05 Board of Education meeting, October 11, 2022

001good evening and welcome to the October 11 2022 gilwin Central School District Board of Education meeting would you all please silence your cell phones and stand for the pledge allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty foreign recognition and so I'm going to turn this over to Regan Johnson thank you Dr Rivera good evening everybody it's a pleasure to lead the recognition Ceremony this evening this year's events compared to last year looks a lot closer to normal we're very happy to have a full room and return to our pre-pandemic format I'd like to say a special thank you to human resource confidential secretary Mrs Kim tenike and our Communications team of Mrs Patrice viverito and Miss Natalie Rowan for all of

002her hard work behind the scenes to make tonight's celebration memorable for all of our recipients I would also like to thank the employee recognition committee the committee members are Anne-Marie Holmes this is a principal at guilden High School Dawn Weir secretary at guildwin High School Christine van ort teacher at Pine Bush Elementary our newest member teaching assistant Kelly ragone from guilden elementary and principal Dr Beth beanie from westmere elementary these dedicated individuals are responsible for many of the details this evening so thank you committee it was in the 1970s when the Board of Education authorized the establishment of a committee to review the names of Guilderland employees who have made outstanding contributions to the gildo and Central School District these individuals are nominated by their colleagues and chosen by a committee of their peers over

003the years more than 500 employees have been recipients of this award the criteria for nominations includes but is not limited to dedicated years of loyal service assuming leadership roles outside of their assignment demonstrating a pattern of inspiring others displaying Innovation or initiative demonstrating special acts that go above and beyond normal expectations or for making significant impact on our students and or our staff this evening we are honoring nine outstanding individuals from across the district at this time I'd like to invite our superintendent of schools Dr Marie Wiles to say a few words thank you Mr Johnson good evening everyone it is such a pleasure to see all of you here tonight back to our more traditional feel for celebrating our employees we have been tremendously creative in recent years to make this happen in other

004ways but you know what finding our traditional way of celebrating our employees feels particularly good tonight so let me start by saying congratulations to our nine award winners tonight I think this is my favorite award that the gilderland Central School District coordinates because this is an award where colleagues recognize colleagues and what that says to me is that when you're doing your job every day and you don't really know that anyone's looking very closely you're doing amazing things and the people who work with you day in and day out see that and see the difference that it makes and I love the idea that it's not the big things we do every day but the little things that we do every day that make such a big difference for everyone around us so Buddha once

005said if you light a lamp for someone else it will also brighten your path and I think our nine award winners today are expert at lighting a lamp for other people and it brightens their path and all of our paths as well so please join me in giving a round of applause to our nine award winners and the Nami folks who nominated them and all of us who are beneficiaries of their good work and without further Ado I'm going to hand things back to our Master of Ceremonies Mr Regan Johnson thank you Dr Wiles um before we get started with the recognition ceremony I also like to thank one group of people many of whom are in the audience tonight and that's the families of our recipients and we all know that this uh is

006a very time consuming profession and so without them you wouldn't be able to do your work so colleagues and and family members are here tonight so thank you very much for supporting our nominee nominees this evening I'd like to invite a board of education president Dr SEMA Rivera to assist Dr Wiles with recognizing our recipients to the banner and I'd like to introduce our first speaker this evening who's going to kick us off is Dr Alex vincell who is the instructional ministrator for ELA social studies reading library and media science at gildewan High School thank you Regan good evening it is an honor and a privilege to recognize one of ghs's outstanding English teachers tonight Danielle giannetto Benner now I could give you a long wikipedia-like list of her accomplishments 17 years teaching amazing co-teacher

007exceptional aligned teacher extraordinary class co-advisor astounding unofficial teacher leader however if we are truly to celebrate Danielle and understand why she is considered to be the bee's knees it's important to know who she is at her core plus if I know Danielle I know that she does not want to hear a list about herself because she does not feel that she does anything special I have to kind agree sorta to Danielle being an incredible teacher going above and beyond putting others first and leading by example are standard fare and this is what makes her truly special teaching tends to be very isolating yet this is a peer award so how would people know about Danielle when she does not loud her own achievements it's her kids not just hunter in Georgia but all of her

008kids 16 years ago my former superintendent reminded us that every student needs an adult to connect with have you ever been to Danielle's classroom it is very difficult to distinguish between her planning and class time she has a crowd of kids like a hive of bees surrounding her 24 7. now I know you might be thinking like I did that these are her ninth grade English students her students that she advises for the class of 2024. nope these are her former students from last year Sadie Addie Etc this is the kind of impact that Danielle makes on her kids her students do not leave her and I would Hazard to bet that they still remain with her as a part of her extended family long after graduating gilderland high school connection belonging enduring recently a

009colleague lamented about the recent retirement of two profound and influential English teachers he noted concerned about the vacuum Left Behind the Department's need to re-center and to find its voice sometimes you don't have to look too far when the things we seek are often right in front of us and in plain sight otherwise we would not be here tonight to recognize Danielle please join me in congratulating Danielle gianetto Benner [Applause] now I would like to introduce and welcome to the podium our director for transportation Mr inho Sue [Applause] good evening if you Google employee recognition award you will see a picture of Paddy our am dispatcher and router well if it's not there you should because if you are talking about loyal service exceeding normal expectation and making a significant impact on students and or

010staff that's what she does each and every day let me give you a few stories during the fall of 2020 while Patty was training for Tour de France she had a significant fall and she was bruised and battered but she took only one day off summer of 2021 she had a knee replacement surgery and though she was bruised and battered she took two days off so Patty the next time you have a medical event you can take three days off when there were vacancies in the PM dispatcher position Patty took on double shift to make sure that our operation was not affected she is our command sergeant major our Hub of information and our conductor of our symphony but most importantly she is a grandmother for the third time as of this past weekend she

011is beloved by her family and the greater Guilderland family by our drivers and our Aid our parents and staff she is our poster child for employee recognition award please congratulate our Patricia Carroll [Applause] I will be followed by Chris Sunita the principal of Pine Bush Elementary School [Applause] it's like the Ohio State University thank you and hope good evening and welcome to everyone joining us as inho indicated I'm Chris Sunita the principal at the Pine Bush Elementary School it's certainly a pleasure to see everyone here in support of this year's honorees tonight I have the pleasure of recognizing two staff members from Pine Bush first I ask that you please join me in congratulating Janet Edmonds as a recipient of this year's Board of Education employee recognition award Janet has worked as a teaching assistant

012at Pine Bush for many years in fact many decades over the course of this time Janet has consistently put her heart and soul into helping the students and teachers she works with she has a unique ability to quickly identify and understand the root cause of a student's struggles rather than just looking at their behavior she shares these insights with the classroom teachers she works with and is quick to come alongside both the students and teachers with strategies to help them grow develop and mature Janet is extremely kind and is very successful at helping students to change their behavior for the better and communicates how proud she is of the student's effort in this regard in addition to helping students grow socially and emotionally emotionally she is also skilled at helping them gain the basic needs

013they to to master the first grade curriculum every day she pulls small groups of students to work with them on their sight words as well as addition and subtraction strategies she has led guided reading groups and she works with students who are struggling with their reading to learn decoding skills Janet has reached out to the reading teachers in our school to gather materials and ideas for how to best teach these struggling readers Janet has gone and observed the reading teachers working with the students so that she can reinforce the same methods during her small group time with them Jenna has also reached out to our school's math coordinator for resources to help both struggling math students as well as enrich higher level students who are looking for a bit of an academic challenge during the

