under them switching offices making new plans etc and so I have a feeling that we had to cancel because our appointments were changed and I think that that's the result of the current chaos it was one of those things where it was the one day trip where we typically go and we meet with the governor's education and staff people and then also we meet with different budget education staff people from the majority of the minority in both the Senate in the house we also are the Assembly we also try to meet with State
057Education Department folks it just was a there was a regent beating of a Regents day that was a little bit rescheduled or a bunch of state ed people were involved then we had a couple of appointments that had gotten canceled and it was difficult getting everything is such a transition right now because of all the ramifications of the last election that we ended up thinking it wasn't worth our time I think that's going to be a theme for the year the ramifications of the shift in power and the election will see us scrambling exactly so we'll ever a two-day trip come up a little bit later in March and that'll be a little bit by that time things like sound then the governor's budget will be out we'll be very organized than that and the
058other note there also for everybody that you you did see a save the date February 2nd for the legislative breakfast which this year is at Pentonville Country Club and you'll get an invitation it shortly in the format one the same as it's been so if you do want to attend that Saturday morning when you respond that you're going to attend you can put down you know Joe robach or Jamie Frank Jamie Romeo I'm sorry thanks yeah it was mentioned that a congressman Morelli asked if he could still attend he may attend to so the point is we are going to continue to try to assign seeds that have table sizes appropriate to the individual representatives so that everybody can get a seat we don't have to have a scramble to force a very facilitation each
059table yeah what happened is with the fire Penfield Country Club is taking a lot of the events from shadow land until they get fully rebuilt so yeah I understand so we will report out further on that as we get a little bit closer and we do we are scheduled to meet legislative committee right anywhere a second yeah so they talked about not having a meeting but I think we need to do it because of the it's the only the force and fanaticism all right thank you and thank you all for attending all those different programs BOCES report well we're from our BOCES rep we understand there's going to be a seventh year in a row flat administration and budget which we will hold on sometime in the future and they're expanding their new vision program
060for students to join in and the urban suburban students are going to be affected by some RTS maneuvering according to Sora that they're not sure what the how that's going to be but the schedule RTS is trying to revamp their schedule Anakin streamlined I guess and the Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES superintendent search is coming to an end and I mentioned Dan White will be very happy about that yeah well done jobs yeah right yeah I'd say thank you very much you appreciate them are and also our other board member reports and we ever really reported out on this since mid-november so we'll start at the other end of the table tonight how the Cristina do you have anything to report out in your activity sighs very evaluation the media committee is meeting January 8th for
061our next meeting okay and at our last meeting we started working on ways in which we would create surveys okay both quantitative and qualitative so the foreign language review committee met and we are in the process of going over some new york state standards that have been recently implemented and using those to help us kind of give guidance to counselors and place just replacement of students also for families in the community in general so we spent a lot of time working in them so we're undertaking some facilities improvement around here if you weren't aware yeah there's a goal to hear please hold a keg all of 21 well have will him there is a tunnel we're going on obviously things like the track and some visible things that you've seen completed first projects there's a
062ton of work coming to Cal Ciroc and it'll probably start in February March timeframe to be very visible we've done meetings with the neighbors there which we're very helpful to understand their concerns and begin to be able to address or mitigate some of their concerns very much focused on safety making sure things happen safely obviously the keystone of this project its full-day K but there's work coming to the high school to come into the middle school it's going to be everywhere for the next few years and on the other side we're going to greatly improve schools and even better learning environments but the road to get there will be a little bit bumpy and it's a good point to interrupt and interject I guess the for a safety committee which I just sit on as
063you know we also spend about 45 minutes of our meeting a couple of weeks ago talking about security and safety issues around all of our facilities projects you know most of that of course is Council Rock but also French Road has quite a bit going on force more than people realize and the other two buildings also and I I think we've talked about it frequently but it also highlighted and I know your meetings highlight the need for us and we're gonna you'll see right after the community will see it very first of the year much more messaging much more discussion or much many more updates as we begin to finalize work schedules and bits are imported so that the entire community is well aware of all of what's going to start over likely a three-issue
