001Good evening everyone. We will call to order now the Mount Vernon City School District School Board Trustee business meeting. Today is December the 16th, 2025. Um we would like to let you know that our trustee Wanda White will be joining us virtually. And will we everyone please stand for the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United. >> Thank you. Roll call, please. >> Trusty Brown, >> present. >> Trusty Kelly. >> Trusty Mcdana, >> present. Trusty Middleton >> Trusty Peterson. >> Trusty Scott >> Trusty White. >> Present. >> VP Mitchell >> present. >> President Marabel >> present. >> We have a quorum. I would like to entertain a motion right now in order to go into executive session to handle some business if uh after the clerk reads the notice. Can I have
002a motion, please, to enter enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation the financial history of a particular person or corporation or matters leading to their appointment, employment, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation and to receive legal advice on pended matter. Motion please. >> Motion second. >> All in favor? >> Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. >> We are now in executive session. We will return at approximately 6:30, but at 6:30 we will give you an update if we're not ready to reenter the the room. Thank you. >> We are about to reconvene to public session. I'd like to entertain a motion to uh come out of executive session, please. It's been moved and properly seconded that we come out of executive session. Are there any questions?
003>> We'll call for the vote. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. We are back in public session. >> Okay. I'd like to also acknowledge that we have trustee Kelly, Trustee Peterson, and Exofficial Trustee Odoro have have joined us and they will be included in the attendance and in the roll call. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to call for Dr. Strickland's report. Great evening, President Marabell, Vice President Mitchell, fellow board trustees, students, families, staff, and the greater Mount Vernon community. This is the superintendence report for the month of December. Next slide. This afternoon, we recognize the hardworking and dedication of our support staff throughout the district. Each school chose a school safety officer, lunch monitor, custodian, cafeteria staff, and school counselor to be recognized with this honor. Congratulations
004to you all. Your unwavering commitment to our scholars and district does not go unnoticed. Schools throughout the district are celebrating the holidays in big ways. From winter wonderlands to holiday concerts, students and staff are excited for the holiday season. I had to the pleasure of attending Nelson Mandela's winter wonderland event last Monday evening where over 100 students and their parents attended. It is always such a joy to see families together spending quality time during the holiday season. Tomorrow at 5:45, Graham School will be hosting their winter showcase. I encourage Graham's families to attend and see the magical creativity of our scholars. I also wanted to take the time to give a shout out to Mrs. Oliver's class in uh Nelson Mandela, grade 2. Uh today I had the privilege of being um with those little
005wonderful babies in second grade and we made gingerbread houses and uh I had to tell them to stop eating the candies off of the roof. But uh it was it was a great time and it's just that that's what I love about you know this position. Next slide. Hundreds of high school students have earned honor role, high honor role and principal list for the first quarter of the 202526 school year. Congratulations to you all. This accomplishment is one you have you should be very proud of. I am sure you will keep this high achieving academic momentum as the school year progresses. Next slide. As a reminder, report cards can now be accessed uh through Infinite Campus as well as progress reports, student schedules, attendance records, and much more. Infinite Campus can be accessed through the
006district website under quick links on the top right of the homepage. And just uh another uh for your information, I am discussing with my staff uh the uh possibility of mailing out actual physical reports because I do think that's still important for parents to be able to see where their students are uh in terms of the fiveweek uh progress period as well as the report cards. Next slide. All eighth grade students took the Mount Vernon Steam Academy pre ACC entrance exam last Wednesday. We will be opening this opportunity up to 9th graders uh who will uh take the exam in January if they sign up. Uh more details on that will come. Uh for resources and information, please visit the district website. And just to clarify again, uh if seats are available, then we are
007u possibly offering it to students that may uh want to transfer into steam uh for their 10th grade year. We will not do anything after the 10th grade year. Next slide. As the Mount Vernon School City School District begins planning the 2026 2027 annual budget, the district invites you to share your input. Please take the opportunity to share what is most important to you as it relates to our schools. This survey will be open until Friday, December 19th, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. The district's budget is built on prioritizing academic achievement, student services, and fiscal responsibility. So, we ask that you focus your input on the educational and operational aspects of the district. You can visit our website or scan the QR code on the screen to access the survey. And I want to thank those
008900 uh almost 900 plus individuals, students, staff, community members that have already taken the opportunity to take the survey and provide their input. Next slide. The state education department visited the Mount Vernon Board of Education office Thursday morning. uh last Thursday. Here I presented the district's strengths as well as challenges empathizing needs for the district to move forward and succeed. The purpose of this visit was to identify potential support from the state education department and its partners to further implement plan recommendations. Thank you to all of those who attended and shared your input. Next slide. As a reminder, schools will be closed from December 22nd through January 2nd. They will reopen on Monday, January 5th, 2026. In regards to resources for over the break, Mount Vernon maintains an on-site food pantry with Feeding Westchester for
