August 10, 2021 - Board of Education Meeting

001hmm good evening everyone i called the regular board meeting to order all members of the board are present except for mrs van site mrs bieger would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag [Music] please be advised in the event of a fire emergency and an evacuation should be necessary an alarm will sound please note unmarked emergency exits and evacuate while away from the building at this time we request everyone please turn their cell phone and other electronic devices to silence thank you is there a motion pleased to approve the agenda as presented thank you dr littman mrs bieger ii any discussion all in favor pose or abstentions motion carries unanimously thank you are there any board acknowledgments tonight all right great i will now call on mrs casper zach bocner

002to review our public expression format thank you welcome to all who are here and those lines live streaming this regular board meeting per policy 1510 the board is set aside 30 minutes for public expression a time when we invite members of the community to share ideas and concerns with us we welcome this opportunity to hear from you each person is given up to three minutes in which to address the board you will be signaled with a yellow flag at two and a half minutes so that you may conclude your remarks this is a meeting held in public rather than a public meeting which means we will not be engaging in a dialogue with or responding to questions from members of the community this evening rest assured we are listening carefully and we take seriously what

003you have to say we would also like to ask that you demonstrate respect for us and for one another by speaking to the issues giving us ideas sharing your opinions and not engaging in any personal attack thank you for your cooperation and thank you to all those who pre-registered for public expression when i call on you please step up to the podium and state your name thank you mrs casper zack bogner and i just wanna um throughout there that we've been informed that youtube which is our streaming service is starting to crack down on what on on providers if they're if they're talking about something that's inaccurate so if there's false information false medical information we could be at risk for losing our youtube services so i just want to bring that to your attention

004we definitely welcome your freedom of speech and then our first speaker this evening is dr ram chandra already dr ram chant already are you here okay our second speaker is mr tim terrell [Music] if you could please state your name before you speak thank you sure i'm tim terrell oh that goes bad [Music] um well sucks going first but here goes um welcome dr brown hall to williamsville um and the new board members as well um [Music] right from the start i know that you guys put in a ton of time and energy into leading the school district so that's very much appreciated um to the point that mrs leatherbarrow just made there were a lot of snickers and smirks because it's kind of interesting how in our culture like what is truth um okay

005so a lot of parents we we do hear a lot of things but we also there's a lot of smart people out here and as an example last year i did some math um using cdc data from their websites directly and i can share this with the board if they like but the things that were told by media and the government at large is misleading and specifically if you did the math on 12 to 17 year olds that got coveted and had to be hospitalized the rate was 0.002 percent actually had to be hospitalized and using their same data a vaccinated individual 12 to 17 years old adverse effects from the vaccine itself was .047 which was 23 times a greater probability of a negative effect going into the hospital that isn't stated anywhere in

006the in the mass media and the government doesn't want to tell you that and so all i'm speaking to here is there's data out there and we're being told that we need to make data-driven decisions so let's look at the numbers as a group put them in front of everybody and then we can say what's the conclusion nobody that's intelligent likes to be spoken to and told when there's conflicting information out there because unfortunately our government is trying to i'm not conspiracy theory here but they're trying to let's say they're trying to do the right thing and yes the vaccine is safe and effective at a rate of 0.047 percentage probability that there's something bad happens but they're just forgetting to tell you that well maybe maybe the children are better off not taking the

007vaccine so that's one example of using data to make a decision and i believe strongly that there's you're going to hear a lot tonight that we don't want to be told something without having the data to back it up and explain why those decisions are made you'll hear lots of opinions let's get down to the data let's present the data um and then you'll have less angry parents you know telling their kid to wear a mask and why so thank you for your [Applause] time yes uh dr reddy you may step up to the podium if you could please state your name and then begin thank you uh the topic i wanted to talk to was the letter i got from the school district lawyer but i think there's more important points but i'll still

008talk about what the letter which mr teresa leather barrow said be when talking about diversity i appreciate your rationale for including diverse viewpoints in decision making and you said my background is working with refuge refugees and immigrant students and families at the international school slash 45 i'm not sure if you knew about this but i choose to move to williamsville because i want my children to grow up with children from all around the world this was the email you sent me when we talked about diversity which doesn't make any sense last time in the community meeting when i bought up this topic miss susan van spy stopped me in the middle of it and i want to thank you ma'am because of your behavior right that's why i see a big change in this board

009meeting and only miss uh susan mclaren i was able to get the emails only one person in the whole board talked about whether there is a diverse store the the representation in the student reopening you are the only one who talked about it man i have the emails to prove it and now comes the part where everybody wants to blame somebody you guys blame dr scott martin i'm not a big fan of him but i still have i've read the emails which are circulated by your board members which said that oh you don't have to submit to us we will read it after it is submitted to the state so when you guys are not doing a good job please do the job same way you are working next time you will see that the

010people who are sitting there will be sitting here next to me now comes to the corvette that's a very hot topic as far as it's concerned i feel that wearing mask is also very important it will prevent the spread of it at least to some extent nothing is hundred percent proof i have emailed you guys about the use of air purifiers i think i emailed everybody and also recently emailed dr lipman about it which doesn't need a lot of effort i think that would be worth spending money on the second thing is you can also have air purifiers in each room it costs like 600 or eight hundred dollars approximately but i still think wearing the masks will definitely reduce the risk if not hundred percent and please continue doing the job ma'am next time

011i'll see you sitting next to us here thank you thank you for your comments the next speaker is andrew wheeler thank you my name is andrew wheeler hello and thank you dr brown hall and the board education for all the work you've done over the past 18 months i've been very close to the public education system my whole life between my mother and my wife and many of my long time friends throughout the years and as we found out over the past 18 months that not everybody can do the job of a teacher so my statement tonight is one that is focused on giving parents the choice to send their children to school with or without a mask i firmly believe that our children should be present in school and in the very capable hands

012and kept compassionate hands of our teachers and as stated so often nowadays safely so safety is an assumed prerequisite for any school setting of course no one would ever intentionally send their school to unsafe environment and no school system would ever foster that that is why i'd like to offer a few ideas to help the health and safety of our children for this upcoming school year i've studied and taught cross-contamination prevention for over 10 years as a board-certified wound care specialist i'm very aware as many other healthcare professionals are that the main culprit for spreading most infectious diseases is that of your hand to mucusal linings i.e mouth nose and eyes you may be seeing why masking small children might be counterproductive to the fight against copenhagen as many speakers have pointed out over the

013course of several board meetings children have a statistically minute chance of having serious complications or dying from cove in 19 the small chance should not be taken lightly of course as we should not discount the many other diseases that are passed around from child to child and child to family throughout the year that is why i propose we empower fund and support the true front line of this pandemic and that is to our custodial staff and our cleaning crews hiring larger crews paying overtime and providing continuing education on eradication of microbes are just a few examples of how we can do this included with this should be taking more steps to educate our students on hand hygiene the true nature of microbes and offering even more hand sanitizer stations antimicrobial fogging machines deep cleaning routines

014each week and improved air filtration systems throughout our schools these measures don't just fight cover 19 they fight most infectious diseases at any given time we obviously cannot prevent all infection but we can do more good for our children with a clean environment than we can with a filthy mask thank you [Music] [Applause] thank you for your comments uh the next speaker is and i apologize if i mispronounce this kagate kalu kanken if you correct my pronunciation for me that would be like it's actually child type one but i can't understand how thank you um so i'm gonna uh read a written statement um so uh dr braun hall and members of the board uh i'm a parent of an incoming first grader in the williamsville central school district i'm speaking here today because like

015many other parents in the district i'm worried that the district leadership may not follow the cdc and the aap recommendations on indoor masking when schools reopen in september the source of my concern is pressure from those who are running an organized misinformation campaign about face mask uh with unsubstantiated and uh speculative claims based on cherry picked and often uh flawed research they try to discredit the role of face masks in reducing transmission risk of flowing 19 and down play the children down playing children's risk of serious illness from the novel coronavirus it's true that the virus is much more dangerous for older people but even with all the restrictions that we have had in the last 16 or 18 months uh now thousands of children in the united states have been hospitalized and a few

016hundred actually uh died of code 19. so that number might look small when you statistically look at it but as a number itself it's actually striking and also if you compare it to other diseases like the flu in the last 16 months uh cdc reports only one uh pediatric death uh due to influence in the last 16 months so so that's like you know several hundred fold uh difference so that means that what we've been doing is actually working so we should not let our guard down um while a much more transvisible uh variant of the novel coronavirus is circulating in our community and children under the age of 12 are not eligible for vaccinations yet uh until a code 19 vaccine is approved for all school-age children universal indoor masking should be one of

017the main strategies not the only one we use to limit the spread of the disease in schools and while finalizing your plans reopening plans please remember that you have responsibility to provide a healthy and safe environment for all students faculty and staff so i hope that we can put this uh face mask uh issue behind us as soon as possible so that we can focus on other aspects of the upcoming school year thank you for your time for your comments the next speaker is michelle callisto [Music] good evening everyone thanks so much for giving up your time to be here with us um my name is michelle callisto i'm the mother of two children in this district daario he is 10 and he should be starting his first year at casey as a fifth grader

018he's full of endless energy and joyful curiosity lena is sweet sassy but very very fierce she's seven and she should be starting second grade at the most dynamic school on the planet dodge and it really really is my husband and i chose to raise our children in this district i actually fought him tooth and nail because he wanted clarence and i said no no no it has to be williamsville why williamsville because williamsville has the best teachers and i still believe that teaching is a profession near and dear to my soul i'm also a teacher certified reading teacher k through 12. for 10 years i worked with at-risk youth at the erie county detention center where i also had the blessed privilege of working with your father and it sure was a privilege so thank

019you and welcome to our district but in 2016 i decided to shift careers to be a stay-at-home mommy more thankful for those years now that they're long gone um and without a doubt i was supposed to uh at that time i was able to be able to support my kids learning in school i was able to participate in pta events i was active member for the parp committee helping to bring literacy to family-based learning so it was almost it was a such a joy at that time to just be able to participate in my kids learning and be able to go into schools and walk those hallways and hear the laughter and all the children you can sense the vibe of all the positivity and all that pure joy of learning in 2019 i was

020lucky enough to join the workforce again part-time but this time as a williamsville teacher i couldn't have been more proud to be a part of what i felt to be my final dream job but that happened in december of 2019 march of 2020 covet hit 10 weeks later [Music] the world shut down everybody did what they could to try to scramble and get through the year and by the grace of god and the amazing teachers staff and administration at dodge my kids finished their year successfully but the flood of trials and tribulations came to the start of the 2021 school year i started the school year off teaching at dodge once the lockdowns consisted with the inconsistencies of the hybrid model at that time it was decided that i would stay at home and be

021with my children um [Music] as we struggled to educate our children through the year i've learned one thing from last year i will not do that again to my children i will not put them in through the inconsistencies and the variables of uh what has affected my family in a negative way so i stand up here in my last attempt before i submit my letter of intent thank you and high hip forms at this time the vaccine the mandate mandates will only drive the division of our district further it all started because last year you made the choice to follow government cuomo and the cdc to corrupt sources for guidance that did nothing but guide our everyone into submission division first mass on mass and then unboxed and now masked and unmasked i am asking

022everybody to please consider the science please look at it and consider our children please think of our children before you make your choices we only have 30 minutes and we have thank you speakers [Applause] but just i would just like to remind everyone that we only have 30 minutes for public expression and right now we have more than 10 speakers signed up we were hoping to get everyone in so if everyone could please stay to your three minutes out of respect for everyone so that everyone can be heard at the podium i would appreciate that our next speaker is ellen belcher or belichia okay our next speaker is denise ferkie good evening everyone my name is dr denise furkey and i'm here to voice my strong support for requiring face masks to be worn by

023all individuals this fall i understand we're all tired but the pandemic is not over especially with the emergence of more transmissible and deadly variants our daughter is 11 and so does not yet qualify for the vaccine while she was a fully remote student all of last year since that option will not be available this fall the only way to keep her and everyone else that is still too young to qualify for the vaccine fully safe is to continue requiring make face masks indoors i understand why the district is discontinuing the remote option this year and we are in fact looking forward to sending our daughter back in person and she's very excited to do so however that being said if the district will require everyone to attend in person then it also has a responsibility

024to err on the side of caution in doing so to keep everyone safe while there as the medical community has come to understand even fully vaccinated individuals can carry and transmit the delta variant of covid19 since infected individuals actually carry a viral load that is 1 000 times higher compared to the original variant that was circulating last year as a result we are already seeing the beginning of a surge in pediatric covet 19 hospitalizations throughout the country thus unfortunately making mass optional right now is just not yet the way to go does the choice of one person to not mask in a school setting can affect the health health and safety of everyone else there in addition to keeping our children safe i would also ask you to please consider parents like my sister although

025she got vaccinated because of her ongoing cancer treatments she did not develop any immunity to copa19 her kids need to be in school too but people like her are at extreme risks if if the masks are not required because her children could not bring it home to her and they're not yet old enough to be vaccinated in fact her oncologist has told her that if she contracts over 19 she will likely die leaving her two young children without their mom the district was very successful last year in its mitigation efforts and we should continue to do what was shown to work right here the delta variant is more contagious and more dangerous than the variants circulating last year so now is not the time to relax safety measures rather by continuing to require mass we

