Mount Vernon Board of Education Regular Business Meeting January 29 2026

001I'd like to call to order the board the regular business meeting for the Mount Vernon City School District. Um, please, this is today is January 29th, 2026. We postponed our January 27th meeting due to the inclement weather and for hazardous conditions. And so we will we are meeting tonight. Will everyone please stand for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the standy. May we have a roll call, please? >> Trusty Brown, >> present. >> Trusty Kelly. >> Trusty Mcdana >> present. >> Trusty Middleton. Trusty Peterson. Trusty Scott. Trusty White. VP Mitchell >> present. >> President Marabel >> present. Currently we do not have a quorum. We need five members in order to transact business. Um but we can do things that we do not have to vote on. So

002there are a couple of things that I would like to share with um with the board. Um we have there's a statement and some clarification that I would like to address. Uh and I'd like to read this into the record for the clerk. So after I read it, I will give you a copy. The Mount Vernon Board of Education is aware of the public discussion regarding a recent incident allegedly involving a district employee at Mount Vernon High School. We recognize the community's concerns and wish to address them with transparency and integrity. This situation involves both legal and personnel matters. In accordance with the New York open meetings law, New York education law, and schoolboard policy, all issues related to district personnel must be handled confidentially unless an employee specifically requests a public hearing. Therefore, we

003are unable to publicly share specific details at this time as doing so could compromise the integrity of the review process. Please be assured that we are fully committed to complying with all legal obligations. We understand the desire for openness. Nonetheless, transparency must be balanced with respect for due process, privacy protections, and confidentiality requirements established by New York law and schoolboard policy. Our commitment is to address this matter within the boundaries of the law. We respectfully ask the community to allow the review process to proceed fairly and legally and to refrain from circulating assumptions or speculation that could cause unintended harm or jeopardize a fair review. We appreciate the community's engagement and patience. Our focus remains on acting with integrity, accountability, and transparency, always prioritizing the best interests of our students and the district. At this

004time, I would like for uh Dr. Strickland, I'd just let like to let you know that Dr. Strickland is in Albany. He is in route. he had to present to the uh legislative branches today um in order for our priorities and what we will be focusing on in the district and what our needs are to our um cons our legislative bodies. Also, we have um Randy Scott, one of our other trustees. He is also in Albany attending a conference. And so, just wanted to let you know that we do have um two excused absences for our staff, for our trustees tonight. And Dr. Dogget is standing in for Dr. Strickland until he can attend. And we have uh a trustee who has um informed us that they will be arriving very shortly. As a matter

005of fact, we now have a quorum. Thank you, Trusty Middleton. Okay. At this time, um would you like to do Dr. Strickland's report or would you like Okay. Um >> is Trusty White on? >> Okay. Trustee White is joining us virtually. Okay. So, at this time we will have the report from for from the superintendent that will be given by our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Dr. Dogget. >> Good evening, Mount Vernon City School District. I would like to begin with the first slide. We would like to highlight our alumni who returns to steam to bring inspiration to our scholars. Steam alumni Maim Forson and Haley Gonzalez returned to their roots, spearheading the Inspire program at Steam Academy. This program has paired the high schoolers with mentors from the New York University, Harvard, Cornell,

006and other prestigious universities. Ma'am, who attended Steam, is also an alumni of Harvard. And Haley Gonzalez is in her senior year at Cornell. We would like to also spotlight our Shining Knights who are seniors. Shining Knights is a student spotlight series that highlights the amazing scholars that helped shape the Mount Vernon City School District. The first few editions featured students from all three high schools, including Roselle Brusser from Steam Academy, Cameron Holt from Mount Vernon High School, and Matthew Samuels from Denzel Washington School of the Arts. Our girls track and field team qualifies for Nike Nationals. Student Taj Lavell ran her best time of the season in the 55 hurdles, qualifying for the Nike Nationals and breaking into the top 50 hurdles in New York. Amira Aoya won the shot put and weight throw, throwing

007her personal best in qualifying for the NA Nike Nationals in both events. Jasmine McKenzie and Daniela Thor placed fourth in the weighted throw. Congratulations to our track and field students. Lincoln School hosted its annual science fair on Friday, January 16th, from engineering and physics to biology and environmental science. The fair showcased not only what students learned, but how they learned it. Every students in grades four through eight participated, resulting in hundreds of projects that reflected both the academic rigor and personal curiosity that they presented. Projects by kindergarteners through third graders were displayed in the hallway. A special thank you to Rebecca Jones for keeping the science fair tradition going on. And thank you to the teachers who organized the science fair at Lincoln School. They are Kayn Robstad, Aaron Sedan, and Frank Khan. And thank

008you to the teachers and students who participated in the science fair at Lincoln School. Marking period 2 ends this Friday, January 30th. Report cards can be accessed through infinite campus as well as progress reports, student schedules, student attendance records, and much more. For parent teacher conference dates, please see the information disseminated from your schools. Infinite campus can be access accessed through the district website under quick links. Our 29th annual parent involvement day will occur on February 9th with a snow date of February 10th. This event is presented by the Mount Vernon City School District in collaboration collaboration with the Mount Vernon PTA council and the Mount Vernon parent and community forum on education. The district budget presentations. The district conducted a survey in December to hear from community members and stakeholders about what they think

009is essential for the 2026 2027 budget. With over a thousand participants, many highlighted technology updates, mental health services, building upkeep, reading and math specialists as top priorities. The next steps on February 2nd, there will be a meeting with the community and budget stakeholders to engage around district priorities. And May 19th, 2026 will be the budget vote for the 2026 2027 school year. Minister Author Muhammad received the drum major for justice award from the United Black Kery of Westchester. This award honors the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and recognition of exceptional leadership and unwavering commitment to the community. Congratulations to brother author Muhammad. Snow days and delays stakeholder consultation and assessment. This has been ongoing to ensure the safety compliance and continuity. This resulted in consulting with the mayor's office on emergency status in the

010city's response, discussing building readiness and safety conditions with the facilities team, consulting with regional superintendent to assess conditions and coordinate responses to coordinate the department of public works on work road conditions. meeting with head custodians, reviewing the New York State regulations of state of emergency declarations and 100 day requirements for further planning and preparation and ensuring readiness for future emergency situations. The district has taken some proactive measures. Currently we are working with the bargaining using units collaborating with staff to develop and formalize remote instruction options that ensure in that ensure instructional continuity while rem maintaining safety during emergency closures. A big part of this plan is ensuring device readiness, providing all of our students with working devices and our staff as well. 800 new devices have been received and are being distributed to ensure every

011student can access instruction during emergency situations. And that concludes the superintendent's report. >> Thank you, Dr. Dogget. Do we have any questions? Um, we can wait for Dr. Strickland to arrive and we can go back to the report if you have any questions on that. At this time, we will have a presentation by Ryan Monell from Bus Patrol. We'd also like to acknowledge um the presence of Trusty Middleton and Trusty Peterson. So, if you could please record their attendance. Thank you. >> How are you? Um is it possible for you to stand at the podium so that our >> Okay, great. Thank you. Oh, you got the clicker. >> Sure. Thank you. Are we ready? Okay. Okay. While we're waiting to do that, uh will that be much longer? I I would like to call

012for the three um December treasure report. It's my understanding. Is is that report ready, Dr. Joseph? >> The December treasure report. Is that report ready for this evening? ify this report as it is presented as it was presented to the um to the administration. >> Okay. So you're saying that there is no December treasury report. >> There is a report there is indeed a report that was presented as it stands. There are certain components that are required. those components are not met in the report and um so we cannot certify a report that's in incomplete. >> So you're saying that we you're not going to present a December treasury report tonight? >> That would be correct. Yes. >> Okay. So we're tableabling this report. >> Yes. >> Okay. May I have a motion to table

013the December treasur report? >> I have a first and a second. Um any discussion? All in favor? Any oppose? Abstensions? Okay. Thank you. We'll move back to the presentation by Dr. by Mr. Ryan Manell. >> Well, thank you, Madam President, and very appreciative of your patience with the slight delay, and thank you to the board for your time this evening. Uh my name is Ryan Manell. I'm executive vice president uh of Bus Patrol. Uh, Bus Patrol is uh one of the nation's leading uh technology providers for school bus safety. Uh, and we're proud to serve uh over uh 30 different jurisdictions within New York State and over 500 across the country. Uh, wanted to talk to you all this evening uh because we would love to partner uh with Mount Vernon uh to bring our

014school bus safety solution uh to the community. Uh, as it stands right now, uh we're uh serving many communities not far from here. uh particularly we have a program in a contract with Westchester County uh to serve uh over 30 districts across the county uh as well as uh uh White Plains uh who joined a program earlier this year. Uh along with that uh as I mentioned there's about 20,000 other buses across uh many other communities statewide across New York uh that currently partner with us to provide this solution. Um, so happy to sort of walk through uh what we do and ultimately what we can uh hopefully uh provide to make a a change in behavior and safer uh streets around school buses uh for our children. As long as we can get this

