001may i have a motion to return the regular board meeting to public session let's cast mayor zach that's casper zack vogner excuse me second this is leather barrel discussion all in favor thank you motion carries unanimously i call the regular board meeting to order all board members are present mr buelon would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god thank you please be advised that in the event of a fire emergency and an evacuation should be necessary an alarm will sound all marked emergency exits and evacuate well away from the building at this time we request that everyone turn their cell phones and other electronic devices to
002silent thank you at this point i would like to request that we conduct a moment of silence in respect for two individuals that were certainly an important part of our district the former south soccer coach kevin mcnamara is one coach mack passed away recently and karen brazicki passed away in august she was a secretary at high middle and previously um was in the payroll department so i would ask for a moment of silence thank you item 2f is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented dr lipman miss poulin thank you [Music] discussion all in favor motion carried unanimous thank you in item three i will call on dr brown hall to turn over to you in terms of board acknowledgement absolutely thank you president mccleary so tonight we continue our school spotlight highlighting
003the great work that goes on within our school buildings as we begin the school year our school spotlight focuses on country parkway elementary school and their parent teacher association the country parkway pta was honored by the national pta with the phoebe epperson hearst award which is given annually to one school in the entire country let me read that again one school and the entire country this award recognizes schools and ptas that are innovative and family engagement i i now like to welcome principal extraordinaire andrew bowen to share more [Applause] good evening thank you to the board of education for taking the time to recognize country parkway for receiving this very prestigious award it's a thrill just just to be clear though this is not an award that was won by just a handful of individuals
004winning this award truly took a group effort with all stakeholders coming together for a common purpose what makes winning this award so special for us is that it showcases one of the core values that we hold most dear at country parkway forming positive relationships with our families pta president bethany mcphillips has been wonderful as we have worked together to improve our school her leadership has been and continues to be come outstanding this is just the beginning and we look forward to getting even better i'd like to turn the microphone over to bethenny if you would like to say a few words [Applause] i just wanted to say thank you to the board for taking time out of your schedule today to recognize uh the us as a recipient our families really in my opinion deserve
005the award the award uh i like to say that as a pta if we host the event they will come so i would also like to thank our parents especially those that are listening because without them the pta doesn't exist we're a volunteer driven entity our staff and administrators are extraordinarily supportive all the way up to our superintendent dr brown hall so a giant thank you to all of our families and all of you for recognizing what we believe is an award well deserved by our families so thank you absolutely [Applause] thank you again we do have a video to play for the board of education this evening have a nice evening [Music] in august the national pta reached out to country parkway and that our school had been honored with the phoebe apperson hearst
006award which is awarded to one school in the country each year and recognizes a local pta for innovation and family engagement you know they said you're the the school uh i kind of lost my mind with the oh my gosh i think i said that for like three minutes straight it's really a testament to the hard work that all of our staff members and all of our parents uh do every single day and to the dedication that they have to our school and our school community [Music] when i first came to country parkway and my daughter was in second grade i remember sitting in the cafeteria and it was an open house mr bowen was making a presentation and one of the things he said specifically about the pta was that while the school provides
007the education the pre the pta provides the experience and in many cases the memories that the students walk away with um that are special for them and that really uh struck a chord with me so i think from my perspective what i hope for the pta to provide to our students and families are those special memories and special opportunities for them to be a part of the community beyond the school books and beyond the learning experience in the classroom bethan is a go-getter she's able to mobilize parents she's a wonderful communicator she's great at following through and has a wonderful vision of what pta can be for for our school it made me more comfortable sending my child to school and it just made me feel like i was sending my child to a place
008where they were welcomed and the teachers were engaged with us outside of the classroom as well and that just made me feel really good as a parent um to know that my children were excited to go to school because they knew that there were there were going to be fun components as well throughout the school year it is so fulfilling because you really get to interact with the families and the students on a different level and as a pta you can do 10 20 events but if people don't show up it doesn't matter it's the fact that our families show up and participate so much that make all of the work completely worthwhile someone once said to me what's the most important thing in in your job or what's the most important thing in school
009and i said everything uh absolutely every single piece matters and every single thing is really important it does take a village and it takes uh all of our parents railing together and to be partners with the school in a true meaningful way and when you have those things come together you have an incredibly wonderful school [Music] congratulations again country parkway i have to say when i first arrived in the district popsicles with the principal was one of the first events i attended it was at country parkway very well attended so thank you for providing the environment and as you said education and experience they do go hand in hand so thank you very much thank you dr brown hall are there any board acknowledgements miss poulin i i know that many of our teachers do
