001thank you for your patience everyone we're just getting the live stream going may please have a motion to return the regular board meeting to public session if you miss poland may i have a second there's a dr singh thank you all in favor oppose pensions motion carries unanimously i call the regular board meeting to order all board members are present except for board member mrs bieger dr littman would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag i'm very glad to i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you before we continue with our regular board meeting our superintendent dr brown hall wishes to say a few words thank you
002borah president leatherboro good evening everyone um i want to read our statement that we released earlier regarding a homework assignment in our district so the district is aware of the homework assignment that was posted on social media this assignment created by the teacher and provided to students was completely unacceptable we are addressing the situation to ensure this does not happen again the district does not condone any instructional material that denigrates our students families culture or beliefs our goal as a district is to create an intentionally welcoming learning environment celebrating our community and its diversity this assignment fails to meet our standards and will be dealt with appropriately thank you very much thank you president weatherborough thank you superintendent as an announcement please be advised in the events of an emergency and an evacuation should be
003necessary an alarm will sound please note all marked emergency exits and evacuate well away from the building at this time we request that everyone please turn their cell phones and other electronic devices to silent and also a reminder that face coverings must be worn at all times while in the building thank you [Music] for the purpose of a gender review is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented thank you miss kazmerzak faulkner is there a second please thank you vice president van slice all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries unanimously dr brown hall i turn it over to you for our district shared decision making report thank you very much so the shared decision making report is in board docs i will let you know that our teachers our administrators our students our
004parents work diligently on their school shared decision making document and then as a district committee we review each of those documents to make sure that they are in line and that they are focused on what the shared decision-making document should entail we then um after we review them we meet again uh board member beager is on the district y shared decision-making um team along with myself dr balin we have principals on the team we have parents also unfortunately our chairperson um miss helen miaske who is a parent and who's been running our district shared decision making for years was not able to be here tonight but i will let you know that all of our plans are up to par and they are in line with the commissioner's regulations thank you dr ron holland i
005do realize that um i skipped to item five so we will vote on that item but we'll do that after our public expression and recognition okay next up for that report i apologize no problem so we're at this time we're going to do our board acknowledgements and dr ron holly turn it back over to you for a recognition and school spotlight thank you very much so tonight we continue our school spotlight highlighting the great work that goes on within our buildings this month our school spotlight focuses on williamsville south their spectrum concert series and community building with their theater pattern schools i'd now like to welcome our phenomenal principal mr keith bortmann to share more thank you thank you for having me here tonight um it is an honor to talk about uh the orchestra
006spectrum concert that's going to be happening this thursday as you all know the performing arts are an absolutely critical part of our student life in our in this district and it's south um and i'm not going to steal too much thunder from the video but the orchestra spectrum concert is actually a combined concert that we do we usually do it as a series this year it's for orchestra with both south and its primary feeder school mill middle school and i think one of the things that we enjoy so much when we get a chance to actually see those events and see this these concerts uh is that what we see are these younger kids in sixth seventh and eighth grade this year seventh and eighth grade um getting a chance to really kind of work
007with our own students and my own students at south um ninth through twelfth grade and really they get they they perform at the south stage they get a chance to see what it's like to be up at the big school and for me personally the kids that i have in my building watching them reflect back on the fact that that was them at one point many of our students you know performed on that stage as sixth seventh eighth graders um and to watch the care that they take when they're getting a chance to talk to these students and they almost see them as you know little versions of themselves and it is so fun to watch there's no doubt that our kids at south have so much excitement when they get a chance to work
008with these middle school kids um so i want to thank certainly uh nick filipowski and david morales for helping make this video which will spotlight south high school and mill uh tonight [Music] so spectrum concert is a chance that we get for our middle schoolers to come and play with our high schoolers for them to be able to see where they will progress to and where their life can go i think it makes a huge impact on them as a person and a musician it's one of my favorite concerts of the year and band and choir feel the same way they do the same concerts i think it just really helps build the whole south side of the district as one big family you have kids who are going to be billies at some point
009in the future performing with current bellies a lot of these kids have actually done this concert as sixth graders seventh graders eighth graders in the past and so they now see the ability and have that ability to actually influence these kids just like they were influenced we have such a strong performing arts program here in williamsville and you know you really see that shine through with events like this we play some combined pieces some pieces just showcasing like our one class it's awesome because we're all together and then we can meet each other and like look back at like when we were in the sixth graders shoes and then they can see like kind of hope for the future when i was in sixth grade i was able to play with a senior sitting next
010to me and i thought that was just super inspiring and i was like i can't wait to be that senior and now i am and i'm excited to do that again so it was really great i had an older brother who's four years older than me and uh he was in the orchestra i think it's kind of a cool experience to get a play with your family members it's something not a lot of people get to do i don't get to see a lot of kids from mill usually i'm never really down there so when they get to come here and bond with us it's a nice experience are we excited to play itself on thursdays yeah the kids are really excited just to play at the high school and we rise to a new
011level when we play with the high schoolers we believe that it's valuable enough for our middle school kids to see what our high school kids are doing it's a really valuable part of our program we are really psyched about it i love seeing what the sixth graders are doing and knowing i will have all of them in a couple years and then remembering my seniors when they were sixth graders like because i still see them all as a sixth grader even when they get to me and just remembering that is where they started and now look at everything they've accomplished it's a big leadership role for them i think it's a big self-esteem booster that they're like hey someone might be looking up to me they're feeling like i have the power now to inspire
012this younger person it's a great celebration of what students have accomplished at every level [Applause] very much principal boarding that was really great thank you principal boardman for being here to share that with us are there any board acknowledgements at this time dr mcclary um yes i guess it's [Music] it's probably not an actual acknowledgement but i would just like to say that we i believe all know that our faculty staff and administration are phenomenal people but extra kudos need to be sent out to the individuals who helped distribute the test kits on sunday when it was you know not a school day even so thank you to those people absolutely [Applause] we're moving on to item four which is our public expression section of our meeting and i call on board member miss casper
013zach bogner to review our public expression format thank you president leatherboro welcome to all who have come to observe this regular board meeting although state law does not require us to hold a public comment period we have chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues having said that please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed to be a discussion accordingly please do not expect the board to respond to your concerns and questions tonight this is because we take your concerns seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need be we will respond to you by email after our meeting or have the proper staff member get back
014to you at the appropriate time finally we recognize that right now our nation and our community are polarized on a number of issues that said we want our school board meetings to serve as an example to our students that both our school board and our community members can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect in that spirit we will insist that all speakers and audience members maintain civility and respect for any divergent views that others possess we ask that speakers please address their comments to the board directly rather than the audience and in the unlikely event the meeting becomes unruly the board will recess the meeting and return once order has been restored the board will now entertain public comments for up to 30 minutes each individual speaker is allotted
015three minutes you'll be signaled at two and a half minutes so that you may conclude your remarks after i call on you please step up to the podium and state your name our first speaker registered this evening is tim terrell i don't believe mr terrell is here the second person registered this evening is pam brunsko hi everyone i'm pam brunsville and uh parent and resident thanks for having me here today and thanks for being here today um i just wanted to say thank you really um to williamsville central school district um particularly the faculty and staff for following the cdc guidelines uh often voices of individuals who appreciate efforts taken to keep a community safe as possible aren't heard amidst a loud course of complaints and those who want to push back against it um
