11/21/16 Beacon City School District Board of Education Meeting

001November 21st please stand foredge I pledge ALG to the flag of the United States of America to the stand stand one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all roll call Kelly Miss llynn she's delayed Miss hu here miss Paton she's excused Mr aasi here Mr Sam here Mr Wolf abson Mr Z here Mrs gadon uh we're going to say absent I haven't heard from her Mr W present uh please review the fire exits fire exits are on the in the rear of the LGI I'd like to make a motion to um for 1.05 to be later on in the board meeting so there's other people present does anybody anybody second I would like to have it it was uh Josie um n um we're GNA do a moment of silence I'd like to

002do that with at least everybody here so all those in favor I opposed motion carried we'll do that we'll change it and put it after the executive session I need a motion to adjourn to Executive session motion to adjourn to Executive session to review the history employment history of particular individual for the purpose of discussion collective bargaining with the csca and the beac can pray professionals Association seek legal advice from the school attorney State Law client privileges board expects to return at 8:30 [Music] coming [Music] okay so I'll begin with saying good evening uh thank you uh Miss ceron U Mr White and Board of Education members um I'd like uh to take the opportunity at Workshop this evening to be able to share highlights of uh the instructional services division of the district as

003you know we've done some reconfiguration within the district um and we're working towards uh a common a common goal of being able to do our our work in in integrated and interdepartmental uh manner so you know for all of us across the district now um that you know this kind this guides uh and and develops our work and so for us and moving forward and in a systems change approach uh we have to make every make every moment and every step that we move forward count and so that's the work that's been the focus for us uh certainly since uh my stepping in in July in this role uh this is about ensuring that at every level we have purpose we have value and we have meaning to the work that we're doing um and

004it's ensuring that we're uh looking towards both our short-term and our long range goals um the focus of the work and the the the need to develop uh an instructional services division is about ensuring that we have uh established systems and structures and so for all of us we began in September uh as we t as we opened up schools and sharing with all of our staff that for us we've operated within uh independent uh departments and uh working through a silo approach and in order for for our work to have meaning for what our students need for us to do and enable to in order for those systems to become responsive and effective in in uh in challenging and meeting the needs of our students and families and our staff uh it was it

005was pushing us in a direction to moveing in an interdependent way and so in the in the division of instructional Services of which I have uh supervision and oversight responsibility it encompasses uh four four Department levels and so it is about our work in curriculum and instruction under the leadership of Mr Eric Wright our executive director it's about our work through pupil Personnel Services through the leadership and direction of Miss Don candello it's about Athletics physical education Recreation and Health Services under our leadership of Mr nich it's about human resources on uh for our instructional staff a human resources as you know is an area that doesn't have a direct midline uh supervisory responsibility that's a role that uh Miss Cordon is the in her role as Deputy superintendent and uh myself in the role

006of um assistant superintendent share for instructional service on my end but also for um our uh Civil Service employees on the uh the deputy superintendent end so today as it relates to this we'll be talking about things as it relates to instructional Staffing we began the work for all of our staff and talking about what the purpose and intention of moving towards interdependence meant and so for us this is a metaphor to the work that we were embarking on at the beginning of the year um we again have begin to work and create systems where we're learning and sharing and supporting the work uh among and within our departments this begins with where uh we start with one identifying the strengths that we have taking opportunity to celebrate what those strengths are looking really closely

007at what our needs s are and how we identify where we have gaps in that ultimately that that pushes us to where we're striving to be and the the the direction we're moving forward in Into the Future specifically out of instructional services this is about us having opportunity to develop cohesive and consistent datadriven instruction and intervention that's aligned to ensure that the students uh have Mastery of learning standard at at every level of the district this is about us creating and refining self- sustaining School level processes that are able to produce the results that we're looking for with regard to students it's also about ensuring that we have targeted and individualized support for our students and families that a that increases the students opportunities to be in school and to be in receipt of high

008quality instruction in order to make those things happen for us as a district it it's forcing ourselves in a change process to be a to uh think about from many lenses and to listen to multiple voices about where we are and where where our current practices exist in a comfort level to where we need to be and where that pushes us to reach beyond our boundaries in a change process uh the process of change is sometimes not so comfortable but it's about us ensuring that what we're building and what we're working on is the goal of what is going to make for a dynamic and robust system for all of our students all of our families and promote the professional growth of all of our staff here's where we as a as a division um

009are are finding ourselves in the place of we're making some some inroads of the way we go about our collaborative and interdependent work we're not there yet but we know that we're in that process and on that way ultimately for us this is about how we take all the uh unique roles of each department and we begin to blend those together towards our com our common end purpose what I'd like to be able to highlight for you tonight are where where we are and celebrate the progress and the steps along the way in the day-to-day work that we're doing um it can be easy to be overwhelmed by staff for staff and families at many levels that everything is critical everything needs to change and there's a a level at which all changes don't happen

010at the same time what we have to be able to pay attention to is how we celebrate thinking about where were we uh 6 months ago where were we 12 months ago where were we 24 months ago and where are we now in comparison to that here's what I want to be able to acknowledge and celebrate under the leadership of Mr Wright through curriculum and instruction and assessment since he began in his in his role and the work that he has been doing on a collaborative level with our with our school level principles and assistant principles our department our department uh leaders at the district level and with all our staff across the district we've been able to ensure that we had instructional materials for elementary math and the E Ela modules um he's put

011in place uh mechanisms so that we're building and expanding upon uh the resources and the implementation of fontas and panel intervention kits at thee in the Elementary classrooms we're building supplemental uh Support Services through uh supplementary uh reading software of Reading Plus through for grades gr uh grades 3 through five but also enabling access for uh our K2 classroom teachers we went through a process uh with Mr Riley at the start of the year of inventorying our graphing calculators um ensuring for uh know that for us it was important to have a sense of what is our working equipment and and what is not graphing calculators are not um a luxury to have they're a necessary part of the math curriculum at the high school level we were able to identify those that uh were

012in need of replacement and we're building a s a a a a process in place to uh reinvent and assess the functionality of those we purchased 30 to start with at the start of this year because it was a necessity we would have students that did that had partially functioning or not functioning equipment and that's an that's an access issue so that we were we were pleased we were able to take a look at um we at this at the at the before school started what we built in also uh with Mr Riley as part of the math department for 612 uh the the procurement of the integrated algebra textbooks that needed to be replenished we use working textbooks where students uh use both um uh consumable uh that's also their text-based material Spanish because

013we've been broadening the Spanish uh course uh participation uh we found there was a need that we needed to um we needed to purchase some additional classroom sets for the Spanish Tex so that all students had access in their classrooms with their teachers chemistry textbooks were in need of of replenishment on a process end as you as you know and you have an awareness uh Mr Wright's been able to lead the literacy initiative and get that realigned with where we are right now and where and where we're headed um they've put in he's put into place a restructuring of the monthly curriculum meetings for elementary and secondary content coordinators and they're working together as a Planning Group uh so that that work has purpose and meeting and is a mechanism both for information as well

014as the curriculum uh you know assessment and pacing calendar work that's in process he's put into place and restructured the monthly meetings for elementary principles and secondary principles so that those meeting times have purpose and intention in supporting our school level leaders in developing their capacity and skills to continue and provide the curriculum leadership on a day-to-day basis he's put into place uh monthly meetings and continuing to con uh those uh with our reading teachers and our teachers of our English language Learners uh so that they have opportunity uh because they are small in numbers to be able to work uh collaboratively together across across schools there's a professional development plan that's in final revision stage that came out of the collaborative work both through the summer and the start of the school year that

015uh will be shared with you for review and uh and uh and shared out publicly at the uh December meeting Mr Wright along with Miss candelo have worked and Mr Wright's been leading a district group uh to but together to look at how the intersection of response to intervention from both a general education uh intervention approach as well as the output of what ends up or may end up as referral to uh the Committees on special education uh uh have we have in place and looking to create the framework expectations at a district level so that each school can begin can Implement and we can begin to build consistency of practice from school to school that's a lot of of work and a tremendous uh from everyone's contributions through curriculum instruction and assessment that has

016occurred in a very short window of time and so I want us to be able to celebrate that in the division of pupil Personnel Services a reminder Miss candello has many different aspects of student-based services under her under her uh supervision and leadership in uh P for the pupil Personnel Department uh with Miss candello student IEP implementation and the CSE and cpsc preschool and school age uh committees on special education have been in full implementation as you may be aware there's been a restructuring of roles of quick moving to Quick assessment looking at what the gaps have been in past practice over the the changes we began making over the past 12 months and in reflection of the way the department had uh been functioning over the prior eight years Miss uh so under uh

017miss candela's leadership this is about redefining and restructuring roles of the director of PPS of creating a supervisor of special education of looking at the role of our teacher that's in position as uh a cpsc and a CSE chairperson of looking and expanding on the role of school psychologist as a sub csse chairperson so these changes are important because what we know and what we heard about was that families needed to have a more direct day-to-day contact and so we've created those mechanisms so one that there is that point of per point of person and point of contact that is not just uh for them for a process but also there as part of the school and the school culture that their children are a part of so that's a step forward that we've made

018miss candell's work to with the staff to set in place a procurement process so that the needs of our students with IEPs for adaptive equipment and other instructional materials pursuant to what's what their needs are identified in their IEPs are in place and ready for students we've had a refinement and a development of our internal process procedures and protocols and which is leading to the development of a staff handbook for pupil Personnel Service staff what that will make clear is is what what are the particular forms the process the way uh the timelines that all staff at various levels of various components of the process work to put into place there's been an updating of process procedures and documentation forms from mckenny vinto that align with the new regulations uh the laws the federal laws

019around McKinny vinto are changing um Miss candella will be going to some of those information sessions to ensure that the things that we've begun to put into place stay in alignment with the the current laws um but our social workers have been equipped and empowered now so that we can build consistency of practice across the district and from school to school there's been a coordinated effort of planning and development of emergency care plans in collaboration with health services so cross departmental work for our students with IEPs that may have specific medical or uh allergy related needs that we need to have addressed and be on file with with health services and not and not just only noted in a student's IEP there's been implementation of the monthly meeting structures for classroom teachers uh for our

020school psychologist our school social workers our speech therapists and our occupational therapists we began putting these into place a year ago Mr candell has been able to refine and build with them specific outcomes and goals so that th those meetings uh build upon from me from month to month uh uh the goals for the Department there's been an effort for targeted professional development for our key PPS staff uh access access through bosis and through the regional special ed technical assistance center those are free uh professional development opportunities and Miss kandell has been working with the staff to identify what supports individual as well as collective needs for professional uh learning there's been work that been that's been started with IEP direct training for our clerical staff it's a huge undertaking with cleaning up as requirements

021change from time to time and the planning Logistics of components of the maintenance of I of the system the software system by which we use for uh tracking monitoring and documenting the needs of individual student education plans and so that work is in process there's been the there's been the start of the assessment of a delivery of Continuum service that informs continued program development and again we'll you'll see outputs of that as it relates to our budget planning process this year so again in a very short period of time from August through now uh under miss candela's leadership pupil personnel as a department is in full motion in moving moving us forward in athletics and and health Ser Athletics physical education health services and Recreation you heard from Mr nich uh uh at the prior

022at the prior board meeting in terms of an update and a celebration of our fall student athletes just want to I want to highlight and take a moment to highlight some additional things uh in the time since then so uh student athletic scholarships we'd like to acknowledge that uh Lauren shedar was uh just signed on uh last week for with Pace University with the Women's Basketball team we're very proud of her and her accomplishments we know that we'll we may have other students uh and student recognitions as we continue to move forward um we're going to hear we're going to hear tonight in a in a few moments I'm going to turn over to Mr nich so that we can acknowledge Miss pomero uh she was recently awarded uh from the New York State Association

023of physical education Health Recreation and dance uh from the south eastern Zone she was nominated and selected as teacher of the year and so we're going to acknowledge that with the with the physical education department in a few moments uh I'd like to also acknowledge accomplishments out of Mr nich's Department the state we have a Statewide Committee Member uh Marian cerillo she's been participatory in the Statewide group that's been doing the research uh the recommendations uh to the uh to the office of uh the State education department for the changes in the learn recommendations for revision to the learning standards as well as the development of Statewide learning guides for the implement so we're very proud to have her as both a member of our department as well as having a Statewide leadership uh role

024in Health Services uh we were able through the budget process as you as you're aware um but to put into place the role of a floating nurse substitute that has helped us be able to address as we have the need on a a on a day today substitute base is coverage for our schools so that our health offices and the students Within those schools still have access to nursing services without having to pull those those supports away from another school to to cover so this allows us uh greater latitude to ensure that we're not leaving anyone building short changed through Health Services they've also been working in a coordinated way um both with pupil personnel as I had mentioned in the development and the co the co- uh planning and implementation of emergency care plans

025for students with IEPs as well as 504s um they also they also have been working in coordination collaboration with Food Service uh so that information that's known between the health offices of our school as well as our food as as well as our food service and our cafeteria within any schools has the same information as it relates to student allergy and food and food planning needs and so what we identified was we were working on a lot of information uh in separate entities and the value of being able to quickly be able to bridge that bridge that Gap so that's work that has uh begun and is in place so again since the start of the school year we've been making strides and accomplishments through Athletics uh PE health services and Recreation special projects under

026Miss Kell under Miss uh Kellogg it's focused in in these Broad areas of of District level functioning since since we began uh in in August in this work um she's been she's worked to initiate a district Planning Group to review the K12 Insight survey data that we uh administered and we received back uh from the end of last school year into the summer that information uh feedback from our students families and staff is being used to help plan uh quarterly par parent engagement activities and so I look forward to being able to share with you announcements as to the work of the group that she's pulled together in collaboration with uh PTO uh input uh as to what future future uh parent and family activities will be moving forward she's been in a process of

027reviewing policies and procedures for our District's registration process verification of residency and other uh student attendance uh m there's been a uh a work uh towards uh how we're processing and submitting our our school level arts and Ed uh koser activity proposals and she's the point of contact in in getting that that piece of of information of the uh request process from our schools uh through District approval and to bosis for koser approval she's been in a process of reviewing home instruction procedures in collaboration with the administr with the administrative home instructive instruction coordinators so that what we're building our consistent uh process procedures and protocols as well as mechanisms to collect data uh so that we can uh look for uh what what our needs of our students are are demonstrating uh through access

028to home instruction there's been an initiation of our district of districtwide PB PBIS meetings so that among all school's PBIS teams there's opportunity to bring representation from the school level teams to a district team with the purpose of building communication and collaboration of sharing and learning from each other of being able to assess where we are in the implementation of all of those programming as well as to be able to create opportunities to build uh off of each school's process so she's also worked on behalf of the district to and initiated a revision of the process procedures and protocols as it relates to the dignity for all students Act of working to ensure that our forms and our uh procedural guidance are in line with the with the the the federal laws and regulations Human

