001good evening i'd like to call the july 6th reorganizational meeting of the mount vernon board of education to order please stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all trustee sorensen trustee red president trustee mitchell trustee patterson president trustee nick owen trustee white president trustee saunders trustee miller a quorum is present good evening everybody this is the reorganizational meeting our first order of business this evening is to swear in our newly elected school board trustees um if mr mick owen will meet me in the middle of the room he'll do him first and then we'll proceed to trustee miller trustee white trustee sorenson and then finally our student trustee
002mr wilson test one two there you go please raise your right hand and repeat after me i'm micah nick owen do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board trustee congratulations trustee miller no they don't need to hear me jesse miller please raise your right hand repeat after me hi darcy miller hi darcy miller do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and i will faithfully discharge and that i
003will faithfully discharge thank you [Applause] hello oh please raise your right hand and repeat after me hi wanda white hi wanda white do solely do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states i will support the constitution of the united states constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office our school board trustees thank you [Applause] hello please raise your right hand then i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office the duties of the office of school board trustee
004congratulations i john aidan wilson do solemnly swear i john aidan wilson do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitutional state of new york and i will faithfully discharge and i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office the duties of the office a student trustee a student trustee congratulations congratulations and welcome to our new school board trustees and our student trustee our first order of business this evening is the nomination and election of a school board president and school board vice president for the 2021-2021 school year at that at this time i will now open 2022 school year i will now open the floor to nominations for president
005of the school board i have a nomination trustee mcgowan i'm not nominating myself just for the record tonight i decline in the nominations for the record um i would like to nominate darcy miller to serve again as president this year i have we have had many different presidents this has been a particularly challenging year i think many if not all of us are capable and experiencing could add value as president of the board a lot of what the job of the president of the board is is not public and it's their job to attend many meetings and sign many documents weekly meetings prepare the agendas it's a lot of work that is not really noticed or appreciated and for everyone who has served as president thank you uh and to miss miller thank you um
006and i just thought i think in in the six years that i've been here it is my opinion that we have never been more streamlined and efficient in the way we run our meetings especially our executive sessions again a lot of stuff that's not very public but i i really appreciate the work that miss miller has put in to making our board run better sorry as a board and as a unit um and while we continue to have vigorous uh differences of opinion i think she does a great job of keeping us streamlined and focused on the task at hand and i appreciate that work and i would like to see that continue in the next year so that's my nomination may i say something don't decline thank you i just want to say thank
007you and it has been my privilege to serve this past year it's been a crazy year i've learned a lot and um i know we have a lot more to do so whoever is leading the board going forward we have a lot to do there's a long agenda uh things that we really need to tie up so i look forward to working with whomever and certainly working with the entire board again in whatever capacity uh it's it's it's been a good year it's been really hard but it's been very rewarding working with everyone so i think we've grown a lot as a team and uh i think we've learned a lot as a community so anyways thank you trustee mccoy and i appreciate your support are there any other nominations yes i would like to
008nominate adrian saunders i hear the second second i think she seconded herself are there any other nominations all right i like to nominate warren no i'm not jet okay seeing that there are no more nominations on the motion to elect uh trustee adrian saunders uh as president of the board of trustees is there a motion backwards how do we do it is there a way no i'm just confused because there's her emotion was second mine was first was there a second there was a sec there was not a second to darcy's moments i opened my mouth oh i apologize i thought she seconded herself that's okay i'll i'll go backwards so if there's a second one the first motion that that motion should be in my apology is there a second on the motion to
009nominate trustee darcy miller i'll on the motion to elect darcy miller we have a motion from mr mc owen seconded by trustee patterson all those in favor aye aye trustee mc owen myself i trustee miller those opposed and the abstentions well people have to vote say yes or no or either say no no no no no no no baby um i just want to um say um darcy you've done it you've done a great job on your leadership role but typically with the board we have always presidents have always done one year you know i know um uh um wanda wanted to do another year and so did leslie and we said we made a um a commitment to do uh one-year terms so um this is where we are right now but i just
