001good evening welcome to the October 25th 2022 guilden Central School District Board of Education meeting would you all please silence your cell phones and stand for the pledge I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay first on the agenda actually before Republic do we need to vote for the video conferencing just remember that yes before we do any action there's an item toward the bottom of video conferencing to remember so if we scroll down to uh board president action letter a uh policy for video conferencing of board meetings can I have a motion to approve the our motion to to accept the policy adoption for video conferencing of board meetings
002Blanca second Nate any questions or comments all in favor hi I passes eight zero and so we have Rebecca joining us yes okay and so passes eight zero and one abstention thank you so next on the agenda we have the um public input for 2324 budget development and we also have public comment so first for public comment I will just remind speakers that although the Board of Ed welcomes comments about programs offered by the district and other aspects of the district's operation the board expressly prohibits public comment that would infringe upon a person's particular or sorry particular persons or students privacies rights would be disruptive of the board meeting or create some safety issue for example those types of speech which are not protected by federal or state freedom of speech rights persons who desire
003to speak to the board about specific issues relating to employees or other confidential matters should request an executive session in a letter to the board president briefly outlining the issue to be discussed granting such requests will be the discretion of the Board of Ed so first we have signed up for public comment is Nina and you can just come to the mic thanks hi I'm Marie chenaina and I'm the president of Muslim student Alliance one of the main objectives for our clubs this year has been to get Eid recognized as a school holiday either is one of the two holidays celebrated by Muslims all around the world and it falls on the day after the month of Ramadan where we fast from sunrise to sunset and we celebrate it with family and friends the district
004strives to promote diversity and inclusion within the community with the growing population of Muslim Students recognizing Eid as a school holiday for the school year of 2023-2024 will promote that idea of inclusion and diversity in this way we as a community can celebrate together and as of today missing school for Eid constitutes as a excused absence but it doesn't eliminate the problem that we have of trying to make up homework and classwork and that's why I think that we should get Eid off Eid recognized as a school holiday um next year for 2024 it's sorry um April 10th but it goes by the lunar calendar so every year it changes but the calculator you can look up the calculated day for each year do we have any other public comments that are in person we
005have a couple of written public comments okay so we have a public comment from sorry it's just loading up and that's not loading mine says corrupted yeah mine too maybe get out of split view what yeah that would be great thanks it does that sometimes I think this letter will go over three minutes so I'll read um I don't know if you can time me Linda thank you thanks Nate so the letters to the Gildan Central board and superintendent of the Gildan Central School District thank you for the opportunity to offer my thoughts on a matter you are attempting to address namely the appointment and salary for assistant coaches for the indoor track team let me first offer some background I had two children who graduated from Guilderland and ran for gilderland on both the
006cross-countrying track indoor and outdoor teams both of them benefited tremendously from their involvement my daughter was named captain and my son won an award not so much for his success as a runner but for his attitude in team spirit I no longer live in the district but I still support the teams and attend meets when I can I have read the articles and editorials in the paper about funding for the assistant coaches for indoor track and I have to assume it is an issue for the other running Sports as well and I see the precipitant for this crisis was 175 kids signing up to run indoor this spurred a memory of a conversation I had with Coach Dave kozer over 10 years ago he lamented to me at time how he didn't know what he
007was going to do because a hundred kids had signed up for indoor far ahead far more than he had expected now 10 years later and not only are there 100 Kids interested there are 175 and if there are not enough coaches kids will have to be cut to assure the safety of the kids and the adequate coaching can occur for all various track and field sub events there are I think without hesitation the school district should find a way to fund coaches for these kids there are many reasons I feel this way first think about it 175 kids signing up to run most of these kids are not Stars they signed up to run in the halls of the schools or Outdoors on the track in the cold and to get up on a Saturday
008morning early to face the cold and snow and ice to go to meet who does that willingly kids who want to if those kids are caught what will they do instead go home and play video games or spend time online or watch TV they will most likely be alone until a parent gets home second why track what is it about track that motivates kids to join when there are other more glamorous Sports to join I would argue that it is because they know they won't get cut they also talk to they talk to here and see their peers who are involved and what they see are kids who love running for Guilderland without a doubt one of the most touching moments in my life was going to a cross-country banquet and seeing kids crying no