029Resources so this is on the instructional side of the house so for all of our certificated staff this is the work that we do with recruitment hiring and retention this is about how we're ensuring certification uh and tenure of our of our employed staff it's about the maintenance of personnel records and it's about the uh addressing Personnel related matters terms of Human Resources it's an area where we've we've been focusing and our attention where we've been working across and among many stakeholders where we're working closely with our our school level staff who hold the the bulk of responsibility of the immediate uh implementation of of uh hiring practices what what we're celebrating the progress of is that an ad we've created an administrative staff handbook with the purpose of being able to systematize the process

030the procedures and the protocols for our instructional staff for hiring um that's been through a development process it's been through a review process it's been through a process of listening to feedback from various stakeholders both within the school district as among and around within the community it's about re the revision of that of those processes and ultimately ensuring that they're aligned with federal and state laws that govern Recruitment and hiring both under the Equal employment opportunity commission or the EEOC as well as New York State human rights laws when we need to ensure that our practices and what we where we desire to be uh that stay aligned with what what are the parameters within uh federal and state state laws uh in terms of that the re the final revised document um we're anticipating

031that at the December 15th administrative Council we'll be sharing that rolling it out to the administrative team uh that will be fully in place and ready to be enacted at that at that PL at that point be happy to you know talk or answer questions specific to it or share with the Board of Education uh a final document if if you'd like our administrative team hasn't seen that yet and we're moving forward in that process but that's the place we're at with its development in terms of the process itself we've outlined a seven-step hiring process so that it's ensuring consistency and Equity of our hiring practices and building coherence among all our stakeholder roles the roles of our principles the district level administrators our Personnel uh staff our superintendent and you as the Board of

032Education I'll highlight that in a in a couple of moments uh we're creating opportunities for career ladder Pathways so that it's supportive of teacher and leaders and administrative leadership development there are funding opportunities that can that are made available from time to time both at a state a state education and a federal level and so there are certain components that we want to begin to build so that when those funding opportunities arise again we'll be prepared for those we have successfully hired 39 highly qualified instructional staff since July 1 of I'm sorry that says 27 17 it's 2016 we are in a process uh uh with focus in in instructional HR we've identified three college recruiting fairs uh that we as a district are going to participate in during the winter months uh of 2017

033so between uh February and March so that we begin a recruitment process for anticipated vacancies that begin much much earlier uh to the May budget vote and so we're looking uh to be to begin that uh with a a set of administrative leaders that will be able to be ambassadors for the district um and we're going to uh we're going to be at um several Sunni schools we're going to be at Teachers College and we're also looking into Mount St Mary's so more more to come with that but that's one active step we're taking as we move our hiring practice forward we're anticipating as the years continue that we need to go to work towards active recruitment of high of the staff uh that we need for us in the district note that you know

034we talk about substitute coverage being difficult also note that um Statewide um we have uh a we have a a significant decrease in the number of college students stents going into teacher preparation programs so two years ago there were 68,000 students across the state in college teacher prep programs that were uh preparing for uh outcomes and degrees to go into the teaching Workforce as of this year that data was reported through the through the system and shared with Personnel administrators across the state it's currently being enrollment of 48,000 so that alone is cre is creating if no other factors are considered that alone is create is going to create a Workforce shortage across the state never mind that all of the districts are looking to create uh a level of of Staffing um that is

035able to meet the needs of all of their students and so there's also uh you know Geographic considerations and uh economic considerations that become factors of the process we're going to work our we're going to work uh with purpose and intention so that what we do is create uh create a profile of the district that gives people that are aspiring to be uh new teachers into the workforce something that they want to come to be a part of here in Beacon we want to be proud of what we're accomplishing we want to be proud of the direction we're headed in and that's really a critical component of our recruitment approach as we move forward we're in a process of finalizing our staff uh EOC report which uh which requires an accounting of the demographics of

036our employees at all levels uh it is not finalized and verified data it's I would set almost to completion and ready for superintendent review um the anticipation is that it'll be published on our district website by December 5th right after Thanksgiving is when the superintendent will be looking at it to to review and finalize in terms of the steps of the hiring process note that this is during our uh for the impl implementation of where we are right now during this transitional time what's important is we're in a process to to uh to find our new superintendent and new leader of the district it's important that we have a solid process in place but one that has some level of flexibility so that a new superintendent can come in assess where we're at and be

037able to make adjustments without derailing the whole system and that that so that and US knowing that we're still in some transition but we need to have a level of process and procedures that we're following here's what the process looks like that builds off of the process we've had and knowing that there's specificity in this in the actions of that go with each of these process and so we've been identified is what takes us through from identifying uh and requesting the need for a vacancy posting that usually comes by the way of a school level leader identifying that uh either someone uh is going to be unable to fulfill their work responsibilities for a short-term need and maybe going on some level of a medical based need it may be that someone is retiring it

038may be that someone has uh identified that they're resigning their position uh that is done in collaboration between P principals and District level administrators from there and through that process of of approval and sign off we there's a process in the Personnel Department through our Personnel assistant of creating the vacancy posting that information goes out and is posted through a variety of means of both our database systems such as Olaf Mid Hudson Cooperative recruitment as well as making decisions of posting and announcing through various employment bulletins through uh colleges as well and and sometimes through the newspaper what once we there also is a whole internal reporting process of of posting so no internal postings are a part of that whole vacancy process there's then the review of uh candidate credentials for Review Committee interviews

039that is handled by at the principal level and Department administrative level if it's for specific uh Department areas such as special education as an example once the processes are completed at the school Level under the principal's leadership with their interview teams the the committee makes recommendations to my office and the superintendent's office for a final interview of the candidates credentials and hopefully with success an employment offer once we reach that point there's a new higher packet completion this the that that candidate goes back uh to the Personnel Department to our Personnel assistant um and they are they complete the paperwork end of this there's a process in place for candidate recommendation to the Board of Education what I want to acknowledge is because we've always been running from behind here over the last few months

040those things six and seven kind of go together what I'm going to offer as a recommendation as we are moving forward in a proactive way is that recommendations uh occur uh with review that we would do an executive session under Personnel matters um and that there's opportunity that for uh that to be reviewed and that the anticipation is at the next board meeting that when it comes forward on the agenda that will if we are working forward ahead over a several month period of time will line and and meet within the timelines there may be uh positions that uh are more of an immediate Phill need and we'll make those adjustments as we as we continue forward but uh six and seven rest of us responsibilities uh among the superintendent myself in the assistant superintendent

041role and you all as the Board of Education and as you know and are aware the superintendent makes the recommendation to you as a board of education and you may uh vote on the resolution to to accept that recommendation or to provide feedback to the superintendent otherwise so let's talk about systems and structures on a on a view from the porch or from my role as assistant superintendent here's what we've been here's the progress we've been making and the celebration of success in our organizational systems so know that there's been a restructuring of the superintendent's cabinet and and weekly meetings so that uh Miss cordonia superintendent can hear from each of us as District department head as department heads of the district and be able for us to be a problem solving and Planning Group

042there's a development of the professional development for our administrative leadership through the center for courage and renewal we've had some summer Retreats we've continued the work as you're aware uh through monthly facilit facilitated sessions that's come under the under the uh guidance and the leadership of uh chipwood an Myers and Pam seagull it builds off of the work of responsive classrooms it is work that is focused on how we build uh trust and support and establish uh systems and structures within within our uh particular uh leadership group the work will continue to build and expand and into next year in bringing the work at the to the school level through this work uh we've been able to de velop an ad a set of administrative leadership team Norms with the purpose to Foster trust to

043build collaboration and to uh work towards uh communication within the group we've had a restructuring of roles of the district Department administrators to move them in into a role of resource and a support network for our school level administrators who have the responsibility of the implementation of the day-to-day work as it relates to programming as it relates to staff supervision Vision as it relates to student needs we have been working towards uh the successful completion of our annual professional performance review or a uh that will meet uh the New York State Ed requirements under uh section 312d um we are in a process uh and are awaiting uh State appro the state approval of the plan we anticipate that that is coming in the next within the next week um we have been working towards

044uh through through my role analysis and review of all of our Data Systems as it relates to my learning plan and how we're using that for professional development of Envision which is a migration from finance manager that is the work of both the finance department and our HR and uh Personnel Staffing data we're looking at through a lens of power school and what information that's telling us about student data and the types of reporting systems that can exist that exist and that can be accessed that better informs what's happening for our students and alerting us to needs of our students we're working towards the continued development of the vision vision mission and core values and ultimately that will grow into a three-year strategic plan so that we establish a foundation for our new superintendent we

045this District level Comm we're beginning District level committee work in December we will continue to have Community meetings that will meet monthly also uh from from December through the end of the year what we need to be able to have is both a mechanism so that all of our collective bargaining units and all the representation of stakeholders within the district are coming together and building a framework and that we're doing that in a coordinated way and keeping in check the the needs on the feedback of community members and our school level stakeholders so while we're holding meetings in the evening that can sometimes be constrictive in terms of ensuring robust participation among our school level staff and so we will have a a a two-tier process that will be able to bridge the work that

046we have been doing the work that we've established under hya in our superintendent search building off the work of of our K12 insights building off of the feedback that we've been Gathering through this process so far we're working uh and are initiating in early December a districtwide curriculum committee with the purpose uh to reestablish process procedures and protocols for curriculum development for the monitoring of implementation and for the procurement of instructional materials moving forward so that we build off the work of the needs identified through school leaders and through Department uh content coordinator leader coordinator leaders that that work gets funneled up uh through what the uh Mr Wright is doing in terms of balancing the needs and priorities across across all of the grade levels across all the Departments across all the schools so

047that we have a a a districtwide committee that's ensuring that all of the components of the process of curriculum development of looking at implementation is it matching uh the our what we're getting as student outcomes and how we're going through a process of identifying and determining the necessary purchase of new instructional materials so that when recommendations come forward to you as the Board of Education you can be ensured that we've gone through a a level of vetting process and identification of need and that the needs uh that are identified will be matched by uh the recommendations that come forward to you and so that's that's a piece of the process um that you'll be hearing much more of and much work to be done as it moves us into the budget planning cycle in early

048winter so we began with identifying that we were moving from the silos to trying to work to coordinate towards some some common outcomes here's where we would love to be if we're here in June fantastic realistically this is where we are two years into the work but we need to be able to say that we're all moving and have created systems and structures that that supports all of the needs of all of the Departments and works in one functional Direction this is what I want want to remind all of us of and so when we when and in order for us and our work at every level regardless of our role to be able to have value and for to feel meaningful we have to embrace that our circumstances are not our conclusion our circumstances

049don't Define the destiny that we move towards uh we create Clarity of our vision we get clear about the goals we're working that's driving us to create a sense of our identity and to really uh hold true to our core values when those things begin to align it's able to influence our thoughts our actions and build our habits and that's what we ultimately are working towards these are all the steps and the bright spots along the way of of what we're going to continue to build on we're going to have times where we take two steps back but know these are with with purpose and intention we have moved a a tremendous body of work forward in a very short period of time and that comes with with with lots of work sweat and tears

050that come out of our district and school level leaders and for as well as every staff member that has been willing to pick up and carry the work forward under our leadership and so for that I'm thankful and I'm appreciative for all of our staff in every bit of contribution that they make shall I take questions you or you want to move to you can take a breath thank you water MH anybody have questions for have some sort of discussion here probably this a kickoff particularly on the the the hiring process there's so much that she's covered hard to know where to begin but but I'm I'm thinking that we have a great deal of interest and we've talked many times before about the the hiring process what um Mrs denn Ro rumbley has addressed

051is the instructional area because that's her uh wheelhouse uh we have a district that has many other areas of hiring besides the instructional staff realized that has been the the greatest area of public concern and uh occupied a lot of board time in recent months especially last year uh over the last year but um you have all the people in the nonprofessional areas as well and I believe our hiring policies need to broaden and Encompass the entirety of our hiring all the way from janitors bus drivers cafeteria and Par professionals and so on um um so I'm not sure if anybody's working on that in a comparable fashion to what we have presented today but I believe that does need to occur another thing that concerns me is that we have reference here to an

052administrative staff handbook so I'm I'm hoping that we're going to see uh that before it is officially rolled out to anybody else it's a board approval issue in my opinion so same thing uh with the seven step process we're going to need to look at that in detail I think that's a whole board Workshop in itself is looking at the details of this and I appreciate seeing something in in paper or on the screen at least uh that gives us some structure to begin talking about I believe we have some considerable talking about in detail on each of these steps and I would bet most of us would agree with the statement that I just made so if not I'd be surprised any anyway that's my view um I do think that um it's very

053good to be begin the recruiting process earlier there's a lot of good in here um I'm alarm those teacher numbers do you have a question for cilia uh no just my speech that's all so why don't you wait until the board comments for that so we could get the questions in so she can I have other board comments I think so that's I don't have a a real question at this point okay you have a question I sure three hear you that the actual procedure was going to be ready December 15th M okay cuz I I was under the understanding was going to be you know we've talked about this a lot it was going to be today so the process is pretty much done we have not rolled a final out to the administrative

054staff because we haven't been actively hiring anymore we did most of it in the summer um so once it's rolled out to the administrators um it will get rolled out to you it's not going to change much um and the other part is that it will be distrib to the board okay I just so we want to see it in writing because I want to see things like is there you know Provisions for you talked about setting committees up but who who decides what those committees are going to be are we going to specify minimum types of stakeholders that are that are required to be part of those committees you know whether it be other you know um the public you know board uh you know what are the stakeholders going to be I wanted

055to see that written in the procedure well the the procedure now mentioned um and in fact we've had um members of the community we've had Parents been on the hiring process over the summer we don't usually have the board because the board is the one on the final that the superintendent makes a recommendation to the board so we haven't involved the board members on the actual hiring process um but we did share the document it was in the draft form and there have been some tweaks in it um but again just in all fairness to the Administration staff we felt that we wanted to roll it out to them as the final first and then give it to the board and again it's not going to change that much from what the draft is with

056some comments and tweaks so we can so it will it will have requirements for um the hiring review committees to include members of the public so well we've done it in the past but I just is it in the procedure that that's the way we're going to operate so school I can speak to that one specific question um so there is a need for that we're in including family voice uh as part of this the stakeholder group of a committee um is it open to members of the community at large um that it would depend on what the particular hire is so I'm not going to say it's not happening but it's not going to be a required component of every hire we're making it will be relative to who's part of the school level

057commu committee community that would represent the voices of that of that school for that principle uh and and the lens I don't know if that that answers specific question requirements so I'm just on that on answer of requirements requirements are kind of hard because you don't unless you want requirements for every single title in the in the district because some will require more um you know participation from from um parents and teachers and stuff and others not depending on the title so I'm not sure what it is perhaps you could provide some examples of what would require a you know a a committee the position that would require Community involvement and what would be the positions that would provide um that would require different um commun I mean to be honest with you community involvement

