19 BoE 03 02 21

001good evening and welcome to the march 2nd 2021 gillwoon central school district board of education meeting would you all please silence your cell phones and recite the pledge a pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so first on the agenda tonight we have several public comments i'll go through and read them the first one is from olivia chadwick it says thank you to all our counselors social workers and school psychologists we could not get through this year without you thank you especially to our counselors at the heist high school level who have experienced significantly higher caseloads this year with one less counselor and the addition of eighth grade students the grace

002that you all maintain under that increased stress on top of this extremely stressful year is a true testament to your professionalism and character okay the second um uh the second public comment is from nina kaplan it says good evening thank you for taking my comment i'm inquiring about the calendar for the next year i've heard that the year begins on the second day of the jewish holiday rosh hashanah could you please verify if this is the case if so would the board consider changing the date i imagine that this start date must also be problematic for many of the faculty staff as well thank you for your consideration the next public comment is from jamie vadney she writes i see that the 21 22 calendar is on the agenda do we have any idea what

003the daily schedule will be will it be will it be staying the same or changing back to the more normal schedule and the next public comment is from laura castle and michael c writer the start of the 21 22 school year poses a unique situation this year with rosh hashanah the jewish new year falling in line with the beginning of school following the pattern of previous years having school on the second day of the holiday would place jewish families throughout the district in the position of having to choose between observance of a major jewish holiday and the first day of school please give serious consideration to delaying the start of school by one day to avoid what would be a very difficult situation for many families the next public comment is from dr sarah berg

004she writes as a jewish guilderland resident i'm very concerned by the district's proposal to begin the 2122 school calendar on rosh hashanah a holiday which does not end until sundown on wednesday september 8th families should not have to choose between their child's attendance on the first day of classes which for many could be the first time they are inside a school building since march and practicing their religion similarly staff should not feel like they are unable to fulfill their first day of school job responsibilities due to high holiday religious observation if they elect to take paid leave time then their students will meet a substitute on that day instead of having the opportunity to start creating a bond with their regular teacher starting the school year on one of the most important days of the

005jewish calendars contrary to gillard's central school district's message about recognizing and valuing the diversity of its community and it would seem to violate the spirit of the non-discrimination language in board of education policy zero one zero zero thank you for your consideration and then we have one more public comment um this is from a group of teachers and they write dear gildan board of education members we are reaching out to you during this budget time to ask for support in bringing our students back into their special area classrooms and libraries for the fall of 2021 to serve our guilderland students properly this must be a priority for the district this is obviously a unique year due to the pandemic that the model we are currently implementing is not sustainable for our students our programs or

006our staff reflection serves as an integral role in education although we appreciate the accolades that quote teachers are doing amazing work this year look what we've accomplished unquote our concern lies with the board decisions moving forward where there has been a forum for special education special area educators to collectively self-assess express current impacts and use this feedback to guide a plan positives about the current model aside we also need to publicly acknowledge the larger picture in the constant roadblocks and issues that exist for students and staff with focus only on the positive the board of education may assume current covid practices in educational configurations could remain to in place when looking to save money to clarify these are just a few examples of the challenges the special areas and librarians are experiencing the first the

007vast and diverse curated library collections have been deconstructed into book carts weighing hundreds of pounds with librarians having to push a limited selection of books throughout the building only allowing students a few minutes at a time to make book selections pulling hundreds of books weekly to fill student requests although they have access to virtual resources students especially primary age have lost exploration engagement and inquiry opportunities that purposely the purposefully organized library space offers this year music education is on a cart covered restrictions do not allow singing dancing and sharing instruments and teachers are dependent on a digital platform instruction is constantly impeded by technology that is inadequate with old computers and weak signals in the building making it impossible at times to deliver any meaningful instruction art classes at the elementary schools are sacrificing established

008art room procedures and lessons to accommodate the circumstances of this time the fallout being the students are not receiving intended curriculum and are not having access to necessary materials because of the restrictions that come from teaching from a cart lastly art and music programs have suffered a reduction of instructional time this year time we need back in september to help us educate our students at appropriate levels of instruction that will meet new york state standards we understand that the district may still have restrictions in the fall as a result of covet 19. however we are asking you to trust us to come up with solutions to keep everyone safe while running to while returning to teach in our special area classrooms and libraries the ability to clean and sanitize between classes is manageable as physical

009education classes have proven it to us this year with limited information this past fall we have navigated the restrictions to serve our students the best we can uh though or through our experiences and reflection this year we are confident that we can deliver our programs more effectively in our teaching spaces and have a positive impact on student learning and social emotional well-being thank you for consideration and this is signed diana ackner susan bullington carolyn close carrie deneen kim harmon michelle janston d johnson christine monley star norman and judy russo and i think those are all the public comments right linda no more came in okay um i think the calendar issue we're going to be addressing um down further in the agenda when it's superintendent information so i we can talk about that then and

010uh i think we'll talk with the district correct marie about the um the special area the last letter that i read with from the special area teachers i'll just um say that at this time we're planning um for next year to look like a typical school year so that's our intent of course we need to be hopeful that we don't have too many restrictions and if we do we've learned a lot since we've opened this year to try to accommodate learning as best as we can in those special areas great thank you next on the agenda we have the consent items this includes the minutes of the february 9th meeting cpsc and csc recommendations personnel action and the financials 1 through 3. can i have a motion to accept the consent items barb second rebecca

011any questions or comments i just have one it's very minor in personnel resignation non-instructional uh chelsea carl the date she joined the district is wrong it says 9 25 21. they must i think they just meant 20 but i thought it should be corrected in the minutes thanks judy for catching that also seema i think we need to hold on the coaching appointments until after the approval later in the agenda oh yes okay so for the personnel action we're going to take out the coaching appointments which mine is still opening up so i don't know what letter that is um so that's letter h thank you so we'll vote on all of them minus letter h all the coaching appointments any other questions or comments okay all in favor i i passes nine zero thank

012you next we'll go down to information items we have curriculum and instruction dr singleton thank you dr rivera uh the goblin central school district is very proud to announce that farnsworth middle school was redesignated for the third time on february 16th as an essential element school to watch by the new york state education department and the essential elements schools to watch leadership team farnsworth was forced for recognized as a school to watch in march of 2011. the school to watch program in new york recognizes middle school programs with a focus on continuous improvement and excelling in the following four areas they are academic excellence developmental responsiveness social equity and organizational structure farnsworth is one of only 37 schools from throughout new york to be currently named as a school to watch so well deserved congratulations

013to mr laster and all of the staff and and students at farnsworth middle school for yet again being redesignated to school to watch great great job uh my next item is actually mislabeled this should really be a district celebration not just high school uh but in recent weeks i wanted to highlight a couple of things that have taken place regarding diversity equity and our work in anti-racism in the district so in recent weeks and months our school community and board of education as you know well have established a strong commitment to not only celebrating student diversity and cultures but to also take actionable steps to combat all forms of racism discrimination and inequality in our schools and beyond our high school anti-racism task force has again resumed their work under the leadership now of shannon

014elliott and they're eager to begin bring their mission statement which i shared previously on december 8th to life i also want to recognize and thank our black student union which has been compiling and sharing black history facts with the school community and i have a few examples linked for your viewing pleasure additionally at ghs our english 11 students have contributed to a i dream of a world crowdsourced poem and this is an activity that's sponsored by npr it was inspired by the inaugural poet amanda gorman and her stirring poem the hill we climb and we want you can take a look at some of the words of our own students as they contributed to this this national activity so thank you to our students who contributed from ghs and of course the month of february

015also features some noteworthy highlights at every level and these include but are by no means limited too uh some work with our enl teachers who have celebrated lunar or chinese new year february 12th began the year of the ox and while lunar new year is most commonly associated with china where it is the most important holiday and celebration of the year many other asian countries recognize and celebrate this holiday also throughout our district we have many students in every grade who celebrate lunar new year at home with their families at linwood elementary school our e l teacher beverly baudet and others have recognized that talking about lunar new year in the classroom is a great way to celebrate multicultural and multilingual diversity fostering inclusion and awareness of other cultures it also fits in perfectly with

