001I'd like to call to order the work session of the Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education. Today is April 7th, 2026. Please stand for the pledge. May we have roll call, please? Uh, can you um just check the quality on these? Thank you. Um, we realize that our trustee Kelly is still out on bereavement due to the loss of her mom. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Um, Trusty Brown, >> present. >> Trusty Kelly. >> Trusty Mcdana, >> Trusty Middleton, >> present. >> Trusty Peterson, >> present. >> Trusty Scott, >> present. Trusty White VP Mitchell >> President Marabel >> present. >> Okay, we have a quorum. Student Trusty Adoro. >> Thank you. Due to the fact that we will be voting on several items this evening, I'm asking for a motion to
002suspend the work session rules for this work session. May I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Second. >> It's been moved and properly seconded that we suspend the work session rules for this work session. Any discussion? We call for the vote. >> All in favor? >> Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. >> Thank you. >> We will move to our presentations this evening. We will have a presentation from Panorama Education from Mr. Ryan Whitmore. >> Dr. Strickland, did you want to >> Dr. Strickland, if you would like to just um announce the purpose of the presentation, please. >> Sure. Uh good evening trustees and the listening public. Uh just wanted to make you all aware of a resource that we as a district are looking to uh utilize uh in order to service our students in
003a better or greater capacity. Um it is for the multi-tered systems of and of supports. Um that's where we are looking at the marriage of social emotional learning attendance and academics. Um this tool is utilized in multiple districts across uh New York State and uh we wanted to have this presentation before you uh so that um you can uh vote in the board session that is at the end of this month. Correct. There you go. Mr. Whitmore. >> Mr. Whitmore. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening. Um, I appreciate you all taking the time to allow me to speak a little bit about a potential partnership we're exploring. Uh, next slide. My name is Ryan Whitmore. I'm a former educator and PeaceCore volunteer. Since starting at Panorama Education four and a half years ago, I've
004had the pleasure of working with all of our New York partners outside of the Big Five. Over the next 5 to 10 minutes, I'll be providing you with a highle overview of who we are as a potential partner and what you can expect from partnering with us. Of course, leaving room for questions at the end. Next slide. At our highest level, we're a partner who is proven to drive district transformation, providing you with the tools for student insight and action. We combine AI, MTSS, graduation pathways, and surveys to establish efficient support systems for students and educators. There we go. Our platform, the foundation of partnership, consists of three layers. The first is built for district-wide use with security and privacy as as its bedrock. We integrate with your critical technologies to provide AI insights and
005analytics as well as resources for your staff. The second consists of core solution areas districts rely on. Panorama AI for customized district and classroom tools, student success for MTSS, Panorama Pathways for graduation and career readiness, as well as surveys for student, family, and staff engagement. And then finally, embedded in within each product, we have features and workflows that educators use every day. things like IEP drafting tools, early warning indicators and intervention plans, or aggregated perspectives of school climate, all driven by data. We also understand that technology alone does not drive district transformation. People do. Next slide. And as a team, we take the time to identify the needs of our partners as an anchor of our partnership. Personally, I've had the pleasure of working with the Mount Vernon team since last summer, and together we've
006identified four main priorities for our work together. One, establish a comprehensive MTSS system that provides a district-wide approach to student support, ensuring every school is aligned and progress is clearly tracked. Two, improve math and literacy score literacy scores focusing on K to8 by giving educators a complete picture of student learning to target support and accelerate academic growth. The third, we need special education support and clarity by creating a clear and transparent system for supporting students, ensuring consistent, equitable decisions and visibility into how students are being supported. And then finally, we're going to start closing the graduation gap by helping schools identify and support students earlier, especially in grade nine, to keep them on track for graduation. And we do believe our partnership will deliver measurable outcomes across each of these four pillars. Next slide. And
007that's because Panorama has been around for over a decade and we work with over 2,000 school districts and serve over 15 million students across the country. In fact, we currently support over half of the students in New York State with partnerships such as Newberg in rolling out AI enhanced MTSS or New York City public schools to elevate student voice and improve school climate. Next slide. And we continue to be the choice partner across the state because of the outcomes we deliver. Through partnership, we've established and elevated MTSS systems by unifying data processes and increasing teacher adoption of our tools with methodical rollout planning, which ultimately allows staff to become more strategic in how they spend their time and drive better student outcomes. Next slide. And that's because our success is measured by student success. We
008partner with districts to ensure they see outcomes and ROI tied to their top priorities like improving reading and math scores or decreasing behavior and special education referrals. Next slide. And the reason we see success across multiple domains is because of our unique ability to integrate holistic student data into a single source of truth. For Mount Vernon specifically, we'll establish integrations with Infinite Campus to capture attendance, behavior, and academic grades, as well as I Ready and State Assessments that will sink sync nightly so staff can better understand and act on holistic student data on a daily basis. Last slide. But as I said, we understand How's that? Good. So, technology does not drive student outcomes or technology alone does not drive student outcomes. people do, which is why our partnership includes a world-class team with experience
009working with similar New York districts and assigns specifically to Mount Vern Vernon. In addition to myself, you'll have an account director, project manager, and professional learning director, real people who you can have a conversation with. and between the four of us as well as our counterparts in Mount Vernon will not only design and deliver a targeted rollout plan to meet the goals of our partnership but also support the ever evolving needs of Mount Vernon City School District community and I'm ready for questions. Thank you so much for that presentation. Do we have any questions from our trustees? Okay, Vice President Mitchell, >> how you doing? Thanks for this uh for the presentation. Um as this is new territory of course, right? So with new territory comes questions about for me security, privacy, we're dealing with
010AI, which is still very new territory. As we're chartering it, we're actually >> uh trying to utilize it as we're >> chartering. charting the how it works. Um what what controls would the district retain number for for starters for like as far as compliance and um security and privacy, what what controls or oversight would the district retain in in the event that you know you were to provide this service? >> Yeah. Um so kind of to start on our end, we're furpa compliant at law 2d compliant. uh we signed the or support the student privacy pledge. Uh we get SOCK 2 certified regularly. Um and then as far as AI and district controls, essentially what your team will be able to do is be able to monitor use of what tools are being used. You'll
011be able to um customize any of those tools. And then also on the back end through like permissions and loginins depending on a staff member's role they're going to be having access to their students. So the students that they work with uh to make sure that nothing's kind of transferring and folks aren't handling student data that they're not supposed to. >> Okay. And the only other question I Oh, I'm sorry. Does anybody else >> Does anyone else have a question? >> Vice President Mitchell. >> So you you mentioned that you're the only vendor that offers this level of service. So I guess my question would be um to I think Dr. Strickland is why wouldn't competitive bidding be more advantageous than going into a sole contract? of course with the idea that there's just not
012enough providers for this type of support, but why why wouldn't it be more advantageous to do competitive bidding as far as taxpayer dollars spent? >> Sure. There's not a lot of uh individual companies that are doing well by uh MTSS uh in particular students with disabilities as well as um EdLock 2D compliant. Um so the same way we have access to student information systems such as infinite campus those are the same controls that actually govern uh panorama and what they can actually do uh for the district. So there's no difference. AI component is actually to be more beneficial to help uh our um educators and um yeah I I just it's it's extremely advantageous as it pertains to the steps needed before students are classified with disabilities. We don't have a comprehensive approach right now.
