Board of Education Meeting October 5 2021

001[Music] welcome to the october 5th mount vernon city school district school board meeting please stand for the pledge we'll see what we're defining one nation under god indivisible with peace take the role trustee sorenson trusty red trusty turquoise trustee mitchell trustee patterson president president trustee white trustee miller president trustee saunders present a foreign we are about to convene into public comment okay we're going to do the superintendent's report first and then we'll go into the public comment good evening madam president members of the board members of the public that are gathered here this evening as part of my superintendent's report i'd like to take an opportunity to respond to some information that i think requires my response over the last several weeks i've been made privy to some defaming and slanderous communication designed specifically to

002impugn my reputation by knowingly communicating false statement by written and spoken methods much of which is unsigned by the author presumably seeking anonymity and avoid legal accountability those of you who know me know that i have tried to stay above the political fray and generally do not get involved in the mount vernon politics that i know can be quite nasty i believe this is partly why i've been targeted for this harassing and intimidating tactic moreover it categorically undermines the work of this administration and dedicated people have made up the superintendent's advisory cabinet our principals our teachers and our staff in the last seven years we have improved graduation rates this year alone one school with a hundred percent graduation and one with a 97 percent we have increased college acceptances tripled achievement rates in ela

003and numeracy made facility improvements in every facility in the district improved our credit rating and are in the best fiscal position than we have been for decades i don't know where these voices were before i got here but i do know that i inherited a district with deplorable learning conditions a fractured infrastructure and achievement data in the single digits so now i'll respond by some of these baseless claims my office did not cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to rehabilitate the cost of the office was fifty seven thousand eight hundred sixty nine dollars and forty four cents which was triggered by a significant mold remediation that was visible and causing me health issues which i never complained about some of the mold was visible i later found out that there was considerably more mold

004behind the paneling and on the windowsill mr silva has those receipts and invoices for anyone who wishes to see them but for board reference they are marked in your packet as exhibit a one through six secondly the author suggests that edward williams school has been completely overlooked but they failed to mention what has been done to edward williams school and the conditions that were overlooked prior to 2014. this administration in collaboration with our board has renovated the cafeteria floors ceiling water fountains and the bathroom front entrance site renovations and parking expansion bathrooms at first and second floor for a total of five new classroom science area new auditorium new stairwell guard rails new mechanical upgrades new emergency lighting new stair treads 12 total classroom renovations including flooring media center and library rehab renovation radiator covers

005at formerly exposed units and damaged units six areas were converted into small classroom spaces and associated quarter flooring replaced all water fountains with bottle fill type units teacher lounge renovation and bathroom new gym floor principal's bathroom assistant principal bathroom nurse's bathroom renovation new paving at playground area and new basketball hoops a new ganga pit at the play area repaired sinkhole in the play area install electrical and ac units in seven of the classrooms to accommodate summer school and currently in the process of renovating the elevator the author says it was reported that the superintendent quote pumped thousands of taxpayers dollars in thornton high school performances to pay outside talent for this production company end quote not one person associated with my outside endeavors ever step foot on the thornton stage directly or indirectly and i

006have never benefited from a single performance this is an outright lie and not one piece of credible evidence has been presented to support this claim and never will because it doesn't exist this is clearly defamation the letter states the superintendent cut mandated services i have never directed the elimination of a mandated service in fact quite the opposite is true i have recommended the addition of services like elementary guidance counselors in every building supplemental services nurses in every building additional course offerings that go far and above what is mandated in order to enhance the educational experience for our students the writer conveniently overlooks these facts i am unaware of any lawsuit against the district in this regard as the writer states and for the record the district is fully insured and pays over two million dollars

007in premium to that effect it refers to the superintendent spending as out of control i suppose on that one i do have to take a hit i have used other districts like bronxville scarsdale and my previous district monroe township where by the way when i left had finally made the top 100 school list in new jersey this was my barometer for what i thought our students should be getting and perhaps i have exceeded the expectations of those who clearly think i dream too big and my ideas are too grandiose but i'm not going to apologize for that i have never received credible piece of evidence to substantiate that anyone was forced to change a student's evaluation as it relates to mandated services that is true that some of our students whose services are behind however

008it is not because of some professional malfeasance it is directly related to covet conditions student and teacher absences and need often exceeds our capacity the special education department is making every effort to make up these related services and there are occasions when we will need to bring in outside specialists to help make up that difference department has undergone a fully external review by an independent evaluator the department has made effort particularly in the last several months to re-establish credibility social workers all across the state are overworked i have never heard of any social worker in our district who has been subject to punishment for doing what they were hired to do any claims of punishment of whistleblowers or claims of retaliation should be reported as it relates to the grievance process it is a negotiated

009condition of the collective bargaining agreement marked as exhibit b one through seven this is the process that the bargaining units agreed to and as such it is the process we must follow whether it is right or wrong fair or right it is the guiding process for prospective employees it is true we still have tremendous work to do in some of our buildings and i agree more funding should be allocated to some of our south side schools that are older require greater maintenance and renovation but the superintendent does not decide where capital project monies goes boards of education set priorities and superintendents across the state must follow through as directed boards change and some have different ideas and that's the nature of public education there is no policy or practice that seeks to supplant services provided

010by employees to consultants or contractors there are isolated cases where in order to be in compliance consultants are engaged to fill in where gaps may exist pending the recruitment and onboarding process this is a common practice in communities with disproportionate representation of classified learners as it really relates to a slush fund i do not have a reserve for funds hidden for illicit or political purposes we have a clean audit and have had so ever since i have been in the district the board through the budget and audit committee committees review every line in the budget i don't even sit on the budget and audit committees this is another unsubstantiated inaccurate statement without a single shred of evidence there is not a single factual artifact that would suggest that there has been an abuse of the

011civil service law it is true that the hr department and representatives have had to sit with civil service commissioner to update some practices due to change in leadership in our hr department but i have never been made aware of any organized breach of the civil service charter as for mount vernon residents 38 percent of our employees live in mount vernon i do agree that we can do a better job by removing any barriers that may impede any local residents from getting contracts in the district while i have no involvement in the procurement process i will make it my business to be more engaged in the process and have started to gather information to create more opportunities for local minority-owned businesses if that is what the board wishes and directs me to do my interaction with

012the district council is beyond reproach they are the most credible ethical group of attorneys i have ever worked with as for the deputy superintendent position that position was in the district before i arrived please see exhibit c one through five which includes an email communication from the late judith johnson advising me that the position was intentionally left vacant pending the onboarding of the new superintendent i have also included data relative to how many other districts have that title in their organizational structure there are 42 districts in the state with the deputy superintendent title in closing i have been personally grieved by the assault on my professional integrity and more importantly that despite the fact and lack of evidence someone will inevitably believe this report this rhetoric has caused damage this may harm me professionally and

013i will not be idle hopefully my sometimes quiet demeanor will not be misread but what bothers me the most is the insinuation that children have not been my first priority quite frankly i think therein lies the problem i have been so focused on children that i have not altered my priorities to put adults before children i thank you for your indulgence and those who have called to voice your support and those who reached out to care for me both personally and professionally and that concludes the superintendent's report [Applause] thank you dr hamilton thank you we are now about to convene into public comment period of our meeting as mandated by our public participation policy speakers are required to register in advance by no later than 4 pm the day of the meeting by contacting the

014district clerk in person or by phone or by email there is no legal obligation or requirement to recognize public comment at meetings of the board of education however the board recognizes the critical importance of community discourse and involvement in the education of mount vernon's children and according and accordingly members of the public are invited to speak at each regularly scheduled board meeting subject to the terms of the board policy having said that please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed to be a discussion if appropriate board trustees and or the superintendent or other staff members of the direction of the superintendent may immediately respond to the speaker's remarks however it is unlikely that the district representatives will be in a position to respond to your concerns and