010a lot of work over the summer and do a lot of work in various various ways and so we don't always always recognize those things um we are well known in williamsville for our wonderful music programs in our music departments and i have grandsons who participate in that so it's a personal um touch to me but this summer i had the opportunity to listen to the orchestra play at the bristol hills summer music camp and i learned that about 25 of the students that participate in bristol hill are from williamsville and i think a big part of that goes to mrs amy vandenberg who gives up a week of her time to be there with those students and so i wanted to commend her for the work that she does to instill music throughout the
011school year but in the summer as well so awesome awesome thank you anyone else all right we are now up to public expression i call on ms poulin to review our public expression format welcome to all who have come to observe this regular board meeting per policy 1510 the board allows up to 30 minutes of public comment this is a time when we invite members of our school community to share ideas opinions and concerns with us while we are here to listen carefully and we take your concerns seriously public continent is not designed to be a discussion therefore please do not expect us to respond tonight instead you will receive a response by email after our meeting because we want to maintain mutual respect and civility please ensure that comments are delivered in a respectful
012manner to the board directly also under state and federal privacy laws we are unable to entertain any comments related to employee personal information or any topic that may disclose information about a particular student on these matters we ask that you go through the appropriate administrative channels please note that individuals are required to sign up prior to our meeting and each speaker is allotted three minutes for comments you'll be signaled at two and a half minutes so that you may conclude your remarks at this time we will begin public comments after i call your name please step up to the podium and state your name our first speaker is jennifer blasak [Music] hello um to be honest this expression is very similar to november of 2019 when i spoke to the board but even more important
013since 2020 i would like to thank each of you for all that you do to for the students at williamsville school district i bought a house in the school district because of the great reputation it has and thankful for my children's experiences here there are many new faces since 2019 and i want to express my feelings about class sizes again as a high school teacher in another district i am very aware of how class sizes affect how i teach in my district it is against my contract to have more than 26 students in a class shy students sometimes will not ask questions or are embarrassed to volunteer in large classes in my math classes they have less than 24 students students are more comfortable asking questions or ask me to explain a topic again in
014a different way they learn to advocate for themselves i feel more connected to my students in smaller class sizes and they feel more connected to me as well as their peers and again this is so much more important now i um i spend less time on discipline and more time understanding my students needs both academically and emotionally social emotional well-being is so important now i want my children's well i want my children's teachers in williamsville to be the best they can be i believe eliminating large class sizes will help i have been told to find data i was told this back in 2019 so as a math major and a past ap statistics teacher i was up for the challenge i read through hundreds of pages of peer-reviewed studies with mixed conclusions connecting to academics
015some studies define small class sizes as having 13 to 17. small class sizes alone will not improve academics but smaller class sizes allow for more opportunity if there are highly qualified teachers studies do show that in smaller class sizes better student-teacher relationships are formed and there are higher levels of student participation students have greater access to resources more individualized student learning occurs and students have greater success after leaving school because that's our goal preparing our students to be successful after they graduate students learn better work habits self self control as well as confidence and emotional stability these traits are not mastered by standardized tests or measured by standardized tests but are crucial for long-term educational success and smaller class sizes help our students attain these skills i'm not asking for small class sizes but i'm
016asking for the board to take a stand against large class sizes and change their class side guidelines for grades 3 through 12. all districts have different needs ask your williamsville teachers what they need to be their best thank you thank you and my apologies because i'm well may have difficulty with your name it's aziza ahaze and please correct me hi everyone my name is aziz thank you for everybody here and i moved to williamsville like before four years and i asked for help like four years nobody answered my question last year i reached out to the superintendent and he asked me to come to the board meeting i have kids he go to sydney school for the deaf and he stayed for after school program to have tutoring and he have drama and he have
017a sport but williamsville district say no bus for after school program and i asked for this help all the time i asked the special education for help they said no transportation they said no and i come here to found out i need somebody to help me my son stay home no after school program nothing and he needs somebody to help him with his english i am my english is not and excuse me for my english you're fine you're fine yeah he wants somebody to help him because he's disabled he when we came to united states he was 10 years old without education zero education he need more help at school to be like successful like other kids and i don't know i need everybody to look for my case thank you so much for asking
018me to come to board meeting and i don't know how i speak more i don't know if you heard my voice everybody here like a parents i speak with you as parents a mother father not like board education and i am i have other four three kids i am unable to take him to williams to sit mary school every day and i back him up from state media school like university school like 40 minutes away from here and i don't assign my other kids for support of school because he will ask me why you take my sibling to a sport and you not me my kids don't have anything other school because of him because he will ask me question why my sibling because they can do more than me i am stay home and