013the current system that we're using uh called performance matters is not holistic enough. We also have uh seal surveys within the platform uh that'll help with the district climate survey. Um it it's just very comprehensive and again I would not bring anything to the board that I couldn't speak uh the praises to. And lastly, the one thing I love uh is that teachers and educators have the ability to actually put progress monitor within the system and that is very unique. Um so everything lives together. We can't just simply say a student has a learning problem, a student has a behavior problem, they need to go into a special class. That's not that's not the way the the the world works. it should not be going that way and we in Mount Vernon have a overclassification
014rate in particular our black and brown boys. >> Okay. So, Trusty Peterson um and so I'm I'm very familiar with Panorama and I love it. And what's great about Panorama um VP Mitchell is that it allows the parent also the parent and the teacher and providers to be on like a team. So, the parents are notified way ahead of time. you know, when the providers and the teachers, they see something going on, there's there's communication in the program that the parents notified so then they can get on it early. It's a really great it's a great system. Um I have uh I have friends in Yoners who use it and so I kind of like played around. They showed me and I was like whoa. So it is it's it's it would be if we
015could have this for our students I am all for it. It's a great program. >> Okay. Thank you for that insight. Uh Trustee Mcdana. >> I just two things quickly. Um, one I think your best slide is the last one in the uh board ready documents. I don't think it's up here. It's great slide just so just so you know. >> Uh, it's not in your presentation. It's other other document you prepared for us. Look at the last slide you put up there. It's great. It just explain things in a simple paragraph. >> Also, um, the AI tools you mentioned. So, are you guys kind of like an Oracle or uh a Snowflake, something like that, where you're using the harnessing that power to really do the analytics behind the scenes? So, our AI tool,
016it's called Solara. Uh it's a large language model. Um and it's built within the walled garden that the MTSS platform lives. Um so the main differentiator between us and whoever is the outputs are going to be driven by those integrations. So large language model and then over the past year we've had a lot of discussions with districts about the helpfulness of the customized tools. So, for example, in an MTSS context, we could have an MTSS meeting maker or a smart goal meet uh or a smart goal generator or an IEP drafting tool. That's all going to be backed by the student the data that's integrated into the MTSS platform. >> Any other questions? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Any other um tr uh trustee Adoro? >> Well, this question is more towards um the district.
017Uh but don't we already have an AI called school AI which basically does every >> um we do have school AI totally different um totally different use uh pieces. I would not focus on the AI piece. It's really about that's very small. It's really about the the triangulation of three major data points, academics, attendance, and social emotional learning to really get a holistic view of where students are. Um, school AI is it's not comparative to this. >> Understandable, but I get >> and just >> Dr. Strickland, you had some comments. Uh just to fur further um answer Vice President Mitchell's question um we actually uh are able to get this through our title funds uh which have been underutilized um and this is a supplement. This is what title funds are used for and then
018next year they actually have uh partnerships with Boseies throughout the state. We're going to be able to get a return on our investment uh because and and it's very very much needed. So it it doesn't cause a a heavy hit, but you know, just saving lives of students is expensive and we want to just put money to the right causes. >> Trusty Scott, >> thank you very much for your presentation. I just have one simple question. Where can we see a sample of this in in action? >> Like a demonstration of the platform? Uh I have my laptop right here. Yeah. >> I won't leave. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> I was going to say I was going to say, can is there a website sometime? >> Yeah, there's a there's also a website and
019they've got a couple like three minute videos. Um they're pretty generic. >> Okay. Is it is it possible for you to um send them to uh our district clerk and that she can upload it to this presentation so it can actually or to the board doc so that it can actually be viewed by multiple people? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay. Just a demo would be appreciative. Thank you. No problem. >> Okay. Any other questions? Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Whitmore. Appreciate you. We'll now have a presentation from our career and technical education director, uh, Mr. Brian Simmons. Good evening, trustees. Thank you for having me today. I am so, uh, pleased to be in your presence and um, really want to show some astounding to me astounding uh, progress that we've made
020um, in no small part due to the support of this body. So, I'd like to ask you a question. Um, in your own mind, your own heart. What was the most difficult question you ever had to answer in your life? This is rhetorical. You can answer out loud if you'd like. I see you can. President Marbel, would you like to? >> What do you want to be when you grow up? >> That's it, right? Who I marry? What community I live in? All of these are really important questions, but what I do for a living will determine your psychological happiness and readiness for the world. And this is sort of what we train students for day in and day out in career and technical education. And to do that, we have a diverse set of
021offerings where students can really match their interests to the market labor needs locally and nationally to find their way in the world. And we like to call this the road to college and career success. emphasizing college here because sometimes career and technical education is regarded as a vocational endeavor which is sort of an antiquated term where my tagline for our department is CTE is academic and you'll see that as we go through it is just as academic as any science course any math course any ELA course and I'd like to give us a little rundown of this road to college and career success over the past three years to see we've journeyied rather far in a very short period of time. So if you look at the slide, you will see that back in 2022
0222023 we had one NICD approved program in the career and technical education department. Then the following year we onboarded three NICD approved programs automotive technology, graphic arts design and nursing assistant. And um it's important to point this out that we did not have such a favorable relationship with New York State Educational Department at the time. So to get this engine running took quite a bit of relationship building and infrastructure building which I'll get into in a few minutes. The following year we built upon that success with three more NICED approved programs. cosmetology, barbering and the initial phase of cyber security and this year this last year or actually we were just approved this year for the following year is hospitality management. Now when you look at this you you'll see you'll notice that three of
023the programs um culinary arts uh nursing assistant and automotive technology actually have students who are getting um IB career um program uh certificate credit as they go through these. So, this is really um a wonderful option for students who don't have to choose between an IB pathway and a CTE pathway, which is really healthy for our enrollment. And just over the summer in June, we had our one of our most popular programs, culinary arts, was reapproved for five years. Now, when you look at this board, what you're going to see is that every one of those approvals comes with it an articulation agreement with the university that provides students who complete that program college credit. So, this is no small feat. This is not just we're getting approvals. And in addition to that, we've had
024um a lot of firsts. Two of them are the culinary reapproval and the hospitality management approval were approved for the first time, I think, in the history of the district for ELA integrated credit. meaning that if a student comes up shy of an ELA integrated credit but completes that pathway and gets the technical endorsement, they can walk the stage to graduation stage um and and make up that deficiency through ELA. So there is a tremendous amount of robust academic uh power behind what you're seeing this roadmap. So what we did is three years ago I set about um trying to expand but expanding in a very purposeful and strategic way not just to create new offerings for the sake of newness but to supplement support and expand upon the ones that were working the most
025with keeping sustainability in mind. So, as I said, culinary arts is one of our most popular offerings. And the idea was that we could take the culinary arts program and dramatically increase its popularity and success by adding a hospitality component to it. Therefore, having a front of house, back of house powerhouse program, a restaurant management program. So, let's see how we went about doing that. Previously, the culinary arts pathway was a back of house wonderful program that taught students the fundamentals of food preparation and getting employment in the culinary arts field. And we had culinary arts one, two, and three. And what we did was we changed that pathway by adding hospitality. So we expanded. So what we did was we took culinary one and we changed it with introduction to culinary and hospitality and
026we doubled the enrollment in the feeder program and we had both pathways. So after year 1 students would get sorted down culinary or hospitality and then as they progress to call 2, hospitality 2, call three, hospitality 3. The teams of students will coordinate in projectbased learning. So as one example, we're looking next year to do um popup restaurant labs. And last year we created our hospitality lab and we did it by um just renovating the space that we had in one of the in in Mount Vernon High School and we did it on very little money and we went around the district and we pulled all equipment that we could find and we built this hospitality lab. Some of you were there when we cut the ribbon last year. Thank you very much for that