016so sometimes it helps to be reminded that we in the community are super supremely grateful for following these medical suggestions and guidelines as confusing as they are because they keep changing as the virus evolves i appreciate the faculty and staff who continuously show up for work and as you said came on sunday and i appreciate that you handed out those test kits which we have already used in our house um so just a continuous thank you for meeting our students needs our kids needs and um especially our faculty who are doing this despite an unending assault on our profession and i say r because i i was a teacher as well while also we have to support our own families despite individual issues as the district addressed earlier and the email today overwhelmingly everyone in
017the district our teachers food service workers aides everyone we're going above and beyond um for our kids and i just i propose that we find a way to show just how much we value the service um beyond platitudes because it really the the last few years have been so hard and i think we our teachers our staff have just worked incredibly hard to to do what they can that's it thank you thank you ms brownskill for your comments and that is the end of public expression for this evening all right thank you very much for that we are moving back to our agenda um we did 5a out of order my error so we're moving to 5b this is the approval of the biennial review and plan for participation for shared decision making this time
018is there a motion from the board to resolve and approve the biennial review and plan for participation for shared decision making as presented in board docs thank you so much dr litman for a second dr singh thank you very much is there any discussion on that i just want to say that i did ask um for the meeting dates and for the members of the shared decision making team just so i had evidence of that because as president i'm asked to sign off on that so i do appreciate you getting me that information and i feel comfortable signing off right all in favor at this time thank you emotion carries unanimously all right moving to our consent agenda items six um rather seven eight and nine our personnel business items and special needs and student
019activities i have a motion to approve consent agenda item seven through nine please thank you dr mccleary second mrs fancise are there any discussion on the on the consent agenda [Music] seeing none all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries unanimously eight zero zero thank you um [Music] okay so it this time the board of education extends its best wishes and gratitude to the following retirees for their service to the district mr tom bird district office 17 years of service gail nolatello district office for 23 years of service mr michael russo district office for 31 years of service susan campanella north high school 11 years of service nancy key transit middle school four years of service and dorinda stonefield north high school for two years of service thank you very much and enjoy your retirement [Applause]
020we've got big shoes to build superintendent brown yes we do is there a motion to approve the december 14th board meeting minute dr singh thank you miss kasmerick bogan your second are there any corrections or additions to the minutes please seeing none all in favor all hands up equals motion carries unanimously eight zero zero all right we're moving on to our president's report a moment when i pull this up thank you okay so we do have an event that was scheduled for thursday january 27th and that was going to be our second conversations with staff of that i want to propose that we postpone this meeting um for two reasons one new york city education department is running a virtual event the exact same day in the afternoon on graduation measures and guidelines for pathways
021for graduation and us holding this event might prohibit some of the staff that wanted to attend that or the other way around and the other reason has to do with our rising covet numbers you know we as our speaker just pointed out we ask our our um teachers and staff to come in day after day i just don't want to hold another event where we're going to be standing close closely talking sharing ideas if it's really not necessary at this time is there any feedback from the board regarding that anyone have an issue against that doctor i just think uh it's a very good uh idea that you have thank you dr litman oh christ and it's not something we have to vote on so i just wanted to share that share that out and
022to all of our staff we will we will postpone it it won't be completely cancelled all right so we also have um as i just sort of referred to new york education department is holding a review of graduation measures that same night january 27th it's actually the afternoon from two to four pm there is is a registration link in board docs if anyone is interested in attending that we have a community forum that's scheduled for march 22nd and that's after the budget work session which will begin at 7 pm and just sort of looking ahead um i know that we are scheduled to be in person for that meeting and obviously we'll have to wait and see what happens with covered numbers but i wanted to propose that regardless of whether we're here in person
023or not then we make it so that community members can call in from home just so because this is a community forum and we want to be as we don't want to take we don't want there to be any barriers for community members to be able to to share their ideas with us is everyone okay with that does anyone have a comment assuming yeah okay so mr filipowski will work on i'm sure we'll work on that because i know that it creates some difficulties technology wise being able to like get it all going at once but i have faith that we can get this together um thank you for that i do want to continue with our school visits however so we do have our high school visit which is um it's actually east high
024school mill middle school and country parkway all three schools on thursday january 20th i strongly believe that this is still important because this speaks to our duties as board members and at this time we have board members um miss bieger miss casmerick bogner dr lippman miss poulin and dr singh as able to attend and mr busqelio you're listed as a maybe are you still a maybe okay are there any board members that need to change their availability for that the school visits okay thank you very much item b under the president's report is the erie county association of school board is holding its advocacy training event on january 29th i just want to share with the board that i am registered for that event i'm also on the legislative team so i felt like it
025was appropriate that i attend that event there are upcoming meeting dates listed in board docs does anyone from the board of anything they wish to share out regarding erie county association of school boards i did submit the budget and finance meeting report which um is available for you in board docs as well yeah absolutely i would just like to recognize that mr dave lowery is here an observance tonight and to thank him for the shirts and the chocolates that we just received so thank you very much great um let's see what else do we have going on to our new york state school board association there's a virtual capital conference that's scheduled for february 2nd it looks like it's scheduled to take place from 9am to 12 30. it's going to be accessible via computer
026phone or tablet with more information to follow and we don't have another board meeting before that event but we don't have enough information yet to really be able to to go further with that at this time so i just want to bring that to board members attention i'm not sure if i will be able to participate in that yet we'll have to wait and see on that okay other dates from nisba are in board docs anyone have anything else they want to share regarding nisba okay so next i want to ask the board for your input regarding whether or not we want to have an additional retreat this year we did have a board retreat um in the summer when our newly elected board members came on board and our superintendent joined our district and
027that was held um here it was run by members of the board and the superintendent so we didn't bring in an outside presenter for this there has been some discussion by the board officers and at our recent agenda planning meeting on the merits of having a second retreat i do feel it would be valuable but i want to see if you are on board as board members and if so i will go forward with trying to get something scheduled for february or march um i can share two that i did reach out to nisba via email but i didn't get a response yet and that's fun it's been over a week so i need to follow up with that to find out um if they if someone from nisba is available but i guess i
028want to check with board members not about a specific date but just even you know give me a head nod or something if you feel like we should be having a second retreat this year because otherwise we can wait until next july or august anyone have feedback from outstanding start with dr litman and go down the table uh i would say they always have value but i guess um i would want to know what kind of agenda what issues we want to look at one way to find out would be to maybe put together some topics or have each board member put forward some issues it might be of value and then you know let the bot offices decide uh what might be the direction of it but i guess first thing would be to
029say uh you know what would be the main focuses we could use for our board development thank you for that because we usually go off of our board evaluation to help us make decisions like regarding retreats but because we have new members of the board this year that evaluation from end of last year isn't really that valid in this situation so it's kind of like starting fresh um i personally would say that the topic i would recommend would be sort of like more of a board governance more operating procedures we we went over them in the summer but it's different when you're just starting on the board you know halfway through a school year is sometimes a good time to review some of that information now that you've been in the seat for a few
030months um that's just an idea i have um but i just wanted to sort of pick everyone's brain and do it in an open and transparent setting is there anyone else on my left that wants to share their input this kismerick bookner um i i agree that i think it would be a good idea to have a retreat at this point i believe that board governance and operating procedures are good ideas i i also think that you know given that five people on this board are new within the past year and a half um anything we can do to continue to build relationships and and strengthen our board is essential so i believe that would be a good idea so am i hearing you say like a little bit of team building combined well i
031i yes i would i would love to have some team building in addition to the board governments and operating procedure okay thank you for that feedback anyone on my right wish to contribute back to agree with that the governance is important but i think i as you said team building is very important with so many newer people um joining on so absolutely okay may i make a suggestion also it might be a great time to even do some sort of uh dei training for the board for the leaders in the district so that we are all familiar with you know terms that are important microaggressions um um unconscious bias you know which we all have things like that which are very important for the leaders of the district to also be aware of all right