019this why i do my kids all of them in williamsville district no one go to after school program everybody stay home please answer me thank you so much thank you thank you and our last speaker this evening is kristin catchy cody hello move this down a little bit um good evening everyone my name is kristen cacchadi and i am the parent of three williamsville students first of all i just want to thank you for your time and service to our students here in the williamsville district i know that this does take up a lot of your time and it is appreciated um just to give you a little background i'm kind of picking back piggybacking off of what jennifer blazak said um but in october 20 of 19 i noticed that my daughter's class sizes
020were becoming very large so myself and some other parents began coming to speak at board meetings to ask for the board support in lowering class size guidelines since this is a board decision we collected and presented over 100 letters from residents that agreed with us they have been forwarded at some point to all the all of the board members i do have them again if anybody wants to to see them i'd be happy to forward them along um the pandemic obviously hit and the district needed to focus on other immediate needs so i have not spoken at a board meeting in quite a while i see that looking at elementary class sizes is on the agenda for this board meeting tonight this began a few years ago it is notice and it is appreciated i'm
021happy to see that many classes are starting at the lower end of the class size guidelines i know that you cannot respond to me directly right now but i do hope that you will discuss looking at middle school and high school class sizes this year as well my goal is to see regular class sizes of 25 or less throughout the district another concern with class sizes and things that are happening right now is that in the past the board members have asked great questions about new communities that have been um are currently being built throughout the district i know that i happen to notice them here and there when i'm taking my kids to sporting events to dance and things like that and it just seems that there are building new builds popping up all
022over amherst and williamsville that would fall into our school district i'm very concerned about the effect that they will have on class sizes and spacing issues i know that the district had an outside consultant but he didn't really seem to be from what i understood he didn't really seem to be aware of all of those and to be taking those into consideration so i'm hoping that as things are starting to get back to normal i'm hoping that this is a topic and something that the board members would be willing to continue to have conversations about i'm more than willing to meet with any of you or dr brown hall my information is available on the public expression sign-in sheet i also i'm going to pass down here and i'll just ask you to pass it
023along the class size letter that we wrote um again i don't want to repeat this for some of the board members that have been around but um you know we've done a lot of digging we've done a lot of research and we really feel very passionate about this so i hope that we can continue this conversation thank you [Music] thank you and if anybody wants to sign up thank you all for your comments this evening and that does conclude our public comments for today thank you miss poulin item number five is consent agenda may i have a motion to approve the consent agenda of six consent personnel seven consent business items eight consent special needs and student activities [Music] we have a second mrs leather barrel discussion all in favor oh i'm sorry one question
024regarding the school physician um i know that there was some information some questions were asked for via email but i apologize i missed the response to that question regarding the school physician is that person being is a new person being appointed we are going to appoint a new person in that position we're um reviewing and to fill that position as of now okay and the duties and responsibilities will uh remain in-house and we had to examine that position to see what was really needed in that position so we are doing that i apologize for not seeing the response of that thank you anyone else discussion okay so all in favor of the consent carried unanimously thank you i would like to thank the following retirees for their service to the district kenneth scharf a grounds
025worker in the facilities department for 28 years of service and michael wiggins custodian at east high school for 31 years excuse me 41. 41 years of service thank you to these gentlemen item number nine is there a motion to approve the minutes from the august 9 2022 regular meeting in agenda item 9a littmann second miss bleckinger [Music] any corrections all in favor unanimously next we have the president's report the upcoming and prior events that i'm going to mention are all listed in board docs for our listening audience probably the most important one that i would like to mention is october 1st from 9 to 11 30 in the north high school auditorium we will have our first of the year community forum all of our board members have been able to work on their schedules
026and they will all be there for those of you that have not had an opportunity to attend a community forum before one of the points of doing the forum is that we have an opportunity just to hear you speak like in public expression but we have the ability to interact with you so you will ask a question and one or more of us will make comments suggestions ask you further questions make notes on it anyway please check your schedule and hopefully a lot of you will be able to attend the october first forum we have also had in the past there was a meeting with the office of new york state comptroller had a webinar on august 10th that was attended by mrs kasmerick bogner dr lipman and dr singh on august 11th we had
027a board retreat in the conference room attended were myself dr singh miss poulin miss bleckinger mr buelon mr pascalia mrs kasmir bogner and mrs leather barrel on august 24th myself mrs leather barrel miss poulin dr littman and i think miss kiss merrick boat and miss casmeric bogner had a chance to go around and see the updates in terms of safety and security at south mill and maple east and there was a new teacher orientation on wednesday august 24th and the opening day for staff and support staff was tuesday august 30th both of those were virtual events i would add you know that it was a nice beginning to get everybody back into a school mode sort of editorial comment it was just nice and under my report also board members kesmeric bogner and singh will