058would be some position as example of the superintendent which is what we did um as far as administrators in the building level that would be more of parents and I think that we've done that um you know when you get to teachers you know sometimes parents are a little difficult we have reached out to some of the parents that had expertise in the area we were looking at for health so we've done that as well um but we can you know in the guidance document we'll have it a little more clear I I I'm you know we have had Parents on committees but community members at large I'm a little bit unsure of that part of your question right well then and that's I know that's why I want to read it to see how

059you crafted it to see if it's you know how you know what the board expects you know in in a hiring process however you craft it okay so I guess we got to read it right we have read it so next question is um you mentioned some of the steps in the process uh are there are there time frames that go along that you know you know T minus you know five months four months three months you know so you can minimum to step through the process so we're not we're not stuck at the end um um rushing to get you know uh people in place in time to support the education process so I think the pro the process that we have in the handbook talks more about it you know for us the

060end result is the board meeting so we've worked the timeline back to a board meeting so if the board meeting is this Monday then the paperwork and the interviews and all that have to happen I think you're talking about a more Global approach with anything Cecilia mentioned in her Powerpoint that talks about we're not going to wait until July 1st to start putting ads out we know that there are teachers retiring um we know once the budget passes that's almost our clue to kind of run out there and put the postings out um because that's the time frame that we know that we have the money to support you know replacing the positions we always hate to do that before the budget vote but that's more of a practice I don't know if that would

061be a guideline in our guideline we talk about time time frames for the administration to get stuff to central office so we backward we backward map so I mean that that's how we started um this with with Summer hires to backward map from the board meeting so again similar similar type of guidance to be able to back map when we want as a goal to have our hiring in place for all the vacancies that we know or have an awareness of and then we can set the the parameters of which where each step of the process Falls in that timeline from start to finish right so I would expect you would say in order to successfully on a normal basis meet you know your hiring and when students are looking to be hired you know

062you have to have all your requests in by January 30th whatever think your requests have to be in in Milestones that way it'll set you up for the process to catch the the the college graduate cycle that that's the kind of thing I'm I'm looking for was establish that's what you're talking about right so that we're we're not missing Optimum time so we document the procedure then people know when they have to have their their their cycle um vacancy requested right so um even even when I return to the deputy superintendent I would suggest to the whoever the superintendent is to never post something until a budget vote is passed so may would be the time frame just because you just you just don't know I I'm I'm a you know don't count your chickens

063kind of person so um if you're talking about college fairs we those are the winter we already know when they are so we're going to go out and start visiting them and at least starting to scream people but as far as V vacancy postings it's really premature until you know you have a budget to replace positions so that would be like a m thing but we can put that out in like a time frame yeah I would love to see if that's what other school districts do because it maybe sounds like it's too late because they've already graduated what to post post after the May budget vote and then do postings they usually post the day after the budget vote well you have a you already have a plan in place of who you need

064and and we would know that the process yeah correct so you know what you're posting for the day of the budget you'll hear that during the budget process when you talk about the usually the last budget Workshop we do is on Staffing so we we say what positions are coming up how we've you know how you have breakage when you're you're hiring new staff and what we're going to recommend to the voters to put forward so you'll know all of that before so I think we should I do think we should outline those those you know dates and steps in the process so make sure that we don't miss the whole spring uh recruiting so you're looking for for the annual basis like so the end of the year with a teachers or staff that

065is retiring in June but yet we have a plan to recognize identify them prior to the budget then at the budget the day after the budget posting for and then having a plan as to when when do we want as the board to have those new hires for the September right correct okay is that what you're looking for that's what I'm looking at like the annual how how we would go be clear so we don't find ourselves in the same predicament no I agree any other questions question so the three College fairs um are you looking at the colleges that uh have diverse student populations how did you pick the college fairs so we're doing we're looking to do Sunni Albany Sunni new PS and Teachers College we also may include either uh one of

066the cuni colleges that have a teacher prep program or we may do Mount St mares if we can if we have enough Staffing um and we have a way to that I I want to propose to our administrative group uh to be able to balance and represent ourselves as a district across multiple we can exceed our goal of three that would be fabulous for this year that's where we're look into I asked um Miss Fraser Woods to get me the information about each of the Co the various colleges there were many more we looked at but specifically we're looking to go to those that have uh strong and robust teacher par programs what about diverse population though diverse student population well looking at the diversity of our teaching Workforce is always a consideration as you

067know and may be aware we can't recruit solely for the purpose of um racial and ethnic diversity because that's a violation of the EOC but yes we would go to programs that have Diversified uh t uh teacher uh preps uh candidates um know also that this is a this is a struggle in the diversification and being able to ensure we've got proportionality of our teaching Workforce to our student student uh demographics across the state and within schools um is a focus and concern because our teacher prep programs don't have strong uh diversification but we will work towards that work towards that goal I'm glad to hear that this is you know that you are taking on the struggle and you are working towards it my concern is that um the college fairs I mean there's

068various College fairs um and if you're going to a college that has a college fair that does not have a as diverse of a student population as some other ones aren't we uh you know and I do recognize the Discrimination anti-discrimination but I I I but if we are present at College fairs that have a more diverse student population uh would we be have a better chance of recruiting teaching stff well all we can do is put ourselves out there and represent this district and provide reasons why uh candidate would want to consider us as a future employer for us the the questions we have to ask ourselves um and this goes slightly off of of hiring is um more about how do we ensure that the workforce that we have are equipped with the

069Knowledge and Skills that we connect and give voice to every student every family regardless of what the their uh cultural ethnic and uh racial experience background and experience are and that's really where we put our T where we should be putting our time and attention and I think and I look forward to the work that becomes part of our divers the diversity committee that you guys have been talking about because we're not going to bring ourselves into proportionality as a Workforce of this District in the in the in the short term it's it's the goals that we keep building and working towards um but there there are many levels of of barriers and constraints to that sure and and I appreciate that but can we target a college fair that has we cannot Target specifically

070of looking to recruit any any particular IND set up a table at a college fair with a student body that is diverse so so Anthony um we have TR um Miss Fraser wood is trying to reach out to schools so we've given her the charge of trying to find schools for us to go to um these are the places that specialize in providing teacher education programs because we don't want to go to colleges that don't do that yeah um so you know if given the opportunity and with the staff of the administration we'd be more than happy to do that um but right now those are the opportunities that we have so we're going to go out there but missas is not collecting any any type of student demographics that's graduating from that college right

071um to be honest with you we're not looking at it that way we're going to the school and we're going to recruit the best candidate to come to Beacon yes and and I I agree with you there but can we set up a table that has a teaching program you know of that has also a diverse student body so that we increase our chances of of meeting our goals that we reflect teaching staff Anthony I think she said the one place that they're they're aiming to go to a CI it's not decided seems to be not decided that that will happen but that's one of the we're looking at the dates and teacher prep programs and please let's not make assumptions that the schools that we've talked about do not have uh a a strong

072diversification of their teacher candidates I don't want to make presumptions based on the school we won't really know unless we go out and and engage in in recruitment process if we have opportunity to continue to build on that or as we learn more about teacher prep programs um certainly amongst all of us that have been through programs and have been through a hiring uh process of of candidates coming from a variety of of programs um we're also looking at the quality of the preparation uh of the students and so there's there's many parts that are factors to this but I don't want to make a presumption that a particular institution might not have a diversified candidate and forgive me I'm not making the presumption either but what I'm saying those we're we're also I think

073we we understand the point is there a question at the end of it yeah can we look at that I think they answered that question is that a no that is absolutely not a okay thank you any other questions um yes so um Anthony can we give someone else a chance first I'm sorry thank you now I I don't know if it's something it wasn't up on the slides but as far as the step in the the hiring process the collection of data um especially um in those cases where somebody doesn't accept uh positions that we know you know you if someone's you know are they not accepting position because they're not paying enough or they decided they don't want to work in a small City School District or they heard bad things um or

074you know we're looking at too many people who live outside the area that want to move into it um you know so I think it would be important to know um you know for those people who we make offers to and or we want to make an offer to and and and they they either decline or or or you know recuse themselves from being pursued further just knowing the reasons why so that uh especially if these are the ones we really want that we can you know where we have control over it make the steps necessary and it also comes into play for diversity too because sometimes people ask the question is how can you don't have uh a diverse um population of of of staff and you know you can point out things where

075you say well here's here's the people that we did um talk to and here's you know here's here's the breakdown as far as we can tell um then you know you know you can see if if we're only if it turns out that uh you know if we're looking looking at trying to get to where our school population is it's like well if only 5% of our people we even look at fall into a category for you know being of being a minority then it's you know as you said it's going to take much much longer to get there but just to just be able to show people you know what we're trying to do um and so I think you know collection of data on on this on the people that we're um uh

076talking to is important I can't speak to historical but I can tell you of the candidates that uh the superintendent and I interviewed and did employment offers to when they didn't accept the position it was due to salary it was that we could not come to a mut mutually agreeable salary salary uh offer I I think that's important because at some point you can come to us and say you know we want we have these issues where we can't hire people because of salary obviously that goes into negotiations and of course that ultimately the school board would have to uh agree to whatever the changes are in our contracts and so you know we would need justification so having that kind of data would be important so we can we can collect it in a

077more purposeful way but salary was the deterrent this summer any other questions I have I have a couple questions um to the extent that you can speak to um the work of Mr Wright and how the gaps were identified in terms of textbooks and Equipment you know the process that allowed that information to flow through to you and then um also if that um kind of communication mechanism and structure is going to inform the districtwide curriculum committee so what what what we inherit We inherited in terms of Summer were requests that that were made that needed to still be processed in terms of the process of how that came to be um that was reliant on you know the the processes they had used through through the the spring and the summer I we took

078the recommendations of the department shares in terms of these are the instructional materials that that we need they were not new purchase materials with the exception of Eureka Math which did go through a process earlier in the spring um with with calog with administrators with C uh curriculum uh coordinators uh for feedback and then we made the decision in the summer based on that um that's the only exception the others uh were about the replenishment replacement of what would have been shortage shortages of instructional materials specifically I want I'll share with you just to reiterate with regard to graphing calculators it wasn't necessarily um a identified instructional need uh that we can't begin the school year without without graphing calculators what had been happening was kind of the working on getting them tweaking them functional

079to some capacity what I was learning was not every calculator had a viable screen so some screens had components of it where you know it was blackened out or that Mr Riley and I talked about and I said tell me what is needed tell me what the condition of all of the equipment that we have is that we have at the moment tell me how many we need because a graphing calculator is not a luxury it's part of the necessary materials in math coursework at the high school level and so we work to identify what were absolutely not functioning we work to identify did every student regardless of the type of classroom that they were in a general education setting or special education setting had access to that and had access to working equipment and

080then that was a short-term need that we remedied uh quickly in September because it was not for me and you know I come from a secondary Focus uh of of Education um so that that type of thing understanding High School curriculum is is an important question of access for our students so I didn't want some of our students to not have the minimum standards they need for instruction that's just an example the others were things that were requests along the way that we move to process what we're looking for is a district procedure so that it guides everybody's planning analysis and plan planning process so that sounds like it's separate from how the districtwide curriculum committee is going to function well the districtwide curriculum committee will set what the parameters are so that if a

081department identifies a need for example the math department they need the per they need to replenish this they can move that forward it will be based on this is the data that informs that we have this need these are the particular equipment uh that's necessary here's we've priced out we've done comparison this is this is the request we're making a district curriculum committee looks at that reviews ensures that every level has been uh considered so that when we move forward you know a purchase a recommendation for purchase that it's that it's solid and it's based on that we know it's a need and not we think it's a need so that that's just a small example summer curriculum projects will be a big part of the work I have hold up can I just can

082we go on pause because we do have a recognition so they're not here so late it's 9:00 then we can start the convers back up after the recognition yeah Marty are you presenting sorry for the Delight good evening thank you um so wa for and pause for say I I really appreciate that Bo education I interrup anything um but uh I have some of our physical education and health staff that uh joined us here this evening um to um you're going to stay up here by yourself U but I I do appreciate the uh some of our staff members that are joining us here on this special occasion um a few weeks ago on the election day uh the Southeastern Zone aord had their annual conference and at that conference um we saw the conference

083selects an elementary special education and secondary physical education teacher of the year of of our Zone and U this year we really pretty neat that you have in your in your District not only Mary anill who works on the apron Board of Directors for the state but we also have with us uh smile will you yeah she very humble um when I asked her if she wanted to show up it took about an hour before she texted me back and said okay um but we also have our teacher of the year um for secondary education for physical education in South Eastern Zone C pomero of the St members who have known Cindy for a while would like to just make a few comments and then I got a little get for good evening I'm honored

084to be here tonight to recognize Miss Cy pomero as she is named the Southeastern Zone physical education teacher of the year I have known this P miracle for close to 50 years as a child for friend we shared the neighborhood on Catherine Street in Beacon where our grandparents once lived as a colleague I had work with Cindy for 22 years during my career in Beacon and shared 15 of those years teaching alongside of her at Beacon High School I've had the opportunity to teach with her to coach with her and to learn and grow from her as she has always been a mentor and friend I can say without reservation that she is undeniably the consumate professional throughout the course of her many years in the beacon City School District Miss pomaro Miss P or

085simply p as the kids would haveen has modeled many life lessons for both our students and staff as she possesses qualities of tremendous character Miss Pomo is a dynamic teacher who cares deeply about children not only has she invested in the academic success of her students but what truly stands out and above all is the long lasting positive impact she continues to make in the lives of her students each and every day she has many gifts these are the gifts that are held in her heart the gifts of care and respect the gifts of compassion and empathy the gift of selflessness and humility the gift of firm but fair the gift of honesty and reliability the gift of steady and consistent and the gift of hardworking and committed these are the gifts that she not

086only possesses but the gifts she gives away to her students and colleagues each and every day Miss Pico Cindy I'm sure you have many more years of teaching left in the tank but just know that you will undoubtedly leave an indelible imprator in the history books of the beacon City School District congratulations to you on this tremendous honor thank you was really tough to follow but I will say that um I nominated Cindy for the award and I have to remove myself from the uh selection committee as such um but I'm really proud that she was was um selected to receive this and I reiterate just about everything that Kim just said not with the same passion because I didn't work in the building alongside but Cindy did Mentor me starting 22 years ago um

087when I started here and she was at forestal I was at sergeant and we worked volleyball together um but mostly um the respect that Cindy both gives and gets to students in and outside the the school building on the street they'll greet her and she greets them back and there's just a um a relationship back and forth that TR she truly deserves to be honored as an outstanding teacher so thank you what well I will just say one last thing um I would give a great job than that was really nice and everybody here obviously um but I'll tell you sh has been a a a saint for me she has been um my right-hand person since I've got here U bounce things off her all the time and U I will just tell you