032very much so thank you for that i'm just taking a few notes and on my right any input regarding a future retreat vice president van slice so yes um i think it's essential and we've already talked about part of our goals has usually been that we meet for a board retreat um two times per year so anytime you can bring together a group of people or a unifying body that you're working with such as our board right here there's ultimate value no matter what's discussed first of all just to foster the relationships and for continuous professional growth and development so i think it's essential i think we should plan on that i've already offered to do a google form that i'll send out to board members if everyone's in agreement that we can then discuss
033dates for it and then we can share out instead of discussing right here at the table so if we are in agreement and moving forward i'll send out a google form um and then we'll take the feedback that we've received today and the three of us can plan further for what the agenda will actually be that was good thank you vice president uh dr brown hall already took the words out of my mouth uh i i think part of it should be i think with the the way this not only our local community but the country is moving towards we need to move towards that direction as well and it'll be valuable um you know as leaders as this district to uh have that training considering we're you know setting an example for you know
034not only ourselves but our children you know our our school community thank you thank you very much anyone else wish to comment dr mcclary yes i i am in favor of a retreat and i like the suggestions that um i've been hearing and i trust our leadership to come up with a good retreat thank you don't you think you even said anything at this time nothing in addition to what was already said i am in favor of a second retreat and i like the idea that we can have a bit of our own professional development there as well in addition to whatever agenda that we come up with for that doctor saying because the the truth of the matter is this is a learning institution always learning and it's not just you not just end
035your learning when you graduate from williamson central school districts correct we continue learning all the time and we continue to as we know better do better so thank you very much um moving on then to our next item the policy review committees for the series of one thousand two thousand three thousand have been have commenced right we've finished all of that work and um we to then move on to our next levels that we have because we have board policies that go all the way up to the 8 000 level um one of the things we discussed in agenda planning was holding off on scheduling additional meetings until we get all of these policies approved through their first readings and second readings which is we'll be doing some of them tonight and then we'll be
036moving on to some of them at next month's meeting it's a large undertaking to go through your entire policy manual and update it it's important work we also want to make sure that um as we get into the next levels of policies that are more content specific that we bring in and utilize our district leadership team and um our experts in the different fields as appropriate so that it's not just us here at the table making decisions about things we don't know about that would be appropriate so um dr brown i'll work with you absolutely and we'll we'll wait until we get all of the pending policies approved and then we'll come back in february and we'll schedule some time perfect the next steps okay and that is all i have for my president's report
037today so at this time dr brown hall i turn it over to you for the superintendent report thank you very much and before i start the superintendent's report we're going to do the community update and the community update is a little lengthy this time because we cover a lot of important topics uh regarding the district goals and the progress that entire document is in board docs but we do want to highlight a few things and we give an update on our dei in here strategic planning so there is a lot and i just want to um let you know that before we get started but it's important information so first i am going to talk about quarantine and isolation because as we get additional information from the erie county department of health the new york
038state department of health we always update our documents we send information to parents and i appreciate the feedback we get from parents that some of this information at times can be confusing so i wanted to go over some of the highlights here so isolation so if you test positive for covet 19 we are still requiring that you isolate regardless of vaccination status an individual is required to isolate for a minimum of five days so that regulation changed this past week with the five days right and so that's why it's very important but you still regardless of vaccination status must isolate for a minimum of five days quarantine if you've been exposed to a coveted 19 positive individual if you are unvaccinated you must quarantine for a minimum of five days fully vaccinated individuals and those
039infected with covet 19 within the last 30 days are not required to quarantine so when we have close contacts in the school building and we have to determine if a student needs to quarantine because they've been a close contact these are the first things we ask right if they're completely vaccinated they are not required to quarantine or if they've had covet 19 in the last 90 days they are not required to quarantine now with the new regulations and the new guidance about the five-day minimum that the definition of fully vaccinated in that document changed a little so fully vaccinated is defined as ages five to 17 year olds who have completed the primary series of covet 19 vaccines right so two weeks after their second dose however for ages 18 and older have all their
040recommended vaccine doses including boosters when eligible two weeks after their booster dose they are considered fully vaccinated to apply the five-day shortened quarantine rule okay so i just want to allow some clarification there board members if you have any questions please you know ask all this information can be found we keep our website updated so the covet 19 education you want to click on there the one that's circled in yellow and then you will find all the information the memos the guidance from ecdoh or the new york state department of health dr bernal before you go on to the next section um we have received a few emails and i noticed a trend and what people were asking for people a few parents are asking you know even though the state is saying the quarantine
041is now five days can we as a district still allow for ten days and my understanding was that no we cannot correct otherwise we would be denying a child's right to a free and appropriate public education absolutely and that is the that is the accurate response and that's why we are adhering to the five day quarantine as long as all of those guidelines are met now if a student who is um under quarantine begins to develop symptoms then no they still have to do the entire 10-day quarantine this that five-day quarantine is only if you are either asymptomatic or your symptoms are improving okay thank you for that and then one other question regarding the guidance with um them asking just for the students and everyone so we're a well-fitted math correct there have been
042some questions about will different masks be provided to our district i hadn't seen anything that the state was going to be providing them to us and that um so and let me explain that because that's a very good question and we do have masks available right yeah so we do have masks available and if um we have at the school building n95 mask right um that are available so if a parent requested their child wear n95 mask we do have them available at the school buildings okay can that be trying to remember if that was already communicated to parents but even if it was we can we can re-communicate it absolutely i did see that that popped up as a question to me today and i didn't have the accurate information so i appreciate that
043n95 mass were provided by the erie county department of health okay so we have them available in the buildings the the parents can contact the schools to get them correct but we're not mandating that anyone where the n95 no it's just a well it's a recommendation because i know there was a there are a lot of questions of parents you know where do we get a better fitting mask we do have them available however the cloth mask the well-fitting mask that we have you know they are acceptable and they will serve the purpose thank you for that absolutely from the board on the first section great thank you thank you for your questions quarantine resources so a lot of parents have asked when my child has to quarantine now many of them who are close
044contacts who don't show any symptoms for the five days what is provided for my child and we wanted to have a quarantine resource page and i thank dr bellum because she's spoken with many parents about what is available for their child while on quarantine so our teachers do provide information assignments tasks and resources to their students and parents using our digital systems and through their landing pages right so students will not be behind in their schoolwork communication occurs between the student and parent and school personnel whether it be a teacher social worker counselor administrator so there is communication between the student the family and the school students are provided with a device and a hot spot if they need so at the school building we have devices that we do give the students who are
045on quarantine teachers and staff monitor to assess for any needs of the students and the families especially when they return so a lot of parents are concerned when my child returns they're going to be behind one thing i heard from our listening tours over the summer was how phenomenal our teachers are and how they go above and beyond and that has not stopped when a child returns from being in quarantine or isolation our teachers are there to make sure that student is caught up they're there to assess if the student needs additional help if they need to attend learning lab but it's really important that the teacher be the one along with the additional resources in the school that work with that child to see exactly what they need when they return to school and
046so again our teachers our counselors our administrators we are always there to make sure that our students do not fall behind just a quick question on that i'm sorry i'm going um in terms of teachers if they're out with colvin what is expected at the schools i mean i i i don't want to sound insensitive but like obviously if you have covered your home sick i don't think they're going to be putting lessons out there i mean they're sick dealing with that i guess and so it depends on the the level the severity of sickness and i will tell you many teachers who are out either under isolation or quarantine are still providing lesson plans activities and things for their students to do while the substitute teacher is in the classroom um so that that