026can help to keep our kids safe keep them in school full time and enjoying extracurricular and sporting activities and we can help to make sure that parents can continue to work because they won't need to be home but the school district then has to re switch back to remote as outbreaks occur when they could have been prevented so in closing i'm just asking the district to please follow the medically and science-based guidance issued by the cdc in the american academy of pediatrics and require universal masking this fall thank you for your comments [Applause] our next speaker is nicole burroughs good evening the first gentleman was worried about being first i'm worried about being in the minority but i feel that uh this is important for me to be here and i hear i had surgery

027today and i'm here because it's that important to me so uh good evening superintendent and welcome and good evening members of the town board assistant superintendents i'm just going to read a letter that i wrote today to dr brown hall first and foremost congratulations on your new position with the williamsville central school district i'm quite certain that you have received a numerous amount of communication regarding the mass mandate that has been imposed upon the residents of the williamsville central school district while i realize i may be one of many i may be in the minority in my personal opinion about the mandate nonetheless i feel the need to express my opinion also realizing that the mandate was that was sent on july 8 2021 only applies to summer school that that mandate is fluid and

028constantly changing i wanted to express my concern and fear about having unvaccinated and vaccinated children and staff unmasked and masked in the classroom setting in the fall as a community we each have our own stories to tell not one of us is the same as the other i respect that i'm also a firm believer in choice and as such respect the choices that each one of us have made regarding the specifics of the kobit 19 pandemic however what i cannot and will not respect is the blatant ignorance and selfish disregard for those of us that have our own unique situation that molds our processing and handling of the fears of the pandemic unmask the children but put everyone else at risk that simply does not make sense the fear that comes with the possibility of

029a child's immune compromised parent family member or sibling who is not able to get the vaccine at risk of infection is just as mentally crippling if not more so than the impact of wearing a mask and what that wearing of a mask has on the mental health of our children again i'm a firm supporter of masking and that support will never waver you see i'm a fully a vaccinated parent of an eighth grader who has been fully vaccinated and a seventh grader who is not yet eligible for vaccination i am also a cancer survivor and i also have multiple sclerosis a chronic autoimmune disease whose disease modifying drug and treatment that i need to to be in front of you the way i am today um has complicated my body's immune response to the vaccination

030so guess what as always i'm the one percent and i warranted not one single not i mounted excuse me not one single solitary antibody against copen19 i have had been tested two more times both were negative thus again i am at a greater risk of contracting copit19 with much more severe symptoms i am sure you would agree that the death of a parent or a loved one is much more catastrophic on a child's mental health than wearing a mask that ultimately could have prevented such an outcome no matter the guidance both of my children will wear mass in the fall because that's my choice ultimately it is everyone else's choice to do as they see fit for their family this district has a duty to protect its students and it's staffed from harm this is

031not a choice i'm sorry your minutes are up that's fine thank you very much we did receive your letter today thank you thank you the next speaker on our list is phil meyer good evening everybody oh that's really loud we'll move it this way it's good to see all of you again i think i know each and every one of you you know i came tonight with like this idea of what to say and i'm sitting here listening to my neighbors and community speak and look i respect every one of you i honestly got up i'll uh take the shirt off my back for you i'll help you any way i can i can't help that we're at uh impassable dispute here though when it comes to mass or no mass and i want to

032be clear like is there really a debate here like come on guys this has been a year and a half covet is real mass protect you the vaccine and i know you keep snickering guy i'll still take my shirt off the back for you okay but i just would ask you for a little respect when i'm speaking please i am speaking and i'm asking you to please give me a little respect thank you let's act like adults come on do i get to speak please let's act like adults [Music] i mean those are the facts you don't need to look to me or any of us for answers we have doctors scientists medical professionals the cdc the american academy of pediatrics they are professionals who dedicate their lives to this and doing anything opposite that

033i'm sorry in my opinion that's straight dumb you are responsible for every kid that walks in this building please keep every kid safe thank you for your comments our next speaker is gina gentry good evening superintendent board thank you so much for letting me um come and speak tonight um first of all i am an educator as well as a mother and an advocate for students and i am also part of the constitutional coalition um it's been a long 18 months for everybody and i think the frustration that you're seeing from a lot of the people that are advocating for choice for masks is the fact that we were told it was going to be two weeks then we were told it was going to be a month then we were told it was going

034to be three months when is the insanity going to stop as an educator it is hard for me to go to school and not be able to tell whether that child's smiling not to be able to tell whether the child's sad and if we want to talk statistics and my heart breaks for those that do have autoimmune my heart breaks for those that do have com you know some sort of situation where they're not able to maybe have the full immunity but if we want to talk facts and statistics let's talk facts and statistics according to the new york state department of health as of just august 8th the total fatalities by age group of children from zero to nine is zero percent the total fatalities of children from 10 to 19 is 0 this

035is not rampant among children and we know this is a virus this is not going to go away it's going to keep progressing that is how viruses work whether you talk to a doctor or nurse that is how they work um the concern is is that medical breakthroughs have been happening for i would say 20 years in the health world i have by the cdc the 10 leading causes of death in 2017. number nine i'm sorry yeah number eight i'm sorry for 15 to 24 was influenza and pneumonia number nine for 10 to 14 was influenza and pneumonia number seven for five to nine and ten to fourteen was chronic low respiratory disease so if masks were to be the all all-in-all protector of everything why not back in 2017 when the leading cause of

036death did we not use them then why do we not use them when rsv has been the leading killing or hospitalization among kids because it's not a scientific based um research study there's nothing scientific about it before march of 2020 mass were used to stop stop large globs of saliva getting into an open cavity during surgery you're causing distress in children you're causing distress in teachers and ultimately it's not giving the parents a choice and for governor cuomo to make that mandate which was above his role in the constitution everybody that supports him is abating a criminal thank you [Applause] thank you for your comments our next speaker is jean consiglio hi so i'm addressing you today as those who are in positions of protecting our children in order to do this you must be

037informed we now live in a time when our news outlets are in fact censoring huge segments of information from the people scientists and peer-reviewed studies are being disallowed simply because they do not agree with the narrative of some severely compromised agencies with glaring conflicts of interest in involvement in big pharma and the multi-billion dollar vaccine industry and even mass production a mask is in fact a medical intervention and therefore requires informed consent because all but one viewpoint is being censored we do not have informed consent study after study i can provide a link if you're interested has proven the harm that mass caused especially to children physical harm emotional intellectual can you show us any evidence that masks work the fda does not claim that they work they make mandates which are not laws by

038the way as if they do in fact it's illegal to mandate an emergency use authorized approved investigational medical therapy without informed consent it requires that the person given these be advised of their right to refuse administration of the product the labeling from the fda states that you must not imply that the mask is intended for an anti-viral protection masks don't claim to keep out viruses read the box vaccines though are much more sinister it is illegal to develop a vaccine when there are treatments for the disease did you know there are doctors that have treated thousands of covered patients with a combination of pharmaceuticals and have lost none or only a handful of patients you probably don't know that because we're not allowed to know that i can name you a few doctors dr mccullough

039dr zolenko dr richard bartlett investigate search it out thousands of patients almost zero death the death rate for this vaccine though is greater than all the vaccines combined for the last 30 years and that's they only estimate that about 10 of those are reported if you don't die from the vaccine within a few days then you could die from something totally random like a stroke or a heart problem they don't even ask if you got the vaccine so that is not recorded there's no recording unless the family decides to record that tons of death tons of neurological problems major organ damage and failure even death are grossly underreported from the so-called vaccine which has not been approved again you are in this position for the children do the research take a stand [Applause] thank you

040for your comments we have spent 30 minutes now but we only have two more speakers [Music] i'll make a motion to continue public expression for another until our speaker got a second all in favor post sentience promotion carries unanimously thank you all right our next speaker is mario caracas thank you so much for having me i know a lot of the other previous speakers kind of touched on a few things i was going to go over i kind of wanted to hit on a few different points here first and foremost i mean covet 19 is here to stay right that's something we can all agree with right at some point we're going to have to get back to the way life was and that's not with mass and what i mean by that is like

041i take it for example my son he's fully vaccinated he'll be going into seventh grade okay the thing with him is not just the physical piece of the mask right it's more than that it's him having to sit three feet apart from his friends i got an email okay from the teachers saying that dominic continues to not comply okay comply like it's some sort of order that a 12 year old 11 at the time is getting in trouble for trying to go up and talk to his friends my kids are being completely robbed of their school experience we moved from maryland six months later the pandemic hits they haven't been able to make friends okay because they're not allowed to sit with people at lunch these are the effects that you're not thinking about okay

042i do feel bad for other people that do have underlying conditions i do i'm a human as well i do feel bad for them but the stats speak for themselves and i don't have the most up-to-date data but last week it was 1200 people that were fully vaccinated again 1200 people were fully vaccinated okay that died from covet 19. 163 million people have taken and are fully uh vaccinated okay when you start giving percentages like 0.000 okay it's no longer science right you're all going to sit here and you're going to lecture us and tell science science science and then we have the data at first it was a novel virus and we did we had to we had to mask up and do all the things that we've asked for but at some point

043my children okay they deserve the right to live a normal life at school that's what it is and we also need to start taking into effect some other statistics as well right approximately 340 kids have died from covid okay your kids are more statistically to die in a car accident okay then covet 19. that those are the facts okay none of us are gonna stop driving our kids around right okay so i mean these are the things we have to start you know really looking into okay and um that's that's all i really have to say i appreciate your time for your comments last speaker this evening is karina palucci hi everyone um i'm here not to talk about masks although i do have my opinion and if i have time i will give it

044at the end um i want to though acknowledge all the parents who are here it takes a lot of courage i've been doing this for six years literally six years i've been coming and talking to this school board and every time i get nervous every single time so i want to acknowledge everyone here they are here because they are passionate about their children they want what is best for their kids even though we disagree obviously i do want to acknowledge the courage and the time and the energy that it takes for all of us to come to this microphone it is not an easy task so there's that um and we're looking you know we talked a lot about lenses right we've talked i came to i wanted to talk to you but i didn't

045have the chance it took too long so um my lens is i'm an involved parent um i have been on the school board of my nursery school and my kids were in nursery school i was on the pta at the elementary school i was a co co-pre cova vp of volunteers i was a co-president i run the recess program at my middle school i coordinate volunteers for fifth and sixth graders so that they can have recess i don't have a fifth or a sixth grader i still coordinate the volunteers for them i am passionate about what is best for kids passionate um i want to talk to you about class sizes this has been my passion for six years um a year before that it was a struggle to for my second grader who is

046now going to be a ninth grader um in common core we were struggling it was awful um i couldn't figure out how to fix it i can't fix common core but we do have control over class sizes in this district you as board members have control over the class sizes that every class in this district has that is under your control um i think that this is an opportunity this upcoming year and if i have to come and talk to you every year every july and august because that is when you are making these decisions for september i will i would prefer not to but if we have to do it we will um and so i would like to see reduced class sizes for i would like to see 25 and under for every

047grade every class i don't want to see 31 5th graders in a science class i don't want to see it in an advanced math class for seventh grade i think 25 and under is a reasonable request i think you have an opportunity with if we have to do social distancing which i know a lot of these people don't want i will take it if i can get my kids into a smaller class size um [Music] that is basically it most of you have seen me for many years so you know how i feel um as far as masking goes i will say and this is not going to be favorable for everyone but i would love it if my vaccinated children did not have to wear masks i would love that thank you very much

048[Applause] thank you for your comments and that concludes our public expression everybody okay we're moving on to our consent agenda approval we will be voting on our consent agenda items six personnel seven business and eight special needs and student activities if you wish to vote no or abstain on portions of the consent agenda please give the numbers of the items you are voting no or abstaining on may i have a motion to approve the consent agenda items please thank you miss kasper zach bobner may i have a second dr littman thank you and i'm going to ask mrs carey if you would please take a roll call vote okay mrs leatherbarrow yes except for number 79 which is the vote of no mr speaker he has to all accept no to number 79. mr biscaglia

049yes to all except for i will be abstaining from number 75 and a no to 79. this cousin eric bogner yes except i am abstaining for number 79. dr littman um i vote yes except i vote no on number 16 and abstain on number 79. miss pullin yes except i abstain on number 79 dr singh oh yes except for number 79 very abstain dr mcclary yes except i vote no on number 79. okay thank you [Music] so the record shows that uh all items passed except for number 79 of consent and gender personnel correct at this time i would like to thank the following retirees for their service to the district michael mamelotti north high school for 36 years of service michael ruda facilities department for six years of service sandra rubino forest elementary for

05015 years of service and suzanne vesper south high school for 29 years of service congratulations and thank you for your commitment to our district [Applause] item nine which is the approval of the minutes may i have a motion please to approve the july 6th organizational board meeting minutes mrs bullon thank you is there a second dr singh thank you are there any corrections or additions to the minutes seeing none all in favor opposed or abstaining motion carries unanimously thank you moving on to the president's report looking at events we did hold a retreat at our district office on july 8th i want to thank each of my board colleagues for taking the time out of their busy schedules and away from their families to attend as well as our superintendent dr brown hall the agenda

051is posted in board docs for anyone that wishes to view the agenda of our retreat and i also want to thank mrs bieger for leading the reflective journaling activity and mrs van slice for leading the activity of indicators of functional versus dysfunctional boards we have a nisba equity online symposium that was held july 13th and 14th mrs kasmir bogner and dr singh both attended there was a report that was submitted to either of you wish excuse me to give comments at the table i just had a couple quick comments um it was a virtual event and they highlighted some practices to build safe and inclusive schools our district has already started implementing many of the ones that were discussed such as trauma-informed practices culturally responsive teaching positive behavioral interventions and supports and restorative practices some

