27 Board of Education meeting, May 4, 2021

001good evening and welcome to the may 4th 2021 gilderlin central school district board of education meeting would you all please silence your cell phones and recite the pledge i pledge 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 okay so first on the agenda tonight we have the budget hearing and so i will turn it over to canil wait yeah hill's there yep thank you dr rivera this evening we're going to be presenting the budget in the form of a budget hearing and this is a requirement by state law and we have to do this between 7 and 14 days before the actual budget vote takes place so tonight we'll be fulfilling that obligation and sharing information with you

002about the proposed budget for the 2021-2022 school year so overall the budget will increase by 1.9 million or 1.89 percent our estimated tax levy increase is 1.28 and that also applies to any tax rate increases in the various towns and we'll talk about this a little bit more but the way the budget is structured it just requires 50 voter approval for it to pass and we'll talk a little bit more about that later on in another slide so there are three parts that the state wants us to show in terms of the budget categories that they have identified for us so they require us to show the distribution of expenditures between program expenses particularly related to the instructional side of the program capital expenses and administrative expenses so as you might imagine being a school

003district uh the bulk over three quarters of our budget is allocated to program cost and that's meeting the needs of our students capital which is improvements to our facilities in debt for borrowings that's a much smaller amount 11.4 and administration is 11.2 percent so we'll walk through each of the components of the budget and give you a flavor for what's contained within there and what the dollars represent so as you can see at the top we're going to talk about the program component we have a comparison between last year and this year in terms of the overall amount of that component as well as the percentage and the percentage is almost identical to the previous year in terms of the overall budget but this is where our salaries and benefits would would be for teachers

004guidance counselors aid monitors nurses social workers psychologists speech therapists all the individuals that provide services to our children also professional development library media and computer services student transportation is in this category as well as co-curricular activities in interscholastic athletics and then we have the administrative component again that's very similar to last year in terms of the overall percent but this is where you would find costs for our administrators supervisors and administrative clerical staff we also have our public information component that's part of the administrative allocation central data processing research planning and evaluation and then tax collection and most of our legal services as well as school board costs then finally the capital component that's exactly the same percentages in the previous year and this is for debt on building improvements school bus purchases tax challenges

005as well as our operations and maintenance department including our salaries and benefits in terms of the overall revenue budget uh you can see that we did receive a substantial increase in state aid this year and that's represented in the chart which was very good for for us we had a little decline in in our local revenues and also as part of our final budget adoption we also reduced our reliance on fund balance so we're taking from our savings to help fund our expenditures and in this case we did a good thing in reducing our reliance on our savings to fund our operating expenses so that's now it's zero for next year payments and low taxes have have gone down as well our tax levy as you can see is 75.9 million in our of all

006budget is one almost 105 million in terms of our budgeted revenues and expenses to show that graphically um on the revenue side property taxes provide the predominant amount of money for our operations 72.4 percent state aid is another significant chunk at 26 and then we have some local revenue sources that comprise relatively small amount of 1.6 terms of our expenditure budget our salaries and benefits of being a people business uh they comprise the bulk of of our expenses 80 and then we also have contractual services at seven percent boces at 5.6 that payment's at four point nine percent equipment and supplies at two point two percent and interfund transfers at zero point three percent in terms of our overall impact um we're estimating our tax levy is going to increase by 962 thousand dollars that's

007a 1.28 on both the levy and the tax rate as you know many years ago the state adopted a tax living limit or property tax cap um so there are some requirements that we have to follow there is a formula that's established by new york state it's got eight steps in it we'll walk through those in a moment but basically the idea behind this formula is to increase to limit the increase in the vast majority of expenses to two percent or less and the result of that formula really determines the amount that property taxes can increase and it really sets a threshold for voter approval and that's ultimately what the goal of this calculation is to decide whether we need a majority or what we would term a super majority so if the tax increase

008is less than the threshold amount we the budget will pass with 50 or more of the voters voting yes but if it's greater than the threshold amount we would need to have 60 percent of the voters voting yes in order to have a pass budget in either case whenever a budget is defeated no increases at all in taxes are permitted so this is the actual calculation provided by the state with our data inserted in it so it starts with our prior year tax levy of just about 75 million there is a tax-based growth factor that's provided by the state it's really to capture new construction within the school district and that's at 1.0043 that gets us to our subtotal of 75.3 million and then we're going to add payment and low of taxes from the

009prior year so that's about 75 000 subtracting our capital expenditures so these are expenditures but we have to back out the amount of aid that we're receiving for those expenditures so the net of that is 1.5 million that brings us to our adjusted prior year tax levy of 73.8 million we also have an allowable levy growth factor so this is the cpi factor that everybody's pretty much familiar with so it's the two percent or less component so uh in this case the cpi was 1.23 so it was less than two percent so that's the number that we have to use so that results in our growth adjusted tax levy subtotal 74.8 million we have next year's pilot inserted into the formula of 47 000 that gets us to what's called the actual tax levy limit

010amount 74.7 million then we get to add back capital expenditures again net of state aid for next year 1.2 million and that brings us to our maximum allowable tax levy limit amount of 75.9 million or 1.28 percent so in terms of the tax levy limit and the proposed tax levy they're the same this year so there's no difference between the tax levy limit and the proposed limit we're right at the maximum uh the increase in both cases 962 403 or 1.28 and as i mentioned before that just requires 50 of the voters to vote yes to have a pass budget we always like to share a little bit of the past budgets and the margin of votes very high turnout last year with a large number of absent money only vote by absentee ballot so

011that increased our voting population significantly uh but you can see we've got strong support from the community over time 70 percent upper 60 so the community has been very supportive of budget votes in the past um it's always important to talk about what happens if the budget does fail and that would put us into a contingency contingency budget situation so if it fails on the first attempt the board can choose to either put the same budget or some modified version of that up for a second vote or it could choose to go directly to a contingency budget if it's defeated a second time there is no other option the board of education must adopt a contingency budget at that time and a contingent c budget has to exclude what are deemed to be non-contingent expenses

012so things like new equipment community use of buildings they have to be removed from the budget and there's also an administrative cap proportion so there's a percentage calculation and you would have to reduce by the amount of administrative expenses to get below that cap as a second requirement to a contingent budget the other thing about a contingency budget is the property tax levy can't increase by any amount over the current year tax levy so in our case it would be certainly significant if we were in that situation we would have to find either additional revenue and or expenditure reductions totaling 962 thousand dollars in order to comply with the legal requirements under that circumstance so this year's vote the budget proposition 104 million 979 570 we have a bus and vehicle proposition and that's one

013million thirty three thousand two hundred dollars we have four candidates buying for three open seats so luciano alonzi lanka gonzalez parker sima rivera and nathan saborin are all candidates that will be on the ballot this year so as a reminder a vote date tuesday may 18th polls open at seven o'clock in the morning and will remain open until 9 pm at night you need to vote at the elementary school in your attendance zone and you can go to our website for more information if you're unsure which elementary school you would be voting at and then i i just have one other piece of information that i'll add a question that came in asking about federal money that the district might be receiving federal stimulus aid what were the amounts and what could it be used

014for so i'll just briefly run through that um we are receiving federal allocations under two different concepts of money the first is the coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act that's 4.6 million and also we're receiving funds under the american rescue plan act of 2.8 million dollars basically these are grant driven application processes so we have an allocation but we have to apply for it there are requirements and approvals that have to happen some of the things that federal aid can be used for this type of federal aid is addressing learning loss student mental health supports after school and summer learning programs activities to address the unique needs of low-income students students with disabilities english learners racial and ethnic minorities homeless students and foster care youth hardware and software for remote or hybrid learning purchasing

015ppe cleaning and disinfecting supplies air quality and ventilation improvements improving preparedness efforts and coordination and planning for school closures so there is certain categories certain types of expenses that we can utilize this aid for again we'll have to go through an application process and approval process to access those funds and with that i can take any questions anybody might have yes kelly neil is there a deadline on getting in those applications or those uh grant requests uh there is a window in which the funds are available so for the first one the corona response and relief supplemental program that's through september 30th 2022 the american rescue plan is through september 30th 2023 the window hasn't officially been opened yet i mean we don't have a mechanism to submit anything at this point i'm sure that

016will be coming shortly so obviously we will need to be doing some planning within our district to identify priorities and put ourselves in a position to start filing for funds to meet those needs gloria oh i'm sorry judy thank you i'm just wondering about pilots there's a fairly large drop in pilots is that good or bad for our budget uh yes and yes um yeah so um good when they come on bad when they come off so they help us when they're coming on but hurt us a little bit when they're coming off and it's really the difference between what's incoming and outgoing so that that delta between the two will determine how much of an impact it has from year to year and sema i just had a question about the uh pre-k and

017if they gave any more guidance about that did you want to address that marie yeah i can jump in there we have not received um much more guidance about it but we do know that there is some flexibility in how school communities actually implement the programming and for several of us who have never been funded before we are looking at um putting together an rfp so we can have some community partners assist us with this because um ironically if those of you who were around and we were talking about pre-k several years ago at this point we do not have additional room in our elementary buildings so um we're actually working on putting together that rfp and getting it out so we can get a program get the program supported in our community as soon

018as possible okay thank you any other questions for neil okay thank you neil we'll move on to the next part of our agenda this is public comment number one um before we start i just wanted to give an update as a reminder or give an update to public comment we've decided that to be consistent among all the subcommittees and people writing in with public comment not really specifying which meeting they want public comment to be read at we're just going to keep them all at the regular board meeting it's um it's too confusing and people writing in right before other meetings and not you know not knowing so we're gonna keep all public comments to regular board meetings and um we'll read one through twelve because they were received by four pm and then we'll

019read the last two with public comment number two just to stick with our um timeline that we wrote in the email um so i'll go gloria and then we can just rotate sound good backup people in case we drop uh public comment number one um i was deeply offended by barbara fraderigo's comment on april 14 2021 board meeting about racial profiling for the position of assistant principal at ghs she seemed to imply that because the position required knowledge about diversity in your student population and as she saw only black women on the diversity and equity committee possessing the skill that she possessing the skills she claimed she was quote worried that the job position would go to a person of color instead of someone like amy herald check who is not a person of color

020and in barbara frederico's view quote did a great job where the woman of color lack needed skills i would like ms roderigo to explain why she says that women of color know about diversity but do not possess the education skills and experience to be assistant principals given that i am sure the district has students of color who may want to become principals and after hearing her comments found them discriminatory and hurtful did you mention the author of that letter oh i'm sorry that was uh karen lewis sorry a million tabs thank you second letter firstly i would like to take the opportunity to extend a huge thank you to board president dr rivera for the exceptional and exceptionally challenging work that she does on the board school board and service of guildelin students and families

021in particular my family and i have been extremely grateful time and again for her tireless efforts to advocate for true equity and diversity within the gilderland school district dr rivera on behalf of myself my husband and most importantly my children who attend gildan schools our family would like to say thank you for all you do secondly i would like to address the shocking and distressing comments made by a board member at the last meeting on april thirteenth twenty twenty one mrs frederico asked the question if you are asking for a diversity educator are you racial profiling the position this comment was deeply concerning to me on many levels firstly the correct definition of racial profiling according to the oxford dictionary is quote the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having