028be reviewing the non-instructional business operations policy which is the 5000 series on thursday october 13th at 2 30. we made a commitment last year to systematically go through and look at each of our um policies and now we are up to the five thousands and then after that thousands of seven thousands and the eight thousands okay in terms of the erie county association of school boards upcoming events also are listed in board docs and there is a presentation by rick timms on october 13th talking about state aid myself miss poulin and dr singh are already attending is anyone else able to attend that event no all right thank you and does anyone else have anything to report related to ecasb all right thank you under the new york state school boards association upcoming events and
029the nisba timeline for proposed bylaw amendments amendments and resolutions book are listed in board docs there is an upcoming board officers academy which is a virtual event on september 16th that i will be attending does anyone else have anything to report related to nisba thank you item e may i have a motion to approve and authorize dr littman as the voting delegate for the virtual business meeting on october 17 2022 ms blechenter second dr singh discussion this case mayor bogner just briefly uh dr lipman i did notice that that there was a typo in resolution 15 so i didn't know if you wanted me to pass that along or if you wanted to pass that along but they left out a very important word which was special education parent advocates they left out the word
030advocates in the resolution which is what the resolution was about so i think it's probably important that that get that changed yeah i will do that when i get to the office uh tomorrow um thank you for pointing that out and just you know i've gone through it and again just if any of you have other comments please direct them to me again it's 32 uh proposals or resolutions that were approved by nisba and there were 11 that were not supported so you know any feedback on any of them is encouraged thank you um so um we did have a motion on the floor in a second all in favor of appointing dr dr lipman unanimous thank you [Music] an f may i have a motion to approve the amended work of the board of
031education as presented uh number nine was left off on the previous apple approval in july and it's been added to the agenda item now for approval do i have a motion mr buelon second miss poolen discussion all in favor carried unanimously thank you g is the board goals and implement input can't talk tonight implement implementation plan and our measures for 2022 2023 all of you have seen the copy of our bold book wow board goals and many of you have sent in suggestions in terms of actions and things that we can do and it's very much appreciated i for example still have a few others that i would like to add so if anyone else has anything that you would like to add or update please send everything to mrs carey on that topic and
032then we'll get another finalized version that we can look at mrs leather barrel so dr president mcclary just for clarity it on we're not voting on this we're just reviewing it tonight yes okay thank you but thank you and the question and now number 11 superintendents report dr brown hall i turn it over to you for items 11 a b and c thank you very much dr mccleary uh if we can have our director of communications uh put up the community update i want to thank nick phillipos for always being here always right on the money thank you very much nick so we have a lot to discuss this evening because a lot has happened over the summer we have a lot of things coming up so we'll get right into our community update number
033one welcome back so this is our not our first board meeting of the new year but this is our first board meeting after school has started so we want to share some of the happy faces we had on the first day of our welcome back campaign and we had um our news reporter from wivp wivb out there with our north cheerleaders and so which is an exciting day all around a lot of smiling faces i know myself our leadership team went to many of the schools that day so it was great to see everyone out and about parents dropping off students students smiling and exciting to be back in school back to school information so one of the questions we get asked a lot and i know that dr mccleary mentioned it that the board
034was able to visit the schools that had safety and security construction going on over the summer and so those schools we saw maple east they had their entire vestibule completed we went to south high school this construction will be continuing throughout the district and the schools that were not done this year they will begin um during easter break next year so we will eventually be at the point where all of our schools have new security entrances so that when our individual is buzzed into our school building they're held in a vestibule many times it's not even important that anyone access the school building they can take care of their business in that vestibule with one of the office staff members if they're leaving something for a child if they need to enter to meet with
035the principal or administrators there's a separate hallway so they're not in the population of the school building so these are great security measures we have in the district i want to thank the community for ensuring that anytime you see something you're also saying something notifying your school administration because working together schools and communities that's how we'll ensure the safety of our school buildings we also have three full-time sros in our district and we're very appreciative of that they have offices at williamsville east north and south but they also visit schools throughout the district on a daily basis usually through their patterns right through their feeder patterns they make themselves known to the school communities and they visit the schools we also are in contract with vista securities they actually employ off-duty apd officers to help
036in our buildings so they are also patrolling at arrival at dismissal making their selves known in our school communities too so these are all things that are important to us the safety and security as they are important to you too so these are just some of the pictures of the new entrances for example at maple east country parkway and then mill once you walk inside the middle you see all the new construction all the new security measures we also want to talk about covet 19 information now we have updated the covet 19 education page with the new guidelines from the new york state department of health and the new york state education department information has been sent to parent parent guardians and caregivers over the summer on what those new requirements are that we're implementing
