001witness anymore all right they call for motion to actually executive session shall move i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right we have a recognition right now let's turn it over to the superintendent and i'm going to turn over to mr sack thank you very much for allowing me to be here this evening um and allowing me to recognize both carrick kirk and caitlin jones the school social work team who've done a magnificent job this year tara certainly has joined us now for the past few years and continues to build on all the great things she started so tonight it's an honor to let them present to you an initiative
002by the school district that they've worked so hard to bring and that is the new york life grief sensitive school initiative program and really this program i don't want to steal too much of the thunderbolt primarily it is really designed to help our most vulnerable students those that deal with grief and trauma so without further ado here good evening good evening everyone thanks for having us here tonight we'll be brief uh caitlin's going to give you an overview of the greek sensitive schools initiative before she does that i want to give you a very brief overview of the exciting things going on in the world of social work at niagara wheatfield because we're both really proud and excited of all the things that have been going on katelyn is based out of the high school
003in the middle school she provides individual group iep counseling to students in crisis students in need she does work with families and parents she does home visits she's also a co-advisor for the national honor society at the high school and she's a french tutor after school at the middle school so she's pretty busy i'm continuing to coordinate and develop our family support center which has been very very busy and very exciting and all the things that we are we are doing there we wanted to give you a brief update on the initiative i introduced you in the fall with feedmore of western new york and that is our falcon food park we have a full food pantry based out of the high school that serves the high school middle school students so we are certainly
004serving anyone who asks for help and we have a backpack program on fridays that supplies weekend food food for students at tuscarora and cv colonial village the feedmore program has been so so popular they provide all this non-perishable food to us over 35 pounds so far we have received and about the six weeks that we've been opened we've served 32 families and 167 individuals already so it's very popular it's growing every week and we're really really proud that we can offer these things for families privately confidentially and just help them through a rough time a lot of the families we're helping are working families that just need a little bit of extra help we also have a great partnership that just started with one of our own employees we have a long-term sub named patricia
005mcintosh at the high school she is on the board of inter-community services that oversees the care and share food pantry in ransomville and the wear and chair clothes pantry in youngstown she has offered us and already brought us some food items that we don't carry right now and really has supplemented the things that we can give to families so it's another good partnership for us the caring closet that we started through the nwta has been very very popular we've already distributed over 275 hygiene items to families all across our district saving them lots of money and again giving them a little extra help it's mainly housed at the family support center but we have a mini caring closet in high school and caitlin has started a mini giving room at the middle school which houses
006food hygiene products school supplies and clothing for our family so we're making lots of great opportunities for families to get the help that they need the little helping hand packet that you got received tonight is a paper version of an electronic item that was sent out on our falcon newsletter into families last week kind of shows you on some of the things we're doing so i actually printed out the links obviously since it's in paper format but it gives you some idea of what what we're doing it also gives you ideas on how to donate because we certainly are looking for donations from people our caring closet right now is completely supplied by donations we are continuing to seek out some corporate business sponsors but we're really lucky to have the generosity of all the
007nwta members who have made the caring closet so popular so we're always grateful for everyone's help the last thing we're starting is called the falcon freestyle which is our clothing closet and is just getting off the ground we are currently recruiting staff to do some closet cleaning and bring us their gently used um in-fashion clothes for kids and teenagers so we can sort them and house them and distribute them to the different buildings and get them out to the families that need them i've already had families calling for certain items so we're excited to get that going as well lastly is our grief sensitive initiative that caitlyn found and created this partnership for us which is going to serve the whole district and we're really excited about that as well so i'm going to turn
008that over to her have you explained have her explain initiative thank you for your time thank you karen thank you everyone i'm over please pledge a little run through check work so as you mentioned niagara regional central school district is becoming a grief sensitive school district why i think it goes without saying we've had some significant loss in our in our district not only due to covet but just lost prior to covet ambiguous loss whether that's divorce apparent separation primary loss of a parent or relative secondary loss when a student loses a parent and not only lose the parent but they lose the person taking care of them the person getting them ready for school in the morning all these other losses in their life the coalition's purpose is to create and share a set
009of industry-endorsed resources that will empower school communities across america and the ongoing support of this grieving student i have a short video from from the coalition what will you say to a grieving child the vast majority of children experience the death of someone close to them by the time they complete high school so we'll all be faced with helping grieving students throughout our careers but how many of us are ready less than one in ten teachers have received bereavement training training that almost all educators say they want to now for the first time a partnership has been formed to help educators support grieving students made up of leading professional organizations representing teachers school administrators mental health providers and school counselors and support staff the coalition to support grieving students is a unique collaboration created to
010share resources that will empower school communities across america to support grieving students how greetingstudents.org a comprehensive web-based resource it covers a wide range of topics to help you engage with reading students and manage issues surrounding bereavement in a school setting the website provides practical and accessible information and includes multiple videos in which educators experts and bereave students share their knowledge and experience now you have the tools to give support what will you say to a grieving [Music] the child and my responsive school initiative program um on our next slide we have kind of the how of how i went about this um so coming in brand new this year i noticed that there was a need especially with clothes so just did some digging and kind of came across this resource reached out to mr
011sacher approval and he gave me the green light to go ahead i then went to the administration at youth school who found a point person for each school in order to be eligible for the grant you need at least five people um so we had more than five people from each from each school scheduled three presentations which we actually just wrapped up last night um here you can see kind of a quick breakdown of each school who have gone through their time to be involved we had a total of 42 staff members who all volunteered to receive this training the training was an hour and a half long and provided a kind of a quick snapshot of how we can use this money so what is next as i mentioned we have the minimum five
012staff members so we'll be getting 500 for each building totaling three thousand dollars for the district to use funds for our grief and bereavement resources some of the handouts that i've provided share some of the different resources um so yeah thank you very much for looking forward to kind of getting those up and running and making sure that we have um additional resources here for for the district and hopefully continuing to keep us growing as we move forward so thank you all so much if you have any questions yeah i have one question um with the food in it if you've ever gotten involved with uh niagara community action program it's a county program based on main street in the falls that fits what you exactly want to do i've worked with them my previous