088she is the epitome of the true teacher she she is just has every students in her heart and she works very hard at what she does and she is um someone that I hope we could just videotape her and just take her up to the a for Conference next year I wish you would take take some time get R of that running for a little while and come up and present some things up with that and let her knowledge be spread around to the um young teachers in the in the state Cindy on behalf of the pette staff in the beacon City School District I got you some nice flowers honey thank you very much thank you all right I'm sorry that I interrup thank you it was very worthy Interruption I would do that

089anytime Cindy thank you very much thank you everybody for speaking on her behalf uh yeah back you lost your no not at all um I uh I just wanted to find out about the um the timeline for the PPS uh handbook and um if there is a I know that so much has happened in that department so um I'm not trying to put pressure on just wondering if there is a if there's a timeline work at and estimated delivery date and then if training is a part of the you know if there will be training along with that um the roll out of that they'll go hand in hand um I don't know if uh Miss candello has a specific uh date in mind the guidance document that was created last year in the process

090of updating it right now and they will receive it we start start talking about thews in December January right and the do PS it's going to be a rolling document that's going to be in draft form as we keep working through the processes and procedures and um we are going to roll that out in January with the components that we already currently have been working on and knowing that we're going to keep adding to it the goal is to have a binder tangible binder in each building and as we build our website I'm going to include that for the teachers so to put prer on so for those of you that couldn't hear I'll just reiterate for for everyone so um there's an annual review guidance document that will be uh in in revision and

091rolled out to our staff between December and January um in in advance of the start of the annual review process um the handbook that speaks to csse process procedure protocol forms to use timelines deadlines all those things uh is in partial completion uh according to miss candelo and um it will be a a evolving document so it'll be a working draft document that we begin in implementation and we'll probably look towards uh once we begin a process of annual R views everything about systems and procedures are around uh the completion of the annual review process so I would anticipate the um the the general o uh handbook probably towards end of the school year is ready for finalization and last question I um so uh under special projects Mrs KAG isn't here to answer this

092question but I remember part of the description was that uh Grant rating was going to be involved in her um in her work I I could have missed it I didn't see anything with reference to that on the slide um is that something that is in the works and is starting to become more encouraged in the district as a whole as a way of you know you know we Face a tax cap we have a diverse population um I think this could be a real priority it was heartening to see that that was going to be placed as a priority for um an administrator so if there's anything you can speak to about that sure so now um for each of our administrators we we captured some kind of the the big bright spots if

093you will uh Miss Kell has worked uh for us as a district on the Consolidated application and Title One Title One funding um writing um she is in in uh and has a responsibility of looking at um future and available grants um and we that will be a a process it has not been the Forefront of of her work um over the last over the last 10 weeks um know that and I was going to share this out as report but I'll I'll put a place marker on this even though um Miss Kellog has had other priorities of of of her work and responsibilities we had opportunity as a district um to partner with um Community Based organizations through Sunni news um through the beacon City Recreation program and us as the as a school

094district Lea um because there was an opportunity uh for 21st Century Federal Federal funding uh School programming uh it's an existing funding source we have not accessed it as a school district at least that we can go back over the last 10 years but it has been you know a long-standing funding cycle it's a 5-year funding uh project uh we wrote in collaboration uh with them for a grant that would enable us to provide uh along three uh three uh required areas academic based tutoring support for our students which would be able to be provided through our own District staff a social and emotional uh recreation-based program which would be uh provided through Beacon uh wreck uh as well as a um Youth Empowerment uh and uh career focused uh uh work along with student

095mentorship that's part of the collaborative with Sunni new Pauls and so it's exciting we actually just filed this morning uh there was a uh noon deadline for all applicants we had responded to a letter of intent several weeks ago as you know um we look forward to doing a fullscale presentation of what this project uh could be uh as we get further into the application review process and knowing we should know by March if we are a successful um a successful bidder uh for the for the monies I will tell you this for us as a district we wrote a a project proposal for after school programming 3 hours a day 5 days a week for a 24-week period that would enable all of our students and families in our five elementary schools that are

096that are five elementaries our five school buildings our three elementary schools that are Title One our Middle School which is also Title One status and our high school program which is uh a a recipient of all of the feeder School Title One feeder schools we will be able and will plan to replicate continuity of programs through in through District resources so that uh glenham students have uh equ Equitable programming offerings uh what it will do for us and what we're excited about with uh with uh Beacon City uh and the recreation department is that the barrier that we were recognizing with the cost of of participating in programs will be alleviated with this funding and so our families will have opportunity that their children can get three hours of structured after school care and support

097and enrichment activities along with academic support uh free of charge we wrote this project so it could serve up to 760 students across this District at the middle school high school level that will look more along the lines of enrichment activities that will build off of our opportunity for uh for steam based programs as well as College and Career planning uh there's a summer component um Dr Sing uh stepped out um that would allow us to create uh for our eighth graders uh moving into ninth grade opportunities for uh in for a summer skills and enrichment over the course of four weeks it will give them opportunities to exper for students and families to begin to experience uh uh what college college life is like what the opportunities are so that it builds a foundation

098to help uh support students uh through their years of High School uh we're really excited about the opportunity um there's much more for us to present um and we will build off of the initial partnership to be able to expand so that we're inclusive of ways that we can draw in Beacon Arts uh foundation and create new opportunities for our local artisans for other uh others that have skill and enrichment uh programming support but that uh that's kind of the structure and the framework so any other questions I do go ahead K so um this area I believe was covered by um parents so you may not have the answer okay I'll try but what is the process um utilized for parent engagement um are we being proactive um not um and notifying the parents

099um and can we pay P Trail our process so that we can assertain how well we're doing and getting information out to the parents um to ensure that they have ample amount of time to respond and then my um second question relates to um PBIS it St that it's you know alive and well across the district um how are we able to determine that it is like it's l when I go into the middle school and into the elementary schools but um I don't I don't see PBIS at the high school so maybe it's somewhere that I'm just not looking so uh let me say this every every one of our schools is in different levels of implementation and I would say um for the most part many of our schools really are in early

100implementation stages here at the high school um there was a little bit of a Slowdown um but I know that that's getting reinvigorated now that they're fully administratively staffed um beyond that I will ask I can ask Miss Kell to prepare um you know some of the the focus of the the district the district level meeting conversations and what some of the learnings are that are coming out of it but yeah I please know I'm not trying to represent that all of our schools are in the same level of implementation or that those are fully in implementation it's a it's a pro there's various levels of process each of our schools does have and has identified their three to five expectations they're in various stages of how they teach that how they set the uh

101set the parameters of what it looks sounds and feels like and how they celebrate the accomplishment of that for our students we're in various stages of how we collect data and how that informs the celebrations as well as the targeted support that's necessary at a at a higher level but I'll get specifics for you from Miss Kell your first question um parent engagement parent engagement I I'll I'll get back to you on that one too thank you any other questions Anthony thank you um what has replaced theas or you know in a manner or program or so what we've asked each of our schools to do is to take what we were operating as two separate and unrelated um Frameworks and programs so know that PBIS positive behavior interventions and supports is an overall framework

102of how we provide a be a system of behavior education from Universal expectations for all students at the base of it setting expectations defining those teaching uh kids what it look sounds and feel feels like and then recognizing and celebrating the uh demonstration of that at a targeted level it's about for those students that are unable to meet those Universal expectations how we provide for uh small group and and uh you know kind of skill specific uh support around building replacement uh behaviors um at a really intensive individual level this is about how we do individualized Behavior Uh planning for some for some students uh alveus is an anti-bullying program and so alveus is a component that can is part of a system of behavior education through that tiered response alveus by Design was meant

103to really serve uh our students at an elementary and um we can put into it expanded into Middle School level um it's promoted as being accessible across K12 but quite frankly it was an elementary based anti-bullying program to start with what we asked each of our schools was to not continue um having two separate committees that were doing this work kind of in um in silos from from each other and to be to work as a team to blend the membership of those School level teams and to be able to talk about how alveus if they continue to Pro provide that or components of that in implementation for an for anti-bullying work across the school how that fit into the overall framework if OAS was not meeting what they felt was needed at their school

104level what then would serve that me okay so again I'll I'd ask of the districtwide meetings the intention of that is to get kind of the litness test of where are we at what do school teams need what data is informing the work that they're doing so I guess it's fair that um it's in progress I guess yeah I mean it's fair to say it's in progress and these things have to kind of they're homegrown so that has to speak to what's going to work within each School setting it's not really a cookie cutter approach and when we try to do it from that lens um you know it it's kind of it it works in some places and it might not work in others so we gave permission for the school teams to decide

105what their needs were to blend them so that we could speak one language of a whole system of supporting the behavior education of all our students thank you all right thank you any other questions thanks all right thank you thank you all right I'm going to review the agenda we do not have any additions to the agenda we are uh expected to take a second executive session um with no action um so let's go from there right do we have any uh student or school presentations any parent [Music] groups uh hello my name is BR Smith um I'm appearing today on behalf of advocates for Beacon schools and I'm appearing directly uh in response to uh a very thorough and um very interesting overview of instructional Services provided by m an Rumley and we very

106much appreciate that um I was expecting a little more hiring policy Focus presentation today uh so that's the primary area of my remarks but um there's a lot there that I think ABS will take a look at and we really greatly appreciate the thorus of it um in terms of hiring policy I was glad to see the process set forward in in your PowerPoint and it allows us to look at some areas of that process that sort of structure that's there where the board can step in and do some positive development to make the process work better for the district um you notice that the the step process begins with a vacancy as all kind of employment processes start with uh but step two should actually be a very thoughtful and thorough evaluation of what

107the position is doing for the district uh the performance of the individual or the department under that individual's management and what exactly the district needs from the individual that's going to fill that position and I would suggest that it's one area where a board can play a role not a very thorough role not a role that requires a large amount of attention but a role nonetheless where the district produces something like a road map for that vacancy this is especially important for higher level Administration administrative vacancies where the district can say hey look we've done this evaluation of what what the position is all about what the department how the department is performing we think we need an IND individual that has these characteristics these experiences um you know we are going to go through

108this process to find that person and we think this process will work for us we're going to have this hiring Committee in place to look over to make sure that that that we hire right candidate and they present all that as a package to the board prior to the start prior to the actual posting of a vacancy to say to the board hey look this is what we're doing and this is what we're going to move forward with and the board for most of the cases will simply say that's a great a great idea I like the process I like the committee let's move forward but in those cases where red flags might appear for instance in this Summer's process for hiring a new PBS director uh we find ourselves caught out not having a

109PBS director hired having to make administrative switches at the last minute that place a lot of the district in a in a sort up in the air status and frankly kind of sprung on the board um those kinds of that kind of process is not good for a district and it's not good for making good Personnel decisions when you're in that position so this would say hey if you're thinking about doing that if you're thinking about hiring a new person if you're thinking about going through that process you have to you have to provide that that that a road map to the board that lays that all out for the board to say okay and you know what it'll benefit everyone because there'll be 10 set of eyes on it saying hey wait this might

110not work out for us there might be a problem with this do we have someone who would fill this position if we can't find it are we sure we have a right position in mind for what you're seeking in this administrative role you know maybe we do need a special education director instead of an assistant director and we can move right to that search and not have a search for an assistant when it wasn't necessary so those are things that I would suggest that you take a look at um secondly and most importantly parent involvement one of the key stakeholders that we're missing in that slide is parents they should be involved and I completely agree that it's very complicated to figure out the right structure for parent involvement depending on the role but that

111is a complication that the district just has to do um principles especially should have a very consistent framework for how parents are involved in selecting uh School principles uh most teacher selection should have parent involvement whether it's showing up and giving uh an interview in front of parents that were selected not necessarily parents that are part of a hiring committee but parents that are selected that is one role that they can play Mr Smith can you just tell me what district does that um I I I actually came I did a lot of work originally way back when in the Madison School history for instance where's Madison um Madison Wisconsin um and they would often do uh District uh they would do District um interviews that would involve parents with the with teachers so teachers

112would come in and have uh a presentation before parents they were never part of the hiring committee formally um and to a certain degree the principal level decision making process makes it easier for parents to feel comfortable with the decisions that principles make so if you have a good process that involves parents in selecting a principal leader of the school um it makes it less important to have teachers be there monitor making decisions on the on teacher hiring that's not a role that parents can play you know they're not professionals but it helps teachers understand what the hiring decisions and and and and goals of that school are are going to be what the purpose and mission of the school is for the for the teachers in the district and it helps and it helps

113the teachers recognize that they're actually committed parents in the school that they would be excited to work with you know it's a two-way street you sell the district and you give parents engagement in the process um I'm sorry I just got to yeah sure curious now so is that the only District that you know of that does that or are there other districts that you know that do that process I'll take a look um I'll take a look and see if I can come up with other districts it's the one that I am familiar with and I'd be able to to say without a doubt okay um but I'd be happy to take a look all right thank you um and then for upper level Administration as well having parents on the on the hiring

114process having parents in the hiring committees makes a difference to make sure that parents understand uh that the that the department will be responsive to parents' needs and it brings into the to the discussion um parent involvement in that process uh it gives parents a voice in in in our in our schools and and how they're being administered um and finally I would I would say that uh you take a step back and and you just look at what the hiring and Personnel decisions mean for our district and I want to end by actually recognizing what I think are some really great parts of that that presentation I think it's great to start seeing uh um something laid out there for our missions and goals for instructional services and to get that discussion started with

115parents um we have active excited parents in this District I have parents come to me I'm not even a parent in the district I get in discussions with parents all the time who are coming into this District saying what is this District like what is it like and I always say it's a very good district there are great teachers here the foundation is here and that is what we have to build on and to build on it you got to get teachers in and you got to get teachers in every aspect of administration in the district there's just no other way about it because the the parents that are coming in aren't going to are not going to have it any other way so um I leave it with that and say I just don't

116want to streamline it to the parents that are coming in there's been many people that stay in the district as well oh so I'm sorry what was that you're saying for the people coming in people coming into the district I just wanted to point out there's many people that stayed in the district for many years as well oh yeah no what I mean was what I meant was that the the that many of the newer arrivals to Beacon who may not have any understanding of what the schools are like are are presented with a district that is moving I think is moving toward better parent participation and and that's the role that ABS has tried to play um and I think that this board in a lot of what instructural services presented can do a

117very good very thorough job of just pointing out well here's something the parents could could play a really active role in why don't we engage in this why don't we engage in curriculum instruction why don't we reach out to parents in some part of that process um there's areas where we can do a lot better and it will make parents even more excited to be part of a very very good school district that's only going to get better so I leave it with that and I say um to the board especially I thank you very much for your comments and I'm very glad to hear that you're going to be reviewing the hiring policy I'll be probably back to talk about it when I see the details I hope you don't get sick of me