0142020-21 school year Janet was part of a three-class cohort with two first grade teachers each of them rotated through the three different classes each day this meant Janet was responsible for a classroom of up to 14 students the teachers on the team gave Janet a framework for her time in the classroom Janet took it upon herself to prepare games and activities for the students to learn their sight words she planned for and chose read aloud books to read to them she monitored the students as they read independently she taught them how to write a reading response to their book and she led the class in sharing their responses she led the students in a reader's theater activity every Friday and she played whole class math games with them she prepared special bags of books with

015level books for the students to read and so much more she also worked extremely well with the two teachers on the team and became an integral part of the cohort as they met together on a daily basis to share ideas plans and to problem solve Janet's willingness to consistently go above and well beyond the expectations of her role as an elementary teaching assistant has enabled countless students to become successful contributing members of their classroom community in her quiet unassuming way Janet is definitely an inspiration to everyone who has had the pleasure of her professional and personal acquaintance at Pine Bush she has a cheerful attitude and a calming demeanor that enable her to be a positive influence within the classroom communities of Young Learners that she works on behalf of each of the teachers and

016students at Pine Bush I offer my sincere congratulations to you Janet on receiving this worthy recognition congratulations foreign [Applause] that I have the sincere pleasure of recognizing this evening from Pine Bush is Lindsey farnioli Lindsay is an outstanding educator who goes well beyond her professional duties as a kindergarten teacher at Pine Bush Lindsay began her career as a Gilman employee in the fall of 2004 as a first grade teacher in this time she has consistently demonstrated the utmost professionalism and commitment to the students families and school community at Pine Bush Lindsay has a consistent classroom routine and structure which her students quickly learn and follow throughout the year is an exception for Lindsay to have to ask more than once for her students to follow a direction or complete the work they have been assigned

017her students all want to please her and are always rewarded with kind words and acknowledgment for their hard work and persistent efforts she presents information and assists each child in a way that makes even the most struggling young learner get through the lesson feeling success children know that they can trust her because she spends a considerable amount of time developing personal relationships with them and their families starting each September and Carries that forward throughout the school year as we have seen the past two years have caused each of us to shift our teaching styles academic expectations and classroom models in this time Lindsay has been one of the most Innovative teachers I have seen as we were shifting our approach to a cluster cohort model two years ago Lindsay asked if she could teach in

018a double classroom with a teaching assistant where she could have a regular number of kindergarten students we determined that this was possible and Lindsay taught 24 kindergarten students each separated by six feet of physical distance in traditional rows and chairs for a full year I challenge anyone in this room to be able to replicate that effort for a full year her ability to make each of these children feel comfortable attending school for their first year in the middle of a global pandemic while maintaining physical distancing and health and safety Pro protocols was nothing less than impressive she made this large double classroom feel like a much smaller learning space with her individualized approach to teaching and learning in addition she was also one of the first teachers to teach using a Promethean board set up

019in the center of this double room while then meeting students individually at their desks this past year Lindsay was a regular education teacher in a code tort classroom with a special education teacher enl teacher and one-to-one teaching assistant in addition to her regular classroom teaching assistant she had a student with severe medical needs which required a one-to-one teaching assistant as well as some enl students who also have their own special learning needs while this may seem overwhelming enough Lindsay also had a student with some of the most significant behavioral needs we have seen in recent memory in addition toward the end of last year Lindsay had a new student join her classroom who was removed from her home and placed in a temporary living Arrangement awaiting a foster place of foster care placement this child

020has already had already been in three separate living facilities in three separate schools so far last year her first year of school once again Lindsay found a way to meet the unique needs of each child in her classroom her skills as a loving compassionate teacher are certainly worthy of admiration and of this recognition award Lindsay your contributions to Pine Bush Elementary School and the guildlin school district make you an outstanding recipient you epitomize those characteristics inherent in our most talented education professionals your articulate passionate and a dedicated lifelong learner who seeks to instill these values in your students and model them for your colleagues on behalf of everyone at Pine Bush Elementary School I offer you my sincerest congratulations on receiving this special recognition congratulations [Applause] it is now my pleasure to introduce my colleague

021Mike Laster of the Farnsworth Middle School [Applause] thank you Mr Sunita and thank you this evening for the opportunity to speak on behalf of my colleagues at Farnsworth Middle School who helped nominate Miss Cheryl fuchsia for the employee recognition Awards She's going to receive tonight it's my honor and privilege to present to help present the employee recognition award to Cheryl she's been a teaching assistant in the district for for more than 16 years 16 plus and with most of that time being a part of the Farnsworth Middle School community whatever assignment or role that she plays she does it with skill with empathy and with excellence she's a model for the rest of the Tas that work in our building the relationships that she forms with students she works with is genuine it's caring and

022it's focused on their success two quick stories during the pandemic I you know Cheryl visited the home of one of her students to do some catch-up work to make sure that to make sure along with some other teachers that he stayed on track and was still engaged in in the lessons that were going on during the school day just today once again she was working with the students she's assigned with outside my my office we have a small little red bench for students who just need a little place to collect their thoughts and and once again she's there de-escalating him providing him a nice opportunity to just get that re-teaching in a different setting that he needed and she's got those skills and she's got that intuition that's needed to help our our most at-risk

023Learners she only has one speed and it's go above and beyond she doesn't know any different um she also has an amazing impact on the adult staff members in our building and that that relationship and that impact goes beyond the classroom walls and it lasts for years after working with Cheryl um she really excels at taking care of people before they need her to lift them up and that's a really really intuitive skill that we appreciate that Cheryl uh you know you utilizes to take care of all of us at FMS she's also an important member of our professional development committee she helps represent the needs of our building-wide Tas and working alongside of the administration helps to plan meaningful learning opportunities throughout the year most recently her leadership helped produce a nice learning engagement

024last week for some teacher teaching assistants assigned to our students who are non-verbal we talked about different strategies on how to help them calm down when they're when they're disregulated so um she's a huge huge influence there as well so in addition though I think Cheryl's most important role is the mother of four Guilderland graduates who frequently come back to FMS and share with all of us how proud they are of their mom and the work that she does for our FMS community so Cheryl I know you don't like being the center of attention so I tried not to do that tonight and I know you don't like having people tell everyone else how great you are but um I'm sorry so tonight is your night enjoy it it's well deserved and the students and

025staff and families at FMS appreciate all you do every single day for our kids so thank you please help me celebrate Cheryl this evening thank you at this time please help me welcome Jackie Vandenberg principal of Linwood Elementary School [Applause] good evening tonight I have the distinct pleasure of speaking on behalf of my colleagues at Linwood and honoring one of our veteran teachers Miss Joanne Romano when I was told that I would only have a few minutes to speak about Joanne I wondered how I could possibly capture the vitality and passion of Mrs Romano in just a few minutes immediately I wished I had her videos from her days as the longtime Linwood Square's game show host her role as the game show host at our longtime Linwood tradition of the past embodied most all