009anyone facing food insecurity. If you have an emergency food need, please contact one of the WCHC Mount Vernon PA patient patient advocates to be screened to receive an emergency supply. Next slide. And finally, uh thank you. If you have any questions or concerns about anything with the presentation, uh I welcome your questions. And that concludes my report for December. Thank you, Dr. Strickland. >> You're welcome. >> We will now have a followup on questions from the treasures report for September and October by Amy Skiff. >> Hi everybody. Yes. Um, okay. I I didn't realize there were questions. Um, I will share my screen and share the treasures report and then you can ask me any questions that you may have. Let me >> share this. >> Just presented. Oh, I'm not able to share. It's
010not letting me. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. So, you're seeing the September report which um you reviewed. So are there particular questions on on the September report? >> Does anyone have any questions on the September report? >> I can go through the the um the mechanics of it again as we did before. um you know showing you the the basic the beginning the top part is going to show you the receipts that were received during the month by different funds and different accounts and the cash dispersements are are listed below that to show you how you're paying out your payroll your bill schedules um any transfers between the funds and then the reconciliation with the bank statement itself Um, is there a desire for trustees for her to go over the report again or
011are you comfortable? Are you um are there any questions on the September report? Okay. Uh, okay. Trustee Mitchell, Vice President Mitchell, >> just just so I'm just so I'm 100%. This would say that we're fully reconciled to the bank as of the September report. Correct. >> Right. September, October, and November is actually done now, but you've not seen it yet. Um, so yes, we're fully reconciled up through um November, and you'll see at at the bottom of each report. So this is September, and here is the October report, which I believe you received also, which is fully reconciled. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions? We can move to the October report. Are there any questions on the October report? Hearing none, um can we ask when the November report will
012be presented? >> Uh the November uh report will be uh presented in January at the um do you think the work session or the shoot the work session work session. >> Excuse me. Um, any other questions? >> Pardon me. Hearing none, then we will move on to comments from our state monitor, Dr. Kimberly Young Wilkins. >> Um, thank you so much, uh, Amy, for coming in and sharing with us and and asking us if you had any questions. We appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Good evening. Um I'm going to just kind of reiterate what I report out last week was a little bit of up last um two two weeks ago at the work session. >> Um as of December 3rd, I think the commissioner approved our um the plan
013and the letter went out to president and to superintendent. So the plan has been approved by the commissioner of the state of New York >> and all the trustees received a copy. >> Okay, perfect. Um, so just as a reminder, we had some things that had come up immediately inside of the plan. One of them is again on page 19, which is talent and evidence of full adherence to all components of the APR, MPPR, and PEP to be initiated in the format approved by the monitor shall be including each district quarterly and each annual report. And um, Miss Graves has that already worked out. We they're getting reminders. there's a plan um in adherence to all the components of those three plans at this point. So that is moving forward. The second one is instructional
014transformation page 22 and um effective immediately the district shall establish an operational procedure for ensuring the timely completion of annual reviews provide monthly IP review reports to the monitor and superintendent in a mutually agree upon format. The annual review cycle starts as of 1219, which means that this coming Friday, but the real date starts when you soon you get back in January. So between like January 3rd, whatever that Monday is until um April 30th is when all your annuals should be done. On the first Tuesday of each month, we will be meeting with the special ed folks with myself and superintendent to figure out where you are with the completion of the annuals. I also ask that they also come up with the contingency plan for those who have missed that time frame of the
015basically um December 19th through April 30th for their annuals. This is important that we hit these benchmarks. That's the minimally we can do is make sure the annuals are happening at a good time. So that is already moving forward. Um financially, and you already didn't do it, so I'm just going to say it. Um, effectively immediately there should be a treasury report presented monthly to the board. Um, you've already missed that one. This is the last time it's happened. You need to have a treasury report every time. Either the business meeting, it should really be the business meeting, not the um, work session. By the business meeting, this board should have a treasury report period. I'm not going to elaborate any further on that. >> So, may I ask since we did not get the
016November report, is it okay for us for them to present the Absolutely. the November at the work session and then December at the business session. Thank you. >> But this is the last time it needs to get done. >> Um turnaround leadership. Um this is around the board and Robert's rules of order. This is on page 15. Um we're looking at artifacts demonstrating the following shall be made accessessible for review of the monitor annual training uh at the first board meeting for Robert's rules of order. in-house council is serving as your parliamentarian and documentations of violations of Robert rules of trustees will be um noted and moved forward. So at this point going back into Robert's rules, I ask that we make sure in the meeting because Robert's rules only is about the meetings, the