052other suggestions suggested actions that they spoke about were to ensure professional development in the virtually equity inclusion for all staff including aides and coaches and anyone who has contact with students to consider an equity audit of districts to identify and address inequities and to create a strategic plan that reflects equity inclusion they said what gets measured gets done and the last thing that i wanted to mention there was a panel discussion regarding the role of school resource officer and the importance of careful selection and proper training of school resource officers in adolescent development and building positive relationships with students and that's all i wanted to report thank you thank you so much for attending to each of you for attending that there are a few other events that are posted in sport talks regarding new

053teacher orientation and opening day so i just want to bring your attention to those item b is our erie county association of school boards we there is a western new york law conference which will be virtual right now mrs casper zach bochner is listed to attend is there anyone else that is planning to attend that all right thank you uh other upcoming meeting dates are listed in board docs i will be attending for esasb for the legislative committee and i'll um mr biscay i can do the most of the budget and finances i know you and i are um both on that so if there's a meeting you can't make i can probably make it we can work on that if there's any other committees for esasb that you're interested in joining these are optional

054we don't always approve a board member for them but there is a nominating committee an awards committee financial review wned educational rep buffalo philharmonic orchestra education rep niagara frontier industry education council and the erie county industrial development agency those are all listed in board docs if any of you have extra time and are interested in serving on any of those just let mrs kerry know um by email or phone call okay let's see oh and i had a little note that said you can also contact erie county association of school boards if you want to learn more information about any of those committees does anyone have anything else to report under erie county association of school boards okay moving on to nisba which is our new york state school board association the law conference was

055held on july 20 yes was held on july 22nd and july 23rd dr littman mrs poolen and dr singh all attended that thank you for doing so a report i believe was submitted to either of you wish to give reporter comments at the table okay thank you oh is your hand up no i'm just saying it okay but thank you to dr singh for doing the report he got everything in there very well so it was a great report thank you for that um our nisba timeline for proposed bylaw amendments and the resolution book all of that information is listed in board docs we've already approved dr lipman to be our voting delegate so i will ask each board member to please take a look at all of those resolutions and bylaws i will be

056the first to admit i have not done so yet but we will be discussing those at our september board meeting and making recommendations for dr lipman who will then vote on our behalf does anyone have any comments on any of those so far all right thank you the 102nd annual nisba convention is going to be held october 24th to the 26th in new york city currently attending right now is going to be myself mrs van silice mrs bieger and dr litman we will be approving those that the expense for that convention um in our next item number so may i please have a motion to approve an authorized payment of registration for the nisbo convention as presented this is chesmar zak vogner thank you dr sang thank you is there any discussion seeing none all

057in favor opposed or abstentions motion carries unanimously thank you very much does anyone have anything else to discuss on our new york state school board association all right thank you and moving on to item e this is our board of education purpose and expectations so we did vote on guidelines at our last meeting i know there was a question about still having an opportunity to interact with staff dr brown hall would you like to share the idea of holding open house events for just staff that we talked about during agenda planning absolutely because there was a concern that board members would not have opportunity to interact with staff when they were doing the um school tours we were discussing having the ability three times during the year to have board members meet with staff at

058the different high schools and then invite elementary and middle school staff also to meet with board members to to have discussions if they want outside of the school tours so you're not interrupting classrooms and things like that while you're touring the school but that opportunity would not be done until after um probably october and it would only happen three times during the school year anyone have any feedback on that this is bigger yeah i appreciate that idea so much because one of my well i love the school visits for multiple reasons it's wonderful to see the kids in the classroom and i always enjoy the time to connect with staff while we were there but it's inconsistent at different buildings uh it's just arranged differently and a lot of that is based on scheduling sometimes

059you know at a high school it's one free period and if you know the staff are teaching then we don't get the opportunity to interact so um if we were able to do this in a way where our school visits are really give us the opportunity to focus on the students and see the learning in the classroom i don't want to take away the opportunity to connect with staff and faculty so i love this idea of having a time where we can really have open dialogue with employees i think it's great perfect dr mcclary just a quick clarification the [Music] meetings um you said you know in various high schools for example the attendees at any of the meetings would be any of the teaching staff not the people just at a specific school a

060school by school interaction right so when for example if we did east high school we would then invite the staff from the feeder schools to east okay all right just so that you are meeting with staff from every school has the opportunity but it's just not open to all staff members at each site because you don't want it to get too big i was just gonna say that absolutely and i believe they're opening up to all staff not just teachers absolutely all staff not just teachers yeah um and and i think uh bringing the teachers uh to a meeting with us is a good supplemental idea uh i just have to go back old school uh and think about the value we had for many years going into the schools before school started spending time

061with the teachers who were already there and then you know having discussions interactions those types of things the way it looks like it's been changed i think reduces that a bit and becomes more of a showcase of what schools are doing which again is very highly valuable um just my concern as a former high school teacher is uh if people came to my high school one of eight in in the district where i worked i would be there but if they said hey come to the central office and meet with the school board or whoever um i might have coaching responsibilities at that time i would find so i i think it's it's a great idea to have i'm just concerned that um many uh faculty members wouldn't have the incentive to come i think

062that's a good point you have to try it i mean i think you know if you don't try things uh you don't know if they're gonna work but it's just you know i think just in my mind it's like saying yes these are great additions but you know let's uh make sure we get as many opportunities as we can to interact with the community and the students and the teachers so thank you for that i'm going to have mr biscaglia followed by dr pauline go first i was going to say i have some of the same concerns about the logistics of that you know because whatever time that would be interacting with different schedulings of school days and so forth i'm concerned about whether that would be more of a burden to put on teachers

063then it would be a convenience for them so okay um kind of i like the idea so i'm a teacher so like in the mornings i'm hustling to get my lessons ready like in my eyes that's how i look at it like oh i no offense if my board members were there i'd be saying i'm sorry i gotta get be prepared to teach for the day um you know teachers times are invaluable so on the other flip side and i i loved last year going to the buildings and visiting and seeing everything that's going on because that's valuable and you know perfect examples you could see the class sizes which is a a big deal my concern is kind of a similar thing because i also coach so i'm thinking like hey if it's every

064time those three times a year at the same time maybe you can you know do different times out of those three you know not always be at five o'clock or not always be maybe that could help that situation i think it's worth trying i do like it you're given an opportunity to meet with staff while also during your building visits seeing what really matters what's going on in schools but my suggestion would be maybe we can sputter those times so that absolutely great suggestion be involved if the suggestions that could be you know because i was thinking the same thing coaching or other duties are like i have to run home to my three little nuts old kids and real and i thank you for that feedback and that suggestion realizing that nothing will be

065perfect right because i know many teachers in the morning may have other obligations right so they might not be able to do that and then evening time so knowing that nothing will be perfect let's try this with the staggered times in the evenings and then we have some discussion after we've done it right just like action research so after we've done it how can we improve it later and perhaps too just listening to all the feedback from my colleagues if i can make a suggestion to um if you might ask our staff how they would prefer us to interact with them because they might have another idea or a way that they feel comfortable with us interacting with them because we want to make sure that we keep the lines of communication open and we

066did switch the guidelines since last time you're on the board dr lipman we really put the emphasis and the focus on our students because i would go to the visit and it was lovely i loved talking with all the staff i wouldn't see it one child because we'd be out of there before the kids even got off the bus and i really want to make sure that i'm there to see what are what are we spending our money on you know let me see the equipment let me see the renovations especially with the security work that's going to be done with all the main foyers i want to see that and i want to see our students especially the teaching and learning all right so thank you for all of that input i do have

067to ask before we approve the school visitation guidelines as amended you know how do you feel about the visit schedule is is visiting three schools in one day too much for you or do you prefer it because then there'd be less days to have to take i missed one i prefer the three okay i think that's doable yeah everyone in agreement with that okay awesome so with that may i have a motion to resolve to approve and adopt the amended school visitation guideline for the 2021-22 agenda which is item 10e upcoming school visits mr viscalia thank you and this is bigger second is there any well we did a lot of discussion already so all in favor thank you oppose your abstentions motion carries unanimously and with that we do have on the calendar for

068our first visit to be on october 20th and we're going to visit north ame and casey is there any board members that are able to commit to that today dr lipman i'm able to commit mrs carey anybody else able to commit today mrs bullon i ask my calendar you're checking your phone it's so you don't have to check your phone because there's plenty of time we can give them no i just we like to sort of think ah just to make sure that we have at least three board members we don't want to hold a visit and then not none of us be able to show yeah i can come back thank you okay all right so we definitely have at least three and hopefully we'll have more moving on to item f under the

069president's report as a result of our retreat we did receive legal guidance about eliminating the roberts rules provision from our operating procedures our attorneys have advised us that that's outdated and it's not to the benefit of our boards and to keep robert's rules in play which i'm perfectly fine with so the change to the work of the board agreement which we did approve at our last meeting will reflect this um update and when we get to policy there was a change for the same thing the roberts rules right so with this may i have a motion to approve the change and reaffirm our work of the board agreement thank you miss paulin and thank you dr lipman any additional discussion seeing none all in favor opposed or abstentions motion carried unanimously we do have a

070retreat scheduled right now for february 12th from nine to one as it gets closer we can adjust the time if needed i would like to get your feedback on having a nisba facilitator for this retreat i will point out that our last routine in july we ran ourselves so there was no expense by the district and i would like to propose that our topic the updating board policies dr mcclary i have participated in the retreats with nisba facilitators and with our own people this last time and i have complete praise for nisba and all that they do however i really thought our in the last several years our most productive retreat was the one that three of our own people were the facilitators so well thank you love to give you more work you know

071so i do appreciate that consider i guess i wouldn't automatically suggest that we go to nisba there may be you know one that you hear of that they are running as many of them are really super but and the other feedback thank you for that dr mccleary mrs bieger i agree i think that it's an opportunity to save some money by not having nisba come in and run it um having nisba run several retreats we started to see some patterns you know similar components we still use nisba materials in the retreat so it's not like we're abandoning that but we're all educated adults and i think able to um do that work without paying um so much money for a facilitator i i would be happy to save the cost and uh to run the

072retreat ourselves again okay dr bernal do you want to give any input on that because i know you and i spoke about policy revisions correct so when you when you look at the policies i know we do a lot of work and len we appreciate that and all the staff when we get our policy updates from boces so what i would suggest is when you talk about policy work as a board is you take your policy manual and divide it up by the sections and then board members can actually sign on to work on a section of policy so that it's reviewed and updated so what you have then is board members who become experts on this section of policy right because you're reviewing it and you're updating it so it may take a little

073bit of time then any updates or revisions that are specific to williamsville are reflected in the new policies especially the ones that may not have looked and looked at in years right and so i think that would be a great way to go about it and you can do more than one section but just realize that you're going to look and review each policy in that entire section yeah okay so you know listening to your feedback i'm hearing that hold off on contacting nisba um i can put in some calls just to get the materials because i know they'll provide us with those materials so we can have access to that without having to pay for the consultant and thank you dr mccleary for the compliment of our facilitation skills all right so with that

074um i don't think we have to take a vote on that one and i just want to point out that um our education community forum date we have two set-ups set up for us so we have saturday october 16th and that's going to be at east high school in the commons when you first walk into the building from 9am to 12pm so i'm going to ask board members to please put the date in your calendar obviously it's not a requirement that online invest the time but it surely is appreciated when we're all able to attend and our second community forum date will be tuesday march 22nd after the budget work session meeting which begins at 7 pm and so approximately that community forum would start around 8pm just judging on past past experience any questions

075or comments on community forums this is kazmerzak bogner i would just like to state in case people are have not attended the community forums that the community forums is a venue where there is back and forth conversation as opposed to public expression where it is only we are listening so if you want to have a back and forth that those would be the dates this coming year that you could attend to participate in that regard thank you for that all right moving on with our agenda we're on to item 11 and dr ron hall i turn it over to you for our community update thank you very much president weatherborough you can get the community update up nick i appreciate it so we're going to start the community update today talking about school reopening so

076we've heard a lot of comments from the speakers today and we do appreciate all the speakers comments all the letters and emails that we've received also so just some background for those of you who don't know but on august 4th we received notice from the new york state department of health that they will not be providing any guidance and they left it to the local um counties and districts to develop guidance for the 2021 2022 school year i will let you know that we are working with the erie county department of health there was a small meeting held on um yesterday with a few superintendents dr gail bursting carrick kane and some of their staff to talk about what support and guidance that they can also offer school districts and they just like the new

077york state education department will be following the center for disease control and prevention the cdc guidelines and the american academy of pediatrics the aap guidelines when they give guidance to the schools for our reopening in september so i am also working lynn fusco has coordinated so that the erie county superintendents are working together also sharing ideas and figuring that out what the opening of school will look like in the fall i want to say we do appreciate myself and the board members the staff appreciate hearing from parents and community members all your emails all of your letters we responded because we want to let you know that we have received them and we are reading what you say so we do understand your passion and your concern for the start of the school year so

078we sent an information gathering survey to families and faculty and staff regarding the covet 19 health and safety in our schools the survey really focused on vaccines so we can get an idea of if there's vaccine hesitancy or how many individuals have the vaccine how many will be receiving the vaccine within six months or when it becomes available for children um between the ages of five and eleven we also talk about screening to see how many individuals are interested in consenting to screening and surveillance testing when the school year starts so we ask that you please complete the survey it closes on friday the 13th at 5 pm so i know i've also received emails from individuals asking why is there not a masking question on the survey and i'm going to explain why we