016many of our social studies units and themes such as a grade two my community and other communities at grade three communities around the world etc ms baudette created and shared a bitmoji classroom that was distributed to parents and families that features a series of videos used to introduce chinese new year with a focus on the meaning of the holiday as well as cultural aspects including food dance and celebration so thank you to ms baudet and our enl department for their efforts i also want to recognize the work of our librarians the month of february was of course black history month this was first recognized by president gerald ford in 1976 and black history month continues to this day as an important opportunity to teach children about the many historical and enduring contributions made by african-american

017leaders influencers authors politicians artists musicians etc etc by teaching our learners to respect and honor the culture history and accomplishments of african americans they will ultimately become better more tolerant and positive citizens who will help our entire society to move forward and grow our librarians have spearheaded some activities in our schools to celebrate black history month by no means however has their work been limited to the month of february i want to point that out their efforts are year-round providing materials resources literature activities to all of our teachers and students and i did link a few of the activities that were conducted last month some strategies and examples of their recent efforts include a black history month school museums the bitmoji classrooms that i described previously as well as a gallery of black authors at

018farnsworth middle school black history biography biography shelves choice boards class literature sets etc and i concluded with the update a few uh pictures of some of the activities that have taken place in some of the displays that you can see throughout our school so i want to thank everyone involved it's important work and it's ongoing work as we know but i wanted to provide you with some updates of some things that have taken place in recent weeks thank you dr singleton next on the agenda we have school business information neil thank you seema i'm very pleased to share that the school district received the 2021 farm to school partnership award this award was sponsored by the new york school nutrition association and the new york state agriculture and markets on january 23 2020 guilderland high

019school hosted the capital district region farm to fork local food expo local vendors growers buyers and school districts were able to connect and create a pathway for locally grown and produced products to reach area schools institutions restaurants wholesalers and supermarkets school districts attaining at least 30 percent locally produced ingredients in their lunch program will see an increase in their school lunch reimbursement rate again congratulations to food service director megan beck for this award and facilitating the creation of this pathway for locally grown and produced products awesome congratulations to megan thanks neil next on the agenda superintendent information dr wiles uh thank you dr rivera the first item tonight is um the board's first opportunity to take a look at um the draft calendar for the 2021 2022 school year and i'll just point out it

020is attached to the agenda the calendar includes 180 days of student pupil attendance days which is the requirement that we have to meet um and a total of um 184 days which includes four superintendent conference days during which we provide time for our teachers to do planning and collaboration and other professional development so i know there were a number of public comments um related to the very first day of school this year which um at this point we have designated as wednesday september 8th this year labor day falls on the 6th we are not beginning school on seventh in observance of the first day of rosh hashanah but we did plan as we have in the past to be in session on the second day of that jewish high holy day um so i know

021that has raised some concerns but i'm opening this up for discussion and commentary um and again this is an information item tonight we won't be acting on this until the next meeting i just have uh one question marie so you said that normally right we observed the first day of the two-day jewish holiday that's always been the past practice that has been the practice for as long as i can remember yes and if it were changed we um i'm just thinking spaces where they would have to take the day would be like a holiday or like the wednesday before thanksgiving or um part of the vacation week yes yes because this calendar is right at the minimum of of 180 people attendance days if we were to begin school on thursday september 9th we would

022have to look at another place within the calendar for in for a day of people instruction and the options are november 24th which is the wednesday before thanksgiving the other option would be um march 18th and we reduced one of our superintendent conference days we have not had a march conference day in several years though so it that would be um we need that day that's the only day our elementary teachers get to do professional development in an entire year a full day so we did not we do not have one of those this year so that would be um you know something we want to hang on to and that we'd have to turn that into a pupil um instruction day and then any other holiday we could shorten by a day so we

023have um [Music] well probably the december break wouldn't make sense because of when um just where the dates fall on the fridays um there's february break april break including good friday and that's really all the options we have marie if we do a half a day on the day before thanksgiving does that count as a pupil attendance day or does it have to be a full day um we have to hit a certain number of hours but yes a half day could be counted as a pupil attendance day wonka did you have your hand up i was just wondering marie has rosh hashanah ever landed on the first day of school this way i don't remember i mean i'm sure it has at some point i don't remember it having occurred in a certainly not

024in my time here in guilderland barb you have your question i just have a comment um the day before thanksgiving has been probably from the standpoint of parents and travel one of the most popular days that are in our calendar and i've heard nothing but wonderful things that it allows people to actually be with family uh you know for that time period and travel and then you know get back because friday is always a day off afterwards so um i certainly wouldn't want to lose that i just have a question are two questions marie um the people who are creating the calendar there's representation um i'm guessing right from teachers parents can you just explain who's involved well i let me back up and talk about the process the um general framework of the calendar

025actually begins at the capitol region boces um in the district superintendent there works with the district superintendents of the neighboring boces regions because uh we share so many programs across our regions career and technical education special education programs tech valley high school that we work very hard to have our calendars match for at least all of the major breaks so that process starts at the macro level here in gilderland we start with the boces calendar but then we also look at our own contractual obligations because those vary from district to district and then we will draft a calendar um in past years we would bring people together for a meeting to talk through it um but because of our current circumstances we actually you know shared the calendar with our various stakeholder groups so um

026representatives from the teachers from gawa our business office looked at it for payroll purposes we shared it with the pta group we shared it with our administrative group and get feedback from all of those groups before we bring it to you and then my other question that um that holiday goes until the evening or sundown of um the eighth right that wednesday so if if we were to keep it the same would it be possible at the east to like um not have after school activities or evening activities so um there's a little bit of compromise there or i don't know if that's something you can agree on or talk about well given um the holiday ends at sundown which is still fairly late in september we could absolutely make sure that we don't have

027events that evening that would happen before sundown which most would at that point in the year if it were december sundown would be ten after four other questions oh i'm sorry i have to lower my hand okay a block would you have a question so what would the board recommend as a next step so i think you said we need to vote next time right marie yes so when would you like us to comment next time or now um you can begin now and i can continue to you know take your phone calls and your emails through that period of time okay um so i did not know much about the holiday when this was brought to my attention i'll just be honest about that i was raised catholic from what i gather um this

028has this is the religious equivalent of good friday and easter so at first i thought it was perhaps like new year's eve and new year's day but it's really not it's it's a very holy event and it's both days that are important not just the one and so i guess i feel like if we have a group of students that we know we know now are at risk for missing the first day of school and we also know as a board of education that if you miss the first day of school that can put you at a disadvantage the whole year or at least the beginning socially and academically that we need to take it very seriously and not place these potential students here at a at risk for that and and teachers at risk

029for missing that and starting the year off in a bad way that's my two cents so i i think the best course of action from here would be to figure out when we'd make up that day i think everyone's sort of in agreement that you know we'd like to give them the day off um it's just a matter of when we're gonna make it up and what effect that they will have and everything else so i think that's where we should go moving forward barbara i think one of the options that you mentioned was having an earlier start date to the school year the other options seem to really infringe upon other real needs in the district so could you maybe flesh that out a little bit and give us a little more information on

030that um i could let me just provide a little context at the start of each school year we typically do uh two superintendents conference days um they are designed to provide our returning staff an opportunity to meet together plan have department meetings get ready for the arrival of students as you can see in this calendar those dates are september 1 and 2. for contractual reasons we do the teachers contract doesn't up permit coming back before september 1st so if we were to want to adjust that we would have to negotiate that with the association and get a memorandum of agreement but if we were to stay on september first and second is conference days we could bring students in on friday february 3rd and then they would not return back to school until thursday september