015rolling here, you can go to the next slide, please. Uh so there's a few different aspects of what the service that we we offer uh entails. Uh first and foremost uh ultimately what we provide is a technology uh particularly cameras that would be installed on the school buses uh to ensure that if a violation to were to occur where someone passes that school bus illegally, if a child is loading or unloading onto that bus uh that would be captured and ultimately we would work with local law enforcement in particular uh Mount Vernon PD uh to effectuate making sure we put together an evidence package uh for their uh review. Uh and ultimately upon their review uh a ticket would be issued uh to the register owner of the vehicle uh uh and that monetary penalty

016would ultimately be something that would be due back uh to the community in particular uh by statute uh ultimately would go to both the city and there of course could be also an opportunity for uh the school district to receive some of that uh ticketing revenue uh as it relates to uh these types of citations. Uh so ultimately what we provide is number one making sure we install uh our technology on the school bus fleet and then secondly uh all of the operational needs to effectuate uh if a violation were to occur how that ultimately is processed through uh and sent to uh law enforcement for their review. Uh we also provide all of the additional administrative needs as it relates to ensuring when a ticket is issued uh the register under the vehicle has

017the opportunity to uh ultimately potentially pay that ticket or contest it as you would any other type of traffic citation. Uh as I mentioned uh we ultimately uh are sort of the deacto leader in this space. Uh we certainly have uh the most buses that are dispatched and deployed with this technology within New York State as well as the country. Uh so we have a lot of expertise as it relates to the statute that we would have to uh operate under uh as well as ultimately um all of the business rules and other community um aspects of a program to hopefully make it successful because ultimately what you need to do is pair uh uh enforcement with very strong community education. But at the end of the day, uh we are a missiondriven company. Uh

018ultimately, what we want to do every day is ensure that we we make the streets safer for our children as they travel to and from school every single day. Uh as I mentioned, uh we serve uh multiple communities across New York, but what's more jarring is what we see in terms of statistics. Um, number one, obviously, uh, I know there's a lot of aspects of this district that are walking, but ultimately what we see across the country is about 26 million riders, uh, of school buses every single day. And unfortunately, what we also see is about 39 plus 39 plus million uh, illegal passes every year uh, across uh, America. And so, unfortunately, this is somewhat of an endemic. Uh we see this as a true public safety issue particularly uh as it relates to

019traffic safety and something that we know uh and what we've seen very clearly in the communities that we serve is very very uh significant behavior change. Uh in places like Rockland County just across the Hudson River uh we have actually uh since we launched in 2023 we've seen about a 25% decrease in citations in only a couple of school years. And so we believe the same would be true uh for Mount Vernon if we were to dispatch this type of technology and utilize this type of enforcement pairing of course with very effective education in the community. This is sort of a schematic uh of our system on the school bus. Uh and as I mentioned, you know, really what it starts with is ultimately us installing uh a camera uh system on the school buses

020uh to be able to capture violations of if an illegal pass were to occur. uh in particular, we have a license plate reader. Uh ultimately, what this is uh trained and ultimately uh calibrated to look for is a license plate. Uh we're not capturing someone's likeness. Uh we're looking at the license plate. And ultimately, the way that the citation works uh by state statute 1174A in New York State, uh is the citation would go to the registered owner of the vehicle. And so ultimately, uh it's a civil violation by by nature. Uh it's a monetary penalty. It is not a criminal penalty. There would no be no points on a license uh or any other type of uh punitive criminal uh penalty outside of the monetary penalty that would be due if you were to

021uh pass the bus. Uh on top of this uh we also uh utilize uh an LT network as well as a DVR in every uh bus to ultimately ensure that we can transmit all evidence effectively uh to be reviewed uh uh at the end of the day by local law enforcement. These are some things I can show at a later date some video here that uh demonstrates the efficacy of the system. Uh and this ultimately is sort of the process as I'm outlining it to you all. So uh once an incident is captured uh we ultimately first and foremost uh would make sure that that incident reflects the state statutory requirements of law process through to local law enforcement and then ultimately um they would make the determination on if a ticket should be issued.

022Uh this is uh an example of the uh the evidence that is captured. Uh so you would see se uh three images as well as three still uh uh three videos as well three as well as three still images that would be utilized to make the determination on if a violation occurred. And this is an example of a ticket that would be issued to the register of the vehicle. We do have a lot of uh opportunities to demonstrate some of the uh uh extreme examples u of what we see as close calls ultimately when children or pedestrians are unfortunately uh close to being struck if not struck uh by by a passing vehicle just demonstrating the uh the importance of this type of program. The other thing that we always really ultimately try to do

023uh once we dispatch programs across the country is ultimately ensure that the data that is that is captured understanding where violations occur can be harnessed as well to ensure that ultimately we educate the community further. Number one in regards to what types of violations are occurring but secondly in terms of locations. And so one of the things we typically see uh very regularly is being able to provide the boards uh uh school boards that we ultimately serve uh with top ticketing locations, say your 20 top bus stops to where we ultimately can realize and understand uh looking at the data how many violations are occurring. And so when it comes to doing routing uh and ultimately just of course educating the community about where these very difficult potentially dangerous uh bus stops are um making

024sure that we can actually intervene and create safe environments for our children every single day. And so we ultimately provide uh weekly monthly reports to all of our customers to make sure that you can ultimately have that line of sight uh to make the determinations on how we keep our children safer. Lastly, uh, one of the things that we ultimately commit to, uh, for for programs and for school districts that would like it, uh, is an interior non- enforcement system as well. And so many districts that we we work with, uh, are ultimately moving towards having a interior camera system to be able to ensure that we're preventing bullying, uh, making sure that we're uh, uh, ensuring that, for example, children aren't left on the buses at night. uh and ultimately we provide that uh

025as part of our package as well. Uh you know one of the things about this program I just want to make very clear is it is a violator funded program and what that means number one is that uh bus patrol will facilitate all the capital upfront costs to install all the equipment on the buses. It's about $10,000 investment per bus and facilitate all the operational costs and ultimately what we ask for is an aspect of the ticket to ensure that we can recover our costs. But typically what we see is a significant amount of revenue provided back to the local community. And so we've seen a lot of uh examples of uh revenue being generated through this program uh that pays for itself but ultimately being able to put that revenue back into the local

026community for other initiatives around public safety, education uh and community engagement. And so, uh, you know, along with, uh, the enforcement obviously, uh, and making sure that we're keeping our our children safer, providing technology that ultimately many districts are looking to facilitate irregardless of having an enforcement program. Uh, you also will likely see a decent revenue stream uh, for both the city and potentially the school district uh, through this program as well. And I'll stop there. uh certainly have additional detail. Uh I'm not sure how much time uh uh the board uh has uh this evening, but uh maybe I uh I stopped to take a couple of questions uh in regards to this program and into bus patrol, but very appreciative of your time this evening. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so

027very much, Mr. Monell, for the presentation. Do we have any questions from our trustees? Trusty Mcdana. >> Thank you, Madam President. I'm a little confused because wouldn't this involve the contractors? We don't we don't have a bus fleet. >> That's correct. Yeah. So, we so we ultimately many communities across New York New York is is uh it's very common of course for the district not to own their own fleet. And so, we actually partner and work uh very uh closely with a lot of the different uh bus companies. I believe yours is First Student. for students. One of our our our main um partners uh across the country for for different fleets. Uh this is in regards to contracting in regards to how how it would work um and what the law says is the

028process. Uh the contract holder would actually be the city but on account of the bus uh company being contracted of course to the school district. Uh what we do is we we ultimately facilitate an intergovernmental agreement uh with the school district to facilitate ultimately being able to install on the school buses and irregardless of if the bus is contracted or owned by the district, we're able to usually facilitate that process. >> So the city the city is separate from the school district. So you would contract with the city, we would then strike a contract with the city as well. >> That's correct. >> Okay. Yeah. And the way that the reason that's the case and why that's uh the way that these programs work is because of what the law says is the requirement. So

029the way the law reads for the statute that these programs operate under the municipal government is the enforcement agency. So in this case it would be the city of Mount Vernon. Uh but obviously the the school district uh controls the asset which is the school bus that would be utilized for that enforcement. And so typically uh the way that it works is there's an MSA plus an intergovernmental agreement with the school district potentially a revenue sharing agreement between the school district in the uh city to ultimately facilitate this process. And then we would work closely with the school district as well as the city. The school district of course to maintain and ensure that the uh the enforcement technology on the school buses is effectuated. of course reporting back all of the results and working