079don't have a masking question on the survey it's really important that we don't get in the mindset of thinking the most responses wins right because there is no winner with whatever decision is made there are going to be groups of people who are not happy period but we are going to follow the guidance from the erie county department of health the cdc and the aap so i don't want to put anything about masking on the survey to give anyone the false sense that whatever we fell out here the most responses will be the way the district goes because that is not the case so that is why there are no masking questions on that survey all right but once we have finalized plans for school reopening we will be scheduling district-wide virtual reopening meetings so

080that i'm able to review the guidance and discuss what school will look like after that we will ask our principals to also do that school by school so parents families can know what to expect come september 8th when your students walk into the school building before you go on to that does anyone from the board have any questions about school reopening for this to print on that questions or comments well i'll go down the table so doctor mr destalia and i understand we're in a data gathering situation using a variety of sources uh but is there a timetable where we really have a date that parents the community and the faculty uh and staff know [Music] all of this right that's a phenomenal question and we did ask uh dr versting yesterday when can we

081expect the guidance from the erie county department of health also and she said as soon as possible and i know that's not the answer we want we don't have a date but we are looking they they do have to vet their guidance through their attorneys right yeah and so it's important that we don't rush that process but they do realize that we are all districts are waiting just so that we can finalize our plans for the fall would she say that's a scientific strategy by delaying it that's her scientific strategy well they did assure us because they were surprised and some individuals from the new york state department of health were also surprised that they would not be providing guidance right so when it was thrown on their laps they had been working around the

082clock now we did receive a letter from commissioner rosa today and i'll read to you the beginning of it it says the new york state education department is in the process of developing a summary guidance document to aid schools and districts as they prepare for the 2021-2022 school year this document will be based on cdc guidelines and guidance from the american academy of pediatrics this is necessary in light of the continued absence of host related school opening direction and assistance from the governor's office and the state department of health so we have multiple agencies working to make sure that we're off to a great start in the fall and they provide the guidance for our districts thank you absolutely well like the county will we need to have our attorneys vet that as well or

083will the county's attorneys vetting it work for us i think that will work for us yes mr pascalio uh just more of a comment than a question um i just i'm i know their guidance is not out there and when we're still waiting for certain guidance to make decisions i'm just hoping that next year whether mass or unmasked we get back to some normality the school year field trips concerts in school things of that nature um i think it's very important for the social emotional learning of our students our little ones you know a little biased they do have a a kid starting kindergarten next year in third grade so it's just you know to see kids faces when even they get to go to you know like something my son missed the you know

084the planetarium at north or little things like that as long as the schools follow the guidance and can do that i'm really hoping it gets back to some normality um for all the students you know you know parents and grandparents in the stands for sporting events and concerts and things of those natures as long as you know within transportation and following those guidelines within transportation and things like that um that's what i'm really hoping to see when decisions are made um you know obviously whether mass or not mass but going forward hopefully that can occur within the guidelines absolutely guidance very good point uh board member scalia and i being a parent also want to see some sort of normalcy for my kids right but as you said we have to make sure we get

085to that point gradually um and keeping in mind that this isn't going to be forever right and so thank you very much things that we've spoken about before as long as it's also hopefully we stay consistent throughout the schools you know hopefully it's not one high school being able to do something like hopefully we're collaborative and working together the consistency that there's consistency among those schools when it does occur right disappear yeah i want to uh just express my gratitude toward our building leaders it's and district leaders too it's hard when we have our hands tied and we're waiting for guidance but i appreciate what you said as far as organization of what's to come um we know to expect now a virtual meeting where you'll be sharing some details when we have those and

086i really appreciate those building-based meetings as well i think as a parent of kids at three different schools it's really helpful that i know what that's going to look like and i feel like i have that relationship or understanding from that building principle so i can better prepare my kids for what's to come so i appreciate that planning um and the leadership coming from buildings working quickly around the clock as they come to get schools ready for our kids absolutely thank you thank you any comments on the right thank you sang yesterday and today i had the good fortune to meet with principal swall and principals of scotland at transit and east and i did ask the same question like are you guys prepared if school schools open and this delay and guidance from the

087ed county is like affecting all preparations the logistics of getting every child back in class maintaining three or six feet whatever the requirement is it's going to be a almost a nightmare especially at last time right lunchtime is one of the clinchers um and so absolutely in the the classrooms we won't that the cdc guidance that was released in the spring was still applied with the three feet the lunchroom is what we're waiting for really information about you're absolutely right i mean i mean since we don't have any eta then we're going to expect the guidance so do we have like an alternate plans if the guidance i mean so we'll we'll be getting the guidance i have no doubt that we'll get guidance we will be getting the guidance it's just a matter again

088of we're we're in a holding pattern right we were throwing a curveball but we're in a a holding pattern and talking with many of our principals though they are developing plans whether it be three feet or six feet they are doing that because they're anticipating either way i mean playing the devil's advocate if delta variant goes crazy and we have cases way more than 10 in our county now that we have eliminated virtual completely as an option what else to have like a plan b in case uh the numbers continue to be so high i mean increase to be high right well we would have to right so even when talking to erie county we'll have to do exactly what we did last year if we get to a certain level of infection or rate

089of infection erie county does have the ability to shut a school down to shut a district down and then we would have to re revert to some sort of virtual learning thank you absolutely all right next item for your update the next item is bus transportation we want to thank all the parents that actually have completed the survey so far regarding bus transportation and that survey closes august 13th also so completion of that survey well that completion of the request will allow the bus load planning to be more accurate and allow schools to plan for student drop off and pick up so i do want to thank our cfo tom maturski and his transportation team they've been doing a lot of work and trying to make sure that the driver shortage the effects of that

090is minimized on our families right so that's why we're asking parents to fill that survey out so we know who will need transportation so we know that we can plan routes accordingly but if you choose not to have transportation at the beginning that last bullet right here is very important parents always have the right to request bus transportation at any time regardless of if they indicate they do not need the transportation but one thing i need to make clear to all parents is that if you decide to then go with transportation it is not immediate you're not able to call that morning and say i need transportation for that afternoon it does take a little bit of a time to get student added to a bus route i just want to make sure every parent

091knows that thank you for that absolutely so it's a really good opportunity to like to work with your neighbors and you know that's what we chose to do we work with our neighbors so that we can drive the girls to the high school in the morning and then the other parent can bring them home it's just a little bit of a way to do our part and i appreciate that just a clarification about the transportation survey in case parents are looking because when you log right onto wits you see the most recent survey that came out right away but i believe that transportation survey came in an email so if parents are looking for that or at least for me i noticed when i logged on it doesn't pop right up like some of the

092other surveys do but if you go your with mail it should be right there or if you just search transportation you can find it there thank you for that navigation i think that one came through an email because it was specific to your child that had like my child's name listed so i think because i had the same problem i went looking for it before as right thank you thank you very much so loading of school buses will be in line so we are going to get guidance on that also and that will determine the load capacities we will be assigning seeks on the school bus so that if contact tracing is necessary we know what students will need to be contact traced and what students will need to be quarantined while the district anticipates

093driver shortages we are also anticipating a shortfall of 15 to 20 drivers to begin the school year and due to the need for daily bus routing changes and flexibility the my stop bus tracking may not be available at various times buses will continue to be cleaned for the cdc requirements and bus schedules will be available the week before school begins now if you know if you or you know someone that is interested in becoming a school school bus driver please call student transportation of america at 716-912-6143 now they have also um increased the hourly wage for bus drivers to try to entice and get more individuals to drive buses because they know how important it is to get kids to school so i will let you know that so again this is an advertisement so

094to try to get as many bus drivers as possible any questions about bus transportation before we move on water lead testing results i'm going to turn this part of the presentation over to our cfo mr tom maturski thank you dr brown hall this this past school year school districts were required to do the second phase of water testing lead testing in our water just a little bit of history here 2016 was the first year we had to do testing it's on a five-year cycle and so it came up for 2020-21 uh due to covet as everything new york state education department really extended the sample timeline to 6 30 21. with that though there's a stipulation that you could only take samples when schools were occupied by students so uh it also was not just

095the partial occupation it was more toward full occupation as a result our samples were taken toward the end of last school year you can see on here elementary schools were done on five one twenty one middles six five twenty one and high school 6 12 21 and if you look at the calendar those are all saturdays and that's because you can do it within 24 hours after student occupation we had uh 12 901 samples taken uh you may ask how is it determined whether a water outlet should be sampled it's all in the guidance so all of the samples that were required to be taken by new york state guidance were taken we had 87.52 passed or been under the 15 parts per billion we do have 161 samples that are over that and so

096we will be remediating all of those items before the school year per sed guidance if you also part of this the reporting aspect is very important uh reporting goes to a number of agencies state uh and local as well as to our parents and staff erie county department health receives it that had to be done 24 hours after we received the samples parents and staff there's a 10 day period after you receive your samples and test information must be posted on our website which it has been we also had to put information into the new york state health department their health electronic reporting database system and that was done in a sample of the report showing all of our buildings being reported is included in the agenda item as we move forward we we did

097have a lot of the filling stations that we started to put in really pre-covered they now are really put through all of our buildings and that's a good um access for for water because those are filtered and when we tested all of those outlets they basically came back at zero so that would be a very good source of water and that will continue to be in the future additionally as i said we're going to be doing all of the remediation efforts and i provided you with several items here on what that means the state requires us to do you can flush an outlet and then take another sample and send it in uh you can sometimes replace a fixture if it's that's called for uh retesting that of course and then uh there is the

098possibility of labeling if the item is more of a out of use normal use area an example of that is in the last row of testing we had shower areas in the elementary school those rooms were used for storage not even showers but the last time we did have to do testing in there so that's an example of that we will have all of our remediation testing done um and anything ready to go for the beginning of school so we're good for that and just one last note on this all the additional tests done must follow the same reporting requirements so that will all be reported as as required posted on our website as we move forward thank you very much mr matursky i'll move forward to special education after school programming so this is

099a very brief slide this was something that was brought up and board members asked about it so during the listening tour a lot of parents asked about a specific special education after school program that is housed in amherst and run by people inc and they are asking the ability for us to transport students to that program the problem is it is out of district transportation and once you do that you know you open up to not following the policy and then that will open up transportation to so many other programs and we don't want to go down that road because it will be cost prohibitive and knowing that we have a driver shortage already it will just compound that problem so in the discussion i know that mr scanzooza and his team have looked into

100that people-linked program and because it's so close they may not be able to duplicate that program in our district but mr matursky had a great idea that we develop and release an rfp for similar in-district programming to see who would respond so that we would be able to have a program similar to the people inc program in amherst so that is something we will work on in rfp so that we can release it to see if we're able to run a program of that nature in our district so mr skanzuzo and mr matursky thank you very much for that i want to thank you for that because that's something that we've heard for a number of years um our parents of our students with disabilities not having access for for a service for that or

101after school that makes it very hard for a parent that has a job that isn't able to just to be with their child after school so i'm very happy to see some movement in that area thank you both of you so the next part for the community update we do have a mathematics update and i will turn it over to our chief academic officer i'm sorry our superintendent of instruction dr marie thank you so much dr brown holland thank you to the board for the opportunity to bring this update for you this evening i'd also like to express my gratitude to dr chris mcginley our instructional specialist for k-12 mathematics and computer science chris is actually here in the audience tonight and thank you to our math teachers across the district who continue to do

102an outstanding job supporting our students and our program so this is one of the items as you know that we've had updates along the way and actually dating back several years i believe i interviewed all of them that we've done up to date uh really stubbing from 2017 18 and as recently as right before our covet closure we had quite a discussion at the board meeting around our math supports and our program so just a brief recap we know we have a lot of data and information at our disposal as shared in the prior updates analysis of student learning and data are regular and extensive these data include those on the screen and they are qualitative quantitative diagnostic informative these are used squarely to drive instruction certainly student supports anything that would serve to advance

103student learning communicate high expectations increase collaboration and certainly if there's any opportunities for professional learning or growth that's at what we are about so to give you a sense of what we are working on and we shared a recent update with the board on some of our fact fluency work this also dates back a number of years we actually had a committee of nearly 40 people back in the 2018-19 school year and that was comprised of stakeholders from across the district and this committee met for about a year and really the term fluency was the one that they were delving deeply into that term just as we use it in reading or across other curricular areas is defined in multiple ways as you look through research so one of the things that we were really

104striving for in the area of math is to have a common definition and a district agreement about what fluency is and as we know fluency is something that spans all grade levels k through 12. so fluency as defined by the work of the committee and based on research primarily by dr jennifer bae williams who is a foremost expert in this area is skill in computing with accuracy efficiency flexibility and appropriate strategy selection and as we know again it spans continuum of any grade level really any course up and through including high school so we've done book studies i actually have dr bae williams books here this is her newest 2021 publication um her name may be familiar to many educators because she's been on the board of directors for the national council of the teachers

105of mathematics and she's currently professor um in kentucky university of louisville to be specific so we became connected with her and really it's been a great partnership along the way she served many roles and really much advisory for our school district in terms of curriculum and also delivery of instruction professional learning was also something we had invited her in on a saturday actually before covid and we had over 100 people attend a professional learning seminar it was very well received but some of the recent work includes really diving deeply into a more coherent and common experience for our students emphasis on fluency strategies exercises and games vocabulary and questioning and differentiating assessing student understanding focus on math specific goals at the school level so it's really write down this is not just a broad effort

