001Uh calling to order the June 2nd, 2025 meeting of the Beacon City School District Board of Education. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one indivisible andice for all. Vicki, can you call the role? here. Here excused. Matt, can you review the fire exits? Uh, exits are in the back of the LGI. Okay. Can everyone please uh stand once more uh for a moment of silence for Harold Hyatt? He was a retired fifth grade teacher who taught in Beacon for more than 30 years. Okay. All right. Open to the public. Does anyone have a public comment they would like to make? Come on up. Hi. So, just um tell us your name and um just so you know, you have uh four
002minutes to speak. My name is Alexandra Devon. I'm the parent of a fourth grade student at Sergeant Elementary as well as a volunteer for the 501c3 part nonpartisan nonprofit national organization, Defense of Democracy. We advocate for public schools and its educators as they work to create a positive and healthy learning environment for all children regardless of religious beliefs, cultural background, ability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. On April 3rd, the Trump administration ordered all K12 schools uh across the country to either sign a statement that they will be ending DEI practices or lose their federal funding. New York State refused to sign, stating the that the federal department of education has no right or authority to end the DEI practices. I'm here tonight to say that I support New York's decision to refuse to end diversity,
003equity, and inclusion practices in our schools and to extend my appreciation to the district and staff members in the school. In the spirit of thank a teacher week, which occurred a few weeks ago, I support our school and its teachers for continuing to include DEI values in their classrooms. I applaud the Beacon City School District's upholding of its own inclusive policies, especially alongside the recent ending and reinstating of policies by our neighbors at Haldane. I support the fact that New York and Beacon schools understand that every student is unique in many ways, learns in different ways, and that school districts and teachers need to support their students as they learn. Diversity includes not only ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, but also mental or physical ability, genetic information, and learning styles. Equity can be defined
004as the guarantee of fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all while striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of all groups. Without equity, one is trying to teach everyone the same way, and one size does not fit all. Inclusion means authentically bringing traditionally excluded individuals and or groups into processes and activities in a way that shares power and ensures equal access to opportunities and resources available through school related activities. DEI is not an expense. It is an investment in our children's futures. Diversity includes my daughter who is neurode divergent and has a recognized disability. My daughter's 504 plan with classroom accommodations gives her the equitable and inclusive opportunity to learn and succeed. I would like to thank the teachers and staff at Sergeant Elementary School who have been active
005and supportive in this process. They welcomed her into first grade halfway through the school year after the pandemic disrupted and disregulated our days, conducting evaluations and providing guidance on accommodations. They have made school fun despite the struggles my daughter sometimes has and believe in her abilities even while she doubts them herself. They have been partners in problem solving and recognized her successes through the positivity project program. The specialist teachers and club advisers for art, music, drama, newspaper, environment, and sports, have also bolstered my daughter's confidence and self-esteem as a neurode divergent person, making her way in a world designed for neurotypical people. Each of these teachers and staff, large and small, have been in the spirit of each act of these teachers and staff, large and small, have been in the spirit of DEI principles.
006I thank them for it, and I thank the board and superintendent for your support for these educators. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. That was lovely. All right, anybody else? Okay. Uh, so next we have our workshop. Um, Matt, your summer update. Um, I just wanted to write a a pretty quick overview of some summer of some things that we're thinking or planning for the summer. Um, this is not a fully complete uh list because there's still some things in process. Um, and uh, but I'm just gonna just going to hit a few things. Um but uh first oh um just in response to the public comment, one of the things that we are I'm sure every uh state and school district is the this the new budget bill um that I some
007of the impacts to education were kind of uh I guess uncovered or made more public on Friday. And so when we learn a little bit more about that, you know, we'll be sharing with the board and potentially the community in terms of the the budget bill that passed uh the House of Representatives that's now in the Senate. Um it looks like there are um you know more federal cuts to education uh that we'll be eyeing. All right. Um just so uh just a few quick things just uh the we have a lot of different things going but some of the main uh PD focuses uh focus areas for the summer. Uh the HMH into reading is expanding into K1 and two. So those teachers uh will receive training this summer. It's a pretty extensive thing.