030to facilitate community education with the school district but enforcement would happen with the city. >> Have you have you had any contact with the city of Mount Vernon about this? >> So Dr. Strickland uh we we actually worked with him to uh uh facilitate this program in his previous district up in Rochester, New York. Uh that program has been very effective. Uh I believe he is in conversations with the city about potentially uh that's discussing this opportunity. >> Thank you, Madam President. >> Okay. Thank you, Trusty Mcdana. Trusty Brown. >> Um thank you for your presentation. I uh Trusty Mcdana actually had the same question I had, but my additional question is because we will be contracting with the city, you need us as the board to kind of give you the green light to

031to have this discussion. Um and and then a second part of that question is with it being with the city, do we have to come back to the table again to have this discussion collectively? >> Yes. Yeah. I think I think the city number one wanted to uh understand the interest of the school board. Uh and then secondly uh there's there would be likely a number of things that would be needed to be effectuated. Certainly would want to work with you all to understand if you would want to do a resolution and then of course as I mentioned from a contractual perspective if it gets to that point there would be an intergovernmental agreement that would go before uh all of you for your review as well. On the city side, uh there's a number

032of things that would have to be effectuated by uh by the city. Uh first and foremost, of course, the contract, but there also would need to be a city ordinance uh effectuated that would basically outline um statutoily that the the enforcement is being facilitated on beh on on the school buses. >> And I have one more followup. You said that to do this it would cost$10,000 per bus. >> It's about $10,000 per bus. And as I mentioned, there's a few things I want to actually highlight on that question. Uh trustee, um number one, uh the way that we facilitate our programs is as I mentioned, it's a violator funded program. And so we actually uh when we enter into a contract, it's a hold harmless contract. You know, it sounds too be good to be

033true, but ultimately we make sure that all that the taxpayer and the school board uh uh is not going to be on the hook for for that investment. So we facilitate the capital investment and then ultimately uh would recover that investment uh debt servicing everything that we would facilitate the operational costs through the violations themselves. But the way that we typically enter it into an agreement is either a revenue sharing model to where we basically recover our costs as part of that violation funding that would be recovered or coming in. uh or we do like a subscription fee to where ultimately we identify uh over the course of the contract a fee per bus per month that ultimately we enter into. The last thing I'll say very quickly though that's really important for the board

034to know is under 1174A the New York State statute uh it says uh definitively the school board and the school district cannot acrew any cost relative to the program. So it must be revenue neutral for the school board and the school district. >> Okay. Any other questions? >> Okay. Thank you so very much. >> Very much. >> Okay. >> At this time, we will have a budget committee report from trustee Mcdana. >> Thank Thank you. I feel like I'm always like hovering to get my body is not shaped for this. Um, thank you. So the f first let me just start I I attended a a webinar on the 16th of January hosted by the Westchester Putinham School Boards Association uh titled sound budgeting and real time issues. Um it was very good. Um yeah

035the slides are up on the um on the Westchester Putinham School Board's website. It's definitely worth checking out. It's a little Hey, there he is. >> Hey, Dr. Strickland. I just started the uh the uh budget committee uh report. >> Should I continue or you Okay. Um it's definitely worth going and looking at. There are a lot of other um really good presentations. It's a little bit tricky. You have to go to programs then public issues and then in there you'll see all the different presentations. Really really um uh good slides. So I just wanted to note that uh Dr. Strickland, Dr. Joseph and I met uh yesterday um as the core uh members of the B budget committee. Um we started by talking about some of the the calendar items uh that are coming

036up that are notable. Um it was mentioned that on February 2nd at 6:30 at Graham uh Dr. Stricken will host a community meeting to discuss budget priorities for the coming academic year. There'll also be one on February 9th at 6:30 at Mount Vernon High School. Um throughout the month of February, Dr. Strickland and his cabinet will be developing next year's budget. Uh at the end of February, the budget will be submitted to our New York State Monitor, Dr. Young Wilkins. Um and then on March 2nd, the budget is due um to be submitted by Dr. Wilkins um to NYED. uh and then on the 10th uh our uh meeting on the 10th I think it's a work session on the 10th Dr. Wilkins will give a budget presentation and also in March uh at that

037point Dr. Strickland will go out and host uh additional forums to present the proposed budget uh to the community and dates and times and locations for for those meetings will be determined. I think that takes us through March. Might be a good idea. I I don't know if the uh fiscal 20 uh next year's fiscal uh budget calendar is up on the website. I think the last year one it might be worth putting that up there or key elements of it. Is it if it's not? I I looked I thought that the last year one was there. It's it's more or less the same but but it's a good idea to have that up there. Uh we also discussed uh some outside factors that will impact revenue in the coming year. And I'll go from

038federal to state to to local. Uh federal title funds, title 1, 2, 3, and four grants. Uh it looks like it'll be about flat, possibly a small decrease uh relative to this year's 3.68 million. Um but it won't be won't be material. We won't get any increase. you know, things are in flux in the federal, so it's always a little bit unnerving, but it looks to be relatively stable. Uh, same with the IDA Part B section 611. It looks like there'll be a small increase with that. It's not clear how much that will be. Um, but that's good to have that because that targets that'll target preschoolers. Um, New York State Foundation Aid looks like we're expecting about a 2.66% uh increase uh for the coming fiscal year. Again, these things are not for certain

039right now, but that that's good. That's um a that's a good thing to have coming. Um we'll learn more. I know Dr. Strickland was just up in Albany. It was great. I read the transcript. It's fantastic. Um thank you so much for doing that. Um on the city level, we talked about uh the we had an agreement with the city for payment of the back taxes. um that that agreement that we had took us for taxes up through fiscal 20. So 20 and prior. Um that agreement has been fulfilled. Um now we we are in the process of discussing to strike a new agreement that will um cover fiscal 21 forward. Um in February um we will certify for the tax year ending this June and get that to the city. that'll start the 2-year

040clock going. Um, I was just thinking, um, when Dr. Joseph, we were talking about the Treasury report, it might be a good idea to add a line item on the receipts side that lists that uh that money due from the city of the school district because if we strike an amount similar to the one we had before, $450$500,000 a month, that will be going on for a long period of time. So, it'll be nice to have that line item on on the Treasury report so we can all see that. It'll be good for transparency. Um, let's see. Um, and then I just want to note my appreciation for the work being done by Dr. Strickland, Dr. Joseph, and the cabinet. I mean, it is um it is very difficult to to put the district on

041sound financial footing. Uh, it's complicated work. It takes a lot of skill, knowledge, focus, and tenacity. and I I just want to say thank you for for for the efforts that you guys are making. That's it. Thank you, Madam President. >> Thank you, uh, Trusty Mcdana. Um, I'd al also like if you could record the attendance for Trustee Kelly, who's in in attendance. Thank you. Um, at this point, we will have a report from student trustee Leonard Odoro. Oh, do we have any qu I'm sorry. Do we have any questions on the budget report? >> Okay, I'm sorry. Uh well, Trusty Peterson, you can go first. You leave the >> Thank you, Trusty uh McDunniff. Um question. While I don't know if you've been paying attention to what's going on currently in Hackinack in the

042Hackinack, New Jersey public school system, um they are currently facing a $17 million um deficit with their budget. And a huge issue with it is that they weren't paying close attention to their position control roster. And in that when I watched the meeting, they had a meeting on January 21st, it prompted me to say, whoa. Because as listening to that, it reminded me of things that would hear, you know, in Mount Vernon of this district. So it prompted me to ask Dr. Strickland, well, hey, because a position control roster is vital to doing a budget. that's what determines positions, salaries, things like that. And so it prompted me to then because since that is a basically a necessity to do a year-to-year budget, um where this district was and I found out that we do

043not have a position control roster. So when working on the with this budget committee, if you could please commit yourself to making sure that this district has a position control roster because that is vital. Yeah, thank you. Um, that that has come up and we've we've touched on that. This is an opportunity, the zerobased budgeting that we're doing this year. We touched on that's an opportunity to really clean up how our our codes are being used. Um, because it seems like it's kind of arbitrary. Um, and that is part of what necessitates when we have to come when the when the administration has to come and ask to move money from one line to another. That's due to uh inappropriate use of codes in the past. Um so zerobased budgeting will give us the opportunity

044to align our codes so we have really tight position codes. Figure this is a transition year. Uh but once we get through it moving forward it'll be a lot easier. So thanks for picking that up. That's important point. >> Dr. Strickland, would you like to comment? >> Y just to comment um on Trusty Peterson's um points about position control. Uh she was absolutely right. But uh that was something that I found first in July. Uh because the one of the first things as a new superintendent you want to do is ask for your roster. We had a roster but you you could tell that it was not formal and uh we already have started that work. So currently we do have position control for all administrators in the district because it's easier for you to

045have those individuals uh in one place because they generally don't move around. So uh next we'll go with uh probably a smaller bargaining unit and then uh we'll probably end with uh probably our CSEA because they are the most transient. Um but just know that it is in the works because um one it makes budget hard and to talk um in regards to that other district. The reason why for the community you want position control is because what will happen is you just roll over a budget from one year to the next and then you get a lot of requests for I need this, I need that and those aren't formalized and it compounds and now you have a budget crisis. So, uh, that's that's exactly why I wanted to put that in place and