022committed an offense end quote racial profiling is in the united states a tool of white supremacy that has been used both historically and in the present day to perpetuate violence against bipark peoples in an attempt to preserve the white supremacist status quo i was shocked and distressed that someone who was supposed to be representing all guilderland students would use the term racial profiling in a way that was not only factually incorrect but also blatantly disregarded and dismissed the pain and suffering of millions of bypoc peoples who have had their lives and communities destroyed by racial profiling in our country i urge mrs frederico in her role as a board member to spend some time learning about what racial profiling real actually is as well as the devastating impact it has had and continues to have

023on the lives of bypak peoples including that of distant district students and their families in addition i believe that this comment of racial profiling was made intentionally in an attempt to distract the board's energy and attention away from the real issue at hand the real issue at hand is that guilderland desperately needs a full-time dei coordinator and counter to what mrs rodrigo asserted the district has absolutely demonstrated an immediate need for this position to be full-time in regard to this position i would also like to add i feel that this position should not be that of an ap or teacher but should instead be that of an administrator under the direction of the district office the reason i say that the position should not be an ap or teacher position is because those types of

024positions will have additional educational or disciplinary responsibilities associated with the jobs that will take significant time and energy away from the critical social and racial justice work this position will entail the person who is hired for this position should have in addition to any other education qualifications an experience that they may need lived experience in one or more of the areas that their work will involve as well as a strong social and racial justice vision for how to move the district forward towards anti-racism equity and inclusion that person will be the best person for the job and i urge the administration to take seriously the equity diversity and inclusion pledge that the district made in the wake of george floyd's murder when laying out the hiring guidelines for this position i also strongly agree with

025mrs gonzalez parker that this is an essential it is essential to clarify clearly define the job description of dei coordinator it would also be crucial to include community voices in the hiring process specifically by parents and students who have been affected by the individual and institutional racism in the district i also feel that the dei coordinator should have a clear mechanism in place whereby they can are empowered to enact district-wide policy measures that they recommend the position must have the ability to actually affect change and not merely be symbolic thank you to all the board members who spoke up and voted to make the dei position a full-time position for the coming school year the third point i would like to address is the tax cap as a parent and a resident the most important

026priority to me and my family is a comprehensive safe high quality education for any children for my children i will always ask that the district go as high as it needs to go in regard to approaching or even exceeding the tax cap if necessary in order to ensure that guilderland schools are fully funded our children are fully supported in their learning my fourth and final point that i would like to address is in regard to the proposed changes to the school start times as a parent i am very much in favor of a changing the school start times to align the district with the current scientific research into adolescent sleep needs changing the start times to allow high school students to sleep later in the morning will have a positive impact on all aspects of

027high schoolers physical mental and emotional well-being and i urge the district to continue with its plans to adjust the start times thank you for taking the time to listen to my comments and concerns best sarah kate cantor district parent thank you gloria number i'll read number three guilderland board of education thank you for taking the time to read my letter at tonight's board meeting my name is shawn mcconaughey and i'm a resident of guilderland a physical education teacher at foreign earth middle school and a parent of a current 8th grader and 6th grader at fms i am also proud to be the varsity lacrosse coach and the modified field hockey coach here in gilderlin i am writing today to advocate for the move to a multi-use turf facility in the gilroy central school district this

028is my 18th year coaching lacrosse at guilderland and until last spring they all have been the same the lacrosse season runs early march through may every year we start our season in early march inside one of the gyms a parking lot with student cars scattered in the middle or have to ask our booster club to rent turf so we can have an authentic field to practice on april has not been much better for us over the years because we can still not practice on the game field um muting yourself sorry it's just um sorry uh the game field is usually not lined until the day before home game due to the wet conditions of the field and this all puts us at a real disadvantage to our peers in the area a multi-use turf facility

029would alleviate all of those problems and keep us on an equal playing field money is also a problem that we have struggled with over the years we have to ask our booster club to raise over fifteen hundred dollars every spring just so we can practice six times on a turf field before our first game we also have to schedule scrimmages with teams that do have turf and often that requires a charter bus to travel this is all paid by our booster club families booster club and families we have not practiced or played on our game field in the month of march in my 18 years in the program this is equal to over six seasons or a third of my time as a coach where the student athletes are practicing in a parking lot gym

030or renting turf at the expense of our families during this time our student athletes do not know where or when practice will be until 15 minutes before practice it also forces us to practice at different times of the night and weekend which is difficult on the student athletes when it comes to to a schedule and when to manage their time for academics the addition of this facility will allow us to have a regular scheduled practice so the student athletes will be able to plan their time better and have a safer surface to practice and play on the multi-surface will allow the sports the advantage of a safe and competitive playing field i saw firsthand two years ago the benefit of the multi-sport turf facility and the effect it had on our field hockey program winning

031the section two championship i saw it again this fall when the modified field hockey girls team had the opportunity to practice at aphrom's turf facility all fall and the pace of development of the players as far beyond the years i've coached on uneven grass surfaces one final point i would like to make is how it will benefit physical education programs at ghs the ability to have a turf facility will lengthen the time that students can be outside for class in the fall as well as getting outside earlier in the spring the field with clearly defined boundaries will be safe and more accessible for all students in the district during physical education i fully support the addition of a turf field to the district as a town resident physical education teacher in the district a parent

032and as a coach of multiple sports programs thank you thank you for your time and consideration sean mcconaughey our next meeting our next letter dear school board members hello we are writing you this letter in the hopes that you will consider installing a turf field to enhance the facilities on the gildown high school campus we are the parents of troy a sophomore and travis a seventh grader our kids are members of the football and basketball programs at guilderland we are a proud sports family and are also both graduates of gildown schools we are both teachers mohonasen and bethlehem and chris has been a coach for many guilderland youth and now the school teams to raise our kids in the town where we grew up is an incredibly special experience i am sure many of you

033know countless other families who came back to dutch land there is a pride that comes with being a member of our community to put our school callers on for game days fills us with so much camaraderie our coaches care deeply about who the kids are both on and off the field our sports families have lifted us up during very difficult times we credit sports with keeping our kids more focused in school maintaining a strong and healthy body developing character and sportsmanship and meeting outstanding people these are connections that all are all happening beyond the classroom a lot has changed since our days in the early 90s but the current football field has stayed the same we believe the student athletes of guilderland would benefit from an upgraded facility a turf field would help us both

034logistically and mentally both male and female teams would be able to play in practice regardless of mother nature hitting us with poor weather or a pandemic we wouldn't have to cancel or change events we wouldn't have to schedule practices or games at alternate locations we wouldn't have to move essential practices inside for fear of ruining the field these are ways that a turf field would help us to logistically prepare for our tough competition in addition in the year 2021 we feel that our kids would have a greater pride for their programs with facilities that reflect our reputation and our times as my kids like to tell us it's not the 90s anymore unquote this is how the turf field would help us to be prepared mentally for opponents that already have stellar facilities in closing

035we would like to thank you for your time in this matter we dream of our kids coming back to town after pursuing their college education maybe they will be coaches and maybe we will get to see our grandkids play for guilderland we ask that you please consider installation of a turf field and add to the legacy of our student athletes sincerely sharon orsini burschwinger class of 93 and christopher berschwinger class of 94. hey thank you gloria i will read public comment number five with schools across the country developing plans to open for a new school year in the fall of 2021 the controversial topic of school start times has arisen in conversation across the gilroy district the school board met on march 23rd and proposed a plan to make the school start time for high

036schoolers to be 8 20 am 8 20 might not seem like a big difference from 8 o'clock but there are many factors that can affect our school community in those 20 minutes as a gilderlean student i believe that school start time should be 8 am a big issue that has to be considered with the possibility of a later start time is transportation for a lot of students transportation to and from school is provided by their guardians and at a later time could make it difficult for students to find a ride while it might be logical to think that students could ride the bus to school many families aren't comfortable sending their children on the bus and may feel this way in the upcoming school year even though the coven 19 cases are decreasing furthermore in

037my opinion essay one teen states in many cases parents drop their children off at school even earlier than when it starts this would leave a large percentage of students virtually unaffected by the later start times because they would still be reliant on transportation only available to them early in the morning unquote a later start time would just mean getting to school earlier than the actual start time especially for those who rely on their guardians for transportation therefore it would make the later start times difficult for the district to find supervision for early arrivers and may require more taxpayer dollars to contribute to the budget other factors that could prevent students from relying on school transportation may also include the location of their house or difficulties for those who travel between their parents's homes an 8

03820 proposal is close to how much time students need in the morning but not close enough this proposal wouldn't give enough time for parents to get to their jobs and get their kids to school to make it to work on time as the location of our school is not located near most workplaces this is an important issue that the district must consider as they move forward many students at ghs including myself have faced the problem of having an empty piggy bank it is harder to get a a job with how late we get out of school it's frustrating to not even get a chance to get an interview because employers already rejected my classmates and me due to our limited available hours in my opinion piece published student inc one student has written quote due

039to child labor laws minors cannot work past a certain time at night causing students to work to lose hours causing students who work to lose hours in which they could be available end quote if the time we start school next year gets any later than the proposed plan many students will have the same problem that many have faced already this year the lack of availability in jobs will affect both students and our local economy in the long run some may say that an easier oh sorry earlier start time can affect students negatively as it allows them to get less sleep so they can affect their overall performance this may be true however from a student's experience the amount of sleep received this uh sleep received this year with a start time of 10 10 has

040been no different than our initial starting time of 7 30. for many a later start time just gives kids a reason to stay up later because they don't know they have to they don't have to be at school early in the morning during my 10th grade english class we watched a segment from a west virginia news channel that stated quote sleep helps to repair hormones that control appetite and resets your immune system unquote as we continue to fight off covid19 sleep is an important factor to end the pandemic by the fall experts say that covid will still be a problem and precautions will have to be made as vaccines are becoming available to high school age students sleep is an important factor in how effective their vaccine is national geographic says many researchers are still

041investigating that sleep can overall boost the effectiveness of the cobia 19 vaccine students can still receive a good amount of sleep we know this based on when kids went to bed last year i believe this that a start time of 8 a.m is still manageable but also helps students in the end which is what everyone at gh needs after a hectic year as a sophomore at gilderon high school i believe that the school start time should be 8 am after a year of sudden change a start time at 8am would make students feel a little bit of normalcy back in their lives an earlier start time helps students mental and physical health but also gives times for extracurriculars after school allows guardians to provide transportation for their kids and allows students to have to have

042a good dynamic between school and their home lives as a student in the gilderon high school community all i ask is to consider mine and my peers reasons as it can change the rest of our high school careers and beyond sincerely nora abel gloria you're muted gloria i'm so sorry my family and i fully support the work and mission of the guilderland central school district's equity and diversity committee as a lifelong area resident of a guilderland resident and a gulen resident of more than eight years with two children in the gildan central school district school system i have experienced school and community conversations and situations that reinforce my belief that the end committee's work is important and necessary not just in the world in general but specifically here in our gcsd community i understand there