017conduct of the meetings, you need to recognize be recognized by the chair when speaking. And once you're recognized by the chair, you as you have your conversation, you say what you're going to say and you recognized by the chair and you finish. Um let the next person have the conversation be recognized by the chair without interruption. That's happened twice. A third time I'm done with it. So we are going to act accordingly when it comes to Robert's rules. Um also there will be a PD in regards to Robert's rules in January. We also have some issues around board privilege that will be coming in by um NISBA as well in January. Um there's more to come on that but for Robert's rules I'm just asking nicely at this point. It's happened twice where we are
018not inherent to Robert's rules when we're talking to each other and recognize and when you have a comment going back you really are supposed to look at the chair person not the person that you're trying to have the issue with but in order to do that just recognize be recognized by the chair say your piece and let the next person either address it or answer it without interruption. >> Is there anything I need to explain? It's pretty black and white. That's my comments. >> Okay. Thank you. Any questions, Vice President Mitchell? Uh, thank you, uh, Dr. Wilkins for that. think that um I think that the the change there's been a long time that a lot of behavior has gone on on this board for a very long time consistently unchecked with no one to
019explain the importance of Robert's rules or for any of us to be enforced to follow it and I think that even the general public who has watched us on this day as I me one of them has not we've all had time frames when we've not followed followed these rules because number one, no one truly took the time to make sure that we understood them. Number one, and number two, there was definitely no one enforcing it. So for the public that's watching, this is a new day and this is what we're supposed to be doing and this is how we're supposed to carry on, myself included. So I thank you for bringing the clarity to us, Dr. Wilkins, and um thank you very much for that. >> Okay, thank you. Any other questions? We're going
020to move on to committee reports. 6.1 budget committee report from Trusty Mcdana. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. The budget committee met on November 26th. It was our first meeting. Uh Dr. Strickland, Dr. Joseph, and I were in attendance. Uh we discussed the 2026 2027 budget calendar. The revised budget calendar is on the agenda tonight. I think it's item 113. Uh we reviewed the committee charter. It's on the website, so I'm not going to go over that here. We discussed the need to ensure alignment of budget priorities with the district's academic improvement and financial plans as described by Dr. Young Wilgan's report. We touched upon the approach to budgeting known as zerobased budgeting, ZBB. Um, this is a method of budgeting that starts essentially from scratch instead of building off of a prior year's budget. Um,
021in zerobased budgeting, every dollar of revenue is assigned to a spec specific job like spending, saving, uh, debt. uh so that total revenues minus total expenses, savings and debt equals zero. Um and it's a way to ensure that no money is unaccounted for. So I think the intention is to move into a zerobased budgeting approach here in Mount Vernon, which I believe is a very good thing. We discussed the need for enhanced transparency and communication with the public. We talked about the need to develop a multi-year financial projection and capital plan that identifies potential risks to the district's financial stability and strategies to mitigate those risks. We discussed the need to develop a plan to strengthen the district's fiscal reserves. We discussed a meeting schedule uh that allows us to meet at least quarterly, but
022we're actually be meeting monthly. I think it's the last Wednesday every month at noon that we'll be meeting. And then we reviewed uh the superintendent's budget priorities for the 2026 2027 academic year. Just briefly, there were five targets. Expansion of the international balorette program. Uh settling contracts with the Mount Vernon Administrators Group and the Civil Service Employees Association sooner if we can. Um begin a true bilingual program at Hamilton. upgrade the technology infrastructure and classroom technology devices and expand mental health and student support services pertaining to uh a community schools model. That's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any questions on Trusty McDonald's report? >> Okay. And Dr. Strickland would like to make a comment. >> Yes, just to clarify, uh these are next year's budget priorities. on this year's uh one of
023the largest priorities obviously would be settling the MVFT uh teachers fed TF FT okay like federation of teachers got you um settling their contract so um you know contingent on that we would then be moving forward forward with the rest of the bargaining units u for next year's budget cycle. >> Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Okay, moving forward the health and safety facilities committee report from Trusty Brown. >> Good evening everyone. Um I would like to report out on our facilities health and safety committee. We had our first meeting November 12th. Um we conduct our meetings the second Wednesday of each month. Um, and so at our meeting present was Superintendent Strickland, um, Matamore, Mike Reagusa, Andrea Gailing, Patrick Flores, Talia Langley, uh, Jessica Grace, Donna Jackson, and myself. Um, and this was our
024first meeting. So, we kind of set um, how we would want to get through this year on the committee. Um, with the closing of schools last year, um, the school buildings didn't have an official building walkthrough, so we wanted to set that as our standard. Um, so I'm happy to report we have been through eight buildings. Um, and we I tried to go a little aggressive, but with uh school closings and people getting sick, myself too. Um, we did get through eight and we do have um six more scheduled um right after the break. Um so while we did these walkthroughs um we um discussed that each school building is compliant and um have uploaded their school emergency response plan. So we are we are in compliant with that. Um we also part of our
