001[Music] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united for which it states one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] are there any agenda changes no agenda changes any public comments no communication we have two we have the jeff lewis school board association sent us their virtual online ceremony program i'll pass it around the date is to be determined but i think you'll be very excited when you look at the number of students from watertown high school that are being conducted and the watertown high school will also be having an induction ceremony coming up in june that i can give you more details on our next meeting and the other communication that we have is from the state of new york office of the state comptroller and they are going to be
002uh they've selected our district for an audit so they've given us understanding the audit uh process brochure and they're just putting us on notice that we will be getting an audit um and more information to follow so as they give us more information i will be giving that information to the board that's it for communications right yes okay moving on to uh board and staff reports we had some questions um our last meeting about the wrestling so we have mr emmerich here and mr bliss to give us some reports so [Music] some um in the past this is one that we kind of approached them about our wrestling team small this past year and uh we thought it'd be advocated as wrestlers come over um their numbers are so small they're judge members that they
003won't move out us up in class size will still be a class a school um i know the question was if they would wrestle into their own colors or wrestle as part of our team um i don't want to coach blizzard but i think we both prefer that they'd be part of our team under their own colors will be kind of difficult no school right now in section three does that and nobody's done that in section three for 20 years annie ellis did that 20 years ago and uh it creates a little confusion in an individual sport you can do that but in a sport like running or swimming uh once the person starts the race no more coaching is going on so um in this case we could have a situation where united see
004wrestlers wrestling a warrior town wrestler in a match and coach bliss is trying to push both of them so um that's where we are with that if i had any questions about it okay all right while you're here do you want to just give the board a quick update uh george on athletics in general because you've been doing an awful lot of work and i've attended twitter through the events and they're actually going very well we're trying to cram three and a half or all the sports in three and a half months so yeah it's just it's taken a little bit but uh we're um we're gonna actually have a softball game on the turf on saturday morning and that was eric peters idea and that's something we've never done before he's always used the
005city fields he saw some central new york schools did that and it worked well so our booster club purchased the bases special for the term it would cost 1200 for a set of bases and we're going to have our first games there so we're all excited about that so that's saturday morning and hopefully that improves the softball program because it's been kind of lacking last few years but we have some uh sectionals coming up so at the next board meeting we'll do the alba county um proposed for those that work big work i need to do we have some clinics coming up over the summer as well so i'll have that approved by the board at the next meeting as well hopefully um the one question i have for you if we do have this
006merger with iot does go through um should we charge ifc um when they're uh we have a hockey merger with them they charge our district they spend anywhere between seven hundred and eight hundred dollars um per skater so um i think we probably could figure out the cost for officials for the coaching salaries and for transportation and splitted by the number of wrestlers and have a cost to them as well um is is there a dramatic i'm making an assumption here there's a dramatic difference in the cost of running a hockey program versus the wrestling program yeah it wouldn't be close to seven or eight dollars were there are there ever charges with other schools when we've done accommodations other than that no i don't believe so since that's how i've been here we've skied
007like with loud volunteer our own colors and things like that i don't think anybody else has charged us okay one other question have you done are you doing call sign ups for athletics we're going to start those uh tomorrow or friday i think one of the questions that was raised last time um for you was the not not so much playing time whatever it's called mat time what i mean or a chance to wrestle is it gonna displacing of our students by having them head to the team is gonna take away time yeah so the challenge with the wrestling in the dual meets is you only have excellent spots um so i do see a possible challenge there where if i have two individuals that weigh the same one from my rhc and one from
008watertown um in a typical match type game thing they would wrestle off before wins to take a spot if they're wrestling under their own colors we still couldn't wrestle both of them in a dual meet because south jefferson had to field two wrestlers or we have one wrestler russell twice so there is a possibility that an ihc wrestler will be a watertown wrestler for a spot but generally speaking in wrestling there's a wrestle off whoever wins that earns that spot on the map or they'll meet in tournaments um we'd have to look at whether or not we could add i see the wrestling tournaments under their own colors um i don't know what that would look like but it would take away from our points for the tournament championship but individual wrestlers go for individual