010wanted to thank you i wanted to thank you uh darcy for your dedication and your commitment it's never been my prayer i will i hope you continue and i hope you continue doing whatever you've been doing i'll do some stuff i'm going to do committee work i i just want to clarify there is no policy it's been a practice yeah it's been a practice by some board members not me but it's been a practice um but there is there is no official policy about serving about terms okay so i'm sorry i was we were in the middle of a vote uh so now we will move on to a motion to elect adrian saunders to be president what was the outcome of the first vote i never heard it i heard three yeses and i
011heard nothing else there were three yeses and six no's okay well you can't be silent guys you got you got to say something you can't just not vote if you want to stay and abstain but you can't not vote all right on the motion to elect adrian saunders as president of the board of trustees i have a motion from wanda white seconded by candice sorensen all those in favor opposed no mr mick owen is no abstain motion carries congratulations miss saunders congratulations [Applause] switch oh no we'll do when we will now open the floor for nominations for vice president of the board of trustees yeah i nominate trustee mitchell nominated mr mitchell i heard a second from sorenson are there any other nominations all right seeing none we'll close the floor for nominations on a
012motion to elect trustee mitchell as vice president of the board of education we have a message from a motion from trustee red seconded by ms sorensen all those in favor aye aye opposed abstain motion carries congratulations mr mitchell um i like to i don't think i'm on can y'all you can hear me right now you're okay i'm sorry so um darcy and um i want to say incredible year uh from my second year on the board watching you as president amazing um and i hope that regardless of the title change we still need every bit of effort that you put in we still need you i hope that this doesn't mean that you know you go back to more more full-time retirement trustee mitchell i've been on the board for six years and i don't
013think anyone has ever accused me of pulling back on the throttle whether or not anybody listens to me that's another story but no one has ever accused me of pulling back on no threat i just i'm just i don't intend to do that now that's what i need to say so i thank you and thank you and for trustee beck for the uh nomination thank you very much and and candace for backing me and um yeah i'm looking forward to a great year ahead of us i've got two years in and i i love this idea the opportunity to play as vice president this last year great thank you very much excellent miss saunders and mr mitchell if you meet me in the middle i will give you the oath of office thank you sir
014please raise your right hand and repeat after me i adrian saunders aye adrian saunders do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and that it will faithfully discharge and that i will faithfully discharge the office the duties of the office of school board president congratulations thank you please raise your right hand repeat after me i warren mitchell hi warren mitchell do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the
015state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board vice president [Applause] can i stay here no i don't think so i'm supposed to be i don't know right are we supposed to switch you have to play music we play musical chairs [Laughter] and guess what the seat's really hot i heated it up for [Laughter] but i heard it all um i don't get to come outside now you're next to me okay all right there we are new digs no that's too nice for me oh yeah thank you i'm sorry i put it on every day like a necklace so let's see where we are thank you all for your support i appreciate it thank you guys really we have a lot of work to do we
016have a lot of work to do this year and i have big shoes to feel like some now so um so let's get let's get uh with it so we're going to do the new york right we are 5.1 we're down to 5.1 so we're an approval of annual appointment we did that district clicked okay oh we have to do the um annual appointment officers five more okay we're gonna do are we moving five one five one through five five four okay so we're going to do this with the annual appointment of officers numbers 5.1 five point two five point three five point four and five point five on your agenda okay motion by mr mc owen second miss patterson all in favor aye any questions comments concerns i'm on the 5.2 guy looks a
017little sketchy okay so what number six on the other appointments 6.1 through 6.17 all in favor of motion i'm sorry spinning my motion i'll second is patterson any questions no questions all in favor all in favor hi hi all right abstained okay designations 7.1 through 7.5 josie mccowen sec anybody second trustee miller all in favor aye aye any questions thank you motion carriage motion carries 8.1 through 8.8 motion a second any questions comments abstain all in favor all right okay opposed abstain motion carries official undertaking of bonds 9.1 semicolon second trusty red all in favor aye aye aye opposed abstain motion carries item ten ten point one through ten ten ten time second is patterson all in favor abstain motion carries so executive session we're going to we're going to adjourn to go to executive