027support. Um, it means a lot and it's not a state-of-the-art facility, but from my perspective, it's proven its worth on really just not a lot of uh financial, you know, investment into it. And what happened was our new hospitality teacher went about training two of our students in that lab for the past month and a half to for the first time ever in Mount Vernon's history to participate in Monroe University's American's Best High School Chef Competition. When we went in there, I have some sort of background with this. I was at a in the DOE at a at a culinary high school for years and we went into this room and we were not known by anybody. There were 48 applicants in there from schools that primarily focus on culinary. So we recorded the new
028kids when they would say Mount Vernon. No one really kind of knew who we were. In a David verse Goliath type story, one of our students um Asher placed in the top 16. Jason placed second out of 48. I don't want to oversell, but I'm being very accurate when I say this. This shocked the world. It put us on the map. It broke the glass ceiling. They know who we are now. And one of them, I know for a fact, Jason, will cash in that scholarship and will be going to Monroe University in an elite culinary program for nothing. For nothing. This also sets about a new initiative which is us competing versus other schools. This is where our our evolution takes us. This year we went about relaunching our cyber security program which was
029largely just a cyber security awareness program initially but we built a relationship with Westchester Community College and they have this really impressive program. I visited it with Dr. Dogit um in October and it's run by this sort of master um professor and department chair who built a 15 student program into a 400 student thriving program where they beat Harvard and they beat incredible other schools a little community college in cyber security work and they send their students to work at NSA the federal government and highpaying jobs in private industry. So we had our initial cyber security teacher was going to retire and I set about my goal was to recruit someone a student from that program so we could build a familial feeder program that would ensure that our students could go directly into that
030program and into the world of work making a ton of money. Um so you see that highpaying jobs. Um, we are in the process of sort of renovating again on doing more with less, which is one of our themes here. Renovating a CTE hands-on learning lab. um where students can engage in ethical hacking and industry standard ways of protecting against cyber threats in an cyber attack sandbox safe environment that it took us quite a while to figure out like how do we allow kids to engage in cyber security without compromising the integrity of the district network and that happened because our teacher Mr. uh DOSA unbelievably out of his own pocket donated to the district $10,000 worth of servers so students can engage in this simulated environment and if you go in the room it's
031night and day. It's very very exciting to see and you can see in the pictures there too he's actually preparing to have this um cyber nights podcast I think he's going to launch in June to have kids speaking about this. He also recently wrote a book on AI if that's not enough. So the students are learning about AI in this this class. So this is a very exciting turn of events. This year we launched an EMT uh afterchool program. Thank you so much board of trustees for approving this. Every time we do something behind the scenes and it comes before you, I just want you to know that there's a great deal of appreciation. It does not go unnoticed that we put together these proposals and plans and you allow them to breathe life. You
032did so with the EMT program and I just left them a few minutes ago and they're thriving. So what we wanted to do in bringing this on with our partners Cool Nerd Prep is to provide equitable access. So this was not just limited to one population. and we opened it up um to all of the high schools including the right track academy because from my point of view we have students who are hands-on work ready even though CTE is academic let's be real not everyone is going to go into a collegiate environment some folks are going to go straight into the the work environment and we're training them here and they're building towards their New York State EMT certification amongst other certifications that they're getting in this program. And you're free to stop by Mount
033Vernon High School Mondays through Thursdays 4:00 to 6 anytime you want. It's pretty inspiring to see them working the boards and and and you know, sort of treating the patients. This year we got a new partner for the nursing assistant program, the CNA program, United Hebrew, um, in New Relle, which has proven to be a wonderful partner. Our previous one, Sarah Newman Jewish home, which was about an hour, which it was about an hour commute in Mamarinac. They were unable to take students and we really had to pull together and find a way to bridge this gap. And along with all of we know the restrictions for um insurance policies and all the rest, it's not always easy to onboard a new partner, but we did it. And we brought on um United Hebrew and
034the students are thriving. That program in particular has doubled the enrollment since last year. We now have 12 students who are happily wearing their CNA outfits every day and they just brim with pride when they walk down the hallways. Um and they've also run completely studentrun three blood drives uh this year. I think this is the third one is coming up. And this partnership, like all partnerships, it's always a doorway into more opportunity, more industry-based opportunity. So the next phase once we successfully onboard this initial phase and this feeling out honeymoon phase with United Hebrew is to look at other opportunities. I've been talking to the c the HR director there about can we go there and and have our barbering students cut the hair of the patients? Can we have our culinary and hospitality
035students go in there and serve the patients in holiday meals? Getting these work-based learning hours. So, we have to walk before we run, but we're planning those moves right now as we speak. Some other uh updates notable um entrepreneurship. We launched last year in partnership with College of Westchester a really robust partnership where once a month their professors will come in to the entrepreneurship classes and they will give a collegiate lecture to our students and it's all in preparation of what we launched last year which was the entrepreneurship expo 25 where students will be running their own booths and businesses some of them real where they're selling last year they had a um a whole jewelry business. They were selling it for real and they were haggling quite a tough bargain. There was a couple
036administrators who who seemed to get the worst end of the deal, I thought, and the negotiations, but the kids really knew what they were doing from what we're preparing them for. In May 6th in Mount Vernon High School, we will have the entrepreneurship expo 2026. And there's also some feeder work happening in the high schools in particular in Graham school um in the CFM classes. There's a lot of work being done where students are doing their own Shark Tank competitions and we want to see if it might be possible to bring maybe some middle school students up to the high school to participate in their own booth here because we're always trying to feed the young minds with the opportunities in high school. Um graphic arts design. Um, we've been training for school-based enterprises for
037quite a while now and it bore fruit this year by unveiling a completely new dimension which is uh t-shirt design and production. Um, you can see right behind me is one of our one of our samples and the students design, they weed, they heat press, they create the t-shirt. So eventually I believe that we will upscale to the point where we will be facilitating school district needs to I don't want to say I don't want to undercut any competition who might be listening but I do want to undercut you. So I will say that we're coming for you and we want to sell our jerseys and and that kind of stuff. cosmetology and barbering. We have the K through 12 through eight visitation programs where the students, the high school students go down and they
038cut the hair of the the younger kids and they build those relationships and we set the goal last year that it's great to have this opportunity. I know Trusty Peterson knows because Eric was a part of that program and since he graduated just three short years ago, we now have um college credit in that program. But we also have something that we didn't have then, which is our first student barber Eddie Griffin. Yeah, let's hear it. Eddie um is also broke the glass ceiling because we set that expectation and now the students in Barbering 3 are looking to do the exact same thing. So, not only will they go to college and cut hair on the side, they will do it with a license in hand. in order to infuse uh financial literacy across the
039district. Uh last year we unveiled the uh CTE stock market challenge where students um in schools across the district are investing a virtual portfolio of $100,000 and following market trends and learning the fundamentals of financial literacy. If you look at the pictures, last year we had um a winner which was it was Mount Vernon Leadership Academy. And what we did was we rewarded the students with not only uh a pizza party but the CTE stock market challenge trophy. That's a traveling trophy much like the Stanley Cup. It lives with Dr. Cight Crawford in uh Benjamin Turner Academy right now. But there is lots of competition because every Friday I send a somewhat obnoxious email. Happy finance Friday and I give the standings of all of the schools and that the principles have become quite competitive.