064year periods yeah live and and have a very robust communication program and plan to make sure people are informed we've had great support from ambulance police fire the town everyone sort of is talking all the time absolute focus on safety number one and obviously number two maintaining a great educational experiment but there's a ton of work coming we're gonna make it work and we're gonna remind folks anyone who's ever renovated we ask them to recall that experience it's gonna be a bit of a mess for a while but we're gonna make it work and we've got people in place and systems in place so thank you okay so most recently I've attended several sessions of the family engagement subcommittee based on the diversity equity work that we're doing just yesterday I was able to sit
065with Debbie and teachers and staff and talk about some of the data we've collected around how we're engaging with families and it's a it's a hard one to get you're happy your hands around because we would like to improve how we engage with families who don't access the information or who aren't in communication with us and finding a way to get to the families that aren't interested in engaging can be a paradoxical kind of ask but that's interesting working and we have some action items I think that we can move on going forward and then I was able to work with district Environmental Committee last week I was able to hear our students present and talk about how the the work that that committee is doing has dovetailed into their asks and what we can
066do with our capital projects moving forward thank you Mark fortunately I've been on the road most the time but also many engages in professional development I did yeah I was in Colorado as a spouse of my wife who was in attending account for time educational service organizations and it was attended several sessions I thought were very interesting pretty general education and it focused in a number of special needs kinds of students and it was very very interesting so great well thank you yeah welcome back safe and sound you see that do we privilege of traveling to New York City last week with nine of our district leaders teachers principals administrators and we had a fabulous time on Tuesday five of us attended a diversity and equity a all-day conference and that was really quite valuable
067and quite enlightening and then on Wednesday Thursday and Friday the ten of us visited ten five I watched it I visited tell me to visit I think over attending yeah just know it used to be over 10 this year it wasn't because we spent some time together this year all very interesting but it's a spectacular learning opportunity for all of us visiting unique programs in New York City this year we focused on restorative justice programs and also we looked at a program that introduces seventh graders to what college opportunities look like in both of those I think that that our folks have some great ideas of things that they can bring back to our district but the restorative practices that we looked at the students that we talked to and the educators we talked to
068or really quite enlightening and I think there we've learned a lot that we can bring back and start to hear so it was a fabulous experience thank you Connecticut will speak further in his report but for all that attended and all that have attended over the past few years we've learned so much and so much has been brought back from those New York City trips and visiting the school system and for school building so in those connections with administration teachers that you all have made so thank you for taking them well a few things I you know usual I'm trying to get to as many things as I can I want to report out quickly that diversity equity committee as Karen mentioned with her subcommittee I pleased to serve on the hiring practices subcommittee and
069we've met twice in the last month and a half and we have dr. Renee Baker as our consultant out of RIT if she's been a fantastic and we are now she created the framework for three subcommittees that were breaking into right now one on recruitment when our retention and one on environment so you know why we really come here that's in the environment type approach you know we're creating the best possible environment to attract the teachers of color teachers that are diverse backgrounds so we thought we've begun that work this the sub subcommittee work it's now beginning if we're gonna I think bring some more folks into that effort that's really great work and ongoing and the beauty of the diversity equity inclusion committee of these subcommittees this year broad representation from our Natalie our
070teaching staff the board but the community much broader representation for the community that worked on the PS a-- mission that is all going well a couple other quick things i was able to attend the be the healing session on December 13th Christina was there a number of our administrators were there fascinating work and we beginning and going through those notes and comments that from that evening also a number of us read it was back on November 26th but one of the great things our new family reception that was at the French royal cafetorium and I don't know how large of a gathering but it's just a wonderful event where families new to the district are invited in many many come the entire family and there's some food but there's a number of the community providers