046our human resources team and our associates who is working diligently on that. >> Uh, I would also like to add that it's also part of the state monitors report and it's also a requirement that we have to have that in place by uh there's a deadline I believe September September September 30th 2026. Okay. Uh, any other questions? Trusty Vice President Mitchell. >> Uh thank you uh Trusty Mcdana for the report. You know, we've been talking about the money that the city owes us for a long time, especially the the uh from that the oldest which is the 1920 fiscal year um money. That's is this is the 11 million that we've been talking and agonizing over for a long time. Right. So um we're are we confirming that we have been paid in full for

0471920 to fiscal that 11 million. Have we been paid in full? >> Yes. >> Okay. And have we released anything like that in writing? Should we could we make that public facing? It's it's just a topic that it would be nice if we had tell me what what our capabilities are. >> I don't see why not. I mean, issuing a statement is probably fine. I think legal and and the administration would would do that. Um, that's fine. I think it's I just think it's very important that the taxpayers and stakeholders understand that it hasn't just been talked about and the city just has been saying they're paying us and we just been no we actually received the money and the 11 million we we finally cleared it up. But now the next question I have

048one of the main reasons why we got in that hole with that 11 million was not just because the city wasn't releasing payments but because we weren't certifying on time. So what aside from 2025 which you said we're certifying in February. It has to well it should be certified at the end of because remember the second installment was just due is it today or tomorrow or the second basket of the taxes for this current year was in June it was in January. Yeah. 30. So then at that point you know we have the next few weeks to figure out who has not paid their taxes and then we certify it and then that starts the two-year clock going for the city. So So we've got to do that. That's important. If we don't it doesn't

049mean we can't. It just it just slows things down and complicates things. But we're in a much better position. I know in the past that was an issue, but we're now we have the other prior years are all certified. Um, so now we're going to certify this year. >> That was my next question. >> Yeah, they're all certified. >> So we've got physical proof that we're all certified up except for 2025, which we're about to. >> We do. Yes. >> And can the board have a presentation of what the city now owes us for those years so that we can keep a running tally of what's going on? >> Sure. Um, we have that by year. In fact, I just shared that with uh with Dr. Strickland and Dr. Joseph. One thing to keep in

050mind, and this is what complicates it, is that even though the clock starts, remember there's the city's always making efforts and we're making efforts to collect that taxes. So, the number is changing over time, which is a good thing. It should go down. So, that's part of the reason why, you know, I think it's a slowm moving and complicated process to collect this and hopefully we'll never be in this position again. Um but certainly we can release that and then I think if we have it in the Treasury report once we have a new agreement we'll we should be watching that move and come down. Although every year remember a new number comes up. Hopefully if if more people are are paying their taxes we get close to say that 99% collection rate then the

051number gets much smaller and much more manageable. Um but we just had some big numbers in the past. So yeah that's great. Thank you. >> Do we have any other questions or comments? hearing. None. We'll have a report from our student trustee, Leonard Odoro. Well, just good evening everyone. Um, how's everyone doing? So, um I just want to bring uh insight into the students and staff um world of Steam Academy uh through the man uh monthly uh school newsletter um which is seen on the screen. Okay. January's newsletter kicks off with a exciting February uh event like Steam Day and a cinemat cinema field trip. Plus, Miss Valu inspired um a project. She raised over 800 to uh $820 so seniors could uh keep motivated motivation books and uh create v uh vision boards. Next

052slide, please. Okay. Our after school clubs are thriving from mock trial club building leg uh legacy skills and h os m h o sa inspired future health care leaders and uh eco clubs promoted stability and more. These clubs are led by uh D um adviserss and students created fam created through family and friends space for growth and uh fun here. Next slide please. A sitan field trip uh to uh Jacobs burn led to ninth grades create uh created a short film and built uh storytelling skills. We also uh uh fundraisers for we also fundraised for senior memory for that raised up to at least 2,500 our staff our staff uh breakfast celebrated sorry give me a sec um I misclicked and our staff celebrated everyone with good food on that on I Okay, sorry. My

053bad. Um, I have a problem with technology at a moment. Sorry about that. >> Um, if you want, you could go to NL please. >> Just a note that uh board docs just went down. I think it's just may have come back up. So, >> Oh, nope. Not up. Can you finish your report? Um, >> student trust. >> Do you need assistance? >> Oh, no. No. I That's >> working. >> Okay. Um, so, uh, this is going to be for the la the last one. Um for um the ACE mentor are driven by engineering con Edison students uh gaining gaining uh pro inspired for the future career middle schoolers crash through chocolate fundraising for at least 25 200 with uh with more than uh fun events like uh candies and tournaments ahead all boosting communities

054and students. Um and that would be all for that and for sorry for the um the problems with the um speaking at the moment. Um, but I would like to say this uh this was this newsletter was helped through uh one of our staff for in student steam academy named uh Ashley Wallace who was who is also known as the student the social student teacher of um social student teacher and um class of 2026 advisor 2028 advisor. Sorry about that. and you may know her as the stu uh staff of the month of 2025. Well, these newsletters um are already located on the Steam page of Steam Academy. Sorry. And thank you. Um I'm done. >> Okay. Do we have any questions? Thank you, student trustee, for always representing our students very well and for

055researching and bringing back the issues and concerns that we have. At this time, we will go to communication from the public. I'd like to read a statement. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to convene into the public comment period of our meeting. Although state law does not require us to hold a public comment period, we have chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues. Please note that the board is here to listen. The public comment period is not designed to be a discussion. If we are not able to respond tonight, we will respond to your questions and concerns at a future meeting or have the proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time. This is because we

056take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues. On personnel matters, we ask you to go through the appropriate administrative channels. Under state and federal privacy laws, we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school personnel. Please know, however, that we take personnel concerns very seriously. We are currently preparing a comprehensive organization chart which I believe is available now um that will identify who should be contacted for different issues when it comes to personnel. It's in draft form currently. Finally, we want our schoolboard meetings to serve as an example to our students and hope that our members of our school board and members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect for one another. We ask that

057speakers please address their comments to the board directly rather than the audience. We will insist that all speakers and members of the audience maintain civility and respect for any divergent views. In the unlikely event the meeting becomes unruly, the board will recess the meeting and return once order has been restored. Finally, I want to remind everyone that if you so choose in lie of speaking during the public comment period, you may submit written comments to the board at BOE trustees at mtveroncsd.org or our district clerk Rita James or James at mount at mtveroncsd.org or our superintendent Dr. Strickland at dstrickland mtveroncsd.org. Each individual speaker will be allotted three minutes. If you do not use your allotted time, it will be forfeited and is not eligible to be yielded to another speaker. The individual time limits

058will be enforced so that as many members of the public who wish to speak may be allowed to do so. We thank you for your cooperation. The board will now entertain public comments. Clerk James, please announce our first speaker. Our first speaker this evening is Ruby Alisa Mcca Ruby >> here. Pardon this rustic way of presenting. How am I going to do? Hey, thank you. >> Are you the clock? >> Okay. So, good evening. Does my time start now? Okay. Good evening, president, superintendent, members of the board. Uh thank you for holding this public forum and um the last time I was here I was with you Jeff and we were with 20 students, staff, residents and we rallied to reinstate the Graham Gardens and we did so. Um so it's good to be back.

059I don't recognize anyone. I think it's all new faces now. It was about 10 years ago. Um so my name is Ruby Ola. I'm the founder of an organization called Khalifa. It's a Mount Vernon based environmental education stewardship or organization and um I'm here because there is a growing need for environmental education, civic science and green career pathways for Mount Vernon residents. Okay, so I'm just going to do this as quickly as possible. So environmental education after school in Mount Vernon right now we're facing some really serious environmental issues, right? There's about six major ones. I'm not sure if you can see this, but one, low tree canopy, flooding, excessive flooding, and we know that because our schools are lined with sandbags right now, pollution into the rivers. So there's a lot of hard top

060in our schools all over the city and that because there's no penetration of water into the ground, it's running into both rivers. Um tree loss, extensive tree loss. So Mount Vernon right now has about 17% tree canopy, one of the lowest in Westchester County. The highest asthma rates in New York State, which is incredible. And according to the DC, some of the highest levels of air pollution. All of these issues can be solved by just planting trees, right? But our students need to know this because this is not an issue that's going to really affect us in our time. Is going to affect them in their time. And it really really this is the type of education that they need because they're the ones that gonna have to do this work. So I work with