040It's in nine schools right now nine schools and we opened it to have sixth graders in the competition. So we have sixth graders competing versus high schools and last time I checked sixth grade class was in the lead. part of our partnering partnered up with our ELA department, Mary Beth Rhodess, because we wanted to make use of this financial literacy with essay writing and we unfolded the um stock market essay writing challenge with the same organization sponsored by NASDAQ who does the stock market game. And we put this out to schools who are participating and some of them have been submitting essays um to really just kind of articulate their financial trading strategy. And just one last point about that, you would be quite impressed if you were to walk into one of these rooms
041and ask students, why did you buy Amazon? Why did you buy this? In week one, it's because I like those shoes. I like Amazon. And then in week two when they're in the red, why'd you sell? Because I wasn't making money. By week four, well, there were global events that affected commerce. So you can in real time watch the learning process and it's very very inspiring and a testament to all of these programs to the phenomenal work of CTE teachers and the nonCTE teachers in this particular uh competition who are really just delivering every single day. I really want to emphasize this point. CTE teachers all of our teachers deliver. CTE teachers deliver plus they give of themselves in way that is very very unique. Okay. We've gotten last year some of you were there
042right um Vice President Mitchell I remember you there. Thank you for being there with our robust um partnership with Scarsdale Ford. They gave us a $60,000 Ford Explorer ST. Remarkable. remarkable. We onboarded with the uh launch of the hospitality culinary back of house front of house program a once-in-a-lifetime partnership with Goya foods who gave us $3,000 worth of food product last year. They want to increase their commitment to us and we're in conversation right now to see where this can go right now and our contacts are at the highest level in Goya. It's it's truly unheard of that we would just launch out of nowhere and have that kind of access. It's getting the attention of the right people. So, more to come on that. And this year, as if that was not enough, the
043New York Power Authority partnered up with the CTE department and donated an e vehicle to the program. E tools charging station e training e e uh in training for Michael Malice the phenomenal um teacher of automotive and they gifted us this so now our students are now the curriculum is changing so they're learning with industry standard e technology right you know on a little funny note I was in a meeting mentioning this and I realized how far we've come I said we're going to get a new car and someone turned around in the meeting said, "Oh, we're going to go through this again." I said, "My god, our problems have gotten better." Okay. And of course, with CTE, there are always events, and we really truly are so grateful when you come to these events
044throughout the year. I mean, I don't want to read the list, but um they're pretty robust and remarkable for a small um department that we have to sustain these kinds of events. And if you look on the board there, that's one of my friends. That's Miss Green who at the um senior citizen makeover day which we launched with the Mount Vernon Recreation Center last year. The senior citizens come right you were Yeah, I remember you and take their before and after picture and they look forward to it and she's the first one there and it brings a smile to their faces and the students faces and you see the elders in the community making connections and like real relationships with the youngest in the community. Um also um you know I could go through there
045we could spend a whole day on this. I won't bore you with everything but just a few things to mention. One is you see down there we have we created a partnership with the um with Noah uh you know it's the national oceanic and avi and um atmospheric association the federal government um partnered up with the uh with the science and math department myself and uh Dr. Satic Jagnandon and a friend of mine is a climatologist with that organization. They met with students from Steam Academy, an environmental science class and went over careers in government and we now are planning um to pay a visit there. They are located in a government lab in Princeton University. So, we're going to have a conversation to see if we can create a partnership with Princeton. Um and
046you know one of the things I just want to emphasize to you it's not only partnerships with industry we've I think gotten a lot of the success because the directors amongst themselves have really made a strategic effort to partner together and pull our resources. So you see the partnering with ELA with uh with also with preK and some of those events like the kids in a kitchen kitchen event that happened last week with Dr. Gail White um and Mary Beth Rhodess and I know uh we're planning something with Lisa Maine and the uh and the fizzed department. So we're really trying to come together and increase our capacity. So this has been a long and winding road and I've showed you a lot of what has happened and along this road there's a lot of
047work that happened behind the scenes that doesn't necessarily get front and center news. So some of it is like I said earlier is that we have built relationships with NYID officials that were very very frosty a few years back and now I can look at you and tell you that when I pick up the phone they answer and they speak. They're excited when we call. Three years ago, not only was there one approved program, there were no we just had this um this uh presentation on data, there was no data systems in place to communicate service records for CT record students in the programs. And as a result of being offline in this way for the past I don't know how many years many years I want to say close to a decade I don't
048know the exact number we've been forfeiting a Perkins grant allocation to southern Westchester Boseies. So when you look at that road this hasn't been let's go have a scenic view and get a bunch of disparit cool little things that we can celebrate. I had a vision and as I don't need to remind you there was a lot of changing winds over the past few years and it wasn't so easy to keep a one unilateral focus as priorities changed but we did and what I want to tell you is that I had projected a goal for four years three years ago that in four years time we would be eligible for a Perkins grant which seemed pie in the sky, pipe dream, totally unrealistic. Over the past two months, I've been working with the local advisory
049committee and we just submitted for the first time in many years a comprehensive local needs assessment which will demonstrate two years worth of need for the CTE department for NYID. It was submitted on the 27th of March. On the 3 of April, they approved it. The next step in this process, I was about to say heroic process. I'm not going to compliment too much, but I do believe this has been a hero's journey that we've all been on. Dog it is laughing right now which means I officially have pushed it too far. Um no it is a heroic journey that this department has been on these teachers have been doing every day. We are going to apply with uh with Lauren McCoy and myself the final push for this grant and Southern Westchester Boseies will
050not get our money this year. Will not get our money this year. In truth, on the last slide, I was going to put the word return to glory. I said that might be a little hyperbolic. Maybe not. So, we are now Perkins uh V grant eligible for 2627. There's a whole complex. I'm not going to go into the detail of what makes you eligible, but for this coming school year, three programs, automotive tech, cosmetology, culinary arts, and I've been running the projections, and we're projected in the year after that to also be eligible for the barbering program. And I have to emphasize this hospitality program, ladies and gentlemen, is in year two. You don't get nicer approvals in year two. It's unheard of. It's usually year five, year six. We got the nicer approval and