037they're actually less strict less stringent than last year and we will continue to have covet 19 at home test kit distributions throughout the year so the governor's office has and we picked up another shipment last week of covet test kit distributions there is added information that we shared with family families regarding the new expiration dates for the covet 19 at home test kicks that have been distributed so some some of them had very recent expiration dates those expiration dates have been extended by the government and so we are able to make sure that we pass that information on to you and our covet 19 education page has been updated with that additional information transportation i appreciate everyone's patience as we started the school year the information is still available on wix if you have any
038questions regarding busing please contact our transportation department i want to do a public thank you to our transportation team members they're doing an excellent job attempting to balance our bus routes so that we ensure our students arrive to school on time and are taken home on time as you know with the beginning of school this today's the sixth day every day gets a little bit better now if you know someone that is interested in becoming a bus driver please have them contact sta student transportation of america by calling 716-912-6143 and we'll be very flexible with how we're staffing our bus drivers also yes the brandon brown hall um i just have a question regarding the contact number the contact number that's listed on our transportation department page is a different number it's not six two
039six eight three nine three eight three nine seven and this is ellis graham we will have to get that change graham is no longer this is a misprint but i know that that was a question by some parents of who to contact uh mr assistant superintendent maturski your number is still correct it is a direct number to the transportation office to the supervisor the one that's on the district website the one that is listed here the one on the district website is just to a general transportation number to this imperial staff so they're both good could that number perhaps be added so that both numbers are there just so that if i just at my heart breaks for parents i understand like when you have to get to work and granted it's day six right
040so we have we're right and it's this always does get better but um when you have seen the bus go past your head which it's all happened to all of us right you're left feeling like well what do i do now what do i do now and so it's helpful to get somebody on the other end of the phone that can say okay we'll send a bus just so you have confirmation so yeah i would just ask that that be included thank you we'll update that page also we're very fortunate to have our retired supervisor of transportation is carolyn perry come back to fill that supervisor of transportation position as uh graham is no longer with our district so thank you very much for that and one other question i know in past years um
041assistant supernatural mature matursky you've kind of given us like little updates as to like how many buses we're running late and how many complaints we really haven't heard too much from that in the district um is there any sense that we as a board can be told one way or another are things improving every day is that do we have an approximate number of how many complaints and i will say things are improving every day we can develop a report for you things are improving every day there are new bus drivers hired they're going through the process and once they're able to hit the road we'll have even more bus drivers and our you know our um our staff so every day it will get better but we can give detailed information i don't want
042to require additional work for a report because i i understand that that can be taxing but um just as you know as we move into october just know approximately what it looks like correct and again and that's why i started by saying i i thank the parents for their patience also because they they are understanding and there really haven't been that many complaints in the complaints that we receive we are looking into because we want to make sure that if there are efficiencies that we can experience early on that we're exploring those and finally i will just add with a positive i have heard some positive things too i've heard of situations with bus drivers doing trial runs the day before school and actually stopping and talking to families that happen to be out because
043it was a nice day that day and i know that that little gesture goes a long way with smart kiddos who are a little nervous about getting on the bus so absolutely thank you thank you very much so this is just a reminder that the uh federal program that allowed for every student to receive a free lunch and breakfast uh over the last couple of years is no longer in place so we do ask families to please fill out the free and reduce um lunch application and then you can also pre-pay the lunch through my school bucks and we have the breakfast lunch prices listed here and on the website but we do ask that you fill out the free and reduced meal application additional information so we are hosting a flu vaccine clinic on
044monday october 24th at casey middle school from 5 p.m to 7 p.m and as the date gets closer we'll send additional information out to all of our families in the district but we want to get get that on everyone's calendar early so that's monday october 24th from 5 to 7 p.m at casey middle school additional information to come ptsa pta and sepsa so you've heard me say in the past i want to also encourage all of our families to take an active role in your school by joining the pta the ptsa or sepsa the special education ptsa these are important organizations as you saw earlier our pta at country parkway won a national award so these organizations in our schools provide phenomenal experiences for all of our students and even if you join and you
045can't attend every meeting attend every event what you do a little bit of volunteering does go a long way so we have listed here we want you to contact your school for your individual pta and ptsa information we've listed the pta council co-presidents and the subsa president this year but make sure you're reaching out to your school building to find out who your ptsa executive members are and contact them to see when your meetings are and how you be can become more involved and your meetings are also on the district calendar so if you go to your school calendar also climate and communications survey this survey i wanted to make sure we briefed it here because it will be available on the website by the end of the week but we asked families to complete
046the survey last june we received great feedback in our communications committee um because we wanted our number of respondents to be higher and parent shared sending out a survey in september or june not it not only is it busy for the school district and the school buildings it's also a busy time for parents so we're going to figure out when the proper time to send a survey of this magnitude out in the future but the data and information from the school district climate communication survey will be available on the district's website by the end of the week so it is very dense data but it will help us as we begin to plan in the future what we're going to look to implement in our strategic planning action plans based on some of this data