0319th now it has been customary in the district to not have teachers or other 10-month staff report on the friday before labor day we do have many families and others who will travel that weekend because it's the long weekend before labor day so that's just another consideration to to balance here the other option which i alluded to a bit ago would be to have a day of instruction on thursday september 2nd and if we valued and i think we do having two days and i think our faculty does too two days to prepare for the arrival of students we would need to begin on august uh 31st so we would have conference days on august 31st and september 1st and that would require a memorandum of agreement with our teaching teachers association so then there

032would be a first day of school on september 2 and then the second day of school a week later on september 9th um i guess i would like just to get an informal read on the teachers union to see if they would in this one year where the calendar falls as it does you know agreed to that earlier you know that one x one day earlier start uh that the contract right now from what you say you know does not permit but if we could just approach them and say you know this is a an occurrence that's not going to happen every single year and then this particular year would you consider it and bring back to us a feel of you know what kind of response you got from the teachers union um i

033think that would be helpful um i can certainly do that i i think with that kind of a change i would probably want to reach out to all of our stakeholders to wait to weigh in because that would be a you know quite a departure from what we've planned right here so i would want to weigh in with all of our stakeholders i don't know if it matters per se but i did survey the other school districts in the suburban council to see when everyone around us is starting their first day of school and um it's about a 50 50 split on either beginning on september 7th or september 8th the one exception to that is saratoga they are beginning on the 9th and they are not taking off the day before thanksgiving i haven't

034heard from albany and schenectady at this point but i will see both of those superintendents on friday and can certainly talk with them got it got it um sorry i got distracted by my kids going to bed for a second so pardon me if you've already discussed this is it feasible to i have two two questions is it feasible to attack a day on at the end i know with the teachers union maybe that's and if you already discussed it i apologize and also the day after thanksgiving is that always a holiday like it's not like a state holiday i don't get that day off um is that always given off or is that just a custom or i mean i know it's black friday at all but just wondering in my 30 plus years

035it's always been a day off i don't know what it's called other than the day after thanksgiving kelly the state education department designates technically the last day of school they call it the rating day which is june 24th we have typically not extended the school year beyond the last day as defined by the state education department and i think if we were to add a day at that point we have some contractual obligations um i'm looking to kneel to refresh my we haven't used those because we do need to i think compensate teachers for additional time at that point i mean nobody wants to come end to school on a i mean expect to end the school on friday and come back on a monday for one day that is pretty ridiculous but just trying

036to throw out all kinds of options here blanca and then rebecca and then gloria thank you um i liked the idea that barr brought up um although i think that she went in a different direction but the 24th the day before thanksgiving what about making it a half day that way if people are traveling they're only missing a half day of school and we're not sending the message that a travel day is more important than a religious holiday okay thank you blanca rebecca and then gloria um i think there's obviously a lot of competing interests here um and coming back the friday before labor day is not going to make a lot of parents it's not going to make them very happy i think the day before thanksgiving like barbara pointed out is really popular

037amongst her is it feasible to do some sort of like push-pull or something some very simple survey to our parents to get a sense of if you had a choice which day you would prefer off or which day you would prefer to start is that a feasible thing in our timeline he's in a peaceable expectation um yeah we communicate with parents almost daily so we could do a quick date i guess the question would be what days am i asking them to choose between or among i think would you rather start on wednesday i don't have a calendar in front of me but september 8th i think um uh friday september 6th or 2nd um or would you rather have the day after the day before thanksgiving off or or um good friday off i

038just think that would give us a better sense that way we're asking all of our stakeholders the teachers are are included and the parents i think that's very doable we just have to figure out how to word it so um we're getting clear direction sure thank you sure gloria um any thought to uh playing around with that snow day that contingent snow day may 27th i mean that's contingent what if we made that not contingent made it a school day right now it is a school day right we only take yeah but what if we didn't make it a contingent holiday um that would be fine unless we have more than four snow days well that could happen anyway i mean i have to think about that my question kind of uh goes before us

039i'll just jump in i was thinking also about the snow days and well we got snow days this year which is awesome instead of having it remote maybe instead i don't know if we can have it remote paved next year that instead of being a snow day so we could get that day back i feel like an agreement with rebecca there are all these competing um options here with and none of them are good um i know people have suggested oh well what about good friday we don't need to have that day off i'm sure people will be upset about that as well so there's gonna be people upset about all of these options so to get a pulse of how people are feeling would be really helpful at least it would give them a

040chance to give their input um but i do think because this year other schools have done remote days and they counted as a school day instead of a snow day and i appreciate that we actually had a snow day so don't get me wrong but maybe we could work with that next year somehow to get that day to accommodate for others i um we need to adapt a calendar though that shows 180 days um i'm trying to wrap my head around how that would be i mean we our snow days are actually any day beyond the 180 so we have the 184 with the conference days i still think we need to adopt a calendar that is 180 days which gets to the contingent which right now is counted as one of those 180 days

041right so if we don't count that one and make it a day then we're at 179. i mean if i'm sorry if we count that contin oh this is already included to make one it is counted yes i just feel like we're not voting on it tonight and we've heard from a lot of people and i think we're gonna still hear from people that at the very least we should try and see what other options and try our best to see what we can make work um ultimately we might end up with something that people are not happy about at least one group is not happy about but i think it's worth the consideration to to try and see if we can make it work okay barbara and then go ahead barbara just one of

042the things about polls though that i i think we're all aware of if you have a very activist group in your community and there's a poll uh the emails will go out the facebook posts will go out and you'll get an onslaught from that particular group of individuals others may not even be aware of the issue and i think what we really have to do is sort of rely on best judgment what bolsis is doing um try to find a way to apply this particular circumstance this particular year but i i'm very leery of polls that are that are sent out as you pointed out the wording of the poll you know the choices in the poll um these are things that you just make up in in the course of 24 hours so again

043i guess i would rely on your expertise and cooperation with the you know with the boces calendar and if we can somehow rather adjust these snow days or any other way that you can come up with to accommodate this special year i'd be much more comfortable with than a poll of any kind polls notwithstanding i mean polls can help inform you ultimately this this becomes the decision of the board so even if there is let's say we come up with a a poll and i can work with amy on that tomorrow you still would need to make a judgment based on the data that you've gathered i don't know that the poll would necessarily dictate your answer it would inform but not necessarily determined i do think that the topic of the calendar is very

044popular uh we've been hearing from people for a while now because we're a little late on the calendar there's some other challenges in it people want to know when the breaks are because they make plans to travel and such so let me let me work with amy to see if we can come up with a straightforward survey and um and then i'll reach out to our intern well to say here are some other options we've had we've had a few years in a row of not difficult calendars so this is kind of back to normal where we have difficult choices to make but i appreciate all your importance no matter what we do we're not going to please everybody and that's just we're just going to have to figure out what is the least offensive

045yes it is it's difficult there's no there's no two ways about it well stay tuned on that and we'll come back right um we usually get one day rajasana right yes so going forward are we going to be giving two days for rosh hashanah every year i think what's different this year ben is that it falls on the first day of school i don't know that we can going forward promise two days it is very difficult some years depending on when how the days fall in the calendar to actually find 180 days to be in session so i'm i'm not sure we could do two days every year right well you know that's my thought too is that you know if our start day is kind of limited to in september and our end day

046is kind of set by the city and we need to fit 184 school days in there um you know then you know i get that this is the first day of school but every year parents kind of have to make this choice of whether to send their kids to school or observe this holiday you know so you know my feeling would be to leave it as it is but rather than them go through all this um survey about whether you'd like to come in you know the friday before labor day or the wednesday before they you know um you know it just seems to me that you know um sometimes you have to miss school i think blanca and then sema just to ben's point then it's not just any other day it's the first