118um and I and I thank you for your time today thank you any other parent groups all right Mr Smith you really want to sign up for public participation yeah sorry this is a does anybody else want to is anybody else going okay so this is very quick I just want to remind everybody for a public comment that you please refrain from using names and and and so forth um yes uh okay um my name is B Smith I'm parent in the district I have two kids that are prospective um attendees um I'm actually here to speak on behalf of an issue that come up in the community recently in part because I have some expertise in the area about lead testing um and uh I wanted to say that I was very happy to

119see that the lead testing results uh had been made public that letters had go at home um the distribution of those letters left a little anxiety among some parents but I think the message got across and it was good to see that all it was posted on the district's website um iess I guess the good news was that the lest student results show were uh were higher in areas of the schools that were not commonly used which suggests that we have a problem only in areas where water accumulates in the pipes and doesn't get flushed um what I think is would be helpful for parents in the district is if the district put in place some policies for flushing um of water fountains of sinks in the schools that have these lead levels I think

120even South this would be useful to do um where before after holiday after summer vacation when a lot of those fountains aren't used that they are properly flushed before which means running it for uh 30 seconds to a minute or more to get any lead that might have accumulated out because some of the lead levels were very high in some of the things um and so we just want to make sure that that doesn't happen on the first day of school and you have kids ingesting way too much lead um secondly I'd love to see any of the documents that the district has come up with um if anything could be made public about the sources of contamination for lead what might have led to that whether there's a broader sort of plan to remediate

121any of the sources of blood contamination um that might make a lot of parents feel better about the fact that the next time that they test is 5 years from now so um we've just if there's anything that would show that this isn't a problem that's going to become worse you know in the near future uh that would be greatly appreciated um and then finally I just had a question about the beacon High School um is that exempt from lead testing or is the lead testing results going to be coming for this the high school should I are you done okay okay so uh I can start with Beacon School we're awaiting the results so um the secondary buildings didn't have to be tested until the month of October um in Duchess County I think

122all the school districts use the exact same lab um we all use Smith lab um so I think that they were inundated with you know with results so as soon as we get those results we will be more than happy to share the results for Beacon high school as well um I will talk about the flushing of um the sinks and The Fountains with the director of facilities um the the information that you that I have on the website is what I have um I know that if you know you probably know this already too but if you Google the information there's a lot more information available the state gave us information that made sure that we put out on the website and and we and we did that as well um and I might

123as well say it now so that I could say less during my report but um on the letter it did say um if you had specific questions you could email the director of facilities Mr saell he'd be more than happy to help um so particular you know you had particular questions or whatever I will say that Beacon's results were lower than other a lot of other districts in dutes County so we were surpris you know we were surprised because we do have older buildings so and we were happy about it um so other people are struggling with the same thing so we're in the process of ordering um the faucets and and all the other equipment going through it so that we can um isolate those areas and then they have to be be tested

124so those results will also be posted as well okay any other public comments good evening uh Deborah definit parent in the district I'm here tonight to express my concern over the recent rise in incidents of discrimination and harassment occurring Nationwide in our schools we and Beacon are not immune to such acts and we would be wise to act proactively to reassure our community of our commitment to keeping our students safe respected and welcomed in our schools in education commissioner marelen Aaliyah's words we must focus our efforts to ensure that our schools are safe havens where students can learn without fear of disc discrimination harassment or intimidation directed towards students or faculty on the basis of their race race ethnicity religion immigration status disability sexual orientation gender identity or for any other reason one concrete step

125that we could take to reassure families that all of our children are valued and safe in our schools would be to send a letter home telling them so a letter home and post it on on our website could also remind parents that they can review our District's code of conduct on our website this document outlines what is considered to be inappropriate behavior while in school reviews the repercussions of such behavior and explains how a victim or witness to a violation of our code of conduct can report it too often our students are led to believe that putting up with harassment is just a right of passage and to of often the adults in their lives respond to such harassment with statements such as kids will be kids what we are seeing happening around us and

126in our very own schools goes beyond kids being kids and we owe our children more than that I believe that a letter acknowledging existing Andor potential discrimination and harassment in our schools may help our families feel safer in sending their children to school in the morning remind our students students of the kind of behavior that is expected of them while in school and clarify for our faculty and staff what they can do to help keep our schools a respectful and safe place to learn last week education commissioner Aaliyah sent a letter to New York State School leaders this letter contains some important recommendations for how school districts can address and I quote a number of disturbing incidents of bias and hate-based acts of bigotry including vandalism harassment bullying and even violence across New York commun

127communities in closing I ask the board have our school administrators read commissioner Aaliyah's letter and what steps are currently being taken to address this very serious issue thank you so I am happy to say that we do not have any incidence of of that type of behavior um here and if you know of any so okay so let me finish so if you know of any as a parent um that the first place that it should be reported is to the building Administration um but when we spoke to the building Administration um we have um actually one one um small event that was taken care of through daa um but I I I read the letter that you know that you're referring to um and I I think it was very well um thought out

128more worded um but I I don't I don't agree part of what you said was you like our schools I don't agree with that part of it so again if if you know of something that I don't know about um or if a child um we just went through a Dasa update for our staff um so that to remind them of the procedure and and part of that but if a student feels at all harassed for any reason they should be reaching out to their school administrators um and we would be handling the situation so I know you can't I know you can't go back and forth but I do want to say that we do value our our children um not just in the enl you know not just in light of the election

129but all the time so I know that it's kind of raised a little bit of concern in other places but um we have not gotten reports that it's occurring here so by your face if you know something different I suggest that maybe you recommend that these parents or students reach out to their building Administration um okay thank you any other public comments hi Jody mfo parent um just a couple of quick things but first I want to PEB back on what Ze said um there have been a few incidences that I've heard of I know that quite often especially young children um don't want to say that this happened or don't want to say that I've been victimized or don't even feel that they've been victimized necessarily it's one of those things that kind of

130eats away at you slowly without you even realizing that it's happening on occasion and just to what was mentioned I do think maybe a letter home or actually um a cousin of mine lives in a school where last week they put signs leading up to the door of the school that just in different colored letters you know every race is welcome here every eth city is welcome here every just to make the kids feel like kind of like instead of saying okay you've been victimized and now we're going to deal with it just kind of preempting it and saying everybody's welcome here everybody's included here kind of spin it into a little bit of a positive so I'm just throwing that out there um another thing I wanted to talk about I know that some

131districts have been talking about homework policies for elementary schools and I think it might have come up here um I've been reading a lot of literature and I apologize I meant to print some out and bring it but I know that there's been some literature on the effectiveness of homework in elementary school particularly doing worksheets when for one thing that time could be spent running around spending family time you know that might be a better use of the time at that age and then also younger children tend to need more help with their homework not all of those children have somebody to help them with their homework it might put certain children in the disadvantage so I was hoping that maybe that was something that we could look at as a district um have the

132homework policy the elementary schools would work and I also wanted to say real quick I know that there was an issue this year with Sergeant school with the kindergartens and the overcrowding and I feel like had that been handled earlier it could have possibly been handled better before it became the situation that it had become and so I wanted to know if moving forward there was a way to look at that there's so much building right now going on a beacon and I drive around and I see all of the apartments being built and all of the the new housing being built and you know it's very probable that families are going to move into those those apartments and they're going to have children and those children are going to need to go to school

133and it would be great to have some kind of plan in place preemptively to know how we would deal with that down the road as the schools become more grounded so thanks thank you so I'll answer the homework policy what I'll do is George is not here tonight so I will let her know that there was a parent public Community member that came forth and would like polic committee so it would be looked at at the policy committee first so we'll look at that and I'll bring that up to Georgia that there was a question about it any other parent uh public comments very short joner uh stakeholder um one request maybe for the future for slide shows that um the idea for this came from going to the comprehensive plan meeting that the city

134just had which was they put the slideshow actually up on the website so that you could watch it on your phone because actually I to reach I had a lot of trouble reading it and it would would have been great to follow it even if it goes up I mean I know that the agenda has to go up on Friday and slideshows may not be ready till close to the last minute but there should be a way to just post that as part of the agenda at the last minute so you can put it up on your phone which would just be fantastic that's all um secondly there was you said something about Community more Community meetings and I'm wondering how those will be publicized so that people can plan for those in advance and

135the third thing and I wasn't and I didn't follow the last meeting so I don't know where this is at but when you mentioned um graphing calcul ERS what I thought about is oh yeah there's this technology Grant and what I'd really love is if our kids had computers um and maybe there's a way some of that could be happening so I'd love an update sometime not in the far future about that thank you thank you so Joan just for the presentation I did ask as um Cecilia was presenting I asked D Mar if we could get it up on the website so people could view afterwards so they're going to import it up to the website afterwards for that component and we are still looking into the technology committee um I think are they

136meeting next month yes I think in December December I I think they're meet in December and that's something that we're going to be bringing out to the technology committee either Anthony or myself we'll be asking for the smart bom act thank you any other public comment all right see you none all right Mar so my report is small because I've already talked about a couple of things so we have a teachers section or no no no we put it with the par uh we put it with the school I said student or School presentation I didn't catch that okay so go ahead thank you good evening John Burns president of Beacon teach Association this is the first time this school year that the beacon Teachers Association has appeared before the Board of Education we were

137cognizant of a period of transition with several new board members Additionally the new school year has gotten off to a good start however and unfortunately we appear before you tonight because we believe that there are several issues that can no longer continue without being addressed when the gentleman from hya the organization that is assisting the district with our superintendent search met with the Union leadership he asked us what He perceived to be the biggest issue within the district what was holding the district back from reaching its potential without hesitation the response was communication we believe that for too long there's been a lack of communication within the district a belief that has been echoed over the last year by many other District shareholders the gentleman for hya said that two recurring themes were present whenever

138he asked this stakeholders that question overwhelmingly a lack of communication and a lack of trust were the responses that the vast majority gave the gentleman asked two other very important questions during the time that we spoke he asked what we thought was the most important of those two was it communication or was it trust what was the number one thing that the district needed to fix in order to move ahead we strongly believe that there can be no trust without communication and since that meeting the beacon Teachers Association has constantly advocated for more frequent transparent and open lines of communication with the district with central office with building Administration and with the Board of Education today we met with three building administrators over issues and in an attempt to keep open the lines of communication

139but ladies and gentlemen unfortunately we have made very little progress in the area of communication and I will address this issue again in a few minutes what we can all agree on is that the beacon city school district has the potential to be great perhaps more so than any other District we have the greatest potential for growth if we can resolve our issues of communication and Trust the second important question that the gentleman from hya asked us was would he be able to with certainty tell the new superintendent that the beacons Teachers Association would be willing to work with him or har and without hesitation we responded Yes however we can all agree that more than any other District perhaps in the state the beacon City School District had a very tumultuous recent past we've

140seen nine superintendant in just over 10 years corruption in the superintendent's position board leadership and the law firm representing the district and over the last decade the beacon teachers have been harmed by all of these things but it has been the beacon Teachers Association that has held we're on a two-minute limit now I thought I got you in during public comment what I got you in during the oh hold on I got you in during the public comment you missed the school and usually it's it's teacher involvement that's why I asked and I I been at the last meeting I didn't know if we change something Mr Burns we changed it and it was on the agenda that it was the uh school student presentation component teachers we change that from teacher section so if

141you reviewed the agenda for tonight's meeting you would have saw that it was a workshop review the agenda student and school presentations which you would fall underneath the parent groups and then open to the public I think I just find it ironic Mr White that we're talking about communication and we're back to shutting it off again so communication has to be two ways and I opened the door so you can come down because you missed the component of where you want so I assume I was under the time frame of what we thought we used to talk about so I I that's why I said 20 seconds to make it clear if you want to hand in what you've written we could definitely look at that component and look at it uh it's just a

142major disappointment on the part of the Union that we keep trying to push this communication agenda it's what the very thing that the gentleman from hyi said we need to fix to bring in a superintendent that can help and we can't we can't break through it we can't break through it okay we got administrators that don't answer emails uh you know it's it's just goes on and on and we can't get through that and uh actually I was going to address you in this because we've had communication issues but if you I don't know if it's communication issues that we've had Mr Burns it's opinions I had I had that Mr White but it was down further in my reading which would have been more than 20 seconds so out the 20 seconds and then

143whatever you have you can hand us further discuss I don't I can't I can't I'd like to make a motion to EXT to suspend the rules and allow Mr Burns to continue his comments second com was to discussion I think there was a misunderstanding and I think that he should be given the time what was the misunderstanding when he should speak because the because it used to say teachers report and now it doesn't but was it on the agenda I'm just saying I think there's a misunderstanding and we can give him the time and that's how come we let him come up when position passed I think the motion is I think the motion that Mr Wolf is making is a plea for flexibility in this one case so then how are we going to

144determine when the flexibility needs to be in place and when it doesn't Happ of the so I feel like I'm just asking so what's the what's the criteria we're having discussion about I'm not saying no I'm just saying what be the criter for then well I think that this would be really hold Mr Burns we may act upon it so don't don't see that it's just that we need to have clear operating understanding and I just want to make sure that we're going that path go ahead M you I think that um in this case uh if we're considering it you know the student um school presentations then there really is no time limit so recognizing that the agendo item was not recognized at that time you know we if we couch it under there

145then then really has the amount of time needs in order to get his point acoss he would but since that pass that item from what I was doing was I saw that he did not come up he asked a question and I knew that we didn't go on to the interm superintendent report so there was still time in the public session so I I said why don't you come down now for that component I that was theing I think it's just a one time pass I okay so we had the discussion so all those in favor of uh Mr Wolf's motion to extend it and alleviate the 3 minutes I opposed I so it was 7 to two uh 6 to2 go ahead Mr Burns I lost by place you were talking about um hya

146and the um the new super okay [Music] and as I was saying we we've made very little progress in this area and I mention that the district has potential but we need to resolve these issues of communication and Trust the second important question I said was that we would work with the superintendent um and then I talked about some of the issues that we've had in the past and I think that we would be remiss if we didn't recognize those as we look to the head I think the teachers have done a phenomenal job over the last decade because as I was saying despite all that had gone on the teachers were able and determined to go into their classroom and offer the students the best possible education we saw massive involuntary transfers of teachers

147with which without a doubt were retary in nature and finally last year we witnessed an unlikely Revolution where several major forces combined to bring about drastic change some have voiced their opinions to just move on but the reason that we bring up these examples is because we need to understand the obstacles that we have must overcome if we are to move forward if we are to affect positive change if we are to become great the beacon teachers know exactly why we are here the students without the students we have no job we have no Mission but the students come and go parents come and go and certainly administrators come and go so the one constant the beacon city school district for over 25 30 35 and even 40 years is the teachers and yet the