015questions tonight this is because we take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have a sufficient time to process and research issues if need be we will we will however to the extent of legal appropriate respond to your questions and concerns at a future meeting or have a proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time the board welcomes all respectful comments whether praise or criticism however identifying and criticizing a specific student parent teacher administrator or other mount vernon education officials or employee is strictly prohibited any such conflict any such complaint must be presented and addressed through proper administrative administrative in accordance to the board policy finally we want to we want our school board meetings to serve as an example to our students that that members of our school board and

016members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect for one another in that spirit in that spirit we will insist that all speakers and members of the audience maintain civility respect during the public comment and then and the unlikely event that the meeting becomes unruly the board will recess the meeting until once the once until the order is restored the board will now entertain public comment each speaker is allotted three minutes to speak up to one minute to um to to finish to summarize thank you and before we have public comment i'd like to ask trustee sorenson she like to make a statement thank you madam president fellow trustees and board members i am standing here to publicly apologize to those board members sorry my glasses not

017used to them yet to those board members present during our last executive session especially to trustee owens mike owen i truly regret my choice of words to express my disappointment frustration indignation and objection to how we dealt with the issue at hand as a board with this being said i don't regret my passion i don't regret my bold statements i was elected to bring a change to the district and that's what i'm planning to do to our uh to our audience today it's okay to be passionate it's okay to be bold it's okay to be angry it's okay to be emotional it's okay to be strong and assertive but it's not okay to disrespect each other so express what you have to say it's okay to be angry but be bold it's okay to be

018aggressive it's okay to have emotions with that being said thank you madam president uh prior to we had a prior to having um speakers come to the podium our district clerk has some statements from uh written to the written from the public so he'll read those first thank you madam president good evening to the mount vernon board of trustees good evening madam president and to the good evening board president board trustees board members and the mount vernon community we have a child who attends rebecca turner elementary school in the autism cohort program we are deeply concerned that child is not receiving the level of special education services he deserves and is eligible for he has regressed through the covet 19 school closure and needs increased services and supports to receive a free appropriate public education

019additionally our son attended the extended school year program this past summer although he received his esy services he did not receive compensatory services that is owed to him we were contacted by a district staff member a district social worker and last week of the last during the last week of esy this person informed us she would be providing compensatory services in the esy program we asked if the services could be provided when the school year begins since esy was ending and she said yes it is october and we have not heard from the special education department about how these services will be made up there needs to be a system of accountability if this is happening to our child how many other children are not receiving their services in esy and compensatory services we understand

020the impact of the kovit 19 pandemic has had a tremendous effect on the academic social and emotional needs of our children the mount vernon community was deeply impacted by this health crisis and many families experience trauma lack of resources and a disproportionate weight of the pandemic compared to other communities and school districts this is why it is even more critical our children receive their related services supports and interventions in order to receive faith more needs to be done we are asking this board and the school district to make a commitment to create a system of accountability the special education department needs to review services required to provide faith to a child and determine if the child did or did not receive them during the school closure and other disruptions of service this information needs to

021be clearly communicated to parents and how the district will make up services finally we look forward to someone contacting us regarding services owed to our son and a program review to discuss increased related services thank you for your attention do we need a motion to our usual practice is to only spend 30 minutes on public comment and i think uh if the board agrees we could we could pass a pass a motion make a motion to extend the 30 minutes to the time needed i make a motion to extend the time needed for all public comments to be finished second all in favor aye aye opposed abstain motion cares our next letter my name is delia m farkerson and i am a currently a city council member i chair the standing committee on human resources

022for the city of mount vernon this committee includes matters involving the board of education on several occasions over the past years i have contacted the superintendent of schools on behalf of families struggling to get services for special needs students my contact with the superintendent is typically in writing and i try to always copy members of the school board to encourage a response to these families in my other capacity i am a licensed clinical social worker a member of the new york state panel of mental health professionals and a clinician often appointed to help students involved with the family court in westchester county in that role i have encountered many students from mount vernon who find themselves in juvenile detention there is always an education component to these cases sadly what often gets revealed are children

023who somehow fell through the cracks these students went on i went undiagnosed or unevaluated sometimes the identified services were not provided or poorly provided in the truly tragic cases we see parents frustrated and at wit's end and we find that the disservice spans generations parents themselves are products of a broken educational system and the solutions today i am here as a concerned community member who fully understands that we must care for the needs of these students who are often left without agency or a voice to protest the wrong being exactly on them by a system consistent in providing that it does not care and proving that it does not care the evidence in the school district points to room for improvement while there have been incremental increases in the graduation and college acceptance rates the

024true measure of a functioning school system is not what it does for some students rather assessment must be based on what it does for the majority of students especially those most vulnerable those with the least access and little to no power the role of the school board is to hold the superintendent accountable that is what you are let you are elected to do the superintendent's job is to ensure that our students are being served well and persons are being educated the reports coming out of the district are beyond troubling we hear of educational fraud neglect and absolute disregard for the needs of our children i am calling for change and accountability beyond the financial cost the social cost and the human cost will be significant and will reverberate for decades if not for centuries i

025implore you to answer the call of the moment and respond with urgency to the educational needs of that children this is a text from a parent who i provided support good morning you are blessings to the family in mount vernon glad you speak about that topic on facebook this morning remember my son was took off his special need program he was getting at holmes elementary and i know he still has the need to for the help no one was listening to me i called you you get me to sign up with wjcs and send the to-do test on him in manhattan and they found out he has autism and he's getting therapy with somebody from wjcs she is one of the best mount vernon city school district is a mess thanks a million delia we

026love you signed delia m farquharson dear trustees i am running this brief letter to thank dr hamilton for all of his hard work and for all the improvements that have taken place under his tenure as superintendent of the mount vernon city school district the superintendent's 2020 vision plan promised improvements to both the opportunities offered to its students and improvements to infrastructure and the goals have largely been achieved all schools except number and high school are in good standing pre-pandemic the infrastructure improvements outlined in the 2020 vision plan were completed neighborhood elementary schools extended to a k-8 model and the newly refurbished nelson mandela zelikov school was converted to an elementary school relieving the overcrowding at lincoln school the arts magnet secondary school which my daughter had attendance in sixth grade grew from a sixth to

027seventh grade program to a full secondary school for students in grade six twelve the denzel washington school of the arts where students pursue both academic and artistic excellence in state-of-the-art facilities including the felicia rashad auditorium formerly known as the wood some students there are managing a full course load while performing and presenting their art and competitions some talented scholars there are breaking into show business working professionally on stage and screen while attending dwsa the first graduating class of 2021 had a stellar 100 graduation rate the a b davis middle school was refurbished and converted to the mount vernon steam academy where students achieve academic success while preparing for careers in stem fields their graduation rate was very high last year and their valedictorian for the class of 2021 should be attending harvard now on a

028full ride scholarship the international baccalaureate program was successfully launched at the high school and the cte program has been reinvigorated with recently completed renovation of the culinary arts center and course offerings arts and gifted and talented programs that have been severely cut or restored and emphasized this is only a partial list of the improvements to the mount vernon city school district during dr hamilton's tenure as superintendent there is still work to be done but the work he has done so far is a vast improvement over the district he inherited i thank him very much for his efforts and look forward to seeing where his vision takes our district next sincerely elizabeth smith that concludes submitting written communications okay so we'll start having um the public come to the podium can you just um announce your

029name yes ma'am our first speaker this evening is mark stuckey please be mindful that there is um again four minutes three minutes to talk and one minute to wrap up thank you [Music] mr stuckey he's coming down good evening there was a statement made by the superintendent that you have an order report done every year can you speak up there was a report made by the superintendent a statement made that you have an order report done every year you do have an order done every year but i'm just going to back this up a little bit at the time brenda smith was in office she left this district in the black with a whole lot of money into negotiations across the board that money was moved around moved around moved around so much that the