026of her wonderful attributes but for night words for tonight words will have to suffice mm-hmm Joanne has worn many hats at Linwood she served as a classroom teacher at various grade levels and most recently has taken on the role as the building's math specialist she's assumed several leadership roles serving as teacher leader in math and science to name a few when I started at Linwood I can vividly remember the first day I met Mrs Romano she popped into the hallway with the biggest smile and said anything you need I'm here and in that moment even though I had just met her I believed her I had the pleasure of participating in professional development with her as a new teacher I can also still remember how much I admired her balance of expertise with her excitement

027about learning and trying new things what's even more amazing is that after all these years I can truly say that I still see that gentle balance every day her commitment to students and families is evident in her work every day over the years I've also watched her coordinate celebrations meal trains for people in need I've watched her organized team building activities and most notably plan the scripts for retirement parties she takes every one of her colleagues Milestones so seriously and she goes above and beyond to make sure everyone feels special during those times Joanne has a natural ability to bring people together and again her genuine enthusiasm and pride radiates through all she does I have to share one of my personal favorite things about Joanne and that is her inability to whisper as a

028fellow loud Whisperer myself I'd say that with love what's great about Joanne is we don't ever need the microphone of the PA system when when she has something to say when she's on the school radio the whole school can hear but all teasing aside even in those situations you can't help but feel the excitement and joy she has for the job she's doing every day she really wears her heart on her sleeve all kidding aside all of us at Linwood field guildlin is a better place because of Joanne Romano when we think about the district's vision statement to provide to provide for all a safe welcoming environment where students parents and staff are joined in the pursuit of academic excellence and personal growth I can't help but think of all the times Joanne has risen

029to that challenge she is consistent in her commitment to the kids and families at Linwood and I know she takes great pride in being able to serve this community I could truly go on and on about the impact of Joanne's work at guildlin but I'll close with some of the phrases her colleagues used to describe her when nominating her for this recognition passionate cares about every kid like they're her own always leads by example always a team player creative looks out for everyone cheerleader fun dedicated Problem Solver and friend so congratulations Joanne and thank you for your continued commitment to the Guilderland Central School District we are very lucky to have you [Applause] at this time I'd like to please join me in welcoming Anne Marie Holmes the assistant principal at Guilderland High School [Applause]

030yeah good evening I'm here on behalf of Mr piscatelli who could not be here this evening so just pretend I'm him as I'm reading his speech I'm a little bit funnier anyway if you were to go up to a random student and ask who is the face of Gillen High School you might be surprised by the answer it is most likely not my name Mike piscatelli I'm Dr Wiles or a teacher's name that would be said most students would say that is Sue Morgan and those individuals would be correct Sue has been a monitor for at Gillen high school for 17 years and for most that time she has worked at the security attendance desk greeting students and parents if you spend time with Sue you will notice immediately that she knows most of our

031students and this is not by accident she works extremely hard to not only learn the names of most of our student population but also puts effort into truly getting to know our students students frequently stop by our office to just check in with Sue share a highlight from their weekend or get some advice from someone they trust if I need to get some background about a student I do not know well Sue is my go-to person students know that Sue is an adult in their building that cares about them and has a genuine interest in their lives Sue along with Mr Han have been the chaperones and mentors the Red Sea for many years this role is so much more than chaperoning Sue spenced this time connecting with students and provides rules and guidance on

032how they react if anyone's seen the Red Sea this is not an easy task as nice as Sue is if someone steps out of line she is the first person to address a student and correct the behavior the student absolutely loves and expects that Sue will be with them at the games cheering on the team and participating in the chants Sue is invaluable when it comes to fund the functioning of our school she works side by side with our attendance clerical calling parents checking attendance and ensuring that our records are accurate Sue's warm personality comes through even when dealing with challenging situations not every parent interaction is easy and Sue has the ability to navigate difficult conversations so the parties feel listened to while still conveying the importance of attending school when you hang around

033Sue at every school event you quickly learn where you rank in the eyes of students every single year the senior ball I Mr piscatelli will be standing next will be standing talking to Sue and students will approach us and ask take a picture that certainly makes you feel good until they hand you the camera to take the photo yes it is humbling but again shows the impact that Sue has had on our students lives Sue congratulations on this award and always remember the impact you have on having our students every day and I apologize because I'm not Mrs Kelly but I need to add this from my heart Sue is a real life superhero who wears an invisible Cape with a large G on the back she saves everyone she meets with her superpowers kindness

034and love she saves our students every day as they come in her come to her in times of need and seek her out in periods of Joy she goes above and beyond to help any situation and Guilderland is a better school and Community because of her in some in some way for many of us myself included Sue was there being the hero we needed thank you for making Gillen High School a welcoming place for us all we are truly grateful for you [Applause] please welcome Rachel Anderson assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction [Applause] good evening everyone I am pleased to recognize first this evening Mr Bernie Ramen and Bernie I learned a few things about you when I was doing a little bit of research for this so hopefully I'm bright and hopefully I don't embarrass

035you too much um Bernie has been a science teacher at gilderland high school for 27 years now he started his career actually being part-time science teacher and part-time athletic trainer for the district so while I've always known that Bernie takes great care of his students in his classroom I didn't know that he also took care of our athletes for years as well um Bernie took time during that during that period of time to educate himself and others about various emergency Health scenarios and learned how to treat students with concussions and how to respond to situations like heat exposure and then also helped other coaches learn that those same skills Bernie made the decision to move into full-time teaching a few years later and I can tell you from being in his classroom that Bernie is

036very dedicated to his students and it's a welcoming environment for all students Bernie loves teaching students Hands-On and excuse me enjoys getting them involved in Laboratories in both biology and the electives he teaches anatomy and physiology and physical therapy Bernie also advises the med cross Club a club for students who are interested in pursuing a career in the medical Sciences Bernie is a mentor for his students peaking their curiosity about life and medical Sciences helping them develop strong interpersonal skills and encouraging them to give back to the school community Through organizing events like the annual blood drive Bernie also advises student groups one of which is star which stands for students and teachers Against Racism for the past 20 years star has facilitated work around anti-racism including trainings for faculty and students guest speakers community

037dialogues and special events focused on racial Justice most recently star was one of the student groups involved in organizing the anti-hate rally at gilderland high school this past spring Bernie also shows his dedication to educating youth by spending his Summers teaching science courses at Union College for cty or the center for talented youth Bernie offers summer courses for underrepresented students in science many of which focus on the medical field Bernie developed a new course for cty called doctor's diagnosis and his curriculum is currently being used Nationwide by cty cty Educators in addition to all of his professional accomplishments Bernie is friendly and supportive as a co-worker and always takes time to talk to his colleagues offer advice someone near to listen or a shoulder to lean on he contributes to the science team in positive

038ways and is overall just a really nice guy he's often found holding Court in the math science and technology office in the high school giving us his opinion on everything and we always know when Bernie is sitting at that table there's going to be some great stories to tell for all these reasons and for many more I'm proud to recognize Bernie Ramen as a recipient of the employee recognition award [Applause] I'm also pleased to be able to recognize Marcia Ranieri this evening Marcia serves as the instructional administrator for World languages and English as a new language in this role Marcia Works across all seven buildings in the district supporting K-12 teachers in both enl and World languages Guilderland has a very diverse population our students and their families speak over 15 different languages Marcia works