061some students over the summer. Um one of them was from Steam Academy. His name is Rosco Brown and they interviewed about 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 eight no 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine uh nonforprofit organizations, right? So they interview folks from the New York Botanical Gardens. They interviewed folks from Bron River Alliance, Save the Sound, FCWC, New City Parks, uh Environmental Leaders of Color, the Department of Conservation. What did they find? The findings were that this right three major themes emerged. So I'm just going to focus on one education, youth engagement, workforce development unanimously, right amongst nonforprofits that are working in the environmental space in Westchester County who want to work in Mount Vernon because we have the worst environmental issues in Westchester County, right? And we have residents,

062they interviewed countless residents and they said the same things. the outdoors is important to them. So, right now, I'm working with several organizations that want to work with you. And I know that this is a tough time for the for the district. There's a lot of transitioning. We are proud of you. We love what we are doing. We're rooting for you. Like, we really really are rooting for you. And I know it's a busy time, but I would love to speak to someone about advancing some of these programs. I have two programs on ground right now. One from Save the Sound that will pay students pay students to study, pay the teacher to be participate, to be a participant in the study. So, I'm going to leave this here and my ask is who is

063the appropriate person that I need to speak with so we can get inroads into the school and support you? We are proud of you. We love the work you're doing, but really, really, really would love to partner with you. Thank you so much, Miss Ruby. You can pass the information to our clerk, district clerk, Rita James, and she will pass it on to the appropriate personnel. Thank you, Mark Stucky. Good evening. My name is Mark Stucky. I am the whistleblower of Mount Vernon, especially this Mount Vernon City School District. Um, you had a presentation that was taking place about school buses uh earlier. Board members, please do your homework. Check it out. Because if they're talking about a revenue, then it's like the Con Edison bill in 2019, 2010, somewhere around in there. Someone a

064board member implemented Con Edison to wind up pulling taxes um from the from the residents from the tax for those who had bills. If you pay taxes on the gas and electric and that revenue a portion of the taxes from that supposed to come to Mount Vernon. If you ask how much is in the revenue for that and which I have done over the years oh not much to offset anything. Okay. So if this is the we I don't know but I be looking at our buses first thing in the morning the school buses and the monitors and the drivers seem like they doing their job the way they supposed to be. So the bus company who they tied in with is doing the same thing. You know they're doing what they supposed to do.

065I'm not saying the bus company is doing anything wrong, but they're doing their job as I see first thing in the morning and I'll be out here in the morning watching. Okay. The uh second thing is we have lockers at one of our schools. Um Edward Williams Edward Williams lockers are missing locks. Apparently, someone took was told to take the locks off the lockers. Now, you figure I'm going to say hypothetically anywhere between 75 to 100 lockers. At $25 a pop, you could pull that up and you can wind up seeing it. Where are those locks? Who took them? Why was they taken off? These are questions that being be asked taxpayers paid for all this in that bond. Okay? So, we need to know these answers. And I'm not trying to point fingers on

066nobody, but we have, you know, dirty playin that's taking place in our certain schools that people administrators are letting it go through the same building. Why do the sup why does the custodian have to come in an hour early? If he's supposed to be at 5 at 6:00 in the morning, why come in at 5:00 in the morning? What are you trying to get out early for? What are you doing dirty? Okay, snow removal. The snow removal that we had just recently with that took place from this bad storm that we had. I would like to say to those who have Mandela, ladies, three ladies, they outdid themselves. They came out. They shoveled snow. They walked from one side of Mount Vernon to get to Mandela. Okay, they showed out. Superintendent. Okay, they need to

067be recognized. You gave out awards for people who was dirty in this district on on awards day. staff members. These ladies needs to be notified, recognized on what the services they did. I was there. I helped shovel snow. Okay. So, you know, give them their props. Not only that, school did good. Okay. Uh trap trap did very good, too. Okay. Now, as far as removing the snow from the um the parking lots, horrible job. Is the sand that they use in our sand because our sand bank has gotten low. Is that in the contract for them to use our sand or do we pay for sand to be they supposed to bring their own sand in? Okay, the next thing is a lot of stuff. I'm trying my best right here. A lot of stuff

068was at the last board meeting. I I did a show a plaques that was I was making. You know, Madame President, I always say these words, no weapon formed against me shall prosper. You wind up trying to wind up putting a hole in me 12 different ways of Sunday. It wasn't nice. And people talked about that. But as you curse me, I I'm sorry. You cursed me. As a minister said once before, I forgive you. I forgive you for your actions. I would never came out and do anything like that. I was trying to help the district and you trying to do something dirty towards me. Oh, please. Miss Kelly, Miss Kelly, when one at one board meeting the superintendent stood up there and he was talking you it was about those the fire that

069took place in Mount Vernon and you you cut me short last time. >> Mr. Mr. You went and put a new try to destroy the superintendent. >> Mr. Stucky on who gave authorization >> security I'm going to ask security to remove you from phone or turn it off or can we turn the microphone off? >> You turned around. >> Can we turn the microphone the superintendent? Don't do that. But you was the dirty ones who did the same thing. >> And let me and let me clarify one thing. >> No, you can't. >> I will clarify one thing that anytime a person stands at that podium and starts talking about personnel issues, I will stop you because it is against our rules and regulations. And as soon as you raised up a person's name and

070a person a personnel issue is when I stopped you. So, let's just be clear about that. and I will do it again. So, let me be clear. Thank you, Mr. Stucky. Jeff Monroe. >> Don't come after me. Thank you. Good evening. Uh good evening, trustees, staff, and community. Uh for the record, my name is Jeff Monroe. I'd like to um I want to actually I came for two or three reasons, but I want to primarily advocate for the work that um Miss Mola had just come up and advocated for. Um in part because she's a co co-organizer with myself and a neighbor in Mount Vernon. Um, I've had the pleasure of working with Ruby for the last six years in the Free People's Market Project. Mostly is just a pair of arms and legs. This

071young lady is the brains of that operation. And we literally fed people farm fresh fruits and vegetables and whatever was in season for free distribution to people who needed it during COVID and up till now. Um, I only have 2 minutes and 14 seconds left, so I'll use the rest of the time to talk more about other things because I think frankly she can speak more effectively on the use of that. I want to speak to the need for the urban farming initiative to be grassroots and for the school district to the school district to enable that grassroots initiative. Um, I won't say much as a criticism. It may come off as personal because there is an official kind of um uh personnel mind you related way that this is being managed. It's being managed

072as a kind of top-down uh nutrition related policybased initiative that's going to manage almost in a peripheral way how Ruby and others have been doing this work for some time. I'm just one of the elements if you will as part of that initiative. But as a ch as a as an organizer in this community, as one of the chief brain trust really of this particular work, um I'm going to argue on a parallel kind of school of thought that we must have an an initiative from the grassroots. Personally, and this is my politics, I will not tolerate a top-down kind of mandate for how we feed and serve our community. Obviously officials should be respected for the work that they do in managing the resources that our community avails to them through our taxes etc

073and or land because we're also talking about food food uh uh you know agricultural growth etc. There other arguments to be made there. I'm arguing for the the um very enthusiastic hope because we want this to be collaborative. We want this to be um you know we want it to be a friendly kind of partnership. We don't want it to be seen as antagonistic. We're not at least personally I don't have the particular tactical approach now to protest anyone or to come here and approach anyone in any you know negative uh critical way. But in my critical thinking, I I do lament that there is uh a kind of status quo about how to generate policy and come to the people last. I think that's a backwards way of doing anything productive, especially in this

074country that claims to be democratic, right? And especially in light of how black and Latino communities have been managed in this community, especially now. I think we should be mindful of the fact that the current siege that's being managed uh as people say by the president of the United States through ICE is not a Trump uh uh phenomena. It's an American uh fascist state. It's what it always has been. It's just on the surface and it's very much in front of us. Um I'm going to remind us that there was an ICE action this week. I saw in the last 24 four hours I've seen a post that there was an ICE action this week. I'm still working on the details as to what it was and when, but I know for a fact there

075was another one on Columbus Avenue last September about a half mile down this road from this building. We are a community under siege and our families and our children, key word for your uh jobs are traumatized and we are in a state of war whether you think that's bombastic or not. And I'd like to see this effort on serving our community as initiative from the grassroots. So that's my we we need to get into a conversation on it. That's really how I'm going to end it. >> Thank you, Mr. Monroe, and thank you so much for your advocacy um all the time. Thank you, Hope Marble. Good evening. Okay. Good evening everyone. My name is Hope Marble. I am the board president of the Mount Vernon Public Library. And so I just wanted to abridge

076everyone of some recent developments in regard to a previous resolution that the library board had adopted in regard to acquiring 101 Summit Avenue, which would have been the EB White Library. So on or about um January 7, 2005, the board um voted in favor of acquiring this and going out for a bond proposal um to acquire um 101 Summit Avenue. Um and article 78 was filed by a member of the community. the um that particular resolution was nullified based on an erroneous posting of the remote location of of myself in particular. Um as we all know mistakes happen. Um we were instructed by Judge Goodwin to go back to the drawing board which we did do on or about May 13, 2025. That was resolution 022-25. And that resolution passed as well, much to the