009wins there as well so wrestling's just one of those sports where tournaments are different than dual meets and so it you have the possibility of a waterfront kid stepping down because you get beat by a right wrestler but it's all about merit-based who makes that the challenge we have is we don't have enough pressures i don't think to feel the full team if we don't bring kids from the modified team so we won't have a full varsity team so even if we do go to south jeff we'll forfeit several matches so even if we want all of our matches we find ourselves losing dual meets if we brought ihc wrestlers in that would bolster the program hopefully give us a little more success and draw some more younger kids into the program so that we
010can build it year to year but again there's a lot of unknowns we don't know if there'd be five or ten kids from ic they want to do it um if they get more than a couple then we have to look at what does that look like their athletic trigger guess two or three yeah i wouldn't think that we do more than we have here right but like i said at this point that's where we're at i think the challenge would be bringing the kids in and building the best team on the map so that the team can have a chance to win dual meets excellent it's not that continuous for our program not to do so i think so yeah and then it's an annual request so that you know try this and at
011the end of the first year we find that we have number of watertown kids that are interested in our program we can then come back because this is an annual thing that has to be approved so that we can have further conversation kind of tried as a pilot for a year if the board is willing and then take it from there and reevaluate it at the end of the year i think that's a great idea i guess we're being as flexible as we can um it is a challenge because two seasons have gone by so there might be wrestlers that are waiting but just didn't do it because they didn't do it last year i know i had a couple said that so we won't know until we actually start fielding requests for winter sports
012next year anybody else okay thank you very much [Music] okay moving on to the policy committee report so nancy viewer up to uh discuss policy right so very few uh changes at all most of them were um instead of board of education board and instead of watercolor district there were a few medical mistakes that i picked up and um really it wasn't much okay thank you moving on to item from the consent agenda with the consent agenda items a and here here thank you any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries for board action whereas the inspectors of election for the annual school district election budget vote held on may 18 2021 have delivered to the clerk of the board of education they're assigned statements and reports a quote was cast and said election
013budget vote in such statements and reports have now been examined in canvas as follows approval of the 2021-22 school budget proposition one total number of books exposed 477 notebooks 91 approval of the capital project request proposition 2 total number of votes yes vote 486 no goals need two four members of the board of education randy richardson 519 votes glory congress 433 votes primrose 415 votes therefore be resolved at the 2021 22 proposed budget capital project proposition and elected board of education members have been approved by the qualified voters of the school district and get further resolved that ambrose souza lori converse and richardson are declared the elected members of the board of education they will serve a three-year term commencing july 1 20-21 and ending june 30 2024 the district clerk has notified his successful
014candidates and will send a written confirmation can i get a motion please susie in a second jason any discussion all in favor aye opposed motion carries and thank you to everybody who got out to vote it resulted upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools patricia b lavar the board of education hereby approves the following retirements resignations the needs of absence appointment substitutes instructional substitute non-instructional can lead get a motion please jason a second michael any discussion all in favor aye all right any opposed motion carries result that a donation from long follows down the street for 250 will be related to the h.d wildling student council this donation is gratefully accepted and approved and will be acknowledged and writing okay get a motion please susie in a second okay any discussion all in favor
015aye okay are you opposed motion cares resolved at the formation of an extracurricular club case musical at case middle school with sarah gleason as the advisor is here can i get a motion please go away and a second answer any discussion all in favor result that the following revised board of education policies are hereby approved and adopted four zero zero one fiscal responsibility sports service there are two reports of possible violations of policy and law 4003 system of accounts 404 funding of district personnel for 101 budget planning for 102 budget publication of hearing 4103 budget adoption and implementation for contingency budget 4105 budget transfers 4106 revenue 4107 school tax 4108 authorized signatures 4109 tax exempt bonds post insurance compliance borrowing funds 4202 deposits 4203 investments 4204 insurance 4205 financial facilities development 4302 audit committee three
016zero two annual audit 4303 internal audit function four three zero four auditing claims for payments can i get a motion please michael in a second colleen thank you any discussion all in favor all right any opposed motion carriers thank you superintendent of schools report yeah i just want to go back to what you did because it seems like we repeated two numbers they both had to do with the audit 4301 is audit committee 4302 is annual yep 4303 is internal audit function so i just want to make sure we get those right so is that just to type on the agenda i think so okay we need to like and 4302 is annual audit 4303 is internal out of function okay yeah and we just corrected it i'm looking at you i would make a