039hard to support the enl students in our district and their families she finds ways to engage students and families through translation services and specialized programming and Marsha picks up the phone to make personal phone calls to families to make sure they feel included and to make sure that she knows what their concerns and needs are Marsha strives to make sure enl students have equal access to fair and Equitable education and ensures our enl students and their needs are represented and included in all School programming Marcia has also been really involved in our Equity diversity and inclusion initiatives helping students from all nationalities and backgrounds feel included in our school community Marsha has been committed to helping others engage in this work as well often serving as a mentor for those who are just initiating their

040investigation into Dei Marshall also oversees Our World Language programs our middle and high school students are offered coursework in Spanish Italian German and French over the past several years Marsha has also supported the development of course offerings in American Sign Language which has become a very popular elective course for our high school students part of Marsha's role in the district is to supervise teachers K-12 the teachers Marsha supervisors say that she is supportive of student needs support teachers work through collaboration and teamwork and as one teacher said I genuinely appreciate her positivity and willingness to offer advice and support in a situation Marcia knows my students my name despite working with teachers in every single building in the district whenever I have a question she is prompt to assist me with whatever it is I

041need when offering constructive feedback she gives me areas to work on and suggestions for improvement but also notices all of the positives and makes teachers feel appreciated and supported Marcia is also a very supportive member of the district's Administration team she is always willing to step in when needed whether that means participating in committee work helping secure resources for departments and teachers we're reminding the team of all the various student needs we're trying to address Marcia has also assisted with the district when the district was short staffed serving as a substitute principal at Linwood Elementary School during that time she developed a great rapport with both teachers and students in the building Marsha Renee is an accomplished educator and a true asset to the gilderland administrative team her dedication to teachers students and families of

042the gilderland school district is to be commended and I'm honored to recognize her tonight as a recipient of the employee recognition award congratulations [Applause] and at this time I'd like to introduce Dr SEMA Rivera our Board of Education president [Applause] congratulations to all of our recipients this evening your dedication to our students and our community has brought us all together tonight I've heard many positive things about all of the recipients tonight but it was really nice to hear personal stories from their colleagues so that was really special thank you to all of our presenters as well for their thoughtful words about our employee recognition recipients through your words we have learned a lot more about these amazing individuals and the special contributions they've made to our school community at this point I'd like to end

043the ceremony and ask that we take a three-minute intermission maybe five minute intermission everyone is welcome to stay for the rest of the board meeting but feel free to leave during the intermission if you'd like thank you everybody um next week the week um October 17th is the official New York State School boards Association School Board recognition week but of course our board meetings are the week before and the week after so we are going to celebrate this week um so it is my pleasure to recognize the nine individual individuals who serve on the Guilderland Central School Board of Education I believe that this work is the most one of the most important citizens that there is which is Shepherd the resources to serve the children of the future so I thank you for all

044of that so with school children as their primary focus school board members do a lot of things among them they create a shared vision for the future of Education they set the direction of the school district to achieve the highest student performance they provide accountability for student achievement results they align District resources to improve achievement in these student needs and they Supply a healthy school district culture in which to learn work and learn and I don't know about anyone else in this room tonight but I felt what a warm welcoming culture we have here in Guilderland who takes time to celebrate our own and so much of that comes straight from our Board of Education so thank you so much for that one of the other things I love about our tradition around this recognition

045is how we recognize our board members I know coffee mugs and pens with Guilderland Central School District on them are cool to have but we are about teaching and learning and reading and so our long-standing tradition here in Guilderland is for each of the seven buildings to pick a library book of two or two that for the school board member who is a liaison to their building that the building Fields captures the essence in some way of each individual board member and then our principals are here this evening to award and deliver the books and board members you get a chance to hang on to them for a little while read them and then they will be replaced in the library with a little sticker and forever you will be remembered for your service to

046the gilderland Central School District whenever a student takes out this book I don't know who thought of this but it's a great idea so let's give our board members a round of applause [Applause] I will invite our principals to come up and deliver the selected books thank you thank you thank you thank you so much for that next time the agenda we're going tomorrow up before we have the public hearing for the video conferencing and so um we'll get back to the public Hearing in a minute so first we have one public comment in person uh Sarah Kate Cantor um if you could go up to the mic thank you hi good evening thank you my name is Sarah Kate Cantor I had sent an email to Mr Sue the head of the transportation department

047and the board a few weeks ago in September um and I wanted to just come and read my email as a public comment as well um so like I said my name is Sarah Kate Cantor I'm a parent a parent of two students in the district um one at the middle school and one at Pine Bush and I'm also the assistant director of an Aftercare program in Guilderland um a few weeks ago there was a big thunderstorm right around the time that the elementary schools were letting out and I remember driving to work a little before the schools left let out and it was definitely a little scary to drive in the torrential rain with loud claps of thunder and lightning and some of the other drivers on the road not driving as safely as

048I would have liked um so uh I want to say a huge thank you to all of the bus drivers who were driving students during that time I know for my fifth grader that not only were the drivers having to contend with um treacherous driving conditions but they were also having to deal with um screaming coming from some of the kids they were transporting who were understandably very scared um so I can't honestly imagine having to drive under those unbelievably stressful conditions and I am so so grateful to all of the drivers who got all of the kids safely to their destinations that afternoon a special thank you to all of the drivers who drop kids off at gilderland martial arts which is my Aftercare and a very special thank you to Kevin who is

049the driver for my daughter's uh bus Elementary School Bus um I'd also like to thank the all of the drivers who did the middle school and high school runs that day I think if I remember correctly the storm had eased off a little bit in the afternoon but driving conditions were still far from ideal when the high school and middle school were letting out as an Aftercare teacher and a parent I am so appreciative of all the incredible work that the drivers do to transport children safely every day especially during difficult weather conditions I also wanted to say thank you to the whole Transportation Department for going above and beyond to support our children throughout the year we've had drivers bring backpacks and instruments to aftercare later in the afternoon when kids have forgotten them

050on the bus which I and the other parents really greatly appreciate and one Friday last spring the parent of one of our kids was worried because their child had left a wet bathing suit and towel in a bag on the bus and whomever I spoke with in the transportation office very kindly offered to hang out the wet items so they wouldn't get moldy since the parent couldn't pick them up until the following Monday um so uh as you can see everybody who works for transportation always goes above and beyond for the children and their parents and I'm truly exemplifies the spirit of it takes a village to raise a child so I just wanted to say thank you so much it's nice we have um I'll read the first one the first one is several

051pages long and so I'm just going to read some highlights this is from Adrian Cummings who is a senior at the high school this is a public comment follow-up from the last meeting where the indoor track coaches spoke in public comment um just a few highlights from the letter he emailed to us and this is like I said is Adrian Cummings is a senior hurdler and Sprinter he writes he started running uh started running club in third grade with Coach Scanlan over the last nine years he was able to participate in over a dozen camps clubs Sports all because of the running coaches he also shares as there are 180 kids who participate in indoor track so the ratio of students to coach is 60 to 1. the indoor track program scores consistently higher than

052any other winter sports program during the covid uh during covet the team braved the cold because they weren't allowed to practice indoors because of space issues um even more kids joined indoor track at this point and this sport also doesn't require expensive equipment which makes it more accessible to all running improves not only physical health but mental health and he writes as with strong leadership like the coaches we have here characters built team camaraderie strong responsibility is taught Etc less likely to get in trouble he said for the eight thousand dollars that you will be investing it's more than just three coaches but an entire community and he quotes coach kosher as he put a eight thousand dollars to change 180 lives really to 180 families and so I know that we've continued to talk