077credit of the um library board for seeing the vision of acquiring an EB White Library in the city of Mount Vernon, the place where he was born and raised and is alumni of Mount Vernon High School. Also Lincoln Elementary School, um a um a celebrated author of enormous success. um a Pulitzer Prize celebrated author and the writer of such children's classics as Charlotte's Web, Trumpet of the Swan, and um and a long time associate um editor of New Yorker magazine. Um now, so we rescended on that particular resolution on December 10, 2025 based on the recent tax increases. And so that particular vision has been vacated. And so we just wanted to a bridge the school district of that along with the public. Also, our library is going to be celebrating our second annual Black

078History Month celebration on February 28th, 2026. We would like to invite everyone to that. um in the month of May which is mental health awareness month the library is embarking on a partnership with NAMI the national alliance on mental health and the um title of that program is the look inspired by Michelle Obama and we would really love to partner with the vocational um with the vocational section of the school district in terms of the cosmetology department because we're going to be working with um certain vendors that um beauty, you know, beauty salon vendors and such. And I think it's a great opportunity for everyone to to come together, the triangle, the city, the school district, and the library. And so, thank you for hearing me out and everyone have a good night and thank

079you and keep up the good work. Thank you. >> Thank you, Kathy Brewington. I don't see her. Okay. Andrea Derizio. >> If I did not pronounce that correctly, you can correct me. Thank you. >> All right. You said it right. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, sure. >> Good evening, everyone. I'm here from we are here from the NAACP and in one of our local um our most recent meetings we discussed um that some of the elementary school students can't read and this is in grades like sixth grade where they should. So we wanted to work on that skill. Um and so we were just kind of like you know strategizing how we could do that. Um one of our members um it works at Westchester Community College. So the idea came, we thought about maybe

080volunteers from the school or students at the um college that are studying in education to work with um some of these students. So we you know come before you to kind of find out if there's any um you know what we would need to do like permission slips or consent forms um in putting this plan forward. >> You want to add anything? >> Okay. Dr. Strickland would like to respond. So right now we have an internal document for individuals that want to volunteer their services and what I will do is talk with that individual in human resources to create something external. Uh we just have to even though like I I remember meeting with you and um definitely welcome your your support um we just need to make sure that you know we might have

081to do background checks and and things like that because you're um trying to work with our students. So um I I guess we'll be in touch. >> A few other details we talked about was doing it at the library after school. So, you know, one of the issues is transportation for the child to the library. Um, I don't know if they could do it at the school because the school closes and so, but it's something I guess we could talk about after. >> Thank you so very much for your innovative ideas. >> You're welcome. >> Okay, Cynthia Krenshaw. No, she's this is her own. She can start the clock at three. Thank you. >> Yeah, this is okay. Cynthia Krenshaw, I'm here as you know to talk about the Cecil H pocket picture which has

082been almost one year now. Almost one year, not quite. But we don't understand why you're holding that um picture hot. And let me tell you some of the things that we hold at the library. The Mount Vernon High School AB Davis High School present day Mount Vernon High yearbook and its sorted um photographs. Collection of early local history from the village of Mount Vernon 1853 to local history since incorporation of the city in 1892. Collection of Mount Vernon black history including dictated oral history and several thesis and studies on the subject. collection of individual school histories and the beginning of education system in the village and city of Mount Vernon. The collection of historical documents, photographs, records and so on and so on. And we have security guards there in that children's section from 10

083to 8:30. And let me say this, no disrespect to you, Dr. Strickland. I know when we was here the last time, you said that Dr. Strickland might make that decision on where that picture holds. But let me say this, Dr. Strickland does not know the history of Mount Vernon like we know it. Okay? He doesn't know it. No disrespect, but you know, it was always that south and north thing when it cames to our schools. When Pennington was building that site on there, Parker wanted a um roof. Although we got it, but it came late. And back in the 1987, we walked out of Washington School because we wanted the teachers to look more like the students that they served. And as the clergy said when they was here that we changed the direction of

084this board who was up on this board and like they said at that time that may have been a mistake, but I hope this one will not be a mistake. They said that publicly. Changing the subject, Rebecca Turner, we have one water fountain in the entire school. The lunchroom is used as also as a storage. I talked to you, Dr. Strickland, about the furniture that the PTA bought at Parker School that I wanted that I would like that transferred to U. Rebecca Turner to just to make that lunchroom look more presentable. Those teachers are there more than they are home. I see that you cleaned the parking lot out at Parker School. Maybe some of that resources should have went to cleaning Rebecca Turner because when those buses pulled up, those kids had to hop

085over that snow to get on the bus and then they made a little path that they could get through to the bus. So, and also the bathrooms on the lower level has no locks. I was using the bathroom and one of the boys almost walked in on me. I was just washing my hands, but that's okay. He's a little boy. Uh, so it's just things that need to be done at Rebecca Turner. When it snowed, the teachers had to walk two blocks to park their car. They had to walk up there to Sanford Boulevard and Fourth Avenue because they don't have a parking lot. The parking lot is clean at Parker School. Is something going on there? Cuz we see a lot of cars in the parking lot. We were saying that there might be

086investors in there. I don't know if that's true. You know how rumors go. I'm just saying. That's what I heard. I rode by that tonight and I seen the parking lot was clean and there was cars in the parking lot. what they're doing. I don't know. That's just just rumor they they are saying. But let me just emphasize again the picture was here for almost will be almost a year. Why are you holding the picture? We have over a thousand children that comes through that library. Why not introduce them to their history? Your president is taking away our history. They're trying to take away Martin Luther King from Washington. They're trying to do the the the black museum in Washington. Philadelphia is suing the federal for what they're doing to black history. Why are we

087suppressing our history? Why? It's been almost a year. Let's and I think that the board, this is my opinion, should vote openly on the relocation of that picture and not Dr. Strickland. >> Thank you, Miss Krenshaw. U a couple of just one response. We voted >> Okay. um last year on whether or not we were going to release the picture and the vote was no. And so there has the the vote has not been re reintroduced the a resolution or a reconsideration of the vote has not been reintroduced at this for this board. >> So that vote stands. >> Okay. But where is the picture going? Where's the picture going? >> And that the decision as to where the picture is going has not been decided. >> So you have to vote on that. >>

088We don't have to vote on where it goes. We just voted on whether or not we retain it or whether or not we would let the library have it. And that vote did take place a almost a year ago. >> Okay. Can I get a for that to see who um voted? >> Oh, absolutely. >> Okay. Sure. Okay. I would sure I would like that. >> Okay. >> I will ask um our clerk I will ask clerk James to pull it up and also Dr. Dr. Strickland has a comment, but I believe that our legal counsel had would like to respond to that before Dr. Strickland responds. >> Go ahead. Oh, afterwards. Okay, that's cool. Yes, Dr. Strickland. >> Dr. Strickland, >> Miss Crunch, I'm still waiting for my phone call back. Just kidding. >>

089Um, just to clarify a few things. Um, uh, of course this has been unprecedented. Um, you know, they said I was watching the news there something about the sixes that these big storms come down here. Um, I will say that I have seen I I I was driving around. There was one location where I was like, "Eek." Okay. And we all know why that one location was the way it was is because there was other cars parking in that lot causing our staff to have to walk. uh to uh school and and park farther away. >> The area that you were talking about at Rebecca Turner, that was the street. That's the city. That's not our responsibility. Now, I will say today it possibly was a little better because I care about the health and

090well welfare of our students and I asked the people that are taking care of our things to make it so that our folks can get to school as safe as possible. Now, I I with all due respect, I um appreciate, you know, hearing that people had to walk a few different miles, but I just wanted to let you know I received a a message from one principal whom said, "We don't have parking in my area. Can we park at homes?" I said, "Yes." They there were cars there. They gladly walked those seven blocks because they had a safe place to park. >> So, I'm not trying to say, you know, yeah, yeah, we we might have to walk. You know what I mean? We might have to walk. >> You should have to >> I

091hear you. I believe me. Like, I wish all of our schools had big parking lots. You know, you should have one spot per classroom, but that's not our reality, unfortunately. Not at all. >> And they unfortunately are not removing snow. You can't just push it. You got to pick it up and put it somewhere so that people can park safely. And then finally, um the principal at Rebecca Turner, her and her head custodian has submitted a list of items that are uh not working well over there and that is um going to be followed up on. >> Okay. Well, being that I'm being at BC, I'm going to be just like I was at Parker. I'm letting you know. >> Oh, no, no problem. >> All right. Okay. Oh, but what's going on at Parker?