106it's really school specific and implementation of her research-based fluency progression that she cites in her research so we we're very pleased and have had some very powerful experiences and we are planning on having her continue her relationship with us as we move forward so just a couple of items and again this was a topic at the board table and certainly something that we we took to heart because although we've achieved many successes i feel as a result of our program and our practices and certainly academically we've seen very fine results from our students and everybody's worked very hard we continue to be adopting and having a growth mindset and we want to make sure that we are are always focused on continuous improvement that's the best way we serve our students so by all regards

107achievement although high we want to continue forward with meeting every student where they are in advancing their learning in any way that we are possible to do that so as you know past efforts have included our math lab at the middle school which has been very successful because of covet it did have to change and really cease the frequency because it's predicated on having in-person learning for five days because it's a just-in-time model where students are receiving daily remediation but we're going to pick that back up as we resume school we did see several math sections at north that were self-contained to go more towards a co-top model to ensure the appropriate certified staff were delivering the instruction to students again it's been very successful several years ago we extended math time at the middle

108school level you'll remember much of that conversation board members who were with us at the time we also moving forward created several new structures that we want to share with you some of which is possible actually through our covent money so we're really really proud of some of the things that are forthcoming one is just like the math lab at the middle school we are putting a structure in place to ensure that students needs at the elementary level are met in a just-in-time manner much of chris's work with our math specialists which we've also increased math support is geared towards doing that at elementary so we feel really good about where we are heading although there's still is a support structure in place currently this is an enhancement moving forward we also did begin in

109the started um actually during covid one of the things we had brought to the board previously was the implementation of geometry labs and we did that and we will continue to do that at high school and last but not least this is the biggest one and i think that one of the more significant ones for the board in the community is we are implementing learning centers more you'll hear about it we've heard about it from clarence and some other neighboring districts these labs are at middle and high schools and one staff member a certified staff member will be staffing that before during and after school and that will provide ongoing support for students it could be scheduled or unscheduled so student may drop in if they like or it could be something that a teacher

110assigns to a student as needed but this will ensure that there is a an immediate response if there is a need for a student and this may be helped with homework it may be they're struggling with a concept it could be for a number of different reasons but one of the items we spoke about as a board and as we brought information to you and i was here with chris and our principals the last time is we want to make sure we have something in place we have so much support and there's so much as you know already existing but this provides a layer of support that really is the icing on the proverbial cake and it's ongoing before during and after school so we will be doing a lot of communicating we're very excited

111about it we met with the principals this morning mr scanzizzo and dr mckenna and i were actually part of a meeting with the middle and high school principals because we were looking at how to best get staff on board implementation and so on and obviously we have talked a lot about school reopening so obviously that is a priority but we want to make sure that this is something that moves forward and we want to have the supports in place for our kids and we think it is going to be quite significant so we look forward to bringing you some updates on that front as we move forward so we wanted to make sure you knew anything we had talked about prior to cobit because again i think our last opportunity when we came together was

112right before school closure had occurred i believe it was in january all of those structures currently still exist all of those same supports are still in place but we are moving forward with increased staffing i mentioned the math specialist professional learning is a big part of it chris is actually helping us set up a professional learning model similar to the teachers college where it's job embedded and lab model dr brown hall mentioned action research the closer you can get to the classroom the more immediate the response is the more success students will have and that's really what we're after so we will continue on this path we have some very exciting things moving forward and i cannot wait to bring you some news as we're moving ahead with these endeavors but just to give you

113um a sense of some of our recent news too we were just recently notified in the last uh this past year that we received the district of distinction award for mathematics through a national publication there as you can see on the screen and we also were recognized for closing the achievement gap in mathematics and you know again regardless of where we stand when it comes to numbers and rankings we will continue to do our very best in meeting students needs across the board so thanks again for the opportunity tonight and i welcome any questions or comments you may have thank you much doctor now go down the table i'll start on this side any questions on the right here's math all right i'll work this way this is bigger thank you for sharing all of

114uh these updates for math um this is definitely something that we have talked about at the table before um chris mcginley thank you for all your work the math lab is a brilliant idea and to learn that this is moving to the elementary level and we know that there's been additional positions to help form that structure i'm a believer in early intervention so um that's wonderful and i'm pleased to see the district doing that work what i really want to comment on is is what you mentioned about high school because that was really where um as board members many of us were hearing concerns from parents that were frustrated that their kids were struggling in math and i think that when we return in the fall there's fears that you know kids that may have

115need to accelerate their living more a little bit more of learning recovery what have you i'm thrilled to hear about the learning centers the geometry lab i think there's a lot of families that feel helpless when they can't support their kids i mean i can't support my child with high school math and i know that we have several families that hire tutors so my question is since the district is doing this work and we're going to have additional support at high school that we haven't had in the past how will we communicate that to families or is there a way that math teachers can communicate that or just ensure that that's part of the syllabus so that kids know and also families know sometimes kids don't say hey there's someone before after school that can

116help that um families know how to nudge a little contact there so that the kids can get the support in district right um what i think the greatest concern was feeling that like some families can afford to get a tutor and some couldn't and that shouldn't be an issue here we want to make sure we have equitable situations for everyone so um if you could just hear or if there's a plan on how to communicate that yeah so communication is essential and i think that did come up early during our last conversations as well and we heard that as as a part of this ongoing dialogue so what we are planning is actually and we've done this with other topics and it's worked really really well is dr mcginley and i will work with the

117building principles and have a consistent communication and i think communication from that vantage point both from the school as well as the teacher level is critical so that they hear it both globally and also from the specific teachers we also have newsletters we have other ways that schools are communicating so i think whatever we can do to make sure that the message is out there and this is a positive thing if we watch the video of the math lab and the student really who spoke um we did had to do a video to include for math lab recognition the power of that student being able to say this is not a punishment this is a support for me i welcomed it it did it did something for me that i did not think would be

118possible that's what we want everybody to feel so this is a positive thing we are going to promote it across the board so i think the communication is essential and we will work very hard to make sure that it goes out in as many ways as as could be love to hear that love to hear the consistency too thank you very much you're welcome mr pascalia yeah i was just going to comment on the learning centers it's you know it's excellent i mean and i like the part where um you mentioned and i hope it can consistently stay this way is scheduling it or walk-ins you know i think it's important to remember you know you might be doing great on one unit and then the next one you're falling apart um and they had

119you know our students have the advantage of being able to say hey i i'm lost can i come in on wednesday um you know get caught up or whatever they need to you know that support system is there um and then the elementary schools i kind of missed that a little bit so i know there always has been great help with math and extra help in math and elementary school so you're trying to bring centers there is that what i'm understanding or it will be happening so so what we're trying to emulate structurally speaking in addition to all the supports that currently exist is one of the things that we saw work so well at middle school was a math lab model and really that's predicated on having just in time information and as you

120said it could be they're struggling on one skill one concept you know you may be doing great overall so this is not you know pigeonholing any type of ability level or labeling anything it's really at all times someone needs help with something and again it might be homework it might be a unit that you're needing just more support on the idea is you have a structure there a person that you can go to what they did at the middle school is use that data and it's day to day and on a more frequent basis it could be weekly as well it doesn't necessarily have to be daily but that's how you know who needs what and what you're doing is you're not waiting to respond to the need so there is a more immediate response

121to whatever they need is so having math specialists be at the heart of coordinating that because it does take coordination is really what chris and the specialists are going to talk about how do you go about meeting those needs and what kind of structures we can we put in middle school obviously has a different schedule than in elementary school so they're going to have to do some work to customize the type of approach relative to an elementary setting one of the other things i would mention just to add on to the learning lab piece is we are also adding support for um students from an uh ell perspective that was by design so as you know part of the our monies are targeted towards certain areas so we coupled some of the things we're able

122to do with esser and our and one of the things we're actually doing in addition to the overall structure of learning labs and outfitting that with a staff member is adding else support we are our numbers continue to grow i'll bring that forward to you at another time but they do continue to grow we want to make sure again to meet student needs wherever they may be and it could be for students who need acceleration too this is not just remedial it really could be for meeting students needs wherever they may be so we are prepared we're excited and i think it's really going to be um a great success story moving forward so more to come yeah so just uh one last thing i loved everything i heard i just you know and i

123know this isn't your job but you know hopefully within the schools they're advertising that on the announcements every day like we're gonna just get that out there get out there we're gonna get it out there i know i just i know you will i just thank you you're welcome i mean i just had one question we are using a federal i mean our funds and other funds for these two years so do we have a mechanism to con continue once the funding runs out so this is what we shared with the principals and this is true of anything we're supporting through grant money and we know we've had other grants and we've been fortunate in most cases that those those do continue for extended periods of time that may not be the case with this

124money in fact we know it's probably not going to be unless they're extending something um so what we're doing is we are setting goals for ourselves as a result of this work what are we hoping to accomplish because if after this grant period is over we've been able to show that we have met those goals and we're showing that we're meeting student needs really what it's going to come to is a couple of things if there is not an enhancement of funds which we're not expecting at this point and it would be great if that did happen but in lieu of that is we're going to have to make some decisions about what we keep and prioritize over other things so the principals know that and really that's the landscape we're in we do that

125as a regular budget process by design and we're really going to have to do that here too so these along with our other items that we're bringing on as new items or enhancement items we have to make sure that along the way we don't want to get to the end of the grant period and then say hey do we think this works it has to be by design that we have goals measures strategies and is this something that we're hoping to retain after the grant period is over and be able to demonstrate that that now is a priority over something else and that is part of our process we do that as you know when we talk about the budget so we are prepared to have that conversation thank you very much for that because

126i think when we talk about goal setting we get to our workshop you know what we value is what we spend our money on right we have to we will have to make those tough decisions about what it exactly is we value and as a board we've taken a stance that we value diversity equity and inclusion and that inclusion piece means accessing all all learners we we are so proud to have the status and the accolades right we also have to recognize that there's kids that fall through the cracks and so i applaud your efforts on this i know on a work in progress um put on pause a little bit by covid but i'm really grateful for this additional funding to be able to offer this thank you thank you final comments yeah just

127supportive of everything my colleagues have said and all the work all of you have done but you know just to reiterate mathematics is a building block for so many different things life in careers analyzing data and all the things that you can do without looking at your phone uh which is always i guess also important but you know anything that helps support our students their success all of the things my colleagues have mentioned um are just you know again very positive and anything we could do to support our students success we commend chris and you and thank you all of you for getting it going thanks keep up the good work i miss pulling god i'm just going to say the building boxes are very important and i'm not i'm having been a parent of

128a child who all of a sudden hit a wall like having something like that in high school is essential yesterday i was able to go to country park where they had a family mastermind yeah and it was really intriguing to me to watch that because one of the things we always hear parents say is i don't know what they're even talking about and then the parents were learning the vocabulary by playing the games with these kids and so they were they were building the blocks to move that along so great thank you and thanks for going and thanks for mentioning that too so that's based on dr bae williams research what chris is doing then is that was used as sort of our pilot of seeing how that would work it was very well received

129so he's going to be working with the math specialist the buildings to replicate that for our buildings across the board so those are things you're going to be hearing about moving forward but thanks again for the opportunity i really appreciate it this evening absolutely thank you dr baylin and thank you dr mcginley for all of your work back there are you complete with uh update it's complete now so thank you very much we're going to roll because we want to try and get through our agenda to get on to our goal setting so i'm going to combine 11b 11c 11d and 11e may i have a motion to resolve to approve and adopt agenda items 11b upk consultant 11c dasa district and building coordinators 11d annual agenda and 11e district safety plan as presented dr

130mcclary thank you may i have a second please miss poland thank you is there any discussion is that one discussion piece for the agenda um i was i know we have a school opening report for september are we able to get a little bit of class size data preliminary class size data combined with that school opening report yes and the deductible no the main one is usually october december or december the um 2021 2022 annual agenda was updated to include a preliminary class size report in september perfect it was updated yeah okay thank you thank you so much any other discussion on all of those items seeing none all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries unanimously thank you we are on to our discipline report are there any questions from the board regarding item 11f

131if one question and that is how will this data be used to drive decision making absolutely well we'll we'll definitely examine the data and i know that um board members have asked questions and uh mr skanzuso responded to those but the data is always reviewed to to to look to see what support we can give schools if we see that there is either a large group of students or a subgroup of students that need support or getting a high number of referrals or a high number of suspensions i know it's also asked to be disaggregated and we can share that with the board separately we just want to make sure because some of the numbers are so small that they're not identifiers for certain students right but that information is always looked at uh mr

132skanzuzo shared that back when he was a principal that information was looked at also to make sure that any support we can give the district level to help principals reduce the number of suspensions and discipline referrals that's what we're ultimately using that data for thank you and i did i did ask it through email and thank you mr sanzus i just wanted to make sure i was absolutely also asking at the table you're welcome um policy updates item g is a promotion for the first reading revised policy 1510 regular board meeting minutes meetings regular report meetings rules quorum and parliamentary procedure as presented so this is the first reading of revised policy 1510 which we did have our attorneys also take a look at mr speaker thank you may i have a second dr singh

133thank you is there any discussion on the revisions anyone wish to see anything else included in them it's just a small question that i wonder if we before the second reading can bring back to our attorneys is um before covet and before having virtual meetings if there was a board member that was unable to attend the address where the person was attending from or their location could be shared i'm just wondering if that's a practice if if goodness knows be able to want to go virtual again but if something like that were to happen do we need to disclose as per policy the the wording says identify the locations for the meeting i'm just curious if if that's something that needs to be updated given the times or if it's uh i'm reading education approves