043has been pushback from some community members against the committee the fact that this pushback exists is itself a sign that the committee's work is needed as well thank you to the committee members for continuing to work diligently toward creating a more diverse equitable inclusive and anti-racist environment for the children and families of the gildan central school district thank you meredith gross handler thank you gloria i will read public comment number seven dear board members the girls lacrosse booster club is writing this letter to request for support in granting the gilderon school district multi-purpose turf fields to support the athletic school programs and the community please keep in mind that guilderland is one of the few schools in section 2 that currently does not have any turf fields beyond lacrosse many sports would benefit from having

044a multi-purpose turf field such as football soccer field hockey etcetera not having a turf field to practice on puts our teams at a disadvantage from the point of tryouts to the end of the season for each sport at this point with the grass field that we currently have we are not able to use them early in the spring due to the conditions of the field practices and sometimes games are dependent on the weather with the decreased practice time in a late start of the season we are put at a disadvantage to our competitors who have been uh who have been utilizing their own updated turf fields lacking at turf field also affects the booster club financially the girls lacrosse team has for many years been traveling to other facilities with turf such as suny albany

045union college and mohonasen high school the turf rental at these facilities are a strain on the booster club's budget with an annual payout of up to 3 500 annually it is also difficult to arrange for the transportation to and from these facilities many times the school bus only brings you there and the parents are required to travel outside of their school district to pick up their student athlete afterwards furthermore students that drive to school have to arrange their time to go back to the high school to pick up their car having a multi-purpose turf field at gilbert high school would benefit the sports teams to compete in highly competitive section 2 league decrease unnecessary transportation and save booster clubs the strain of budget restrictions please consider giving the gilderland community the pride to play on

046our own guilderland home turf sincerely the girls lacrosse booster club my family and i fully support the work and mission of the guilderland school district equity and diversity committee we have lived in the gilderland area for seven years and have two children in the school system i am also a professor at the university at albany where i teach a diverse body of students and our family have had experiences in the guildelin community and schools that demonstrate that our school and community is in desperate need for the work of this committee we must work and support this committee so that our children and ourselves learn to live learn to live learn and thrive in a more diverse world in a multicultural world we must actively work to create a more equitable inclusive and anti-racist school community

047by revising the policies practices and programs that reinforce rather dated and problematic ideas and attitudes diversity is a strength and if our children are to thrive and be competitive in the future in their studies and in the workforce they need to learn to live and thrive in a diverse equitable inclusive and fair society i am concerned and yet not surprised that there have been negative pushback from some members of the community against this committee this demonstrates how desperately our school and our community needs this committee and the work that they have set out to do my family and i thank the committee members for the work you are doing and for staying strong despite the negative voices that wish to keep the status quo going no matter how hurtful and problematic it is for our

048children i support the work of this committee sincerely dr veronica perez rodriguez thank you gloria i will read public comment number nine i'm writing to express my gratitude to dr wiles and the board members for creating the diversity equity inclusion committee i also want to express my thanks to the faculty members community members and students who are part of the group the formation of this committee is an acknowledgment that systemic racism exists and impacts the lives of guilderland students in addition the inclusion of a full-time diversity and equity coordinator in this year's budget further highlights the district's commitment to truly making changes and providing a new option for students to seek out support for our district to take a stand and make clear that we are working towards a safe hate-free environment for all of

049our students it is time for our district to encourage classroom discussions regarding race and the effects of racism it also it is also time for our district to examine ways in which we can actively work against racism in our schools the work of the deic is is complex challenging and necessary thank you for your commitment to helping our schools become places where all students feel that they are seen and where faculty are supported when they choose to talk about race and racism this is not easy work and i am grateful that my children are part of a district where the superintendent board members community members and students are willing to take risks even when barriers and roadblocks continue to be put in front of them keep going you have my support and the support of

050those listed below respectfully i'll just read the names since they took the time to write the names um elizabeth sabrin amy irwin ryan irwin anna quackenbush steve quackenbush nicole nolan will nolan courtney colon maggie williams rich williams ryan miller kathleen miller griffin lothrop amanda lockrup gretchen gunther kim mirabella chris mirabella trish cooper lindsay jacob kaylee timonis nicole pikel mike peikel melissa bombadier chris fahmadier alicia alicia dean and kelly doris my family and i fully support the work and mission of the guilderland central school district's equity and diversity committee as a 23-year area resident and a gildalon resident of more than eight years with two children in the gildan central school district school system i have experienced school and community conversations in situations that reinforce my belief that the end committee's work is important and necessary

051not just in the world in general but specifically here in our school's community i understand there have been pushback from some community members against the committee the fact that this pushback exists is itself a sign that the committee's work is needed as well thank you to the committee members for continuing to work diligently toward creating a more diverse equitable inclusive and anti-racist environment children and families thank you mike grossanler okay i'll read public comment number eleven as a parent of a dyslexic child i would like to know when the budget will include funding to train and certify teachers in explicit multi-sensory structured literacy programs designed for dyslexic children children with reading disabilities mainly dyslexia make up a large percentage of special education students this conversation is long overdue seeing that our district embraces primarily whole

052language instruction with a small amount of phonics i believe under covid relief the us department of education is releasing funding for evidence-based interventions this is from mara mccoy seema the next one letter l i'm receiving an error message when i try to open it it said the document appears to be corrupted and cannot be loaded okay i'll read it and then the last two will save for public comment number two um sure good afternoon i'm interested in learning more about the impact the proposed budget will have on the curriculum i'm hearing a lot about the 1619 project a theory that originally originated in by the new york times i'm concerned gilderlin is implementing such theories and the increases in taxes is contributing to all i would also like to understand why guilderland needs a diversity

053administrator what is a job description and how will this position reduce racism is this position long term how will success be measured honestly i'm extremely concerned with the indoctrination occurring and the division being built thank you for your time kate nowitzki okay so that was those were 12 public comments um i think if if anybody has response to them i think we can save them for uh board sharing and ideas at the end and when we get to public comment too then we can read numbers 13 and 14. moving on to our next item the consent items this includes the minutes of the march 30th april 13th and april 21st meeting cpsc and csc recommendations personnel action in the financials for march 31st can i have a motion to approve the consent agenda blanca second

054bar any questions or um changes all in favor it passes 9-0 thank you so next we have information items uh curriculum and instruction and dr singleton thank you dr rivera just a quick update on regions testing for uh june and beyond at the march board of regents meeting there were several amendments to the commissioner's regulations that were adopted for 2021 school year of note was the denial by the u.s department of education to waive new york state testing requirements for 2021 as such the state education department will administer all federally mandated exams at grades three through eight which are ongoing and concluding this week as well as at the high school level uh mandated regions exams for june of 2021 will include algebra 1 earth science with the exception of the part d living environment

055and english the board of regents has also adopted a series of regents exam exemptions for students who have met the standards for the course of study as locally determined by the district and these include when a student is currently enrolled in a course of study ending in a regents exam and by the end of the 2021 school year or the 2021 summer session will have earned credit in such course of study as well as when a student was previously enrolled in the course ending in the applicable regents examination has achieved course credit and has not yet passed the associated required regents examination but was intending to take the test in june of 21 or august of 21 to achieve the passing score and then the final exemption is when a student is in grade seven

056or eight these are the accelerated courses and is enrolled in a course of study ending in a region's examination and has met the standards assessed in the provided coursework and then a final note all of the august regents exams have been cancelled for hey thank you dr singleton does anyone have questions okay so we'll move on to school business information uh mr sanders okay thank you dr rivera uh this evening we have with us uh director of facilities clifford newney he's going to have a discussion with the board uh following up on a conversation he had with the business practices committee about potential october 2021 capital project proposition uh so with that i'll turn it over to cliff thank you mr sanders good evening everybody i think the easiest way to start is really just

057try to review the conversation i had with our business practice committee in a concise format we started the conversation with a little history in 2018 we went out with a proposition a little over 42 million dollars to the public that was put together based on our 2016 five-year capital plan and what we call our building condition survey which is developed using our architects engineers as well as facility staff that was voted down by the public by 56 votes i was given the not so envious task to take that project and make reductions so 2019 we put up a 30.9 million dollar project we basically cut about 11.8 million dollars out of the original capital project that bond passed obviously we're in the middle of that project now we're coming into year two fall of 2019

058the subject of a turf field came up and we started having conversations around the turf field and if we were going to pursue that did it make sense to try and go back and recapture some of the critical items that we had cut out of our original bond project those conversations carried into [Music] winter later winter of 2020 and then we came into the pandemic um working with our district office team we did not feel at that time and with all the other work we had to do it was potentially the right time to go back out to the public with a capital bond project fast forward to january 2021 i had met with the business practice committee and we talked about that our actual current project came in under bid in certain areas and

059there would be potential to maybe recapture some of the items in a smaller scope that we had cut still not knowing what the financial picture looked like we kind of left it at that in between there the turf field came up again and i thought it would be we would be remiss not to have the conversation at least with the board and the community financial picture still with some unknowns um not as bleak as it may be originally looked in the december january time frame and really a lot of the work we're looking at is critical work to the school district and we'll cover some of those things that we took out of the project that if we were not to take this opportunity now realistically we're probably looking at 20 26 27 time frame

060of another separate capital project another part of this conversation was in the project was resurfacing and redoing our track originally i was going to do that this summer because at the end of the day there's never a good summer to tear your track apart and put it back together as the turf field conversations kicked around if we want to pursue it it really doesn't make sense to put in a new track and then come two years later three years later five years later potentially damage that track or rip that track up to put in the turf field so i thought it would be a good time for us to have the conversation so we pushed the track work in our current project in the 2022 to allow us to at least see if the board

061wants to pursue a potential what we what we've been calling a mini capital project for this fall some of the components that we took out of our original bond there's what we call programming components which are really around our classrooms how we deliver instruction modernizing our classrooms casework and storage in our classrooms case which is basically cabinetry classroom technology some of the site work we took out one of the bigger ones is playgrounds we removed from the capital project which still need work we have paving nobody likes this one we still have an old district office that we need to contend with and turf field would fall under the psych word as well there's an hvac component we removed boilers we removed unit ventilators exhaust systems delayed that work there is a piece as neil

062talked about the federal funding earlier there is a component there we just don't know what that looks like yet what that would mean towards a capital project how we could apply potentially some of those funds to offset the capital project mechanical electrical plumbing that's our bathroom fixture updates for example if you go back to some of our student thought exchanges i think you would find a few comments on modernizing our bathrooms security we have some issues in our one of our high school tunnels with heating infrastructure that's kind of a an issue that rose its ugly head again this past winter examples of things we did with like roofing we changed the scope so instead of replacing a roof we re went and received roofs and i guess i think the analogy i used with

