001all right let's go ahead and start the meeting please stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america into the republic for which it stands one nation under god [Music] no communications i have one letter um from one of the oc board members for re-election to my colleagues at the board of watertown city school district i'm writing to ask for your goal for re-election to the board of jefferson lewis hamilton for commercial focus i have served on the board since 2015 and on the general brown central school district award since 2013. all of our districts have endured such in the past years from challenging fiscal times to our current pandemic i see the services and opportunities provided by boces as being essential for the continued success of our
002young people and our districts do we still have certain future as a member of the oc board i listen to the needs of faculty staff and students at the both campuses and also listen to the needs of everyone at our component districts i have attended nearly all of the jefferson lewis school board association events and many new york state school board association trainings not only for the training information i can learn and bring back to the boards but also to listen to your concerns i look forward to when we will be back in person for the jeffree school board association needs so that we can enjoy the we connections our districts overall i enjoy looking at the big picture helping to forge new connections and opportunities within our communities in improving communication between all the
003stakeholders by working together we can expand opportunities for all and that is where i feel that hope season shines as a boces board member i am proud of our career and technical education programs our programs for exceptional students and the sharing services we provide for our area districts and this past year i feel the sharing of information between our employment districts and boces has helped all of us weather this storm we certainly are stronger together i would be honored to be re-elected as a foster's board member and help continue the commitment to cooperative educational services in our region thank you in advance for your support moving on to boarded staff reports the fast committee report from today yes yes so um we were able to meet our new buildings and grounds director brian arias and
004uh it's nice to know that he comes with a lot of experience and you know he's had a whole what 36 hours or something with with us so he's he's looking forward to getting getting familiar with with our facilities and our staff we heard from josh about the proposals received for the audit there was one submission and it was a very good one so we will approve that tonight and that process will start in july um i will let him go into more detail on on budget news but it's it's good for us between federal money and the state budget there there are some um encouraging pieces including um working on restoration of foundation aid from new york state so um the budget presentation itself will be at our meeting on may 4th and um
005the mailing is drafted and will be going out pretty soon okay all right any questions for both on the finance facility meeting okay all right so at this time i need a motion to enter into executive session to discuss the pending labor relations issue with the watershed education association the employment history of a particular person jason thank you second please michael any discussion um favor all right can i have a motion to open our meeting again please jason jason thank you in a second michael michael okay we're gonna move on to items for consent agenda [Applause] items for board action resolved at the proposed budget for uh 78 million uh i'm sorry i don't mean to interrupt are we back on yes it's not showing up up there for whatever i just want to make
006sure we're being heard i apologize no always get to check okay okay we solved the proposed budget for 78 million from 377.57 waterfall city school district of the city of watertown for the fiscal year wednesday july 1 2021 is here at vatican www [Music] any discussion all in favor all right can i get a motion please susie in a second michael any discussion all those in favor okay any opposed question where is school district created a request or proposal for independent audit services and solicited three firms whereas the firm submitting the lowest responsibility meeting the specifications for audit services is bowers and company cpa's pllc therefore it resulted in independent audit services for fiscal years ending june 30 2021 through june 30 2024 with fiscal year ending june 30 2025 as an option at the
007board's discretion as noted in the event proposal is hereby approved can i get a motion please yes beth and jason thank you any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed motion carries whereas it is the plan of a number of public school districts in the madison oneida oc during the 2021-22 school year to bid jointly for the purchases of various types of computers and technology commodities and whereas the watertown city school district is desirous participating in the joint city for the community authorized by general law article 5 and whereas the board of education has received and reviewed the department of procedures governing its right and responsibilities should should its elect to participate in the joint bidding of commodities and further resolve that importance to the foreign procedures the board of education agrees to award
008big purchases item purchases according to the recommendation of the policies and such award is in the best interest of the school district can i get a motion please susie and a second nancy any discussion is this along the lines of what we normally purchase every year this is the collaborative purchasing so they'll get all the schools and see how many pencils and all the mostly schools stuff and they'll get the best price and we can still we started a new thing this year we're matching everything up we'll look it up on ogs we'll compare it to the boces bed in which everyone's over as well it just kind of lets us get the pricing anybody else all those in favor all right any opposed questions resolve that sarah carpenter is hereby approved for an educational
009administrative internship in the district for the 2021 2022 summer homes can you get a motion please [Music] recommendations retirements resignations appointments permanent time tutor substitute instructional non-instructional any opposed motion carries resolve that the creation of a wonderful time program senior tightness position is recommended by patricia lavar superintendent of schools is hereby approved i had a motion please michael in a second any discussion where's this type is going to be special education office okay please susie in a second jason you any discussions all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries we felt that the following educational student justice here if i approve watertown high school seniors six flags area june 12 20 21 take the motion please susie in a second michael any discussion i'm glad they get to go on that trip are there