017motion to amend um the adopted board policies to change audit committee 4301 audit committee thank you can i get a second on that amendment chase jason thank you all in favor aye any opposed motion carries thank you bob okay superintendent report thank you uh for allowing george and john to give you the update for wrestling and for blowing us to give this a chance for the next year overall sports are seeming to go very well right now um again like maria said thank you to everyone who came out to vote for supporting the district it's nice when you have you know the budget at 84 voter approval in the capital project at 86 motor approval um and some some high numbers like for us you don't have that many people come out after last year's
018absentee ballot and then this i thought it went very well there were a few minor glitches over at the north side that we unified very early on um and it's going from having in-person voting to going to this big absentee voting last year to going back in person and just having to reset some buttons but michelle and josh and i have really debriefed and worked through it and next year we'll be offset we were set but it just took us a little while to get things um you know in order being that we were back in person and then on top of it you have coveted restrictions so there was a little bit of different procedural things that just needed to be done and so hopefully next year we'll go back to doing things like
019we had pre-covered and we'll sink right back in if you voted on the south side over here um you may not have seen anything but some of the thing it was just a little different setup but we didn't have the actual official register and the way people were doing the full list where they were voting in again it was all checked in very quickly um and things were taken care of but i did want to bring that to your attention back on may 5th josh and i did virtual presentations for the rotary i talked about the capital project and josh talked about our budget lisa blank will be presenting our stem programs to rotary at the end of may and i think it may be their first in-person meeting it's next week than it is
020in person yeah and then stacy and tina are going to go out to rotary in june at some point and do a presentation and they may talk about school during the pandemic and you know things to look forward to when things get back to uh you know where we hope they will be in september they'll be in july actually it's in july okay perfect things are going really well with the return of our k-6 hybrid students um the 10-year observations you'll be seeing lots of people look for tenure in june and i have visited all of their classrooms at case there's been a few at case at wiley several a few from north sometimes um you know kids are in person yesterday i was actually at north right after voting and started and i was
021in a classroom with a teacher who was zooming with a special ed student that was at home and i was just highly impressed no matter which situation i've been in whether it's somebody trying to teach kids remotely um or in person it's just been incredible to see there's two two different styles now and you know some some are a little bit harder than others for example i was at case for a math lesson and you know they're still on their hybrid schedule at this particular period on this day there were only two students in the math class and at first i thought that's pretty awesome you know because these kids are getting a ton of attention and you know they're getting a lot of instruction here but at the same time they were on the
022entire period and i think that they were both exhausted by the end of math class i don't know who was more exhausted the teacher or the kids at that point but again in all of the observations that i've had i've seen some incredible uh learning taking place i also had the opportunity to um sit at a simulated board meeting i actually got to be a board member and i give you all kudos i know stacy um did it as well i was in the first session with suny as we go where students that are in leadership were always looking to pursue they do a unison project and so they have to come up with a comprehensive three-year action plan and um and then a budget to go along with it so i got to sit
023in and i wanted to just say i really appreciate the role that all of you do as board members because for me it was kind of difficult i didn't have a lot of the information about like the number of students in the school then i started thinking about all of you how sometimes we sit here um and you know people were doing the presentation and they were using a lot of acronyms and so that was some of the critical feedback that they got back from some of us uh as district leaders were it's one of the things that we learned first and foremost i remember beth you saying it all the time like that's not the language other people talk and we have to you know explain that so um stacy could elaborate on the
024one she said uh but it's a good opportunity and it's a it's a deep appreciation for board members everyone should have that opportunity um if they have the opportunity it presents itself we are going to be doing um some final calendar changes um first so just know that's coming i mentioned it last last meeting our blind spot book study with our 11 other district employees is winding down we discussed the last chapter this past week and then we have two more meetings to kind of wrap things up let me give kudos to stacy for leading that and there will be some more opportunities for other staff members to participate this summer and i would highly encourage that they do so our diversity equity and inclusion committee is continuing to work in their small breakout rooms
025virtually i believe that they are going to be sharing with us at our next meeting just some of their thought for how we can enhance our strategic plan goals and as soon as they share that out with us we'll bring that back to you as well i sent you an email earlier today with a link to our guest speaker or keynote for friday from syracuse university um stacy tina and i against that end on a book study leadership for increasingly diverse schools george theogarris will be there and i think that if you have the opportunity to join us um please do so because i think he gives just such a great overview of diversity from so many different lenses i think our staff will really get a lot out of that time with him on