025committee um we were instructed when we had our uh board retreat that the district had a lot of committees and so we were to um encompass the wellness committee as a subgroup to the self um health and safety facilities committee and so the wellness committee is an ad hoc committee in the district's wellness policy um by law. So it ties directly to the school nutritional program. um this committee will establish a separate meeting schedule but during our meeting we discussed that we would just include it in our meeting because we didn't need to have another meeting. We can discuss it. We can set time aside during those meetings to do that. So um all of those committee members are now also on the wellness committee. Thank you very much. Um but we are also looking
026for other others who would like to join. You can email Rita James R. James Vernon CSDO.org. RG um if you would like to join that committee as well. Um so the wellness committee needs to open to a broader group to include nurses, parents, health uh professionals, teachers, and students. Um and so as of now, the wellness policy is up to date, but expires July 5th, 2026. And as per New York State, this policy will need to be updated and/or before August 15, 2026. So again, those who would like to join, we would love for you to attend. We meet virtually, so you can just pop on when you can. Um, let's see what else. I think that's it for now. Um, again, we we did hold our second meeting, but I wanted to just start
027with letting you guys know of our first meeting. Um, and at the next board meeting, I will give another report. And that's it. >> And the date of your next meeting? Um, the date of the next meeting is January, Bear with me, my apologies. Thank you, Randy. January 14th at noon. >> Thank you. And the next meeting for budget. We'll make sure that these dates are on the website. >> January. >> Thank you. January 28th at noon. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> That concludes my report. >> Thank you, Trusty Brown. Are there any questions for Trusty Brown's report? Yes, Trusty Middleton. >> Um, if I'm on the right page, right track in terms of facilities, um, I did get pictures. I got phone calls and concerns re um, no snow removal this week, which
028was seemed to be a big problem where you have prek at RTA um, that had to go back and forth and nothing happened. Um, I have pictures of other schools where nothing happened. So, um I'm just putting it out there. And um also I do want to say in terms of facilities you have I've got um concerns re William school where the breakfast because elevators that been a complaint not working they bring the breakfast outside come all the way around to the front of the building. By that time I'm sure it's cold. Okay. So that's a problem. And uh when it comes to facilities, when it comes to those types of things, this should already been fixed. My understanding is it went to the principal and he said he's working on the parts. I don't
029know how he is, but you know, so um those are gigantic concerns. >> Dr. Strickland, would you like to respond? >> Sure. Um yes, of course there are concerns and I 100% uh do not um I will always, you know, talk about the proactive plan of what we are doing to address them. First of all, the latter that has been addressed in terms of the elevator at Williams and in in fact uh Trustee Brown or Chairwoman Brown has also um they went to the school. Now, if it isn't, then we have to now make sure that the principal knows and then that information gets to buildings and grounds so that we are able to actually make sure that it's put back online. So that's uh >> so that that was the first thing. The second
030uh in regards to um these snow removals. So as you are likely aware, we had to pull the bid back from the last board meeting because of the fact that it included sidewalks, which we were actually stating was going to be on the district uh to actually get that done. That email went out on Friday uh saying that, you know, we're anticipating snow and that we need to make sure that, you know, the schools are going to have their uh their sidewalks uh shoveled. And uh then we had um a truck with an actual salter and a sander that would actually be out there to um melt the snow that came. Um unfortunately after two schools or three schools uh that sander broke. Okay. And you know again we're doing this in house. Not saying
031that it's the best situation at the moment. Uh so what we had to do is sort of backtrack and figure out who is actually going to get out there and actually get um you know the the the plows out for our um our parking lots. Um, I was, believe me, I was up at 4:00 a.m. uh texting with our facilities uh individuals saying like, "What's going on? What's the status updates? You know, what do we need to do?" But of course, by then it's ice because of the fact that now it's compacted. It's now too cold and the sand and salt are basically or virtually ineffective when that is the case. However, uh we were still making sure that that was happening multiple times during the day. Now, uh, what I will say is, um,
032I've gotten a lot of, um, of calls and and I've answered every single one of them. I want to continue to have us, uh, go through, go back to the building principal first. The building principal then gets the information to the superintendent. So then I can actually figure out where the moving parts are because now what's happening there's like a free-for-all in the district and everyone's emailing and sending messages to everyone and sometimes people were sending me stuff where I'm trying to act on it and they didn't even let their building principal know which they could have done something in house or like to to rectify the issue uh beforehand. Uh so nonetheless meeting with the team, talking with the team, even talking with CSEA in my monthly meeting on Thursday on how we rectify
033these issues because I'm not here for things repeating itself over and over again. Safety of course is utmost. You know, if kids are not safe, then they cannot learn uh effectively. So, I'm definitely taking these um those pictures, all the things that I've gotten every email into consideration to ensure that uh we move forward in a positive direction. >> Okay. Qu hold on. Um Trusty Brown, then I'll come back to you. >> I just wanted to follow up and then you can have >> Hold on. Hold on. All right. Trusty Brown, >> if she has a question, then I can hold until she gets her question. >> If we're working on Robert's rules, it's one person speaks before. >> Anyway, doc, I just wanted to kind of end it. >> Okay, hold on a second.