047day of school and that's very important for children and for teachers you establish that bond day one or you don't my two cents yeah i mean i think you know i said before that you know somebody is not going to be happy but at the same time like if we are saying we value um we have values in our district i think at the very least we should try and look to see what other options there are um but i was gonna add what you said blanca that the first day of school is not like you know ran missing another random day of school during the year um so i think we should at least look into it a little bit more i know that people are waiting for the calendar but i mean they've

048already waited this long and really none of us know what's happening next year anyway so i don't think waiting another week or two is going to make a huge impact all right should i move on to my next difficult item um it's actually not that difficult i'm just uh wanting to make sure the community knows that the draft budget presentation for the 21 22 school year has been postponed and the budget q a workshop scheduled for mark march 11th has been cancelled the draft budget presentation will instead take place at 7 pm on tuesday march 23rd and that evening will include a q a period for members of the board as well as community members the reason for the delay is all about the uncertainty of our state aid at this point and we're waiting

049for information around the federal relief package for new york state we wanted to make sure that the information that we're presenting to you is as solid as possible and not you know present early and then have to change it 10 times as we get new information so again we'll present that budget on march 23rd and then our next regular board meeting is is tuesday march 16th and then the budget workshop following the presentation will be on march 30th and it's not included here but just so you know we'll be uh adapting the budget uh the board will be adapting the budget on um april 13th this year go ahead oh i had a couple of um i know that we're not having this until the 23rd of the q a but i thought i would

050just bring them up now because it might be easier to to work that into the presentation a couple of things i had written down were pandemic impacts like expense aid so um for example i'm not saying this is true but if we didn't use as much money and transportation etc then how would that impact our aid the following year so you know what did we not spend a lot on this year that would impact our aid for the following year and then if we're thinking about bringing students back to school or to more regular school i don't know what the plans are in terms of if you're planning any kind of programming or if there's any special thing that goes along with that and that how that would impact the budget as well and then

051because of the uncertainty with the state aid i don't know if you could do some kind of i'm assuming neil would probably already do this some sensitivity analysis to show that you know if um the range basically what the range of state aid could be and what you know what our options could be based on on that thank you okay thanks seema so let me move on to some good news um uh thanks to the creative and tenacious spirit of our theater departments across the middle and high school i'll start with the high school to announce this that the gilderland players cast crew and orchestra are presenting little women through a special arrangement with music music theater international the musical uh with a book by alan knee lyrics by mindy dickinson and music by jason

052howland is based on the novel by louisa may alcott and performances will be streamed march 25th through 28th through the publishers website special effects will be used to make actors appear closer together than they actually are in the spirit of social distancing and the orchestration will be pre-recorded times and ticket prices are yet to be determined but more information will be shared soon we're just thrilled that the show will go on and then i'm also excited to announce that mask the farnsworth middle school drama club will be performing a cabaret cabaret style virtual program that will take a look back at the last 10 years of shows while it's yet to be determined whether or not students will actually be able to perform in person or virtually there will be a program that is expected

053um available in late spring the goal is to get them on stage even if it's virtually so more to come on that um but we're really pleased that we're able to um provide students with some additional performing arts opportunities and then next we're at that time of year where we typically have our joint meeting with the trustees of the guilderland public library and so i wanted to bring that to your attention this evening i also have a suggested time for that meeting i'm not sure if it's going to be sufficient length in length or if it will work but the proposed meeting time is march 18th and to me prior to the public library's regular meeting at six o'clock the only challenge with this is that we have a standing reopening committee every thursday that

054we would either have to shorten or um we would only be able to spend about 30 minutes with the trustees so i'm throwing that out there as an idea but it does not need to be where we land um so thoughts i know it would be convenient for the public library i have an inside track on how that schedule is so um any thoughts about that i mean could you just you can make that you said there's not a lot on the agenda so couldn't you just make it work but that court i think we could i mean i i spoke with tim and i think the main topic that the library would like to share with us is really an update on their capital construction project and so i don't know that we have

055a ton of topics we always kind of reaffirm our collaborative spirit on the programming side with the library but that you know continues to um be going very well in spite of you know the times we're in and i assume when things are back more normal we'll pick up where we left off if it's slowed down a little bit i'm comfortable trying to make that maybe 5 30 work and if we find we need more time we could pick another day i suppose okay then why don't why don't we plan for that okay my last topic is around performing music and it also touches our physical education program but tonight i'm interested in um bringing the possibility of expanding our opportunities for students to participate in the performing arts and we're looking at this by

056reducing the 12 foot social distancing rule for singing and wind instruments uh to the six foot recommendation that now the centers for disease control is supporting this recommendation is backed by a recent research commissioned by an international coalition of performing arts organizations and that includes the new york state school music association currently our district practices the 12-foot social distancing we require that students wear masks when they're playing their instruments and use bell covers on wind instruments the new york state department of health guidance on this topic mandates a six foot social distancing but recommends as a best practice the larger distance district would like to consider transitioning to the six foot social distancing rule with masks and belt covers for wind instruments doing so would make it possible to bring back the ability to sing

057in general music the ability to sing in any classroom where students are masked and spaced six feet apart the possibility for holding socially distant live streamed or outdoor performances for larger ensembles and an increased sense of togetherness for our musicians and then i know it would also impact or could impact our special physical education instruction which is currently offered under the 12-foot social distancing rule i'll just add that this friday the suburban council of superintendents is meeting and this is the first item on our agenda um bob winans who's here with us tonight in case you have questions for him his colleague from north colonie will be presenting the information that i shared in the powerpoint that went out in friday's packet this is another one of these areas i'm not asking the board to

058decide tonight but really wanting to discuss your comfort level with the notion of expanding opportunities for our performing arts much in the same way we've expanded opportunities for students in the athletics world so i'll open it leave it at that and and um take your comments questions um i i wasn't paying attention to all the hands there's a lot of them so barbara i'm going to start with you okay i'm totally in support of expanding these opportunities for kids um considering that we are allowing wrestling where kids are face to face and with these precautions in place six foot distancing that we're following cdc guidelines i see no reason under the sun why we would consider not allowing the music department to let the kids have a little bit of fun this year the music

059program has been so hamstrung it's amazing that what they have done with with what they have but expanding this opportunity i think in light of the cdc guidance in light of the fact that fortunately you know more and more people are being vaccinated and that our numbers so far have gone down the way we were hoping that they would go down um to me i i think as soon as we can get these kids singing again and playing again and allowing for you know groupings outside um it certainly is a step in the right direction our kids really need this and our teachers need it i think they are you heard the letter from the special area teachers and their frustrations of not being able to interact better with it with the children in the

060classroom situation so i'm 100 in support of um you know expanding the kids opportunities thanks barbara and i think you were next your hands up i'm sorry that was not for this discussion oh okay sima um i'm just going to reiterate what barb said i think if we're allowing wrestling and um i think we've tried to accommodate you know to let um students play sports to have their extra curriculars back and this would be great for um to do the same for you know performing arts music chorus etc so i'm in favor of whatever we whatever whatever we can do i know we're not deciding tonight but um whatever we need to do to help support music coming back for the district i think people would really um they really need something to look forward

061to and that would that's one thing what is this march and they haven't they've not had that all year i think if we're allowing wrestling that we should be able to have this as well blanca um i was wondering when what the time frame is for starting this if it goes through bob let me turn to you and you can talk a little i know it's yesterday but what's the realistic time frame if it were to go forward um well i mean the thing is is that it's it's a recommended best practice um under the new york state department of health guide guidance you know in the summer uh before the research study that was um done by um the nfhs and uh supported by a huge number of arts organizations throughout the world um

062we didn't have uh the research to really back and and to be honest neither did new york state when they came up with 12 feet of guidance that wasn't really based on anything other than they knew that there were stories out um you know that that there was some super spreader events regarding singing um and so we're you know nobody involved in music education in new york state is really quite certain where the 12 feet of guidance came from but we wanted to be we wanted to be absolutely as safe as possible you know the safety of our students is is first and foremost and so we actually went beyond the guidance we went not only at 12 feet but we also required masks bell covers and instrument masks um so we were being very