047is still taking place very similar if we have administrators who are out with covey they're still checking in they're i mean this is their building right just like teachers this is their classroom they want to make sure that it's still running smoothly and that the the students the children are still getting what they rightly deserve and dr brown hall just to follow up on on the on the last bullet of your slide there um yes the teachers are going to be monitoring but i also want to make sure that we're we're encouraging parents that you know if you if you do feel that your child is falling behind as a result being quarantined don't sit back and wait for the email from the teacher to come like take initiative right away proactive correct okay so
048i just want to be sure and and and that's true for accessing supports in the high school as well absolutely you don't have to be referred by the teacher for learning lab you can still self-advocate for that is that correct and we encourage just like we spoke at the last board meeting and i know you highlighted this several times we encourage the parents to really speak with the teacher that's your first step right to talk with the teacher like you said you know don't sit back but make sure you're reaching out to the teacher also okay thank you because we're not man making it mandatory that every child attend the learning lab correct students might not need it not neither okay absolutely all right that makes sense to me thank you thank you i want
049to yes okay has to stay so last friday as you as you know we had a erie county test to stay meeting that was scheduled for tuesday the meeting was now um then moved to friday so all of the districts in erie county met with the erie county department of health about test to stay so at this time this program is only available for students and not staff and only students that were exposed and identified as a close contact in a school setting are eligible to participate we're finalizing our written pro protocol for test to stay and we're going to share that with our school community because it will involve parents bringing their students in if you're identified as a close contact so they can be tested before the school day begins a negative test
050will allow that student to attend school that day our protocol that we are finalizing has to be approved by the erie county department of health and so once that occurs we'll be able to start our test to stay program in our district parents and guardians will have to consent to participate in the test estate program so it's not something that's automatic parents and guardians have to consent but we are working diligently to make sure we have a plan that we can submit to the erie county department of health and get approved right so it's really us figuring out what the morning will look like for the testing of the students so then they can begin the school day um superintendent brad hall has is there a timeline for when the plan will be submitted and
051also do we have any sense of how long it's taking the county to approve plans we don't have a sense of how long it's taking the county to approve plans however there are indicators that the county gave us that must be included in our plan and our plan we are affirming that we have all of those indicators at this time and again right now what we're working on is what the morning will look like once we get that all figured out we are going to be sending our plan in we're looking to actually partner with the outside agency to conduct our test to stay um so that we're not overwhelming our nurses and our building thank you remember i have a question sorry maybe i guess just a question of clarification in terms of the
052test to stay it would be only the unvaccinated if they're exposed being tested or is it vaccinated as well only unvaccinated right you're vaccinating okay if you're vaccinated you you don't need to quarantine you're not required correct just wanted clarification thank you thank you for that that's a great quick clarification absolutely are there any other test to stay questions and again i apologize this is so long but there's been so much information we've sent out we wanted to make sure we captured it all in one place at home test kit distribution dr mccleary explained it earlier the district distributed nearly 6 500 at home covet 19 test kicks on january 2nd that sunday january 3rd and january 4th so i want to really really applaud all of our staff our administrators our um leadership team
053that actually worked so hard to make sure it was an easy process at all three of our high schools and i want to get um give an extra special shout out to our communications director and slash events coordinator because he makes sure that all of this ram varies smoothly so i want to thank everyone involved and especially nick lepowski [Applause] so the question has come up and we're asked almost every day the remaining test kits what we're what are we going to do with them so they can be used for our test estate program um depending on if erie county department of health is not able to provide enough test test kicks for us or how quickly they're able to provide them however we are looking to also host a second test kit distribution in
054the near future so i will let you know that once we get those logistics planned we will share them with the community also to to distribute another round of the rapid at-home test kits strategic planning so strategic planning our area is a focus in strategic planning we do have three groups that have been working uh the teaching learning and leadership group the wellness community and sustainability group and the communications group now the next strategic planning meeting is scheduled for monday january 24th from 2 to 4 p.m we'll be finalizing goal statements and goal activities so after you know excuse me one moment okay next steps i was about to explain what happened next next steps the schools will be developing their strategic planning committees to develop action plans and so myself linda reway who is
055our instructional specialist of professional learning and dr bala met today to look over all of the three goals the goal statements the goal activities now once we have that finalized after the january 24th meeting that will all go to the school buildings and they will then develop their actions action plans and action steps specific to their school building based on that now diversity equity and inclusion committees will be formed at schools also as part of their strategic planning committees we have to make sure that everything we do as a district under strategic planning is viewed through the lens of dei so that's why there will be an additional dei committee at each school members of that committee will also serve on the district-wide dei steering committee dr lipman and that was a a great point
056i just wanted to ask what guidance the administration of board of ed will provide to assist the committees working on dei at the individual schools absolutely so what we have so let me take a step back because you do have represent representation from the board of education on the district-wide strategic planning committee okay in addition on the district-wide dei steering committee there will be board of education representation also thank you absolutely these are two different sets of committees that are forming in the buildings they are are we looking to make sure that we try and get different parents for the committees so that's not always the same parents absolutely and what we'll be doing at the january 24th meeting is talking about how we can solicit parental involvement in the building level strategic planning committees
057also excellent yeah it's important to get as many voices as possible yeah and you know in speaking about that uh president leatherboro we were very pleased that we had eight additional parent members of our district-wide strategic planning committee that joined so we were very pleased with that and we want to thank those parents i know myself and dr bella met with them on december 14 to give them an orientation and bring them up to speed on strategic planning and they um were all just very collaborative and they gave so much i want to thank all those parents also speaking about dei so again going back to our instructional specialist of professional learning linda rouhay she has delivered the culturally responsive sustaining framework training to our school buildings our school teams and she has i think
058four additional schools to go i think she's done nine we have four more to go and she also does ongoing dei training with principals and assistant principals through staff development the dei video so you remember some time ago we did a dei presentation where we um defined the dei terms everyone was on a common playing field and we leveled it that dei information has been turned into a video that has then been annotated and will be shared with the staff and the community to view so that will be a reference point available to everyone so that we're all on the same level to feel when we're talking about dei basics the district dei steering committee will be formed after school committees have developed their dei committees and we're looking to get that formed in the
059spring as i think i mentioned before we're looking also to have a dei coordinator for the district our dii policy cost for that and that person will be our instructional specialist of multilingual education when we get that position posted and filled i know that's a lot it has been a lot we're on to district goals now not much more i promise um so our district goals were established for the 21 22 school year the updates are available in board docs and i want to let you know some of the goals for example completing stakeholder meetings with administrators teachers parents and community members to finalize the district's strategic plan that is on target right so we are at a good place now where that work will then be transferred over to the school buildings further advance
060the plan for diversity and multicultural appreciation and our school district in alignment with the new york state board of regents policy on diversity equity and inclusion the board took the first big step by passing the dei policy now it is our job to form our steering committee to make sure that we are having that appreciation of our diversity and multiculturalism in all of our buildings continue to enhance communication with all stakeholder groups so they're actually informed regarding the district's school challenges solutions and give stakeholders a chat chance to ask meaningful questions so this is ongoing so we we do very well with our weekly video updates our weekly newsletters our school newsletters um one thing we have to do a little more of and i know the board does a great job with the community
061meetings but i also want to get back to a format very similar to the listening tours over the summer where we can have dialogue with parents so that's something that will be a goal that i will continue in the spring so in our district goals and i don't want to put them all up and go through all of them but you really want to look at them because they are all updated i want to thank the leadership team mr matursky dr mckenna dr bellen and mr skanzuzo because they all gave updates on their areas for instruction exceptional education and student services technology services human resources and non-instructional support operations so these are the goals that drive the work of the leadership team in the district so please go and board docs and look at those