034>> Okay, that's not how Okay, I'm I'm trying to adhere to the rules to Robert's rules of order. Okay. I'm trying to to abide by Robert's rules of order where one person gets to speak and then after every other person gets to speak, I will rotate back to the other person. Okay. So, Trusty Brown, thank you. >> Okay. So, in regards to Williams, um while I didn't report on Williams, Williams does have two elevators and so one is considered an elevator and one is considered a lift. And unfortunately, the lift has a part that cannot be ordered right away. So it is on order for the lift. So if you when you go if you have the information there are two elevators at Williams and one is a lift and so the elevator was fixed
035early on because I went to that school and um that was clo that was like in the beginning of the year. Yeah. So the lift may have >> trusty brown can you direct your comments to the chair please? >> I apologize. Um so there are two elevator there are two one is a lift and one is an elevator. One was repaired. Now, if the lift is down as of last week, that is something new, but there was a part that was ordered um from our last meeting and so we were waiting for that one part. So, >> okay. Thank you, Trustee Vice President Mitchell. >> So, just for just for for points for points of clarification um communication to the building lead, there's a breakdown. If I'm not mistaken, that's that's what I'm seeing. And
036this is not new. So the communication to the building lead there's a breakdown. Trustees are being alerted of these situations but not building leads. That's an issue. So if you don't So basically what we're trying to communicate is that your building lead is your true first line of getting things done. So if the superintendent shouldn't find out from us really the superintendent should be finding out from building leads. So and building leads you should be hearing communication from your head custodians of all of this. So, this is not and again, this is not this is not new. I did drive past Williams, I'm sorry, Graham this morning, and I did see I believe it's the head custodian. He was using an ice pick, an ice scraper that's basically this big. I can't do it. In
037any event, Wuang, it was this. It was like this. It was like, all right. And he was ice scraping the entire sidewalk with it. One guy. The whole sidewalk. A whole It was like a whole block. So, and and I'm going to and and I was thinking my first question was, well, we we got this company that does the landscaping and all of that. So, how so why are they not helping? Why are they not Well, but that's because the snow removal is not part of that bid. So, I had to go back and look at it myself, right? Cuz I asked the question. So, I was one of the first people who actually saw the one of the buildings my building that my son goes to. The entire parking lot was blocked off, iced
038over, so teachers couldn't get in to get to their handicap parking spaces. And we did talk about this immediately on Monday when I saw it. Point of clarification, Dr. Strickland, you said that there was communication sent out Friday. Yes. >> So that we should have been prepared for this on Monday. So we have so you so there's to me it looks like there's several breakdowns in process between communication to board to district I'm sorry building leadership and then following through that what was discussed and implemented to be put in place Friday night to be ready for Monday also fell apart. The fact that the sander machine the sander on the truck broke down we have one truck and that's the only truck that does it another conversation. Mhm. >> So, just for points of clarity,
039we have to make sure that we're talking to to the right people first. Building leads should know exactly what's going on before trustees ever find out anything. And trustees should not know before building leads and then the superintendent. >> Okay. Thank you. Dr. Strickland, did you want to respond to that? and then I'll um back to Middleton. >> Those are absolutely great points. Um I uh definitely in any type of breakdown I always go to the team and start analyzing where is the breakdown. One of the things I will say is that we have to do better with communicating with the custodians and the principal uh so that everyone is understanding and knowing what it is that we ex exactly need uh for folks uh what we need them to accomplish and how do we
040need it to get done. That piece has not been consistent. Uh and again, you know, sometimes the trials and errors are needed to actually find out where the holes are. so that we can get better. So, um do duly noted uh I did take a suggestion that you uh provided. I can't talk much about it. Um but we are looking at how we can um ensure that uh th this this organization possibly support uh us with the snow removal as they have been. they have stepped in uh to uh give us sanders and salters um and plowing um but also getting there before the school day starts. That's going to be optimal so that staff are most uh safe. >> Okay, >> Trusty Middleton, you had a followup. >> Okay, thank you. Um, I would
041just like to ask um our ex official trustee if he has any report to make before we move on to public comment. >> Good evening work. Um, honestly my report actually was a speech was basically everything that you basically talked about with the snow. Um, I actually did my research. Um well, first um comments were brought up to me about why the parking lots and um you know u sidewalks were filled with slow uh um filled with snow because it could lead to injuries and we can have lawsuits because of that. But uh I did my research and apparently we used to have at least six trucks. So I heard and we gave it back back to the companies and now we have like one so I've heard but um the other research I did