047and then really dig down deep to see how we can make sure that we are hitting the important points that this data is bringing about for example the first one of the questions for parents was my children's schools provide instructional materials for example textbooks and handouts that reflect students cultural background ethnicity and identity so we had strongly agree agree but we also have some disagree and strongly disagree and don't know right so we see that there are areas for improvement and second my child's or children's schools communicate how important it is to respect the practices of all cultures so we have improvements and we can see how we can better our number one our respondents but also what we are reporting in these surveys dr littman yeah i mean the data is informational absolutely back
048to interpretation i'm just looking at the response rate which is about 12 percent of parents and um again if you look at it from a data analytics standpoint you know 12 response rate you know just kind of clarifies a certain group of people we still don't know what the other portion of people are thinking right and that's why uh double dip or do something right you're very right and not to cut you off but and that's why i started by saying we received great feedback from our parents on the climate i mean on the communications committee on what do they think would increase the parent responding parents responding to the surveys so timing is everything yes we want to make sure we you know do proper timing just to try to make sure we're increasing
049the response rate because as you said it is informational and the more uh parents and guardians that respond the more information that we have summary of religious and cultural observances so on page 39 of the district calendar is a list of religious and cultural observances and it was compiled with dates and information from the national federation for just communities now we have a new web page as a community resource also we partner with community leaders to create informational videos and we will continue to add to this page throughout the year i believe we can show this webpage correct mr filipowski it's one thing to read about some of the religious and cultural observances it's another thing to have a community member and have a video so they can actually tell you about it so you
050can either read about it or you can watch the video also about some of our um cultural and religious observances so this is available on the district website and we will as we said in the slide we will continue to add to this page and increase it so i also want to thank mr filipowski has done a lot of work on this he and his department so i want to thank him for that individuals of significance so the district will be highlighting individuals of significance throughout the school year very similar to what we did last year when i did the weekly updates so we created a community resources page for this initiative for example hispanic heritage month begins september 15th and ends october 15th so video projects will be shared on the district website and
051social media i believe two of the first people that we are highlighting oh go ahead i'm starting it oh no two of the first people we are highlighting are um sonya sotomayor yes absolutely she's one of the first people we're highlighting and lin manuel miranda and so this page will be updated so every time we have hispanic heritage month like history month women in history month all those types of things so we'll have all of that highlighted throughout the school year also diversity equity and inclusion so i did want to give an update as we've done historically in the month of september about our diversity equity and inclusion initiatives in our district so our diversity equity inclusion we have a district-wide committee all schools have a dei building committee because that is one of the
052goals of our action plan our diversity equity and inclusion district y committee has 56 members on it including 10 parents student representatives from each high school voting administrators and teachers so we've already had four meeting dates our september meeting date has been moved to september 29th 2022 so a lot of people ask what's going on in the dei committee what are you working on we're ultimately working on a plan so we've discussed the purpose of the dei plan structure for dei plan development de we've conducted a dei committee qualitative survey we review district data by race and we're looking for disproportionality if that presents itself in discipline if it presents itself in the classification of special education if it presents itself and the number of students who are in advanced placement courses so these are
053important things we look at we talk about common language and definitions implicit bias and microaggressions what they are how they're defined and we also talk about the crs framework now the crs framework has four important keys uh one of the first is welcoming and informing environment the second is high expectations and rigorous instruction the third is inclusive curriculum and assessment and the fourth is ongoing professional learning the way the crs framework is broken down is so that each of these areas each of the four areas i just highlighted there's a section for students there's a section for teachers school leaders district leaders families and community members higher education and education departments for example the new york state education department it's very easily easily understood and it's easy to navigate through this document and so we're
054actually breaking that document down seeing what's applicable in our district or how we're going to apply it in our district all of it is applicable in our district but how we're also going to apply it in our district so we're spending a good amount of time in the dei committee reviewing that information we've also reviewed the new york state board of regents framework and diversity equity and inclusion in new york schools as many of you know our district in october of 2021 adopted the dei policy and we are very very fortunate to have a new york state board of regents and new york state education department that supports this work we've examined articles in the dei committee one article by uh gloria langston billings it's just good teaching another article by robin deangelo wright fragility