009they were sobbing because they were saying goodbye to the program in their senior year here and where does that love come from it is generated from the coaches who are so passionate about coaching these kids the love exudes from the love exudes from the kids and their peers see it and feel it and I would argue they want to experience it for themselves and Guilderland running Sports allow them that opportunity to do just that third why would a kid take the time to make the effort to do something they likely never have before and are not likely to be all that successful at no ribbons or medals for the majority well you run against other schools against other kids and against yourself PR is a term I never heard until my kids joined personal record
010you're getting better at what you were doing um and the letter goes on it'll be posted three pages this is from James Pickett thank you Nate we pass this down and we have another public comment this is from Heather Murphy she writes to the gilderland central school board and superintendent of the Gilman School District I'm a parent of a seventh grader at Farnsworth middle school and I'm confused by the way the sudden closure of the school this morning was announced and communicated to parents I understand that a mass email is a convenient way to communicate information to parents but I believe you should have provided more ways to announce the closure and provide updates my family only received emails other parents said they received a text but we didn't we also didn't receive an automated
011phone call which I would have expected similar to a snow emergency closure as working professionals we are not checking our incoming personal emails when working a phone call from the school or District as well as a voicemail would more likely be checked and received during the day if you have time tonight please provide information about the policies and procedures and communicating emergency school closures while students are in class especially in situations like these that are unpredictable I'm also curious how this would have been handled if it had occurred in the elementary school in order to ensure someone was home to receive the student off the bus sincerely Heather Murphy and do we have any other public comments Linda no um so first uh thank you for the public comment in person about the Eid holiday
012I think we've talked about this at the DI committee and if I remember correctly the last meeting the research subcommittee in that in that committee was going to look at regionally like how the school calendars put together first by BOCES and maybe the processes of that but I know the discussion is being had there and so thank you for coming and supporting that initiative the second public comment regarding what was the second one thank you track I think we're going to be addressing that later in this meeting is that correct Dr Wiles with the Personnel or not in this winter coaching positions at our next board meeting okay thank you and then lastly about the water main break this morning and Communications I forgot if I know this just happened this morning will you be
013talking about that at all I'm happy to address it right now um the parents right we don't know why we didn't get the phone call out so good point we've made a note of it because we do have emails texts and phone calls that we we can do and so it's oversight on our part so our apologies for the community but I will take this opportunity to remind parents to look at the things the ways they have when they've signed up for school Messengers to make sure they've opted in to all of those methods emails texts and phone calls because you do need to say that you want to receive all of those so it's a good reminder and we've made a note of it and um we'll get it right next time thank you
014um next I just want to follow up about a previous public comment about enrichment I'll res I'll reply in an email but um because we have the public um hearing for the budget development coming up then I would strongly suggest you know if you're advocating for something to be addressed or within the budget that you also speak at that board meeting as well if there are no more public comments and we'll move on to the next and next agenda item which are the consent items this includes the minutes of the October 11th meeting the cpsc and CSE recommendations Personnel action textbooks and financials can I have a motion to approve the consent items Katie second date any questions or comments all in favor passes nine zero next we have information items curriculum and instruction I'll
015turn it to Rachel thinking of recognizing some of our young musicians this year 35 gilderland high school students were selected to perform in the area too excuse me in the area Allstate Music Festival on number November 18th and 19th at Saratoga Springs High School these outstanding ensembles consist of students chosen from a nine County area including Albany Fulton Hamilton Montgomery Rensselaer Saratoga Schenectady Warren and Washington counties competitive selection to these groups is based on the scores received by the students during the nisma solo evaluation Festival as the previous spring playing in the symphonic band will be Genie so I'm bassoon Andrew comparetta on trumpet Ian cotton also on trumpet Anthony guo on alto sax Kathleen guo on flute rainy gin with flute Franklin Kelly snare drum Nicholas Lynch trombone Olivia Petty oboe Carson rittner bass
016clarinet Mason smolen trombone sexy Wang bass clarinet and yansu Sam Wu on trumpet playing in the orchestra will be Daniel Daniel bian and violin Olivia Covington double bass James gong violin Jeannie Lou violin Natalie teal cello and yongsu on cello singing in the chorus will be Maxine alpart Alto Leah danahy soprano Genevieve glunk soprano Cadence Graham soprano Kaylee green soprano rainy gin soprano Bowden kennel tenor Hazel Regan Alto Abby Rudolph Alto Ian Schaefer bass Savannah Skeeter Alto Aiden Thomas bass Toby Weiss tenor and Liam yurden tenor chosen by audition to play in the Jaws Jazz Ensemble are Brendan style trombone and Landon kinal trumpet and Coronet the concert was will be held on Saturday November 19th beginning at 2PM at the Saratoga Springs High School auditorium and again congratulations to all our young musicians their