042kind of led to um well most of them with us with this large large p of snow in our parking lots and stuff. And honestly, um there's not much to say even though I have a speech and I could read it. Um you guys went through each and every one of them. So um I'll just leave it at that. >> Okay. Thank you very much. So we'll move any other questions or comments. Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to public comment. 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
043note that the board is here to listen. The public comment period is not designed to be a discussion. Accordingly, please do not expect the board to respond to your concerns and questions tonight. However, if we are able to, we will. This is because we take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need be. If we are not able to respond tonight, we will respond to your question and concerns at a future meeting or have the proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time. I also want to remind you that under state and federal privacy laws, we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school personnel. that includes emails to the board. Please know, however, that we take personnel concerns very
044seriously. On personnel matters, we ask you to go through the appropriate administrative channels. If you send us communications regarding a personnel matter, we will not respond because we are not able to under law. We are currently preparing a comprehensive organization chart which denotes who should be contacted for different issues and we ask that you follow that organization and chain of command when asking about issues. Finally, we recognize that right now our nation and our community are polarized on a number of issues. That said, we want our school board meetings to serve as an example to our students that 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. In that spirit, we will insist that all speakers and members
045of the audience, including the board, maintain civility and respect for any divergent views that others possess. We ask that speakers please address their comments to the board directly rather than the audience. Speakers may address any topic of concern other than personnel. 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 you may submit written comments to the board at BOE trustees at mount at mtveroncsd.org or rjames mtveroncsd.org or dstrickland mtveroncsd.org. In lie of speaking during the public comment period if you choose. The board will now entertain public comments. Each individual speaker is allotted three minutes. 3 minutes. No additional time. 3 minutes. If you do not use your allotted time, it will be forfeited and is not
046eligible to be yielded to another speaker. The individual time limits will be enforced so that as many members of the public who wish to speak may be allowed to do so. We are now open for public comment. >> Marvin Church. >> Good evening, fellow board members and superintendent. My name is Marvin Church. I'm the associate executive director for an a group called Environmental Leaders of Color and we're based here in Mount Vernon, New York. Um we have a executive director who was my immediate supervisor and boss. Her name is Dr. Diana Williams and she's also a Mount Vernon resident of color was established in 2021 and we've been moving forward into 2000. In this this current year we have serviced 350 students throughout the city of Mount Vernon. ours facility. We serve students in throughout
047Westchester County and underserved communities. We're in Portchester, New Rashelle, Mount Vernon, Yoners, Austining, Peak Skill, and also we're expanding um this year, next year to White Plains, Greenberg, Sleepy Hollow, and we're looking right now to work with the ST new STEM Academy up in Syracuse, New York that have been contacted as as well as Albany. We have three programs that we have here in Mount Vernon. We have the technology environmental program. We have the summer student program which is six weeks for students throughout the county. And we have the ambassador environmental program. So within our program, we have various students that really participate heavily from Mount Vernon. We want to see more Mount Vernon residents students from 9th to 12th grade participate in our program more. Based on that, we've had with our program in
0482021, we've had um 2022, we had a program called clean energy. We had Bruce Jackson as our um speaker. our topic was water and this money possibilities and Anton von Vincent who was president of Mars Wrigley the Eminem folks spoke with our students that year 2024 I was talking with was human waste and we had Heather Corbett former um correspondent from ABC News um Night Line and in 2025 we had Dr. J. Marshall um Shepard who is the first black meteorologist with a PhD from Florida State University and he spoke about weather and climate. So these are some of the programs that we have and within our programs we provide stipens for our students in our technology program in our summer student program and our ambassador program. Thank you. We just want more participation from
049the city of Mount Vernon through the high schools from 9th and 12th grade. And we had a wonderful graduation this past uh Saturday at Westchester Community College which was an outstanding program teaching AI and various programs. Young people have learned a lot of programming from us and we want to continue that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Church. Uh Dr. Strickland would like to make a comment. I believe he attended the ceremony on Saturday. >> Yes. Um, I did attend the ceremony uh on Saturday and it was a great experience. I got to see some of our scholars from Mount Vernon High School um the Steam Academy actually get their awards. They actually presented these amazing uh AI uh coded created stuff that they did themselves. is one of my guys uh did a boxing