055and another article by um salchuk what is critical race theory and why is it under attack because i know a lot of people think dei is cover or code for crt so we were able to examine examine really what crt is and how it's different from dei last but not least i do want to stress that our teachers we have phenomenal teachers well you all know that it's one of the things i heard on the listening tour how great our teachers are our teachers are really being trained in many things in our district and i wanted to highlight some of the professional learning opportunities now this is not a list that is you know uh the everything that teachers have in the way of diversity equity and inclusion the list is approximately three pages long
056but these are some of the highlights some of the uh participation that our teachers have had in some of the dei trainings so the first one is the erie 1 boce dei consortium and we have an administrator from each of our buildings that is registered for that consortium and that consortium will meet uh every month once a month beginning september going all the way till june so myself dr bellin and our director of professional learning who is also our dei coordinator of the district uh miss linda ruey will also be a part of that consortium we had other professional learning opportunities in 2022 2023 one talking about race in school another seeking educational equity and diversity in 21 22 we introduced an intro to islam and ramadan as a pd another one is towards the
057cultural response of education developing classroom practices to engage inspire and empower our youth we've had beyond the plus exploring the plus and lgbtq plus identities we've had creating a cultural belonging religion the constitution in the classroom strengthening anti-racist pedagogical practices we've had an implementation team that has studied that cultural awareness diwali extravaganza in 2019 2020 and judaism was resources for social studies teachers in 2019-2020 that's when they were first introduced it's not to say that these trainings haven't continued but i wanted to show how far back our district has gone with the importance of dei and the trainings that have been offered to our teachers and queen go ahead absolutely yeah um and it's like going back you know i was looking over my notes i've been involved in d.i for many years absolutely in
058the mid 2000s of my background and training in that area and i've done a lot of these professional development courses over time but you know on that slide we talk about diversity and you only mention race you know one of the issues that becomes an issue is that when we talk about the topic of diversity people only think about rates and we know in our discussions in the dei committee which some of the school board members also sit on that we talk about other issues besides race we talk about you know religion we talk about developmental disabilities we talk about a number of things and you know i don't believe that slide uh kind of represented the big picture of all the work that the district is doing in areas of dea right and i
059just want to clarify because i i i remember you speaking about that yeah so when i went over what the dei committee had done the disaggregation of data that we did was by race when we looked at advanced placement courses i was going to ask if i was right an accurate education and when we looked at um uh suspensions right that one was done by race but you are very right dr levin i don't want to lose that point there's so much more to what we've done in the dei committee not just focused on race but the disaggregation of the data was by racist i appreciate that clarity absolutely [Music] so thank you very much for remember i think any any other questions i know that was a lot but there's been a lot that
060we've been um taking part of and a lot that we have going on in our district all good stuff and i want to thank the board members that said on the dei committee also so it because it is a commitment and on the communications committee so i do appreciate the commitment from our board okay i'm going to move on to 11b the preliminary elementary class size report that is in board docs for your review and as you will see our elementary class sizes are either within or below the class size range we don't have any classes at the elementary level that are over the class size range and i appreciate the constant um the con the constant conversations we have about class size in the district and we'll continue to have those conversations they're important
061conversations to have next 11b we do want to talk about the 2223 district strategic goals implementation plans now that will be as we go on throughout the year that will be enhanced and filled out we'll do a january update and the june update but please keep in mind the district goals mirror our strategic planning goals those strategic planning goals go all the way to 2027 so it is not a one-year implementation we will list in there who is involved and cost will be difficult to estimate right now but we will list who's involved and i don't want to preempt or fill in actions to be taken that's why we take that column out because i don't know what's going to come out of the communications committee right i don't know what's going to come out
062of the dei committee so as we do progress updates in january and june that will be more robust and you'll see that filled in okay i'll turn it back to dr mcclain oh doctor go back to class size i thought you're gonna have a disc i mean i just want to make a few comments because uh you know we've talked about class size through the years uh mr ron schubert from the uh other board days uh you know we've had these discussions through the years and tried to set it up we've had parents speak to us tonight about that and and the numbers look good for now but i know i've read in the i think nisba that there's a new law starting in 2027 that reduces class size across the board to a much
063lower level so that's something weezer board down the road will have to look at uh in in you know in your you and your planning for right um class sizes because according to that k to three is going to be 20 students 4 to 8 23 in high school 25 right and i i believe that that's down the road well that's down the road and number one it hits new york city first and they're suggested right so i understand right every because class size is a big thing the reason they can't impose that on the school district because it creates an unfunded mandate for many school districts because when you impose that it it also implies that you're either number one have additional space to make more classes or you have the money in your
064budget to increase your teacher um ranks right so if that comes an unfunded mandate there will be again that's why it's not being mandated well you know we've had that discussion through the years about the number of unfunded mandates kind of dictated by the state and maybe in some of these resolutions we're looking at that ask for more state funding for some of these mandates and initiatives things will get a bit better right thank you thank you very much thank you now may i have a motion to resolve to approve and adopt the following items 11d the resolution for the certification of lead evaluators 11e the amended dasa appointment of coordinators and 11f the amended code of conduct as presented mrs leather barrel second miss casmeric bogner discussion all right all in favor thank you