063cautious um because we wanted to keep uh students as safe as possible but the research uh that is out there now um you know says that there is like for singing and and um there's the highest number of particle spread uh with the soprano register and um a masked singer um sees a 92 reduction in aerosols um oboe is the highest uh aerosol spread surprisingly um for wind instruments and there was a 96 reduction just with the use of a bell cover and we also have instrument masks as well um you know so the study um recommends that you you use masks for singers and instruments and masks for an instrument means bell cover um six feet of distance um 30 minute rehearsals which our rehearsals are 40 minutes and so by the time students

064get in and set up their instruments and um you know there's a little bit of announcements one on the beginning where we're in that time frame um you know our airflow based on our hvac units meets all the requirements and then um they're requiring their recommendations based on hygiene such as hand washing and um how we're storing instruments we've been doing that you know since the beginning of the year bob let me interrupt you i just we were thinking about prospective so if if everyone or we were comfortable going forward with expanding these i think the question is so when would we try to start doing that with our own students here in guilderland um we like you said yesterday is is when we would like to uh begin this so you know as as

065soon as as uh we can um because it would be really valuable um k through k through five students are are losing out on a lot of music instruction not being able to sing um and you know the the special area teachers who have done a phenomenal job this year um not only are have a limited access to equipment because they're pushing into classrooms but they also can't sing if you're pushing into classrooms one of the biggest tools at your disposal is is the human voice and they don't have that um this this would be really huge for um not only the special area teachers but more importantly the students and it would it would also allow classroom teachers to start using um you know singing in their classes as well and there is a

066lot of song that happens in the classroom as it's singing is very very closely tied to literacy so i guess asap blanca is the answer barbara um i don't know why we have to wait uh we have the data we we know that we're believe it or not heading towards the end of the school year if we wait another two weeks until the next school board meeting it seems a waste of time um these kids need to be singing now we need to be doing these things now uh is there any impediment to our saying go ahead uh give the kids their voice today versus two weeks from now other than hurting the kids even more barbara this is different than the athletic conversation where the um governor basically created a set of rules which

067said the board must vote on this there is no vote required but we wanted to make sure that the board was in support of this kind of action before we go forward because you know uh to my knowledge no one in our immediate vicinities is doing this although i think after friday's meeting with the suburban council i could see north colonie joining us perhaps shen because their feelings are very uh similar to what you've just voiced in wanting to support our our performing arts um rebecca my only concern is that it contradicts new york state best practice is there any movement as far as you know in new york state to re-re-evaluate that or or to publish different guidelines um dr david brown who is a superintendent of derider central school district and a long

068time music educator and he's the nissma new york state school music association president has been advocating um this reduction in the guidance from 12 feet to six feet and has been lobbying um governor cuomo um and i believe there is a meeting set up to talk about this not necessarily with governor cuomo but um somebody else at the state level um so there and there there are many different lobbying efforts happening throughout the state at different um you know local and state levels blanca and then barbara i share rebecca's concern um i work in [Music] worker safety and the you know osha has its own guidelines in the new york pash has its own and we have to follow new york pesh so i'm a little weary of just going by cdc and not new

069york also i don't think that this is the same thing as wrestling because wrestling is two people on a mat that's been sanitized this is a group of people that we want to put a little closer together we know that the the masks and the coverings are not foolproof and uh my understanding is that they're trying to you know project as much air as they can so um that concerns me as a public health professional i'm not saying no i'm saying i'm not all in i'm nervous about it i think it might be premature vaccines are being given but they're not given to the pediatric community yet we we would be the first district right to do it i'm also a little wary of that i will say that the study was conducted with professional

070singers and the ability of an adult uh to project their voice is much much much greater than a child um so all that data and the 92 reduction in aerosols was based on an adult voice so the ability of a child to project their voice to that degree is is not anywhere near what an adult can do barbara uh let's face it the the ability of kids to sing in the classroom and their needs is a very low priority on the department of health bureaucracy uh as has been pointed out this 12-foot distancing that was plucked out of the air and the other guidelines that came down the pike again really had no scientific basis the six foot distancing that basically had a little more science to it but why is it that our students

071in gymnastics class or in gym had to be 12 feet apart but teams could practice six feet apart uh as i said there was no rationale and there's no urgency on the part of the health department to examine this tiny little segment of this huge issue um bob has pointed out the studies that were done on adults with much stronger voices i am totally comfortable with giving the kids this opportunity and um i i just can't speak more highly of our teachers and the need as ball pointed out that singing does doesn't just happen in music class uh many of our uh foreign language teachers use music to learn the language kids love it and it just adds another whole dimension to the classroom that we're preventing by not allowing this to go back immediately

072so i i just hope that we can give the go-ahead to the music department to you know to really um let the kids again have their voices blanca i'm pretty resentful of this being whittled down uh you know we've lost half a million americans i'm pretty resentful of this topic being whittled down to let's give the students their voice as if i'm trying to censor them in some way i'm trying to stop the spread of a lethal disease that's my first concern bureaucracy or not in the department of health there's a chain of command and i think that in our state we usually defer to the state and not to the cdc and i am very concerned about moving forward with this again i'm not saying no but i'm not going to be sold on

073um you know this this sentiment of let's let's do this because it'll make the kids happy because we need to keep them safe first and the teachers again if you're uh looking for a pulse of the board i just wanted to say i agree with barb um i'm all in favor of giving the show giving the kids more opportunities in school blanca is that your hand no but i would say that i would be curious to see what rebecca says because i would probably defer to her because i can't make up my mind on this rebecca have reservations like you do and i think the cdc is not clear i think there's a recommendation from the cdc from last week that recommends that singing has a social distancing threshold of 12 feet but we're not

074acting here as public health officials we're acting here as a school board and i think you know i we should not be giving medical advice over this forum but that's why i think we need to defer to the new york state guidelines which currently have as best practice 12 feet which is why i have reservation so we are contradicting new york state best practice we have to have a reason to do so and the the reason crawford is the cdc guidelines that contradict each other depending on which one you're using that's a tough one barbara i just think that the the data that bob has provided for us on the investigations that have been done over the course of the last year on professional signatures and also the the fact that you know when we

075look at the culvert debts which are horrendous yes but the number of children that have suffered by not being able to have their usual classroom routines um the long-term effects of that are probably not going to be seen for years to come i mean i think educationally we already know that most of the kids are probably going to be about a year behind and um as i said i really want to give them this opportunity i think bob's investigation work that he has done and his colleagues have done to show the safeness and the benefit for students uh to allow this to happen i i just just hope that you know we go forward and and as i said let it happen thank you kelly um i kind of agree with rebecca and blanca i'd

076like some more information i understand that the studies that are presented here you know they are commissioned by the international coalition of performing arts and the school music association um so they're gonna have i'm not gonna say an angle i'm just gonna say that they have a certain difference you know some sort of research that they're looking for i i have to say at the ra i do fall back to rebecca's comment about the best practices i want to see these kids get back to school and i want to see them sing i was a that was a huge part of my education was music like and that really was so important to me when i was in school i don't know what i would have done without that but this is a different time

077and i just kind of i'm not sure exactly i know you mentioned that you're not looking for a vote or anything or you're looking for support or non-support so i'm kind of like i want to know like what sort of action or non-action that we need to take as a board today or in two weeks also but um uh undecided but a little a little bit weary about i think we should follow the guidelines that are sent out set out because it's backed by uh the cdc research i don't know if that's the right term but um i agree with blanco and rebecca i'm sorry i meant both bob does the 12-foot singing guideline include wearing a mask or not wearing a mask is it 12 feet without a mask it doesn't indicate and um