062updates can i ask a question about one of the goals um i did review all of the different goals and thank you to all of our members of our leadership team for for submitting everything and there's a tremendous amount of work so i do agree with you please members of our community please go and look at this i had a question about one of the um hr goals i know the district is working to transfer its um personnel files up to electronic correct and in reading this it looks like everyone boces is involved with us um my question what had to do with like the internal internal review and the implementation are there any barriers to this work being completed or are we on track for this to all get transitioned over and we will
063be on track and let me just take a step back because we did uh work with boces we had a presentation but then we also had a presentation of our internal capabilities and i think we're going to go that route what we want to do first though is make sure that our internal systems are capable of handling the information that needs to be stored and to see if there's additional security measures we need to have around that so we are having a cyber audit done just to make sure once we scan all those sensitive personnel files that all that information that we have and where we're going to be storing that is uh very very secure cyber audit that's not is that being done by like an outside firm yes okay great thank you for
064that any other board members have questions or comments related to the district goals all right thank you and we did review our board goals at our last meeting so that we weren't putting them all together making it so too overwhelming absolutely thank you doctor thank you [Music] athletics and music and the reason this is important because i have been contacted by some parents asking if we're limiting or not having our music performances or any of our athletic events because i am aware that some districts locally have um either stopped having spectators or have limited spectators so i just want to explain what we're doing when we talk about physical distancing at music events because our schools have adopted this family members are grouped in pods with six feet of physical distancing between the pogs and
065two members per student performing depending on the event and number of students performing at times it may be more than two depending on the size of the ensemble that is performing next physical distancing at athletic events so our home athletes are allowed for spectators with six feet of physical distancing our way athletes are allowed to spectators students general emission limited to a percentage according to the gym size and i will let you know talking with our athletic directors and with our instructional specialists of athletics health and physical education we have not seen an overwhelming or crowded environment in the gymnasiums we have plenty of room for our spectators our parents to space out one thing i also want to say about our music performances and our sporting events they are also live streamed so families
066that don't feel comfortable being in a situation where they may be you know even six feet apart they can also live stream those events so board president leatherborough spoke about this the nicest great nice new york state education department graduation members measures meeting is scheduled for january 27th from 2 to 4 30 p.m we will be sending out a reminder because you need to register and we will have that link in the reminder is this open to anyone this is open to anyone they want community uh feedback parents students community members board of education members they want feedback from a wide array of individuals so they're they're they really want to get to the bottom of what does a diploma in new york state really signify right and do we need to enhance that do
067we need to change it so that's what the discussion will be i'm just thinking ahead because later in our meeting we're going to be talking about the participation in government service hours i'm wondering if um if this is open to students and if comfortable if it could be an opportunity for them to get service hours if they attended because it would be an excellent way i'm just thinking as an educator a great what what a great way to participate in decision making we initially asked the syack students i know when i had the psych meeting in december we initially asked them to make it a point to register and attend this and they were going to be able to because this was during the regents exam week now that it's not during the readings exam
068week students will still be in school or they have their after-school activities so it'd be very difficult for them to participate unfortunately but when it was originally scheduled in the fall regents exams are not cancelled then i see yeah the time is from 2 to 4 30 okay it's not an evening event got it [Music] any other questions from the board on that sorry again a lot of information it'll be available in board docs feel free to send me an email if there's additional clarification needed proposed budget and board of education elections information regarding the 2223 proposed budget and the boe elections is available on the district's website this will be updated throughout the budget vote and elections the budget vote and school board elections are may 17 2022. it's available on the website our
069website is so full of information i just want to say that also i'm sorry so full of information it's a great resource and at the top you want to look at those links the 2223 budget and boe elections link is there and that's where you'll find the information and then just two links down is the covet 19 education link and that is all thank you very much for your patience and your understanding it's a lot of information but it's very important information for our community and our district thank you thank you any final questions from the board regarding all of that information and i do want to just extend the thank you again to our leadership team especially for the the work on the board goals i'm sorry district goals um i i can tell
070you know i know how busy your jobs are and just the the amount of time it takes to compile all of that it's very much appreciated it's nice it's all there available for anyone that wants to question what's being done in a specific area all right so we're moving back to our agenda and we are on our open enrollment of schools this was something we tabled at our last meeting so first i'm going to ask for a motion to take from the table from the december 14th meeting the agenda item for approval of the resolution for determining open enrollment schools at dodge elementary forest elementary ac middle school high middle school and all three of our high schools east north and south is there a motion place to take it from the table thank you
071miss poulin is there a second dr singh thank you all in favor to take it from the table all hands up equals motion carries unanimously and now at this time may i have a motion for the approval of this resolution as presented thank you vice president vince is there a second dr lipman thank you very much is there any discussion on this mrs manslice i just really want to recognize and appreciate that as board members we had questions last month um just asking for more specifics details the visualization because we were hearing that some of our schools were maxed out to capacity and that so doing our due diligence we needed to see like are we open enrolling schools it really shouldn't be if we're maxed out so the work of these reports to that
072we can visually see what the room is and just the numbers of open enrollment i feel so confident and so happy that we're able to provide this open enrollment for our community families knowing that we have that space for them thank you yeah thank you well it was um additional information and it did help to be able to make a informed decision and i thank mr skanzus or mr matursky you very much all in favor on the approval for open enrollment opposed or abstentions thank you motion carries unanimously we're moving on to our policy updates this is item 12e is there a motion to take from the table the following policies for the second reading and adoption 1230 resignation and dismissal 1337 duties of the school attorneys 15 30 minutes 15 40 executive sessions 1610
073annual district meeting and election budget vote in 1650 submission of questions and propositions at annual elections and special district meetings as presented this is to take all of these policies from the table thank you board member cashmere boatner is there a second please dr singh thank you all in favor to take these from the table thank you all hands up this motion carries unanimously and if you notice these are all um in the 1000 level and that was because our committee i was part of that committee work we worked to we met four times and we worked to revise these policies and update them all right so now at this time is there a motion for the first reading did i get that right second reading wait oh thank you i found the page too
074quickly i knew that didn't make sense isn't there a motion to for the for the approval and adoption of this for the second reading and adoption and it's the same policies as i've read before so i won't read them all again 12 30 13 37 15 30 15 40 16 10 and 16 50. so second reading and adoption um motions first i'm putting my hand up i don't know why dr lipman thank you for remember van slice was laughing at me we did it um we've got the second all right and we discussed and any other discussion all in favor of this thank you everyone that motion passes unanimously all right [Music] all right so now i'm going to flip here and we're moving on to new new policies that we're updating so these are
075first readings the other ones were second readings is there a motion for the first reading of the following policies 1338 the duties of the school physician our nurse practitioner 1339 internal audit function 2310 membership and associations 3130 shared decision making and school-based planning 3140 flag display 3250 parent teacher association 3310 public access to records 6160 professional growth and staff development and 8242 character education and removal of policies 3240 student participation and 34 uniform violent and disruptive incident systems as presented all right miss cows merrick beaucner and this poland was handed up for a second thank you for that so this is showing a lot of the work from the 2000 level committee in the 3 000 level committee so thank you to the committee members that participated in that work all in favor thank you
076all hands up this motion carries unanimously and now we're going to vote to table these we always do two readings for all of our policy changes that way we have ample time for any member of the public to give input they have a motion to table the policies for the second reading and adoption at the february 8th regular board meeting thank you miss paulin and mr vestalia all in favor thank you all hands up for anyone viewing or meeting all of these policies are available in our board doc system everything is transparent we're happy to welcome you to to read through all of the changes um our district does a really nice job of showing the before and after she's got the clean and the and the edited version um and we welcome community feedback