010are there any um points at which it would have to be rescinded any state guidelines district guidelines yeah we will break so if in the event that the district had to switch to a fully remote then that would cancel that trip or if we were in a spot where our you know positivity rate was at a certain threshold then yes it would have to be so here's hoping that things yes think fingers crossed yeah okay any other questions all those in favor all right any opposed motion carries results in a donation of reality 3d printer and accessories from mr thomas davis to the waterfront high school this donation is greatly accepted and approved and will be [Music] paris thank you superintendent of schools report so i'd like to give a special recognition to our food
011service department they had a technical assistance call with state ed today it was a requirement from usda and stayed at is not traveling at this time so they're doing phone calls instead and there was a little eight page checklist that mary hughes and craig orvis and brenda blount had to go over prior to the phone call and when the technical assistants stated rep call today they complimented and said you're my first call for these technical reviews and i chose watertown knowing that there would be no issues and he was correct the call started at and was done by 11 25 and when mr orvis talked with other schools that have um you know they were they were told to book 45 minutes to an hour to an hour and a half so he was very
012pleased along with mary hughes that that went quite well at the end of the call they asked the state representative if they needed to submit any documentation to support the answers that they presented to the questions and he said no he feels that they're all set so many many thanks to the entire food service department craig orvis uh mary hughes and brenda blount uh for going through that it's really nice to see that um they're doing everything that needs to be done following those guidelines to make sure that everything was completed and ready to go so we've received a lot of guidance on the past several days from state ed whether it's on graduation or the department of health with you know the social distancing and as we stated at our last meeting we have
013some plans that we're working on to bring students back to school um full-time and right now we're looking at k-6 to start with and next meeting on april 21st we plan to share out with you the details because part of this um coming back to school is getting feedback from parents staff and students so we have meetings starting tomorrow morning working first with the building administration eventually we'll work with the reopening committee that we had back last summer and we'll work through all of the details um from busting to what's going to happen in the cafeteria and so on so as we refine those details we're hoping by our meeting next week we'll have a great plan in place and we'll give the community an opportunity to listen in at the board meeting to go
014over those plans and then in addition to all of the other meetings that we have internally with staff the following day after the meeting at noon we'll put out another zoom meeting for parents who didn't weren't able to attend next wednesday night we'll give that opportunity as well our diversity equity inclusion committing that on march 31st we're continuing to work on looking at our current strategic plan goals through the lens of diversity equity and inclusion we meet again tomorrow at noon via zoom and that's working with gwen and her team and some staff and community members king and king public relations completed the brochure social media posts and postcards for our capital project they will be joining us next wednesday at 5 30 for our community forum where josh and i will go over what
015that 13 million capital project consists of talk a little bit about the financing and then king and king and our advisor from fiscal advisors will also be available should anybody have any questions or comments on the capital project stacey and i are continuing to participate in two book studies we're doing a blind spot locally with a small group from within the district and we're also working with syracuse university with leaders from central new york all the way up to northern new york there's a team from general brown on the call as well and we are working on leadership for increasingly diverse schools so the neat thing for us with that is the author of the book um is leading the sessions he's also he works at syracuse university so it's really cool to have um
016that firsthand expertise kind of at our hands it's been it's been interesting we've had one meeting and we're looking forward to tomorrow stacey tina and i met with the rest of our administrative team on those one to three meetings prior to the break we also met with scott gray county administrator and city manager ken mix along with the high school administration to start discussing graduation requirements and then mr fairchild is working with the students at the high school working through some of their ideas and thoughts for the graduation ceremony and aaron king is working with some of the parents um and staff and then you know they're all working with both and mr navinger working with staff as well so once they um get their graduation kind of where it needs to be they'll be
017at a meeting coming up and they're going to share with the whole board what the graduation plans are the state also came out with those plans and requirements and they're very consistent with what scott gray shared with us in that meeting prior to break so they have already started working on that another good news um the north country family health center school-based dental clinics are going to do a soft reopening at wiley and north before the end of the year and so they're working on all of their health and safety protocols and ironing those out and then we'll start so when you look at wiley or you look at north we'll use north for an example there are students from all over the district that have the opportunity to go to north but as they