078i believe when we were uh in the task of reopening schools in the summer um the guidance around wearing a mask we made the decision as a district to have everyone wear masks but i remember there was conversation surrounding whether or not you know initially whether or not we were going to go that route i don't believe there is any guidance around specifically wearing masks at 12 feet and there are districts uh in our region that are not wearing masks at 12 feet they're at 12 feet but they're not utilizing bell covers um you know or masks um you know like i said we were we were going under an abundance of caution in the summer um and wanted to make sure that we were doing everything that we could to be safe so that

079included us doing masks instrument masks and belt covers um gloria judy luciano do you want to give us a little bit about what you're thinking i am so on the fence on this um of course you know being a parent of music students i i realized the importance of all this however i remember we were wrestling through the sports decisions we always deferred to you know what was being recommended and i feel like we owe it to the kids to to defer right now to what's recommended and i think new york state is where we need to be we're live in the next state they're making their recommendations based on data here so i i guess i'm i'm leaning right now i'm not making the change uh until new york state is behind it uh

080i think in this case and i mean i don't remember who it was but you know 515 000 deaths all it would take is one kid becoming seriously ill and uh i i don't like saying it but i i think we sort of have to go with the new york state recommendation i'd rather have the kids having it but all it takes is one i would be in support of six feet with masks and instrument masks and the bell covers 12 feet without a mask really seems kind of risky to me they're singing that that doesn't make too much sense in my brain but if they're six feet apart they're wearing a mask they have the belt covers on the instrument the data that was presented to us was very very convincing it showed a

081massive reduction in the droplets in the air that get out so i think that's something we should take in consideration because new york state has a best practice recommendation it's not a not a set rule it's a best practice the best practice would be that the kids don't sing at all they stay home so that would be ultimately the best thing but we're trying to come up with something that allows them to sing and you've been talking a lot about music the other thing to bring up is fizzette right the kids are 12 feet apart they're limited to what they can do if we can make it six feet it would make it a lot easier for our coaches so i'd be fully in favor of six feet with masks and precautions okay thank you

082i think kelly and then blanca there it is um i think i want to be very weary about making medical decisions that we don't really know about like i am not a medical doctor i have not read the research yeah i can say i don't believe it but who am i to say that i'm gonna i want to rely on the data and information that we're getting i don't want to be an armchair doctor i'm not might be remotely close so my opinion really doesn't matter really my thoughts on this doesn't matter i think what thoughts on this matters is i know there's lots of different opinions and lots of different studies but we have to pick one and go with it and if we went with the new york state guidelines for one i

083think we should stick with that for the other but and also but to robert's point of once once we can get outside that kind of changes the whole game right so then we take a look at the guidance for that but i'm not going to make a medical decision on this and defer i'm going to defer to the to the near state guidelines um barbara you're muted berber i'm just wondering why why we wouldn't listen to the updated cdc guidelines that have had experience over 50 states versus new york state that really hasn't even concentrated on this area and we're here as a school board to not make medical decisions but to see what is best for kids and we know that kids need this we also know that as a conglomerate group children are

084fortunately the lowest incidence of covid and yet we we keep penalizing kids and taking things away from them here we have an opportunity we have a department who has done phenomenal research is providing us with information how they can do this safely uh to the best of their ability there's no 100 percent guarantee in life or anything but they have taken extraordinary precautions over the course of this entire year they now are coming forward to us feeling very very comfortable that they have to the best of their knowledge a safe way of allowing our children to participate in music and i don't see why we can't make a decision as common sense adults that this overall with all the information that has been provided to us that from people that really care about children that

085we can go forward and give them permission to allow the kids to be kids and have as i said have a voice and be able um the cdc is 50 statewide they have experience from all 50 states they have seen this virus and how it is acted and they have been more up-to-date in revising their guidelines as more information comes in and our state health department i don't believe has done that and maybe in time they will but as i said i i'm depending upon what our teachers and our administrator here have done in way of preparation they care all the kids as much as we do and i think the parents would appreciate letting the children as i said be able to sing in class not just in music class but in other classes

086as was pointed out so again i'm 100 in favor of of giving the kids this this opportunity and not waiting you know for another month or whatever and school is almost over thank you i think sema next um so clearly people feel differently about this so um i don't think we'll make a decision tonight i don't think but i'm wondering if if this is being presented to the other school districts on friday right can we maybe get an update after that happens and see what other districts are deciding because i don't think there's any right or wrong here but there's you know arguments on both sides that make a lot of sense it might be helpful to have a little bit more time to think about it and see what other districts are doing too

087sure i the meeting ends at two so i'll have time to provide an update in my friday communication blanca thank you yeah i agree with what rebecca said a while ago and i've been thinking about it more and kelly i don't think i would be comfortable deciding making this choice and saying it's okay to do it i think it's up to the state entity um barb i actually have some pretty strong feelings about the way cdc handled the situation to begin with so i disagree with you respectfully about putting our trust in them completely i think it's better to defer to our state health department and also i just want to say to folks watching at home and to all of you that i take no pleasure in not being on board with singing i

088have a singer in my home i have a bagpiper in my home i have a french horn player and two drummers so this has been absolutely miserable for them and i would like nothing more than to let them go back but i really do think it's a safety concern so i will oh sema i'm sorry no i have to lower my hands sorry so i will share with you what i learn on on friday um and we can revisit at the appropriate time all right and that ends my report for tonight thanks dr wiles moving on to board president information um you can see policy has been very busy this is a through you i think um so we have a huge set of policies to look through um does anyone on the policy committee

089want to appoint us to anything in particular that there was more discussion around or anything like that no uh really most of them are just older policies there's no new policies in there other than the um policy that has to deal with clustering for our elementary schools and there's a new apartment complex that is you know in the making and so that is just a slight revision there it's letter m the flexible attendance zones okay so it's a new complex on lending brook road near the y that will be included in our flex zone as the starts to fill up ellie did you have something yes um there's a lot of stuff there and i i know i've brought up a couple times into various forums is there when can there be an opera like

090i think these policies are low-hanging fruit for the for the diversity and equity committee to really kind of get their fingers into something whether it's a quick review and say we have no problems or like i know we're we're not slow moving but there's there's things that we could do right now and it rather than me next week just approving 22 or whatever it is things i would like a set of eyes on them from the um the lens of the diversity equity committee just for a once and i and i don't seem i know you're on the commit the one of the equi what committee are you on the actually that fit most into your committee that you happen to be on internal equity audit i'm kind of looking at it how can we

091fit that in as an opportunity to connect these two polis these two groups well i remember kelly mentioned before like the the language that's written in the policies and something like changing some of the language be really quick and easy um change and we worked smith i feel like all the time or whose policy does now i'm not involved i'm assuming that's what happens there so i think some of those things can be changed but we're i think our um committee is meeting um i don't know we're meeting sometime so maybe if these are up for information maybe we can look are you thinking of some particular ones or that something they need to look at well there was a lot i mean they're the one that stood out there's i mean there's a racial

092harassment of students and staff i mean i don't really i haven't looked at it yet so i don't know hazing policy uh for a lot of foreign students things in here um you know there seems to be a lot actually in here that would maybe have some sort of nexus i don't know how to look at it well if it's up for information i don't see why we couldn't just pass some of the policies on to that subcommittee to say these are up for information and to be voted on next time so if you want to look over them to see what stands out to you i don't see why that would be a problem unless marie there's a a timeline rush on any of these um no none of them are um you know

093timely so if we wanted to invite the members of the committee i mean they are welcome to look at them i don't know if there's a formal process for that to happen and i'm not sure if we want to build in a formal process because the subcommittees technically have a lot of work ahead of them once they're up and running but you know if if someone if individuals on the committee want to look at these they're available to everyone isn't that that's kind of the point of it to have a a different set of eyes than us 14 of us looking at you know nine of us looking at this and we've looked at it for years and years and years and you know well i haven't people have there's something there though that i