018session for the purposes of uh discussion of current litigation and the is it right now and discussion of the employment history of a particular person or persons how long do you think that will be um yeah ten minutes half an hour can i can i just ask a point point of order are we are we closing the reward meeting and then reopening we're gonna come back with the reorg so don't we need to okay to separate meetings are we gonna adjourn now we're gonna adjourn you'll you'll go into executives and then come out okay okay all right so we're doing 20 to 30 minutes all right motion motion motion so we're going to have a motion to adjourn the reorg meeting and the motion to motion to adjourn the reorg meeting second all in favor
019opposed motion to open up regular meetings do we have to do the roll call again no okay he's back up so rick we don't need to do another roll call correct we have um communications from the public do we have any communication there are no communications this evening reports from the superintendent i have no report madam president other than to say we had an amazing closing this year awesome in-person graduations for our three high schools and our eighth grade students and i just want to take the opportunity to personally extend my thanks and appreciation for to my cabinet uh and to this board for getting us through a very very challenging school year um and when i look back over the road we covered in the 1920-2012 school the 2019-2020 school year i am amazed
020um at what we've been able to do in spite of the challenges so i just wanted to extend my thanks and appreciation uh and i look forward to what the 2021-2020 school year will bring we've got some amazing plans in place for this year um and we're on a rock because that's what we do yeah i thought especially to our teachers who really worked hard this year they were doing and the principles yes and the principles but the teachers were in the trenches you know well the teachers were doing the virtual and in in person so i think they were superstars to their credit i do want to say when other districts were having all kinds of issues with their teachers adapting in both environments our teachers took it in stride so thank you for
021for bringing that up and i also want to thank the maintenance people who have done an extraordinary job yeah doing this thing and food services food services that were yeah why don't we just take the whole difference everybody get us through this year thank you to all the board members as well but it was a very challenging school year so and all things jokes set aside um and it's it's nice to have the year in our rearview mirror at this point yes everybody's waiting for september to be known yes well we're gonna have some challenges as we usually do but i'm sure this is something we can all get through okay so no reports from the superintendent are there any committee reports okay um madam president um as you contemplate uh the structure for the
022new committees um we had talked previously about uh establishing an hr committee yes um with the board so i'd like to work with you on what that might look like absolutely okay okay um so i'm going to start with uh trustee turn quest wait trustee miller did you have a committee report good evening everyone can you hear me good evening um so i just want to thank everyone for uh the end of the school year i was able to attend a couple of graduations i went to the graduation and moving up ceremony at friendship along with dr gail white wallace really nice really cool i'm not sure if i told you but disney had given me 35 000 worth of books and so i have been given books to that school in particular throughout covet
023making sure that children have books at home and start their uh the culture of reading at home in place of not being able to go to our local library which is hopefully being open soon next i went to uh williams elementary school again i told you that i will be reporting about williams elementary school every single time you see me you can start calling me williams and um i hung out with mike pelicio i want to thank you for teaching me a lot so i'm not sure if anyone has ever went on a tour with mike um i really had um some um some the the opportunity to learn and to know why things are in place and why things aren't in place and so the update is that uh williams uh library i learned
024about the color remember i said i didn't like the color it's a district color we'll talk about that color later um but uh you know with the lights on it the library looks much better and there will be library furniture arriving at williams any day now clap it up everybody anyway and so we talked about many things during our walk we talked about the outside possibilities we talked about the library of course we talked about a gym gym flooring which should be in place momentarily we talked about the ceiling um mike picked out some stuff that i didn't see see that's why i was good that i went with mike um and we got a chance to watch the students who were in the cafeteria that had this really bright yellow and blue color right
025and um and they were they were pretty excited and so that was a good thing to see children excited especially during covert right they were excited to be there um they were having uh conversations with one another and we thought that that was really awesome mike pelicio went out there played himself and tried to play football with the students gonna hurt herself don't do it again we also had the discussion about because um president adrian saunders and i went there and the open the open concept the way that the walls are at williams are like the way that the classrooms are at lincoln so if anybody been at lincoln and you see the open and trapagen the open concept is also at williams but it looks like it's a little antiquated no not a little