013roles i don't have a current partnership with them but certainly because of support yeah i mean you know i have a number of susan uh shear who actually runs it right throughout the county and i can give it to dan and if you want to reach out to her thank you well obviously i can't say enough about the hard work the diligence that you put in to working on behalf of our community our students and um again i'd just like to remind the board and anybody in the audience please you know go to our website go under the resources section where you'll find the family support center link there are so many fantastic resources in there i've received so many compliments from just outside districts on the value of it and hard work and the
014thought that we put into it so again that being said kara and all the work you're doing i want to thank you again for for that and give you this certificate of recognition thank you very much thank you [Applause] kayla we're so lucky to have you aboard you're in your first year here in harmony field you've taken on so much and this is so impressive and the fact that you were able to build a sustainable partnership number one and get 42 people on board from all of the different buildings is just fantastic and we wanted to recognize you for the partnership you've built and the sustainability you're providing your students so thank you [Applause] now the superintendent for the initial budget presentation okay um is it says initial budget presentation right what we have at
015this time is the executive budget for those who don't know the executive budget is the governor's budget and so we're going to spend some time tonight we're going to look at some of the general things happening in new york state with the budget but we're also going to look at our executive run budget and we'll break down each of the categories of that budget and then we'll also talk about some of the legislative priorities okay with that budget all right there you go uh so you know most years we um get the executive budget and what the governor has done in many of the recent years anyway is comes in with the zero or very little increase and this year the governor did not do that okay part of that is attached to the foundation
016aid formula and what was promised by legislators last year in new york state which was to take the formula and what was owed for all of the districts divide that in half and give districts half of that difference this year and the other half next year okay meaning the next budget cycle so this will be the first year so as a district when you see our foundation aid number we'll be showing you that that number is is getting giving us half of the foundation aid that we're expected to get to get to the full foundation aid formula um number that we should be at okay so someone understands at the end of this budget cycle as it stands right now with what the governor's proposed we'll we will still be short we will not be
017meeting the full foundation 8 amount okay but this is this is a much better start with the budget than in past tiers okay one of the things obviously and people are watching understand that we're going to have to deal with is the consumer price index which is close to about four percent i've seen some fluctuations in that but it's about four percent um in in our district we were right at the four percent mark for the foundation okay what they're giving us is an increase right at four percent um go to the next slide this year i know it's very difficult to see so you're going to see a slide here that breaks this down better these are all the districts in in niagara county okay or at least some of them here on this
018one sheet and you can see the fourth column over is niagara wheat field for anybody who looks at the state eight runs the top one is always last year's the one underneath is always what's being presented as the budget so right now what's presented underneath is the executive in other words governor oakland's budget for our district for those that don't know when the legislature gets together they make decisions on whether or not their budget number is enough whether or not they should have more so that's that's where we're at at this point okay so i'll just go through some of the aid categories that niagara wheatfield gets foundation aid which is the biggest category in the main category that can be used for any category of expense the formula that they use follows one of
019four calculations depending on what stage of funding the district is in it's equal to the prior year foundation a plus the greater of either a the overall minimum b the phase in increase c the minimum increase or d the per pupil increase in our case we increased our funding our foundation was increased 949 481 dollars from prior year so the budget the executive budget shows our foundation aid at a total of twenty two million nine hundred twenty five thousand one hundred sixty six dollars universal pre-k we applied and remain eligible for upk funding uh eight hundred and thirty thousand two oh eight is our maximum allocation which is what's budgeted oc's funding is based on what we purchase and expense in the prior year uh that funding or that uh aid is at two million
020eight hundred sixty one thousand two hundred ninety seven dollars and again that's based on our boces rate uh aid rate high cost excess cost those are funds for high cost expenditure of students with disabilities attending public schools or boces where the cost of education exceeds a calculated amount so in our case we will be aided five hundred twenty two thousand eight hundred and eighty eight dollars private excess cost aid is again for public school school students attending private schools for students with disabilities so if on their iep they are to attend a private school with disabilities for one reason or another that we can't accommodate here at the district that's what that is and our aid on that is uh just under a million dollars it's nine hundred twenty two thousand four hundred ninety seven
021dollars hardware and technology those are instructional computer and technology aids and they're based on a per pupil amount and it's available for both public and non-public students and just just one thing you'll notice on that other slide on this this slide here there's a number of categories that we don't receive that aid so that's why there's lines crossed from those okay software library textbook aid again those are based on prior year expenditures and pupil counts and again those are available to public and non-public students so in our aid from the governor the dollar amount does get applied to both our students as well as non-public students resident students attending non-public schools transportation is based on our expenditures estimated expansion and multiplied again by the district's transportation ratio which in this case is about 73.1 percent
022the district gets reimbursed for any uh approved expenditures and transportation including our buses that we're purchasing and turning over the fleet um our our aid is estimated to be 4 million two hundred sixty four thousand eighty five dollars uh and lastly our district receives building and building reorganization and son of aids and again that's um based on our capital improvement projects our building aid rate is approximately 79.1 percent um the aid in the governor's budget this year is actually uh two two million nine hundred thirty seven thousand four hundred eight dollars which is actually down just over 1.1 million dollars from prior year however we had some it's down because we had a bond paid off so that they ended on that bond the expenditures it was a 14.2 million dollar bond that eliminated a
023payment of over 3.2 million dollars so and again once we file finish some of our current capital projects and file those final cost reports that aid will go up it's estimated to come in at just over 3.9 million dollars once those cost reports are filed in a majority of work is going to be done this summer and early fall so we expect to complete those projects and file them by the deadline so we can uh get the aid next year and just just add that in in essence what you can expect is when when the eight months are coming in under the building eight category they're going right back out to pay off moving on okay that's how that works any any questions on on those categories um back on the pre-k you know it's
024the same number as last year so is that because we haven't reached their number good great question so right now the the amount per pupil hasn't changed right and we're still at 141. i think maybe to your point is this if we were seeing numbers signing up that were over 141 we had a waiting list we could then reapply to the state to get more students in that program that's correct we have not hit that ceiling yet right we're getting close we're close we haven't hit the ceiling yet good question other questions on these categories so at our next meeting we'll have a clear breakdown of all this we're going to we're also going to talk about our reserves at the next meeting okay as we start to kind of really ramp up the the