063the business practice committee was it's kind of like either buying new tires for your car or used ones so we're kind of buying used used tires for our roofing it's not going to last as long versus if you bought new tires they're going to last longer it's a way to save money it's not necessarily the best investment so if we were to pursue this we would put together another mini facilities committee we've talked about uh queensberry did a 40 plus million dollar capital project on our high school alone of taking a field trip up there to get some thoughts and ideas of what they did it would basically be we would have to hustle because we would put this together may have something back to the board mid-june board would have to approve the project

064probably realistically it'd be the reorganization meeting if we were going to proceed because we go to design development in july and august we would present to our community in september and we would go out to vote in october and we would be able to proceed with some of the work in 2022 some of the work realistically would carry into 2023. we will have i won't say it's an example but and i don't like the fact that why we have it but there will be one brand new classroom in high school that we could take a look at to see um we should have the furniture late may it's actually the room that was damaged by the fire but when i say brand new it's new floor new new paint new ceiling new lights it's it's

065got that new classroom smell and it you know it'll just give people an idea if you walk into a classroom that kind of still looks like it was built in 1952 because it was built in 1952 versus you know walking into a new home it's it's a brand new classroom it's shiny it's clean has up-to-date led lighting that's controllable controls by daylight it will have new furniture and that was really there were some constraints there with the insurance company so i won't say it would be our optimal design because we stayed within those monetary constraints for being able to replace the furniture that's kind of in a nutshell um and i i guess i just want to be clear that the turf field would be part of the conversation the turf feels not going to

066be the only part of the conversation there's other infrastructure work that is a priority that needs to be done in the school district and if we were to wait i don't think that's the best plan oh i'll seema barb go and shed her hand up and then oh i i just had a question is it possible to have two bond issues one for the turf field and the playgrounds uh and the other one for all the necessary you know items that obviously need to be revamped and revisited um i constantly hear about the bathrooms at the high school and how so often they're closed and um you know because of our 52 year old plumbing basically so is it possible to to to split and have two separate votes in september that those who might

067see you know the term which i don't as a luxury we'd be one of very few schools that don't have a turf field uh versus you know those things that uh you just need to upkeep your buildings is that possible it is possible we we did that before actually in the 20 when we vote 2013 proposition we we can split things out we also had in that case where one passed and one didn't so but it is possible very possible i just had a question about um did you say cliff that some of the federal funds could be used for the i guess the stuff that's more like upkeep it could be well still learning sema i think as everybody else is but there's a hvac component for improved ventilation which would fall into updating

068our unit ventilators which is a piece of equipment that controls our in the classroom it's like your furnace in your home that's the piece of equipment in a classroom that brings fresh air provides heat maybe air conditioning depending on the design um so short answer yes don't have enough detail of exactly what that looks like thank you judy uh i just would like to say i think this should go as one bond issue i i don't agree with barb at all i think people will come out and and vote and they may come out and vote in self-interest for the turf field or some of the other things and say well we don't really need new heating it's kept the buildings okay and these are issues that were in our last bond issue that cliff

069especially who looks at this all the time feels is really significantly important and i think we would be making a mistake to separate them rebecca um i was just wondering cliff and you might have said this but what um are there any items in the previous capital project that didn't that narrowly didn't pass that did not make this list they're items that did not make this list like how do they differ between i don't know if i understand the question rebecca really basically with uh turf field that's that's the only difference pretty much yes man okay thank you everything else on here was part of the original capital project that went down the only component on here right now off top of my head would be the turf field okay thank you i don't remember

070who is um who leads business practices but was there a discussion there about having one um bond versus two or you know putting it together or splitting it up i didn't know if they discussed that there um i don't as chairman i i don't think that we did this barbara's suggestion was the first time that i had heard splitting it into neil or cliff for anybody on the committee it was a brief discussion and i i kind of hedged back away just for our my past experience here and i will just say the honest answer it can be done it can also be done in a way that one can't pass without the other so for example if all the infrastructure work was put into one capital project the turf and playgrounds can't pass without

071the other one passing like i just worry i imagine that a lot of people would want to see the upkeep the basic things in that are in facilities need to need to be improved i just wouldn't want those things to not pass because there's a push back i know there's a lot of support in turf field and i have not heard uh the opposite but i don't know if those people would write in i just don't know um i mean shorter answer is we can do that seema i mean we we can split them i think first so two things first i think this is a an excellent move towards our goal of facilities development we have a good balance between moving towards the future with the turf field and maintaining what we currently have

072and fixing things and making sure that what we have is up to date second thing is cliff did you want to touch on any of the additional things that we're sort of adding back into the current capital project yes i can i mean we talked about the next this was part of the conversation we had in january the business practice committee obviously won't get in a ton of detail but our radon issues at the high school we're current currently folding into our current capital project under some of the contingencies and like i said we came in under bid in certain areas we have already started retention pond work out in front of the high school basically it's it's it's a pond that nobody notices because if it's working right it's not supposed to have water

073in it um if you've driven by the high school a few times and seeing the pond full it's not operating properly it's basically an overflow for a storm water system and if it doesn't work properly what will happen is actually water will come back into our building through our floor drains that work has already started there's a component the town applied for a grant for sidewalk expansion basically from the mall price chopper area up to the gilliam public library and they included gillen elementary on the other side you've already seen there was a crosswalk painted that crosswalk is actually going to get moved to the other side of our entrance way but if we cross them we have no place us to safely put our students coming into gillin elementary so part we're looking at

074is being able to do a sidewalk extension on our property in and then the last item we're looking at the gillen police department actually received the grant for a radio signal enhancement project for the district which basically will just enhance radio signals in all our buildings for all our first responders so that may also be we're still actually they're meeting on at their board meeting tonight to discuss that and there will be an rfp going out so once we have a better idea of the bid costs um there is a 25 local share to the school district towards that grant opportunity total grant was believes around 345 000 and it's just a huge security component because anybody with a cell phone that goes into farnsworth middle school knows there's no signal for anything and we

075have other buildings and depending on the cost we did a survey across all our buildings so we would prioritize worst and work our way backwards to best you know who who's the least affected but i can say barnsworth hands down is probably our winner ben so my concern is about the future ready piece as we kind of discussed last night you know i think you know what we want to do is build a vision for what we want our schools to look like and the kind of graduate that we wanted to produce and to you know enlist the community and our teachers and our students in that process and then um you know get buy-in from the community by by presenting this vision instead of um you know like a big phrase like like future

076ready which to be honest even i am still you know vague about uh you know flexible seating and smart boards so um my concern is that we include that future ready classroom money in this capital project it's um goes into items either that we didn't need or you know for for our vision or um or we did need it but the optics are the same in that in a couple in a year or two when we finish that process of kind of kind of building a vision for our schools um as opposed to a you know facilities you know kind of approach where you know where we need to upgrade um you know we're going to come back to the community and say future ready classrooms again you know um and they might come back

077and say well then you asked for that a year or two ago so so my concern is that maybe the timeline is too tight on on some of those pieces infrastructure wise you know i'm i'm supportive of a proposition and ben and i did we did have this conversation the business practice committee and i very much understand his point and just one of the things i put back we have just shy of 400 classrooms in this school district so i don't think any one capital project would make them all future ready in one fail swoop so i do think regardless of what the vision is or what direction district wants to go it would probably be a multi-capital project approach to be able to do that oh kelly um i think i got i skipped

078a couple people but anyway um i i really would like to focus on making whole our capital project specifically with the program components the technology playgrounds hvac i'd like to really focus on drilling down to the i think it's the american rescue side act or funding to see how much of that we can get grants for obviously over the next two or three years here um maybe they'll be left over at the end of the terp field but i feel like the turf field is jumping the priority list a little bit from um what was already discussed for the past probably five years uh working towards getting new toilets so it's kind of like uh that's how i feel about turf field i feel i feel it's a great opportunity and i know it's very

079much wanted um but i think there's other things that have we need to you know get out start on that priority list first from the things that wasn't passed thanks i struggle with that every day kelly uh blanca i think was next yeah i mean to kelly's point i'm pretty sure that in 2019 i use the same toilet that i used in 1993 um but so i get it um i am very much in favor of the turf field and the mini um you know vote in the fall to fund this i think what i would like to know from you cliff and or marie or neil how many years have people been asking for this turf field it is enrigan can jump in here too this has been a conversation for many years i'd

080go at least six if not longer this did come up back in and when we were developing the capital project 2013 era but we had a component with our field lighting system that was a higher priority that was actually a safety priority versus the turf field at that time gotcha um so i'm in favor of a mini capital project to include the turf field and also um i agree with kelly i'd like to see if we can use some of that federal funding for the air quality and ventilation improvements to include something like air conditioning feels like a luxury sounds like a luxury hvac but it's really more than that especially in a post pandemic world and the turf field also as much as we want to get back to our normal i think it's

081going to be a slower process than people think and so sporting events are are really i think going to be an opportunity for the community to get together um so i would like to support anything that can um you know be done safely gloria i'd i'd like to ditto ben's remarks regarding um our conversations last night that we really haven't created a vision yet of that future-ready classroom because it's it's out there as an idea but we really need to work on that piece so i you know i like to support getting ahead on that i also understand cliff that we can't do it all at once but there may be a set of classrooms maybe one of the subject areas or disciplines that ready to move on and that that may have moved they've

082made it made their thinking maybe it's in technology i don't know uh but you would know that better but maybe there's a piece we can get started on in terms of moving forward uh regarding the uh turf field i have to say that year or two ago i was of the opinion no this is not in my ballpark uh i see it as a luxury and i saw it as a luxury but the more i've been hearing from people the more uh i've been listening uh i think it's it's it's not a luxury anymore it's become a necessity for our athletes to participate and our athletic program is just as important as many of our other programs uh it teaches our kids so many so many life skills so i am in support of that

083i you know i i know that it's going to be a hard sell but i have really given this a lot of thought and i think we need to support that kind of a program as well as we support other types i agree with kelly also we need to keep those facility types of lists that we have not moved on we need to get back at that list so i don't know how many this bond issue is going to be with that kind of thinking but um we have a lot of a lot of things on our plate and i have purposely stayed away from numbers because as if we walk away this evening with permission from the board to at least proceed there will be many more meetings beyond tonight this is just conceptual

084to say would we like to you know take this on and look at it because a lot of times i've seen it here we get stuck on a number in our head and that doesn't necessarily reflect the work that needs to be done it's kind of like the car mechanic telling you you need a thousand dollars to be your car to make it safe and you hand them 750 and say do what you can do um so it i don't think this is going to be anything crazy and i'll i'll just keep using the term mini for now uh barbara well i i just wanted to confirm what regan said um we have had requests prior to even 2013 for a turf field and as you know more and more of our suburban council schools

085you know have gotten them um in the safety issues and the transportation issues and everything else have come to the fore um this is a long time coming and i'm delighted that in one form or another you know we put it out to the public and let them you know let them decide seema um oops i just want to add one thing about um whatever is decided that the communications um committee is involved early i just feel like last time that capital project failed um i think there was uh an impression out there that we were asking you know for like buying the sky type things but there were a lot of essentials to keep the facilities just like just to maintain them and i don't think that message got across so i don't want