053about this and we know the importance and the stress of having more coaches available for the indoor track team and so I think we'll continue to discuss amongst the board to see if that's even a possibility for this year and if not then for next year the other public comment comes from Rebecca Lang and she writes I have some concerns about the start time in bus pickups the elementary school start time is at 7 50. in order for students to adequately get to school on time and have ample time to get to their classrooms and start their day we need to be more diligent about scheduling of buses my daughter's picked up at 7 38 in the morning and she has four other stops after she's picked up before she gets to school the school

054will not complain if a student is tardy if they are using the bus I contacted the bus garage and they are aware of the problem and the lady that I spoke to stated that she drove that route and she agrees that the route needs to be started early but unfortunately that they get to the high school and cannot drop off high school students until 705 and they don't leave the parking lot until 7 11. there has to be a better solution to the system by either reevaluating the start time for the buildings I understand that we have a bus driver shortage but unfortunately we are not the only District that has that problem other districts have the same issue and they revaluate and readjust their times I cannot stress this enough punctuality is something that

055we're trying to teach our student but but is excused in this situation because we have no solution we have to do better by our children the second issue I'd like to bring up to the district is to look at their enrichment programs especially at the elementary school level I have I had one of my kids leave the district this year because he wasn't challenged enough and was bored at school for the last two years fortunately for him we gave him extra work to do at home when he was presented with assignments for enrichment they were not enrichment to standards of a student that has already excelled in that particular subject at this time the district will give a student help if they're struggling but if we have a kid that needs more he is ignored

056I would like for the board to review this enrichment program and look at ways to improve it we can't ignore students that are excelling and wait till they get in eighth grade for them to have enrichment classes also as a board you should look at how many students have left the district in the last two years if there's any way I can get involved in the enrichment process I would like to be a part of it thank you for your time Rebecca Lang and so we know that the the bus situations improved quite significantly since the beginning of the year and I'm sure that's like an ongoing process to get that down right and the enrichment piece I think we can talk about at a later point I know we have a bunch of other

057things on the agenda um but having talked to a few other people on the board that just had questions about that I think we could bring that up at a later date if that's what you all think is appropriate okay so we can come back to that next we'll go back up to the previous item on the agenda the public hearing for video conferencing at board meetings and I'll turn this over to Dr Wiles coming okay good evening again once once again everyone I'm not sure this topic is as riveting as our earlier topics this evening but I am pleased to um spend a couple minutes outlining this amendment to the open open meetings law this is a chapter 56 from the laws of 2022. and as you know we are contemplating making this change

058so I'm going to share some highlights with you I'm sure as everyone remembers prior to the pandemic in 2020 school districts were permitted to hold proper open meetings with one or more members participating by video conference in a separate location if two conditions were met first the the location was identified in the meeting notice and the location was accessible to the public the new amendment to chapter 56 does not change this option we can continue to use this option going forward if that is our choice uh the new Amendment however adds some additional permissions it permits any public body to allow board members to attend meetings remotely at locations that do not allow for in-person physical attendance by the public so in other words at home or from some other location where the public just

059can't join you and that permission is granted under extraordinary circumstances which include things like disability or illness caregiving responsibility or any significant or unexpected factor or event that precludes the physical attendance at the meeting and this applies to full meetings of the board as well as committees and subject subcommittees that are subject to the open meetings law so that would apply for us here in Guilderland to our um four subcommittees policy audit um Communications and business practices because those committees are made of a majority of board members it does not apply to our Dei subcommittee because there are four far more members who are other than board members so that is not subject to mandatory open laws meeting open meeting law rules so there is a required process first the board must pass the resolution

060permitting remote attendance that resolution is further down on our agenda this evening the board must also establish written procedures that define extraordinary circumstances the policy Committee of the board is actually working on that through a policy a public hearing and the proposed resolution authorizing the use of the video conferencing must be held before the board adapts the resolution and that's what we're doing right now um and then the procedures must be posted to our district website which they would be through our policy manual a couple things about quorums a board member who was participating from a remote location that is not open to in-person attendance by the public may not be counted toward a quorum of the board so we would still need five people in person in this space that member however can participate

061remotely and vote if there is a quorum of board members at the same physical location um and then just a clarification the new law does not permit all members of a board to participate remotely only those who much do so under extraordinary circumstances and then a couple extra additional requirements uh the public notice for the meeting must inform the public the video conferencing will be used and it has to include information about how the public can view the meeting for us that won't change we'll continue to live stream as we have been the board must provide the opportunity for the public to view the meeting using remote technology or in person in real time uh the minutes must note which board members participated remotely and meetings with the video conferencing must be recorded and posted

062on the district website within five business days and then last the law does not permit board members to join by Audio or telephone or teleconferencing members of the board need to be heard seen and identified during the meeting and I'm happy to take your questions um as far as the committee meetings are like audit business practices can we can continue to do those remotely or does it have to be extraordinary circumstances it has to be under extraordinary circumstances and I did clarify that with our school attorney because it wasn't clear to me exactly how it how it would work but if that our committee meetings which are comprised of a majority of board members are subject to open meetings law so that will be a change for us because we've had many of our smaller

063committees meeting remotely for you know on and off for some time now they don't have to be televised count as extraordinary curious how that well the policy Committee in writing that policy will define extraordinary circumstances yes on policy we can talk about what that would mean what would that be which I think I mean I would policy I think that would be reasonable yes challenging so with the policy committee is writing those circumstances now does this go into effect now so so committees have to meet in person um it technically is in effect where we have to meet in person now as soon as the governor lifted the state of emergency and said public bodies need to eat meat in person um technically we should be in person so the process for here this we

064will need to be in person we can't use the extraordinary circumstances rule until we passed the resolution adapt the policy which I would anticipate would happen at the next board meeting on October 25th and then it can go into effect immediately thereafter so hopefully we have a policy meeting scheduled before the next board meeting maybe naked you can get on that well there's a doodle pool Fallout oh I haven't responded to it I didn't respond to it okay hopefully it's scheduled it okay are there any other questions okay hearing none I think that concludes our hearing thank you thank you Dr Wiles next on the agenda we have our independent audit report from Westin company I'll turn this over to Neil thank you I'm pleased to introduce Jill Feist she's the CPA shareholder from Western

065company CPA she's here's a report on the independent audit report for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2022. um everyone does have a copy of the financial statements we went over the financial statements with the audit Committee in detail at the LA at their last meeting and they are recommending them for approval this evening so I'll just provide a brief summary the financial statements include four different audit opinions the first audit opinion starts on page one of the financial statements this is our independent Auditor's report on the financial statements themselves and the second paragraph does state that in our opinion the accompanying financial statements present fairly that is what is officially known as an unmodified audit opinion so that is a clean audit opinion that is the highest that you can receive pages 4 through