017families and their music teachers thank you Rachel next we have superintendent information Dr Wiles all right just one evening one item this evening November 1st 2022 is a superintendent's conference day there will be no school for all students that day we'll be offering a wide variety of professional development opportunities for all of our staff I'll just hit some of the highlights here progression Partners will be meeting with all staff in three separate 45-minute sessions to provide an overview of our Equity audit work which includes our Equity Institute Training and our action planning around Dei we just had our next training session with the equity teams this past Monday so we'll have lots to report in addition the high school will be doing some work around grading practices but also exploring some strategies around having conversations
018around diversity equity and inclusion the middle school has a menu of professional development programs that from which staff can can choose they include topics on working with students in poverty addressing burnout and improving well-being of adults behavioral support strategies creating Equitable classroom cultures supporting students experiencing trauma and World Language standards alignment among others in addition there'll be training offered on de-escalation strategies and Promethean board use other topics offered include stop the bleed for our nurses and some other staff training for understanding and which also addresses some topics around diversity equity and inclusion and lastly at the elementary level in addition to the progression partner overview teachers will be working in grade level groups on the new science standards during the morning and then parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for the afternoon so it's a very busy
019day with lots of different things going on Dr Wells is it possible for board members to just get a copy of the schedule at different buildings and would we be able to pop in on anything I don't see why not I have the schedules in front of me we'll have to find a way to okay we can share them okay so it's next week that would be great yeah sure thank you Nick um action items first we have school business Neil from the service agreement with Northeast parent and child Society any questions or comments all in favor okay passes 9-0 next is a recommendation to approve the education service agreement with St Joseph's addiction treatment and recovery centers motion to approve the St Joseph's Gloria second Nate any questions or comments all in favor passes
0209-0 uh next is a resolution to approve the agreement with Siena College to make available College in the High School courses for college credit during the 2022-2023 school year can I have a motion to approve the agreement with Siena College Katie second Blanca any questions or comments all in favor passes 9-0 next is a resolution to approve the agreement with Suny Albany to accept students for internship and practicum experience can I have a motion to approve the agreement with Suny Albany Gloria second Kelly any questions or comments all in favor end up saying okay so passes eight zero with one Ascension recommended for approval is the establishment of the gilderland Garden Club scholarship award the graduating seniors receiving this award should have an 85 average or better a financial need and a demonstrated commitment to
021service either at the school or in the larger Community the students should also be accepted to a two or four-year college and pursue study in Horticulture floor culture landscape design botany Plant Pathology conservation forestry Agronomy Environmental studies City Planning Land Management Wildlife science or Allied topics motion to per scholarship award any questions or comments congrats to the business department for putting this together sounds awesome all in favor passes 9-0 and then finally we have some donations first is a monetary donation to the Linwood library in memory of Gene McCullough and that was contributed by Margaret LaValle Ray Martinelli Gene Perillo Roman Fran brockowitz and Barbara Tucker we also received a donation of a bell kit from Lisa McNeil can I have a motion to prove the donations an eight second Katie any questions or comments
022thank you all in favor I pass this nine zero thank you Neil next we have superintendent action Dr Weil thank you I have two co-curricular clubs for Farnsworth Middle School first is the Basketball Club advised by Mr Kenyon and the second is the scratch Club advised by Ms eidings can I have a motion to improve the two co-curricular clubs Nate second Kim any questions or comments all in favor can I passes nine zero thank you Dr Wiles next we have board president action we took care of the first item on the agenda with the video conferencing so we'll move down to letter B is a set of policy adoptions a through I can have a motion to approve these this set of policies Blanca II Judy any questions or comments all in favor it passes
0239-0 next we'll move on to board committee reports we'll start with business practices informative meeting with Renee I believe uh and she spoke about tried to make changes to the school lunch program gave us a lot of information that I wasn't aware of that the ordering takes place in February for the next year and they try and accommodate what whatever they can um they are working on that but it was a very interesting very eye-opening and we also appreciate the parent who brought this concern to us and then we talked about school buses and they will soon be having cameras attached so that they can record license plates of people who pass stop school buses because this can be a very serious problem the group that handles it takes care of all of the financing