086that to happen again so whatever is decided i feel like we need to think about how we are communicating that out to the community really early and clear very much agree uh i believe rebecca you did rebecca i really support um upgrading our overall facilities but i share kelly's concern about um i think it's kelly's concern about lumping together the turf field with our overall facilities needs um i you know unlike gloria i know that we were on the business practices committee together a few years ago um and i still sort of see the turf field as a luxury item compared to toilets and boilers i mean those are items that kids use all of our students use not just the student athletes um so i really would want those items to be prioritized long

087before consideration of the turf field blanca um i'll just speak to rebecca's comment first i think the idea of the turf field is that um it could also be used for gym class if i'm not mistaken right pe so i think in fact it would um also some of you know that one of my big things is i'm anti-bullying and i have found that participating in sports can be really helpful with that because it's almost like when you're on the field you're on an even playing field no pun intended um i i just really think that this turf field is important i'd like to see us work the numbers i do agree with sema like wholeheartedly the communications piece last time i was opposed to i was annoyed as a parent i'm like seriously why

088haven't you guys been been doing upkeep why are you asking me for more money xyz i see that completely differently now and it's all about the messaging i think so um i'm 100 in agreement with fema on the communication piece also i think you talked about getting a committee together i don't know how you're going to go about picking folks but i would be very interested in being part of that oh i'll leave that part to dr wiles is your hands still up barb or is that you muted yeah the the messaging that a number of you have mentioned is critically important i don't think we can put out that we want future ready classrooms and use that terminology um but specify as a warrior or somebody you know whatever cliff deems necessary if you

089like what you saw with this classroom that got burned and now looks more modernized um but i think like somebody else said the messaging is so important but i heard so much from people saying future ready what is that you know why do you why do you need movable furniture why do you need this why do you need that and um i know we had some slides and some pictures and things but i think we have to stay away from that terminology and become a little more confident don't don't disagree barbara we've had those conversations many times that i know we could have done a better job in certain areas with communication to our community on that project so so nope now i wasn't going to throw in them there is a with turf field

090now i'm not plugging one way or the other there is actually a music component there too with a potential like marching band type setup that doesn't currently exist in guildland i know bob winans kind of got excited about that a little bit too so i said not not plug-in but there's more to it than just a football game there's pe classes there's it's multi it's five sports that will be able to play on it any sport can practice on it even our baseball teams will be able to practice on it you know if if conditions on the fields weren't weren't ready so whatever the plans end up being it would be nice if there's like a possibility to do um like a field trip i remember a few years ago when they had the auditorium

091i think lights and there was something else at the fields too anyways i remember walking around and seeing it firsthand that that's also helpful you know to know what we're talking about especially like that classroom you mentioned cliff the the the new art room no we will we will definitely um i would definitely like the we talked about doing a field trip up to queensberry for those that are interested i would be very interested in that as well it's probably one of the newest renovated high schools in the area um and then anywhere else we think we may need to go like i said this will this will be a hustle and if i'm reading the board correctly because i said we're not asking to approve a project tonight or just i just didn't want

092to go do a bunch of work obviously if we weren't interested in doing the work so really our next steps if the board is good is we will i will get with the district office team we will get communications out about how we're going to set up a facilities committee start work i've already started work with our architects i have preliminary playground plans to share with our ptas just as a starting point so some work has gone on regardless um and it would have went on regardless of this meeting tonight or not just as we move forward these are things we just continually work on so if we're good dr rivera i believe just from everybody's comments we'll move forward with uh putting together a proposition for the board to review thank you cliff no

093thank you all have a good night thank you too i think um neil still you still have one more item [Music] yes that's correct uh this is the annual recommendation from the district-wide health insurance committee and what is being recommended by the committee this year for our major medical plans there's no changes in benefit design but uh blue shield ppo plan which is a office copay with vision and dental coverage it's a decrease in the rate for next year a minus one percent a blue shield point of service plan again 25 office co-pay and this has dental coverage that again is a one percent decrease in premiums for next year cd php epo plan 25 office co-pay with dental coverage that is an increase of 3.25 you have an mvp plan hmo plan 25 office

094copay with dental coverage that is an increase of 1.8 percent in premiums for next year in terms of our mardi care advantage plans we have four of them um the blue shield ppo plan is a minus 0.2 so a decrease in rates uh same with the blue shield out of area plan it's a decrease of 0.6 percent the cdp hp ppo and hmo plans are renewing at no increase so staying flat we're also continuing our prescription self-insured prescription drug program through express scripts a five dollar generic 25 brand name 40 brand name non-preferred copay and that is another instance of no increase uh zero percent and then finally for our prescription drug plans we have a can rx mail order prescription drug drug plan and that's for maintenance medications zero dollar copay and that is

095zero percent rate renewal change as well so very low premium increases for next year thank you neil does anybody have questions thank you neil we'll move on to um superintendent information dr wiles thank you dr rivera i have several items but my first one is really good news and it comes on the heels of our conversation around the football field so i'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate the guilderland dutchman on their very first double a football championship last friday night i've included the link to watch the game if you are interested it was very exciting but i want to congratulate all our coaches coach panna who's been in the news a lot in the last few days but of course all of our players our parents and the entire athletic department it was

096a game filled with really brave decision making and our kids did great and we really needed a win on friday night so i just want to congratulate everybody for that accomplishment my next item in my computer is very slow tonight but our next item tonight is to recognize that next wednesday may 12th is national school nurse day this has been set aside since 1972 and it's a way to recognize school nurses and to foster a better understanding of the role they play in an educational setting and this year's theme was uh championing the whole student and recognizing that um school nurses play in a just an indispensable role in our children's lives in school in their cognitive physical social and emotional development and never more so than this year when we brought our children to

097school and educated them in a pandemic so i just want to thank all of our nurses for their amazing work their participation in testing clinics and vaccination clinics and all kinds of things that are just really above and beyond and then this week is also teacher appreciation week and um i can't think of another group of people who have had more challenge and triumph in a year than um working through this really remarkable year and all that we ask them to do to keep the um learning going for our students in a pandemic so i know there's been celebrations all over the district to recognize their work and i just didn't want this evening to go by without saying how much we appreciate all all of their efforts and all of their accomplishments um so

098my next item is perhaps not as of effusive but i did want to provide a brief update on our recent technology outage as you all know on thursday april 22nd we experienced a significant disruption to our district's internet and data systems we're continuing to work with specialists and law enforcement to investigate the source of this disruption and to confirm its impact on our systems and as you know as a because of that we transition to fully remote instruction for our seven through 12 students for several days while our technology team worked tirelessly to restore us to full functionality and then on thursday the 29th we were able to safely and reliably restore internet service and most of our systems so that our faculty and hybrid learners could actually return to the middle and high school

099our tech team is continuing to work to resolve some remaining issues and i just want to take this opportunity to thank the members of that team who went above and beyond doesn't begin to capture it to rebuild and restore our operations so that we could be back online safely and securely because this item is still under investigation there's really no other information to share right now but i do want the you and the whole community to know that it can be assured we've taken all appropriate precautions to restore our systems in a safe and secure manner and we will be incorporating additional technologies into our cyber security as we move forward so i wanted to just um share that update with everyone i'm waiting for my computer to load here my next item i also

100want to let the community know about a recent opportunity that i had i was given the chance to ride along with state trooper jeff owens who was assigned to troop g in latham and mr michael altieri who's one of our parents and an investigator with the bureau of criminal investigations with the new york state police actually offered the invitation and coordinated the ride along with trooper owens uh the ride-along was on friday april 23rd and i was out much later than my typical bedtime all the way to 11 o'clock we covered a lot of territory in the albany area included a number of traffic stops and other stops for a variety of reasons and it was really clear there's a great deal that goes on in the area of law enforcement and i really appreciate

101how generous trooper owens was with his time and willingness to explain to me um all that was going into the work that we saw um so i just wanted to thank mr altery for arranging this opportunity and then let's see next i want to share a little bit of information about graduation and i see the text going here i too am having trouble with the agenda loading if it makes everyone feel better so okay um the next item and we have mr piscatelli with us as well but i just wanted to let everyone know that we do now have firm plans for our graduation ceremony for june of 2021. so we have been monitoring the guidance from new york state on commencement ceremonies for the past few weeks and our goal has been to host

102a graduation ceremony that allows our students to celebrate all together and include their immediate families so the state department re released some updated guidance on the 12th and the 27th and the key highlights are that we can host indoor events of over 150 people but it's limited to 25 capacity and they require a negative cova tester proof of vaccination and for outdoor events over 500 we're limited to 33 capacity and also a proof of a negative test or a proof of vaccination so a little over a month ago schenectady county community college reached out to area schools to say that we could use a parking area on their campus to host graduation ceremonies and several other schools looked at it and many are taking them up on this offer and even though we're not in

103schenectady county um they offered us this opportunity as well and after weighing a variety of options um the times union center malta drive-in etc um mr piscotelli and i talked on friday and decided this was going to be the way to go so we'll be hosting graduation at sccc on friday june 25th a ceremony will take place in a large parking area adjacent to the college graduates will be seated in one area and they're with a giant screen behind and their parents will be behind the graduates so there's lots of work to do to organize and coordinate all of this but we are really happy to have made a decision and now we can work toward it um i'm happy to take any questions on that or to hand them off to mr piscatelli there

104any questions all right my last item is a big one um i wanted to provide the board with an opportunity to talk about the proposal we have been discussing now for years around changing school start time and i um invited both mr laster and mr piscatelli to be here both of them are members of the school start time task force and um that task force met back on april 20th to really um think through some of the questions comments and concerns that we heard from our community through public comment and or the thought exchange about the uh proposed date uh changes to start time so i think if you if you can forebear this i have a couple slides um just to kind of capture where we all landed and that may refresh everybody's memory

105on what we're working on so i'm gonna take a second here and pull them up i think uh so i'm going to talk fast um this is a follow-up to our discussion with the start time task force and um i'm just i'm not going to go through all of these but i just wanted to re mine everybody that a lot of research is behind this work and our subcommittee of the task force who did research shared some of this information i also shared it with everyone on the night of the budget presentation here's some more information about recommended sleep duration for adolescents and there are some benefits of adequate adolescent sleep we got some feedback that maybe the research wasn't as recent but um we just have a new recently receipt released research study on

106this very topic showing similar results from the journal of sleep so i just wanted to remind everyone about that and then um there are a number of impacts for insufficient sleep that are both medical and mental and academic and cognitive so um and then we had done a little research on our own students to see just how much sleep they report getting each night and we asked both parents and students so what i'd like to do now is kind of show you where we landed after about a two-hour conversation with the start time task force and rebecca i'm going to give you credit for these three slides because you made the recommendation in that meeting that we kind of show before covid what we're currently doing in the proposed for each the levels so these

107proposed times are a follow-up to the feedback that we receive from from many so i'll just let everyone take a moment to look at that you can see our pre-covet schedule for elementary you can see the two blue areas are the k2 and three 4 start and end times that we're using right now and then the pro proposed at the elementary level is a 7 45 start a 7 30 drop a 150 end time and a 245 late bus and i just want to point out that all of these times are student day times they are not teacher day times however all of those teacher times would be crafted so they are within our contractual obligations for that day for the work day here's middle as you can see before covid we had 8 45