026it is antiquated at williams and so we had that discussion and um you should be seeing some major changes really proud of that principle there in the work that she's been doing with dr hamilton in getting that building up to par especially for the type of children that goes to that school in particular right we have a lot of our um in needs um students that attend that school i also got a chance to visit graham elementary school and i'm not sure if you knew this but my sons went to graham elementary school so that's like my little baby right there and um went to the library and i just want to tell you that their library furniture is also on the way it's like the price of right and what i liked is that
027uh um the principal had stacks of books in the library so um working along with dr bennett conroy with um sel which is uh social and emotional learning she already have the books that are ready and they will have a book of the month and they were all ready for september so um yeah and that's about it thank you thank you thank you um trustee turned quest chelsea mcgowan okay you'll see on the agenda the second reading of the dei policy it has not changed from the last meeting however i'm recommending that we do not adopt it yet i'm having a discussion the end of this week with the nisba attorney for some of her suggested edits so we'll wait and i'm going to talk to her before we finalize it um i just had
028a question since i don't see new or unfinished business tonight trying to have a short meeting um superintendent can do do we have an update on the summer enrollment numbers where those finally ended up and i believe we got all of our kids off the wait list because we were able to get some more teachers some of which came from outside the district in order to meet our numbers dr bc do you have any more current information mike can pc talking to the mic thank you yes and today i also learned after i figure more or less that we have finished higher from outside for everybody all the vacancies are closed i learned today that there was one school who has 30 more kids on the waitlist so i have to go back to the
029drawing board and see if i can hire i hire like maybe 10 to 15 people from the outside already and i need to go and hire again for that 30 kids who are on the waitlist because we can't have any kids on the wait list so um i spoke to the principal i said register those kids right away and let me go in search of a teacher again because it's a process because normally i don't i don't hire teachers the principal has their teachers but however because they're coming from the outside i really want to make sure i do my reference checks and everything to make sure that whosoever stands in front of our kids is not only certified but is the right type of people to definitely be there for all kids because i
030don't want a repeat of what happened before so um i have to go back to the drawing board again to go and look on olas and see if i can get some more teachers but the numbers are climbing i just i knew somebody was going to ask me about the numbers so i worked on it today and when i looked at it i was like oh my god this is the biggest summer school it's it's in threes it's not it doesn't double it's three times the amount of kids so we are a little bit over three thousand right now and i have to go at that extra 30 and then with that we can keep moving so we are all excited the high school starts today though with one of their program but the rest
031will start on the 12th and let me tell you something everybody's excited it's a lot of work but we are on it did esy start today too yes why yes yes thank you i know that was a very heavy lift hiring i mean to get yeah yes the hiring the hiring was the killer and then i called down to hr and i said mistakes i need teachers and she was like okay let's put it on all i said and i did that you know two heads are better than one even if it's official and i definitely put it put it up put it down put it on all of us put now i'm excited about summer school it's going to be fun and we have so many problems we have music art all kind of
032stuff inside outside so it's going to be a lot of fun i'm looking for some water water people to donate some water back on the outside for the kids but don't throw the water on me mistakes but anyway um it's good it's going to be good so please don't ask me about summer school because every time you ask me about summer school i'm going to get excited because we have so many kids i i have a question about summer school where i dropped the mic so where would one donate the water what do you want them to do one is not for drinking it's like um we always have a little fountain outside where the kids can go in and play if it's too hot you know i know we had it in um graham
033last night last year the year before and the kids go out when they go out and play you know like exercise like in pe and exercise properly supervised and they have these little water exercises that they do because they're so hot you know so i i'm going to find like water sprinklers yes so yeah some water sprinklers okay oh okay all right well you have only six schools asked me for it so i am going to see if we can get them i'm going to talk to mike too yeah that was just brought up today because they were saying like we have the acs but in case the building is too hot and they want to go outside we need to have that to cool them down yeah okay any anything else trustee mccowan no