030order just never soared and it was hidden later on down the road years later the money was found so your report your audit report can you can do an audit but if the person is moving the money around you'll never see it last time i came out to the board i mentioned was at the high school i mentioned about um the air conditioning that thornton not thornton i'm sorry uh mandela and you said it was being done in stages why is it that the principal's office have central air the nurse's office have some shoot here when you put an ac unit in the building you want to make sure everything is put in before you put your roof down so your warranty won't be void once you cut that roof your warranty is void next

031thing is with that same problem there's a young student there who called up and i'm quite sure none of the board members may know this called up the superintendent's office to put a complaint in that child was suspended from school for five days because she was hot that record that that principle when that principal suspended her that should be taken out of her record she should not have that on her record nor should she been suspended from school we had a problem not too long ago with this storm and i know a lot of people got damaged by the storm i'm hitting trying to hit a lot of things real quick and um what is it um the school on 6a avenue no no no the thought thank you thornton school was damaged [Music] thornton

032school was damaged very badly on the lower level which i understand was in the kitchen the the cafeteria area and then what i saw on the video it flooded from the elevator all the way downstairs and there was a report made by the steam academy with the teachers and the students they put a report together saying how they can fix this problem but apparently it went up on deaf doors and somebody took them through it underneath the table and said forget it now we're spending a lot of money for out of the insurance to have a repair done not only that but the company who wind up doing the repair renew why is this company getting all the work out of this district every time you turn around we knew we knew we knew it's

033doing repaired they was the ones who did the work over at um pennington is isn't that correct so now what's happening is the superintendent of buildings and grounds is doing something wrong his hand is in the cookie jar not only that we have over 20 this is a rough over 28 open positions within the buildings and grounds we get money from the taxpayers in the state where have all those that money have gone is the superintendent stealing you need to look into this you the taxpayers it's time to wake up you paying all this money we don't have no money this pandemic hurt every single and every one of us so now what's happening is we're getting shafted and nobody's saying nothing you appointed those up there to be board members to rep represent you

034you need to go back to like they did not too long ago and get rid of all the board members not only that but there was a superintendent of buildings and grounds we moved from office for stealing this guy is stealing big time mr stuckey thank you [Music] next our next speaker is dolores mack good evening good president trustees it's dr hamilton administrators and community my name is dolores mack um i was here for one thing but i think it's going to be three things tonight first of all president saunders i want to thank you for getting the sign for our late principal sharon bradley i had a lot of people to sign it and i saw the steam academy had signed it and you know at her funeral and wait people were signing it

035i thank you and i want to thank the former principal ralph bertz and the former trustee marlene dandridge for helping with the balloon ceremony after the funeral i'm here tonight to talk about the late sharon bradley i strongly feel in others that her name should never be forgotten because with uh dr hamilton trustee's vision i know for a fact people want to take their kids out of parochial school to bring them to this to try to get them into that steam academy i know that for a fact um i'm asking after her funeral i hung around with a lot of people that went to school with i was born and raised in mount vernon across the street from thornton school i spent my last first five years on this earth where the teachers parked their

036cars i was born in the house there and i worked for this district for 28 years i retired in 2013. um dr hamilton and trustees you all saw that vision and it worked at steam academy i mean it's beautiful i strongly feel we we're going to petition you all the community with this that sharon bradley name should be added to a b davis bradley steem academy because she has gave so much in her 62 years on this earth i had the pleasure of knowing her mother she was an elementary teacher in the early 60s at grimes and i was a student there and um she worked too but i hope that joe can talk about this and next month y'all will be getting petitions from the community that put her name on that building because

037she should never be forgotten because she's one of the icon administrators in this district and i personally know her but not only that but to let people know that she's a pal vernon she went through the school system here and look what she accomplished and please keep in mind don't forget all civil service workers i was a silver civil service worker in this district from 1986 to 2013. people work hard i remember we used to have 40 in our unit i said on negotiation i remember three times these people work hard and they shouldn't be forgotten i mean pay closely attention to our civil service workers because they work hard in this district and help the school system run and i thank you thank you okay thank you [Music] [Applause] if i may can i

038say something uh mrs mac the board is planning a tribute to sharon bradley uh at its next board meeting so hopefully you can attend that our next speaker is desmond bonaparte hello my name is desmond monaparte i work for the city i have multiple kids in the district a child i want to talk about today is in the special education department um just feel like he's being failed um he comes from good family good support system he's not receiving a lot of the services he's supposed to receive a lot of times during the covert when they were remote i felt like he was being singled out he would be put in a breakout room for no reason when i myself or his mother would question why we call the school get no response to the

039point where i had to go down there myself these children uh and they need all children with special education especially they need an outlet they need the tools to be functioning adults one day that i'm sure there's funding being given but the children aren't receiving um i'd like to think that every day i send a complete child on a school bus but what i do know is that i receive a failed broken child by the system of mount vernon school district back home every day he doesn't have a male aide to assist him to go to the bathroom he hasn't you know incontinent issues and a female has to bring him to the bathroom she can't escort him inside the bathroom to make sure that he's clean so a lot of times would have to

040come bring a change of clothes we've called on this issue and the answer given was just that there's not enough staffing male staffing in mount vernon school districts which shouldn't suffice because the money's there so um i'm not the only one whose child's being failed i can see it send out communities but you got to realize is i'm a product of the mount vernon school district wasn't a special education but i now give back to my community when you fail these special education students they can do the adverse to the community and not because they want to but because they have no resources they should be getting some type of home economics they should be taught how to balance a checkbook you know that they should be taught how to cook clean all of these

041things that they don't have so if you keep passing them from grade to grade to grade to grade they become grown people like we are with zero resources and they only act out so i know i speak for a bunch of people but like i said i work for the water department i put my city on my back every day and give my service i expect the school district to do the same for my child and everybody else's child that's all i have to say our next speaker is john gallagher good evening board members uh school administrators my name is john gallagher i have not been here in a long time as you know uh i recognize most of the faces on the board there's probably one or two that don't know me that well

042and knew that i always come here to talk about financing and school results of what we put into the school what we pay into the school what we efforts we put in to make sure that our children are the best products that come out of school district uh with regards to financing i think we can all agree tonight everybody in this room that mount vernon is not a very rich community as a matter of fact we're probably the poorest community in new york state if not we're certainly in the bottom top three so therefore we as a school board and a city have to look at how we spend our money to make sure that we're spending our money correctly accurately you people that sit on the board were elected by the public to be

043stewards of what's going on with our money and it's important that you do that job one of my topics tonight was and i did hear it and i'm not so sure whether or not i've got the right explanation from the school administration here about the cost of what it was to re refurbish the superintendent's office now the rumor that was going around was that it was two hundred fifty thousand dollars he has come out tonight and said it was around fifty seven thousand dollars no work should have been done on that office unless every single member on that board agreed to it or at least they had a majority i should say let me take that back at least the majority so whether it was fifty seven thousand dollars or whether it was two 250

044000 and i intend to find out what the true story is by foiling for the information because i really like to know what the cost was to do that if it's 250 000 ladies and gentlemen you can build a house well with that if it's 57 000 that's a lot of money also having said that i've realized that you know there's a lot of things that need to be done in the school district we bonded for 120 million dollars a couple years ago prior to that a few years prior that we bonded for 20 million and prior to that we bonded for 8 million and i know that a lot of this money was not spent properly how do i know well i can give you some facts because number one i live right across

045the street from pennington and there was one day there that i saw the construction workers starting to get out their jackhammers and starting to tear up the sidewalk on devonia avenue on the school side so i went over to him i said guys what are you what are you doing we're going to tear up the whole sidewalk i looked at the sidewalk i walk on that sidewalk every day ladies and gentlemen there's nothing wrong with it nothing wrong with it zero so i called the buildings and ground superintendent and we had him come over and take a look at it and he looked at it and he said you're right that shouldn't have been done i don't know why it was being done well the question i'm going to bring out to everybody here tonight