024of this so there is no cost to the district and um they they prosecute as they see fit with with the information that they have and we didn't have enough people there to take votes on officers for this year so I'm reporting on what we had uh and we do not have another meeting scheduled yet thank you Julie next we have communications yes we met on October 12th um thank my fellow committee members for electing the chair again and uh we began the meeting by recognizing uh Patrice who was our BOCES communication specialist and the whole Communications team for their two recent awards from New York State's public relations associate schools public relations Association Patrice pointed out uh she thanked all of us but she she mentioned that this whole effort Communications is really a
025team project so she wanted to also recognize her team uh Patrick and Sarah as well uh second we reviewed the exit poll results which uh from the the budget vote the committee reviewed the redacted exit poll results from the May 22 budget vote and Board elections we noted three particular things one uh look at we wanted to look at refining questions about children in the district for each of the voters our survey may not have provided sufficient answer choices to reflect all the voters who were responding we might consider options to show relationships Beyond parents like to nieces and nephews and grandparents so we might want to look at that as well as not having children in the school district giving that as a choice uh second thing we talked about was to explore what
026information we might gain from this survey that might be meaningful to help the district make decisions we might want to fine-tune our questions and add some questions that are more targeted to specific decisions that we might be making that year and thirdly um we talked about focusing our Outreach and inclusion efforts on specific demographic groups we had many responses from individuals we we had many responses from individuals from 31 to 50 but very few from younger voters we might want to consider other ways to reach younger voters so that's something we might talk about the committee also talked about voter turnout and we did note that the turnout was less than typical in the westmere catchment area we asked Mr Sanders uh for the next meeting if there was a way to better understand who
027did or didn't come out to vote by looking at voter participation data are there any patterns that can be discerned to help us Target our Outreach and at the next meeting hopefully Mr Sanders will have some brilliant remarks for us I know it's a very challenging project that's why we gave it to you other ideas uh other ideas were considered to reach voters including announcements at school events like concerts plays the international dinner Etc uh I did suggest that we consider hosting maybe some focus groups uh to learn a bit more about what the barriers to voting might be so we can help some people get uh get to voting and our last topic was Community engagement in the 23-24 budget process our committee reviewed the budget timeline that Mr Sanders shared at the board
028meeting the last board meeting and we discussed the activities to get the community involved in the process the first opportunity for public input is tonight of course the board meeting and after discussion the committee agreed to send out a thought exchange we've changed the dates on that originally we had talked about doing it sooner than tonight but we're going to talk about rescheduling that so we'll have a thought exchange out to the community so that people have a nice window of time to reflect upon what what some of the ideas they might have for us to consider for the next budget um Dr Wiles will also send it oh that's the door oh she'll also send a thought exchange to the board for our meeting in December so we'll be participating in that again that
029worked very well last year um and Dr Wiles will also be providing us the board a list of all the requests that are generated by the leadership team at stage two for some reason last year that kind of got left off largely because we really didn't have much to go forward only the one uh item on the um the eighth grade and then at our meeting we added the library from Altamonte but basically we didn't have anything so that kind of got left out and caused us a little bit of a blip later so we're going to get back to that um and I just noted to the committee um that we might want to think about or re refresh our memories about what we do at for public comment and how we handle public
030comment I was particularly thinking about a couple meetings ago uh when a number of people came to talk about the coaching for the track which was an extremely important issue um but the way the the board started to interact with the presenters uh kind of goes again well it does go against the handbook that we've set up and the kind of processes we've set up so we might want to revisit that and look at it the handbook took about three years to come to completion plus we used a lot of the ideas that nizba has generated and it has served us well in many many uh you know times so we want to make sure that we kind of follow along that so if if people could just refresh their memory uh go back to
031the handbook and just look at that little piece uh it does say the board president can respond if necessary under certain circumstances for example um if the president wanted to correct a misstatement a fact or refer to the speaker to a policy or suggest placing the item on a future agenda those are proper things but the president of the board should really be interacting and not all of us which I was mentioning it because I felt bad that I had violated it as well as many of us did uh kind of coming up with ideas without having the background information which we should have been asking for I think so I was feeling kind of I think we need to rethink this again or look at it uh and maybe refresh our memories about how
032we want to proceed did you want to say something Blanca and internally or is that well it's something we put on the Committees list but okay I just wanted you to know that this went through throughout three years of thought and and uh we also used nisba as a good you know kind of a rule of yeah I don't I don't always agree with them I don't know I just I know I understand but we need to have a discussion about it then I think that would be a good idea I mean I chose good practices right it's not a law that's what I was asking exactly right so it's not an inventory right I don't think that would stop anybody from exactly responding so I'm just I I'm just asking people to think about