06613 are the Management's discussion and Analysis section this is a narrative about the financial statements but it is important to keep in mind that this includes sections which are on the full accrual basis of accounting when the district maintains its accounting records day to day you use the fund accounting system which is more of a short-term Focus the full accrual statements are more long-term focused and include all at long-term assets and liabilities of the district so it is important to keep that difference in mind page 14 is the first of the actual statements page 14 is your statement of net position and this is a full accrual statement so it does include all long-term assets and liabilities of the district and you will see at the bottom of the page that the net position of

067the district is a deficit this is due to the fact that you have to record in other post-employment benefits liability all school districts are required to record this liability in actuary determines how much you are going to need to pay out to retirees for their health insurance in the future this liability this year is about 248 million dollars for the district but New York state does not allow school districts to set aside any funds to pay for that liability each year when you set your budget you're only allowed to budget for the current Year's health insurance premiums since you have to record this large liability and you don't have any offsetting assets that is resulting in this negative or deficit net position for the district so that is a common thing for many districts it's

068not just the situation here page 16 and 18 are the two fund-based financial statements page 16 is your fund-based balance sheet and this does show all of the funds of the district on page 22 within the footnotes does have a description of each of the funds so that it tells you what activity is accounted for in each font also on page 16 in the fund balance section at the bottom of the page you will see the various restricted funds that the district has in place these are funds the district has set aside for particular future purposes according to New York state law and Pages 30 through 35 in the footnotes have the particular information as far as how you can fund those restricted amounts and how you can use those restricted amounts since they are

069set by law as far as how they can be funded and used Pages 20 through 50 are the notes to the financial statements these provide a description of the district's accounting policies and provide more information regarding some of the numbers within the financial statements page 51 is the first of the supplementary statements page 51 is your budget to actual comparison for your general fund revenues since the general fund is a voter approved budget we do have to present information about your budget to actual comparison for the general fund page 51 does show that for the revenues for the district you are very close to your actual budget you were at about a hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars more than you had budgeted this is very important so that you know how much money you

070have available to spend page 52 shows the comparison of your budget to actual for the general fund expenditures and once again you will see that you are very close to your budgeted amounts one other supplemental schedule I'll mention on page 56. the bottom of page 56 is your section 1318 real property tax law limit New York state law requires that districts are not allowed to have more than four percent of next year's budget in unassigned fund balance at the end of the year and this schedule the last line does show that at the end of the year you are at four percent so you're in compliance with that regulation for this year the next section of the financial statements is What's called the single audit because the district spent more than 750 000 of Federal

071grant money during the year we are required to perform a single audit and test your Grant compliance for a particular Grant or program this year we looked at your covid-19 funding you receive two different audit reports for the single audit the first starts on page 60 and the second starts on page 62. these are also both clean unmodified audit opinions we found no issues in internal control or compliance related to your grants page 65 shows your federal expenditures for the year so this details all out all of your federal grants and the amounts spent I will mention you'll see at the bottom of the page you were just under 5.9 million dollars in Federal grant funding this year and that is up substantially compared to last year due to the large covet grant funding and

072the increase in Your Child Nutrition due to being able to provide free meals for all students the last section of the audit is your extra classroom audit this is student money for the clubs but the District board does have fiscal oversight the audit report for that begins on page 69. and that is what is called a qualified opinion we can't prove that all money raised is actually submitted to the central treasurers for so for all of the districts that we audit we do give a qualified opinion stating that we can't prove that amount but we found no other issues and the detail as far as each of the clubs starts on page 72 and then continues on page 73. finally I would just like to mention the audit went very well we very much appreciate

073the help that Neil and John and all of the business office staff provided to get the audits on in a timely fashion and very efficiently any questions yep funds yeah I think so is that um I know you said that that's pretty standard for school districts but is that something that we can put like we can put things into place so that would change so there really isn't an efficient way to actually allow for an audit of that just because there are so many moving pieces involved there are so many different clubs and um so many different fundraisers to efficiently efficiently audit it isn't really possible for us to have someone to for the district to have someone at every single fundraiser to prove that all the money is being properly submitted is just not

074efficient thank you with that big deficit the by you know state law we have to um we have to note can you just discuss that a little bit more certainly yeah so all of the districts have to have an actuary determine how much in the future you will have to pay out for health insurance so according to various contracts you have agreed to provide health insurance to retirees to employees when they retire um the actuaries come up with an estimate of that amount and then you have to record the liability on your books unfortunately you can't actually start setting aside money so that you have money in the future to pay it New York State doesn't have any type of restricted fund balance where you could start putting money into that so it causes you

075to have this massive liability that you can't actually start funding this is the same for all this all the districts in the state that are required to record this correct those liabilities just keep going up yeah if yes there is a supplemental schedule um page 53 shows since you had to start recording it for the year ended June 30th 2018 um through now what that liability has been so you had been the first year you were required to record it you were at 175 million and then this year you're up to almost 248 million dollars foreign was um or the fun balance was it can you point out the page where they where we have our funding balance and it kind of tells I'm trying to recall the conversation because we know we dipped into

076a little bit this past year probably the year before I just want to make a note of where that is in here so if you flip to page 18 18 shows the revenues and expenses by fund so in this case you would be looking at the First Column the general phone column and the third line up from the bottom the excess or deficiencies of revenues and other sources over expenditures and uses so for the year your fund balance went down by 886 784 dollars this for this year for your general fund and you can see at the top your total revenues are about 104.4 million total expenditures 105.2 million and then you did have some transfers in and out that netted to about 68 000 going out so that leaves us without 11. 11.25 million

077correct the only thing we discussed in the auto meeting was the um the club the club in money and at what point do you just do decide if the club would be it's all because if there's extra not excess funds but it was made a point to like take a look at even though the club is not active active they may be active in the future remember that conversation yeah the money would go back to the general right but it like I just remember talking about it I remember talking about a couple of years of like always have to keep an eye on if there's excess money in there and if it's active or we're paying a administrator but I don't think we are just kind of review I'm trying to thinking in my head

078typically we would allow clubs we could have Financial Activity three years and John checks face I don't know if you want to respond to that John and Duncan them every year so every uh every year at the year end when I look at three years previously to clubs if they haven't had any Financial activity I reach out to the the advisor the high school advisor and I asked them if there's if they plan to have activity in the future and if they don't our informal policy was to roll the excess funds that have the balances into the student government account and that's according to the New York State pamphlet state law we're also in the excuse me in the policy committee I guess you are you're also writing up that as a formal policy to

079put that into uh into written a written statements so it'll be a formal adopted policy as far as there are also clubs that don't have Financial activity but they're still active so those those we I again I reach out to the principal to make sure that they are operating they they're they're taking minutes and I also have encouraged them to at least fundraise a dollar to spend of a pizza party or something like that to show a minimum of expenditures uh just to comply with uh literal letter of the law where you have to have Financial activity for a club too all right so that's that's what I encourage this year uh but the Millennium clubs are still active and as I said I'm in communication with the high school advisor I think we have

080policy 5252 on for our first read tonight which adds the language that formalizes this whole part of the conversation I just want to ask the that first bullet on page four the financial highways that really um highlights that the idea that the fund balance besides the detention liabilities Etc was for transportation and the taxes correct yeah I don't know I just want to say thank you to Neil and to John and to everybody else from really helpful in answering all the questions in the audit committee which I know we had many of them so thank you Joe I would also like to thank our business office staff who deals with us on a day-to-day basis and make sure we're following all the rules and resulting in the product that you see tonight so we have