025budget process now that said this past weekend we had an opportunity it was the nose but that is niagara orleans school board association had an opportunity to present in front of our local legislators and we're very fortunate that every year either they themselves or representative takes part in in that meeting and then that breakfast the legislative breakfast um the you need to see who was who was there or had a representative there some of the topics that we discussed are they're part of the nisba the new york state school board association's overall agenda okay they're legislative priorities but they're also part of nozbe's priorities so niagara orleans school board association priorities and um you know i don't know that any of these would necessarily be a surprise to you just going down and quickly you
026know the first one about technology and the digital divide those that don't know uh orleans niagara county has received money with the american rescue plan to put in broadband and once that broadband's in the next step will really be taking a look to see who still doesn't have access because we understand especially with our schools that access to the technology being able to actually use the technology that's provided by the schools is key so that that'll be a a huge win that was announced this past summer that they received those funds for both niagara and orleans counties um student health mental health we talked a little bit about that in the presentation that was put on here earlier this evening school nutrition so though those don't know i'll steal my own thunder at the end
027of my superintendent's comments every single board meeting i mentioned that until june 30th breakfast and lunch is are free at school um just to give you an idea of the impact that they had just at our middle school um last year we had about 12 students who were taking advantage of the breakfast program in the morning when we know many more are on the free and reduced list of 12 this year because it's free for everybody we've had 500. so you know you tell me what percentage of that group wasn't taking breakfast even though they needed it and so it's significant universal pre-k the reason we have this on here is because it it's called universal but it's really not because some schools only get money for partial days some get funding for many many
028students there are districts who have been put on hold to increase the number that bobby were talking about earlier so we want to just make sure that it's if there's kids who sign up they can get into the program and the other piece although most students go to kindergarten it's about making kindergarten mandatory for students um the cte program that's career technical education program over the last decade or so that program has taken off um it's great but there's still room for improvement there there's still room to increase course offerings there so that students who leave high school leave with some career-ready skills so we know that there's room for approval there one of the really important things is to look at take a better look at the requirements the 22 credits that are required
029for graduation and how those may be able to be changed moved around to make sure that kids who sign up for those programs can do it and do it well without worrying so much about some of the other credits that they have to obtain p-tech program there are some mosties around that have it hearing here one just started a p-tech program a couple years ago we'd really like our boces to start a p-tech program um really what that is is this starts kids as early as eighth grade into the industrial arts and by the time they graduate they also end up with a two-year degree it's an incredible program it's a way of catching kids before they fall too far we know that many students by the time they get to 19th grade have made
030a decision if they're going to continue or not so when students drop out so when you take an area like our county or neighborhoods both seas and look at that whole area and say how many kids could we get into a program for p-tech i think there's an opportunity to really help some students who um would find a niche there uh school safety school wellness we're just asking for sustained funding in that area um and to actually pay us for the funding that they promised us so for those that don't know we've done a lot of work with smart schools initiatives to make our buildings safer places and that smart schools funding was approved by the state it took forever for them to approve the applications of money that was allegedly sitting there now we've
031been waiting 10 months to get paid for the work that we've already done and if you could picture like your own checkbooks um when you have to front money for something that you weren't supposed to spend money on you can only do so much of that before there's nothing in your chair and um they we were told that and all districts were told that after they spent the start skills money they would be reimbursed within 60 days it's been 10 months 11 months now excuse me okay so we're we're 11 months and the reality there is it's it's a cash flow issue for districts so it's a real concern the uh some of the other needs fell under you know capital project reviews there's not enough people reviewing capital project work in new york state
032so they get incredibly backed up uh same thing with reimbursement there's not enough people working there to get reimbursement payments out we don't have the issue number three but some districts do that they use schools as holy places for non-school votes and that and in those cases they're forced to close down their schools on those days which impacts their calendars the change in appr getting local control i don't think any student or any teacher is benefited by the current appr i don't know any um reimbursement for smart schools i already touched on that and and one that's obviously very close to my heart to our districts is funding for native schools and native lands for those who have heard little bits and pieces of this um and it's just a big problem tonight i want
033to make sure everybody hears it for our district the tuscarora school is that land is owned by the tuscarora nation the building though is owned by new york state and we as a district serve the students in that school that's how it works free entities that land again is tuscarora the building is new york state new york state hasn't been doing apartment they have not been eaten up in school so where all of the other school buildings in new york state besides three okay and i'm talking districts i'm just not talking buildings all the other ones can go through the capital project process and move their schools if we can't we can't do that for that school so um in the last seven years they've spent less than two hundred thousand dollars on upkeep for
034that school and that is uh you know just to be awful the good news is this there's some real good news it took way too much time and too much energy but in the end there was bipartisan support we have the new york state education department board of regents who put it in their budget we have the governor the broker who put it in her budget those are two really important steps now the legislature needs to vote on that part of the budget right and say yes and that just doesn't move if that happens next school year probably next not 2022 that summer a lot of that work would be able to get done and we've actually seen the amount in the governor's budget it would cover all of the work that's needed there and
035you know for those that don't know and we're talking about bricks falling out of building out of the building we're talking about um glass block windows that are over the gymnasium that are actually cracking because the brick is so compressed because they're they should have been placed you know years ago um so the water treatment system there's so many pieces to that um i think the list is 15 to 20 um items long that we've all been collected over here so we're excited that that's in there okay uh last uh the fiscal stress report which is put out by the contours office came out again and i know i'm sorry that you really can't see that well it's a little fuzzy um but i think that number for 2021 is zero right and the number
036in 2013-14 was 88.3 in that year we were the most fiscally stressed district in new york state um there have been a lot of changes since then um i the business department the board of education has done an incredible job of making sure that we're at zero and you say well so what who cares what the controller says i didn't say that anymore okay but but seriously you might you might say that the reality is your fiscal stress level impacts your rates so when you go to borrow when you have to borrow the rates a lot higher if you're more fiscally stressed and that fiscal stress has to do with not having any money in reserves not having money in savings because you look like you're a district in a lot of trouble and you