008They also uh receive training uh throughout the school year at different uh points both on the superintendent conference days and then also uh some other off times. We have a lot of different curriculum writing proposals at the secondary level. Um so we'll be kind of sifting through those and you'll be seeing those in the next uh probably couple of board meetings in terms of appointing teachers who are revising their courses or writing curriculum for new courses. Uh and then the last main piece is we do a lot of uh we do a lot of work with our administrators uh in terms of working with data. They do required teacher observation training. Uh we have a retreat uh just with the administrative team that we're kind of kicking off the summer with this year. Um and
009also uh we do um legal training over every summer. Like so there's just a lot of it's a chance uh for the administrators even though we're all have vacations at different times it's a chance that we have a lot more time for professional learning. Um, I wanted to one of the big things we'll be working on the next uh the next seven weeks is our uh shifts to our cell phone policy. Uh, so this is very basic. Uh, but I just wanted to quickly go through that. Um, the cell phone uh restriction law begins next year. Uh, phones have to be stored away the entire day. Uh sometimes this bellto bell label has confused a few folks like oh it just means like you know each classroom bell. No it's like the morning bell to
010the afternoon bell are the bells they're referring to. So the phone has to be stored away the entire day. Um so a couple things the law is requiring. One is uh you know asking for input from your community. So we will be the way we're going to do this. We're going to send out a short survey. We've already surveyed uh a lot of our secondary teachers about their thoughts about it. We'll send a survey uh that will go to both students and families and it will just it's not like a give your input because the law is the law so there's not a lot of you know wiggle room with it. Uh so it's going to be more like ways we can support you you know like things that you want us thinking about is
011going to be kind of questions like that. Um, so that will go out later this week and then we have a policy committee meeting next Tuesday and uh th this is one area where we're a little bit ahead. Uh, a lot of the policy shifts we made last year, we wrote those policies kind of in preparation for this possibility. So we don't have to make major changes to the policies um or our code of conduct. we do have to make some more minor changes. So, that is one positive. Uh the with the um with the board calendar that we laid out, uh we would need to approve like code of conduct changes and policy changes by the July 21st meeting. Uh because this all needs to be done by August 1st. Um so, I'll lay
012out a timeline to the community this week. Um you know, people can attend those board meetings. They're obviously public. any change to the code of conduct requires a public hearing. So we most likely would schedule that for that July 21st meeting. Um you know so there's different ways that people can get feedback. The main thing we're kind of working through at the Rombout and Beacon High School level is just trying to work through just like how's it going to work? What storage are we going to use? Um the one thing that I am waiting for probably along with most superintendents is further info from the state because the law has come out but we haven't gotten guidance. Uh different law firms have given us guidance but we haven't gotten guidance from the state department of
013ed and uh and the the accessibility to money. You know you may remember back during the budget season the governor said that there would be money available for schools. Um, so if that money is not made available to us sooner than later, then we would look probably to do like a store in lockers or something that, you know, doesn't have a cost to it. Uh, doing pouches. Um, you know, we received an estimate, uh, I think I met with the pouch folks the day after the budget passed. Um, the doing the pouches cost around $70,000 for a district our size. So, we would need to access state money to do that because otherwise that's about the cost of the new teacher. Um, and you know, we'd rather have a teacher than that. So, that's something
014that we're working through. So, you know, that probably will become much clear in terms of the actual way we're storing it um this summer like probably more towards July. That's what it's saying, right? It's saying that in a sense you're putting it in this thing, whatever this thing is, right? And it's there until the end of the day. That's what that's how it's reading. Yeah. And it did say you are not to access your phone, right, all day unless unless there's an IEP accommodation around it, unless it's used as a translator for an ENL student. Right. And then the last sort of asterisk or is a uh a student who's like a caregiver to younger siblings. Yeah. Um that has to be approved on like a case by case sort of basis. Um cuz it
015did say you could leave it in the lockers, but I'm like then that don't make sense cuz if I can just go to the locker at the end of my class, like then you're going to start seeing students go to lockers at the end of every class before the next class. I thought I read it that putting it in the lockers was an option as a place to store the phone. Well, in the lots it I think they put this in the law because of the cost factor. They they specifically said lockers could be um one of the storage, you know, things. Whatever it is that we do, we just are going to make really clear like, you know, this new policy, law, our code of conduct, you are not to be accessing your phone
016during the day. I will say this, like, you know, we've we've kind of gone halfway there this year and our students really did a great job like just going with it. Um I the the sort of lack of issues around it for us was really remarkable. Like there I think we're imagining maybe even slightly more like student discipline issues than we had. We had hardly any um so I know this is a bigger jump. Uh and um but it's just a matter of kind of enforcement at that part. Anthony, it sound like you were going to say something. No. Okay. Um the the other part is and I sort of laugh just because uh this is the most uh I don't know the right word like most real part of this whole thing. It says