148teachers have generally been taken for granted in our district trust we know that trust takes a long time to be earned but trust can be lost in an instant some of you have asked why more teachers don't take advantage of this part of the agenda to come up and talk about the many great things that the teachers are doing in our classrooms it's trust communication and Trust ladies and gentlemen we have a lot of work to do some people are hopeful that the new superintendent will arrive and like a superhero with a nest on their chest make everything good and Beacon that will most likely not happen unless we do whatever is necessary to bring about an environment of trust and communication we can start to improve by having Central administration building Administration respond to

149emails and questions and they are not alone since the Board of Education members have gotten district emails the beacon Teachers Association has sent three emails to individual board members without a response two board meetings ago the BTA requested to speak with the board of education on a Personnel matter we were told that the board would be surveyed we requested an answer in enough advance of the meeting so that we could know whether to prepare our comments for the executive session or for the public forum we received the reply the night of the meeting at 6:56 p.m. 4 minutes before the meeting was set to begin communication we appreciate the stated intentions of the new board members who wanted to bring transparency accountability and a real sense of community involvement to the board those are admirable

150qualities but in addition to policymaking and legislation we had hoped that the Board of Education would have wherever possible corrected some of the many egregious wrongs that have been done in the past by our administrators board members and legal councel trust last year the district in the union had an agreement with regards to a veteran teacher who had been mistreated by the last two administrations we we agreed to correct those wrongs but somehow that got so convoluted that it became unrecognizable by the Board of Education and all the all the and although the Board of Education gave our last superintendent a $62,000 severance package despite obvious and clearly stated conditions in our contract that should have prevented it they cannot see fit to rectify a situation with a veteran teacher the superintendent who received the

151$62,000 sance package served in our district without distinction for less than 5 years the veteran teacher that the district turned its back on is entering her ninth year of service and will most likely be around for another 20 to 25 years and still we have no answers so we are out $62,000 and we have permanently fractured the relationship with a dedicated teacher for what amounts to be $6,000 communication two summers ago a 27-year veteran teacher in the district came to the board of education and under the district's own whistleblower policy enacted by the Board of Education told the board of inappropriate beh aior and actions by the then superintendent the board of education did everything in its powers to make the situation go away sweep it under the carpet even in the face of overwhelming

152evidence that the accusations were true to this day several of our board members do not acknowledge the events and after a year and a half this dedicated teacher in the district has not been indentified by the district for the board's own policy the ex superintendent got $62,000 the dedicated 27-year teacher doesn't even get an answer Trust the beacon Teachers Association again declares its willingness to work with the new superintendent in the spirit of cooperation to bring our district to the level of greatness we know it can achieve we just need a little time to work on communication and Trust thank you thank you Mr Burns um I just want to state that there are some facts there that I don't agree with that you make perceive as facts that I know pertain to my communication

153with you and I just want to point out that that is totally not true did you send me a text at 6:56 p.m. absolutely as a followup when I asked for it so that I could to prepare I feel like okay can I just say One S are are you speaking on behalf of the board or is an individual right now that was because that was insinuated towards myself but I don't think that was clear from his comments and so I think that in terms of it was uh when I know the context that it was meant in absolutely it was well you mentioned he sent it to a few board members and I'm not sure okay just I'm I'm saying that intern superintendent report I want to start off by um saying what a

154wonderful job our students um and staff did um in the production of Greece over the weekend so I wanted to start with a happy note and I'm hoping that a lot of people went to see it it was very crowded on Friday when I was there and I know that um they worked EX extremely hard and you could see that from the whole performance every minute of it um Cecilia mentioned the 21st century grants so I'm not uh going to mention that again thank you for doing that um but we're all very excited about that we will keep you posted about the status the lead testing I spoke to during um public comment and again if you have any other comments on the high school results will be posted um as soon as we have

155them and if you have questions please um go on the website and get Mr sell's email or email me and I can follow it to him um directly lastly I want to mention about the vision um committee meeting we had one uh last week um and we worked with a small group just to decide how to get the word out um to have the communication go out the uh we talked about getting launching a survey which is on the website um because there are people that just can't make another night meeting um or have other things um going on that will deter them from coming we're going to talk about involving our staff having them meetings earlier in the day um but please reach out on our website and um complete our survey we'd like

156to get a good representation um of all of the stakeholders in the district thank you board comments Kristen well of course I want I just the reason why I asked about the communication reference to Mr Bird's comments is I think that we don't have to necessarily engage in a back and forth this is his perception and the perception of the teachers and they want to share it with of the board and I I don't necessarily think it was clear that um that there you know this specific incident that it was you and before we engage in a back and forth with the teachers union i' prefer if we spoke as a board sure so apologies for any um possible in consideration on my part um I'd like to talk a little bit about um Miss

157dz's comments um I when I uh applied to be on the school board I spoke about a project that I worked on which was a mental health needs assessment of the New York City public school kids after September 11th it was meant to inform curriculum and it was um designed in a concert between the CDC and the mailman School of Public Health um 10,000 kids were surveyed and the thing that was um the most interesting is that um there were schools around Ground Zero that received a lot of um interventions and you know once they returned to their buildings or if they were displaced um very much LED with you know getting kids to talk about things engaging in what was happening around the world and not inside those buildings necessarily uh one of the

158the findings of that study was um and and often in the schools that were the hardest for us to gain access to because they weren't around Ground Zero was that um the incidents of uh xenophobia the incidents of um anxiety separation anxiety depression were much higher in schools where the principal said this didn't affect us it just wasn't we weren't nearby we didn't it didn't even impact our building I think um in our district there are there is the brick and mortar but what our district really is leaves these buildings and goes out into the world every day and there are things happening in the world right now and the goal would be to um as Mr Roger said if it's mentionable it's manageable to lead with discussing that we have no idea how kids

159are internalizing these messages the fears they might hold it doesn't have to be presented from the side of of of politics it can be presented from the side of culture and it's something that I can say um very specifically I know that there was a lot of chatter in my kids school around you know different issues that were happening outside the world I mean these are Elementary school kids and then just by a well-timed um a well-timed presentation from uh a man named uh David shavali I hope I pronounce it right from songs fun which just happened to be scheduled for the Friday after the election um they talked about respect about um honoring one another about um your personal responsibility I think the word bully was mentioned once um it is on the glenham

160Twitter feed I I saw a complete change in and the kids just what they were thought about completely reframed how they looked at themselves and the world and uh all that other chatter stopped and so I think that it's not to say that something wrong is happening here it's to say there's a lot happening around us and we can only take responsibility for what happens here and what we how we frame the discussion here so we should do it um and then uh I did not have the chance to attend the comprehensive plan but I'm hoping that um some other members of The Beacon School Community um were able to because I really think the sooner that just based on the discussion through the firehouse and through what's going on now with um the comprehensive

161plan the school is a part of that community and I I'm hoping that we can engage in a more um sort of direct discussion as it relates to um our purposes here and uh that's it thank you Mike from the uh facilities and operations committee I mentioned last time we uh we had met once in the next meeting was going to be December 5th I think we're going to we're looking for an alternate date because I can't attend it um but one one thing I wanted the board members to think about and actually even I would ask for in the community if there's ideas of you know Capital Improvement projects that we may have ideas of P things we may want to see in our district um it would be good to consider them and

162get them part of a plan now um at least for consideration one thing we talked about um the significant building in Beacon maybe we need to consider where those Pockets may be right compan has a plan where those Pockets may be where our facilities are and and because we're going to be it's a fiveyear plan that really starts in 2019 so you're talking 2019 to 2024 I mean that's very far out there so we want to be able to try to consider some of those things um the I wanted to say that uh there I saw later down down later in the agenda I want to say was a good job with the CSC meetings because if you look at the dates they're all recent or future it's not from from six or eight months

163ago so that's I want to recognize that that we're seeing progress with those CSC meetings so that's a positive you know indication I was happy to see that um we think we had a comment if there's workshops if there's at all possible to have the slides ahead of time so I can we can look at them ahead of time and then pay attention instead of trying to read and listen at the same time I think it would really help and and lastly um with the vision committee as we go forward um especially in the light of you know Mr Burns's comments I would I would expect or hope that he would encourage the um you know BTA membership to participate you know to actively get involved because if we want to talk about communication like

164we mentioned here there's it's got to be a two-way street there's opportunity for them to provide you know feedback and input into these things so um I would hope that I hope he would still be here but um that he would encourage members of the BTA to attend and participate and be part of that that's all cor thank you um nice presentation from uh Cecilia tonight uh a lot of information in there uh I want to say that I also appreciate the insights offered by Mr Smith uh I do believe that parent involvement uh can be upgraded U I've seen it work uh I don't know that it goes comprehensively on everything but I think that that's a step forward um we have um looking at his idea of a step two that is where

165the board gets involved in an earlier stage I'm not sure exactly where that belongs but once we see this in writing we probably can pick it apart and find a way that the board can have some degree of input at an earlier stage how much I don't know maybe it's just you know pass it through and Say Goodbye continue keep up the do the work or perhaps we have issues but they need to be raised prior to the point at which it becomes effectively just a r St so uh another step I think is would be Step Zero which is when do you know that a vacancy actually exists there's a problem with the system that everybody in the world seems to have which is that they they follow the standard HR systems which are

166good as where as far as they go and they start usually one step too late what happens between the time when an actual vacancy occurs and when it becomes officially noticed is it the Insiders get the inside scoop and therefore it is fundamentally unfair and cannot be made Fair unless you get that word out publicly at the earliest possible opportunity that there is some kind of an opening potential so I think we need to develop some kind of early warning notice that says hey we got a vacancy and what happens if we decide as a board that we want to talk about creating a new position or if the administration wants to propose or some faculty group wants to propose some new position at what point does that become a public discussion when it's too

167late or when we have time to talk about it what about when somebody is being proposed for not getting tenure that's going to create a vacancy probably how do we handle that so there's a number of questions here that I think need to be plugged into this Matrix turning to happier thoughts those don't require any additional work from us that production of Grease was uh thoroughly enjoyable uh there were still some empty seats in that Auditorium I don't know why uh on Friday night anyway but by the way are we doing anything with regard to the sound system in that Hall I don't believe it's adequate I think there's room for investment I don't know if this is a capital project or whether it's something that's being handled in a shorter range format but that

168Hall doesn't have an adequate amount of of speakers to be able to carry everybody's comments we we seem to be making some progress in terms of the U the Sennheiser system you know the audio the radio system for remote microphones are cleverly hidden on the singers um but uh there's good deal of difficulty hearing of all the words once you get farther back in the hall and I've been in a lot of Halls that have a lot better speaker system than that one so I'll leave it to the uh interim superintendent to tell me if something's going on or whether we should address that in the capital I I will tell you that that um we were last year when we were lucky enough to get money from um assembly scart that money was earmarked

169to do some major work in the theater so I I don't know if you remember last year but I think we only had one speaker which I believe blew in one of the spring concerts um so we did a huge upgrade in the theater I know that on Friday night when I attended there was some feedback but I think it was more microphone phones from the kids standing close to each other um but the I mean I remember the way the sound was last year so the sound this year I thought was awesome I don't know I could talk to Mr Dine who um had the company come in and do that just to see um my understanding was everything was done with it it to me it sounded um a thousand times better than

170it did in the spring because we had a lot of issues with the speakers and with the amplifiers and there were things that needed to be um upgraded so are you saying that speaker there weren't enough speakers to hear is that what you're I just need to there's much more sophisticated layout that can be designed by people who are really expert in this field so I think we should probably have some experts look at it not I'm glad to see that there's some repairs obviously bringing something back up to Snuff is half fle but it might not be all we needs otherwise it's a really great call and I think the kids deserve the effort that they're putting into it that we bring all the facilities up to where Anthony um before I do my

171report um Ken you're covering George's report you want me to do that I have George's report highlight and gave okay all right so I'll just cover my um uh first of all i' like to thank cilia for presentation um it was a um it was very robust for uh um something that was within a short period of time um and hopefully uh we can continue working it over and um um we always want the school isue to be the best it can be um and can graduate um C Amero for her award um I also want to report that I attended the Veterans Day ceremony in Beacon um and at the end of the ceremony it was asked about the veterans tax exemption so I asked that Mar inform me that the uh the district

172had approved the exemption but no forms are needed if the town or city approves the veterans exemption we just provide the same um I attended the school play Greece I I'd like to thank the beacon players for the complimentary tickets it was a great show wanted to commend the beacon players including Mr scroll Mr Divine and the rest of the staff and the students both the actors and the support groups um I also like to commend the district on providing the more robust acid train to the staff on November 8th um um I have a question about um when is the technology committee and if I can get past minutes from your meetings um also I want to um this is something that I did back in September um which is kind of related to

173some of the topics that are coming up now but I did sign on I was invited by um County Legislature uh francina uh to sign on to a letter open letter uh rejecting hate and anti-muslim bigotry um and I joined 500 other elected officials across the country uh it was penned by a local progress uh which is a u advocacy for National mpal policy Network um so going back to the topic that coming up today is you know I feel ignorance is bliss uh there is a danger of Under reporting for fear of retaliation um I do intend to uh make a motion um that we uh discuss what the district action should be on that um and uh also I would like the district to host um something that's provided free by the county

174a psychological first aid training um so they can come down here and teach the class to the community so yes um first I want to just kind of uh talk quickly about Mr vit's uh statement um I'm sort of going to emphasize what you're you were saying as well Kristen um uh I'm always a little nervous when somebody brings up a subject that uh may not that they talk about specific incidents that are actually not happening currently in our district I mean sometimes people come up here and read the newspaper and it's like oh God there's a public thing that's happening here um so I I but I I was you know I thought you were pretty clear that you were not talking about specific incidents here just you know sort of the climate that's

175been um cast by as a result of uh the entire election process um I I do think that it's um you know the way the the election process went uh the amount of publicity and the negativity in the campaign and and some of the statements made by the by some of the candidates um you know have sort of emboldened people that um to um advocate for and do things that are I think not in in the kind of U things that we believe our our children should be U involved with so you know from that perspective I I think it is important this particular circumstance to be somewhat proactive and uh and perhaps um have you know either a let it go home or some sort of conversation with with the students um just to

176let them you know know what is what is what do we consider our our U the behaviors that we we want them to model uh what what do we feel is are beliefs that we want them to have um and and uh and and just let them know that this this should be a safe environment for as a district we should be doing everything we can to uh ensure that that's true for them um the second thing I just wanted to mention is U um you may have gotten an email just just in case you didn't um from the dut County School Board Association um that the Thursday December 1st uh the guest will be Dr Rick Tims who's the executive director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium um he'll be presenting about state aid