050AI program like you could compare two boxers and it gives you like who would possibly win in a competition and I was just amazed. One kid made I mean his whole thing looked like a video game and um it it was amazing. We definitely be will be um highlighting those programs um in our high schools so so that more of our students are involved. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, >> Cynthia Krenshaw. Thank you. Um, good afternoon. Whatever. um the schools with the social activities you are being you are doing a great job. I see it on Facebook what's going on with our schools and it is fantastic and I'll always comment babbley about that but there is a head not are you aware that there are a group of population kids that cannot
051read that they cannot read you are aware of that okay that we really need to do something about and to the monitor you said that the IEPs has to be done by a certain time did you say that Okay, because I have a person that's in contact with me about the IEPs and we can talk about that later. That her son has been moved from several different schools and she has not gotten any help. If we cannot help a child, are we allowed to put them out outplace them because this child has been going through a lot? Okay. And she got she feels that she has went to the administrative here. She's talked to you guys and she's not getting any help. So, we're going to be looking into that um that more. And as
052far as your president, he has taken away King and Junth and put his birthday in these federal um state parks. Now, why can't we preserve our history? And you know where I'm going with that. Why as people of color, we cannot preserve our own history like the Cecil H. Parker picture that's collecting dust. as I talked to one of the trustees and they was talking about moving the picture from school to school. If you do that, that's going to be harm done to that picture and you know that the library is celebrating 130 years this year. This book is a centennial for 100 years and has a lot of good stuff in it. The next time this book would be published will be 2092 and I don't think none of us would be here. I
053mean, some of you might, but I know I won't be here. And stuff like that, like this picture and anything we can gather should be in this book. I'm trying to find out who the historian is so we can find out exactly to get the history for Mount Vernon. The school's closing the whole nine yards. We should capture all that information. As far as Edward Williams elevator, I got a call today. That elevator is not working. You're talking about a lift. They had to take the food out today and bring it around and put it in the school. It is not fixed. They have talked to the principal and everybody else. They feel disrespected. They feel because of the school is in the location that it's in that is why is not being prepared. As
054far as the snow um the snow that is an F. They did absolutely nothing. As far as the prek steps, I wish you could see the steps. One lady almost fell down the steps. I'm talking about little kids and parents. And I know you talking about talk to your lead person. People don't know who the lead person is. People voted on you trustees because you said that we could talk to you. People could talk to you. Now you saying you have to go to the lead. You have to go through this. You have to go through that. But I can tell you one thing. If you do not listen to your constituents, you will not be here when you get elected again. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Crunchaw. >> Quite Mark Stucky. Good evening.
055My name is Mark Stucky. I am the whistleblower. Tonight I stand here because we cannot purchase anything from Home Depot because we are on a lockdown, a freeze down. So, what's taking place is I wind up I am making the new uh trophy cases for our jerseys. And what's happening is I like props. You know, some people when I'm saying that's kind of crazy. So, Long as you know you're using up your time unwrapping that paper, Mr. Stucky. Thank you. >> Oh yeah, I know you're extended because this is dealing with the district. This is our new cases that I'm putting together. Okay. We have no funds to purchase anything from Home Depot because we on lock down. You like this case? If you like the case, you know I'm going into my pocket taking
056out to buy the paint to do this job. This is how I am. I love my home. Just like teachers here. They love this this district and they'll do anything to help out our young people. I'm doing the same thing. We have a thing where every year about this time we wind up getting the uh gym floor done. We can't even do that. It's on it's on pause. Now, if you go back in 2012, what winds up happening is when we had a superintendent who wind up sitting out telling there was no sports, the parents and the residents got really upset. We don't want this to happen again. Start losing games because our four gym is not done correctly or it's on pause. So, let's find a way of getting this straightened out real quick
057over the winter break. getting it screened, getting it repolied because it doesn't we are the leading team here in Mount Vernon. We hold the records on on trophies. Now, the second part is how can this how can the district honor someone who have stolen so much money from us from the taxpayers? How can you allow that to take place? the head custodian over at at Pennington School and nobody's doing anything about this and I have sent emails to to the board how I wind up going into the building because I have authorization to go into the building and you what happens. Why is Mr. Stucky in my building? I could be in the building. If I wind up going to every single building, I could wind up spending a months in there doing repairs. Next