017schools schools have to make it clear uh to you know families how to get in touch with their student during the day and that's like well you know welcome to the school phone number and the different people. So, we'll be really clear before the start of the year or this these are all the different people you can call, guidance counselors, assistant principles, like different um office folks like here's everybody who's available to leave a message for you. Um but that's it's you know we're going back to you know the pre I don't know 2010 days of just calling the school and leaving messages for your student um for your for your child. So, you know, I like many parents, I get the lunchtime um this is what I'm doing after school today text. Yep. Uh
018so, you know, so that will be an adjustment for us too. Um but that is the other part that we have to make clear. I don't think there's like a super magic way of doing that besides just making it really clear the different ways you can get in touch with the school during the day. Um, so I there's the the the good with this and my conversations with the administration at both high school and roundabout is we've already taken some big steps with this. Kids are used to more restrictions around phones. They've been pretty positive about it. This is obviously a next big step. We don't have to make major changes to our policy or our code of conduct. um we just have to kind of figure out the finer details and we'll also use
019some of what we gather from the survey to help sort of influence our thinking on that. Um so so that's just that that the timeline for that is at least the policy and code changes need to be in place by that last meeting in July so it can be done by August 1. Um, I'm sure there will be a lot of communication after that, you know, with families to get folks ready from August 1st to the start of the school year. Um, and just I just wanted to lay out the next few board meetings and just some early thoughts about what we would do at these. Uh, the next board meeting is tenure and retirement recognition. Uh, July 1 is the reorganization meeting when we elect uh board officers and do committees. Uh we were
020targeting July 21st to do outside of facilities meeting to do a capital project update for the whole board and community like here in the in the boardroom the you know the the 2024 the upcoming capital project. Uh we would also be doing the phone policy adoption and probably the code of conduct public hearing. Um and then uh I wanted to go back to the strategic planning and board goals and focus on that in August. Uh we also, you know, we have a new uh food service director, uh Anthony uh Rollins, and we thought it'd be great for him to be in front of the board to talk about what changes have come to the food um world and do that before the school year started. And then the thinking like those two meetings in August
021are kind of at least finalizing the sort of the alignment of board goals and the strategic planning that gives us some time to prepare both like communications around it uh the data that we u want to be collecting and looking at. And so um I haven't always laid out the summer meetings but I'm trying to be more purposeful this year um and wanting to get that done before the school year starts. I think that's important. So, um, you know, there we have the the facilities meeting that we were going to have tonight shifted to the 16th. Uh, so we'll be able to do a little bit of facilities updating at the next board meeting in terms of what we're doing this summer um and beyond. And, um, but, you know, this is just a little
022sample of things. Uh, a couple other things happening this summer. One is we have these summer workshops at the high school for students. Uh so u when we get all that finalized I'll do a quick update to the board about that. Um we have some postings going out because we have some teachers who will be working with the outside folks. We're focusing on incoming ninth graders and students uh wanting to take um AP DCC and honors you know kind of as a new thing and supporting them. Um and so so anyway that's just a little small taste of things we're thinking for this summer. That's exciting. Um, okay. Any questions or comments? All right. Thank you. Are y'all looking forward to talking about phones again? There's only one meeting up there about phones, so Yeah.
023Well, that was like the I think like like you said, the fact that we did it already and we got it all out there and people came in and talked, I think we were definitely ahead of the game. Yeah. In preparing for this. Yeah. Yeah. And at this point, we're we're just responding to to something that is coming down from the state. So, Right. Right. Um I was reading in the uh the student newspaper's called Breaking Beacon. Right. I was reading Breaking Beacon this morning. Someone wrote like the superintendent put in a update and it was so sort of and it's like it's a little bit more than that, you know, like I don't just like write an email and everything changes. Um but yeah, we um I think I think that I think our
024process last year will help this quite a bit. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh reviewing the agenda. There are two changes under non-instructional. The first item is 13.01 A4. Um for Justin Jackson, his effective date is actually uh today, June 2nd. And the next is 13.018. 01 A8. Uh this is Al Alicia Lee. Her salary was updated to 54,500. Can I get a motion to move to executive session to review the employment history of a particular individual? So moved. Second. Second by all in favor? I passes. The board will return in about 30 minutes. And Matt, it is time for your superintendent report. Um just a couple quick updates. Um earlier today we had the um athletic commitment ceremony for the students who are going to be playing a sport uh in college and we
025had 18 uh students up there. Uh you know across a wide variety of sports. Um I don't know if I've ever seen 18. I think the number's always been a little bit less. So that was really uh cool to see. The athletic awards night is Wednesday night this week. Um, which is always a really nice thing to attend. We also have the elementary middle school art fair on Saturday. I think it's 10 to 2. Uh, I don't have it open right in front of me, but that's at Rombout. And they the way they set that up. There's also like activities for kids, but the way they set up the artwork, it's really even if you just have a few minutes, it's really a great visit um to just kind of see what's um going on.