033that again because if we maybe if we had raised our questions and then put it to Dr Wiles and and Regan or to go ahead and get us answers then we could have responded better I think but some of us would just giving our opinion yeah and saying things that really we didn't have any background so at the same I'm speaking for me right and that's come out they give us their time and and sometimes they sit here assuming that we're going to circle back well that's why you need to be very clear on what I'd like to discuss it for absolutely uh next meeting is November 9th and uh on our agenda right now is community engagement on the budget and our voter turnout analysis for westmere thank you Gloria next a policy uh
034yeah we had well we had an emergency session last week so that we could get the video conferencing meeting policy uh cleaned up which we passed tonight um we don't have another one scheduled uh one thing I will say is that there was some discussion about getting some more student level involvement on some policy up uh development and we're going to try to pursue that actively going forward we do not have a meetings together we're going to get scheduled this week and and we have audit okay can you update or no I don't know if she can hear okay I can give a brief update so the last meeting we had the audit report that we accepted um and we have a audit meeting scheduled I think it's for November 10th which is a Thursday
035at 8 A.M in the district office and I think we'll be talking about what the next items that we'll be looking at what topics to look at to audit for this year's SEC that's correct Neil right yep Rebecca did you have anything to add sorry I can't hear you um no okay can you hear me yeah yeah okay thank you and last uh Dei did you want me to talk about that sure yeah thank you okay um de I met last week on the 19th I think that was last week um we heard updates from our four subcommittees we got an update on Dei in action and an up an update on the equity audit which Dr Wiles had also mentioned um regarding the upcoming professional development day we discussed the first two chapters of
036our learning component um a book a place to belong we ended the meeting with a very a brief discussion regarding some upcoming issues related to the calendar specifically um looking at very briefly identifying indigenous people's day alone versus indigenous peoples versus Columbus Day including additional religious holidays like our public comment speaker had mentioned on the upcoming calendar and how to address athletic practices on religious holidays this was a very abbreviated discussion um due to time so there will be more research and more discussion about these Topics in depth in the future but I think I could speak on behalf of the committee that we would encourage parents faculty community members and other stakeholders to reach out and share their feelings about these topics um I don't have the next meeting date written down in front
037of me I'm sorry [Music] discussion on the um the incident that happened at the the football game I think two weeks ago at the DI meeting but um I think it's scheduled but we I just don't have the date in front of me either and those are all the committee reports we'll go to public comment number two Linda is there another public comment no other public comments and then we'll go on to board issues ideas and sharing does anybody have anything to share or issues they want to raise oh go ahead Gloria I know a few of us are Senator tonko state senator came to uh Farnsworth and uh Lisa balls students she had applied for a donation of books from the Library of Congress which each congressman is entitled to each congressional district and
038um she they brought over some great kids books for uh for Farnsworth and then uh miss ball came with her students and Mr tanko stayed the whole time and talked with the kids and answered questions and it was really a really nice little event so I'd like to thank Mrs ball thank all the students and and Miss senator tonko of course and his staff for spending so much time with us representative I'm sorry other go ahead Blanca Marie I know you said that we're going to discuss the second public comment at the next meeting are you able to provide any updates or is it is it too premature the track coach oh thank you um so this past week or at the end of last week D.O.T met with Mr Austin to look at ways
039we could fund some additional adults to support our students based on the existing amount of dollars we have set aside for coaches and we have found that we do have some potential to add at least one more coach there have been some new twists and turns as of today so we may be able to do a little bit more than that so I will have that information for you well before the next board meeting but we are making good progress so I can report that other official openings Friday um great turnout thanks again to the community as a whole uh for voting for that that Bond item or that that bomb project um it was great to see the community out there students out there a lot of enthusiasm and I I'm sure that that'll
040continue as we go forward in the future it was also great just to see the field looking as good as it does um that it really was quite an investment and it turned out to be really very impressive to look at and the kids played well on a new Surface so it would have been canceled otherwise so that's good other board issues ideas and sharing you can ask oh go ahead I just want to congratulate the FMS PTA because they raised four thousand dollars with their craft fair this weekend and that's just wonderful I know that they worked really hard on it I think they started in July with the planning so kudos7 okay so if there's no other board issues ideas and sharing can I have a motion to adjourn Judy second Blanca all
041in favor my pass is nine zero thank you everybody