094i don't i won't notice and i think that's the whole point of having the a diverse committee to look at them to point out something that i wouldn't notice well i think for that audit um that internal audit kelly that we're just starting to put together like what kinds of data we'd want to collect and so maybe looking at some of these policies could be included in that so i think like the racial harassment one and any other ones that if there's no um no timeline or timeliness issue with any of them maybe we can hold off and include that because we just started this work so nothing's been reviewed in terms of collecting data for um this kind of stuff i know there's quantitative data that like mike fashion is going to be so

095you know um but there's other stuff in the district that would also be working so i i can pass this on to that group and if we're not in a rush to pass can i maybe ask the policy group to um hold off on that one since we have many others to look at i mean maybe just like a cursory look at ones that might have a nexus and hold off on those just for a little bit more review and then the more mundane ones that really wouldn't some of them are up one paragraph long right so it's not like a big yeah you know be like okay let's move those on to our normal process but i think there's an opportunity there to um get engaged get that community that committee engaged oh i'm

096sorry barb go ahead oh i just wanted to say that you know all these policies that had stakeholders within the district um like the hazing policy was reviewed by athletic director the sexual harassment went to uh the various union people and the you know different staff groups uh so all these policies they just haven't been looked at by you know four or five of us they've been looked at by people that are directly affected by these things and they're posted on the website anybody in the community certainly can look at them if they want to provide input but i can't see holding things up um indefinitely because people do have access to these policies and if they want to make comments on it you know they they can write to us or they can call

097us um and if they need refinement of things that you know maybe the stakeholders missed or that we as board members miss we certainly would be more than willing to take another look at it but to move all of the policy making or review onto this other committee sort of seems a little bit redundant no i don't think it's giving the policy off to i mean i've been on policy every time the policy comes up it has to do with different groups in the district we always ask for their input and get like some homework done and this committee is brand new so there just hasn't been an opportunity yet to do that this will be really simple um to do and there's no reason why i mean we have a through you if there

098were one or two policies that were um held off just so there there's more opportunity for others to look at it i don't see why that would be a big issue there's nothing that we're trying there's no deadlines with this i'm not saying hold off indefinitely on anything i never those words never came out of my mouth i said hold off like what it what would it hurt us to hold off for two weeks absolutely nothing really to help another person look at it so no we are holding off for two weeks i mean this is a first read so to speak i have no problem with that but i'm saying if we get a number of people who are commenting from the public be are they on the diversity committee or just common everyday

099citizens that aren't on the diversity committee and they highlight a particular policy then certainly i i think the committee obviously would take a second look and and take their suggestions and refinements and take a very close look at it but for for just in general that as i said that that two-week comment period is to me sufficient to alert us to any deficiencies that we may have missed and you know then at the end of those two weeks if we haven't gotten a lot of feedback negative feedback on a particular policy i think we should follow our normal procedures and you know pass them on but that's that's great i just i just want to provide the opportunity before i was on the board or any of the other committees i wasn't my first um

100purpose in life to dig out 150 you know to start looking at guilderland's policies i had no no reason at all to leave even be concerned with them but we have a organization that is concerned with them people that are concerned and and and if you look this is like the systemic part of something that we can make effective change or look just to just look at i'm not saying change anything all i'm saying is a cursory look if there's nothing to even see here then we pass it as normal and move on that's it end of story i mean i can bring it to that subcommittee kelly it's up for you know it's out publicly and like you said i think those are the small little changes that we're talking about is making alert

101you know alerting people that this is up for a policy this is really the only time we can enact and make some changes in the district so here's an opportunity to do this there's absolutely no reason why um you know i've been on policy there's other times where we ask the athletic director we ask for their feedback we ask for parents feedback we respond we're responsive to the district i remember when the main policy their naming fueled and naming anything um came up as a policy there was no policy so we had to write one right then um so we're we're we are responsive to the district into the community to make so i i i can pass it on kelly and then we can go from there now my agenda just along one second

102any other policies that um people have questions about the comments okay so the next item is the upcoming board of uh education election i'll just read what we have here uh petitions are available through the district clerk for any district resident who might be considering running for the board of election 149 signatures of eligible voters uh district voters are required based on the two percent of those voting in last year's election there are three three-year terms on the board that will begin july 1st 2021 general information in order to be eligible to run for the board of education nominating petitions with 149 or more signatures from qualified voters in the district must be submitted to the district clerk on or before monday april 19 2021 at 5 pm anyone who has questions about the duties

103and responsibilities of a board member may contact the superintendent board president or any other current member of the board of education a candidate must be able to read and write be at least 18 years of age a qualified voter and a district resident for at least one year prior to the date of the vote on tuesday may 18 2021. further qualifications and information is in the packet available through the district court um and if i remember correctly i think marie you and i talked about briefly that there was a discussion at the state about making a change on the two percent of last year's voters because last year there were a lot more voters than normal this is the mail in balance yes there is a lot of discussion about that because the numbers of

104petitions is much higher and it's um perhaps not the safest thing to ask potential candidates to go door-to-door gathering signatures i don't know where that stands right now but should it be amended we would also amend the number for our potential candidates barb did you have your question i was just going to say what marie just said i had heard that they had reduced the number from 149 down to a particular percentage which really lowers that number so i i just hope people aren't scared off by ourselves and 149 because i think it's going to be a lot less than that yeah i thought i had heard that they were going to take an average of the five years prior number of voters um or something like that but you know if it changes we

105can just put an update out there so people can people should be encouraged to climb and run and participate this is the opportunity to do something so um and i don't also don't know about the signatures piece last year there were no signatures i know some districts in the state are allowing electronic signatures i haven't heard anything about that here so i guess we'll wait and see what happens the last item i have is the capital region's boces annual meeting this is on april 14th 2021 and this will be live streamed at 5 30 p.m if board members are interested in attending please let uh board board clerk linda livingston know for your information our special board meeting scheduled to take place wednesday april 21st at 8 am is a date selected to vote on

106the 21 22 uh boces budget and uh election this date was mistakenly reported as april 22nd on the boces website please make a note so it's april 21st at 8 00 am this is when we'll have that um boces vote election that's it for me so moving on to action items school business neil thank you first item this evening is a recommendation to approve a tutorial contract with four winds katona hospital can i have a motion to approve the uh tutorial contract barb second blanca any questions or comments they're all in favor aye aye class is nine zero okay my other item this evening is a recommendation to approve the application for a corrected tax roll the tax year 2020-21 and it's within the town of bethlehem for some property that the town acquired and

107there was a clerical error in terms of recognizing that property is tax exempt when it was acquired by the town you can have a motion to approve the corrected tax roll kelly second rebecca any questions all in favor aye aye class is 9-0 thank you neil next board president action we have one item here this is letter a resolution to approve uh winter high risk sports and so you can look at the resolution there are just three specifics on there the the sports that this addresses this is football and volleyball um under those following uh conditions that are listed there and then lastly that the board delegates um to unauthorize the superintendent to take any action she deems necessary and appropriate to ensure that such sports are implemented in a safe manner consistent with all

108guidelines this includes the authority to temporarily suspend district participation in any of the above sports if the superintendent deemed such action necessary can i have a motion to approve the irish sports resolution barb second rebecca any questions or comments seema i just want to point out that that should actually say fall to high-risk sports instead of winter high-risk sports yes that makes more sense okay we'll have to make that change in the in a minute yeah yeah thank you any other comments or questions about this barb yeah on the uh resolution there's only one section that i have a question about and that is about the spectator sports um we certainly can allow in our large gym for the say the volleyball games of our remaining basketball games um parents to attend under very very

109safe conditions these gymnasiums are huge you're particularly with basketball you only have about 10 people on on each team these gymnasiums have huge airflow they have huge capacity and i talked to dave uh today about the possibility of allowing uh spectators in to our remaining basketball games in the large gymnasium uh he said you could act very very successfully have uh you know parents come in uh have assigned seats more than six feet apart particularly in a gymnasium of this size and the same it would be with a volleyball team for football obviously you'd be outdoors and you know there may be a different circumstance there but i think the resolution says no spectators allowed and um i guess i would like to have some consideration for that considering you know the vastness of our