046and certainly to the board is did we all look at these change orders that go on that's where all the money is made with the contractors okay people come in they bid for a certain amount of money a job then all of a sudden there's change orders which cost a lot of money to the public now what i want to say to you was i was at a meeting here about a year and a half ago when i sat in the meeting and i listened to the administrators of the school district talking about the request for change orders and i made a comment that night i said wait a minute why do we have so many change orders why do we unless it's an emergency unless it's really required you don't need these change orders

047because it's a way developers contractors make more money out of the taxpay dollars i suggest that you do not think about going out to doing another bond until we've taken a real hard look at it once again you are all stewards of our money taxpayers and that's everybody whether you're a property owner or a resident or a tenant you pay taxes because when you get money yeah i'll be wrapping up when you get money for buildings and whatnot it comes out of everybody's pocket so please be careful what you do that and let's really find out what's going on in this district money-wise thank you thank you mr gallagher [Applause] [Music] our next speaker is speaker is shawna holmes what's the ms holmes our next speaker is nakisa woodson so [Music] good evening everybody good

048evening um i'm concerned about cecil h parker we're in the third week of school there's no seventh grade math teacher it's a seventh grade is a state test year there is no careers teacher she introduced herself and has since disappeared i spoke to miss green about this we still don't have a teacher the careers my daughter is an a student not an a b student a a student that's not going to translate in the real world when you have no she's not learning anything so you could give her a's all day long if she doesn't have a curriculum it's ridiculous and then she had a spanish assignment due on friday she's one of two students that handed it in this is the level of accountability at cecil h parker where is she going to compete

049at in the world when you're not teaching her anything there this is i just it this is it baffles me what goes on there they were letting my daughter out on the sixth avenue have y'all seen i'm excuse me fifth avenue we all know what fifth avenue is it runs from the bronx all the way here we should not be letting students out on fifth avenue cecil h parker needs i don't know if it needs oversight i don't know about the politics but it's not good enough for my daughter so i need answers i need a teacher i don't even need any answers i need a teacher that's teaching the curriculum so that she can pass the test and compete in the real world that's it that's it and i i just noticed that y'all

050have been using this buzzword lately just you just started using it the south side schools are not the same as the north side schools because i'm a product of the northside school it's not okay i don't care about anything else that goes on here but my daughter will not be failed and it ain't gonna happen on my watch so y'all need to get it together pull it together do whatever you have to do stop putting in the orders that he's talking about unless you get a math teacher over there so that's all i have to say i'm expecting by the end of next week we'll have a math teacher teaching the curriculum have a good night [Music] [Applause] our next speaker is barbara degeorge [Music] i had talked to her next speaker is greg bonaparte

051hello so i have a statement a few years ago i met with barbara george she had to leave she told me about the horrors happening at williams elementary school which was rat infested staircases were crumbling the bathrooms were broken it was a disgusting cafeteria and the playground was roped off like it was a crime scene parking school is also very shameful she called me i called my wife adrian and we immediately went over to williams school and i was appalled my wife was appalled she contacted the administration ken silver and that's when some of the work was done williams school has always been a mess it's still a mess i've been sending pictures to the board and nothing gets done parker school doesn't even have a playground nothing for kids to play with yet when

052pennington was done when they had to remove the playground to do work they put a temporary playground for a lot of money parking school has no playground now if you want to talk about the uh superintendent's office that was brought up to the board nobody disputed that amount now all of a sudden is a different amount children who don't receive mandated services they do my grandson doesn't get life skills people already sent letters they don't receive mandated services social workers will let go there were four black social workers who were let go in june yet the superintendent kept a white special service supervisor who had a lawsuit against her in new york city and another one in mount vernon for racial discrimination i spoke to him i spoke to the board and it wasn't until

053it hit the paper months later that that person was let go changing of uh evaluations i sent letters of former social workers who left the school district because they refused to change student evaluations you have those letters no one contacted these people we're talking about uh civil service there are a lot of people who when you want to keep somebody you change their test and you get them in this district i don't want to mention names but you change a test of one of our head department people and that department is a mess they have these purple cleaning things that they use in all the schools i had a teacher call me today complaining about their unlabeled we don't know what these kids are are being uh uh being around whatever chemical is not in

054there yet you have somebody in the rubber room for using those same chemicals and trumped up charges change orders they're inflated the the district is privatizing we have 14 painters we're down to one now we could send those uh those services out and people it seems like people are are making money mr bonaparte okay thank you our next speaker is clinton young good evening madam president saunders distinguished and the honorable board members and dr hamilton i sincerely appreciate this time that has been allotted to me having sat for 10 years where you now sit i fully and completely understand the awesome responsibility that you have to craft policy for the best educational services to be provided for the children of mount vernon i say thank you in today's climate which is equally as important is

055the safety and the health of our students i commend you for that but there's a third responsibility that you have that i want to spend the remainder of my time to discuss i want to segment that let me repeat i'm segmenting my comments to this third topic and that is you have a fiduciary responsibility and the city of mount vernon it's beyond making sure that the budget is balanced it's beyond making sure that the checkbook is balanced your fiduciary responsibility extends to providing economic opportunity for this community unfortunately the perception that exists throughout the city of mount vernon i have to give you a failing grade the evidence is compelling on a daily basis i drove by mandela xylic off the school while the repairs were going on while those renovations were taking place the

056workforce did not at all reflect the complexion of this community you got to get a failing grade when you look beyond and again it's incumbent upon you because of mount vernon new york requires the citizens require that you take that extra effort in reaching out to local businesses particularly minority and women-owned businesses we have to do a better job dr hamilton tonight stated he stated that the boy is not his responsibility it's your responsibility we elected you it's your responsibility to come up with policy with policy that will have a vigorous and an aggressive approach to the inclusion of all businesses in the city of mount vernon and again particularly minority and women-owned business having served this community as the mayor having served this community for a number of years in the legislature i offer

057to you my services at no cost i'll offer to you my expertise and crafting policy policy and don't hide behind what the state says come up with mount vernon's board of education policy for inclusion of minority and women old businesses i know that you will i know each of you please feel free to call me and i'll be more than happy to offer my services god bless you [Applause] our next speaker is richard thomas [Music] i just would like to extend an apology to former mayor clinton young it was the honorable clinton young and we're welcoming the honorable richard thomas to the mike thank you [Music] and thank you mayor young and mayor patterson howard is here as well and if she'd like to talk you know i'll yield the time she wants to talk

058right now no you want to talk now i can't oh okay all right hey just there you go respect is respect respective respect thank you board thank you mel vernon thank you superintendent i know it's a complicated time especially with covert complicating matters i'm here tonight as a person that just wants to see everybody see our city see our school district succeed creation is far more difficult than destruction and it is easy to criticize it's easy to point fingers and cast blame but when you point the finger through you're pointed right back at you so in echoing what mayor young said i too offer my expertise i haven't been a product of the school district haven't gone on to nyu on a full academic scholarship london school of economics harvard and nyu stern school of

059business be more than happy to offer some feedback and thoughts on what we can do to make a bigger difference in the lives of our children as you know that there's a lot of resources available due to covet monies i'm happy to hear the priority of trying to bring in more mwbes minority women-owned businesses especially from mount vernon which we need but one thing that i think that can be created is a conversation a conversation around what the superintendent said last week which really piqued my interest which was how do we get um now this is an age group that i don't belong to but i'm excited about it because one day i hope to be age group 55 and over to pay a different tax rate toward the school district i think that's a