077before adoption for next month all right moving on to item 13 which is our finance item the 2022 2023 budget development january program continuation reports is in board docs thank you for that mr maturski does anyone have questions regarding the report all right thank you for that i'm going to combine the items b c and d under finance for a vote may i please have a motion to resolve and approve the district's medicaid compliance program 13b and property tax settlements 13c and 13d has presented miss paulin thank you dr sang second any discussion on these items seeing none all in favor all hands up equals motion carries unanimously thank you very much moving on to our liaison reports would anyone like to report on a meeting or events that they attended recently all right and
078thank you board members for submitting your liaison reports on time it's beneficial for all of us um like if i can't make a north meeting i know i can read the report which is always really helpful so thank you for that um i do not have any legislative matters listed under under item 14. does anyone from the board wish to discuss a legislative matter at this time thank you all right we're now moving on to our curriculum and the academic intervention plan is provided in our board docs system um dr ron howell did you wish to comment on this on anything in the academic intervention plan or or ask the villain to share anything before we vote on this it's a very thorough plan and it's uh listed by grade and what interventions are available
079how we assess what students need interventions so it's a very thorough and detailed plan and it's open it's available to the public it's in public absolutely so if you have a child in specific grade level and you want to know what interventions are available what extra supports are available for my child you know there's a resource there you can look at that all right um may i have a motion then to resolve and approve the ais plan thank you dr lipman i may have a second please dr singh thank you is there any discussion i have just a question yes go ahead just a question i have so i see under all of the different plans for the different grade levels and the different subject areas the assessment instrument and the entry criteria i see
080that principal discretion teacher recommendation am i right to say that a parent also if they feel that their child needs some extra support that the first contact they would go to after maybe discussing with the teacher is to reach out to their child's counselor yes that would be appropriate to do okay thank you for that okay all in favor on approval of this plan okay thank you emotion carries unanimously eight zero zero all right and a couple months back we shared a concern regarding one of our board policies and the participation in government community service hours this came about after members from the board visited north high school at their request and we're part of a student forum right so at this time we're going to receive an update on the work that's been done
081in this area absolutely and there's been a lot of work done in this area and i'll ask uh our assistant superintendent of instruction dr marie ballen and our instructional specialist ms karen greco to come up so we can have a discussion with the board let you all know what work has been done and there is a powerpoint in board docs also so our public can see the uh work that has been done the meetings that took place and the recommendations wonderful thank you thank you so much good evening and thank you for this opportunity thank you dr brown hall and thank you to the members of the board as president leather barrow said a few months back a request was made following a visitation to north high school we wanted to share with you this
082is also in bordox our public has the opportunity to also view the slides that are prepared today i want to take an opportunity to welcome and thank karen greco our instructional specialist she played a tremendous role in gathering much of the feedback that was reflected as part of the update this evening and karen serves as our instructional specialist for social studies enl which is english as a new language which used now uh lot which is now renamed to world languages and libraries so she has a lot under her umbrella so if i may ask mr filipowski would you assist us with the slides because we do not have any way to display them at the moment or forward them so there are just a few slides we want to share with you this evening and
083a couple of comments and then we're happy to address any questions that you may have thank you tom thanks i'm sorry nick it's an item 16b i'm sorry okay and just to get a head start because i think we could start as getting us set up um the public and and certainly the board is aware that there is presently a board policy in this case it's 8290 which articulates community service as part of our participation in government course as articulated there which has been a practice for quite some time in the district actually going back uh a number of years which as a resulting piece this policy was then crafted as part of our participation in government course which is typically a course that our seniors take presently 20 hours of community service component is
084embedded within that course following the discussion at north we were asked to look at a number of different areas resulting from that discussion which we certainly did do but just to clarify what our current practice is 20 hours of community service are required for students to complete concurrent with their enrollment and participation in government or our ap government course participation in government runs as a half year and the ap government course runs presently as a full year these hours were used and are used currently as field work for these courses and the context and framework for the hours is such that it lives and breathes currently in our social studies curriculum as a result of the visitation at north and i'm sorry this is not working so we'll just see yeah could you thank you
085it's not functioning thank you so much um so we covered our current practice i mentioned the feedback and information gathering the first bullet is actually representative of the north panel discussion that took place additional feedback was then gathered thank you so much dr brown in november and december of 2021 and they're listed on the slide are the stakeholders thank you that's working well who participated in providing the feedback so karen spent the better part of the two-month period gathering feedback primarily from teachers who were presently teaching the course teachers who have taught the course teachers who will teach the course all of our social studies teachers all of our co-teachers who are our special education teachers that also teach and have co-teaching assignments within that coursework our high school principals and district administrators we wanted
086to share with you some of the themes of the um feedback just quickly and just let you know what some of the questions were that we posed to those individuals so those included whether students should complete community service hours and the rationale for that the number of hours the fact that if a requirement continues what should that be and should it be simultaneous to the enrollment in the courses that i articulated is there a consideration for possible extension of the time frame to complete the hours and what are the measures of consistency as these are entities that run across our three high school buildings as you could also see from the feedback and information gathering there was also quite a bit of information around civic readiness there had been a mention as you may recall
087several months back about the seal of civic readiness which is a new york state education department initiative the area focus focus there includes civic skills actions mindsets and experience it really is a tremendous focus on civic knowledge and proficiencies and demonstration of civic participation much of which currently resides within the discipline area of social studies this also includes critical skills such as research analysis communication strategies and solutions reflection and certainly a service orientation and component so we wanted to share with you too some of the next steps that we'd like to take and also let you and our community know because we honestly think this is the beginning of a larger conversation you are certainly aware in our public may also be aware that many schools across new york state are engaged now in field
088testing the seal and some of the requirements so we're expecting to get a lot of information this spring and certainly at the conclusion of the school year as a result of their experiences which we think will also help to inform more of our long-term view of where this also may take us in the future but as some next steps to consider one of the items that really came about is a part of the feedback that we talked about at both the board meeting and the information gathering is the amount of time afforded to students to complete the hours what we did affirm through the feedback is that the service orientation and the ability to do some service to your community is something that we do value that was a theme that was very loudly um
089and very forcefully and very respectfully at the same time projected by our stakeholders this is something that's been very important to our students and to our larger community of williamsville and that is something that our stakeholders would like to see continued the piece about the time frame was a very vibrant conversation and that was given a lot of careful thought and consideration too and what we'd also like to do as i said is collect the information from the pilot and see if again from there if anything else may come from that but what we're looking at is really next year because as you can imagine we are quite a ways through this school year already some of our students have taken the course that we mentioned and some are yet to take it and they're
090starting to take it in the spring so with that being said anything this year would be very difficult in achieving because we have half of our students who have already started their coursework and others who had not started yet so to be really looking at it with starting with all in mind next year is really the time to put the beginning stages of some changes in place and one of the items that we're really thought to include is looking at instead of allowing for the half-year um participation in government is making um an allowance to look at collecting and really looking at hours through the full year lens as a starting point i do know some questions had come off about summer and you know possibly extending out to other years what we're seeing is