092You didn't answer that. >> So, this the the city prior to me even talking with the board, which I emailed everybody, just an FYI, um called me this morning uh asking for support with uh snow removal and actually getting it off the property. Uh they quickly thought I, you know, we were going back and forth uh brainstorming. I said that um perhaps we can do the close schools. However, I need to talk to my facilities person. I need to talk to the board. And then they they just there was some miscommunication and they went on ahead and put a posting or communication out that said you could park here from this time to this time. Now, I know for a fact that I um didn't say that because we open North Columbus uh the Columbus

093parking lot to the staff at Mandela so that they have a place to park and they get there before 8:00. So, I wouldn't have never said 8 to 8. If anything, I would have said 8 to 6 or something that uh makes our staff not inconvenience. Uh so, there was a misunderstanding. They did apologize. They took the posting down, but now there's probably cars there because people saw it, >> right? Okay. All right. Um, when are you coming to walk, Rebecca Turner? >> Okay. I just want to know. >> Okay. All right. Miss Prince, >> when I was there, you wasn't there that day. >> All right. U Okay. Trusty Brown would like to respond to >> Okay. So, good evening. Um, I do want to respond to to um, Mr. Monroe, you mentioned about

094a collaborative effort. I want to let you know that, um, we have a meeting that you will see posted for Thursday, February 12th at 6:30 p.m. because we want the collaboration for the wellness committee. And so, um, please look out for that. If you want at the end, if you can give Rita your email address so that you get the personal Zoom link for that because we want to make sure that we keep you in the loop. I am part of um the facilities health and safety is the wellness portion and so I heard you. I wrote it down and I want to say it on record for those who want to help with the wellness please come to the meeting. We'll have it on Zoom. We'll have it in the evening because we want

095the community input. So Mr. Moro, that's towards your question comment. Um Miss Krenshaw, you mentioned us coming to Parker as a facilities. We I'm sorry, Rebecca. Parker's on my brain. Um, Parker is part of um, one of the things that we're doing as the facilities committee is we are going to each building and Rebecca and Rebecca Turner and Benjamin Turner are on the calendar for February 6. So, we will be walking there that day. So, if you see me, come holler at me and pull me. Okay. >> So, can the community be there also? I got to be there for you. >> Talk to your principal and if she says okay, then I'm right. I can't tell you not to work, but we'll be there that day. But you asked when we will be there

096and that's when we'll be there. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other comments? Uh Trusty >> Odoro and then Vice President Mitchell. >> Um I have a question uh for um Miss Andrea Droso um for the NAACap. Uh are you partnered with the ATSO or not? Um it's a program which in which uh it connects with the NAAP where they do competition. So I guess it's a no. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Okay. Vice President Mitchell. >> So I I just want to I want to thank I want to shout out all the custodians. So let's just look at it. About a couple of weeks ago, we were iced over and even though there was a plan, things didn't get executed for different reasons. The staff people listen, people call out sick when it

097snows. That's that's it. I do it. Well, I used to when I was working in the street, if I had to go outside, my son worked for parks. If it rain, he call out. Don't think for one second that anybody in the district, and I love all of my peoples. I love I love all of us, but our custodians do call out just because they see it snow. So, that was a huge factor. plus the fact that there was communication breakage. But I want you to look at what was impacted this time. Now I was past one of the schools that we mentioned earlier just yesterday. The street was absolutely unnavigable. Like I have a rear wheel drive car. I would have been sitting out there looking crazy for three hours just trying to get

098down one block. But I want to say for teachers at Lincoln to have to park at homes and walk is crazy. for for teachers that at at uh at Mandela to have to park at homes and walk is crazy work. I mean, but keep in mind it's still challenging when we really can't get the streets clean properly at all. I mean, it's not being removed, it's just being moved. And that's not now it's it's on all both sides of the of the city. It used to be that north side would get taken care of where they would see all of the clean streets and salt. Nah, come down my block right now. I sat outside for two hours looking crazy with four people trying to help me get my car out of snow. Looking crazy.

099All right. So, I want us to all understand that the amount of people that we have working for the district that are cleaning up there, they're overwork. They're doing their thing. They're coming in on the weekends and all of that, but keep in mind it is a it is a partnership and it's supposed to work like that where everybody does their part. I do agree that if we have students getting off of a bus and the school district has cleared the sidewalk and there's an ice patch because and just because it's a city street, it doesn't mean somebody shouldn't just take a shovel and say, "Let me just clear one little path." That's me talking personally. Okay? So, I agree with anybody that feels that way. But I do want all of us to understand

100it is a joint effort and it's not necessarily working in tandem. So there are challenges that we're trying to meet. Dr. Strickland is setting things aside to make things work. We're working at it still, but it's not. It's still still relatively broken to an extent. >> Uh I would just like to also say you have to remember this was also one of those historic snowstorms that we have not had in a very very long time. So, it was I think it was managed um to the best of our ability under the circumstances being fiscally stressed, making sure that all our staff was in place and due to callouts. But you got to remember that there was like 10 almost 10 and a half 10 and a half inches of snow which we have not had

101in I can't remember since probably I was a um youngster going to school and had to go snow and and 10 years ago. So it it was historic um one of the historic snowstorms. Um, so I would just like to to thank all the staff members that actually came out and did the job and for all of those schools and those teachers and staff members that came in on Tuesday even after trying to get shovel themselves out at home and working with their own families and still coming in and being here and present for our students on Tuesday because um it was still challenging on Tuesday and it's still challenging today. So, I just want to say thank you for those that um for your commitment. We we do appreciate it. At this time, we

102would like to uh move to entertain a motion for our consent agenda for items 6.1 through 9.4, which we reviewed at our work session on January the 16th. motion. Second. >> We have a first and we have a second. We have a motion. We have a second. Do we have any discussion? >> Those in favor? >> Those opposed? Abstensions. Motion carries. We are moving to >> 10. Dr. Strickland, you have Dr. Strickland, you have a comment. I was just going to say apparently I have to remove 10.3 from the uh >> Oh, okay. >> Okay. >> Yeah, we tabled it. >> And so we are now at 10. So we are looking at 10.1, 10.2, 10.4, and 10.5. Do we have any question? Do we have a motion? Second. We have a first and a

103second. Do we have any discussion on any of those items? Those in favor? Those opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. We're moving to 11. >> Do we have any comments or anyone any one of those resolutions that >> yes >> would like to be pulled? If so, please state >> yes. >> Okay. Trusty Peterson. >> Uh I emailed earlier. I would like to have uh resolution 11.12 pulled motion one and two >> no 11.12 one.12 >> 11 one point >> okay the last time we take >> we'll do a motion >> we don't need a motion >> okay so when whenever just for the uh sake of the public whenever a trustee would request that an item be pulled. It is automatically pulled for discussion. So, we will discuss it um in executive session. Any other

104qu any other comments or questions? >> Yes. Uh I have a question about 11.8. Um the superintendent's evaluation just and I apologize if I missed something in the timeline there. >> Yes. >> Um January 13th, superintendent submits self assessment and evidence of portfolio. Did we get did did I miss that? >> Yes. Dr. Strickland presented the >> evaluation process to us in August. >> Right. I remember the process. I remember reviewing the process, but the actual port evidence portfolio. Did Did that go to us? Did I miss that? >> So, uh, if you recall in my confidential letter, I did put my evaluation in there. However, because it it doesn't necessarily align with the MOI data, um I that's coming in right now. So, I selfassess where I feel that I am and as I

105gather the data, then I will put it all together and make sure you all have it. >> Right. And then the second was January 24th, individual board member evaluations due to the board president. Am I the only outer that didn't that >> because bec because the process has been delayed. Okay. >> Right. That has been delayed and so the state monitor >> right >> the the state monitor has um granted a concession on that. >> Okay. That's I just wanted to clarify. >> So we have not done that. >> So okay. So I'm not crazy that the timelines are lifted off. We're moving but the timelines are lifted off. >> Yes. We're moving forward. So we're looking to do that in February because we do have um a Yeah. >> So, do we do we

106need do we need to revise the dates on this or because if we vote yes on this it's or or >> it's still the process. >> It's mainly the process and the dates can be modified. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. >> This is >> Any other questions on that? >> Sorry, >> Dr. Strickland. >> This is um one of the requirements of the u academic plan that >> the state monitor. So we have to submit it by January 31st. So we we did speak to the state monitor. The dates can be modified but we do have to adopt the process. Okay. Any other questions? So I will entertain a motion for resolutions 11.1 through 11.11. Right. >> Motion second. First and second. Any discussion? Any further discussion? Those in favor? >> Those opposed? Abstensions?