060great segue into what we can do to help lower the burden of school taxes for our seniors in the community the same way we can craft our own mount vernon policy to deal with the mwbe inclusion and participation i think that's a stellar idea to think about and rethink how do we fund the school district because covet has really changed the economy the the last part i would say i think is an opportunity that we can seize is using possibly covert monies or just pure community interests we really need youth sports revived at the schools if there's something that can be done about teaching life skills or at least giving our kids something else to do that's more constructive i know there are a lot of programs out there but there has to be a

061greater appreciation for some of these other programs that are offered and available like coach hall who teaches track and field out of the parking lot at target we know that's not the ideal place for it hopefully there can be a greater collaboration between organizations like coach halls who produced you know and contributed to deja stephens and ryan benjamin so these are our programs that will prevent a david hardy as what mr murray said at the proceeding a couple weeks ago when mr hardy was sentenced he missed an opportunity to really grab a hold of this young person that really needed some love so my ass tonight is to show more love as hard as it is neighbors fight siblings fight i mean we here tonight ready to fight over something we only know we fighting

062about but my hope is that we fight for the right thing which is fixing and addressing the problems that we can fix take one step at a time and incrementally build on the success that we've seen here in the school district and it has come a long way i give accommodations to the superintendent who filled some big shoes and the board which has gone through its own tumultuous turbulence in many respects some of which i don't take any credit for but in the respect i i would you know with all due respect i do sincerely hope that our school district will continue to be successful and become more successful as we go forward and i look forward to partnering with mayor young mayor paris and howard mayor davis all those here tonight to make mount

063vernon rise again thank you guys thank you good luck [Applause] our next speaker is our current mayor the honorable sean patterson howard [Music] good evening superintendent hamilton to the board of trustees i'm so i'm not here to fight tonight um that's something we'll do you know offline and it's not fight it's it's finding ways to work together we serve one tax base we serve one community and i think there are so many opportunities for us to partner during school hours after school hours on everything from school safety community safety providing our students with a safety net during out of school hours partnering more with the youth bureau the recreation community programs to ensure that we have full access to the school buildings so that we're not kind of taxed twice on buildings that we are

064already supporting to be open our kids need a lot and we know that you have them between the hours of around eight to three and you have them somewhat for after school also but we have to find a way to build a greater bridge to making sure that there is equity and education all throughout the city you know look i hear it as mayor north side south side this is what we're receiving there are plenty of opportunities for us to begin to work together to find solutions i look forward to having those conversations with you dr hamilton and i have started some conversations but i think there's opportunities to have much more rigorous conversation to sit down and make sure that our tax dollars are being spent well in every arena yes and people have

065said you've said before yes the school district does get the lion's share of the tax dollars for the city and we just have to find a way to make sure that they're being used well that the services that i'll just say in in one instance sros because that was something that was recently put out by the school district concerning safety in schools and i am here to tell you that we absolutely are in support of sros being in the schools but it is not an expense that the city can take on its back in every municipality that has sros in this region is an inter-municipality agreement where the school district pays for those services we are more than willing to work with you on that as you know we have a shortage right now and

066in order to have a sustained program like that in the school district which we know benefits our young people we know that violence happens in the schools it falls out into the community violence happens in the community it falls back into the schools and so we have to work together we are separate governments but we are governing and serving the same community so i am looking forward to having greater discussion and partnership with the school district and working with our community to make sure that our children are safe that our schools are ready to serve our children at the level they deserve to be served at um and that there is equity straight throughout the city so i look forward to that discussion thank you and have a good evening thank you mayor our next

067speaker is dwayne murray [Music] my name is dwayne murray and i'm an assistant coach with the mount vernon high school varsity basketball team as well as a program director of the mount vernon junior nights there's a lot of to say to you tonight regarding my experiences with the special ed department of this district i could tell you about my very first experience as a parent liaison to the special ed department at the high school walking into the sped office conference room to see confidential files unsecured all over the room i can tell you about my experience being called to appear as a witness on behalf of the district in a lawsuit regarding a young woman within the special ed education department's care who was raped as a result of incompetence and negligence and how i

068ultimately was treated as a hostile witness by district lawyers as a result of a letter i wrote to then acting superintendent bennett conroy about the mess i found at the sped department at the high school and my questioning on why they were hell-bent on trying to fire the very person who actually cleaned it up it should be noted that in that lawsuit the jury awarded the young woman 28 million dollars instead i want to tell you about what i heard at the u.s federal courthouse in white plains last month at the sentencing hearing of david hardy david hardy was convicted and sentenced for the killing of former graham elementary school student shamoya mckenzie david hardy's attorney chronicled every step of david harvey hardy's time while a student in this district and the failure of the

069district to help his mother get her son to help he needed hardy's attorney's point was given his being diagnosed with a mental health condition condition the district special ed department had failed him now the cynical among us can simply chalk that up to an attorney who's doing everything they can to represent their client but when one considers the actions and inactions over the years by this department i submit to you that simply being cynical is a cop-out there's a reason why all these folks are have interest in the special ed education department there's a reason why political rivals have put down their differences to join this effort to demand more than just saying we're looking into it we need action to clean up this department now for me it's wondering why this district continues continually

070runs out or loses good talent i mentioned earlier about a letter i wrote regarding why the district was trying to fire then super supervisor special ed at mount vernon high school after cleaning up that department the person's name is dara joseph no she was she was set up and run out of this district on trumped up charges by then director of special ed education where is she now she's the director of special education for the new for the new rochelle special education department excuse me i just lost my thing receiving accommodations for exemplary work you don't have to take my word for it simply ask one of the newest cell special education parent teachers association scepter and here's the kicker miss joseph is doing amazing work with former mount vernon special education staff harry please

071don't mention her name yes sorry which begs the question what is going on at the district's human resources department i've worked in labor relations on the union side for years hr department's number one customers are its employees so can someone explain to me how this department can run out talented folk in this district on one end and hire an employee who was not only sued for discriminatory practices in new york prior to being here but allegedly sued for similar practices while here we simply cannot wait for the next superintendent or next board election just to find ourselves at this same very frustrating place again we need a win now with this superintendent with this board mount vernon i'll leave you with this question and challenge why can't we have a septa special education parent teacher

072association right here in mount vernon complaining isn't enough we have more than enough current and former parents of students with disabilities in the cities to galvanize our voices and hold that department accountable right now yes we need the board to get to work but we must do our part let's develop a special education parent teacher association right here right now thank you [Music] and next speaker is amisa vincent our next speaker is cynthia crenshaw [Music] good evening mount vernon i'm representing parker elementary school at parker we have approximately five room that needs repairs one particular room is the pta resource where the ceiling has failed and that's where i work as a pta president i was told that the room was secure but i can't sit there while sealing over my head and i see

073pieces hanging down that's just not going to happen also the south side hallway interest is still in need of repairs and that's been going on for three years what's the status of the girls bathroom renovation i was told that we were on the list the kindergarten and the pre-k playground area can not be used the swings and size are extremely dirty the walkway to the playground is cracked up and the grass needs to be cut this area is a nice area but it is totally useless to the population of students that can use it who is responsible for maintaining the weeds around the playground area we have missing separation glasses on the student's desk that separates the kids because of coving one com one class does not have any glass and in that class i

074think it's about maybe 20 some students another issue is why is our children paying six hundred dollars a year for bus service new rochelle pays a hundred and fifteen dollars for five months because the board subsidized the cost yonkers is also is a reduced course the new york city kids rise was free all over the five barrels there's approximately eight to ten new constructions in mount vernon the planning department cannot tell us if these buildings are on the pilot program i was directed to direct it to the tax department they can't say the controller says the school has all the taxes turned over to them i even contacted um the mayor to answer this question but no one has called me back from that office if the board if this board is given the addresses