071are there that evening for the Recreation Department of town the school district and then that's just it's just a great event and then one other quick mention because it's such a great thing on December 7th pearl harbor day members of the town recreation staff and the town staff continue to sponsor and hold a veteran's luncheon at Brighton Town Park julene was there but you in and others from the Brighton bring your award marry some winter wear for folks and others who support this event that I wanted has grown so large that I think they they're gonna have to look for a larger venue but it's just it started out as a small thing it out in Corpus encompasses many school people town people Parks and Rec people people from the veterans Outreach Center in the
072VA over there on Westfall Road so just a great town about a collaboration with all right before dr. McGann gets to wrap up so we'll send it over now to the BTA report and that hi how are you my report is a little short tonight but we've been doing a lot you've attended concerts and activities and I know the principal reports recorded out quite a bit so there's not a lot but I know that the teachers are doing wonderful work every day in classrooms and so sometimes they just get so caught up in that it's tough to send a report but a couple of things from French Road Kati covert fourth grade teachers she wanted to let everybody know that her class participated in donating pajamas and books to families in need and they participated
073with that through the scholastic books and pajama program this year and so the kids really enjoyed doing that packing things up so they were really excited about that and then a few teachers wanted me to share about our acts of kindness that we did during Red Ribbon Week Ashley Ellis kind of spearheaded that she's our behavior specialist at fresh she's new to us this year but we kept kindness chains in our classrooms and all across the school and Hashima many teachers wanted me to share that there were 2124 acts of kindness shared during Red Ribbon Week the children continued to share their interest and they really find many opportunities to spread kindness and love while recognizing their ability to have empathy for others the empathy piece again coming out of that second step program that
074we're starting at French wrote as well so I think the kids are really connecting to that we still have our kindness board up with that picture was attached that's right in our main hallway and kids are always adding to the kindness pieces that they did so that's really exciting and then Vivian Lopez French she wanted to share from the middle school that their foreign Jillette foreign language interns are doing a fabulous job at Brighton High School and TCMS they have three interns one from Columbia one from Switzerland and one from Germany and the students are learning so much about those cultures and the students are absolutely lovely so much from both sides in both cultures here in America and those that are being represented so that's really great and then Heather Gabriel she wanted to
075share a really great assignment that Cassie Pruitt just completed with her English students it's called poetry out loud and her students memorized and recited poetry of their choosing in front of judges and were rated and were rated on their performance and her 15 to 1 students were amazing and confident and did a wonderful job with her encouragement and teaching and despite being well out of their comfort zone to do memorized poetry out loud in front of a panel of judges and that was really exciting and then I know that the principals had reported out on this but this was a connection from Aria McKusick as part of their overcoming barriers through resilience unit students were reading Gary Smith's novel okay for now and that was the story for an eighth grader who navigates dysfunction and
076finds inner strength through the audubon art students went on a field trip to the memorial art gallery during which they selected artwork that they felt told a story of resilience and then as a final showcase of this experience the eighth graders will act as docents of their art pieces during a special event at the memorial art gallery this week students under the leadership of Kendall Lam will also be playing music at that event as well and then a huge shout out I know that thes custodial staff isn't always necessarily connected to the PTA but again senior French wanted to give a shout out to Dave Luce and his crew and even though they're not teachers Dave is the head custodian TCMS and she wanted everyone to know how available dave is at the drop of
077a hat anytime anywhere Dave reads his emails very early in the morning and makes sure to have time to juggle all those crazy requests and make them happen fast he has specifically helped her out at the very last minute so that instruction could continue seamlessly and teaching could take place in the auditorium Dave makes things happen quickly efficiently and always with a friendly and kind disposition so a huge thank you to Dave Luce and his crew on behalf of the foreign language department for always sticking stepping up and helping out with a smile on their faces so teachers are recognizing not only what teachers do but what everybody does in a community in a building and the BTA just wants to extend health happiness and peace to staff in community as we approach a nice
078break over in December and we're all looking forward to a fresh start every port Leslie I have the second the Dave Luce shout out I've always been so helpful to all p.g a safer activity nights he's great they do a great job so at the at BHS the BHS PTSA meaning with the principal this month dealt with the topic of vaping dr. Holland Lance Mitchell Mitchell talked about this very serious topic that is becoming an epidemic in schools across the country day and evening meeting was held and BHS celebrated their designation as a Blue Ribbon School in December 14th the PTSA helped with blue Mardi Gras beads and phone cases that were given out to students and staff the pts they felt honored to be included in the celebration ceremony the PTSA also held their