065cared unanimously number 12 finance may i have a motion to resolve and approve the before and after school day care contract extension as presented ms sletherber second miss poulin discussion mrs leather barrel i just want to thank dr brown hall and uh mr mathirsky and any any district administrator involved in the negotiations for thus because i know we did have a parent speak about this last year and um it's a common concern for working parents of what are you going to do with your child either before after school so i do feel like this was a good um compromise and i appreciate the work that was done to make this happen thank you and and there are students enrolled at the uh morning program we i know and our travels and all our visits to
066all of the schools that that was one of the things that they were very appreciative of i agree i mean there's nothing it's never going to be perfect and you know it's not a requirement of the district but i think it goes a long way to show that we are trying as much as possible to accommodate parents on and then we recognize the demands that working parents absolutely any other comments on the vote all in favor [Music] thank you kerry unanimously our liaison reports if you have any liaison reports please send them to mrs carey the list of assignments and meeting dates are in board docs the pta ptsa president list is also in board docs for board members viewing if you haven't done so already please make contact with the president and building principal
067at the school that you are assigned to dr singh were you able to get coverage for your september 19th thank you does any i'm gonna do it okay yes thank you does anyone else have anything to report or questions or comments under liaison assignments uh yeah after recognizing maple west and i'll talk to the pta president um and principal but it's going to be very difficult as i work most of the days near nine o'clock in the morning to attend so um but i will contact the pta president that's my sister so [Laughter] easy maple east did i say maple west i apologize i have two both maples a maple east um but i did talk to dr lipman who would be willing to go to a bunch um i mean an email because you
068know we all we obviously don't want to leave it empty-handed so yeah thank you for stepping up and um i apologize for that until thank you yeah i noticed after we had the assignment so i understood but thank you for bringing it up and and seeing how we could uh problem solve it 21st anything else okay we have no legislative matters to discuss i am 15. may i have a motion to approve and adopt the textbook entitled entrepreneurship ideas in action as presented mr viscalia second dr singh discussion dr lipman well you know this is my academic content area and i reviews the book and the book looks like and it's been approved to the district it looks like uh it's a good uh level of information uh i think it's you know it's very
069appropriate for young people who want to study entrepreneurship it would be acceptable you know in a low-level college course also so it looked good so thank you this is leather barrel i just want to point out like in the documents that are on board docs like if ever a parent has a question about a textbook in the approval process yes the board has the final approval but we're basically just the rubber stamp and if you look on the board docs it's it's in-depth um the members of the team that review the process i know in previous years dr beelins explained the process to it it's very in-depth a lot of work goes into choosing um the textbook for a course and it is looked at through a dei lens we know that to be true
070because that is obviously one of the directives that we've given our superintendent to make sure that decisions do that so i appreciate it it was here on the table and we always have over the past few years made it available for board members to look at it so if you didn't get a chance to see it it was making its way down the table yeah thank you i just want to say thank you to dr baitland for your work um in oversight of textbook approval process i mean just looking at that uh information you know you did look at a number of other textbooks it sounded like you just selected one you know so that was good and the thing i first look at in the table of content because i mean it wasn't a
071table of content was in the uh in the back part was uh on how much date time spent on ethical decision making and this um you know i would devote a whole chapter of course but you know there's some in there thank you you did that's like we got into the discussion i apologize so all in favor of this textbook adoption thank you under personnel may i have a motion to resolve and approve the tenure recommendations in 16a as presented dr singh second miss bleckinger any discussion all in favor thank you motion carried unanimously item 17 i'm going to turn over to dr brown hall and mr matursky to give us a facilities update on the capital project construction mr maturity can you just briefly highlight because we have a lot of information in board
072docs already so if you can just quickly highlight some of the information in there certainly uh your community update actually provided a very good summary the only additional things i'll add is on the roofing side uh 378 thousand square feet of roof were done this summer that's enormous and having said that we have about five days left to finish everything up which is which is good for this time of the year in addition to that you already saw the information on the security project and as dr brown hall mentioned we'll be looking to plan and move forward with phase two beginning in the spring recess thank you mr machorski i'll turn it back over to dr mccleary thank you we have no matters to discuss under special needs and student activities which brings us to
073number 19 our committee of the whole does anyone have any items to discuss under committee the whole all right under correspondence does anyone wish to discuss any correspondence that we have received we have received correspondence from community members regarding sign a sign language facilitator dei the social media policy and kogit 19 guidance anyone else thank you at this point our next board meeting is october 11th may i have a motion to adjourn the regular board meeting dr singh second miss slather barrel discussion all in favor thank you we should get into the very unanimously we are adjourned thank you i'm mclaren have a good night i'll see you tomorrow