075of the new buildings and recent buildings that came up in two to three years will you be able to tell us if those people are on the pilot program and not paying their share of school taxes if these tax questions are not answered truthfully the next step is we will be seeking seven on outside which seems to be very successful in getting answers we pay too much taxes for our children to be paying 600 and as someone previously stated this is a poor district that is why so many kids are walking to school and our taxes went up we have all these buildings going up in mount vernon why can't our students be subsidized also unfortunately i don't want to waste your time well i will be coming at every meeting until some of these

076are cleared or we are given an accurate eta and one more thing to the superintendent i must say personally um superintendent that i do feel that you are interested in the school and the students i know personally that you did help parker out in a couple of situations with our students and i thank you for that but as far as these taxes go we have to do some about it it shouldn't be all going for administrative purposes i don't know if it is but our kids should be subsidized they should not have to pay 600 per year to get to mount vernon high school that is why so many kids are walking to the high school thank you [Applause] our next speaker is jeff monroe [Music] greetings honorable trustees greetings community um i i had

077a variety of things i was going to come to say today but i don't think i'll need to say most of them my elder honorable mayor former mayor young actually eloquently summarized what i think needs to be said in in criticism so i'm basically here to stand in solidarity with my neighbors and some of the various statements like brother bonaparte uh that spoke about the challenges of his his student but i'd like to kind of say in in uh kind of collective solidarity with those statements that i've been here before many of those statements reflect really in consequence and summary many of the things i've said in analysis going on a decade now i've been acting and frankly not the only person but i've joined other people in asking for african-centered curricula to reflect the

078population of this of the uh the student body but not for political reasons just for justice just for truth that was pretty much ignored a couple of times i was spoken down to kind of condescendingly by leadership and that's really not a problem for me i was graciously given time by chelsea uh turned quest jones with some other educators to actually talk about what was going to happen i think that was was a june trustee i can't remember you jog my memory if you could i haven't heard any follow up on that though i have heard some language regarding diversity equity and inclusion that is not a curricula for african children but i understand that it's a good buzz word for the day um but i'm not here for buzzwords i'm not even here to

079speak more specifically to the weaknesses of the district i think one of the points of solidarity i stood with when i saw this posted flyer that many of the gunmen in the streets are going to be uh i don't have the language it said basically don't stop many and stop the gunman in the streets from being products of a failed school system i think that that says volumes i like to qualify it though because gunmen are people who do criminal activities are not the only products of a failed school system even successful graduates with straight a's and master's degrees are also failed students of a failed colonial system because the system teaches colonialism and exploitation so you can be bill gates jeff bezos you can be a straight a student and still be a failed

080human being we don't want failed human beings in mount vernon in 2021 it's no time to argue what that means to be a successful student you don't have to just have straight a's you need to not just compete in the world with a good job either you need to actually meet the human needs that government won't it's our school district's job to do that i understand that this school district is the product of a political environment the body politic in mount vernon is pretty much conservative not necessarily uh progressive i get that uh quite frankly i have a statement to my community i'll say before i rap but the only statement i'll say to the leadership and this is to echo what mayor young has said our policy makers need to take accountability and responsibility

081for what our children need to reflect our children need to reflect the needs of humanity black and white children obviously i don't have any fancy degrees or offerings or services offered like my my leadership i know who does though doctors shake on the g up amos wilson these are doctors sociologists psychologists anthropologists people who have much to most of them are ancestors now but the point is they have much to offer in curricula that could be reflected in what you teach our children black and white children to our community i need to ask you to be a little more engaged a little more progressive i understand that we in the community cannot ask much of a school district that sits uh in his headquarters on a street named after christopher columbus with a school named

082after christopher columbus in an era where progressive communities are ripping christopher columbus statues off their monroe can you wrap it up please i just asked we reflect the the needs of the moment we rise to the occasion all of us leadership and my neighbors in general god bless thank you [Applause] [Music] our next speaker is lorna kerwin [Music] good evening trustees um superintendent and the community so i'm here to speak about um trump hagen and the activities that goes on at tripagan after hours about two weeks ago uh two students were coming from i think i'm thinking that it was um football practice at trumphagen and two to the two students was throwing rocks going through the neighborhood they got to my house and they broke my windows just merely missing my daughter and i

083as we were sitting there previously about five minutes prior to those rocks coming through the windows watching television now anyone who knows me knows that i'm a big advocate for children and extra curriculum and you know let them get their feet wet in any sports whatsoever however when i infringe on my comfort of living i have a problem with that so i here to ask the superintendent the trustees to find out what activities goes on at trump hagen on the weekends because this was a saturday afternoon apparently whatever football practice they had the kids were all left to then roam the neighborhood and then this is what happened to my house now this is a big problem for me because then i have to put that bill the parents are not going to repair my

084expensive window and um so i'm just asking if you could monitor what goes on at these on these school grounds after hours because then it's it's wrecking the neighborhood and i i just can't have that especially just merely missing my daughter and i no she my daughter antoinette does not even want to go back and sit on that couch because she's scared that uh a rock is going to come through the window so i'm here to ask to please if there's football practice tennis practice because i see kids goes there for tennis on sunday mornings to please have the coaches um release ditch the children in the um in in the parents to the parents rather as opposed to have them roam the neighborhood thank you thank you [Applause] our next speaker is selmer selma

085belfor [Applause] good afternoon everyone good afternoon i've been living in montgomery for 30 years and what is happening in chuck pagan school in the park grown men riding on swinging on the children's playground there is also a car sex motel on the same street as school my neighbor called me she said selma what is happening people are lining up in the night having sex in cars next to the school grown men sitting in the park all night playing loud music and smoking and all kind of thing in trap hagan school that's what's going on we don't have any representation did we need a police person to pass by my neighbor said i've been living here for 37 years and i want to move selma because it's ridiculous trumpian does not have any any support for

086kids after 18 years old i mean not even trump i'm sorry trump again montgomery 18 year old were going into my property in the prawns to practice dancing and singing with my nephew all the schools are closed for them nothing at all i've been complaining about that for years my life you physically have to take on running kids and bring them to the bronx in my property so that they could do some form of exercise dancing so they're not on the street killing and fighting with people that's wrong i spoke to congressman woman and i told him congressman bowman i need help from everyone and in that capacity let us have a play area a dance area a outlet for these kids you not because when you get older nobody wants to adopt you that's

087what's happening in montgomery now like i said all the kids are hard to adapt forgets about him all the school building designate something something for those kids i thought my husband said no i don't want them anymore because if anything happened they're going to sue me so i never had to give up the whole program because there is nowhere in mongolia that provide for kids over 18. no way and they on the street now and next thing dr hamilton i don't have anything against you but i get to not like something you did to me i came to your office and made a complaint to you my daughter got a job in longfellow not long filled with that primary school elementary school she bought her clothes she took her physical her fingerprint it was a

088small job just about 15 or so and when two days before she started the job they called and said oh by the way you don't get the job anymore i went to dr hamilton and asked him why that happened he said oh definitely i'm gonna get back to you within a few days dr hamilton two years ago i'm still waiting on two years now i'm still waiting for an answer why did that happen i raised five kids in my corner my kids were basketball players in montgomery high school bringing joy championship to mongolian and that's what happened to my daughter and my kids look at me they said mommy that's what we were trying to tell you most women don't care about um people employing here is only strangers and foreigners they bring here not

089one grounded children and i gotta stop thank you [Applause] [Music] thomas keller [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] by the way can i seat any of my time to someone else what was the question john do you want to take any of my time no no they're not very history greg no sorry i don't have too much to say because um it's been covered these are serious allegations i wouldn't be here tonight unless i got this email from john d i think these allegations should be investigated it's probably too much of a job for the trustees and anchorman smith is probably compromised because they have a contract with the district maybe an outside attorney doesn't live in mount vernon should do this and as far as diplomas go i brought this up a few years ago