177how to read the state aid runs uh what key items look for what issues arise and how to identify them and he's going to tail his presentation for The Duchess County districts so he's going to provide valuable guidance on how to evaluate your state aid um how it compares to other state aid and how to Advocate effectively for your District when it comes time to uh Advocate with our legislators as far as our state aid um if you want to come they are asking in this particular case since they're assuming that there's going to be more people and only come to the meeting is to um RSVP um by the 28th so if you feel it's um if you get the letter if you can either RSVP directly or if You' rather tell me and

178I can just give a count um and see it's open to any any staff in the district superintendent uh board members as as well and we're just trying to get a count because the room where we currently have meetings is you know really can't hold too many people beyond the the normal group that comes and they're looking to see if if they have to have different room at at the poies facility um if you want to know more about the um Statewide School Finance asso www.statewidefcu.org you know a nonprofit organization advocates for uh um for all school districts in the state as far as trying to get the appropriate levels of Aid thank you Bill Mary um I also just wanted to thank Miss deitz for her statement and I think that it is an

179opportunity to be proactive even if we don't have any um any stories uh I mean that I guess that's good but possibly not accurate um maybe can be folded into PBIS or something but I think we this is an opportunity um and we should be proactive rather than reactive um I also I was one of the two people to attend the vision Anthony and I were at the vision committee meeting and um we talked a lot about moving forward what we're going to do um I wonder with the survey how the survey is going to be rolled out to parents whether it be a letter or an email um when we put it on the website I haven't rolled it out to the parents so we can send it out via email I can um

180tell the building administrators we first rolled it out to the staff um just to make sure we got all the Kinks out um because there was a little bit of a technical issues so now that's all rolled out um I will figure out the best way to get it to parents um I'll put it on um the Facebook page I have gotten an increase in that um as well we're trying we're actually working through our school messenger system just to make sure it's all up and running just in case there's snow the weekend made me a little nervous about that so if we can get the text message portion or the email portion up running that would be a good way for me to do that too thank you okay so I'm charged with um

181reading George's report in her absence um the following policies are being presented as a first read so it would be policy 1740 relationship with nonpublic schools I'm loading of textbook software clarified um policy 1741 homeschool students instructional materials loaned um if available um maintain that H school students will not participate in intramural sports extracurricular activities School sponsored activities um policy 3100 superintendent of schools policy 3120 duties of the superintendent um part of our rollover of e policy sections there were no recommended changes here on policy 40 43 21.8 impartial hearing officer appointment and compens compensation um clarification of payment and cancellation of need for the hearing offic so was addressed um policy 6700 is purchasing recommended changes from order report Amar could speak to this if if needed um policy 6650 the claims ordered up

182um a stiping position Amory also can speak to this if needed and we are requesting that the first read is way for the following policy 11 is that correct 11 121206 that's a lot of numbers 1121 2016 thank you Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and section 5504 of The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 this PO was out of date this policy was out of date and all changes um the next policy um committee meeting will be held on Monday December 5th at 700 p.m. and um I did make a note that the policy committee should take a look at the homework policy um in elementary schools so that's a note for Georgia so that we can discuss that at the meeting um for my own um activities um I was fortunate to attend the uh

183um board officers Academy I found I found it very fulfilling um there was a lot of information in there um I just wanted to know what my role was as a um a vice president and and so that I could be user friendly for the board and find ways to bring about cohesion amongst us so um there's a lot of reading um I did make copies to share um and there are some uh little activities that if we have time we can you know do at a later date um but it was a very a very very good um um event and I appreciate um going um I have uh questions about um grow your own as the students are always uh the main uh focus of what I do and why I sit here

184so just getting the status on that um navian is something that has been on my radar for more than a year so this November is now a year and I I don't I don't understand like where we're at with it and and I want to know where we're going um so I did a little bit of research on Navan um and and I just want to say that it is a comprehensive K to2 College and Career Readiness solution that helps um districts and schools align students strengths and interest um so it helps parents and students high schools and middle schools um neighboring districts are utilizing navian um if it is something that the district is going to consider I would appreciate possibly I don't know if I have to make a motion to have a

185a workshop on navian but um if that is what I need to do to get it on the the board so that we can take a look at it um to afford the teachers um and the the parents um to the ability to have a program that seems to be uh very effective um there is an in issue cost to that I did look at that and then there are ongoing um cost to to keep it flowing there is training um but this is a matter that has come up you know more than a year ago and I believe um had um some substance to it um presented as the reasoning behind it and I think that you know we all say that you know Beacon kids deserve better um and I think that we

186do um deserve to be aligned with our counterparts in in other districts and we need to afford the administrators um that are willing to put in the work to give the students the best opportunities and if we can shape and and and identify our students from the middle school and have something a profile for each one of them going throughout High School I think would enable the guidance departments to work more effectively and efficiently so um just let me know if if I need to make the motion to uh to have have that um happen um I did attend Greece um again kudos to the parents and teachers um and to the students who work very hard to to to put that together um it's always a phenomenal um time for me to watch the

187students perform and um and bring out the best um I I you know commend the community who always shows up for these events um and supports them and all of the many volunteers that going to make it each day a success from the vendors um to the to the custodial staff um it's it's just good to see it it makes you proud I and lastly um for Miss pomco like kud kudos to her um for her success um I'm really happy to see you know when they stand there in unison together supporting one another I think that my um I've been fortunate in this District to see teachers that support each other that stand by each other to lift them up to push them forward to encourage them and so if you see that amongst

188the teachers you know that they're spreading that amongst the students and and for me it makes me proud as a parent and as a member of the the school board to continue to see that um as it relates to any emails that I receive specifically um addressed to me I've answered all emails that have sent to me whether they are nice or not I find that anyone who sent takes the time out to write something to you deserves a response so that the record reflect that anything that is sent to Kenya gazda Kenya gazda will answer if there's something sent to the board we now have an established communication policy that is set up to give that person um a response back within a timely fashion um and that's all I have thank you can

189I answer some of I know some of the answers thank you I like when I get answers so Kenya grow your own um we are still in the process of trying to find out where the program is at Marist um and we're going to reach out again as Dr Sullivan the person that was spear heading it from Maris College was doing it as a doctoral um portion and we do not know who is in charge of it now so um we will call again and find out um and the other part about navian so the good news is our guidance um coordinator is this year is Anna Orlando and she's done a great amount of work about navian she sent both Cecilia and I a new proposal she sent us a whole memo on how

190it would roll out and she's really trying instead of doing it mid year she's trying to get it started so that we could do the training um in March April and May so that it could start up and running in July so we're we're investigating going through a Bose's coaster so that we can get Bose's Aid um but she did a lot of the leg work for us so I really appreciate that from her um and we're going to include it in the budget process so stay tuned okay yay go [Music] students all right I just have one comment and it's uh in regards to the reclaim uh New York well suit that was filed against the district um um and this statement is on behalf of the board the beaking city school district was

191recently named in the lawsuit by reclaim New York for not complying with the Freedom of Information law foil it is with a regret that the board as well as the District administration acknowledges that this was an oversight by the district since the suit has come forward the district has released the information requested to reclaim New York the information was sent to reclaim New York on Wednesday November 16th 2016 the district was uh had has reviewed our foil procedures and will strive to implement them in a timely and responsive manner with regards to all future foils request it is the board's goal as well as the district administrators uh to be transparent with the business of the district we will continue to work towards this goal um right now we do have some uh foil requests

192that we are working on but we did look at the procedures as to how we respond to foil requests and we do strive to answer them in a timely manner um so we can't turn back the clock but we did give them the information that they requested any anybody want to bring anything up for unfinished business should I so I would like to make a motion for a special meeting uh to have a special meeting on November 28th um where we will meet with hya to um and they'll present um information on their search to us so it be a special executive s session no action taken 6:00 start 6 o' start second committees at six you the a committees at six make it at seven I think Seven's okay I don't know we cross

193out hold up does she have a second I gave a second can you gave a second I 10 for six but um yeah I do have a six cuz we had a seven and we cross out you have the committee we got I I think it's probably fine we could do so yeah check with yeah okay all those in favor of the special board meeting November 28th at 7 o'cl start motion carry okay unfinished business I like to make a motion to discuss the safety officer and the status of it does he have a second srl second okay so Anthony srl yeah um in the board before I became part of the board um there was discussion about the meeting with the uh the mayor and talking about an SRO um and um it it

194is my understanding that City actually is applying for monies to fund that they applied for a grant um and I just told recently that they didn't get the grant okay um but the both the mayor um and the chief of police are still very interested in getting an SRO um the district would have to make a commitment probably um in regards to maybe paying 50% of the salary and benefits they would have to hire an officer so we're still in that part um hold on one second Anthony we're jumping the G so there was a motion for to discussion can you second it all in favor of having the discussion motion opposed motion carried go ahead I'm sorry are you done you so um um yeah I don't know I for some reason I don't

195remember this topic being fully vetted um at the board maybe it was and I wasn't there um but I do have concerns about an SRO um in the school um um for example our policy 53006 you know allows the um student to be U um inter interrogated uh they're not entitled to Miranda type warning uh they're nor contact with the student parent before questioning um but if that's done in front of ano who has arresting powers and they they they admit to a violation of the law it does I believe it does obligate the police officer to make an arrest I think St that's one just one um that's just one bad example of and I'm sure there's probably a lot of good examples where s r are helpful um I I would like to

196uh look into this uh more and make sure that if we do bring on an SRO that it's done right um that's there really to enforce the law and not to enforce the school policy also don't want to you know create an environment where it's a you know school to prison by point would I well we we're not the motion was to have a discussion on it you want to have the discussion tonight or you want to have the discussion in future board meetings to put it on for a discussion I don't think that we're all going to have all the information on SRO to have a worthy discussion tonight so I I took that as you want to add that on to a future board meeting for a discussion sure I mean it sounds

197like this it's not it's not something that has legs at the moment but it but but it's it's being sought to have legs um I would like to better understand um um the need for an SRO what the parameters are for the SR uh um benefits um restrictions you know so that we don't um we don't exercise an SRO in a bad way you know if it there any benefit we do it in a good way okay anything else that anybody wants forward is this a similar I we had a officer in this in the high school for years and I guess he he retired or something so was that the same similar position we're talking about he was a youth officer in Beacon police he was not paid for by the district at all

198he just happened to be here a lot but um the city of Beacon is struggling they have one youth detective right now um who is also shared as being a regular detective so he doesn't you know have the time to just spend with the school district so um that was actually a luxury at the time we didn't have any financial responsibility but he was able to come to the district he was here and um I I don't know if he was effective I mean I don't know what his actual duties were but I think there was a model of of of example of it happening in the past I want to so Anthony's concerns sound like you know you know by incorporating this it may have you know may not be you know may be

199some difficulties in you know clarifying his his roles and responsibilities but we've done it in the past if it's a similar type of look well we haven't had an SRO so he was a he was a near he was a city of Beacon police officer in the youth division there were two um in the youth division at the time so what they could spend a lot of time here and SRO model is a little bit different and I don't want to speak to it without really doing a little bit more research I think we could look at other districts that have SRO to get that information to see how they utilize that that safety uh mhm school resource officer good thanks okay and that's some of the things that we'll look together for when we

200have when we put on for a discussion sure I appreciate if it can be a future agenda okay anybody else have any finish business okay I heard no I just was thinking about the diversity committee did you establish what we're going to do that or that got resolved like I'm a little yeah so um um there was a mix up with in terms of diversity Community was a mix up with the uh I guess when we going to beet in December so Merida says she's fine with December 5th you're fine with December 5th um but the duties like we were supposed to um look at the data split the data so that we can do a possible workshop on the information right so happen yeah the committee meeting right I thought we would go over

201that at the committee meeting I mean I I hopefully we would already know what what our what data we were going to be kind of focusing on so that we could bring it to each other we can get that that's something that we have to work on as the diversity committee yeah okay the consent agenda so 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 relative routine matters which are included any member of the board who wishes to discuss individually particular piece of business and Cass may do so indicate in the item will be considered and voted on separately th preserving the right of all board members to be heard on any issue does anybody have anything

202that they want P atie just for a point of clarification um I'm trying to find where new business is did we delete did not put on the business today if you know if you review the agenda if you don't see a section on there it's because one I didn't see any new business component and so I didn't get an email about new business so we kept it unfinished business because I know that you communicated that you wanted to have a discussion about the SR so that's why I promted you to give that okay I mean during my report today I also mentioned that I wanted to bring something else into the business so um if it goes under I don't know where it goes it's not unfinished business yes good so if it's not if

203there's no new finish bu you can make a motion at any point in the meeting can we finish the consent agenda first we we started to consent agenda so we we still have to go forth and we're going to we have a proposed second executive session then we have that component so you can bring that up I want to bring it up right in the middle of the consent J all right I'll bring it up after 11 is that fair is there anything else that needs to be is there anything that wants to be pulled from the consent agenda yes mik 11.07 11.09 and 11.4 anything else 111 use the micophone 11.10 11.10 yes home school anything else I'm going to pull 11.04 D3 and 11.08 we'll start with 11.04 D3 oh hold up hold

204[Music] on I need a motion to accept the consent agenda minus 11.04 D3 11.07 11.09 11.14 11.1 10 and 11.08 so mve Anthony is there a second second Mike comments of questions all those in favor I all those opposed motion carried any motion um I need a motion for 11.04 D3 motion for 11 1143 is there a second second comments or questions all those in favor I I all those oppos I'm abstaining oh okay 11.07 I need a motion for 11.07 motion for 11.07 Kristen I a second second Chon comments and questions um on the on the budget transfers okay page two of three it's this it's the second page in the in the actually it's the first page the bottom of the first page is a transfer there's two transfers I want to ask

205about the first one is $400,000 between those two accounts I'm wondering what the transfer is for which which number is it to the left uh it will be well there's it's 8817 okay okay and then it's I can tell you it's Alpha D1 130 120 to 13 I can answer the $400,000 one a2110 120 and a2110 130 are both teacher codes one is an elementary one is a secondary so it was it was a matter of teachers being um the way it was budgeted it wasn't Broken Out In total it was correct but in between the two budget code so we're we're taking the money from 120 to cover 130 to make sure that people we're trying to budget the teachers salaries in exactly what they're doing so secondary or not from elementary to secondary

206elementary to secondary correct the the next one is um well the total is the $363,000 it was uh 21110 161 to 164 the other way around 16 yes so 161 um to oh it goes all the way down to 22501 151 right so when we're doing when we're doing the budget um in February and March so we're budgeting in certain those are all payroll codes so the goal this the goal is to make sure that the actual people that we hire are in the correct code and some times when you do the budget you're not anticipating exactly how it's going to be filled so that's in an in and out it's not an adding of Staff it's just making sure that the money covers into the budget code where they're being appropriately charged so that's