079staff appreciation luncheon on 1214 it was a successful event that served 174 lunch lots of food and dessert it's all donated by parents in the district they decorated the cafeteria and blue might to accent the Blue Ribbon theme and fill the mugs with blue and white candy for the staff this week they have the class of 2018 reunion the PTSA will provide cookies and lunch for the high school's newest alumni as they reconnect the pts a BHS has also been attending meetings for this year's Spring Fest they are planning to supersize it this year in honor of the Blue Ribbon designation at TCMS the PTSA is meeting with the principal this month dealt with technology in the classroom six teachers gave presentations on how they utilize tech in the classroom teacher presentations were extremely informative
080and demonstrated the different ways technology is being used in this six through eighth grade the meeting was well attended the next meeting will be a book club discussion parents are being asked to read one of two books either the teenage brain or untangled both about the changes your teens go through during the middle school years this meet the next PTA meeting with the principal will be a book club discussion on Russia's topic TCAs PTSA is also helping with another round of mock interviews for the eighth grade students who are taking home careers this quarter it's a great experience for parents and for students at French froude the Prez PTSA is meeting with the principal this month had a presentation from impacter about our districts effort to reduce waste in their building and throughout the district
081P GSA held its first family game night and finds a noble the attendance was good and everyone had fun playing games they are looking at dates to hold another one the frezz PTSA also helped dr. EO with a popcorn in storytime at Fresno's book Fresno fair family night it was great night that was very well attended as it usually is there was a lot of positive feedback on PT essays new book vendor filete and council rock new this year the council RFP GSA's hospitality hospitality chair that parents to sign up to provide snacks for the teachers to enjoy during their parent-teacher conferences also counselor arts PT essays Crayola recycling collection has started there are many boxes set up around cows rock or any dried out markers not just Crayola will be accepted and recycled and
082there's now push to do this and all of the buildings and this artwork is fabulous we talked about it often that I don't think we could talk about it too often but when we come in and the artwork changes behind us when you come in the room you notice it it's just phenomenal and fantastic and it's all great but you do the fortune cookies do stand out you can't you have to come and visit the room that's here at home or later watching on the YouTube channel to fully appreciate but the other does it gate the other thing that's great about this is we use this room for a public meeting the betta evening meeting the other night about 50 people and you saw so many milling about prior to the meeting seeing all the
083artwork and appreciating all the stuff that the students do so we again thank our students and the tired our teachers for making sure they get that all of it it gets changed over and we're able to show as much artwork there's we can through the school year so thank you for bringing it up to people see this fantastic we should turn it around anyway dr. McGowan superintendent report thank you I mean you get a chance if you see the fortunes and each of these it's even better than usual yes they're messengers that kids crazy it's relevant it's also great yeah really great stuff so a few updates for you in comments too I'll just start with acting with the BTM and PTSA center around a happy and healthy holiday season for people who've been celebrating
084will be celebrated certainly our best wishes in the year to everyone thanks to everyone who is able to be a part of BiBi healing it was a great session the other evening and a lot of productive discussion that Marlo and I actually have been able to meet about to talk about and we'll be sure out in the community and talk about next steps in communicating that and showing action steps around that the feedback that we were given through that session thanks to our climate club presenters tonight a good reminder of the importance of leadership particularly young leadership and profound possibilities for a path that they will be making I read a great quote from George Koresh the best way to ensure our students are leaders of tomorrow is to give them the opportunity to lead
085today and they certainly are demonstrating that to us tonight so I thought they did a really really great job I loved Carolyn's presentation that slide if we keep thinking about equality versus equity which is so important because it means different people and us being responsive to that plays into all of these kinds of conversations Larry mentioned the bid openings we'll have that after the new year we continue to make great progress who are looking forward to the next steps in the project as well we will also Larry mentioned about this and I thought you said it really nicely there around the fact that it will be disruptive and challenging over the next several years but it should be noted - we're gonna keep going back out to constituent groups so staff community to say how