090keep talking mr keller please it's still working okay [Music] there's a difference between a regents diploma and a local diploma is better than no diploma but uh i think we should break it out and try to strive for more regent diplomas change orders these have been covered i happen to be on the budget committee probably goes back approximately 10 years i think it started with judith johnson's continued under superintendent hamilton may have gone back to brenda smith but anyway i know nothing about these change orders until it became an issue now [Music] somebody bids 50 000 somebody bids 45 45 gets the job and then change orders come in and all of a sudden it's well over 50. i mean i know internal audit uh should be looking at this probably not the external orders

091but i don't know this has got to be looked at okay and as far as money for the district probably before brenda smith was the superintendent we had about ten thousand five hundred students in the system now it's about seventy five hundred give or take five hundred um and yet you know the budget keeps going up and up and up every year maybe not every year maybe a million or two million but you know we're spending much much more on students than um than in the past i'm a fiscal conservative i think there's enough money from albany every year we don't need tax increases with a flat or declining enrollment i didn't vote for the uh on the budget committee i was in the minority i didn't vote for the tax increase last year and

092about three years ago there was another tax increase i voted against it we got to do a better job of spending our money and um that's all i have to say [Applause] our next speaker is bishop c nathan edwards so [Music] as you get older you try to minimize your footsteps [Laughter] i'm the bishop c nothing everyone's i'm the pastor of the friendship worship center for the past 33 years i've been in this community i am a transplant the first thing i want to say about mount vernon is that this is a great community despite all of the challenges that we have confronted with over the years my baby was six months years old when i came here i raised up both of my child my daughter and my son they went through the educational

093system dr b over there knew our children and both of them were extremely accomplished because there was a collaboration between the parent the school the houses of worship and not-for-profits dr hamilton you have done an extraordinary job over the years with what you've been dealt when you came to this community seven years there's great despair there's hopelessness it was a community without a vision and the bible said without a vision the people perish the past seven years despite other than they say us despite all the criticism you forge ahead there is a silent majority that won't tell you thank you and don't see you as a liar a schemer a trickster your work of keeping the children faith first and staying out of the political minutia of this community have helped us to get us

094to this point that is not to say that we don't have problems that is not to say that we don't have challenges that is not to say that the reticent of this community the concerns that they lift should be diminished and dismissed there's two things that bother me first is the misinformation i'm here tonight because of misinformation and the second thing that bothered me is no information if i don't have information and don't have the accurate information that makes me make judgments in ignorance and a lot of people make a lot of statements without factual i don't think that we'll use taxpayer money to have investigations which will cost us more money externally i think there's enough honors members of our community with integrity that can investigate ourselves mount vernon has produced some great leaders

095and we've seen some tonight clinton young richie thomas sean patterson these were products of mount vernon so mount vernon is not all bad and have not been led by all bad people like some people tried to project in the community let's not be political and stop beating up on people because words hurt people words cause people to lose passion for what they're doing i pray for you superintendent this board and i want to thank you because this is a thankless job that you're called to do and you have to make judgment calls and sometimes they're questionable and sometimes we like them and sometimes we don't but that's why you're in power may the lord bless each one of you as you continue to serve our community and you have my support as long as you

096write but if i ever find anyone you're wrong just like i'm echoing positive things i'll be the first one to give you hell god bless you [Applause] that concludes public speaking dr hamilton will make some comments mr copeland mr copeland is standing up did mr copeland sign up this morning mr copeland you can go ahead and speak i'm sorry we apologize thank you it's been a long time since i was here y'all forgot about ray copeland somebody said never amen for those that remember ray copeland i want to um can you move closer to the mic so we can hear you yes ma'am thank you i i too uh was sitting here i watched all these heavy heavyweights come up to speak and it brought back a lot of memories for those people that had

097been in the trenches for a long time amen they've been in the trenches a long time fighting for this district fighting fire with children's and it doesn't seem to have no way of ending which means regardless who you vote for or who you put on that stage you got to stay behind them don't put them up there and leave them in 1994 it was hell in this district why because the people that was operating at that time was operating a business for themselves and their families and that rainbow our trustees appear it wasn't like that and we saw a great need to change it in this room here school board meeting poses turn out at 10 o'clock one o'clock we're still here fighting the superintendent and the school board trustees announcing the meeting is over

098we said not yet we got work to do and we're still fighting tonight i use the word fighting colony to fight anything worth fighting for include me even if it means box hardened technology out of the district out of school i did in 1996. i hope it don't have to happen again some of the things that i heard tonight really got me shaped up i don't know what to say because if i say something i may say the wrong thing not having evidence but i'm nervous and i'm shaking why are you shaking copeland because i felt like hell to get you all up there guns pointed at my face standing right over there shut up call me sit down we'll kill you call cops on copeland for speaking put the cups on me for speaking

099i'm nervous i'm old and i ask myself you're tired copeland but you can't stop you have to fight on so i'm here tonight trying to see how much energy do i have left a lot of times i get weak but i have to fight on fight after the cops put the cuffs on me standing right over there mr copeland can you wrap it up community mr copeland yes ma'am can you wrap it up now yes ma'am i will thank you we got plenty of time all right yes ma'am thank you so much i'm old and i talk slow i know thank you so much thank you so much thank you somebody need to hear after they put the cups on me over there that night and it was leading me out and the community totally

100constitute the cups off of me and they gathered around me the cops took the cuff off me only because i was trying to make things better one o'clock in the morning we fighting to get a better superintendent than william that had been here for so long dr hamilton there's nothing negative i can say about you because i don't know if i said anything negative i'll be guessing that would not be nice but you and i let me just elaborate on what i signed up to speak about all right thank you mr copeland yes ma'am have a good night thank you so much you're welcome have a good night i'm not quite finished i signed up to speak about mr copeland i signed up to speak about vocational education if you would be so kind a

101lot of people didn't show up to speak which gave us more time all right you agree i will give you thank you so much you're so kind now giving him um he's getting time now vocational education i do i hope that is there vocational education and progress in place yes sir thank you the reason why i fight so hard to try to get vocational education is in this district because book knowledge is not for everybody i'm a true example i was a building contractor for 60 years but i don't have book knowledge but i can build anything so here in mount vernon on the mayor davis i was dpw commissioner and i had about 14 guys working under me because there's a lot of buildings in mount vernon that need repairing miss mayor there's a

102lot of buildings in mount vernon need to be repaired and i was doing a very good job with those young boys teaching them to trade and as snow people that come up before me tonight offering their service free i too offer my service to the community miss mayor free this vocational training these guys these people are getting in the district could be used to fix up some of these houses and they can get first hand experience firsthand experienced free but you go knocking on different duels you make different phone calls the deaf ears nobody hear you i need to stop the same people that the young man spoke about the one that has the a plus average in doing well in school graduate from major colleges they had to come back to the real world

103and that's where the problem began because the ones that don't have that education can't compete so he's going to take and he's going to steal you're going to take what you got we need to balance it everybody needs to be educated some type of way so when you come out of that mount vernon high school if you don't have a book knowledge you gotta trade i don't know the hours or where is this being told at but i would like to know i would like to know where the hours and where it's being taught up because i would like to visit it to see if i can contribute my knowledge to those young boys and their needs or trade and a lot of in conclusion closing up i'm very skeptical about how and where i

104spend my money thank you mr copeland yes and mr copeland yes ma'am all right thank you so much yes thank you very much [Music] thank you for your time thank you that concludes public comment [Applause] dr hamilton is going to answer some of the concerns from the community yes so firstly i'd like to thank everyone for coming out tonight for your indulgence and for your comments i'd also like to say that i continue to be committed to solutions we'll continue to work with the board and members of the community it is true we still have a lot to do but we have to also acknowledge where we were and growth is incremental and we have to continue to be progressive in our efforts to educate our children and i think we are on the cusp