081an excellent staff and we appreciate very much what they do on a daily basis to ensure that our funds are well maintained and something that gets these kinds of results in an audio candidly speaking thank you thank you thank you we have the consent item are you going to accept it oh I'm sorry I'm sorry this is the roll call though I'm sorry um so first we need a motion to accept the independent audit uh Blanca second Rebecca any questions or comments ready yeah sorry Mrs blasiak yes Dr Butterfield yes Mrs Mrs Gonzalez Parker yes yes this is person yes Dr Rivera yes Mr saberin yes Mrs uh slack yes this is tall Hill yes and Mrs depiro yes thank you passes my zero thank you now next we have the consent items this includes

082the minutes from the September 13th meeting Personnel action cpsc and CSE recommendations and the financials can I have a motion to accept the consent items Katie second Gloria any questions or comments all in favor aye test is nine zero and can I pass here to welcome Dr Andrew van alstein who is welcome we're so glad you could join us tonight we threw a party for you everybody left thank you for hanging in with us welcome Andrew we're so happy so happy next on the agenda we have information items curriculum and instruction I'll turn this over to Rachel good evening I get to recognize some of our musicians tonight which is fantastic so each year thousands of student musicians in New York state compete for an opportunity to be selected for the prestigious nisma conference All-State

083music and ensembles admission to these highly highly selective groups is based upon the score received the previous spring during the nisma solo evaluation Festival where each student performed before a certified educator who adjudicator excuse me who carefully evaluated every aspect of their performance the gilderland music department is proud to announce that three students were recognized for their exemplary performances including Maxine alpart who is a senior and was recognized for alto II and mixed chorus Bowden kinal who's also a senior recognized for alto saxophone instrumental Jazz and tenor one and mixed chorus and Olivia Petty a junior who is recognized for oboe and symphonic band these talented students will spend four days in Rochester rehearsing with other gifted student musicians from across the state with the event culminating in a concert at hilborn Hall at the

084Eastman School of Music additionally we want to commend Carson rittner a senior who was chosen as an alternate for violin and Olivia Petty who was chosen as an alternate for chorus congratulations to all of our musicians their teachers and their parents on this outstanding accomplishment [Music] this evening discuss the timetable for staff involvement board consideration public information and vote on the 2023-24 budget and your agenda is a detailed outline timeline outlining major activities in the development of the 2003-2004 budget Community engagement opportunities will be developed in conjunction with the communications committee key dates are October 25th is when we offer the public the opportunity to provide input on next year's budget December 6th the board will provide direction to the administration in terms of the budget on March 7th that's when the superintendent's budget will

085be released on March 28th board will hold a budget work session on April 4th that's when the board will adopt a budget and on May 16th we will hold the annual budget vote and School Board election next item send an update on enrollment so on the first Wednesday of each October school districts across the state collect a variety of basic educational data to share with the State education department among the data are totals of students who are enrolled in each of our school buildings this year there are 4 853 students enrolled in our K-12 programs and that's 22 students more than last year and two less students then projected during the budget development process who were very close on the projections by level the changes over last year's enrollments are as follows at the elementary

086level we're up eight students the Middle School we're up 39 students and at the high school we are down 25 students next we have superintendent information Dr Wiles thank you so much my first item is to announce to the community that the New York New York school of public relations Association has awarded Patrice deverito Public Information Specialist and Patrick malowski digital content specialist two awards for excellence the first was given for stories from ghs graduation 2022 and it was featured on our social media channels and included a variety of photos and video and materials that captured what was a terrific graduation ceremony and the second award was given for the campaign materials for the Guilderland School District 2021 Capital Improvement project and I just want to offer congratulations to both Patrice and to Patrick We're

087very proud to have them working with us they do a tremendous job and just it's remarkable to me that the vote was a week ago Friday and the turkey field is days away from being done which is really quite miraculous when you think about the timing timing our thanks to our Communications team who work so hard on our behalf and we appreciate all that they help us with and then my second item tonight is just a reminder although they have all left us for the evening October is National principles month they all have very early mornings so it's celebrated each and every October and it's an opportunity for district leaders to recognize the hard work that principals do they are sometimes overlooked but they solve problems from all directions each and every day and we

088are very fortunate to have some outstanding principles house principals and assistant principals who are thoroughly committed to our community to our students to our staff and uh I thank them very much for their hard work and their dedication and all they do for us but congratulations to our group thank you Dr Wiles next we have board president info we have a set of policies here A through I from the policy committee and anybody I know I'm on policy with anybody else on policy you want to draw attention or highlight anything that we should be looking at in particular timeline for connectivity close out of the students activity but yeah great so these are up for information and possibly up for Action then for the next meeting and the next item I have are the miss

089the voting delegate guide the proposed resolutions booklet that was given to us and then the resolution results based on at least most of us that that completed the Google form and it's a duty will you be presented oh okay I would say hi and I think I was the backup person you're on the 17th right no this is for the for the school for conventional that's in October yeah um I think it's in October yeah me you're going are you going to it oh you're going Gloria I'm I'm not going to the gym okay let's go I'm sorry okay you go to the conference in October in Syracuse um yes although there's also um on the 17th there is like the business where they have um the sixth they had um how do I try

090my workshop I'm sorry and what to expect and then I'm also going to be doing the workshop this Thursday I think it's at four I forget it's on email just to explain like what the process is and whatever think that's good yeah okay so if other people have feedback that they want to be shared there and pass it on to Kim great thank you next we have action items we'll turn this over to school business again Neil the first item this evening is our internship agreements and recommended for approval our agreements with Russian sage college and Siena College for internship and practicum experience and also to authorize the superintendent of schools to execute the agreements can I have a motion to improve the internship agreements Gloria second Nate any questions or comments all in favor

091next is a recommendation to approve a service agreement with Four Winds Hospital of Katonah and authorizing the superintendent to execute the agreement can I have a motion to approve the service agreement with performance patona Rebecca second Katie any questions or comments all in favor aye the motion passes 9-0 next is a resolution to approve the agreement with Schenectady County Community College to make available College in the High School courses to students for college credit during the 2022-2023 school year and authorized superintendent to execute the agreement can I have a motion to improve the College of the high school agreement a Nate second Blanca any questions or comments all in favor and finally this evening I have two donations the first is a donation of various size and colored bookends from the Guilderland Public Library 95

092of those and also a monetary donation for Linwood Elementary library from the state of Gene McCullough June was a long time employee of the district serving as a teaching assistant at Linwood Elementary starting in 1982 and retiring in 2009 after 25 years of service great can I have a motion to accept the donations Rebecca second Judy any questions or comments thank you so much for the donations from the library and eat all in favor all right thank you Neil and next we have superintendent action Dr Wiles thank you I have five co-curricular clubs for the board's consideration this evening two at the high school they include the Asian student unit with the Christine Grant as the advisor and the Dungeons and Dragons club with Shannon Clark is the advisor um at the middle school we

093have three clubs the volleyball club with Mr Roscoe the origami club with Mr ball um Ms Miller and Ms Moran and magic at the Gathering club with Mr ball Mr Miller and Ms Moran okay it's great can I have a motion to approve the co-curricular clubs Wonka second Kelly any uh questions or comments I love seeing that the students are so involved in starting all these new clubs so yes that's really cool all in favor passes 9-0 say thank you Dr Wiles next we have board president action we have a list of policies here a through e that we discussed I think last time can I have a motion to improve the uh the policies the set of policies Gloria's second date any questions or comments on these all in favor I passed his nine