026And so that's just some uh things happening here in the district. And then I just wanted to say on um the consent agenda, I'm really excited uh to have uh Vanessa Defant as the um our um proposed appointment for director of technology and data systems. Um Vanessa um I have a kind of a superintendent update going out after the board meeting and I I was like kind of like she's been in every single one of our buildings in some capacity over the years. Vanessa's been our sort of our uh interim principal extraordinaire and um she's really kind of gets all levels K to 12 and she's really going to bring I think a really great instructional and data background to the technology department. So we're really excited about that. And then we're also appointing uh
027tonight our executive director of human resources and operations, John Gometa. Um we all know John is the last eight years as our director of um athletics uh health and PE. Before that he was AP at Rambo for three years. He's done an outstanding job um leading those departments uh over the last eight years. Our athletic department even today with the college commitment thing you see the growth but you also see it with the number of kids participating. You see it with the number of kids participating at modified sports. It's like you just kind of see it across in terms of the growth we've had um at that level. And uh the thing we were really looking for um in that role is is someone who at the foundation is a strong leader. And so we're
028really excited that John was interested in doing it. So um tonight we're appointing um two leaders. I'm speaking about them because they're here. Uh but we're also appointing a new assistant director of PPS tonight too. Um, Leah, what's that? Rapus. Rapus. I wrote the first name a bunch of times in my write up and I forgot the last name. So, Leah Rapus is coming to us from Olter Boseies most recently. Uh, but we're excited to be filling that position too because we really needed uh to fill that and she comes with a wealth of expertise, energy, and uh passion u about special education. So, we're really excited to have her joining us as well. That's all I have. Okay, great. All right, we will move on to the board of education comments and reports. Seamra,
029uh, congratulations and thanks to John and Vanessa and Leah, is that her name? Great. Thanks. That's all I have. All right, Kristen. Yeah, I will just echo that. Thank you and good luck. All right, Elena. Same. Chris, same. No comments. Leavonne, same. Eric, I I just want to mention that the facilities committee was uh postponed from tonight till June um 16th at 6 o'clock. Uh we'll be kind of um finalizing where we are uh with the plan moving forward and then I believe they're going to be presenting to the full board in July uh where they're where we're headed and so on. So, we're moving forward and congratulations also to Vanessa and to John. Nice. Okay, Anthony, congratulations and no other comment. Okay. Uh, I also want to say congratulations Vanessa and John. I'm so
030excited to see where you take these departments and and how you build um in your new role. So, welcome. I look forward to working with you. I also wanted to um note that the next policy committee meeting is June 11th at 7. Um I think that's a Wednesday, Matt. You had said uh Tuesday, but so it's a Wednesday. Okay. It gives me an extra day, so I'm good with that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. Uh next up is the superseding uh bond resolution. This will be a roll call vote. And as a reminder, um this is a bond for the purchases of for the purchase of buses that were approved last year, uh not in this latest vote. Um and so this is the bond to pay for those buses. Um so Vicki, do you want
031to call the role? Miss, yes. Yes. Mine. Yes. McNair. Yes. Miss Kush. Yes. Mr. White. Yes. Stabler. Yes. Shutter. Yes. passes uh 80. Okay. On to the consent agenda. The use of the consent agenda permits the board of education to make more effective use of its time by adopting a single motion to cover those relatively routine matters which are included. Any member of the board who wishes to discuss individually a particular piece of business on the consent agenda may so indicate and that item will be considered and voted on separately, thus preserving the right of all board members to be heard on any issue. Are there any items that any board members would like to have removed from the consent agenda? Yes, I'd like to have 13.01A. Okay. So, can I have two more? Yeah.
032Sorry. Okay. Go for uh 12.09 I8 12.09 I8 and 12.11 K15 and 12.11 K15. All right. Any more? Okay. So, can I have a motion to approve 11.01 through 15.02 minus 12.09I8, 12.11 K15, and 13.01A. So, move moved by Anthony. Second, second. Second by Kristen. Comments or questions? All in favor? I. Okay. Uh, passes. 8 Z. So, can I have a motion to approve 12.098? Anthony, second. Second, Kristen. All in or comments or questions? All in favor? I abstaining abstain. Okay. Passes. Uh 70 or 71. How would you say that? 70. Thank you. Okay. Uh can I have a motion to approve 12.11 K15? Anthony second. Second. Okay. Uh, all comments or questions? All in favor? Abstaining? Abstain. Passes 70. Can I have a motion to approve 13.01A? Second. Second. Second by Alina. Comments or
033questions? All in favor? I I abstaining. Abstain. Passes 70. So, can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting? So, moved. Second. Second. Comments or questions? All in favor? I pass 70 or 80. Good night.