026friday can i interrupt for a second is that going to be recorded we are able to record it but we will only be able to share it in a closed venue so i can't email you the link of the recording but i did share it drive so that you can watch it at one point so we just assured him that we wouldn't be putting it out publicly to people so yes i have to work that day but i'd like to see yes absolutely we'll make sure we share that thank you good question too and i'm glad that stacey checked into that because we had some other people that were unable to attend and wondering the same thing um jim huber has finished his final report of the special ed audit he is supposed to share
027that with stacey tina and i later this week and then we will be able to finally share that report back with all of you still attending the virtual pd sessions ones that i find most valuable are the moving forward in new york community that's every thursday at eight and the past couple of meetings stacey and tina have been able to join in and we're working with leaders from all over new york state and really getting some great free professional development in fact one of those strategies that we've learned in the last couple weeks we're using with our own administrative cabinet team on um a moving forward plan and so upcoming in the next few weeks we have one to three meetings where we meet with one of our administrative leaders and with the three of
028us and we've asked them to start taking a look it's actually based on an article out of the harvard business review and it's a business model for you know planning for the return um and looking at businesses differently and so it's taking that that concept of the business model and how can we take from that what things can we sustain what things do we want to have collapse and you know what things can really transform the way we do education in the district so we're we've given the administrators kind of some time and really it's anybody it's our i.t department our food service any of our leadership or departments we've asked them to go back and just start to think about where we were pre-pandemic through the pandemic and now moving forward you know what
029are their ideas for things that maybe happened unexpectedly but happened and they made things better we want to take and learn from the things that are working really well and what are what do we learn things that maybe weren't working well before the pandemic that we really figured that out during and that these things don't work well for kids and what can you do better we are continuing to work on our new website through final site so eventually what you'll see is on the board only site you will only see documents from july 1st of last year through the end of this year after we transition to final site before july 1st after july 1st we'll be transitioning into board docs so we're not going to move everything over and then have everything have to
030be moved a second time so we're archiving some of the records now and then when we get into board docs that will be pulled in after july first so uh just be patient as we work through that and if you're missing something or looking for something feel free to call or email me and we'll figure it out policy committee we are finished for the for this year we did a lot of work our policies are in pretty good shape and we'll pick up where we left off when we come back probably in september policy will resume the wellness committee is focusing on multiple multiple events currently we have a walk run stroll or roll um all of the information is posted on the website but uh i will pass it around just in case you
031haven't seen it it's on the website and it came out on parent square you have an opportunity to do things virtually and then submit pictures and then forms are right on the website if anyone's interested let's see now that we have passed the capital project josh and i will get to work with brian and we'll continue to work with king and king and construction associates on our capital project and more to follow on that the emergency project for the hot water case is completed and all things are going well there all achievement is going to so we are just moving right along as we close out this year lots of good things happening sounds good any questions for patty on hillary court superintendent for instruction um so the deadline for uh upk applications was today
032for anybody who really had a desired location um for their children um in case we needed to do a lottery um it's my understanding we only have one location at which we need to do that which is good because in the past we've had to do three or four um we have just under 200 applications received so far so we're in good shape with numbers for next year as well and alongside that um and talking to our elementary principals kindergarten registration was last week and just prior to the week before and our numbers are looking pretty good there as well we're about i would say two-thirds full in every building based on what we would normally expect to have in a year's enrollment and obviously we always have incoming over the summer so numbers look
033good there as well we have five students at the high school level who are going to be achieving their seal of biliteracy they'll be presenting next week to a panel of judges about it or virtually um but with jeff lewis boces as the facilitator of that three in spanish one in french and one in english that's the highest number of students achieving that credential in a given year that we've had thus far so the appeal and engagement with that is growing which is awesome um we're finalizing our case six summer school numbers um we'll have teacher appointments for you at the june 1st meeting we're just waiting for them to accept the assignments and get back to us on those but our student enrollment also is looking very good for the summer with that program