051if things stay as they are, we're we're going to be eligible for for hospitality as well in in the year after that. So, you came to our events, you listened to the promises, you believed, and here it is. So, I just want to thank you for all your support. and we're in a a bright new horizon thanks to all of the support we've gotten. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Mr. Simmons. Do we have any comments from the board from the trustees? Trustee Brown. >> Good evening everyone. Hear me? Yes. >> It comes out of the We learned last time it comes out of the cradle. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I was on vacation. Um, I want to thank you for an amazing presentation. >> Thank you. >> Um, I did get to attend
052the senior citizen makeover day and it was phenomenal. Um, and I would like to say a special thank you to Mr. Simmons and u, Miss Taylor. U Mr. Simmons is over the barbering and Miss Taylor cosmetology >> and and Mr. Borland too is the barbering teacher. Yeah, >> Borland. I'm sorry. I apologize. >> Yeah, I know. Um but there were one, two, three, four, five young men who are studying to get their master barber license. >> Yes. >> Um and it was Bernard Bernard Laurent, Tyler Tinsley, Jarvis Christian, John Smith, and Saul Manangro. >> And um it was just a really good interaction. And the gentlemen, they were so professional as was the ladies in the cosmetology um portion of it. And just to see the seniors there, they were excited and they were happy
053and they felt loved on. And I want to congratulate our students for showing that. And a lot of times our students don't get that love. >> So I would like Mount Vernon to know that our students are doing really good things and they're showing. >> Thank you. Um, and so while I may I have a professional degree, I also did get to go um to the high school um last year and I did career day there and I got to speak with the automotive students and when I tell you those gentlemen were so they were so engrossed and I was a little fearful because here I am talking about civil engineering going to an automotive class but I'm easy adaptable and so was able to I was able to switch it so that they understood
054that New York City offers jobs for children who are just starting out who want to go this route. And the information that I was able to give them and tell them to, you know, log on and look for this and look for that, it was really good. And that class was, they were so into it. And actually, they helped me the longest at the end of my day. I actually spent two periods with them because they didn't want me to leave. And so I just want to let Mount Vernon know again that our kids are doing really great things and I'm happy to get um a front seat to it and when any of us has a chance, please also give them their accolades, give them a round of applause and just let them know
055that we see them and so thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any Trusty Peterson? >> Oh, Mr. Simmons. So I have literally been almost you know sort of distantly by your side since day one you coming into this district. >> I remember >> and I am not surprised given your I feel amazing professional background that I'm not surprised that this CTE program is doing as phenomenal as it is. Um, I have seen it grow so much since you've taken over. As like you said, as a mother of a graduate um, from the CTE program, parents, families, guardians come very close to the screen. My son is a junior in college. I have not had to send him money because I have to pay for his tuition out of my pocket, but I haven't had to
056send him pocket money since freshman year because he's cutting hair. and it is he was able to buy his first vehicle this past December because of him being cutting hair. I was at an H.B.CU a couple of weeks ago to help a a friend of mine's daughter get some stuff from Walmart. That's what I do when I go in the south. I help my friends do that. I go inside the dorm with her to go drop her groceries and I I see this line outside this door and I'm like, what is going on? These girls have their bonnets on and I walk by cuz I'm nosy. And I'm looking and I heard, "Miss Erica, is that you?" And I said, I was like, "Yeah." She said, "You're Eric's mom. I graduated with him." I said,
057"Oh, she literally had a line of clients waiting to get their hair done by her." And I spoke to her and talked to her. I said, "Well, how?" And she said, "Oh, Miss Erica, I don't have to ask my parents for money at all." So fa families when I tell you the CTE program the ladies in that CNN the young girls in that CNA program they will make sure you go to that blood drive they they will make sure that you come out to that blood blood drive I am so and not only does it help okay I don't have to give money but it also helps the students acclimate to either college or their uh further learning program or whatever CT vocational program they go to it helps them acclimate better to it because
058they're doing things where they're interacting with people, they have to talk. So, that's another like hidden benefit of this program that we don't that we we need to acknowledge also. It really helps them acclimate past high school, you know, in that setting. So, I am trust me, my wallet thanks you and I'm very proud of this program and keep it going. >> Thank you, Miss Peterson. Trusty Peterson. Thank you. >> Any other Trusty Middleton? I just want to say it's a taste of excellence and when I was counseling in well I retired in 2021 but when I was downstairs I was next to cosmetology around the corner from Rick I call him because I know him from community but basically watching him then start >> back then and then watch you come in and take
059the program over is just phenomenal. I see these young people outside. I walk in barber shops. I go in salons and I see some of these young ladies who want to start their own. So I look, hats off to you. And listen, when they can't do nothing else and they can do this, here's the blessing of an area that they fit in and you it's really you're doing an outstanding job and I pay attention. Trust me, I observe and I just want to say keep it up. You're doing a good job and our children matter and I see them outside. So they talk to me, I talk to them and they do matter. I didn't get there yet, but to try cuz I don't want to look like Randy, but but but cuz Eric cut
060his hair. But but but anyway, outstanding job. Excellent. Listen, it's a blessing. >> Thank you so much. >> Excuse me. Vice President Mitchell. >> So, Mr. Simmons, I've I've had the uh the ability to listen to you present to us for several years now. >> Um I've been able to vote on resolutions to give you the support that you've needed for the program. I was there when uh we the partnership with Ford when they gave us the Ford Exped Explorer. >> Yeah. I was there for the Goya uh uh uh acknowledgement when we got that and just to see the students in both of those classes. So the automotive kid students really love their teacher. They really really respect their teacher and I mean it reminds me of a time when I was in that
061school and the automotive department was was very very robust. It was everybody brought their cars in the back to get their cars to get your brakes done and all of that type of stuff. So, it's really good to see it coming back, heading back toward a direction where it's flourishing. Um, the Goya announcement also was amazing. There were so many students in that in that class that were sitting there making empanadas and I just was I just refused to take with so many because I already look like I'm going to eat them all. But I my you know um my and my daughter she's um she participated in a culinary experience through the city this year this past year. But the what we were given as gifts at the Goya event my my daughter uses
062to make us an empanadas at home. Eric cut my son's hair. All right. So when I say that the fruits of the CTE program are showing, they are truly showing. So thank you for your leadership. But really come out and take a walk through the high school vocational department and have a look at the CTE classes and what's going on. But really see how many students are there. See how many students are truly interested and where they're going. This is a way for them to go beyond school. Sometimes not the traditional route, but is giving them a foundation that they can go out and be able to survive. and as a parent that should be so important. So, thank you and you know, keep it up. >> Thank you, trustee. >> Do we have any