037know back in that time those that lived in the district lived through it there were a lot of things that had to be done a lot of cuts that needed to be made because things were in such you know bad place financially and you know the entire business department board for all the work that they did to get them to the point where now it's a zero which positively impacts the entire district when it comes to those rates can i miss anything there thank you questions on the initial executive budget or the legislative priorities uh just the one thing i mean we mentioned the tuscarora school um i know one of the other issues was the tuition reimbursement level from there have we gotten anything from the state about that formula well i i think
038so there's two different things let me make sure let me talk about both one of them is a minute ago i talked about how we don't have uh the funding stream coming in all the time right not getting paid to our smart schools well one of the funding streams is getting reimbursed from the nation so the tuition part of that we've had some trouble in the past the timing of that has been much much better okay they are paying us in a much more timely fashion and and that we've had to do a lot of work to get them there um but but all districts in new york state will receive that the native tuition funding are seeing the same thing so that's been a huge factor is that what you were yeah just because
039we obviously talk about cash flow when smart school is not coming back in you know that could affect that zero percent that we have for fiscal stress you know the other part big part of that is when you have a couple million dollars sitting out there with a native of tuition that's not coming in also at the same time could compound the fact that the smart schools are not coming in and you've had that happen multiple years as you know and it's balancing you know like like that's why i work so hard to get the final cost reports done for these capital projects so we can keep the cash flow coming in and you know we uh align our expenditures as best we can with our state aid coming in so we can avoid borrowing
040and stuff like that so and you know we've pushed obviously very hard to get that money in where we were behind so many years in the past and they've been good about paying it so far so over the last couple years so we're not worried about a cash flow issue should the native funds be delayed and coming in while the the um smart school funds are not right now no no and and i think the other thing that i think they hear you may be saying you're asking is about the capital work for that building no not the capital i mean i mean i just don't know it's both of those the national reimbursement and the smart schools are both delayed at the same time i just don't want it to be a yeah you
041know a problem where we're going to be you know having a rant because the state again is not sending money to us no we haven't seen that's the native tuition that's been so much better we haven't seen anything for the smart school i've contacted smart schools um you know the superintendent knows that i've emailed them expressing just that so as of right now as a matter of fact the response to the last email was that we're number five yeah so when they meet again and this is getting back to that slide where we said they don't have people when they when they actually get together and meet again we're we're within five they're gonna definitely talk about that many of them review them and you would expect to be paid and dr gotcha brought up
042a good point at the legislative breakfast with that where because it was an issue of state ed bringing that that group together he actually said it's actually the governor's office that has the ability to bring that group together and that's where that he's lobbying through his uh through the chief school officers group to order them to order them back together what else that's good thank you next next meeting we have we'll get into a little more detail all right this time we'll have the resident comments this portion of the agenda provides an opportunity for the residents in that regional central school district to be heard any person who wishes to address the board is invited to do so at this time please state your name and address complaints and criticisms about individual school personnel are
043not appropriate in this form and will not be allowed the board may not respond they should be referred to the superintendent of schools at another time please limit your comments to three minutes first up mr carlson my name is rich carlson i live at 2537 in niagara road in berkeley's i heard about the critical rates theory about three years ago when i received the diversity equity and inclusion paperwork which i heard this board will be voting on i thought that's the same as crt there's an old saying if it looks like a duck waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck the same thing goes for c-i c-r-t and dei i've been talking to a lot of people in different churches and places i play pickleball at most people never heard
044about dei and i have to explain it to them they are appalled that the niagara field school board would even consider such a topic during the 20th century a number of countries underwent marxist-style revolutions it pitted the workers against the capitalists these failed by the mid-1960s the marxists acknowledged their failures they changed the rhetoric to race and ethnic categories but americans preferred the idea of improving their country instead of overthrowing it thanks to people like martin luther king jr unfortunately in the 1990s it became an academic discipline built on identity-based marxism it started in our universities but has been injected into government agencies public school systems teacher training programs corporate human resources in the form of diversity training programs some of the euphemisms deployed are equity social justice diversity and inclusion and cultural response teaching
045do any of these sound familiar to you now equity sounds a lot like equality these are entirely different equality is what we see in the 14th and 15th amendments to our constitution the civil rights act of 1964 in the voting rights of 1965 equity on the other hand is simply a reformulation of marxism anyone who speaks out against crt or dei is labeled as racist or white supremist racism in america would be dead today if not for certain people and institutions keeping it on life support sadly one of these institutions is our education system putting g-e-d-e-i into our classrooms wouldn't combat racism expanding the flames of racism proponents of dei says it's a socially constructed system of oppression instituted by white people and designed to suppress people of color they got that one entirely wrong
046springfield what does the bible say of dei in genesis 1 26-27 it says there is only one race god created mankind in his own image he created them male and female and if you don't believe that then you know where you're going to be going to thank you uh ruth walker hi i'm addressing the school board numbers here and i'm also um speaking for a lot of people here who i know and care about and love and we're here tonight to encourage you to reject the adoption of crt practices and all that that encompasses we as concerned parents grandparents and taxpayers do not want our children exposed to these teachings critical race theory and critical gender theory sound fairly innocuous what could be so wrong with promoting social and economic learning or equity inclusion and
047diversity well everything is wrong with it because it is rooted in marxism as you just heard and it's been responsible for the enslavement torture and death of millions of people in the past black cloaked and deceptive labels like progressivism and democratic socialism this insidious ideology is sweeping across america with the goal of tearing our nation apart this destroying what we know as our american republic tragically american marxists have gained control of our public school and college classrooms with full support from two national teachers unions our children are being taught to hate america and are brainwashed with racist ideas of white supremacy and privilege with a worldwide worldview that describes only oppressors and the oppressed children are told they must apologize for being born white this is ridiculous didn't dr martin luther king jr give his
048famous i have a dream speech so that children would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character what happened to that our declaration of independence u.s constitution and bill of rights guarantee and alienable rights from our creator which cannot be taken away by the government under any circumstances these are our symbols of freedom which allow us to achieve success namely life liberty and the pursuit of happiness we've all heard of that marxism escalates censorship represses healthy competition and forces conformity silences opposing voices slanders our ancestors and our history and trashes our founding documents and principles many of these have already infiltrated our american culture and society crt policies also promote transgenderism and worst of all destigmatize pedophilia we don't want any of this for our children or