034as well and the stem program application is out so if you have children of your own or family or friends who have children grades four through six who are interested in attending stem camp that application is also out as of this week um we had an opportunity uh come to us gail bassett shared this with us initially um a career in college readiness program called brilliant pathways would give us three years of mentorship and support if we were awarded this program for up to 50 students in a given building and so we put applications in both for wiley and case and are awaiting notification on that um be a great help to our students as we're thinking about some of the pathways that we're moving forward with and the last bit of really positive news
035that we have for you is that we received notifications this week that we have been awarded the my brother's keeper family and community engagement grant um so that's four years of 125 000 each and what that will do is put in place a family and community liaison position between us and cornell cooperative extension as partners and a lot of programming built around community engagement that's awesome we've talked about that for years i'm glad you can bring it to fruition thank you assistant superintendent for personnel and student services busy time for the personnel office as well we've had interviews for substitute teachers which we do we are in great need of so we're happy that thank you for approving them tonight also for math and we have several interviews coming up for different positions also i
036of course had uh meeting with the nurses last week they continued to do a fantastic job we had they were they staffed the um the vote yesterday and they did a very nice job with that we appreciate their help also we met with the counselors uh so grades k through six and then seven twelve we talked a little bit about uh the challenges that have been faced throughout the pandemic and then challenges and then i put them into breakout rooms and they they talk they got to talk with small groups about some solutions to those challenges and then moving forward what our plans are and related to that stacey and i have been working with the folks at panorama i met with them last week virtually we're just trying to come up with a professional
037development schedule with them panorama is a program that encapsulates uh notes from teachers from counselors from nurses it brings it all together it talks about social emotional learning uh there's a there's a place to put interventions in so it's a repository and it contains a lot of data for different stakeholder groups administrators as well so we're working on getting that off the ground uh doing some more training perhaps this summer and so we're looking forward to that and as we move forward to the rest of the month again we'll be doing interviews and we'll bring more names before the board at the next meeting school business manager's report thank you to everybody that came out to vote as well as penny and michelle our nurses build these amazing guys for set up and tear down
038and the election inspectors as well so now that we have that as patty mentioned we can start working on continue working on any general projects getting the budget in there will be some budget adjustments similar to last year probably i don't know if i'll have them for june it's the first or second whatever the next painting has but if not it'll be on the 15th um as patty mentioned i know i see on it so i test jenna with sifting through dozens upon dozens of their recent ones just so we can kind of get and we have a pretty good document of stuff hammering other districts on we already know a couple areas that they get everybody on such as appropriated fundamentals and stuff like that so a lot of the stuff we have plans
039in place if there wasn't already something done so hopefully that'll be and it's just nothing that we did wrong it is just our five year you know they go every five years fish so our time was up i actually think it was last year coleman probably helped us there working on the arpa and sirsa those are the federal ones the 23 million dollars so we're working on those applications now and our internal audit starts next week we'll be focusing on title nine and they'll be here so question rb here for two weeks okay all right thank you so some upcoming dates this friday is half day for professional development and then um memorial day break the 28th and the 31st that's a friday monday buildings are closed and then extra day out for stafford students
040on tuesday june 1st which is also our next board meeting at six o'clock and finance audit and facilities has a meeting at five take a second and go around see if anyone has anything they want to add or share sorry nancy don't just glad the budget pass new board members will be on board and thank you guys for all your hard work um no just uh i don't suck at the acronyms thing because my first year i kept cheat cheat sheet with me because i did not understand anything so i'm glad that that's been noticed no nothing um just congratulations to our incoming board members michael yes congratulations as well you enjoy the experience and look forward to having part of the okay um i wanted to add that nisba has come out with their
041law conference already for the summer um if anybody's interested they're having three uh in-person meetings and they're also doing virtual i asked michelle to already sign me up for rochester on july 15th if anyone wants to jump in and carpool it's usually a lot of information buy a fire hose that's how they kind of give it to you but it's a lot of good stuff so there's that sad that it was our last policy meeting for the year um i just want to uh reinforce that virtual um honor society program uh the speaker amber lee clement is the watertown grad who went away came back has worked in the area in a couple different settings i think she's still at fort drum right now as as the liaison so that i think that speaks well
042for our grads that she's our speaker and you'll let us know when they have a date for that yes perfect thank you okay so we are in need of an executive session to discuss the evaluation of the superintendent can i have a motion please jason thank you in a second michael all in favor aye aye five minutes all right so it's 7 14. can i have a motion and the board meeting please and a second michael all in good favor