108start 8 35 drop 325 end and a 405 late bus you can see the blue for what we're currently doing this year and then the proposed and this was the result of a lot of conversation about how to make the middle school day shorter we have a 905 start an 8 55 drop a 331 end and a 405 late bus so that is consistent with before and then late uh last but not least is the high school 7 30 start 705 drop 225 end and a 325 late bus and then our very late day that we're living through now and then proposed as an 8 20 start an 815 drop a 257 end and a 345 late bus and here we put it all together so you get a sense of how the day would

109unfold so i think that's all i have there i'm going to stop sharing and um open to questions or comments i know i sent you all of the materials that went to the task force so you have many many many attachments i'm not going to go through all of those so questions thoughts rebecca thank you for sharing that marie um i was just curious the task force we had talked about um uh like a uh i'm blanking on with the phrase we called it for the high school like a 25 minute to a 30 minute catch-up time or something in every single day where students could get instruction we did um mike you want to jump in on that one mike lester mike piscatelli sorry yeah rebecca we were we were talking about uh a

110dutchman connection time it was like a time period built into the school day um the right now that that's something that would have to be negotiated with our our burning unit so so at this point this that's not part of the proposals at this point because we haven't settled on anything with that gloria uh i was wondering if mike laster could talk a little bit about uh is has it been any thought about that early morning time since parents will be heading to work and middle school kids might be being dropped off a lot earlier than would be required yeah thanks gloria um we are potentially looking at changing or adding some morning programming if the community need presents itself for those of you who remember or don't know we used to have the cafeteria

111open starting at about 7 30 for students who basically started their day in an hour sitting in the cafeteria and for those of you who who know secondary students specifically middle school students i don't necessarily know if that's the best way to start their day sitting in a cafeteria with 150 other kids and quite often they're on their cell phone so i i'm looking at providing some options for some high interest activities maybe 45 minutes five days a week and utilizing potentially some of those federal funds to create some programming for kids that they can sign up for um i'd rather have students who come to the building because of child care constraints i'd rather have them in some high interest activities and some programming as opposed to sitting in the cafeteria so that's what

112i'd like to do i have some proposals together in terms of what the cost would be in terms of some current rates that are available for compensating some teachers so this spring we have a model already that we're doing we have a homework help club that we're doing in the morning so i think we would try to replicate that pretty similarly and i would work with faculty and staff obviously to determine what those activities will look like thank you thanks mike that's exactly what i was hoping i don't have a question but i just want to i think that's a great idea especially using those funds um to help support um any especially reading that people have written about and other things that people are concerned about was re-engaging kids back in school so that

113would be a great way to use money blanca um i just wanted to say thank you because you obviously worked really hard on that um mr laster and what at all everybody involved it looks like a lot of thought and a lot of work went into this so thank you very much thanks so we really need direction um the uh the uh rub to all of this is all about time and if in fact we're going to make a transition well we have to make a transition no matter what because we're not going to have 10 10 start times in the fall so we really do need some direction because our transportation department has homework to do to fine-tune this and get it ready for september um gloria well obviously we've been discussing this a

114number of times so it's not new to all of us i i was i guess from my point of view i'm wondering if we could as a board act on it tonight and because i know transportation is going to have to get started on this i mean this is going to be massive up to put a schedule together um i'm wondering if we can could the board would the board be willing to uh approve the suggestions tonight and so that you can get started i i think we should gloria like speaking for myself i think it makes sense to decide tonight i mean time is of the essence uh barbara um i think we should put a resolution on the floor to go ahead with the plan you know as uh shared with us and

115i don't know if we need the formality of another resolution you know sort of overriding that you don't vote on resolution the same day that is proposed even though we've talked about this for years um so i make a resolution that we go ahead with the plan for the later start time for kids uh come next year and that would have to be i second i think yeah i just wanted to say i think it's a good idea and that we ought to get to work on uh knowing how long we've spent just figuring these things out it's also going to be a long time figuring out buses and transportation so it's fine with me to do it tonight um the process be the resolution now to override our requirement i feel with the terminology

116would be and then vote on the resolution itself to suspend the rules kind of thing that's right but i think we have that resolution that we suspend rules that we can vote on tonight and that would need a second okay so we'll take a vote on suspend and just deciding to suspend the rules so um if you find the rules to vote on your proposition um i don't see everybody so is it um thank you kelly did you have a comment yeah does um proving the propositions tonight or does it require further discussion with the teachers union um currently i'm just wondering how that affects i may have missed it i'm just wondering how it affects the uh negotiations or if it affects their contract at all so kelly this the strict starting and end

117times that i shared with you tonight do not impact um any contractual areas um we would build this the teacher school day around the current um uh negotiated length of day which is 7 hours and 45 minutes our contract doesn't specify the start and end time of the day so we would work to build a 7 hour and 45 minute day for our teachers um to rebecca's point um the the idea that the high school cabinet talked about with this um dutchman connection does um does not match exactly with the language in the contract around teachers high school work day so that would require us to do some negotiation which will take some time so i think i think the idea is worth pursuing um but i don't know that it's reasonable to think we

118could pull it off for september you know given all of the time constraints that we have so as presented tonight we're within the parameters of our negotiated contract i know we're going to vote i just wanted to add that i think um because we're not going to keep the coven start times anyways this is a great time to make that adjustment and obviously there's been research at the district level for this i think for two years at least so this seems like an appropriate time um barb just wanted to say that the dutchman connection that michael came up with uh would give each child the opportunity every day uh to meet with the teacher and i i'm sure we will really really try to to get that in because it really answers a lot of

119the questions that some of the people in the thought exchange had you know had mentioned and so we can proceed without that but that is sort of like an ideal situation if we can get it all right so if nobody else has um any comments or questions and i think we can go ahead and vote right so we're voting oh go ahead dr wells sema i just want to thank the members of the task force um that group it's close to 40 people met for two years there were sub committees that met separate in a part and honestly it was one of the hardest working committees i've ever worked with in my entire career so i just want to recognize that group of people who then came back you know mid pandemic in order to

120finish this work so i want to just thank them yeah thank you to all of those people i know it's been more than a year and they still stayed committed to this so this is this is awesome um so we'll just take a vote then on the on the proposed start times that were shared earlier um it's all in favor that passes nine zero is done there's some people that are probably cheering for this so go ahead celebrate this is very exciting i want to also thank mike piscatelli and mike laster and i also want to send them off to get some rest thank you both for your help and your ability willingness to be here tonight we'll see you tomorrow thank you and they're gone is that all you have dr weil's in your

121agenda that is plenty yes okay um before we move on oh actually i had something that i wanted to put in the chat i apologize i forgot to um ask because the my agenda wasn't loading i didn't know if there were any plans for um or if you could talk to the fifth grade and eighth grade moving up celebrations because i think those parents are also wondering um so the middle school i'll work my way down the middle school just sent out a survey to students and parents asking them about preferences for either a virtual or in person moving up ceremony and i i don't think all the results are in but they are leaning toward an in-person event and they'll need to do it in probably three sections in order to meet the space

122requirements it'll likely be outside those details are still getting flushed out um the five elementary buildings are all doing something slightly different those plans are still in the works i've asked them all to make sure they are consistent in following the health and safety guidelines but we have a couple schools who are looking at doing an event at farnsworth middle school we have a couple who are looking at doing events at their home school and then one that's looking at um hosting their event at uh bows and kill park so that's where we're leaning i think i'll be getting ahead of myself if i say much more until they have their plans finalized but they will all be in person in the middle school they're still working through it thank you dr wiles wonka did

123you have your hand up three fourths no i did but i put it down i was just going to thank rebecca for providing that research and that information to back up the later school start times thank you it was a whole committee all right so we'll move on on our agenda i i think it's loading right now so um i'll go forward while it's loading uh board president information and thank you dr wiles for uh updating on all of those items that big list uh letter a are the nisba reference the resolution kit so there is a um attachment there if you are interested in creating a resolution that basically talks about um the process of how to do that so you can read that um on your on your own time and if you

124want to write a resolution i think there's people who are probably um spend time at nisbet going through that process too so you can talk to them about it as well letter b is voter registration required for the the may 18th vote and i will just read through this loads i think i took a screenshot is anyone else having trouble or just me it's not loading i feel like the the site might be crashing i feel like everybody's paying attention to the start time and maybe that's mine's not loading at all okay nothing i took a screenshot of the the vote and a couple of things so i will go ahead and read about the voter registration this is right yeah the public vote on the school budget and board of education will be held

125on tuesday may 18 2021 voter registration is required in gilderon school district to vote you must be 18 years old a u.s citizen and the resident of the gilderland school district for at least 30 days prior to the vote if you are not registered with the school district or albany county board of elections you must do so prior to the vote you may register with albany county board of elections and there's a link provided there or at the dmv the district has established three registration dates for residents to vote at the may 18 2021 budget vote and election you may register anytime between 8 30 and 2 30 at one of the elementary schools or from 8 30 a.m to 4 30 pm at the district office on the following dates thursday may 6th monday

126may 10th and tuesday may 11th if you are not sure at which elementary school to vote please refer to our web page link budget and taxes and use the link that drops down voter eligibility and absentee ballots you can see if you're registered and where you are scheduled to vote for the elections uh mine's still not loading so i'm gonna go for my phone next item is upcoming board of election of education election the deadline for board of education candidates to return their completed petition was april 19 2021 there are three seats in each of the three seats are for a three-year term of office the names of the candidates and their order on the ballot will be as follows blanca gonzalez parker nathan sabrin seema rivera luciano alonzi candidates do not run for a

127specific seat on the board from the candidates the individuals with the three highest vote totals will be elected the seats are for a three-year term of office july 1st 2021 to june 30th 2024. okay so any questions about any of those items i feel like this is the first time in a while there were just three regular terms couldn't keep up for a while so all right so we'll move on to action items and i'll head it back to mr sanders thank you uh first item this evening is a service agreement with cdb connections for the provision of programs and services for students with disabilities hey can i have a motion to approve the service agreement uh kelly ii gloria any questions okay all in favor class of 9-0 uh next is an internship agreement

128with suny cortland can i have a motion to approve the agreement uh barb second gloria any questions okay all in favor says 9-0 uh next is the approval of an agreement with questar 3 to conduct annual internal audit services in accordance with new york state comptroller's requirements and this is being recommended by the audit committee can i have a motion to approve the audit services ben second blanca any questions all in favor it passes 9-0 next is an emergency preparedness transportation service agreement with turisian house for the residents and staff should an emergency require assistance can i have a motion to approve the emergency relocation agreement gloria ii rebecca any questions about this all in favor aye motion passes 9-0 uh next is a resolution to canvas affidavit balance for the may 18th 2021 budget