049our country we believe in the sanctity of the family union of male and female gender and the family structure of husband wife and child we as parents and grandparents have the right to decide what is best for our children not the government as us citizens taxpayers we have the right to our freedoms and our constitutional base values we support the schools and the government with our taxes and we have a say in what happens in our country do not accept this harmful ideology into our niagara league field school system as school board members you you have the job to make sure students are being taught how to think not what to think carefully consider this disastrous ramifications of adopting this marxist ideology and do what you know in your heart is right america is the
050land of the free fought for by the brave and we should all want that to keep it that way and in the prophetic words of ronald reagan one of our most famous wise and beloved presidents freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction god bless america hey ruth can you just state your address hunt street berkelet thank you uh rachel vulgar how we want to keep it is it okay all right so i'm a little worked up because that was very good did you see your address it's 6 6 97 luther street thank you okay so i'll begin by telling you that i'm a resident of the town of wheatfield obviously i've been for most of my life i was raised in berkelets as well i attempted holy ghost from school as my
051family did before and after me i went to niagara to wheatfield high school i enjoyed sports with my friends my coaches i was very fortunate that my teams are very successful i'm a mother of three and i'm also a teacher in another district where policies similar to the one that you're going to vote on have already been adopted and implemented for the past couple of years i have over 20 years of public teaching experience as a music teacher i see many many students their struggles their special needs and their special situations i'm here speaking at this meeting tonight because i would like the board to realize that some people actually know what equity as you are voting on in your document means and how it translates i see it every day i've read everything in
052your document that you created in titles what i'm talking about is diversity equity and inclusion in the district and i have some food for thought i will keep this short first of all most people know that diversity and inclusion have been around for a long time but what's termed equity as they were just speaking about also it's not it's not equality at least i'm sorry has not at least not here in america and i firmly believe it's not at all a healthy approach for student success or growth here's why equity between two groups is a complete opposite of equality between individuals it's a term taken for marxism it means transferring wealth giving what's earned by one group to another group by force it's the exact opposite of the principles our country was founded on which
053is why those who push this also want us to hate our founders the government body presiding over our school district is this board so what does this mean in a school setting in school setting it translates as no matter how hard you work you will not get more for that level of effort no matter what your sacrifice or how great than anyone else to the contrary you will all get the same schools should be places of learning not labeling or leveling promoting and teaching equity is not something that would ever prepare children for successful careers help them to strive to become better positive role models or even help them develop strong relationships equity means we redistribute the efforts of some to everyone by the way we also need to know their race so that we
054can treat you appropriately the idea that goes along with that if this niagara wheat field scoreboard commits tonight for forcing equity on the students and teachers of this district then it means that beginning tonight you will be actively working to create this very harmful environment where there will be no striving for the students at all because everyday implications of equity make it counter-productive to even try not a great idea i'm going to finish this up here i would ask each one of you also is something in your document what i thought was very interesting says what does exactly offer coherent opportunities for students to actively participate in experiences that prepare them for a lifetime of civic engagement and contributions to social justice me i just would like to know what that means i would like
055to see lesson plans my children were going to go to naga wheatfield after holy ghost i'm not sure if i'm not mistaken people who believe this somehow would forgive for kids things know that it means a lot of labeling which we've learned is not appropriate to say the least it makes some groups feel bad for things that they personally had nothing to do with and can't make up for teaching small children that white people have been oppressors and black people are victims putting a slant on american history to conjure up feelings of guilt about being an american rather than trying to celebrate successes in history i would ask you to please consider this in conclusion if you believe in equity it would be okay if your job were taken away tomorrow because someone else needs
056it doesn't matter how hard you worked for it i think this idea is pathetic and it should be voted down thanks for your time i'm going to mess up this last name because i can't read the handwriting i apologize march okay so i can't okay hi my name is mark g melville i live at 6326 noble circle and i really only had kind of a question or a thought because as i'm hearing what's been said i have to tell you that um i'm agreeing that with with what is being said my i myself went to neighborhoodfield my children and my grandchildren all graduated from mango wheatfield and it would make me very sad after everything that i've heard being sad about the interpretation of what you're considering i also have to say that i'm really
057hoping and praying that you will reconsider at the very least table of the matter and maybe consider it a bit more so thank you for your time darla blueberry can you thank the board of education public if you do not know me i am darla schultz bubar i'm the president of the niagara week field teachers association and proud member of that union i stand here with my brothers and sisters united we the members of the niagara wheat field teachers association support policies and initiatives that promote diversity equity and inclusion within and throughout the niagara field school community we aspire to provide an environment where each individual feels valued regardless of their ethnicity race religion socioeconomic status gender identity or because of who they love advocating for diverse groups that have been historically marginalized does not
058mean we must marginalize any others it means recognizing the history and contributions of diverse groups and presenting various perspectives it means students seeing people like themselves represented in the books they read and in the people that they encounter during their school day it is creating an environment where students and adults can be true to themselves and to others and know that they are supported and accepted by all of us by sharing a more complete truth and providing a broader understanding of the world it is cultivating a culture of respect and compassion for all policies and initiatives that empower our nw teachers to provide a culturally responsive and inclusive learning environment is completely 100 supported by the teachers of the niagara wheatfield teachers association thank you all right moving moving on to the consensus agenda items
059i can call for a motion to accept a consensus agenda as submitted with one edit we'll make a motion second second uh the edit is we need to fill in under the approved nomination of the orleans niagara boces board candidate to read um uh dermot and residing at 8205 patchwood drive niagara falls in new york no i just need to we just make the edit on there because it's the blank we have blanks on the uh the agenda keys for that because we have it any item then to discuss or vote on separately just a we're going to pull number five for further conversation at the end of this then before we go on that one so all those in favor then accepting high numbers item one through four and then six through ten please