063other comments from our trustees? >> Um, I just want to say thank you, Mr. Simmons, and I'm going to say this to you that I agree with you that it is a return to glory because being a former educator in the career and technical education department at Mount Vernon High School, I was there and have witnessed the students when they come through. We we we we misname career and technical education. I agree with you. Everybody that works is in a career. If you are a lawyer, if you are a doctor, if you are a auto mechanic, if you are a gas station attendant, if you are a superintendent, if you are a teacher, if you are an engineer, I don't care what your occupation is. It is a career. And so when we undermine and
064we we we diminish the fact and say that oh only the students that are going into these vocational or career and technical education and those are the ones that can't go to college. It's not sometimes that they can't go. They choose not to go to college because I don't know in what ecosystem that we live in that we don't need a plumber. We don't need an electrician. We don't need an auto mechanic. I want to know how you going to get your car. I know I can't change the oil in my vehicle and I can't and I don't want to I don't want to change the tire. I don't want to do any of it. Okay. And I cannot I can't change a a a water a washer on a on a on a on
065a sink and I don't want to. That's why, you know, everybody has a career. And I think that when we changed our mindset in terms of what this really is. It is about creating an ecosystem where the community works together in order to build it up so that everyone has a career. They work together. They love on each other. And that really is the spirit of Mount Vernon, New York. This is has been the spirit for our really for um from our existence and I just want to say thank you for bringing it back. Thank you for bringing that Perkins grant um back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As a former uh as a retired educator from Mount Vernon, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >>
066Thank you back for the support. And thank you to the teachers because I'm getting a lot of the accolades here. But listen, we set a vision and none of this happens if they don't say you got it. we're going to go. Sometimes they're like, why are we doing this? And then you do it and you know they're they're invested and it doesn't happen without them every single day. As you said, the kids love the teachers >> and it's it's it's through them that this this happens. >> I want to see that accounting program come back. Just a just just a plug. >> Okay. >> Any other questions or comments? Dr. Strickland, would you like to add anything? >> Uh I just want to thank uh Mr. Simmons for his dedication to the CTE programs. I
067graduated from a CTE high school in Buffalo, so very much near and dear. Um, and he has more work to do because we have some other high schools that do have pathways that can actually become certified and you know, we've been talking about that. So, more to come. >> Yeah. And just a big up to um the educator Agnes Taylor. She's actually an alumni of Mount Vernon High School. So, just to let you know, >> yeah, she's wonderful. And okay. >> All right. So, any other questions or comments? I know this has been a a lengthy presentation, but it was well worth it and necessary, and I think the community needed to know and understand what it is that we're doing and growing and building um our school district so that we provide alternatives for
068our students to make sure that they are successful when they leave um leave us. So, thank you again. >> Thank you. Okay. Okay. We have reached that time where we are opening up communication from the public. Oh, did you want Dr. Dog to say anything? Okay. All right. Okay. Um, please take note in the agenda that we have attached a notice in terms of what the parameters are for our communications from the public. It is three minutes. We do give you a one minute to wrap up if you if you do go over. Also, please be reminded that we will not discuss personnel issues. And um at this time, I'd like to call the first person on our communications list is Sheila Baptista. >> Good evening. This amazing presentation that I just heard, I am
069overwhelmed. My heart is so lifted. And I'm looking at this great board. You guys, you people are doing a wonderful job and the community certainly needs to know that this work is being done here. I'm sorry. Don't take my my seconds away because this is important. And I think there should be an electronic billboard in the community where we can advertise and share and show what's happening here, but also with the student body because Mr. Simmons, where are you? Wherever he is, he's he's phenomenal. He needs a cape. So, somebody give him that red cape and make sure he's recognized in some way. There also should be an applause event for all of the work that's being done by you and also by the students. We need to have something that celebrates who we are
070and what we're doing. And I say that because my husband's father graduated from Graham school in what whatever year it was, 1940, some whatever. My husband graduated from Graham school. My grandson graduated from Graham school last year. I'm a 1973 graduate of Mount Vernon High School. I came through the music department and it was because of Doc Randall and John Paxton and so many others and I went to school with Dr. Dog's mom and dad actually sang at their wedding. Oh god. And and and I was so moved, you know, because it was my first paying gig. Whatever. That's you know, I digress. But I say all of this to say Mount Vernon has so much to give and so much to offer. As a result of that work that I my in my youth
071at the school I had a chance to build uh an understanding of what was be in the music industry in a business. So I parlayed that into a business after graduating from Shaw University and I put that into um several enterprises. So we have my primary company is Louiswis and Kirk Expeditions. We promote, produce, and provide entertainment services for Yoner's Riverfest, for Jazzfest. I also created the Mount um the Martha's Vineyard Jazz and Blues Summerfest, a huge festival celebrating women in music. We we cover a lot of ground. We do work with um Major League Baseball. We do work with a whole lot of folk all over the place. And our principal talent base are all women, women of colors, different nationalities, and whatever. They do really phenomenal things. We've had a chance to work
072with Jazzmobile regularly and also the Louisie Armstrong Foundation and we presented a concert at uh well it was a actually a seminar at the Denzel Washington School where the students got to work with senior musicians veterans you know who are legends in many many ways and they had a great time and as a result I talked with Mr. Mansa um here he is Mr. Manta. Yep, there he is. And we he discussed that we needed some more instruments. So, I said, "Well, let's get this done. Let's, you know, let's make sure the world knows Mount Vernon is important and we need those instruments." So, I shared it with a number of my cohorts, uh, including Joshua Reynolds, who's the son of Lillian Reynolds. He put it up the flag pole to the guitar center and
073shortly thereafter they delivered to us 22 instruments, 10 trombones, 10 trumpets, two saxophones and there's more on the way. So, um, and following that, uh, wonderful outcome and experience, we I I've been working for 40 years with the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington DC. And on March, what was it, 19th, we had the Ellington Show Choir at Graham School, of course, would be there um because Dr. Natasha is retiring. So, we did a celebration for her and they performed. And those young people who were there, you could hear a pin drop because they saw excellence in a really remarkable setting at, you know, on their home ground and they they were mesmerized and then they were singing and they were just participating and I said, "We need to do more of this."