129referendum can i can i have a motion to approve the agreement sorry oh kelly second gloria any questions okay all in favor pass is 9-0 next is a resolution regarding acceptance of eminent domain just compensation for school district property this is related to the sidewalk expansion from hamilton square up to the gilloman public library the school district owns the majority of land that the library sits on and therefore we would be the entity that would receive the eminent domain compensation hey can i have a motion to approve the acceptance of the eminent domain gloria second blanca any questions about this you're all in favor pass is 9-0 uh next is um key club leadership scholarship establishment and that would be a scholarship to a male and female senior who had been an active member of

130key club all four years ago in high school and held the position of either president treasurer or secretary can i have a motion to approve the leadership scholarship we're back the second barb any questions all in favor passes 9-0 and then finally this evening i'm pleased to report that we have a donation it's a monetary donation from the knights of columbus for various programs within the school district that will assist underserved students can i have a motion to prove to accept the donation ben second judy any questions just thank you the group for the donation you all in favor my past is nine zero that is it thank you neil next on the agenda we have board president action i have one item listed there the appointment of election workers for the may 18th uh

131budget vote and election um gloria is your agenda open to read that let me see it's spinning it takes a minute okay um yeah if you don't mind okay recommend the appointment following individuals to serve as election workers for may 18 2021 budget vote and election poll workers trish blizzard linda chabatti frank comisso castilla commisso karen garrity nancy galen thomas persons matthew pruskowski linda russo wesley smith linda smith stephanie place cannon sumi dorothy tompkins christine tucker carol vic vaccione pamela ventresca william nguyen joshua wynn voting machine inspectors scott clark shannon durr patty mcardle diane prukowski david shafer assistant inspectors juliana coppola patricia haldman kathleen hodges linda klein mary schmitz judy stevens janatoli kuzman diane warner diane young caliope servos and chief inspectors marianne canistrassi donna josinski nicole kennedy tammy mcgill rachel preston kaylee retell arthur

132swanson jennifer thomas and i apologize if i said your name wrong thank you gloria for reading them can i have a motion to approve the appointment of election workers um kelly second judy any questions all in favor motion passes 9-0 thank you thank you gloria for reading that uh next we have board committee reports i'll start with business practices uh cliff covered pretty well our last business practices meeting uh and we do not have a meeting scheduled but i assume there will be one coming as as he develops the plans along with the people in the office thank you judy uh communications you're muted gloria i can't get that straight uh yes we met on april 14th and uh our first item on the agenda was the discussion of community engagement for the 2122 budget

133we reviewed proposed activities to engage inform the community and uh it was approved by the board on april 13th they included things like use of an extra large budget postcard mail to residents rather than a full multi-page newsletter uh information on the website to provide further details about what's included in the budget information on the website uh about the candidates running for the board creation of a one-page summary of the board of the budget board elections to share with ptas uh board presidents writing a letter the board president writing a letter to the editor at the enterprise and use of electronic signs at fms and ghs to remind the community to participate in the budget vote and election second item on the agenda was equity diversity and inclusivity on our web page the committee took

134an initial look at the equity diversity and inclusivity page on our website a tab for the page was recently added for the case of finding information for the ease of finding information uh amy peratt who worked with the subcommittee of the equity and diversity committee shared the page is a starting point and that the subcommittee will continue to recommend content i recommended that many eyes look at the content to be sure that that we are inclusive of the many perspectives rebecca noted that from her perspective the links on the page led to several excellent resources and some good ideas some ideas from the site that were shared organizing resources by age asking other librarians for assistance with identifying age-appropriate books to include stats about our community and school districts the about us section and a

135subcommittee should uh that subcommittee should vet sources and share with the full committee before posting so those were our suggestions uh we decided to postpone the school start time discussion since the committee was about to meet the task force was going to follow up and uh we have not scheduled another meeting yet great thank you gloria uh next audit ben the audit committee has not met since our last board meeting our next meeting is scheduled for may 12th at 8 am and policy barb thank you ben uh we have a meeting scheduled for thursday at 6 30 the 13th of may thank you barb and um equity and diversity kelly you're you're muted kelly sorry i thought i hit the button um we had a meeting on the 21st of april uh our work is

136still revolving around definitions currently and getting organized still with a little bit of education and peace for board members um the committee members we have our next meeting on the 26th of may at 7 pm and it will be live streamed thank you kelly i was just going to add from that committee meeting there was a presentation from the high school on the from the anti-racism committee and that was really helpful i think to a lot of people to see what's already been happening at the district all right murray went through some um some of the district stuff too as well i didn't have my notes up too but it was a really good uh it was a really good meeting if people are interested it was a long good discussion those are all the

137committee reports i'll go to public comment number two i just have those two right now linda did anybody write anymore no okay so gloria i can i can read the two okay that's fine thank you oh here we go uh public comment number one for public comment number two i'm writing in support of the diversity and equity committee and the proposed work towards achieving a more diverse equitable inclusive and anti-racist act learning environment in gilbert central school district schools i'm a parent of two children in the school district and a resident of guilderland for the last seven years in that time our family has been in the gilbert community in schools our family has unfortunately been witness and subject to comments experiences and situations that make it clear that racism is present in our community

138and schools i strongly believe that we have to support the work proposed by this committee to combat all aspects of ignorance bigotry and racism over or veiled so we can over or veiled so we can give our children a more just inclusive and equitable society where all our children can thrive and learn to be better members of society i have been told that there has been pushback from some community members against the committee how can this uh so in the 21st century these negative attitudes are evidence that the work of this committee is very much needed we must give the next generation a better community in a more equitable inclusive schools all of our children stand to benefit from learning to live and work in the diverse multiracial multicultural multilingual world because that is what

139the real world is like i thank the d e committee members for their essential work they are spearheading to create a more diverse equitable inclusive and anti-racist environment for the children and families of the gilderon central school district sincerely antonio martinez tunion and i apologize if i mispronounced that and the last public comment my family and i support the work and mission of the gildan central school district's equity and diversity committee the events of the past year and especially the protests surrounding the black lives matter movement have brought issues of racial injustices in the legal system to the forefront of our nation's eyes they have highlighted how we individuals workplaces schools universities etc each need to do our utmost to append to upend culturally insensitive and downright racist policies ingrained into our societal systems it

140is so important to be proactive in fighting systemic racism because sitting back and doing nothing is not a viable strategy one of the best places to learn in fighting systemic racism creating safe spaces for people of color and healing our communities is through education teaching our children what it means to be inclusive of everyone this is why i wholeheartedly support the equity and diversity committee in the gilderon central school district thank you charlene buell okay and next we have board issues ideas and sharing i just want to add for all of the the public comments there that um that you'll have a response at the at the very least that who is um who is going to be talking about it or who is going to be responding to you or at the least that

141we have acknowledged that and kind of give you an update as to where we are just have to to gather them together ben so i i have some remarks that i've prepared um so i i thank you all in advance for your your patience um when i was a student in gilwand i had the great privilege to explore and argue for heterodox ideas and opinions for example in my ap english class i one night posted a short essay on the class website arguing in favor of the right of private businesses to discriminate against homosexuals as a bill pending before the arizona legislature at the time proposed to legalize on religious grounds some of my classmates responded with their own counter arguments on the class website and then the next day the entire class had an

142in-person discussion of the issue from which i believe we all left with more respect and understanding for each other and our respective arguments at our last meeting mixed with some brief remarks about doing the work a somewhat rhetorical question was asked why is the existence of this work being perceived as a threat and quote despite the apparently rhetorical nature of the question however i decided to consider it seriously what are these people worried about what am i worried about about this dei push and what it might lead to the answer for me personally is uniformity and intolerance in the name of pei my fear is that someday soon the expression and discussion of heterodox beliefs and theories like what happened in my ap english class will no longer be tolerated for fear of making some

143students feel alienated my fear is that students like me will no longer be free to be true to their beliefs in speech and in action i will not pretend that the issue of racism generally and the particular ideology behind the new wave of anti-racism that swept the nation this year does not continue to be hotly and legitimately debated all over the country that bills seeking to prohibit race essentialism and neo-segregation or to fund those things are not currently being considered by dozens of state legislatures i assume that you all are following some of these stories and are aware of the potential abuses of this ideology so i will highlight just one example the case of clark the democracy prep charter school in which the plaintiff alleges that her biracial son was asked to label himself

144and others as oppressors and to quote undo and unlearn his beliefs attitudes and behaviors that stem from oppression end quote when the boy refused the school threatened to fail him in the class which might have jeopardized his ability to graduate and his mother consequently brought suit now from my perspective forcing a student to affirm a belief that he and his parents find objectionable and unlearn his own could not be further from celebrating diversity or practicing inclusion it's interesting to note that already in our own community those who support the dei initiatives like the diversity and equity committee and the new equity officer provide their comments publicly while those parents teachers and community members who question these initiatives have almost always contacted us privately they are scared of being called racists first because racism is repugnant

145to them and second because in our allegedly white supremacist society the mere accusation of racism can sometimes lose someone their job it's also interesting to know i think that this year several board members have been made to feel unwelcome on this board not because of differences of opinion or even the ire received from some members of the public but because of specific directed actions by other board members board members preaching diversity and inclusion in other words those of us with divergent opinions on these dei questions and different perspectives on the solutions regardless of where we find ourselves feel unwelcome to join district conversations on these issues for fear not just of pushback but of blowback is this what we mean by inclusion if it is do we wonder why there is pushback our first priority

146i think as a district is to ensure that our students are physically safe in school just as important i think for an institution of learning is ensuring that students are safe to explore ideas in school including ideas which run counter to the prevailing narrative as so many of mine once did i think that this continues to be the case in goodwin today and it is my hope that it will always remain so and that we can set an example for our students to follow by welcoming heterodox opinions by not insulting or denouncing our friends and neighbors and by engaging in dialogue in good faith assuming that those who disagree with some of our specific views around dei are opposed to equity diversity and inclusion as such or are uneducated or are racist is bad faith

147i feel that such assumptions have been made far too often i too support the work of the diversity and equity committee and its members who are seeking the betterment of all of our students but i acknowledge that the work remains mostly undefined and i understand how this work can potentially go wrong how it can in fact pose a threat to some people and i refuse to consider these people's concerns with anything less than good faith i do not believe that they are worried by the principles of diversity equity and inclusion but by what we might mean by that phrase and their questions and concerns are not as some have suggested tonight reason to push forward even harder without listening to and recognizing these concerns in gathering feedback on these remarks multiple individuals expressed support for

148my comments but fear for me in sharing them in reply i encourage all members of our community no matter your thoughts on this work do not be scared to share your thoughts to join us in this work so that we can listen to and learn from you and ensure that the work goes right thank you i just want to respond quickly because i think some of the comments were addressed towards me and i didn't prepare anything um but i am also open to diverse and inclusive opinions uh divergent opinions etcetera and and and far you know far-reaching variations of opinions etc except when it becomes hateful and so what we've seen from students and messages so far from the community and from alumni and current students has been hateful rhetoric hateful acts and that's where

149i'm saying that our first duty is to protect and take care of our students and so for me a lot of this i know some people i guess view anti-racism work um as an attack but i think the only other the only other option is racism and that's just not going to be an option at least in my view that as long as you know i'm involved in any kind of school that i will want to strive to fight to get rid of racism and yes the work is not clearly defined but when we're talking about this and then the next day we still hear that um we continuously hear of uh racist acts at school to me that that says everything and obviously from the public comments tonight um earlier and and the later