060say hi hi poser abstaining motion carries thank you um i think we have um yep nate who is here from turner construction he's going to talk a little bit about the recent bids as most of you know we're in the middle of a um near the end tail end of a significant capital project and nato talk a little bit about the recent bets yep thank you board members uh so i just want to give a little update as everyone recalls we do have the 2020 capital project which was the fully approved referendum of the 30 million dollars that was divided into originally two phases phase one was mostly the term the athletic complex that was done that's out behind the school phase two is a two year project which uh we are in year two
061of now the work that was last year and then the work this year and then we recently put out on january 19th what we were calling phase three and the 19th bids were received there was a total of 12 bids received we had recommended in conjunction with trump and associates five total prime contracts to be bid on there was a general trades mechanical plumbing electrical roof bids were received again a total of 12 and the recommended contract award with the alternates that were able to be selected is one million four hundred twenty eight thousand four hundred which i know is in your packet with a little bit further breakdown any questions of the superintendent on the bids just one one comment you know the benefit was that you know what the initial estimates were for
062that it certainly came under bid which is really good for some of the other work that we had set aside to be deemed necessary in the in the project so we're able to look at some of those things uh we'll certainly talk about those um and we've talked about those already a little bit but because we have a long list to pull from but we'll also talk about that with the capital project ready too all right all those in favor of accepting the evidence as submitted please say hi hi motion carries i like to call thank you nick to call for a motion to accept the personnel report as submitted i'll make that money yes sir spoon moving second anything to separate are going on separately disgusting all right all those in favor then accepting
063the personnel report estimated please say hi hi poster standing motion carries all right uh we move on to mr mcdermott with the capital prize committee oh yeah we just heard some of the uh what we're doing with the capital projects mike sorry about that yeah we just like i said we just heard uh what we're doing project so we had a meeting this month uh we reviewed all our items that they had from the initial inspection and we updated the priorities so we're in the process now going through those priorities and determining what we feel is the needs to be addressed um we are also looking at other things but i'll probably bring that up in the next next meeting the other thing that came up in that and that leading was that we have
064a new plaque here that dedicated our football field it was given by traveling together yeah cotton turner and uh this beautiful plaque that they're gonna put out in the field for the uh all the people that were involved in in that process are on this plaque so it's a nice little dedication for it was given to us by them very nice any questions about this report all right audit committee yes uh we we had our meeting today and uh everything was looking good at first uh the audit and uh they did an audit of the food service for this past year and uh everything was good even with all the the lunches were given out to the students and now we're going to make a decision probably in that this week but it looks like
065we're going to look at economic procedures moving forward for the next audit and now we're going to decide that this week okay any questions of the audit committee all right thank you all right policy committee so we had a meeting prior to this meeting tonight to discuss some other policies uh that will be on the next agenda uh for the first reading and then i don't know if we have another date scheduled i don't know i would have to report back on that no i do not believe we do because we haven't received the next quarterly request okay and then the other thing i was going to bring up to the board i know it was discussed at the last meeting i was not here but i did watch the meeting if you have any
066questions about anything that comes out on the agenda policy wise if you could kind of i believe it usually comes out you know a few days prior to our meeting if you could you know kind of direct that to myself or to the superintendent so that we can discuss it or have kind of a heads up but yeah all of that should be included in the agenda and if you have issues we can discuss at the meeting okay all right this is the second reading of these policies there's not been a motion because it's coming from a state committee it's like we will have a vote then on policy 1510 which is a regular board meetings and rules for quorum and parliamentary procedure policy 343 diversity equity and inclusion in the district policy 6220 for
067temporary personnel policy 8210 safety conditions and preventative instruction and policy 8240 construction in certain subjects uh before we head on any questions or comments do you have those all right then all those in favor please say hi hi opposed abstaining motion carries all right uh our street member's not here and we're going down to the superintendent's report great thank you thank you um we've got a number of things to talk about um first one first of all to talk yeah i'm going to comment under superintendent the the first thing i wanted to mention was this past weekend we had a musical and that musical was moana and it was our middle school we had a great turnout each night i can just tell you that if you've never been to one of our middle school
068musicals you should what's incredible is that people go and they can't believe there's middle school students who are putting on the show that they put on and it is really impressive every single year i know i enjoy it and one of the things that was pretty neat was talking with the director afterwards and the amount of work that went into this particular show they were so thankful of the work that our facilities director did that facilities director and all the staff our srp group did to make sure that that production went off as it did it was it was certainly impressive second next meeting we'll be honoring our fall athletes okay there were um the the academic awards finally came in so we'll be bringing them to their next board meeting obviously an incredible fall
069we the district won the supremacy award and it wasn't wasn't really close so congratulations our fall athletes we'll be honoring them at our next meeting the test distribution dates we have additional tests for people who are interested in mr stack do we share those yes thank you we currently have uh two test distribution dates that are set up in times those dates are tomorrow february 3rd from 2 30 p.m to 5 30 p.m as well as february 17th 2 30 p.m to 5 30 p.m both of those instances will be out of here at the high school alc at this point in time we are planning future dates as well uh for distribution we're gonna have a little issue with passing them out tomorrow we will they won't be passed out tomorrow we'll be we'll
070be notifying you that we'll put our notifications one of the things that was asked in the last batch of tests that were handed down that they were for districts that have the february break that they're handed out before the february break so people can utilize them over the february break if they so joe's you know if they want to do so one other topic that obviously was um you know important to a lot of people was the mass mandate you've seen what's happened in the courts with that there's two important dates there one of them is the february 21st date which is when the executive order runs out the other one is the mark's second date which is when the stays in place themselves unless you know if something happens in between the after the
07121st um the fourth march second we'll certainly give notification the second we hear anything we do have the opportunity to speak with our local health director weekly all the superintendents in niagara county do the numbers have been coming down for the past few weeks it's fantastic however um the hospitalization numbers and this was as of tuesday to the hospitals we're still in zero capacity in niagara county um one was uh when say 78 capacity so it was zero you know space so those were the three in niagara county um and the number of deaths still haven't come down to up to a place where i know um zero deaths are obviously where we want to be but there's no real comfort there so hopefully those trends will follow the um the positive cases that have
072declined the draft calendar for boces is out i'm going to make sure that all of you receive a copy of that draft calendar before our next meeting and then we'll be able to talk about it when you get it remember this we always have to add one day off in that calendar okay um compared to what boces has we have 187 days in our calendar they have 188. so whenever i send it yeah i'll propose a couple dates we can then talk about it at the next meeting the i mentioned earlier tuscarora indian school and then the financing they're very important the next capital project committee meeting um is february 22nd and as bob mentioned we mentioned we already met on the 24th um i mentioned food already um the one topic that i did