107Motion carries. I would like to at this point um are there any comments that the board would like to make before we um moved I move to entertain a motion for entering into executive session to discuss the um some items that we pulled and some other items. Uh Trustee Mitch Vice President Mitchell you want to and you have one too. So um I usually try to let the leadership go last just for courtesy. So, and I will allow Trusty Middleton since she hasn't spoken tonight if she would could go first. >> Um, I don't know if I maybe missed something somewhere, but um it has come to my attention that um individual who was supervisor of payroll is has returned as a consultant and is being paid. So, I'm trying to figure out how they're

108being paid and if they really are or really have returned and um that's just something that I was not aware of if that is the case. >> Dr. Strickland, are you >> that can be addressed in executive session? >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Trusty Mcdana. >> Hi. I just wanted to note that I attended the U Association for Behavior Analysis International Autism Conference in the middle of the month, same day as that webinar, January 16th and 17th in New York City. It was a good conference. Um, so I just want to point that out. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Um, Trust Trusty Middleton, because you you haven't spoken much tonight, I'm gonna get I'm gonna yield the floor to you and then Trusty Odoro. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to ask I guess maybe I

109need to address you or Miss White, but I just want I've not heard anything in reference to pupil personnel and I know you might have mentioned a drop in enrollment, but um I'm just concerned read pupil personnel, our admits discharges. How are we really doing? Um what about those schools that have low enrollment? Are we looking at possibly another closure? What we doing? you know, so I'm just, you know, that that's something that crossed my mind because I've just I just don't hear about it. >> Yeah. >> And have not heard anything in reference to our enrollment in this district besides the fact that maybe it dropped a little bit. So in terms of admin discharges, low enrollment in buildings because I know at one point when I was working at one point if the

110enrollment was really low, those buildings did or were up to close but worked on the increase. So I just >> so we're currently working on the budget process. I um needed data on Friday. Uh but I still have not gotten that data uh for the rollups to determine um you know how many kindergarteners are going to come in, how many kindergarten sections I'm going to need to put in schools, um how many sixth graders need to go to this school, this school, this school. That stuff is coming. And the the largest thing is if I have any recommendations for uh closures or you know anything that's um that is going to cause you know possible waves. I will wait until I have those numbers to make that decision. I just did not want to haphazardly

111say, "Hey, this school needs to close >> right now." Like just looking towards the future. >> Oh, no. Well, we're we're about to um put a RFP out for a strategic planning process to really think about what we are doing for the future. Where are we trying to go? That's one of the things that's making things really hard. I don't make decisions half-hazardly. I'm very thoughtful. I think about the people that it affects. I think about the babies. We got to make sure that I take everything into account before I just say, "Yep, this school has low enrollment, so we're closing." Because at the end of the day, that's still a school, that's a community that has developed and we have to be very careful with things. Closing schools means you got to find places

112for those other individuals and we don't really have them at the right locations at this time. >> Yeah, honestly. >> Okay. Uh anyone else before uh Trustee Odoro? >> Oh, um I was just going to say this uh assistant trustee, I was uh have something to share. Uh one of my uh some fellow students uh did share something with me lately um well was dealing with last year um that teacher turnover is making it learning uh harder and difficult for uh students to learn recently. uh some classes like math classes um have uh difficult learning a difficult time learning for this reason because um I know one class at least or actually three class I kind of forgotten the numbers but I know one class at least had at least four teachers um for this

113year for a course subject which is actually affecting one or some well great amount of students. So um I just put it out there for that part and I already know the whole history because of the contract and all the reasons and I actually did my research but yeah >> thank you and we are very sensitive to that and we are well aware Dr. Shickland would like to respond to you. So to respond to you, uh, Trustee Ardoro, um, I take, uh, teacher turnover, um, that's really big for me. Um, making sure that there's a qualified individual in front of every student, uh, needs to be a must. Uh, I will say that I have actually been doing some exit interviews. And I want to put this out there because I worked in the district

114as a principal where it was a decade that the teachers did not have the contract. A decade. Yet two people left me. It's culture. We have to work on our culture. We have to make sure people trust people. We have to build it so that people don't leave. I've met with a lot of folks um that are leaving the district and I wanted to know why and that was the last thing they told me was money. So, just letting you know. >> I want to say thank you. Um well I just want to not make my um um student well no not student um younger uh students uh not experience the same thing that I technically didn't do because whenever one of uh some students ask me how um how do I get to this

115positions and all the stuff um I can't even tell them because it's not even possible anymore because a lot of teachers already left and you know that's kind of sad. So >> thank you again. >> Okay. Uh, Vice President Mitchell, >> thank you. Um, Trusty Odoro, I'm gonna just say that it's got to make it more difficult when you have you're trying to get your recommendation letters for college. >> So, your teachers that you had in 11th grade and you had this incredible experience with that you would look to to write those recommendations, that causes a much bigger challenge. So, uh, definitely, uh, it's something not everybody has a superintendent that'll write them a recommendation, but yeah, you're right. Um, so >> a lot of recommendations. >> So, so, um, I want to say I

116want to, um, just say about, uh, President, uh, Marabel from the public library. Thank you for showing up. You said you want to invite us to something for Black History. Please don't hesitate to go to the district page. There is an invite the board link. You can click it so all of us can be invited. Nobody invites us to anything. And I feel like I know nobody cares about me and nobody else here. But listen, I want to ask again, here we are, Black History Month. I challenge the schools to put together robust Black History Month exhibits that the board can be invited to. Mandela usually comes out every year, does their thing, and they do it big. Uh Trusty Middleton and I attended one, I think it was two years ago. Uh last year

117I didn't I don't know if we were invited, but I would really like to see it's unfortunate enough that we don't get it all year round that we don't get enough exposure to black history beyond uh the the um the handful of people that we always know about and hear about. But there's so much more and I really would like to see it in our schools again. The way the science fair we talked about was kept alive. I was at Benjamin Turner last year. The science fair was absolutely amazing. But I really would like to see more of these type of events that the board can just be invited to so that we can come and see it and we can really just hold the kids uh hold the babies up and the teachers as

118well for what they're doing. So I look forward to getting invited to some stuff uh this this uh coming Black History Month. >> Thank you, Trusty Mitchell. I think that there's a glitch in that um link on the system because I I really believe there's a glitch because we haven't seen anything. So I would just like to encourage the public that if that if you want to invite the board please also the other alternative is to send an email to our district clerk Rita James and she will notify us because sometimes our well I shouldn't say sometimes our we realize that our website is can be challenging to navigate. So we you may not be able to find that link. Also, I do believe that there's a glitch in the link because um I think

119some people are getting it in their calendars and then there are some people that aren't receiving it at all. So, just to ensure that everyone receives it, I think that we need to take a look at that and also um again see uh send an email to our district clerk, Rita James, or even contact her or call her up and let her know that you would like for us to attend your event so that we don't miss anything. >> Okay. and >> Monday >> parent involvement day. >> Okay. So, >> go ahead, make the announcement. >> I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that on Monday, February 9th 9th because our next uh meeting is that Tuesday the 10th. Monday, February 9th is parent involvement day in the district. Parents, guardians, aunts, uncle,

120cousins, whoever is involved in our students lives, please come on out. We have some amazing programs um scheduled for the day at each school. So, please come on out. Monday, February 9th, parent involvement day across the entire Mount Vernon City School District. So, we're can't wait to see you. >> Okay, Dr. Strickland, you have a final word. >> Um just a final word. Thanks. Uh today I had the pleasure of uh test um providing testimony to our state legislature um advocating on behalf of our priorities here in Mount Vernon. And I must say that the whole interaction that I was feeling with those uh ways and means uh committee members and and our own assemblymen and uh senator mayor and it keeps going on. I felt heard. Um, it really did feel good and I

121I just have a feeling that just from the experience today, things are going to definitely turn around. It it's only a matter of time, but I'm I'm out here in the streets and in the schools. Um, but uh I really feel that we are getting somewhere and that information actually will be made available on the district website so that everyone can actually view it. Um, I was a little perched, so forgive me because I was sitting there all day. We sit there from 9:30 and then I didn't go on until 3:30 and then I drove back. >> So, you are you are Senator Corey Booker >> with a glass of water. >> Thank you. And and it's exciting to advocate on everyone's behalf and I'm just let me just let you know that I'm here

122for it. And I want to say thank you for the passion and the inspiration and the excitement and the expertise that you actually advocate for us um with uh it's we also I just want to just say that we are also on the radar of the commissioner and our assembly people our state senators because they were actually here in district I understand on Friday meeting with the superintendent and our state monitor and seeking to find out what it is that we need in order to um move forward past the state monitor information and also to get us off of this fiscally stressed district. So, we are on the radar and we are moving forward. We are gaining the attention and of the commissioner and New York State Education Department and of our elected officials. So,

123I just want to say thank you Dr. Strickland for raising the level and raising the bar to ensure that that they view us as important and they view our students as indiv as students that we knowing that our need is critical especially at this time. Okay. Anything else? Okay. So let's um I would like to entertain a motion to move to enter into an exe executive session. Um I think we have to read the statement first. >> For the purpose of discussing pending litigation, the financial history of a particular person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or corporation and to receive legal advice on pending matter. I'll take a motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Abstain. We

124are now entering into executive session. We will not return to this room. We uh we will be considering 11.12 in executive session but we will not be entering or entertaining that into in this room. Okay. So thank you very much.