207why you see a lot of ins and outs but if you look at the second group of numbers there so on we see 160 160 are um Civil Service staff 150 are teacher staff so that journal entry covers all of the codes to make sure that there's enough money in the budget code because the teacher salary is is already um being charged to the budget code does that make sense okay it was different because it's from 21 2110 to 2250 right but that's not so that's not a a directed 2110 164 and 21101 165 it's only about the $84,000 or no the 3362 $363,000 so that was 21 110161 right that looks like a teaching assistant code um because it has to do with um putting money into a reg one is regular Ed one

208special ed so to make sure that the people working in the positions are being charged to the right code and then the Money Follows to make sure the budget code is appropriately covered okay okay all right thank you any other discussion all those in favor I oppos motion Carri um need a motion for 11.09 motion for 11.09 Kenyon is there a second second Bill con questions on 11.09 question on the wording this was 1740 okay on the under instructional computer hardware and software loan it states and there's just the wording didn't make sense to me the board recognizes right responsibility to loan instructional computer hardware and software upon request all pupils legally attending non-public Elementary or secondary schools located in a school district and I it just I'm just asking if that statement is actually

209correct because it's if you don't specify Elementary and secondary they could consider uh preschool all Tres legally attending nonpublic Elementary or secondary schools located in the school district but if they're outside the school district school is inside the school is inside the school district but we only loan computer hardware and software to students that live in Beacon that attend the school inside the district so it's students located in the school district not the schools located in the school dist the school no the schools in the school's here so we have a non non-public school here but we only loan hardware and software for our students because the these non-public schools actually have students from other districts it's their responsibility to loan instructional computer hardware software I think I think an example would be the best

210like if there was a student that was attending um a pario school here in in Beacon in Beacon in Beacon the district where that student resides from would be responsible for buying textbooks for that kid that's where you live so the wrench into that Mike is let's say that the student is classified and goes to school in Beacon then it's the District of location's responsibility for some components of that because they would create an for that but it's it gets confusing but it's the District of residence legally attend yes okay yes all right thank you now maybe just I just want to jump on to all people legally attending does that mean that when you say legally attending it means they're in they're a school district resident legally attending um I mean is a is

211a student from outside of District who's attending that school are they considered legally attending it I mean it's that that word my my interpretation of Legally attending would mean that they were Beacon City School District resident going to a school within Beacon I mean the wording could be a little bit different but this is the I mean because really it's like all all it's it's really it's all all pupils of the beacon City residing in Beacon City School District attending nonone Public elementary or Secondary School located in the beacon City School District or in this in our school district or whatever you want right I mean it's there's there's two things as you mentioned there's one is the district the student has to be a a resident in our district and and even that's kind

212of iffy because sometimes there's people that are residence here but they're responsi another District too so I mean it get get even more complicated so I don't know what the exact wording is well the the intent and the I mean the textbook and instructional um computer hardware and software loan the process is only for Beacon students because the essence is that you pay Beacon taxes and so your child is eligible for transportation textbooks um if you think that wording is different then we should change it textbook does say to Children residing the district you know then it just says any public public school cuz so I mean there's only really one restriction for the for the textbooks it's they have to be a resident of our district we don't right so there's two restrictions for

213the software so for example um we have loan computer equipment to a non Public School within Beacon but it's Hardware so we would give them the number of Hardware that they need per students there but I can't guarantee that only our students use the you know so it's it's a little bit hard we have to pretty much ask how many of how many students do you have who reside on the district and that's how many we give them how they use it after that we can't we can't right we can't control I don't know the language okay or you have to well it sounds like it's correct written correctly um as long as people interpret that word of pupil's Legally attending to mean someone who is a district resident right and that's consistent with what

214is policies said it's not like we totally adjusted it and said hey let's just throw the word legally in there as a policy committee all those in favor I I all those opposed motion Carri 11.14 11.10 first 11.14 I took it as the way they were I need a motion for 1114 motion for 11.14 a second second Anthony my question is I think that we had some kind of a an assessment that we you know we need to enhance this policy this is this is the new policy new policy so so our old policy was extremely short right so does this meet all the requirements that we committed to um for this policy yes and in on top of that I also have the regulation and I have a checklist that will be attached as

215well and the checklist will Define exactly what was in the report and what the you will start seeing the new checklist and um the internal claims auditor will be using that checklist that will help support everything that we put in that document with the state controller's office I I have a question about that just this is um just a point of clarification that I'd like um does the auditor are they supposed to deliver that report to you first or to the board first internal claims auditor does it directly to the board I don't have anything to do with it okay so the report that we received was that something that was delivered to the board prior to my joining the board which the last the last the controller's office report yes that that's that came

216out in June okay yes um so that was an audit that was done in the spring okay um and it wasn't clear um that things went directly to the board okay our internal F auditor has been doing it for many years he doesn't come to the board meetings Okay um and they found that certain things although he might look at them aren't documented in appropriate way so I had a um I'm going to update the checklist he does have a checklist um but we were trying to use the new forms that are on the website now that we run off of New Vision so now it would go he would deliver that report to the board that that always goes it goes to the district clerk okay and then it I don't get involved in

217that at all even before it goes right to Kelly and then Kelly puts it on thank you any other comments from point4 all those in favor I oppos motion Carri 11.10 motion for 11.10 can you second n comments or questions so a question here it relates to the part about uh students who are uh homeschooled to not participate in any intermural sports extra cor or other school sponsored activities pretty broad they're not allowed to participate in say that again it says the district does not permit homeschooled students to participate in any intramural sports extracurricular activities or other school sponsored activities um is that what we really want to do I know there was a debate on this about a year ago in this board and I realized that the inter Scholastic Sports there's a commissioner's

218regulation on that I should mention that it was approached by a parent and shed some light on this apparently his son was able to uh enroll in an inter Scholastic sport even though homeschooled until it was found out he was homeschooled and then he was off and was rather Disturbed at this so it sort of raises the question this is not so much policy but implementation how do we monitor this to make sure that we don't have the unfortunate circumstance of somebody Craig I think you have answer getting pumped the the um the choice of inter Scholastic Sports is not our choice so that is dictated um the student um was we didn't know that this student was homeschooled when it when they um registered dist so we're not allowed to um so that's different

219so the only thing the board's discretion is whether to allow H schooled students to be in in murals or extracurricular activities and I know that conversation was discussed at Great length both ways so this this policy has been on and off for first read probably at least five times um but the thought the thought process was with the policy committee um was that a homeschooled student um would you know would be difficult for them to come and join extracurricular activities if there was a school play whether or not you know that's would fall under extracurricular activities and whether or not it would be fair if they're not attending school during the day if they should be able to come and do that that was kind of the discussion at the policy are they pay taxes

220in the district these are people that reside in the district yeah but one of the thoughts were because again originally like it it flowed and then there was more discussion on it and what what was was found in a discussion is that a homeschool student would take away um possibly can take away the lead in the play from a student who's actively involved and engaged after the school and so um when we looked at it from that window after the discussion it it made some sense that the the student that is here involved daily should have more access to those things and that right should not be taken away from a student who um you know because the student is homeschooled like we didn't at first we didn't want to take away from The Homeschool

221student but then when we looked at it from the other end of the spectrum it it it made sense to lend itself to allowing the um those students not to participate in that way in fear that it would uh you know take away from a student who's actually here I fa right word theoretically though based on this policy then kids who reside in the district and pay ta their families pay taxes in the district couldn't do an after school interal program just like basketball or corre something like that we've had discussion this policy as emry says for it's we've the policy committees adjusted it based on what the board actions have been so now it's okay don't include them last time it included them it didn't pass this time that was the one Focus that

222they had was send it back to the policy committee and it it was tough to so to decide that the new board it's new members of the board it could go back to policy committee so either way I also just want to mention that we have recently had large residential areas that that have gotten tax exemptions and so you now have um people who were residents and families who who potentially are homeschooling their children and not paying taxes um oh I'm going to say also that um you know um you know I think think it is a good discussion to have um um you know on a survey of other school districts um there are some school districts that do have uh um they don't allow the homeschoolers to do anything and there are there

223are a few um some school districts that um there is sub metered uh participation from homeschoolers all those in favor of 11.10 I I opposed I I I'm apolog I'm oos do a roll call please sorry M sln opposed is here sorry I I didn't vote the first time um I'm opposed sowy I Mr s oppos Mr Wolf oppos Mr Z favor Mrs gadston in favor Mr way in favor matter all right that we'll go back to policy 11.08 any motion to accept 11.08 motion Anthony second Meredith I just want to say the thanks for accepting your donation and I just wanted to acknowledge it all those in favor I oppos motion Carri any motion to adjourn to Executive hold on a [Music] second can I I'd like to make a motion that the district

224reaffirm student safety following the election say that again I'd like to make a motion that the District reaffirms student safety following the [Music] election second I'll second it for for purposes of discussion I just want to specifically talk about could be other hold on one second you second it correct all those in favor of having say the motion again to motion is for the District to reaffirm student safety following the election to reaffirm St student safety following the election well there's discussion before we vote right yes there is discussion before we vote I make a motion to amend the motion and to remove you know as a a political body I think removing doing um any reference to the election we need to reaffirm I believe we need and should reaffirm student safety we should

225reaffirm our policies um I think that is necessary but I believe that well okay so make motion make a motion so amending the motion to remove uh the reference to the election the election so the motion on the table now is to reaffirm student safety is there a second to for Mike's Amendment second yeah so Mr Bill's off I got bill for a second comments and questions to Mike's motion which was to amend Anthony's regular motion to Refirm uh student safety following the election Mike's amendment was to take off following election just to reaffirm student safety all those in favor I opposed motion carried so the motion Kelly was to uh make a motion to Refirm student safety I need a motion to go to an executive session motion to go to Executive session to

226discuss wait hold on we have to take purpose she was reading my motion's still on the table we did we accept it already I thought we accepted am am amended it accepted it voted on it so we're going to have discussion and have the either the board affirm or did we affirm the amended motion to reaffirm student safety and we did we amended it by taking off following the election so the main motion is reaffirm student safety so then we need that's the motion on the table now right so you want to discuss you want to discuss how you want to discuss the process right now is that what you said that's what he said yeah I think the motion is still on the table all you did was motion to amend the motion we

227didn't decide on the motion okay all right so now we need to vote on uh com questions com comments and questions reaffirm student safety go ahead okay thank all right so um you know we uh couple weeks I mean like about 12 days ago um parents been coming to me um um um discussing that there children um were negatively affected by the election um also uh just as as early as uh last um Thursday um again more parents and staff have been asking whether the district was going to put something out um I circulated to the board um what Dutchess day school has sent out they included it in their newsletter uh New York City um education department has a sample letter uh that they've circulated among their administrators um Randolph school um also I

228circulated that to the board um as and then R hook Central School District sent a districtwide uh message uh which is only three paragraphs Prett short paragraphs I think it's something that um the district should do I don't think it's something the district should wait for complaints to come through I think um we shouldn't be behind other other schools we should be uh leading of the schools um again what I said in my comments is I feel that um that that you know there could be some Under reporting and and students need to know and the parents need to be reassured that the district will do what they have to do um to make sure it's a safe haven any other discussion do you have a specific uh text for a statement M um if

229you want to just grab uh Red Red Hook School Central School District um just copy that um if you're comfortable we can send it from the board and not not superintendent um well these letters came from the superintendent so it's up to you I I would think it' be more appropriate to come from the superintendent from the board okay could you read it sure I can it's for paragraphs yep I mean maybe just let the superintendent write something that's you know for our district I mean to enter into the public record though right is that where you want it to be read out loud on the and recorded yeah I can read it out loud um so it says dear parents/guardians I think we can all agree that the recent presidential election has comma times

230comma taking on a tone of deep incivility that is common to certain aspects of our mission as a school district uh parentheses I.E developing respect for others comma a sense of personal responsibility comma and an inclination to be honest in parenthesis period we all know children can be quite impressionable and learn much from the environment around them there is concern that some students in our learning community may feel less secure as a result of the election and worry about the implications of being who they are parentheses example disabled comma female comma Hispanic comma transgender comma Etc close parenthesis I'm writing to allay these concerns and reaffirm our District's commitment to standing firm against bullying and harass or harassment of any kind all children deserve an environment free uh from anxiety and fear rest assured we

231will be vigilant in addressing any poor Behavior related to election results I thank you in advance for supporting our efforts to create a safe environment for all children regards so it sounds like that was very much specific to the election and that seems to be there's a certain level of discomfort since we've voted in favor of Mike's Amendment to the motion um but I think we can you know it's kind of an Open Secret that there's been a catalyst for um a permission structure that's been created um we don't have to acknowledge it if we're fearing seeming too political but I think that we can say current cultural events or um you know what Craig would you like to can I can I just inject a little bit so Dr seing um on the website

232he has grads Orr bulletin um which has been on his website since last week and he has a principal message that talks about the presidential campaign um it doesn't talk it you know I think the the letter that you may want me to draft might be more General in nature about talking about but um I'm not going to read it to you it's on the website but it does talk about presidential campaigns it talks about different beliefs it talks about um how the students here have been talking about treating each other with respect I think he did a great job he showed it to me before it went out um because especially at the high school the conversations are happening and I agree that they're happening all over um but if the board has done

233something to reaffirm student safety I can make the the letter to the parents be a little bit more General but if you want to go on Dr Sing did do a great job in his letter about addressing um you know the conversation and it does speak about the election so I mean he owned that that he asked me if it was fine it was it was done in very very good taste so the discussion was to reaffirm student safety and that's what's on the table so we had discussion about that component it seems like now we're talking about processes about how to do it so let's vote on the discussion the motion to reaffirm student safety are we uh all in favor of reaffirming student safety I I opposed motion carried I would like to

234ask that since that motion passed Anthony since you've made the motion if you could give us something that you would like to see written up like you read and you referenced the Red Hook one if you could share that with the rest of the board and then we could take action as I mean to me if it's coming from superintendent we a superintendent's job to words Smith not ours I we you know nine people we might have nine different opinions on what it's going to be and it's ultimately if the superintendent is sending it out it's it's it's on her shoulders and and and she's going to have to you know live the consequences of uh you know any any comments that come back from that and I think should you know I mean I

235mean I think it's it's the kind of thing we delegate to the superintendent we trust that judgment I don't mind writing it I mean I I I'm not going to use Paul Finch's letter without asking him I mean he shared it as an example um but I don't want to do that and you know it does talk about the presidential election so I can use this as a guide and I can do I can make a draft of in a more general term if that's what you know you guys V down so if you want a motion on to just have ad send the letter it's I don't think we a don't need a motion we already pass motion have it any a motion to propose for a second executive session I was doing but

236you didn't like it go ahead you know what the subject or the you have to invoke the particular subject that so please go ahead someone read it to review the employment history of a particular individual in the board is not expected to take action after executive