091again we'd like to see how this next year goes we do want to remind too that we do run a summer participation in government class so at that time students are also amassing hours if they're in the core so there's a lot of i hear the term multiple trains running it is not that it's not achievable but you are looking at summer and when we run our classes it is a separate entity at this point from our full year anything that runs in fall and spring it is a separate entity if we move forward with the seal of civic readiness and look to see as possible resulting from the pilot school feedback that may be something we look towards but that would very much change the nature of what the course and the construct of
092the field work as we're seeing it now is about so even with our current proposed change it really takes the service component and extends it outside of participation in government to that full year because at that time students are not enrolled in the course whether it be in the opposite semester either the fall or the spring so with that there is also a management component because presently as it's resulting in the course association the teachers are managing the hours they are receiving requests from the the students in some cases suggestions are made but in a lot of cases the students find their own opportunities so while we have documents that speak to you know various opportunities and we had to enhance it because of covid because at the time as you well know and our
093community knows is a lot of on-site in-person opportunities were not either available or encouraged because of the pandemic so we really had to also look at virtual options and other ways for students to exercise their service learning and orientation so we want to look at that too because that was something really that came about predominantly because of the pandemic and the fact that service still wanted to be continued it just had to look a lot different than what um it had looked like in the past but we are going to have to articulate a system for receiving the request slash hours there is still an analysis the key piece that happens now that we have to really be thinking about is it comes with a conversation it doesn't come just as a static piece of
094you know i remember some of the comments at the the previous meeting which we wanted to guard against which is just a check box or you know just saying i you know i crossed this out as you know i've done it and and now we're moving on we want it to be an engaging piece and that has been a piece that has been very vibrant within the course construct that we presently have that we don't want to lose with the extension of the time frame so that interactive nature in some capacity has to be there and we have to figure out how to make that happen since in large part the students will not be in some cases with the instructor at that time if they are starting in the fall for example and not
095necessarily enrolled in just the participation in government they may for example be in economics so part of our bulleted components on this slide just really speak to some of the constructs we have to have logistically speaking to manage the the new system from there and this is something i know karen has talked about with colleagues this is something we really want to see how this will work you know we've had the requirement as it stood for quite a long time we are obviously looking to take some additional next steps to expand and move beyond where we are now and we're seeing this as a way to do it as a first step and then see where we can go from there really with the civic component of the seal in mind because what we are
096able to do now and carry forward maintaining the number of hours is if you look at the way that students can earn points for the seal this positions our students quite nicely for obtaining some of those necessary points in order to move forward and in fact what it also positions us to do from a program standpoint is look at our middle school program because if you look at what new york state articulates some of the efforts made actually for students it is a k-12 focused with some key aspects that can actually be implemented in middle school so while certainly we understand that um at this time it's very much still centric to the curricular components within social studies we do believe that this expansion will allow additional flexibility for students and families generating more conversations
097about how to meaningfully engage both civically and from a social perspective giving back of yourself to your community as well as potential next steps moving forward to achieve the seal which would we really think a number of our students and just hearing some of the feedback already that's coming from the pilots is it's something that students and families are very interested in and we want to make sure we have a step ready for that moving forward so i will just ask karen to help address any questions that you may have but also again wish to thank her you talked to a lot of people karen so i don't know if you just want to say anything real quick about that and then we'll get some questions sure good evening thank you dr bailin one thing
098i do want to share and just add on to what dr bailin has already shared is that the conversations that i had with teachers were plentiful and vibrant and i will say that our teachers are very proud of the long-standing history that williamsville students have when it comes to the area of community service williamsville students each year give back thousands of hours in our community that has positively impacted organizations families and others the fact that we are looking at this community service our requirement and making adjustments to meet the needs of our present day of our students um is is a strength that we have in our department and we look forward to continuing these conversations thank you so that is all we have thank you for listening to our explanation and what's transpired the
099last few months and we're very happy to answer any questions that anyone may have thank you very much i'll start on my right and go down the table uh dr mcclary yes i just have a quick clarification because it seems like after next year with seal coming on board that it's going to kind of change all of this anyway but i heard you say that something about a summer program is there am i understanding that it's that students could take a specific program in the summer just to get their hours done or it's the actual um participation in government course that happens to be offered in the summer as opposed to taking it in the fall yep we well you understood that correctly we actually do offer and have offered uh absent the year we
100did not have our summer program it is something that is offered to students as part of their coursework presently and in the past they were able to also take that course it's of course in the condensed version but it is the full course it's an it's a new course at that point instead of doing it during the school year students have opted to take it during the summer and they do in fact complete the hours at that time that's in alignment with the board policy because it requires according to the language they're in that they are concurrently enrolled in the class there are a few i would say nuances that do allow for some student carryover from summer but there were very few the ones you may be aware of are any students who are
101in link crew or web crew because of the amount of time effort and energy that is spent they are they are allowed to buy virtue of that to carry some of those over but typically the summer has been a standalone it actually is its own term so when you look at our reporting structures summer work has its own term our school year has another term so anything we would look at moving forward that's something we would have to look at very carefully as to how to manage log et cetera because they are actually independent uh terms of one another just as each school year is independent of one another but that's something we're going to look at moving forward and that's where the seal pilot and some of these unfolding discussions will help us because
102what we will have is information at our disposal from the districts who did the pilot to talk about some of these items that we're considering so we really feel like taking this um step of expanding the time frame will help us in the immediate future because our scheduling believe it or not it's hard to believe but we're already looking at next school year our course guides are already out so our scheduling does not happen you know late it actually happens early even though students don't receive their schedules until the late summer all of the pre-planning and groundwork and legwork that goes into situating the courses we're doing now we're talking about summer schools all of those things happen presently so we just want to make sure we have ample time we also want to communicate
103with our families we think they will want to know what was the outcome of the pilots that the school districts did we also want to be able to get some feedback from our students and our families that's going to be critical moving forward this had more of a staff focus because presently it's an academic requirement that lives within a certain disciplinarian coursework but moving forward if we're looking at an expansion of that magnitude we are going to want to ensure that we get feedback directly from the teachers and their family i'm sorry the students and their families in this case the teachers were able to represent what they have heard experience et cetera from their own students but looking at it outside of social studies and through a broader lens is yet a um another
104undertaking in and of itself so we really feel like this is a strong intermediate step before we get the other information under our belt thank you for thank you location anybody else on my right that was just a comment on this mr biscaglia i'm just uh happy to see the extension of throughout the whole year um not just because it gives kids an opportunity who you know do sports or other activities to finish those hours but i also think it's important that um it gives that more of an opportunity the students to to pick and choose things that they are um you know in tune to and and you know have a better understanding of the community and it gives them an opportunity it's a learning experience you know they can pick and choose things
105that they desire and want to learn about and and you know for shaping our students to be you know citizens in the future um that helps so i'm glad to see that thank you this is vance so currently our board of ed policy does not specify whether this these community hours need to be done um can be done within the school day or need to be done outside of the school day is that something that is still in discussion you know we did talk a lot about that i'll ask karen to elaborate a little but what i will say to you is we did look at that quite carefully so vetting against i want to thank mr pascali for mentioning what you did is um what if any opportunity might there be during the day
106during the day does have its added challenges one being we don't want to force service we want to make sure there is some choice involved so we did really look at that part and i think it really needs more discussion there were several barriers to school day if you will service orientation because then it really isn't a student's choice it really is something that we're dictating so unless we say it's a freedom of choice day or something of that nature so anything we would have as an activity we are thereby then dictating that students should be performing the activity and then you also anytime you leave a school building technically that constitutes a field trip which we need parental consent and in the event that parents would not feel comfortable with children students participating in