073want to want to address that you know came up certainly with the policy i think there's just a lot of misinformation and um there's been zero discussion in our buildings in our district at our instructional leadership team meetings anywhere about crt critical race theory except for brought up here at some more meetings there's zero discussion it's not happening i don't know how to say that any differently i know that people are choosing to read into it a certain way it's just it's just not real i think that's important for me to say one of the concerns is that people i think felt as though our district latched on to the dei that was happening in the new york state education department and that's not true we actually decided this summer prior to the dai talk
074at this the educational education department level to talk about this and it was called an equity education steering committee and the whole idea was how do we make sure that all of the people in our district all of them guests students staff feel value it was it that that's that was the premise um i was a social studies teacher so i understand marxism it's just it's not it's not real okay and i'm not telling you that crt as discussion item isn't real okay but here it's not and it's just such a far reach to make those connections and i understand that people are making them it's not us one of the other concerns that i know was brought up at the last meeting and i apologize i've uh 10 10 years as a superintendent i've
075never missed a meeting except for the last meeting and so i wasn't here to talk about this and i wish i was um kobet got me if that was the character keep keeping track at home um but i i wasn't here because of that and um one of the concerns raised had to do with hiring and if you read that policy it's about casting a net far and wide to get the best people that's it and whoever's the best is who's getting hired don't care who they are our entire leadership team knows that we talk about it all the time and believe me i'll get well what about jeez this person's really really good they might not want to stay here very well who knows where they want to go take the best never settle
076for anyone unless you think they're the best there's no compromise but the idea is and it's what we're doing anyway so we're codifying in that respect what we're already doing when it comes we're just casting our net near and far that's all we're saying we're doing we want to make sure that we have all people represented in the people that we're interviewing and then we hire the best person all the time so i know that those were some of the concerns that were raised and i just wanted to make sure i guessed them thank you any questions the superintendent on his report all right um reporting the board we have nothing else from finance right coming through okay any ideas for more discussion any old business any new business public comments at this point if
077anything that we discussed at the meeting you'd like to address again you are welcome to come up and address that again there's no new subjects at this time yeah you state your name and address sure i didn't sign in so i bought this for that um my name is tim walk address is 6291 mobile circle uh my wheatfield graduate three of my kids who are done one's graduating this year uh i just have a comment superintendent and first i'd like to thank you and your staff i think during this whole colbit pandemic we've been pleased with the communication coming from the school i think you've done as good a job as you could navigating what's going on and keeping us informed and trying to keep our kids in school so i thank you and the
078board for that my only suggestion is the one topic tonight there was a lot of passion around it i think we stayed i heard your explanation it was a good explanation my only suggestion is when there's so much passion around the topic it would have been good if somebody said that to try to welsh misunderstandings before the vote because a lot of people left really angry and they should have heard that explanation before the vote it's just a suggestion so thank you and just to explain like policies like that whichever comes up in the future there's two reading there's two meetings that they have to be voted on two subsequent meetings so for example last meeting when we didn't have any public com to speak about that you know we we approved the first reading
079of it so coming through this the second reading yes we heard that piece but that we had this opportunity and this is what i always encourage the public do his phone is always available and he's his door is always open you know if you have a concern like this make an appointment he'll he he'll even come and speak to a group if it's a topic like that to to explain and answer questions we want to work with everyone and because we are our neighbors over here at the administration building and we are neighborly that way to work with everybody so just in that regards i mean as a board protocol we we move on with the second reading as more of a you know okay you've come out to hear this but we had no
080one speak on the other end of that at the first reading where we could have gone made changes uh you know and adopted other things so public participation just takes time to evolve so you know information comes out from the last meeting you know people hear different versions of it and then they come out you know we came out tonight we didn't know it was a topic last meeting we don't come to every meetings there's a lot of stuff going on so the first opportunity we had to hear it was tonight and again i would think it would have been good to just say that before goal even though i understand procedurally it was talked about last time again just a suggestion thank you any other public comments all right board member comments i actually
081do have one thing just kind of in connection to your um you know kind of does our policy committee is made up of community members uh the superintendent and board members and we discuss these at our meetings we take what people you know everybody's opinion and thoughts matter on the topic um i would like just everybody to know that we do represent you know we we have different types of people that sit on these committees and we appreciate you coming out and you know when you have concerns that's we want you to bring it to us but like you know our president said there's kind of a procedure that we follow so we've kind of had our discussion we brought it here we had our first reading and then tonight it might seem like we
082just didn't hear what you had to say but we kind of already had the discussion so i apologize if it seemed that we just you know didn't didn't have any response to your concerns my name's brenda walk 6291 novel circle sampler is there no agenda that comes out from you that's published there is where would we find that you can find on the district website every monday it's up by every monday on the district website because i had kind of searched all over the internet just to try to get an idea of what was getting voted on and i should not find it if you if you click if you click on menu and then you click on report of education and then it'll show like uh the meetings we'll actually show you we'll have
083you pull it off because i was second one and then under board agendas and then if you go to meetings it'll show you the different meetings for all the years and when you when you click on the middle and it would have on ahead of time that's correct that's correct okay that's my question thank you good question i get our you know super tense lines always open if you do have a question hey you know i i can't find the agenda feel free to give them a call at two 303 five three zero two three um with your questions any other board member comments yeah i do first of all i'd like to thank we uh nora o'brien uh gentle goliath and the owners and the staff of bunny bunch this month we were able
084to go on a board tour with them through the bunny bunch facility for a pre-k 4 program and i would say they have a really nice program set up over there we when i got there the kids were all attentive in a learning environment and and it was done through internet interact interactive technology they had one-on-one they were in small groups and i really encourage the parents that have children that are in the pre-k 4 program to look into that i know we have 141 slots we are getting close to filming this past year but i really encourage them to go take a look at bunny bunch and see exactly what our program is there it's really a nice program for our pre-k for a second i had uh i wasn't here at the last