134video conferencing or online technology to conduct a meeting the public notice for the meeting to inform the public the video conferencing or online technology will be used identify the location for the meeting and state that the public has the right to attack i believe that speaking it to the fact that if we all go virtual like if right we all do so if it's an individual then an individual board member has the right to um join an executive session but they could join the book okay does that answer that yeah i appreciate the clarification reading it too perhaps they're talking about um you know because we want to make sure the public has the right to attend the meeting but perhaps that means we're sharing the location like the old location online not like all

135of our home addresses for people to come and join us no no no that was my um or very similar to what you did before when the public was not allowed that you held the meeting the meeting was being held here and you can announce that but the public was not able to attend but you still video okay i screened it but then that language still makes sense thank you i appreciate it yeah verification all in favor for support of the first reading of that motion thank you opposed abstentions okay motion carries and is there a motion to table this revised policy since we're still under robert's rules until this goes forward um so that we can bring it back to the for a second reading next month dr lipman thank you as may i

136have a second uh mr biscaglia thank you for that all in favor for that oppose absentia's motion carried unanimously thank you moving on to item 12 finance i'm going to combine these items as well i have a motion please resolve to approve the non-resident tuition rates in 12a the contract assignment of awarded services for after school security in 12b the sale and disposal of district property in 12c the chinese club of western new york bcs lease agreement 12d amherst youth basketball lease agreement 12e and the 2021-2022 school year tax warrant as presented thank you miss casmerick bogner mrs beaker as a second is there any discussion on any of those agenda items yeah i just uh if you wouldn't mind i just wanted some clarity on um about the administrative times i wasn't sure what

137that was is that a supervisory time oh the after school security yes okay it says uh the rate is there then it says administrative time per agreement um eight hours per week and i wasn't sure uh what specifically that meant sure dr brown hall or mr monsoon right um that is something that has been in the contract but it's my understanding that it includes uh scheduling payment processing communication with district personnel including principals so that's what that amount covers and those hours cover okay thank you so much absolutely that's good that's good because i was only looking at the rate for the security monitors and i missed the administrative piece so thank you dr lipman for bringing that up okay any other questions for discussion seeing none all in favor please opposed abstentions motion carries

138unanimously thank you moving on to liaison reports if you have any liaison reports please send them to mrs carey i want to thank the board members who have set up um meetings already with their building principals and have gone in for school visits it was really great to read your reports so thank you for doing that i want to encourage all board members to please um have a point of contact with your building principal prior to the start of the school year doesn't necessarily have to be a meeting but at least send an email from the greetings saying hi i'm going to be your liaison looking forward to seeing you um the pta um ptsa president list is also in board docs for board members viewing it's always a good idea to make a contact

139with your pta president as well so that you can establish that relationship that's a really important relationship to have um please contact oh i already said that part okay any questions on liaisons all right number 14 anyone have any legislative matters to discuss other than we have a new governor in 14 days okay 15 may have a motion to approve and adopt the professional learning plan as presented thank you dr mccleary may i have a second please thank you miss poland are there any questions for discussion or comments dr b lynn as always like the professional learning plan it makes those of us who work or have work in other school districts extremely envious because there's just so much that someone can take advantage of yeah at no cost or to be paid so that's

140really amazing thank you all right um are we voting on that one yes we are voting on it and so first and the second i did so can we please have um all in favor opposed or abstentions one abstention okay so motion carries with one abstention thank you all right we have no personnel matters to discuss um dr brown hall i turn it over to you to our capital project work update so i would like to turn it over to our cfo mr matursky for the capital project update thank you dr brown i'll go over this very briefly start with the good news our music project is going according to our schedule all the buildings will be um ready for students in september uh more good news always good we're three million three hundred ninety

141seven thousand one hundred forty two dollars surplus under budget for that proposition and what we're looking to try and do with that is to complete another portion of the mill middle school roof unfortunately the uh the construction costs have been rising as we all may know so um we will continue to move forward with those efforts and if uh if we um if we're able to we're gonna do at least a couple sections of that roof because the um the a b and c wings were done about four years ago so this would just um help us out in that area so other than that the proof that were included i'll just go over it just that the audience knows the first one was the south high school auditorium the second was the south high

142school chorus room the third was the south high school band room and then uh the music notes on the wall was the south high school hallway awesome thank you very much mr matuski we got to see a lot of these in our visits last year um so parents please log on to board docs to look at these pictures because they're really awesome and when we did the listening tour at south i was just amazed by how beautiful the auditorium turned out it's absolutely gorgeous so who knows and to know we're under budget is pretty awesome too that is all right um water test results and remediation i know it was part of the update did you want to add anything else i don't think it's not saturday anyone have questions about the water testing i

143did get the emails that came through as a parent so i appreciate having all that information all right there are no special there are no matters to discuss under item 18. for committee of the whole it was brought to the board's detention an item about policies i'm going to ask this cosmetic governor if she wants to speak about that sure um as we had mentioned earlier in this meeting some of our policies haven't been looked at by boces in a number of years and i just wondered if it would make sense to form a policy committee so as dr brown hall discussed we can sort of systematically review our whole policy manual and i love that idea of people being assigned to specific portions of the manual so we can become experts in that portion

144of the manual so that was the item that i wanted to bring to the table for discussion thank you does anyone wish to provide feedback on that dr mccleary i would also agree that certainly having boces take lead in this is good but if we can almost personalize some of the policies because as we read through them i myself every once in a while i'll read a section it's like we don't do that right right so if we can again continue to use our expertise that would be helpful so i'm in favor of a committee is there anyone that's opposed to us doing this type of work no i was just going to say i when when that kind of went around and we were began to look at that i had said i'd be

145glad to work on a policy committee but i much prefer the model that dr brown hall suggested to us that we all take a piece of that and um excellent dr leitner well i guess again goes back historically when i first looked at the policies 15 years ago and they were all outdated and then we started contracting with boces to revise them so i guess if we're working with boces to revise them and i know we get updates on all the revisions so the point that you bring forward now is there are ones that have not been revised and it kind of falls on us to take that responsibility which i think is a wise thing to do yeah and mrs carey provided a little bit of information about the boces component so she let

146me know that erie one boces does send policy updates to the district clerk the clerk then forwards it to the leadership team for review when the leadership team completes the review process they are updated with edits and then sent to the board of education for the first reading then tables and then for their second meeting so that's the process that exists we do typically update one to two policies at least per meeting but as we're all seeing going through the manual there are some that aren't touched or that perhaps as dr mccleary pointed out could be reworded because words do matter so that they're specific to the needs of our district so i'm glad to hear that so what i think we'll do is for the next meeting put it on the agenda and have

147more of a process of a proposal what that work will look like okay is there any other items for committee of the whole thank you moving on to correspondence i've been keeping track of all the emails that have been coming in i do want to thank the community as dr brown hall and shared for making their wishes known um i've made sure to answer every email that i received up through yesterday if you sent it after i went to bed um or if you sent it today i did not i did not respond yet and i will do so later this week um i will say that in the past we received a majority of emails asking for parental choice but that seems to have shifted the past two weeks and the majority of emails

148that came in over the course of the last two weeks were asking the district to please and um enforce a mask mandy i want to share you know it's still it's still a somewhat divided issue within the community but i did see a shift in the correspondence that we've received lately we don't typically read letters at the table however we did get a group of medical doctors who are willing williamsville parents who have sent a letter to the board and have asked for us to read it we do not have a policy speaking about policies that speaks for us to you know in favor of us reading it or not reading it i personally as president don't want to start the precedent of reading the letter from as myself reading the letter because i think

149it's important as president that i maintain more of a balance and i do respect everyone's viewpoint on this issue however i do feel that this letter is unique because it did contain 28 signatures from williamsville medical providers who are also our parents and so with that i am going to call on dr mccleary and she is going to be either an excerpt or the entire letter whichever you so choose thank you mrs leatherbarrow it's actually probably easier to just go through the whole thing than to move around okay dear dr brown hall and board of education we are writing as physicians and williamsville central school district parents to share our thoughts as we prepare for the 2021-22 school year we work in a range of specialties and settings but we have all been on the

150front lines of this pandemic and fully appreciate its many devastating effects although we all are weary sadly it is clear that this pandemic isn't over yet we are extremely concerned about the recent increase in covet cases due to the highly contagious delta variant we are frustrated by ongoing vaccine refusal and the delay of vaccine authorization for 5 to eleven-year-olds because many of our children and immuno-suppressed adults remain vulnerable to covid we must take a cautious approach to reopening this fall and be willing to shift strategies as we continue to learn about this virus and as the pandemic evolves we wholeheartedly believe that in-person learning is best the toll that isolation and distance learning had on children and their families has been enormous and saddening we all share the goal of having students safely back in

151school full-time this fall we commend the district's efforts last year and you provided that layered mitigation i'm sorry and you proved that layered mitigation efforts work as physicians we are strongly advocating for continued mandatory universal masking this fall to allow our students and district employees to return to school safely the cdc and american academy of pediatrics have both issued guidelines calling for universal masking in schools masking when combined with other layers of protection will give our students the best chance to remain in school full-time with fewer illnesses and fewer disruptions i'm take it back i will skip a little bit here talking about numbers next paragraph making masks optional has already failed in states with recent surges and coveted cases lamar county schools in mississippi which began in-person classes on july 20th has already been

152forced to close two schools and institute fully virtual instruction after 165 confirmed cases were reported within the first four days of the school year multiple other school districts have been forced to close and transition to virtual learning in other states due to confirmed cases within the schools of the largest school districts in the united states 12 out of 20 will require masks at the beginning of the school year it is far less disruptive for our children academically and psychologically to wear face masks than to be faced with another year of remote learning frequent pivoting and isolation from their school and classmates masks are a small inconvenience but our children have been wearing them safely and effectively for the past year and a half masks have allowed them to interact and attend school while minimizing their

153health risks throughout this pandemic there is extensive research and direct evidence to support their use to slow the spread of coven final paragraph as physicians we implore you not to let a vocal minority of parents drown out the clear advice of our county's health experts for universal masking in schools please do not ignore the cdc and aap guidelines and their strong recommendations for mandatory masking we look forward to the day when vaccination rates improve infection rates decline and mass mandates will be unnecessary until then we urge everyone eligible to get vaccinated and to please mask out for our children in our entire community and again i won't read the names of the physicians who of course signed but they all state that they are um physicians and um williamsville parents thank you thank you dr

154mcclary can i make a comment yes doctor let me go on first i don't think it's really that appropriate to have selected is whatever uh i'm not pandering to the crowd my view is that again it's never been a policy to read letters from people who aren't here about issues that are could be considered controversial second i mean i don't have to let it in my hand but to say let's compare williamsville to a school district in rural mississippi or some place in mississippi um you know i'm sure they have very good information and i respect their ability to write it and i respect you know it being brought here but i just think it um in my mind it's very one-sided whatever um thank you dr littman for your you could have been coming

155for community expression and they would have had three minutes for their statement not four minutes sir this is not your time this is not your time either right that's crap all right so we're moving on does anyone else have anything to share in their correspondence and doc and dr lipman to your point you're correct that we don't have a policy regarding this when we get into our policy groups we can work on it we can work and it's not a you know critique of your choice right because we did have a board member if i was sitting in your chair i might say yeah let's read this but i might i don't know correct the letter in but docs for everyone to be able to view it if they choose to and i did explain

156the significance of why i allowed for it at this meeting so we're going to go on no we're not doing that we're not doing it we are not doing it it's listed in board docs and you can view it you can go right to the district website would someone like to make a motion to recess the regular board meeting to conduct the goal setting work session we're gonna take a five minute restroom break in that recess mrs poland thank you mrs speaker second all in favor of our five minute recess before we start our goal setting thank you opposed sanctions thank you back in five all right someone like to make a motion please to return to regular session thank you mr vasquez or second um and it shouldn't be regular session it should be

157our um goal-setting workshop sorry about that um all in favor thank you opposed extensions motion carries unanimously so we are going to be looking at our district goals first um i don't know i mean are we pulling those excuse me are we pulling those ones up on the screen or no no okay no problem they're available in board docs um dr ronald do you want to make any comments regarding the district before we vote on them i just want to say i appreciate the work of the leadership team um and their teams looking at the district goals from last year how their revamp this year what needs to continue what needs to be enhanced moving forward and the action steps that are available in which underneath knowing that the board members wanted an emphasis on

158the strategic plan that is a goal in there diversity equity and inclusion there's a goal in there one thing that i do want to highlight is what dr baillon was doing tonight one of the instructional goals is to further develop and enhance opportunities for student learning engagement and innovation and it was a direct showing this evening when she reviewed the mathematics update how that is moving forward in the district so um i want to thank dr bellam for highlighting that but also we are looking at these goals as an enhancement of last year and moving forward to this year under mr skanzuzo's department just realizing that we have over a thousand students that remained on remote last year so making sure that when students transition back in we're looking for how we can support them

159and looking for key indicators of what support students may need so that's all wrapped up in the district goals also so i do want to thank um dr bill and mr skanzuzo mr matursky contributed to many of these things and now you can't do anything goal setting or goal wise if it's not appropriately funded and then mr mckenna and how we're looking at some new hr opportunities and how we do some hr things moving forward okay thank you and i realized they went out of order on the agenda so we will hold off on voting on the district goals and we'll work on our board goals first and then we'll go back and do our vote so i apologize this is carrie for messing that up um and then when we get to our vote