094zero next we have the resolution for video conferencing and board meetings as discussed earlier so can I have a motion to improve the resolution Rebecca II Judy any questions or comments all in favor thank you next we have board committee reports we'll start with business practices our committee has yet to meet but that will change as of eight o'clock Thursday morning we're having our first meeting great next we have audit we met on draft external fiscal audit which we all heard about tonight we approved the claims audit reports from May 31st to June 30th the audit committee Charter was reviewed and approved with no changes and our next meeting is not yet scheduled and I guess we'll be in person okay [Music] Communications we are meeting tomorrow at four o'clock in the district office great

095and housing we had our meeting a couple weeks ago the policies you see on here we discussed some of the stuff that came up to the last meeting about the extracurricular based on feedback from building cabinet we decided that we were not going to go anywhere with that policy um we discussed a few other matters which and we'll have to get a I guess we're gonna have to get a meeting on sooner than anticipated so we'll have something ready for everybody in a couple weeks so we'll put something together really quick and uh I think that's where we're at right now you'll have a because we don't have a meeting scheduled but it'll be soon very soon I guess great yeah thank you that's and then Dei I don't mind reporting yet you want me

096to report on sure thanks um so our last meeting was September 15th we started by reviewing the four subcommittees and the selections were made for those committees Mr pinchanat talked about how he'd worked with one of the ghs assistant principals to provide team building for fall athletes Dr Wiles gave an update on our Equity audit there were several trainings over the summer regarding the equity audit then through the equity Institute these trainings will be ongoing and will include Equity walks and focus groups throughout the school Community a book was selected for our next learning component I think all of us got one at our desks tonight um it's titled A Place to belong celebrating diversity and kinship in the home and Beyond by Amber O'Neill Johnson steering committee members were selected the various subcommittees will

097be meeting before our next full meeting which is October 19th great thank you Rebecca I think those are all the board committee reports we'll move on to public comment number two when to do in English thank you and last but not least four issues ideas and sharing does anyone have anything to share or ideas that they'd like to share I wanted to Circle back to one of the public comments submitted by Adrian Cummings um I know it was long but he did point out in his public comment some of the disparities in terms of the student to coach ratio and to me those seemed pretty significant and so I just hope that we're not going to stop talking about the possibility of adding because the the same reaction that I had when I found out

098that the Altamonte library and worked a little less than the other schools I'm getting that same Vibe here it's a significant difference if his numbers are correct so I just hope that we continue discussing that okay I'd like to add to that that we continue the conversation because the plan at this point has been shared out that they're looking to move it to a more tryout based sport like many of the others if they can't provide safety and again that would have an impact on the inclusion of many of the students that participate that may not otherwise make it through the tryout process and there's very few sports that we have available to students where that not the case you know where they include everyone so just something for us to talk about yeah I

099mean I would also add to the same that um you know I know that we can't always prepare like it's a couple Sports and the ratio of coaches to to players but it's it feels like I feel like this sport in general like is inclusive to all because they don't have that um that competitive tryouts like like the other sports do it's accessible because there's not expensive equipment to buy I really feel like this the the coaches Foster this from the beginning I mean I know that like my my younger daughter is doing running club at elementary school they start before school and you know the physical health of course that's important but the mental health I mean we talked about after covid and not having a GPA tied to um co-curricular clubs and extract

100you know activities Etc so I feel like this would be something that is inclusive a lot like they're they're not cutting people they're including kids and even if kids are struggling in school if they're part of a running group or a team I don't know I know that we talk a lot about mental health and so I just feel like this is strongly tied to that so I don't know if we can figure something out as well go ahead Kim yeah I just wanted to comment also on this having a child that runs I mean there are a lot of kids that do this program because there are no cuts and it is a truly inclusive program and they find their thing like there's so many kids that wouldn't make it if there were tryouts

101and then start and really Foster a love of running and turn out to be phenomenal and it's a group that I mean they Encompass what we as a district strive to strive to achieve when it comes to include so I would just hate to see this group have to start making cuts and I can tell you right now I mean I was at the cross country meet tonight and kids are already getting nervous and starting to panic because they don't think that they can now possibly be on this team that's something they've done for a while and something they've loved and there there's a sense of panic already within the runners community I just wanna kind of as an aside Neo and Andrew since you're going to be taking over one of the things we

102talked about when this was brought up last meeting was that we wanted to make sure in that budget process when it comes time for us to look at it and when we could have analyzed this at the proper time we had all the information about what was in what was taken out so that when we have an understanding of what's coming in what's coming out just a little more clarity I know that's I know that's on your radar but I'm just putting it on everybody's radar so that when we get these questions six months later we can say well this is what happened so we have an understanding I just want to make sure that I reiterate our requests to have that information as cumbersome as it probably will be it's helpful for us and

103not helpful for the community too well okay so I know in general um it's probably a poor practice to add something after the budget is closed and that um fiscally it would be difficult but I think we could change a lot of lives if we move on this for this year and also I'm worried that if you know we we add it to the next year's budget and don't make it right this year we're going to lose a bunch of those kids they're going to lose that whole year and maybe they won't be interested in it next year um just not put that out there the only thing I wanted to add just on based on what Blanca said too is I know we've talked about we we can't go back and open because if

104one group sees it then the others Maybe this is equity versus equality in my mind like it's the thing that it's not an equal across the board it's it's giving everyone what they need so I just want that pointed out as well so we are continuing to look at all of this uh I think uh Dave Austin is meeting with the coaches Thursday to think about what their plans are we do not have extra resources to add to the budget but we are closely looking at our expenditures for other fall coaching positions we have considerable turnover which means there's a potential for some breakage retired coaches are being replaced by coaches that will just be beginning I am not making promises I just want to assure the board that we're continuing to look at this

105we're cognizant of the concerns and um do our best to come to a solution but we won't know about that breakage immediately because we're still hiring the fall Sports we still don't know what participation numbers will look like in some of those sports that we're hiring for do we need two coaches for them and so on so there's moving Parts here but it's not falling off the team thank you thank you any other board issues ideas and sharing just um sorry um do we know when the true field will be used yet and all that also some people think that homecoming didn't actually happen and it was moved to the turf field ceremony but that's not the case we had homecoming right coming okay so we are close to having the track the field is

106certified and ready to go but the track just completed with the painting the paint found it needs to cure I don't know if we've gotten the official sign off but it's coming soon and that's all I'm gonna say another board issues ideas and sharing I'll just share it just you know for transparency sake that I know we have the email that's sent to us about asking about different food options and being inclusive of um what's available for students and so that parent met with the Food Services director Emil and so they're starting a conversation about just first of all how the process works in terms of the bid process and what different organizations are offering and I think we are also going to maybe talk about it or at least bring it up at the

107GI Committee just so it's again transparent that um you know and also for the sake of if other people have information they might be able you know willing to share it's the learning process I think on on both ends so um it's a positive thing yeah very positive definitely I think it's great any other board issues ideas and sharing give a motion to adjourn Wonka second Gloria all in favor thank you everybody