058thing winds up being, can we send somebody to get a hold of the city? To wind up sending somebody over to homeschool first thing in the morning to wind up salting, double salting that that whole entire driveway over there. It's very icy, slick, and several people almost fell today. It doesn't take a We do We do things for the city. Now reaction in the city is to send the trucks in to salt. >> We can wrap it up, Mr. Stucky, please. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, send someone over to salt it. Send someone look into the the money that has been stolen from the district by the custodian over a three-year plus period because I'mma keep coming back. >> Thank you, Mr. Stucky. >> Thank you. >> You know, this is like
059three card Molly. Thank you, Mr. Stucky. >> This is faces change, but the game is still the same. >> Thank you, Mr. Stucky. Dr. Strickland, you would like to respond? >> Um, just an FYI, because of financial matters, we did actually implement uh a a freeze on the funds uh to ensure that we are making payroll for our employees. So, that is uh accurate. I will say that I did ask uh for how much the case would cost because I do want to honor the work that he is doing. I want to be very clear on that. In addition, there is not uh going to be a pause on the gym floor. That's actually scheduled for when the 23rd of December. Uh and I will be following that closely um as I am now doing
060with making sure that these projects are going to take place. And finally, um, this this is another situation that's the first time I heard about homes. However, the city was going to be taking care of homes, including their plowing, their salting, all of that. That was not going to be our main responsibility because we have schools um in the district that we needed to take care of ourselves. So, just wanted to u make sure that everyone is clear on uh those um points that were made, but I've received them. >> I have a question >> regarding comment. When was the additional minute removed? It used to be three minutes with an additional one minute. >> It's always been three minutes. >> No. >> Okay, we can talk about that, but it's always been three minutes
061with a courtesy of one minute to wrap up. So, it's always been three minutes. It's still three minutes. >> No, it's been four. It used to be four minutes. >> Oh, it's three minutes. >> Three minutes with the additional one minute to wrap up. As many times as I've spoken in public comment, trust me, I remember. So, I noticed that the additional minute has been removed. I don't recall us speaking on those. >> It's three minutes. It has always been three minutes with one minute for wrap-up. >> Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Four minutes. >> So, we still allow people to wrap up. We give them three minutes and we still allow them to wrap up. We after the buzzer goes off, we still give them time to wrap up. But why why is the
062why where's the additional minutes? >> We don't need a clock for it. We don't need a clock for that. >> I just don't remember us agreeing on that. >> We don't need a clock. >> That ends that ends our public comment. >> Thank you. We're going to move to approval of consent agenda item eight. Approval of consent agenda items 8.2 2 to 10.1. Are there any questions? >> Can I have a motion, please? >> Motion. >> Second, questions. All in favor? >> I. >> Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. We're moving on to 11.1. items 11.1 to 11.6. Are there any items from 11.1 through 11.6 that you would like to discuss? >> Hearing none, I'd like to have a motion to accept items 11.1 to 11.6. Any questions? Call for the vote. >> All in
063favor? >> Any opposed? Abstain. Motion carries. >> Moving on to items 12.1 to 12.2. Are there any questions on 12.1 or 12.2 hearing? None. Call for uh motion. >> Have a second. >> Second. questions. Call for the vote. >> All in favor? >> Any any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. >> Moving on to items 13.1 to 13.16. Are there any items that you would like to discuss or pull? Hearing none. I'll call for a motion. >> I have a motion, please. >> Motion. >> Yes, sir. >> Questions? Call for the vote. >> All in favor? Any? >> I. >> Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. >> Okay. Okay. Comment, Dr. Strickland. >> No, I just wanted to take the time uh the opportunity to acknowledge uh Miss Risa Lang uh from Benjamin Turner Academy who uh has
064earned her tenure as an assistant principal in the district. Congratulations. Right. Okay. At this time, we will ask for if our board members that would like to make a comment. I'll start from Trusty Scott. >> No comment at this time. >> Trusty Middleton. Any comments? >> Any comments? Trusty Brown. >> Want to thank all of the schools and the um staff um for all you've done and also for inviting us as trustees to your events. It definitely feels good to be wanted at the school buildings and we are loving going to celebrate your scholars and you and what you do with the community. So, thank you >> Trusty Peterson. Vice President Mitchell, Trusty Kelly, Trusty White. I just want to wish everyone a merry Christmas, a happy new year, happy Quanza, and also a happy
065Hanukkah. Um, and I wish everyone a wonderful time off, and stay safe, especially in this world right now. and always watch your back. Thank you. >> Your front, too. Uh, Trustee Mcdana, >> uh, I want to second what Trusty White said. Thanks. >> Uh, ex official Trustee Oduro. >> I have nothing to say. I got no comments right now. >> Okay. So, um, I would also like to echo Trusty White's um, well wishes. also thank the board for ending this year. Um, this is our last meeting for 2025 and we will see you in the new year. And at this point, I'd like to ask for a motion to adjurnn. >> Second, >> questions. All in favor? >> I. >> Any oppose? Abstain. Okay. Motion carries. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.