074So, whatever it is, I I was just also contacted by the Carnegie Foundation and they asked what could they do for Mount Vernon. I said, "You can do a whole lot and we're going to make sure you do a whole lot." So, I had a call with them on yesterday. My time is up. >> Keep going. >> Oh, okay. Thank you. Um, yeah. And and I'm thankful to Dr. Strickland because you were at an event at Grace Baptist Church on in January and I saw you coming out of the building and I said, "Oh, there's a new superintendent. Let me just say hello." And you said, I mentioned that we were working on getting these items for the school. He said, "Come and make sure it goes through the proper protocol." So, thank you so
075much for guiding me getting everything in the right channels. And so there are the trombones and the trumpets and the saxophones are here. Mr. Man is here. Who's by I'm going to tell you, you got a jewel in this young brother. He's not only a great musician, but he's also just so giving for his students. And you would understand he's like the pi piper. Like you know, Mr. Paxton was my pi piper. This is the pi piper. And he's these young people are following him really, really well on great path. So that's all I have to say. We are at your disposal. That includes jazzmobile. that includes my company, that includes so many others, and I'm this is repaying a debt of gratitude to uh the student and and this this school's district who clothed
076me and so many things. So, thank you very much. And here's the document. Um Dr. Dogger, here's a document that I shared with your administrator. >> Oh, okay. Very good. Thank you very much. Okay, I gotta go home and go to work >> and thank you so much. a little item. My my granddaughter graduated from Steam Academy. She's at Sunni Bingmpington and she's going to law school. >> Congratulations. Thank you so much, Miss Batista. And I want to let you know I've been to those Martha's Vineyard Jazz Festival. So, I just want to say and so has Dr. Wilkins. So, absolutely phenomenal. And I'm glad to know there's Mount Vernon in the house and we go to Mount Martha's Vineyard. So, all right. So, thank you so very much. And we appreciate the donation. and
077um it's before the board tonight, so we will we will deal with that. Thank you. Uh Nicole Woodard. Okay. And Hope Marble. Good evening everyone. My name is Hope Marble. I'm the board president um at Mount Vernon Public Library of the Board of Trustees. Um I just wanted to let you know that on February the 28th, 2026, the library celebrated Black History Month. Oh my goodness. The lineup consisted um of the following students from I'm sorry, I want to say it the right way. One moment. Okay. From Denzel Washington School of the Arts located at Nelly Thornton High School. Um, okay. So, the three students, I'm sorry, one alumni student, one alumni student was Tommy Guest and then we had three students, Michael Middleton, who did a dance performance. Yes. Um, nephew, is it nephew
078of of Trusty Lynn Middleton? Yes. And I did not know that until afterward. Um, and then the Star Spangled Banner was sung by a young gentleman by the name of Matthew Samuels. He sung a beautiful baritone ac capella. And then there was a lovely young lady by the name of Aubrey McCoy. And Aubrey sang Lift Every Voice and Sang. All three performers were so phenomenal. And then we had Tommy Guest, unbeknownst to us, Tommy Guest is actually an alumni, an alumni of Denzel Washington School of the Arts. Um, to make a long story short, um, I have a special, um, rapport with Tommy because I grew up from the sandbox with his dad and my siblings happened to be in the audience. And when they found out that Tommy was Andy um Andy Guest's son,
079it was, you know, like a like a shock to the system basically. So, I just want to tell you, you know, um how wonderful um how wonderful of an evening, how memorable they made it for all of us at the library that particular evening. The event is going to be livereamed. They're just doing some last minute tweaks on it to make it look really glamorous. Um, as you know, on March 19th, the library turned 130 years old. And we are so grateful um um to the students that helped us kick off that um 130 year celebration. And thank you for allowing me to speak. Have a good evening everyone. >> Thank you. Uh, Miss Marble, I want to um say that I attended that program along with Trusty Middleton and who else was there? But
080it it was a phenomenal program. It really was well attended and we had a glorious time and the students were absolutely phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. We were very very very very proud and I know Trusty Middleton was super proud when her her nephew um did um his rendition. So, thank you. I trust >> can I just want to say to Marulo yes thank you that you did a great job and the presentation just overall was just simply wonderful in every sensitive word. >> Okay if there is no more communication before us we will move on to human resources section five. I would like to draw the trustes attention to items 5.1 through 5.6. six and ask if there's any questions on any of those presented before us tonight. I will give you a moment. If there's
081none, then we will move on to item six, curriculum and instruction. Are there any items under 6.1 or 6.2 that you would like to discuss further? We will move on to 7.1. Is there any discussion for 7.1? 8.1. Is there anything that you'd like to discuss in 8.1? hearing. None. At this time, I would like to move to item number nine, which is to authorize to send items 5.1 through 8, what is it? >> Through 8.1 to consent agenda. May I have a motion? Motion. >> It's been moved and properly seconded that we move items 5.1 through 8.1 to consent agenda. Any discussion? Hearing none. Call for the vote, please. >> All in favor? >> Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. We will now move on to items that we need to resolve
082tonight. Items 10 through 9. I would like to draw your attention to items 10 through 9. And I would like to before we um have a discussion, can we have a motion to entertain items 10.1 through 10.9? >> Okay. It's been moved and properly seconded that we uh review 10.1 through 10.9. Any discussion? Trustee Um, Vice President Mitchell, >> um, >> just for clarity, 10.9 is related to this is a we're getting to this agreement now, but it's related to the what what what the how the grounds were used back in November. And I'm trying to understand why why are we just now seeing this for the most part? Uh, >> I will let Dr. Strickland addressed that. >> Yes. Uh trustees, 10.9 is actually the payment being remitted from the Westchester social services uh
083for the use of the home school during the fire. So they are um giving some of those uh funds back uh because of the they they received money to help the victims and now we can add this to our general fund. >> Thank you. I just wanted that clarity verbalized to the outside public who may wonder what that's about because it it would it stirs a question. Thank you for that. >> Um and >> I'm sorry and um thank you to our general counsel uh for following up with this. Um we had to move on it um like it was supposed to be done and uh thank you uh Mr. Russell for getting it done. As you know, I know that it was an emergency emergent situation. Um, and I just want to thank Dr.
084Strickland and our C in-house council for and the trustees for moving very quick quickly and very swiftly for the people in the community that were really suffering at that particular time. And we knew that we needed to work out some logistics and we knew we had needed to work out some finances. So, I'm glad that we we've come to this point where we are now finalizing those things. So we have any other discussion? Trustee Scott. >> Thank you very much for 10.9. I will have to recuse myself from that due to the fact that I work at the Westchester County Department of Social Services and I oversee the area that this um payment will be coming from. >> Okay. So during the when we call for the vote then when we call for the vote
085then you will raise your hand and then ask yourself to be recused from the vote. Okay. Any other questions? Uh trustee Mcdana. >> Hi Dr. Strickland. Um for 10.5 um could you just just give a general because that that's a it's a lot of transfers. Just give a general sense it seems like you're doing some house cleaning there. Just if you could just an overview of that. >> Oh yes we are doing some house cleaning. Um this was the midyear reconciliation that needed to occur uh because of the fact that we had a number of negative lines. We are currently in the process of creating standardized operations procedures in order to make sure that people are properly spending from the correct line so that lines aren't going negative. And this here is just the long
086list that Mr. Lynn, thank you for preparing. He literally has went through and figured out how we are going to clean up and appropriate funds appropriately. He's been working on this since he started. It was like my first task for him. And um you know if you if you remember one of the first requests uh in the beginning of the year was to just move funds. No, I said nope. Prepare it so that the board can see all the funds that need to be moved. and he did just that. And thank you. Did I leave anything out? Did that answer? Yes. But this is the cleanup that should happen often. Often >> and and as you recall, Trusty Mcdana, back in August, I believe, or um during the transition when uh Dr. Strickland was coming
087on board, there was a request for us to move funds around, but they did not give us any detail. And so we directed Dr. Strickland to go back and make sure that the finance office provided us with the detail that was necessary so that we could understand where we had some gaps, where there were variances and so this is the results of that work. So, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, call for the vote. All in favor? >> Any oppose? >> Abstain. >> Okay. >> Trusty Scott Okay. >> You've already >> 10.9. Okay. Thank you. >> Any other all? Okay. Abstain. Okay. >> Motion carries. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> I will now. Do we have any items for executive session? >> Okay. Then I'll entertain. Um, we have >> We
088have Do we have something? >> Yeah, we do. Um, Trusty Odoro, I'd like to know if you have a report for our student trustee. >> Um, no, I do not have a report at the moment. >> Okay. Okay. And trust Okay. Trustees Mcdana. >> Yeah. Just briefly, it wasn't on the agenda, but it just came up. Um, there's an IDA meeting uh this coming Thursday. Uh we'll be looking at a pro a rental housing project, Library Square, that's been around for a while. I just sent the uh economic impact analysis um to get feedback along with my writeup. Um I just got it Friday night, so it's kind of moving quickly. Um so if you would please take a look at the the writeup. It's similar to the other ones. And if there's any feedback,
089I'd like to get it to Miss Doors tomorrow if possible. um her report and just um Trusty Peterson, I got your message about the the draft. This one you'll see it's labeled final. >> Um the draft thing is tricky. It won't happen often, but in the future or definitely your point is well taken. We'll talk about that beforehand to make sure everything is done um to everyone's liking. Okay. All right. Thanks. >> Okay. Thank you, Trusty Adoro. I see you. >> Actually, um I just realized we had a break beforehand. Um so um last two weeks on Friday um I managed to um get my mentor um who were uh my mentor from MBK and we managed to present um a voter registration drive at Steam Academy um and it was a a nice uh
090engaging uh session between uh juniors and seniors. But yes um that's would be my report. Thank you. >> Thank you so very much. Do we have any comments from our trustees before we move to the next item? Any last minute um thoughts, comments? Okay, Trusty Mitchell. >> Um so we have um we've been looking at our playgrounds in our district for a long time. Um our facilities committee um we haven't had a lot of meetings, but there's been so much that's been going on um across the district. the whole overhaul and and repair and rebuild of our district for the past year for these all these last months. Um, I'm gonna call out that I was driving past uh Leadership Academy, the former Columbus school site, and they have basically a brand new playground sitting
091on a site that's been closed. And and out of all the buildings that were closed, this building truly needed to be closed because of um different reasons that are actually factual. We have facts to support why it was closed. this one out of the three. But I'm wondering and this question is to Dr. Strickland the and and again, you know, I'm a southside guy. I'm always looking to Southside always because unfortunately we have proof that North Side just has been very well taken care of while Southside has been crumbling all along. Um, and I know that we've got repairs underway at certain schools for playgrounds. Can this playground at Leadership Academy be moved to a another one of our school sites that has either no playground or one that is truly falling apart and dilapidating?