086are we doing and what more can we do to make it more palatable for you also just to continuously try and get feedback I'm gonna make the process as smooth as possible so and as you said you'll end up at the end of it with pretty incredible update start learning environments but it'll be a challenge for everybody as we as we work on that just following up on Julian's comment I can't tell you how much we appreciate that learning opportunity and the support for that learning opportunity we've seen 45 to 50 schools over the last five years there were seven schools this year and actually I had to yeah because we went together we split it into groups and so you know from Bronx Community College where we saw programs for middle schoolers thinking about
087college and being exposed to that conversation to a school really taking care of every comprehensive need for kids to schools really focused on restorative practices and helping us learn more about that to see it in action and then to interact with educators and frankly more importantly interact with kids engaged in that work was just profoundly impactful and the team is a you know group of people from all over the districts doing different things who will bring back idea and are inspired by the work so really really excited about that it hats off to the high school dr. hall we celebrated the blue ribbon of course we've talked about that a couple of different times there's a great celebration and we appreciate that as well and I thought the conversation the tool mentioned tonight with the
088group that has been put together two high school kids feeling really comfortable expressing how to create more equity for them is an important one it's not always easy to hear that but it's really really important to hear that and to work through that with our kids and find ways to be as supportive as we can which is what our goal is so thanks for opening up that dialogue as well any questions for me for them they have that opportunity to share that with each other important thing so thanks time for facilitating that what one other quick thing I would add on the blue ribbon ceremony if members of the community want to that entire ceremony is available through our YouTube channel for viewing I would stress go and view the four different essays from the
089four students Toula mentioned and I think it was also mentioned by somebody else they are all they were different they were unique they were impactful they were important in each in their own way and that that that that was the highlight I mean okay Tom getting the big plaque in a medallion there got schooled those four essays that they read were really something I thought and you can be you know at your own leisure go and then view those on online so thank you thank you for your report doctor we go everybody art a few other items of business remain this evening folks may we have a motion to approve the professional services contracts around our facilities improvement plan testing services please so look a second by Larry seconded by Karen we've had this you've
090read it it's pretty pretty automatic its to approve that contract for the testing services required around the project all in favor aye any opposed thank you we have four kids this evening I will ask for a motion for approval of all four kids ABC and D and the reason I say that that I'm comfortable with approving them altogether they're all for cooperative bids through the BOCES service one for food service equipment repair and maintenance one for school lunch paper and plastic one for medical trainer supplies and another for health and safety supplies I think it's appropriate that they can be approved together emotion so host move by mark seconded by Kristina and again we mentioned they are through the purchasing department at BOCES to their cooperative bids which helps guarantee us the lowest possible acceptable
091bids all in favor I had any opposed thank you a motion please for approval of our non-resident tuition rates for the 2018 2019 school year second moved by injury and seconded by Larry again this was given to us previously by Lowe and it sets the tuition rates for non-resident students where they need to be to align with the remaining parts of regulation and law so all in favor any opposed and then our consent agenda this evening a motion please to approve salute second move by Julien seconded by Marv a number of items in the assent agenda I will make note of three gifts from members of the community to one from a very generous gift of $1,000 to the Brighton High School music department from Heidi and John Rossi we appreciate that and thank them
092for their generosity a gift from the Brighton Education Fund in the amount of two hundred dollars to cover the cost of having a piece of music composer arranger of the fourth grade chorus and also a gift from Verizon and actually this is interesting I think if you read the material it's a gift for Verizon the amount of $750 from their grant program to the girls softball program but one of the parents of softball player is an employee of Verizon and they have a system that if you accumulate so many points in a system charity of your choice or a profit of your choice is eligible for grants and so they were words and he did that for our self up process right we thank him for that also all in favor any opposed I'll prior
093to adjournment I will check board members any other ends businesses evening nothing that won't keep till January 8 dr. McGovern anything further no sir this has been expressed a number of times we're from the Board of Education our best wishes for safe and healthy break holiday season into our new year and we next meet in this room on January 8th 2019 and that's going to be a motion to adjourn please some of seconds.i Adrienne seconded by Karen on favor heyyou post we are adjourned thank you very much this has been a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education