085meeting either um i had i wasn't here for some medical reasons somewhere to dance but uh i just wanted to clarify that the month before i had voted on something that was i was pretty much doing it myself uh where i wanted to eliminate the um hybrid for the board members the reason why i wanted to eliminate that was i felt i i was in i've been in private industry for 45 years and two-thirds of that i was in the managerial position and i had two guiding principles and one was that was lead by example the other was treat everyone the same and so i feel that we're asking our administration our teachers our staff and our students to be in person and wear a mask i think me as a board member i should
086be doing the exact same thing so that's that's my take on that i didn't want to get it to have it screwed up that long jump against somebody or anything else but that is my reason why i i feel strong we're board members and we're leaders of this community this week we feel uh secondly i see like say i wasn't at the meeting last month but i did watch a virtual live stream and it's it's very regrettable that we have a couple that maybe had bring up a politics into this board it hasn't been here and i hate to see it be here but i did see it that last month and it's it and uh the reason why i say it is because when i started on this board i came here for two
087reasons one of them is we had a fairly new administration and i wanted to make sure that we were my our not not only my grandkids which we coming here the students of this district were getting the best possible education and i can say that they definitely are getting the dedication of this administration isn't is unbelievable and not only that the situation we've been under for the last two years has really shown the light shining the light on our teachers and our staff they they've gone above and beyond what what is required to make sure our students are getting the best education possible so i feel the same way that they should be getting the best education possible so if there's somebody here on this board that doesn't feel that that's what they should be
088doing is looking at with the best education possible then maybe they should reconsider why they're here i don't have anything else to say okay i'm not sure where where he's going at all but i'm going to be very professional the teachers and staff have always been supported by this board okay and i and we will continue to support them they do a great job okay the politics that happens in this board it happens it happens on every board i don't know what experience you have on other boards but i've been on boards for over 40 years it happens okay you move on you have arguments you move on there's no grudges i've talked to steve several times since we had an issue okay going back to 2012 2013 we've had arguments me and other board
089members you move on you don't take nothing personal you move on from one issue to the other if you drag out an issue to another issue that's when you have problems and that's all i'm going to say i will always say what's on my mind regardless if it hurts someone on this board's feelings i'm elected to this board the reason why i ran for this board is three reasons first and foremost to do what i think would be benefit for our students that's why we all should be here but i also my history represents employees and staff so i will always look out for them in in the residence of our district who pay a good portion of the that's how we shall look at it and if that ruffles some feathers up here when
090i do what i feel i'm supposed to do then let it be i don't bother me all i know is when i go home at night i sleep because i know i'm helping our students staff and residents thank you i won't say no more steve all right three things um i got to see moana junior also uh i have to say i feel bad for the kids that were the water the foreign workout they had for that hour and 15 minute performance was insane um but uh again to to mr figg uh uh to mr schmidt she made the the rest of the the crew that ran that it was phenomenal to see what the kids put on and it's again we put on top-notch pieces constantly right um and i'm excited we have adam's
091family coming up i'm putting the plug-in uh for adam's family uh coming up in a couple weeks so you know look at that on your calendar that's going to be another phenomenal performance that we have by the high school staff and students um i have a message to the board members because you know 11 years of being board president here and going through a lot of stuff with the state school board association and training and being someone who trains new school board members for other districts in certain years one of the things that we have to watch is how we interpret something and how that gets out to people because we as board members if we try taking in knowledge that we think we have without going through the person who leads the district and
092gets the information from the chief school officer and from the fellow superintendents and we interpret something our way and then that's the message we take out to the public we get a conflicting message than what's actually happening in the district and i see i see that that's something that happened in this situation here so i i caution everyone and this is why one of the things we do in board number training is that when it's a question they have of a policy what is being taught in the school something that doesn't fall under your duties as a of a board of education member that is why we direct it to the superintendent of the schools and that's why we even start our privilege of the floor that we will direct those comments and questions to
093the superintendent of the schools and you know you create a you want to talk about creating an environment that's not inclusive or accepting or equal in here when we give our personal views of that and we have staff and students who hear those views and we're saying our school board is already putting us down that's a bad message for what we're we've built up and i'll tell you rick and i have been we rick and i sat we talked because rick's been on 10 years this is my 11th year we went from 15 million in the red one year to where we are now with zero you know fiscal stress and we did it with hard decisions and disagreements and we've just you know we've had staff in here where we've you know we had
094to sit in front of the staff we laid off you know 200 people that one year you know and face that and we've done way too much to build this district back up to let a person on the board destroy all of that that's been built up and we cannot let that happen we can't and that is where the communication piece and you're right the communication piece is important there back to the community that communication piece has to be there where we keep people informed of what is going on and what is actually being done what is being taught in schools what is not being taught in schools and if we come create a con fab of what we think is happening because we've watched something on tv or we heard a rumor or this
095is the interpretation on the internet because we know how well the internet informs people we we have to really look at what we're doing to the district by doing that there's one person that answers to everyone in the community and has to give the honest truthful direct answer of what is really happening in these walls on every single campus here and that's that person here that we as a school board employ that is our member that is our only employee that is the only person that we have that had you know that has to answer to us and when he is saying that this is not happening in schools this is not going on and we have members saying well i'm still going to say this you have now just taken away the authority that
096we have given him and the authority that the state education department gave to him to do a job that is making this school district the best that we want it to be for our kids and our grandkids and our hopefully future grandkids that are going to be coming here and and i feel bad for the staff and students that had to go through what was went on the past month of the rumors of what what what happened here the talking that went on both sides of the aisle of things and i i don't want to see that happen again so again my message is to my board is that we need to not do that piece of it anymore we need to hold each other in check should that start happening all right anyone else
097all right then um did you want to announce the message that went out by any chance oh if everybody was picking up their phone and taking a look at eight o'clock the message went out and we are not going to have school tomorrow it looks as though the storm is going to be hitting right around the afternoon dismissal time so in the morning you wake up again national weather service right that's what we use in the morning you wake up you'll see probably very little snow by the afternoon it looks like the commute home could be pretty bad and for that reason we always air in the side of caution and staff reports right he just got good luck with that either call for a motion to adjourn exactly all right all those in favor
098please say aye aye aye aye for abstaining motion carries you