105of really changing long-term outcomes for our students i do think that there is a heartbeat in our community that really warrants considerable attention there are two actually one is further partnerships with our city i think there is tremendous opportunity there that we have to harness and take advantage of as our mayor mayor patterson howard mentioned we serve the same community and we have the same goals in terms of making it a better place for our students and our citizens and secondly opportunity for minority businesses is real and i think as we impart embark about upon this next opportunity through some of our american rescue funds there will be opportunities for some more work uh to be done in our buildings i remain committed to working with minutemen members of our community so that i could

106first get a sense of who our partners are who what is your business what is it that you do um that the district may be able to partner with you on so i remain open to developing that local minority business directory so that we have a directory of resources available that we can access when those opportunities arise i have an open door policy i am willing to sit down with anyone who wants to sit down and talk about solutions uh we have a litany of problems all school districts do particularly in this time when we are working our way through the remnants of covet but nothing is unfixable all things can be solved when people commit to working together and i remain committed to doing that i will be can i will continue to host

107opportunities for community forums so i can hear your voices um but i do want to encourage you to come to be solution driven because i don't have all the answers and i hope there is no expectation that i do but together i think we can solve a host of issues past issues i've inherited issues that have continued under my tenure that we have not yet been able to address and issues that are yet to be discovered that will continue to face our children so i look forward to continue conversations and continued opportunities to move forward i do want to thank all of our speakers for coming out and and i don't know whether to say we should be honored or blessed to have two uh three of our uh two of our former mayors and

108current mayor at our meeting first time that's happened since i've been in the district um but i do want to thank you for coming out and sharing your thoughts um and to all of our mem all members of our community and clergy who came out this evening i will work through the issues that you have described thank you [Applause] thank you we're going to go into executive session yes what a purpose of we need a motion attention executive session to discuss the employment history of particular person or persons current litigation pending litigation and third-party contract negotiations how long will it be an hour [Music] trustee miller all those in favor aye all right opposed motion carries did you guys make a motion to return back from executive session motion to resume can't dr uh miss

109sorensen that was the motion we needed a second okay hi who's missing is everybody here um specialist yeah so we're going to do one committee report tonight and then we'll save the rest for the next meeting is that okay with everyone i just want to say one quick thing okay all right so uh going going on to committee reports trustee sorensen oh yeah mike's on mike's time you didn't hear me i'm sorry check check check check okay so um especially like a mayday report um a special ed forum will take place on october 13th from 5 30 to 8 o'clock as a virtual event after the presentation in q a families will have the choice to join roundtable sessions um in which they'll be the topics are going to be addressed in this round tables

110will be you know like for example increasing communication with with games they were not going to have an opportunity to have a conversation with especially supervisor and the student transition path to graduation and career opportunities that's the report that will be october 13th virtually between 5 30 and 8 o'clock and um notices will be sent out to the parents and i think i think it will be posted on the we're going to post it on the the website yeah and the invitations on the website and we're also going to be sending notices out with the children and that's for any member of the community right not just people who have special ed students and their families or yeah anyone can listen in an attempt yeah there's a there's a qr code that would be easy

111for individuals to access the event and so all you have to do is just turn on your device and go to your camera and then you scan it over the qr code and you'll be able to access the zoom link okay next uh trusty miller oh just quickly two things one um rick mccormick and i had a meeting with a final site who has given us a formal presentation to redo our website it is absolutely amazing comprehensive um i asked um dr gorman for green light since technology reports up to him and he said it was fine to go um and talk to bc about the money so we're going to have a i want to put together a very very small uh presentation um for the next board meeting but there will be a

112resolution on the next on the net on the next agenda just to approve them to produce this new website and provide the services to support the website it's probably going to take us three or four months to get the new website up and running secondly is the audit committee met yesterday yesterday and um we are going to be starting uh we're going to be meeting with the rachel de paul and we're going to be talking about doing a uh audit into special ed and we had a good suggestion from um amy mozelli about an outside person who can help us because mr tobin is really doesn't have a lot of bandwidth because he's working with tom scapoli on another matter so anyway but we will be getting the special ed audit which i've conferred with

113trustee saunders on about what areas of inquiry we'd like to review we'll be getting that underway in the next two to three weeks thank you that's it for committee meetings for committee reports next we'll go on to hr make you want to read the resolution good evening we need a motion to it we need a motion to approve human resources memorandum 44a and 44b dated october 5th 2021. trustee miller trustee mcowen questions comments all those in favor opposed abstain i i have seen due to technical difficulties and i was not able to read the all the resolutions trustee trustee sorenson abstains motion still errors all right we no motion to approve resolution 6.2 authorization to pay staff for rti design teams at all k-8 schools five six point six point two i have six months

114second all in favor i had a question um can i just be reminded why the number of people on the teams is different from school to school why do some have three or four and some have seven or eight or nine we should get him a microphone sorry nobody can hear your answer we leave the autonomy to the principles based on their need um within reason obviously um but it's you store that whole description on on their what they need to do so they have different populations that are being serviced by rti the amount of kids they are assessing um and looking at putting into practice i see it's relatively consistent i believe no and i i yeah no i thank you that answered my question for example i see there's extra enl teachers on

115the team in hamilton but that makes sense based on yes demographics yes i understood no further questions any other questions all right all those in favor all right opposed abstain hi motion carries trusty swords and abstains we need a motion to approve business office item number 7.1 dated october 5th 2021 trustee miller trustee saunders questions comments all right all those in favor all right opposed abstain i trust trustee sorenson obstains motion carries business office 7.2 authorization to award bid number 2021 waste management services contracts a suburban karting for the end of the 2021 school year and the 21 22 school year through a motion trustee red second trustee mick owen questions all right all those in favor aye opposed i trustee saunders opposes upstate aye trustee sorensen abstains motion passes seven to one uh with

116one nay and one abstention motion still carries all right motion uh resolution 7.3 authorization for bid extensions be resolved that delta electric renew contracting and restoration inc new york home management home maintenance company inc and fdm enterprises inc picture perfect land service inc have their contract extended through december 31st 2021 contingent on signing of the dei attestation as developed by council and that delta electric renew contracting and restoration inc new york home maintenance company inc fdm fmd enterprise inc picture perfect land services and have their contracts extended through december 31st 2021 yeah that's a typo yeah i just fixed that because contingent on the signing of the dei attestation that developed by council be it further resolved that all aforementioned contracts will go out to bid rfp before december 31st 2021 with the revised dei

117language clearly articulating district expectations as it relates to diversity equity and inclusion be it further resolved that the all aforementioned contracts will go out to bid before december with that going there twice my apologies do we have a motion motion i just refreshed it's still not fixed i haven't saved it as soon as i say it i will okay okay just checking all right all right i'm sorry we can't hear down here what were you just doing i'm just i'm waiting for a motion motion did you guys fix further did further get repaired here because i'm pretty sure second brother's not spelled that way move the mic further from your mouth right here got it perfect we have a motion by miss turquoise and i have a second bye no there was a motion by

118second by turquoise opposed stain motion carries all right school improvement 8.1 authorization to prove school improvement service memorandum s 22 dash 8 dated october 5th 2021 a motion trustee saunders second second was trustee white yeah all those uh questions comments all those in favor aye opposed abstain aye trustee sorensen of saints motion carries 8.2 authorization to approve school improvement personnel mandarin memorandum p22-4 dated october 5th 2021 is there a motion promotion trustee mcgowan second trustee patterson all those i'm sorry questions all those in favor all right opposed abstain aye trustee sorensen abstains motion carries student services memorandum number six dated october 5th 2021 is there a motion trustee miller trustee red oh trusty trusty mitch it's hard not since i hear men's voices with them we're going to separate you guys next week questions all

119right all those in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carry i'm sorry abstain aye trustees torrance and abstains motion carries that concludes the resolution resolutions madam precedent october 19th two weeks motion to adjourn trustee miller seconded by trustee mitchell all those in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries everyone thank you everyone thank you for the public comment