150ones there is a strong um support in the community and i can't i really can't speak for people who supposedly exist out there and don't write that's the beauty of public comment is to write and say what you think if you don't think that you're a racist and you strongly believe in your convictions write a public comment and put your name to it so we can you know listen to what your comments are um i mean i heard from a lot of people that i don't know tonight that seem like they are in support of it so again i i didn't re prepare anything but i um just wanted to add that in response oh bart yeah obviously um you meet your muted barb uh this evening obviously i was the subject of an attack

151that basically making claim to things that i supposedly said which if you read the transcript of what i actually said um nowhere where those things mentioned my argumentation for the dei position was simply number one this is the first time we've ever been asked to put in a new administrative position without a clearly defined job description without a clearly defined need now we had set up the dei committee which i'm glad to be part of it's it's a great learning experience but i have seen what we have done as a result of the young ladies that phoned into us um we've already added two classes at the high school regarding black history marie went over in the last diversity committee meeting long before any of this became a topic of discussion this past summer all

152the different professional development that the district has offered to teachers so that they can treat each child so that that child has the potential to reach their maximum potential we had people from the pride center come in you know and share their knowledge with the teachers we had people from syracuse university come multiple times for including our disabled students and try to bring them into a normal classroom setting we had a number of visits from a diversity educator from columbia university that shared with our with our you know our staff um some of the problems that have been seen in other districts you know we keep hearing mentions of all these terrible things that have happened in our school district and yet if something happens to your child the first thing that should happen is

153that you share that horrendous happening that should work its way up the system and you know we should hear about it and i think since marie's been here particularly since the young ladies phone call we have been kept up to date many of these things are children being children when they use foul language when they denigrate another race when they call someone when they say something bad about a child that's from china or some other place our teachers are widely equipped to take that moment as a learning moment or as a teaching moment and for me it was a budgetary issue because i really think our school district has done so much to address these issues and you know until this equity audit is done and i can see in black and white all these

154supposedly multiple instances of racism and by the way james clyburn the highest ranking member of the u.s congress the other day came forward and said this is not a racist nation and what all the people that you say should be writing i i agree with ben um these people are so fearful because they have had life experience that if they even question dei they've lost their jobs they they've lost their their livelihoods and there is that fear because there is this tornado that has swept the nation that um critical race theory which is now being pushed by the current administration which basically says and it's in their literature i'm not making this up that all white people are inherently racist whether you know it or not that white children are repressors uh to their fellow

155classmates that these are horrendous things where we're not teaching children to love each other respect each other and and reach for the stars i just felt very comfortable that in guilderland we have given every child and that's been my whole goal in serving the opportunity to reach their maximum potential and i am just so proud of what our teachers have done over the years yes are there instances of stupidity in young people yes sometimes does an adult not act properly yes but again our administration with their current staff not an additional hundred thousand dollar plus administrator which our community had basically told us that they didn't want more administrators they have achieved wonderful things and and as i said i want every student to feel safe i want every student to feel respected every student

156to feel comfortable we know that from research that if they don't they can't learn and so you know in response to the critics that that say that you know we're we're torpedoing or we're trying to torpedo this committee i'd say no there are many people on here that sincerely want all those things for kids and we're not going to just to restrict it to to racist issues we're going to look at the poor we're going to look at the disabled we're going to look at the foreign student that's learning english uh all these are going to be under the radar but that work hasn't been done yet where the deficiencies are when we looked at the essa data you know the things that struck out to us was the poor the uh minorities were lacking

157in in their gains and we wanted to do something about it and um but as i said i was very comfortable with what we had been doing and you know was certainly open to the need if there was one in next year's budget um you know for for someone to take on that role but when i had seen that we had made all these this progress um that that's why i didn't support the diversity educator because as i said to me you know the scientific point that's my background show me show me where the need is in that we can't do it with our current staff so um you know for those that read into my comments that uh you know i was a racist and that i i thought people the women of color

158weren't bright enough to uh to um take on leadership roles none of that was ever said and if you look at the documentation and you read it um you'll not see any of those words that were mentioned in a number of of those letters so um you know i apologize to those people that uh that my words didn't ring true to them but uh as they said i am totally on board with providing every kid in this district with whatever tools they need to become successful and to provide our teachers with whatever tools they need to reach out to every student and help that student we've often talked about mentoring that we want to see that each child in our district has at least one adult that they can feel comfortable with and you know

159i'd like to see that going forward going back many many years probably 15 years now you know i was very instrumental in in helping with the bullying committee uh that the board formed because we were saying you know actual cases where where bullying was affecting kids and as a board you know we created this committee we brought in the old vegas method and you know did some great work there bullying is never going to end it's never going to stop but we can do everything that we can to stymie it to the degree possible so again you know as ben sort of pointed out you know we can have our differences and we can respect each other's opinions and continue to have the dialogue but right now that what i'm hearing from the letters and

160all they sort of discount martin luther king's idea that i grew up with that you know you judge a person on the basis of their character not on their skin color and any employee that we hire i want to have that employee no matter what their gender no matter you know what their racial profile or ethnicity is to know that they were hired because they were the best candidate for their job now in looking at the data we know that kids are helped if they have role models we are very low on the line in the number of male teachers that we have in our district we are low on the line of peach people of color if you have two candidates that are equally qualified and you know you want to boost your mail

161numbers or your people of color numbers i have no problem with that my argument is i i want everybody that is hired to know that they were hired because they were the best person for the job and and as i said um i've been here all these years so that kids can have a great education every single kid and you know i i just hope people realize that thanks i just have um i just want to respond to again i didn't prepare anything but just two things one is if we say things in public people respond in public comment or an email and this has happened to me this is part of being in a position that's a public position so you know if you put it out there you're gonna have to accept what

162comes back the second piece is that um i just think barb that it would be really helpful for you to stop and think that your experience may be very different from other people's experiences that have written in and so i just want you to to to maybe stop and think that some of the language you use and people have written about this have offended people have upset people and you know you are entitled to feel however you want but that doesn't deny the people on the other end that is how they felt by the language that you've used by things that you've said and it would be i think i think you would you would you would do you know do you more good to stop and think about how people that are writing to

163you are living a different life than you are and they're living a different experience they're having a different experience than you're having and when you say these things you're kind of denying that you know that what they've you know their existence what they've what they've experienced and some of the language that you've used i think part of that work can be part of that stuff can be worked on in dei like i just wrote in the chat because you refer to a classroom as normal and so what does that mean for the students who are not they're abnormal i mean this is i know that some of this are nuanced and maybe they're just not the the some of it is just language and discourse but that matters that matters to people words matter to

164people and you say these things and you accept people and i just want you to stop and think that that what you say impacts people and that's why they're writing in okay i just have a question sema if if a child is having a problem in our school district what impedes that parent from sharing that problem with the with the administration um i don't know any principal that we currently have you know on staff or our superintendent that would not take that complaint seriously we have we hear all these nebulous nebulous incidences but have they actually been brought forth so that they can be dealt with because if any of those things you know that that you're sharing um that matters but they have to bring them forward so that our very well-intentioned teachers and

165administrators can deal with the issue that that's my problem i mean we when we had the bullying incidents people actually came forward and they said hey my kid has been bullied and x y and z happened and the administrators you know took action in some cases they didn't take enough action according to parents but you know they address the issue so i guess that's what i'm having troubles dealing with if all these supposedly racist incidents are happening in our school district why aren't our administrators hearing about them and if they're hearing about them and the parents then don't feel good about what they're getting feedback we should be hearing about it in a direct letter to you or or whatever saying hey my child was hurt x y and z and um it's not supposedly

166racist like we have gotten letters from people whose kids that racial epithets were said toward their kid and then they say something to us i'm not just talking about dealing with discipline issues i think what the committee at least one of the goals of the committee is to create a school environment where we're being proactive writes that so less of these incidences occur right we're not going to completely stomp out all bullying all right look we're not going to do all of that we can't do all of that but we can create a better environment and i think we owe that to the students they've been telling us over and over that they're experiencing these things and so i think as a district we this is long overdue i like you know i went to

167guilderland and there were racist incidents then and there continues to be and there's never been i think i said this before one um one concerted effort to to to discuss this to talk about all of um diversity and equity in bullying is is one thing but this is this is more uh specific and clearly from everybody who's been writing in and people who've been writing to us are saying that that it's not enough their kids are still experiencing that it's not supposedly well again you you mentioned when you were in school what racist incidents happened the administration didn't deal with them and what incidences uh has happened this year we we know of one where a racial epithet well wasn't actually was permission for one was uh asked for by a third grader and there

168may be others that we haven't heard about but my problem is bring them forth we we just keep sharing about all these supposed racial incidents in this terrible guilderland community um we really need to hear about them directly individually in order to deal with them it's not some amorphous gel out there that you know that we can attack until these incidences are actually shared so that our administration can deal with them or our teachers can deal with them and if the parent is not satisfied then a letter to you or to the board or whatever you know for further investigation but um as i said i'm willing to do whatever work and and you know downright well that i care about all kids and but as i said i i just really have to grapple

169with not knowing particular instances of racism here in our school district that um we haven't dealt with that that's my problem kelly have your hand raised yeah i just like to say i don't think you're going to find a lot of big massive incidences i think you're going to find little incidents incidences of microaggressions of things that what am i going to bring up a a conversation with the superintendent because you know there was one racial slur or one particular incidence like i think what people are getting at is it's it's it's micro it's it's in the in the institution it's it's i think it's just it's things that you don't even know about that that you and i wouldn't really even recognize as an incident because we haven't had that experience so i think

170like it's the little tiny things that add up and i think it's really hard to pinpoint exact issues and exact incidences at exact times that went through the chain of command that didn't get addressed i think that's a lot to ask so um i'm fully in support of of this work obviously but i think that's what you're going to find more than i think you're going to find pinpointed incidences i don't know what you want what do you want one do you want 10 do you want what's your standard of knowing that this is exists so i'm just going to leave it at that thanks uh gloria i i have to agree with kelly there in terms of um you know trying to put together a list i mean we've heard it it's popped its

171head up it's rewrote its head many times i mean we had the incident a couple years a couple years ago where a parent back stood up at a public meeting and and left the school district eventually over over this kind of an issue uh it's it's insidious it's part of our systems and uh sometimes it's even hard for people who don't can't recognize it to see it even if it's brought to their attention so i think we need to listen to people in a different way not just say give me a list or give me a time give me a date we need to listen how people are feeling about being here and honor those feelings and give them give them the respect that they deserve and that's the kind of community i want where

172we can listen to each other respect each other's feelings about about what's going on in their lives and how the system is making them feel and then move forward to correct that's what i see that this committee is designed to are there any other board comments issues ideas sharing all right so i'll ask for a motion to adjourn gloria second kelly all in favor aye the emotion carries 9-0 thank you everybody have a good night you