160on that you'll be able to ask questions regarding the feedback that dr van gaal just gave us so let's review the goals for the board of education you get it right is it right right district goals is b then board of education goes to c oh okay you were right okay so well then let's go ahead and vote on them i apologize i'm looking at my script weird all right so all it's information for 22b and then we do the voting in twenty years right so it's correct right because 22b we're reviewing it and then in 23 we do the voting okay so we're good we'll hold up on the voting so let's review the goals for the board of education and um i think we have a clicker around here correct yup you're good

161thank you so um let's see oh goodness can i even see that all right so we're looking at our student achievement student learning and achievement goal and it's okay i can see it on my screen so i'm good on my screen here does anyone want to change or edit the student learning and achievement goal part the part that's above the chart so it says the williamsville board of education will promote improved learning and achievement for all students by supporting appropriate policies and providing research resources based on available research and federal and state guidance there any changes to the wording of that beautiful uh miss gathering like bogner i had suggested and i i thought it was in here but apparently not that we also had the word data available data you see it oh it's

162there but it's not on here yeah okay it's not on our chromebook i apologize thank you there might be some discrepancy because i can't see the screen so i have to look at i have to look at my chromebook so if something's not consistent just let me know it seems like we're in agreement of that so let's look at our action steps so we have um does someone want to read that off the screen because it doesn't matter what's um i would be happy to read it yeah sure the first action says review student achievement data through reports at the board table and the measures are approved and reviewed monthly under consent agenda special needs and student activities okay i think it is the same all right any changes to that all right do you

163want me to continue to read through okay down to number three okay number [Music] um two it says receive presentations on instructional programs strategies and supports designed to ensure high comparable performance for all learners and improve outcomes for lower performing students we have several measures for that and see all of those thank you i think it does match what's in our on our computer so that works well does anyone wish to offer audits to the second action stop dr littman um and thank you um you know if we go back to the idea that everything has to be measurable i know when i taught writing lesson plans and student learning outcomes you know every time i saw the word and i say well you're looking to measure two distinct uh items in one outcome and

164i circled it and i think i sent it forward that you know when looking at uh high comparable performance for all learners and then we seem to add on improving outcomes for lower performing students and i feel that maybe low you know that second one should just be a separate goal that um you know what are we doing for the lower performing students because that is somewhat different than what we would do for um yeah i guess the uh regular learners yeah so i mean as a suggestion um i just bring it forward for yeah i i actually appreciate that because they're talking about all learners so then why would we need to specify and improve outcomes for lower performing students our you know lower performing students is part of all learners does anyone feel

165like it would be okay to just end the end the goal after all learners with an emphasis on on inclusion perhaps or should we keep it as it is i mean i just feel we have an obligation to all students and especially the students who need um extra help extra services or whatever they might need and that should be one of our missions is to say there are students who need more help and that's one of our responsibilities improve outcomes for all i'm a big advocate for i mean for last year i've been saying you know learning loss look out for you know our learners especially the ones that are just on the cost but i also know i don't want to single out and say lower performing students it's just to me it sounds

166like you're it just does not sound educationally correct to me by saying all learners you are hitting on yeah the fact that we are incorporating the lowest level you know you're in the cusp and your highest level i just don't in my mind to me it doesn't sound sound yeah educationally correct to say low performing students i don't want to single someone out yeah i feel the same way about that terminology no it does make good sense i i think we could i think we could stop at learners and when we look at um the second column there we could be more specific about the kind of information that we get on certain types of learners okay sounds good so let's end it at all learners can you just call them diverse learners because they

167are different i like that um so how could we include that in there first learners just take out all put into verse okay yeah i think that's good let's make it all put in diverse that solves that yeah it's great looks good all right thank you and um remind me mrs carrie are we approving the action steps to tonight yeah okay so looking okay excellent thank you so we're looking at the actions that um are listed for for the second indicator is there anything that anyone wants to approve or recommend because remember that this is the work that the board does so we don't want to confuse it with the work that the district does but these are the responsibilities that we have at the board table how we are able to influence the outcomes

168for the for diverse learners i mean i just have a question does the district development plan have anything in common with the strategic plan does the strategic plan have anything in common with the development plan well it will the strategic plan hasn't been released yet okay so that and i'm not part of that team so i don't want to speak too much about it but um that is the basis of it is that the strategic plan then sets the vision for what our district plans will look like for this year and for years to come and it's always a working document so it can be changed at any time which is actually true of this as well the living breathing document so throughout the year we can revisit it we can add to it as

169needed okay so which gives us a little bit of grace so that we don't have to be so like tied down to what we put all right are we set to move on to the third item there okay so the number three says approve and monitor the district's professional development plan and teacher resources anyone wish to modify that his actions we have review review and approved professional development plan which is that happens during our august meeting and to participate in school building visits in the school building visits the way we format format the guidelines really does align with having the focus be on the students and the teaching and learning so that when we're walking around if we hear if we hear a presentation on a math lab then when we do a visit at

170north we can say can you take us to the math lab you know so like those things go hand in hand that we should be able to then see and observe what we hear about so that it's not just talk but that we walk the walk absolutely right so before we go on to our next goal what we did last year was um a different board member chose a goal that they took responsibility for monitoring throughout the year and i know dr lipman you asked that in an email like how do we monitor this so we use the super eval system to keep track it's actually really user friendly it lets you input um any work that we complete throughout the year so that when we do our mid-year review we have all of our

171evidence that be in line with appr all of our evidence or artifacts to support what the criteria was what our goal was yeah but i remember that from uh attending a board meeting last year and watching yeah some of the some of the people on the board presenting the information about what has been accomplished and i was very impressed by the board members speaking about these goals and and the way you had you know laid that all out right so it's not just you know i think people get i get tired of hearing my own voice so it's nice to have other people talk is there is there someone that would like to take on this school i'm happy to do it if if are you comfortable if i take on this goal for i

172believe mrs van sice had done it last year i don't know if she still had any interest i'll check in with her if she doesn't want it then i'll take it okay let's move on to our second goal i think we're good with this one so our next goal has to do with student health and safety i'm going to scroll down on my page and sorry i forgot i have the clicker i could have changed that so student health and safety the williamsville board of education will prioritize resources necessary to support the physical mental social and emotional health and safety of students throughout the 2021-2022 school year is everyone satisfied with that okay thank you as our action stops we have a review update and approved district policy related to student health and safety i

173know we've definitely spent a lot of time on that this past year and i believe we will again we are still living in the pandemic i wonder if for measures if we should add review district discipline report as far as you know reviewing [Music] uh if that fits there yep i think that was good so under measures for number one that is the bullet point thank you mrs speaker review district discipline report and i realized that next bullet says receive reports but up there it says review i almost wonder if we don't need this second item i've received reports and presentations because isn't that part of what we're doing and they're number one a little redundant we'll redundant so perhaps we could eliminate number two and then just move the bullet up of receive reports

174during superintendent attendance community update so it's all encompassed in item one we're not being redundant it's an odds i think we're good with that how does the board feel about adding another bullet that we um either review or we could use another word the covid recommendations that sound good yes great frequently review covert recommendations do we want to different we want to [Music] what would you like to see in that i look for um anything related to schools obviously yeah but i was i was thinking you know do we put state county cdc a ap you know specify those things so it's not just right i gotcha it should say guidelines not record guidelines recommendations or not yeah material received girl receive and review uh coca-19 guidance um hurricane department of health new york state

175department of health cdc and i think that's really important if we agree to have that as one of our goals because it's that's us as a board taking a stand that that's the that's what we're choosing to use as our facts like that's where we're getting our facts from we respect that you know we live in a world of alternative facts we respect everyone's viewpoint and right to choose what they believe but as a board we're gonna follow this is everyone satisfied with that i want everyone to be comfortable with it so if anyone has anything that they want wish to change on this please let me know and we can also bring it back anytime you just have to request that we bring it back and we can bring it back and and revamp

176it so just to clarify we're just receiving and reviewing it you're not adopting anything based on that well because technically that would fall under the work of the superintendent we've already we already have a policy that gives our superintendent the authority to follow those recommendations kind of for like for example if you know they make vaccinations for five to 11 year olds in december and kids are starting to get it and then mass are suggested or guidance then that's when we can review it and say correct dr brown was review yeah because it changes background just like we did for summer school right because we started here one way and then we got guidance after summer school started and so we followed that guidance you know our our stand was always we're going to follow

177the guidance when the guidance allowed for the students to remove their masks we accepted that right okay all right so then the next item would be um okay you took off too so then two actually becomes advocate for resources necessary to support the physical mental social and emotional health and promote diversity inclusion and belonging of our students how do we feel about that dr lipman no i mean that looks fine i was just maybe i'm jumping ahead i was looking at the measures we might want to add so i'll wait till we get that fun i'm sorry you want to suggest a measure for that no um this is poland no yeah i do i have some um no because again we look at the social workers we have the school counselors we have the

178psychologists we have is there some way to kind of show um you know what they're doing is part of i think receiving the student wellness report should be one of those oh yeah that's a great one let's list that as a measure forgive me mr excuses i forget which month we do that in the in june may or june yeah then we have the the then maybe i think if we went into june i think they did one in april and it was just so close we also approved well adopting the district safety plan that we have that listed under number one so i think that that we don't need to list that twice um yeah received reports on um mental health right that's kind of cliche right that might be just enough okay does

179anyone have another bullet they want to add to that miss kashmir zack buchner not necessarily an addition but i i think i'm the one that had this goal last year and i had added the advocate for resources necessary because we had done that with our legislators that year and that is what prompted that as an action it wasn't an original action when we first had the goal how about we have a bullet point of participate in advocacy through ecasp right that's the asb accounting of school boards yep and i'll i'll be the liaison on the esb legislative team and there's is there a separate advocacy team dr mcclary not really not really there was last year we had i think a board member that did some additional advocacy work through that organization i recall i

180think that there's something with new york state the state i'm the state advocate but i haven't done anything yet so um that's going to be very infrequent okay so if we want to add the stuff and nisba so we have esasb and lisbon perfect all right does anyone wish to add anything to students to our student health and safety goal dr litman go ahead um and again i'll see if anybody agrees with that but i've noted um you know nutrition is a very valued part of the whole existence and it's about our dinner time i think but the idea is should we have some kind of a goal in this area in action that looks at the nutrition of our students um but again that's what other people think well we do receive the school

181nutrition report every month yes so if we could add that as a bullet that's physical board meeting number one um the bullet would be receive school nutrition report at monthly board meetings is that child nutrition is that the correct terminology mr maturski yeah we also provide you the annual report in may nutrition and fitness report and that really does go back to the policy and and that will deal more strictly with nutritional right because the other part does this thing correct so the uh received child nutrition report is that what we're calling nutrition and fitness report so we can eliminate the other one because the other one is just monetary you want to make that plural because it comes every month the the nutrition and fitness one is only once during the year okay so

182we're taking out the other one once i thought we could just combine it with an s but maybe not so it really should be received school child nutrition and fitness report because there's only one that they've received for that right correct just take the ass off of report okay but then you need another bullet for the monthly i think we were going to take away the monthly one because the monthly one only shows us what money comes in and what money goes out and it's gonna essentially be next because we're gonna get it oh or by the federal government no that right that's fine it's just that we had talked about it so we need to make sure we here mr mitchelski advocated for the way one or the other any other things to add

183for student health and safety is there a board member that would like to be responsible for monitoring it this year maybe we could have someone different look at it this year than last year so we're switching them up yes i will i'd be glad to thank you so much all right let's look at our next one which is our board district and community engagement oh thank you for doing this from the clicker the williamsville board of education will continue to strengthen communication and relationships with the entire school community including students families administrators faculty and staff residents businesses legislators and community agencies and we did hear at the listening tours that communication was still an area that that our community wanted us to focus on so i do believe it's important that we keep it as

184a goal it is a work in progress does anyone wish to restate the pieces above the chart i think it's pretty spot on so as an action step we have service school board liaisons for ptsa williamson education foundation sapsa ecasp nisba superintendent community council sayak meetings and correspondence and we have measures there to show how we hold ourselves responsible for that does anyone wish to add or amend the first action or its measures dr lipman go ahead well it's just um i put a question mark by you know serve as school board liaisons and it says and correspondence yeah i think that's part of your responsibility as a board president so i don't i don't know if correspondence is separate or it just doesn't need to be there yeah i would prefer to put the

185period after the word meetings and i almost feel that correspondence is actually a different action while we that really hasn't done an action before i can already think of a couple examples the letter that you just sent to the community mrs leatherbury from the board sharing how you can partake in board meetings that's something we haven't done before so um if we can add correspondence as a third activity as another action oh as well as a fourth one because then also like around budget time you send out a letter um to the community so there's a couple examples of when the board actually does share information directly with the community yep so we could have um an item four and another column and um we how do we want to word that uh engage in

186correspondence with community stakeholders and written correspondence um does that make sense because the initiate how about initiate correspondence yes because that way it's called like it's showing that it's coming from action sorry it's coming from us we're initiating it and i actually did receive an email back after mr filipowski forwarded my letter thank you for sending that and giving their viewpoint perfect um so uh mr phil baskey we're going to say engage or number four we're number one action so up above under slide five if you can add another row and call it number four initiate initiate correspondence to members of the community [Laughter] under measures you could put um one back letter from the board president yeah i like it i can't really judge whether it was well received but i'm glad that you

187suggested i did it because i think it's a really kind gesture to welcome people back for the school year and to let them know that we're excited for their kids to return to school so i appreciated you offering that to me you also write a letter to um teachers during teacher appreciation week yeah recognize teachers during teacher appreciation week the administration [Music] oh yeah we do well that's a good point we we recognize students um but that could be a sub i don't know that comes under correspondence because we do that at board meetings right but um so let's let's put up in that one for a second i just want to finish this one um we also we also send out letters during budget season to um encourage our participation in in the voting