107the event that we feel like they would there would be an unequal participation at that point so that really needs its own elaborate conversation my hope is through again the pilots for the seal we want to gather some information about the types of opportunities that were afforded to the students and what those might look like but at this time and then talking with the principals too because this was a piece they would have to endorse the students would be leaving their buildings to perform certain tasks or use their school time to do it it really that needs a lot of careful examination to be able to feel comfortable with that so i i guess i was looking at what's already been done in the past with not doing a whole class telling them what to
108do as an example being a pe buddy does that constitute community hours um another example my own daughter experienced that my daughter was chosen by your social studies teacher to attend a u.s constitution first amendment right full-day assembly she had to pick a need and concern of her school she had to come back she chose the inequality of women versus male sports so she had her do her presentation to the athletic director all of that was considered community service hours she was able to meet that but we're also hearing other students are being denied that opportunity um and they have to do it after school so my big concern at this point is just whatever is decided that it is consistent to all of our students all three high schools no matter who the teacher
109is because i know even maybe at one school when the teachers change maybe we lose that consistent peace so um that would be my big ask with us yeah we could definitely make sure as these conversations continue because i hope that's part of what we're conveying is this is not a one-time conversation so that is something we could certainly speak to i we do know that teachers are receiving student requests so we do want to make sure whatever consistencies are there need to really be communicated and afforded to the students but primarily the um results of the service are outside of the day and out of the building but we do know that there have been instances where certain activities have been you know allowed i mean you know some of what you described um
110but this is why it's so important that we start the conversation and continue it because a lot of the work that um miss kreco did with our our teachers and finding out what's acceptable and what they're allowing we need to provide that consistency right across the district and across schools so that's why that's so important that we continue that conversation so we know okay community service hours are defined as this after school this is not allowed that type of thing and we need to make sure we have that spelled out so absolutely and i'll just add that at the same time it's a balance it's really the the importance of the conversation that's taking place between the student and the teacher to explain his or her rationale or opportunity that they would like to perform
111and having that conversation with the teacher and really just trying to ensure that it's meeting our guidelines for community service it's a nonprofit organization um etc um i will say that there are most of our opportunities for students and the hours that are performed do take place outside of the school day although there have been instances where community service hours can be justified to be performed inside the school building during the school day and those generally are it's not the case the hours are outside of the school day but at the same time i also want to stress the importance of not just the hours performed but the requirement of the student reflection on those hours and that is part of our curriculum council um i'm sorry of our curriculum as far as uh those
112community service hours are performed so it's not just the action it's the reflection on that and carrying that forward so i think to get to a resolution and and the consistency piece it's really the articulation of what is the purpose of the hours and what are the parameters around the hours and i think that's where we really see then things can get vetted um and really that consistency can be achieved but i certainly don't discount the fact that conversations are important but i think when we're looking at general operational principles i think we found this very valuable strategic planning is one good example is you start with your values first and your goals and then you go from there so i really do see that as one of our continuing conversations moving forward awesome anyone
113am i left to have any questions i just want to say thank you for touching on the piece about including parent and student voices in the future that was something i questioned and when i first looked at the slide i was concerned because we're talking about a participation in government class we're trying to tell our students that they have a voice and they can be advocates and i was concerned that they weren't initially asked for their thoughts i will say that we did receive a few emails earlier in the year when this first came to light from both students and parents and i feel that the recommendations that you're providing do address the main concern which was being able to meet the requirement within one semester versus a whole year um because our students who
114were in the ap government class did have a full year right where students who were in the participation in government for a semester and then economics to the other half um they did not have the same amount of time so i i i'm satisfied with this but i'm also glad to hear that it's going to go back to them because we want to send that message that your voice matters and teach teach students from a young age how to advocate and also get results right so i'm hopeful that this i'm even hopeful that this video can maybe be played in the government classes so that they can see an update just of what's going on and be part of the progress thank you very much yeah and thank you for all of the work on
115this absolutely thank you thank you thank you karen all right we are moving on to item 18 unless anyone has any personnel matters they want to discuss which we don't usually do at the board table anyways so i'm not sure why that one's there um 18 we're going to uh bundle 18 a b and c may i have a motion to resolve and approve agenda items 18 a the architect contract applicable to the district-wide school building air conditioning capital project 18b the second capital project package related to the district-wide security improvement project and 18c change order for north high school auditorium the spotlight relocation all of this information is presented in board dogs and the board has had the opportunity to view it and ask questions the email since thursday is there any first of
116all can i get a motion for this uh mr biscaglia thank you followed by president van sais second and now is there any discussion on any of these items i just wanted to make a comment on all of these finance items all of this money has already been budgeted so it's already been taken care of so it's not any new money it's not any additions uh except in the construction poll the question oh it's just a comment okay thank you all right anybody else from the board thank you for that dr littman okay all in favor all hands up equals motion carries unanimously eight zero zero thank you all right we will now have a public hearing let's see mr mursky will review what is in board docs if necessary um is there anything that
117you wanted to review at this time regarding all of the information i know the list of items being repaired or up for repair are all listed in detail yeah at this time i just would like to make mention that normally this does happen in march however we moved it up purposely because of really the impact colbit has had on supply issues as well as pricing so in order to do this earlier we're able to get our our purchase orders in through the contractors to obtain the items we have and again everything listed here is what we're going to be doing with a not to exceed one of 960 thousand dollars and our capital reserve is funded at about five point three million thank you very much mr matarski so this item for anyone following along
118it is 19a all of the schools are listed in board docs that are receiving improvements and it specifically lists what the job is at each school um so it's all right there for anyone that has questions about it all right um so at this time we will have a public hearing for the proposed repair reserve projects only we're only talking about the proposal for these projects at this time anyone here in the audience wishing to address the board regarding the proposals is welcome to go to them to the podium at this time i'll rush up at 1. okay thank you so much i don't see anyone wishing to speak on any items with that in mind may i have a motion to resolve to adopt and approve the repair reserve funding as presented you miss
119vince may i have a second miss poland thank you is there any discussion on these items [Music] all right thank you all in favor opposed our abstentions thank you i don't see any emotion carries unanimously item 20 there are no matters discussed for student activities does anyone have um topic to bring up under committee of the whole all right i don't see any hands up is there anyone there to discuss a correspondence or mention a correspondence all right i can just share that we did receive just a handful of emails um asking about some of the kobit protocols um specifically you know are we making changes to masking or making changes to social distancing i think you reviewed everything in your community update and there was also i think one or two emails about how
120their students can access support both academically and social emotionally for when they missed school due to covet and you also reviewed that during your community update so thank you for that and for members of the community when when mrs van sais and i and any other board member meets with dr brown hall for agenda planning just a week before our board meeting we always consider the correspondence we we've received within that past month so that we're being very mindful to address community concerns specifically during the superintendent update we always ask you specifically you know we got an email about this can you please do that absolutely so please continue to send us emails if you have questions or comments or concerns they are always open to hearing what you have to say all right at
121this time i'd like to propose going into a second executive executive session may i have a motion please to adjourn the regular board meeting and resource into executive session to discuss superintendent's mid-year job performance personnel issue and to continue discussions on contract negotiations thank you dr mccleary and miss poland thank you is our second all in favor all hands up equals motion carries unanimously we are now adjourning into executive session thank you