018reopen for the first time they're going to specifically start with just the students from north as a soft landing to make sure that all the protocols in place before they open it up to the student's district live um i've been attending a few of the sporting events for boys soccer boys and girls soccer and football and i would say that the athletes the families and the coaches are doing an incredible job and not just those areas but all of the other sports that we have um they're really doing a great job following all the safety standards and measures that have been put in place so as we you know are only back into our second day after break i think everyone is is doing a great job i think they're happy to be back and
019i'm really excited to share out with you next week uh the next reopening plan to bring more of our students back so you have any questions thank you assistant superintendent for instruction um so right now is a lot of planning and progress planning for both summer school day eight and then nine twelve in collaboration with the high school staff um and also professional development of which you saw the catalog we have many workshops this summer that are already filled um so we're looking at trying to see if we can configure time and space as well as facilitators to offer second sessions of some of those workshops and we're also working on planning for next year it seems a little bit early even though it's april but textbook software hardware pieces in conjunction with jeff and
020dave over in it and josh as well as starting to look at the teachers etc so we'll be able to update you on that going forward i'd like to thank mike lennox and the other k4 principals as well as some of our staff who participated in the ready set go experience for our hopefully incoming kindergartners next year because we weren't really able to configure a way to have a mass amount of people in our buildings to do those in person we did a virtual k4 experience for ready psycho this year but we did it asynchronously so the families didn't have to necessarily give up time to participate so mike spearheaded the lead on that with mike shanely and they put together an amazing video that introduces the saga experience both be board after school introduces
021the pto introduces some of the support services that kindergarten giving earners will experience in the buildings as well as just the general kindergarten experience they did a really nice job so kudos to all of them and thank you for doing that that will go out via every social media venue that we have available to us before the end of the week and then just a quick heads up on may 4th and may 6th we're working with cornell cooperative extension to sponsor a bike to school day for a couple of our school buildings um wiley in case here on the main campus cornell already stopped to us and asked if we would do that in sponsor of national bike to school days and since we have multiple cohorts we'll do it on a couple of days
022but students will have the opportunity to ride their bikes to wiley and case um store them here for the day and then bike home all in hopes of promoting healthy lifestyles and liking the school very cool thank you any questions for stacey okay assistant superintendent for personnel and student services we're happy to announce that our appr plan was approved we learned last week and that's posted on the website for everybody so that was a nice process that we went through with the state daddy stacy and i had a few conference calls as we mentioned at the last meeting and we're pleased to have that wrapped up as you probably all know uh the state lifted the travel advisory for travel within the united states right before spring break so i've got that word out to
023everybody and international travel those rules have changed too so you know that's good news we're also continuing to have as patty mentioned reopening discussions meeting with i met with k-6 uh pps team today 7-12 next week and i'll meet with the nurses on thursday so those discussions will continue and those folks are all integral to us being able to reopen sooner rather than later i don't know in the area of hiring i did interviews yesterday for substitutes we had a variety of different positions uh we also of course as you approved tonight senior typist and then we also did interviews yesterday for an av aid for watertown high school so we're pleased to get those positions filled and continue to interview for substitutes which is always a good thing and you all well some of
024you met brian arias tonight our director of facilities he started yesterday patty and i were over at massey brighton early yesterday to welcome him and to introduce him to the staff there so we're very excited to have him on board he's hit the ground running he's turning the district he's getting to know everyone so again we're excited to have him on board on our team okay thank you and school business managers report i spoke earlier on the uh purchasing one the stuff i was explaining was the same cards quite from purchasing the rex would be the same same type of deal just for hardware software it's the same same concept just a different bucket thank you for clarifying um thank you for approving i think it's the budget and bowers looking forward to working with
025them again they were the only ones that submitted a bid this year because it probably wasn't obstacle climbing during right in the middle of tax season for sending it out as well but looking forward to working with them because i think we have a pretty good relationship and other than that really it's just a budget you know we've received the state budget six days late so we've been working on that you know uh restoration michael mentioned earlier of foundation aid so that's awesome for us because we've been getting shorted over a million dollars a year from that we have they also had the service based days that were not consolidated as they were in the original january runs that they put out there no local district funding adjustment that was removed as well as as
026well as the inclusion of star it's trying to show that as revenue on the eight side of stuff now the two big ones are the crr cares crrsa cares 2 and the american rescue plan between the two we stand to have a little over 23 million dollars which those are viewed as their clients in aid so it's almost like upk so you won't see it on the gen fund budget and we'll just end up spending those as we get the guidance on that all in all very promising okay any questions for josh okay so be aware of some upcoming dates there's policy meeting this friday at noon um and then the virtual community forum for the capital project is next wednesday at 5 30 prior to our meeting if you can make it in person
027at 5 30 that would be awesome and then our meeting will follow at six o'clock and remember it's wednesday next week not tuesday so start with dancing to go around if you've got anything to add kelly got anything to add no also okay sorry dude good good nothing bad okay can i get a motion to close the meeting please thank you a second jason thank you all in favor parents