188process [Music] i think that's appropriate so going back to dr singh's point we do recognize um successes we celebrate successes throughout our district do you the board feel that that would be an example of communication or is that something that falls under a different category i think it's a different action under um engagement it doesn't really fit in any of the other actions but it is something that we do you feel is an action that relates to community engagement i mean it doesn't have to be a more that even the superintendent can send out something like that right so now like if it if that if that's what we're talking about that happens under district goals so this focuses on just the things that we do as board members yeah i'm going to say some

189of the recognitions almost under um student learning and achievement kind of right i was thinking that as well um so mr felbowski we're going to slide back up to the first slide on student learning and achievement i'm going to go back up too because i think it's really good that we add that screen oh i love that you're a touch screen so if you could add a fourth column the chromebook if you add a fourth column to the first one we could say celebrate student and staff achievements and the bullet point could be monthly board recognition and board acknowledgement it's two separate measures that's two separate bullets monthly board recognition monthly board acknowledgements thank you dr singh for that i'm gonna slide back down board district and community engagement is everyone satisfied with us question

190absolutely number four about initiating correspondence so the only maybe that's not the right word but um the goal the or the action there is to initiate correspondence you're not talking about uh that you answer and thank you i earned i earned wonder woman socks last year for all the emails that i sent to parents so for item forwards let's initiate correspondence to the mem to members of the community why don't we extend that sentence initiate correspondence to members of the community and send responses to those who contact the board okay we probably could think about it um just initiate and respond maybe you need to say correspond with members of the community as the action and put um some you know respond to emails as the measure yeah measure written correspondence i think written is

191important yes send written correspondence to members of the community yes i like having um an action word as the first word yes and then respond to stakeholder email so under measures in this refill basket for that we're going to add another bullet response to individuals who contact the board yeah i think that that's appropriate thank you dr clairvoyant we are stronger together anybody else want to add to this their eyelids are starting to get heavy um and is there a board member at this time that would like to take ownership of this goal and be responsible for monitoring it throughout the year thank you dr mcclary thank you and we are going to move on to our next one which is budget development and fiscal oversight the williams board of education will efficiently and responsibly

192allocate resources in alignment with district educational goals and priorities using a transparent process that allows for community input and support are we happy with that yes i am too we have our listed actions i don't believe anyone suggested any edits to these so instead of going one by one does anyone else i actually didn't okay go ahead miss kepler zach both here no i mean they're on here already but they are but they were new thank you you want to point out which ones you added uh well i had added the using a transparent process that allows for community input and support to the to the actual statement and then the number three and number or is is there a number four okay yeah number three and number four on you oh i see there's

193yeah there was two number threes on here a computer so provide opportunities for the community to review and provide and put on the 2022-2023 budget development and provide what's the next one present um because that's where we set the but like we're talking about the budget process so we set next year's budget during that time okay i'm looking at the measure where it talks about the 20 20 20 budget will be posted on the district website oh where are we we should be proposed we oversee the current budget and then we we provide support in planning for the next year's budget tell me which exact measure you're talking you're questioning so the second measure where it says 20 22 23 bucks will be posted on the district website but if you're talking about goals for

194this school year that can't be a measure for a goal for this school year right oh i see what you're saying yeah we can just remove that bullet then right okay so we'll remove that first bullet and do we need the word preliminary in the various things when you talk about budget project development timeline budget adoption budget hearing yeah present preliminary budget is what you're saying right where do we have that wording is that above the chart but all right now number two we're back to 21 22 so we're doing 21 22 and 22 23 correct because we in the same no because you're overseeing the budget and then the next bullet is the opportunity yeah but but it's not the budget development that we're overseeing for this year because that's already sat so let's

195take away overseas overseas 2021-22 budget period development process let's eliminate development process because it's already been developed correct and passed we don't have to go back in history oh yes all those measures are wrong 22 23 awesome well then should we just switch the year and then keep the measures yeah well if you oversee the budget for this year i mean that's your that's your fiscal responsibility correct yeah right well that's a let's so i think the bullet point would be review monthly cash reports um and approve monthly business items i think all the bullets right now were correct for 223 budget development and we need another action that states what two says right now exactly so i think um [Music] nick if you can change this back to 2223 budget development and then we

196can add a row above that's what i was going to say so because all these measures match that makes sense yes and then um after number one 1.5 could be oversee budget right monitor perhaps monitor i think makes more sense than oversea yes monitor district expenditures for the 2022 budget about uh expenditures and revenues okay that sounds good and for the bullet point we can say can prove approve consent agenda business items at monthly meetings i want to improve it but next year next year monthly and we can go back to this so whoever is choosing to monitor this school as the year like we do a lot more i'm sure mr mitcherski is laughing at us right now like we do so much work in this area we're just not verbalizing it very well

197so we can definitely add more bullets because we do a lot more work than just approve the business items i think that's a very smiling it's a very general way of saying what we do without me totally messing it up are we happy with that yes is there a board member that wants to take responsibility for monitoring our budget goal then they'll jump up at once thank you miss katherine i teach social studies [Music] but you know what then go back to the measures don't cross out that measure right because it makes sense yes i need that press correct okay okay all right so um our embracing community diversity i think dr thing you pointed out a really good ex something good in email about perhaps we just call this diversity equity and inclusion because

198that's really you know we're not just talking about embracing diversity we're also talking about being mindful of diversity when we make decisions around equity and inclusion and dei is the terminology that the state uses so i think it's consistent if we use dei it will change the actual name of the goal we'll change the name of the goal yes i wrote that down oh yeah oh okay they're just trying to update something so we're gonna get because she's updating it in board docs as well so i'm gonna just hold off for one minute just let me know mr phillips when you're ready there's no rush um they're really nice yeah that sounds actually really good um right this is carrie too it can always be updated after we approve it no worries um so we're

199moving on to our final goal and we're going to rename it diversity equity and inclusion i just the other ones don't start with verbs actually okay the title yes yeah yeah yeah we'll just leave it so does anyone wish to change the wording there you know we added the word belonging and i love that well just um god dr lippmann i'm sorry teresa you know in the opening statement we uh say in the third line uh by embracing diversity whatever but again the title is uh you know equity and inclusion so should we add those two words into that statement just for consistency the board of education will encourage and support instructional and leadership practices that foster diversity equity and inclusion and all of that oh okay by the way just adding those two words

200so we've got belonging in there which really is the bigger sense of inclusion you know it's it's the next step i'm i'm fine with adding those two words so just to make it consistent i don't think it makes it redundant you know we're gonna have all sorts of stuff just a grammatical thing too it says and religious backgrounds and sexual orientation should just be common religious backgrounds common hands you're right thank you sorry oh you're right religious take off the word and i'm reading my asses right now trying to you know that you talked about those extra words you're really teaching you get an eighty-five no no that's that one's it gender identity yeah well unless you're well no no no no you don't need it you don't need the comma yeah now you're good

201okay but the and goes before gender yes sorry can i just well that was a great yelling lesson it was go ahead dr lipman where you know yeah um i'm happy it's a title change that's in my notes but you know i keep reading it and underlining words and and i just need to make sure i understand and maybe because it's after 10 o'clock not as understanding as i might be at 10 in the morning but we talk about we encourage and support instructional and leadership practices okay and then at the end it talks about students so i guess reading all of this um i don't know maybe someone just needs to give me a 20-second explanation of why i'm a little bit confused how about if we take out that part of it yeah

202the williamsville board of education will encourage and support practice a safe welcoming and sigma-free environment yeah because i think of you know instruction leadership is putting uh emphasis on the teachers and our leadership team the administration and that's you know that's taken away from what we're supposed to be doing a great point that's a really great point yeah yeah so you know with this group we should be good with these goals for the next three four or five years and 1800 action stops yeah all right dr let me go no just uh just under number two uh we talk about professional development and recruitment strategies but i'm not sure what we're recruiting if we're uh stepping into dr mckenna's role of something um so what what was the point that the board previously was trying

203to make about recruitment it's monitoring right it's monitoring the diversity initiatives that include professional development opportunities and recruitment basis well i wonder if you need to specify that then when you say that i wonder if we can take it out take it out what if we just say monitor the current district versus the initiatives diversity equity and inclusion initiatives kind of simpler because we don't have a handle on the media i mean it's almost the same as goal 1 or action 1 if we really are looking at it well couldn't you take it out and completely number two and then make that statement move over to a measure of number one how does it work about that yeah it's a good one because we have review update uh review update no i guess it's it

204doesn't fall completely understood i like it the policy is that's true yeah i keep it distinguished keep it separate because it's not yeah i was reading it differently and number one do we have to add the word one add the word and review update and oh okay never mind policies and attendance update approve policies and attend events okay got it i don't know if you need a comment after events you don't no the comment after events gives you feedback they'll be coming this foster a safe belonging and stigma-free environment does that sound correct how about we say inclusive a safe inclusive and segment-free environment i mean the word belonging is very broad i know i'm just wondering if um um it's the right that might use the word in that button yeah i'm not dramatically

205syntactically i suppose i think having a word that ends night and genius the word the original word there was welcoming so i i think you're right i think that would be the place to put inclusive okay um i like that we have belonging though in the in the overarching goal right because it is a strong word so we're going to make that inclusive comma all right do we want to add anything about the strategic plan under the action steps because doesn't the strategic plan deal with diversity equity and inclusion um wouldn't that be maybe a measure for number two number two from monitoring fees board members will serve on the district on the strategic report planning committee board members will serve on the strategic planning committee measure for number two this is where we would

206also whether it's a number one or number two i'm not sure but this is where we would also look at the demographics of our school district in terms of some of those descriptors that we've used ethnicities um economic backgrounds percentage of title ones okay because this this is we don't want to like overlap this even though there is i mean i think what she means is the different schools have different definition of diversity one school might need something different from another school might need yeah we've got achievement entry school that has 25 percent free and reduced lunch and we have schools that have none so there's all kinds of diversity there that um that's why this goal is written the way it is i remember putting this together last year and thinking of the different

207ways that our students are diverse because it yes it can mean gender to one person it can mean you know it can mean economic background to someone else or religion and i think there is a common definition for diversity that was explained in one of your recent reports and i know that work is being done to educate building principles and staff it within building so that everyone is using common language with common definitions yeah that's important so that there is a agreement about what it means when we say diversity um we could we could add monitoring the professional learning plan because there is work under the professional learning plan that deals with this issue sure if we wanted to add it as a measure is everyone okay with that your number two yeah um add

208a bullet for number two i'm not sure um receive report from professional learning plan what will those reports look like well at the end of the year dr valen always reports a summary of the work that went on in each course and all the courses she provides a very lengthy document to us um that shows you know basically what we paid for right because we pay a lot of money for our professional learning and it it encompasses the different i mean dr billing can say this you'll get it twice you get the initial framework tonight and then we will be bringing any updates to you as necessary it usually is mid-year right um and it encompasses our structures our ctle anything that we choose to add at the time will be highlighted in any updated

209information yeah so i i don't know we could add the word progress to that but i think it might get complicated because the um the professional learning plan includes items that aren't technically diversity equity that's true conclusion do you want to remove it or to keep it i just think the wording needs to can someone suggest that suggests a modification then um receive report from professional learning planning um or focused on mdi okay specific to dei thank you i'm i'm satisfied with this does anyone else wish to add edits please remember that this is a working document so when when you look at it with a fresh set of eyes like dr lynn pointed out like if you look at it tomorrow at 10 a.m and you have some new ideas we can bring it

210back next month and add to it okay is that good is there someone that would like to oversee the work of the board dr singh is volunteering to oversee the work of the board for diversity equity and inclusion for this year so thank you dr sang all right are we ready to go back to our meet our regular meeting and close things up okay so would someone like to make a motion to adjourn the goal-setting work session thank you mrs bieger second mr biscagelia all in favor opposed abstentions motion carries unanimously so we're back to where we already where about you didn't even realize you left would someone like to make a motion to return to regular session doctor whitman thank you is there a second it will work so hard motion carries unanimously we

211already discussed our district goals and we overly discuss our board goals would someone like to make a motion to adopt the 2021-22 district goals as presented miss poland thank you miss speaker second am i going too fast this is scaring me we have to move quickly any discussion additional discussion on the district goals dr singh i mean i just did have in the district beliefs that we have on the the belief statement right i thought we should include a statement that talks about diversity yeah so when we when we initially talked about starting a strategic planning process we pointed out that the last time these belief statements were written was the year i graduated from high school and so i don't want us as a board to do that because that's the work that's collaborative

212from the strategic planning process so as a result of the strategic planning process all of the stakeholders have buy-in into what it is we believe as a community regarding the education of our children but i agree with you they need updating because i'm old okay so all in favor opposed extensions motion carries unanimously and thank you for all of the work on the district goals to all of our assistant superintendents and now we'll move to the adoption of our board goals would someone like to motion make a motion please to adopt the 2021-2022 board goals as currently presented dr lipman thank you mrs b here second favorite opposed abstentions thank you motion carries unanimously and thank you for our work on that because we all contributed to that so we own it together all right

213our next scheduled board meeting is september 14th if we have to have something in between we'll let you know is there a motion to adjourn the regular board meeting this is beaker thank you dr singh second all in favor opposed abstentions motion carried unanimously thank you stay safe and be well you