110gym and the again the the safety factor certainly be there um you know to accommodate you know it's a lot of a lot of the parents i've heard from are really happy that we're live streaming them and so that they can watch them what's that right that we're at least you know allowing their kids to participate which is wonderful well yeah participate but also live streaming so they can still watch the game you know the problem i see is if we start letting spectators in now we have all these adults that we have to enforce to wear masks and i don't know if i trust that and then if there is um somebody positive and now there's all these other this additional contact tracing that's going to happen from there i just feel like we're

111adding this whole other piece that we don't need to add when none of our parents i've not heard of any complaints people are really happy that they can watch the kids play um you know maybe you can revisit it another time but i don't see why we would change that now okay i have a question is is there a cdc or a new york state regulation please uh about that i think the state said it was going to be up to um the just the districts broke bringing and then the suburban council all of them are not having spectators this this too is on the agenda for the suburban council superintendents on friday where most districts are is that there was a there was a price the athletic programs up and running which was a

112quite a heavy lift um because the turnaround time was so short so the goal was let's get our teams practicing let's get some games under you know under our belt so to speak and then reassess i know there is conversation now among some of my colleagues about some limited amount of spectators being allowed um for example everyone right now is allowing the parents of seniors come in for senior night events but that's been you know six or eight people it's very manageable um so it is a topic of conversation really to get at you know our our capacity to host spectators to make sure we have enough real estate to social distance and enough staff to make sure that everyone is following protocols wearing their masks social distancing signing in providing contact tracing information um

113we're just not quite there yet and frankly here in guilderland we would only be able to make that possible in our large gym so for example uh wrestling takes place in the east gym there is not at any at all space for spectators to be to be allowed there so um we might at some point want to come forward to say could we have some level of spectators i would say we're not quite there yet at this point did we have spectators in the fall were outdoors only outdoors that's the difference really but again i think for us in guilderland the the west gym is is big and we probably could provide the social distancing so we're just not quite there yet any other comments or questions about the resolution okay all in favor aye

114did you say yes i mean you said yes judy did you vote um i i didn't say yes i i would rather wait and see what's going on with uh directives from the state or the cdc tell you something though for the for the sports yeah for for the uh spectators at the sports i'm sorry barb you're frozen so i don't know if you're voting or you have a question i just wanted to clarify for judy this is to allow a volleyball and and football just to allow the sport uh has nothing like this just to allow the sport to happen um you know under the guidance of our athletic department that's all that this resolution is now all right then i'm a yes for having a sports happen okay so that passes 9-0 thank

115you moving on to board committee reports um sema don't forget the coaches oh yes thank you what was that letter m letter i let me just move back up the agenda one minute we're back to the personnel okay so can i have a motion to approve i'm sorry i'm trying to find the letter is it letter b letter h thank you letter h for the fall coach's appointment uh gloria can have a second uh lugiano any questions or comments okay all in favor um hold on um more there's more coaches there's more force on this um on this than we just approved in the resolution is cheerleading and bowling not high-risk sports and we're just getting to these appointments now we already approved the cheerleading under winter okay and bowling was um this is unified

116bowling bowling was approved um back at the beginning of the regular winter season it's not one of the high risk okay any other uh questions or comments okay all in favor aye aye passes nine zero thanks for the reminder uh we'll go back down to committee reports we'll start with communications communications will be meeting tomorrow at 2 30 and on our agenda is uh community engagement for the budget and uh pick up our actions on school start time thanks for yet uh what about business practices excuse me we don't have a meeting scheduled and we haven't had one thanks to the audit uh ben we met on february 22nd uh to review the um internal audit report prepared by foreign this year we took a look at um state aid different categories of state aid

117that um we could be maximizing um the the major finding that i think we all took away was um homeless students are eligible you know um for their tuition to be reimbursed to us depending on how much of the school year they spent our district and they were not being put into the system correctly or completely to get that reimbursement and so our district was missing out on tens of thousands of dollars over the past few years from that so i think one of the things we'll be taking a look at going forward is coming up with a system to to make sure that that process gets completed um other things that we looked at were the the claims auditor reports that we approved earlier in the agenda and we got an update on the

118new lunch fund status which like many like most years um has a little bit of a surplus for us so we're doing well there our next meeting is march 22nd at 8 am thank you ben uh policy and we've been busy barbed you have the fruits of our labors and we have another meeting uh scheduled uh been about a month and equity and diversity i think kelly's going to do an update i've been uh tagged to be the spokesperson from the board so uh we had our meeting on february 24th most everybody was present um uh we our steering committee was doing a really good job of kind of molding this this group it's really in its infancy um but we're making steps you know baby steps here um we reviewed the charge of the

119committee and had a bunch of discussion around that still but we're working towards everybody being in agreement of what is actually going to be our primary and secondary focuses and currently uh the more a more immediate focus of the committee will be race and then we'll follow on adding to that along the way um we a bit of our of this group is an education series so we as a as a committee beforehand read a uh interesting article and we broke into sub our subgroups and we discussed those within our subgroups and then we discussed it a little bit more within the larger group and that was a very interesting conversation um let's see we have multiple public comments and then kind of wrapped it up i don't know if we i have to look

120at my appointment here to see when our next board member our next meeting i think it's on the 24th of march that's what i have in here and i'm looking forward to continuing the work and making more more steps towards some progress thank you kelly uh okay so moving on to board issues ideas and sharing wonka did you have your you have a hand up go ahead um i only watched part of the diversity committee meaning i think on the recording like there's no sound for some of the time i don't know if anybody else has caught that but there's like a whole chunk of time where you see suddenly somebody's headphones and their screen and then there's like no sound um so i did the best i could um but i i know that

121uh race was brought up as the right the focus the first focus and then other topics were brought up or are going to follow so i was wondering had you already come up with what was going to be next etc or did you just pick what you were going to tackle first i if you want me to talk kelly i can just jump in to go for it so we just established subcommittees and so you have to remember there's that committee is 20 people of people from all different people in the community so it's it's going to take a little bit of time like we just established subcommittees we're just coming up with tasks to do in those subcommittees so i think um i think we've had what three meetings or something so we you

122know we're getting there i don't think we can't we're not caught up like the other committees that have been around for years it just started um but i think like you mentioned or you saw in the in the meeting blanca that we're going to be looking at all different groups of students and because the point is being equitable across all groups of students and so we talked about that piece and then we're also i think going to have hopefully a website up soon so we can put out more publicly the work that's being done there so people have an idea of what's happening um but yeah so there isn't like a list of things but we're just starting that work it's a lot of people and just organizing that into subcommittees and breaking that down

123into activities and tasks is is a lot of work and i'm sure the other people on here that are on that group or that committee can speak to that as well i'll go ahead barb i just wanted to say whoever is responsible for posting the meeting on youtube um i haven't been able to find it yet and usually it's posted immediately and now hearing blanca say that the original um transmission apparently was was pretty poor uh maybe marie can answer who actually posts this is it boces or is it our own department and usually as i said it appears the other two meetings are there and they've been there you know immediately after the meeting but this one for some reason we can't seem to find it uh we post i'm just looking right now

124um i am going to um kelly you have your hand raised yeah one thing i forgot to mention is through our subcommittee committees at some point here we're going to be looking for more engagement from the community through those subcommittees so there's going to be an opportunity for more community members to be involved in different aspects of this so there's more opportunities for more people to get involved and i hope that people uh do i thank you any other um board issues ideas and sharing oh okay um so i will ask for um a motion to adjourn second word about that all in favor okay passes nine zero thank you everybody have a good night good night have a good night everyone good night you