092>> Now, that's a great question, Vice President Mitchell. Um, in my, uh, former role, uh, I actually, you know, was involved in a reconfiguration and we actually did have to move playground equipment from a closed location to, um, one that did not have or wasn't viable um, and safe for students. Uh, so I will definitely have the facilities team look into that and offer the board to report uh, once I can validate, you know, if that equipment is movable. Uh but certainly uh we've been really working on the frugaless trying to make sure that we get those nice new items from all the closed buildings and place them in schools uh before we purchase anything and playgrounds are no exception. >> Okay. Thank you, Trustee Brown. >> Um Trustee Mitchell, we actually have been meeting
093monthly and as we go around, we take a look at everything. Um, we're taking a holistic look at the whole entire campus of the building. So, we're looking at the buildings, the kitchens. Um, and we're also looking at the playground um, equipment and the safety surfacing because that's something that's been coming up. A lot of the safety surfacing, which is the rubber that's underneath the play equipment. Um, in a lot of areas, it's extra worn at the slides because that's where the kids are playing. Um, and so I want to thank um, Superintendent um, Dr. Strickland for allowing us to walk around these buildings and call out things with the facilities um team. And so that um we've also created something with the principles where they are giving us tier one, tier 2, tier three,
094tier four items for each of their buildings that kind of call out what's important. And so we are trying to attack those lowhanging fruits. The district is with with the funds that we do have. Um and getting um competent contractors to come in to do that work. Um it's been a little challenging getting them to come in um to do the work, but the facilities team has been addressing a lot of things and so um hopefully at the next meeting I'll be able to give a fuller comprehensive report on that. >> Can I ask one question? >> Okay. Um, let me let >> Okay. >> Oh, you can go first. >> Okay. Trust trustee I mean vice vice president Mitchell. >> Good. >> Um, have you do you have access to the BCS report that
095was this goes I think it was 2023 when we got it done. That BC is the building condition survey report. I would give it to you. I have it in three different forms. It talks to to every single building in the district and it's it actually does everything that you that you're that you're doing now where you're looking every you'll find and this is going to prove to be historically valuable because you're going to see how what you're seeing now and hearing from your buildings now have been on the BCS report for the past four years almost. So I'm going to I'll get that to you, but that'll be a good starting point for you if you don't have it. Do you do you have you >> Okay. Trusty Brown, would you like to respond?
096And then, um, Trusty Peterson. >> Okay. >> Um, yes, I do have a copy and we have been looking at looking at that as well. Um, what the principles have noticed, there are some things that have been done that have been low hanging fruit that have been completed, but then there are things that are are new just because of the the um lifespans of the buildings. So, um, yes, I have been looking at that. Um, I think we probably need an updated one. Um, because like Dr. Strickland said, they've pulled a lot of the um, newer items out of the buildings that are closed and bought them into newer buildings. So then what that did was it allowed those items that were deficient to now become corrected. And so I think we need an updated
097survey of our of our current assets now. But thank you. >> Fair enough, Trusty Peterson. I just want to remind everyone that next Friday, April uh 17th, will be our Edith Kaplan scholarship dinner dance held at the Green Tree Country Club presented by uh the Mount Vernon Council of PTAs. And I would just like to let everyone know the honores. Uh the people who will be getting honored that night, Miss Jacqueline Grant Bird from Ed from Edward Williams School, Mrs. Uh Ebony Champong Rogers from Hamilton School, Chef Samantha Cohen from Mount Vernon High School, Miss Corine Leewack as uh part of our special education PTA from Benjamin Turner Academy, Mr. Omar Lambie from uh from Graham School, Miss Lise Lewis Bowman from Lincoln Elementary School, Miss Lorie Costello from the Malver and PTA Council, Latoya
098Anderson from the Nelson Mandela Josea Zakoffer School, Miss Roa Hughes Morrison. Oh gosh, the font went down little Hold on. From Denzel Washington School of the Arts, Miss Andrea Thomas from Grime School, >> we get you some reading glasses. >> I know. I can see it. Miss Miss Charissa Watson from uh here at the board of education, Mr. Antonio Amiro from the Mount Estee Academy, Mr. Randall Smith from Pennington School, Mr. Granville Mullings Jr. and from Trap Hagen School, Mrs. Carolinz Dixon. So, please come on out. If you haven't purchased your tickets, there's still time. You can go on the district website to purchase your ticket for Friday, April 17th, Edith Kaplan Scholarship Dinner Dance. Uh, Trusty Scott, did you have Oh, you got your tickets. All right. Board of Trustees got my tickets. Yes,
099I did. Just making sure everybody gets their tickets. Trusty Mcdun if you got yours. So, make sure it's going to be a great evening. It's a wonderful night. Come on out, support the kids, raise money for scholarships. Let's go. >> Okay. Thank you so very much. Um, anything else before we move on to the next item? Um, do we have uh items for executive session? >> Yes. >> Okay. Can we please May I have please have a vote? I mean, I'm sorry. May I have please have a motion to go into executive session? >> Motion. >> Wait, let me just tell you >> motion to enter executive session for the purpose of discussing pending or current litigation and matters leading to the dismissal of a particular person. Can I have a motion, please? >> Motion.
100>> Second. >> It's been moved and properly seconded that we move into executive session. May uh may we have a vote? >> All in favor? >> Any oppose? Abstain. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you everyone. We will not be returning back to this room. Thank you so very much for your participation and your consideration.