034do i see me nose patterson um i can't figure out where my seat used to be but this microphone gets further away um the insurance committee met um regarding the renewals um there were a number of different meetings probably about two meetings and we had meetings with the administration and meetings with our insurance um consultants and it um we reviewed the insurance renewal um it's not where we'd like it to be but it is where it is so that's it so we're done we're good we're finished okay thank you justine trusty mitchell oh okay my turn excuse me all right so i also had the uh opportunity to tour graham as well uh last week with michael palichio who yes we can learn a lot from mike uh especially about when you just look at
035something you you say why is this like this but we need to fix it and then there's mike to explain exactly what can and can't be done and why it hasn't been done and then he'll say this actually is terrible and it should be better um and he lets us know what his and our targets are so visited graham and i never went to graham but it's the heights it's about running the heights it's the height standing up all right so um as one of our schools on south side you know we want to know what's going on in there so as we look around one of the biggest topics with air conditioning for summer school right we had uh we had some serious uh chats conversation and some words hurled at us at our
036last meeting about air conditioning and our buildings for summer school um and mike i want to ask you a one in one second if you can give a short synopsis of what we discussed about how we're addressing the air conditioning for summer school can you i'd appreciate it thank you huh what dr hamilton [Laughter] first day i get dragged first day thank hello everyone um so in each of in the there's seven buildings that didn't have that had insufficient air condition for our summer program so we about three or four weeks ago we tried to obtain 40 220 volt portable air conditioners that would have six in each of those schools because the principal identified six classrooms that would be used for summer program on thursday we went to a little bit of panic mode
037when they said yeah your air conditions will be here beginning august and will be good and i said well that's probably going to be a little bit of a problem so they were in south jersey and it was a freight issue so we gathered up the troops we drove down there and we picked them up and i'm happy to report that all 40 have been installed and they as of today there's a couple more for tomorrow morning but by 10 a.m tomorrow morning all 40 will be operational the electric has been upgraded and then the other schools that already have cooling in most of their spots for the summer program that's also in place we had to make some repairs those repairs are all completely made the only school that we relocated as we know
038is trapagen they're moving to pennington for the school program the other 15 buildings are ready to go doc that's that's amazing um and that's called getting it done when no one can figure out what to do uh we just owned it thanks thanks to you and thanks to your team um so during this meet during this walk through a gram um we discussed something called the bcs and what the bcs is the building condition survey which is underway right now and on our we're supposed to have that within the next couple of weeks so when we get ahold of that i'm going to be uh pretty much i'm going to probably pull a trusty red and i'm going to uh pulls trusty tj and anybody else who really wants to come and look at these
039bcs reports and we're going to start on the south side schools and we're going to look at what exactly is being reported we want to look at what needs to be done and what's going to be done for this coming school year um you know and you know certain things like you know putting air conditioning in cafeterias and things like that and trying to figure out ways that you know what's going on with the floors and paint uh you know the of course you know all of the money that and things that it cost to get the electrical upgrades to bring the acs in window ac's and things like that so we covered a bunch of different uh topics but um what i did notice was how many of the buildings this is just another
040building where everything in there is like antiquated for real like i'm talking like the ceilings like the latches in the ceiling that a couple of my my great grandparents climbed in this presidential you know race you know remember who was the presidential exam we had to do the shuttle run yeah i'm real old whatever but bottom line is i'm still looking at the latches in the ceiling and i'm like this place and then school colors right paint right i felt like the buildings should all have their color paint whether it's going to take the district color of maroon and gold or if it's going to be for that particular building williams is golden blue right i think every school should have those bright colors we our kids do need to see that type of stuff
041when they walk in the building again you never know what those kids see at home and if this is probably some of the shiniest nicest surfaces that they get to see so it's definitely something important so we're moving ahead so you may not hear anything from me on the next meeting about what we've discovered because we have to digest the bcs reports but we're still moving forward thank you trustee mitchell trustee white okay okay trust me i would like to say i know and ken you can correct me we're ahead of the bcs right now with the state uh yes so we have plenty true we're going to get things moving thank you trustee red anything i just want to say can amy yeah i just want to say it was a challenge this year
042for us all and um this board here we really uh did an exceptional job i just want to thank you guys for my first year here and just learning a lot about how everything works and i'm looking forward to this new year you know thanks again to everybody out there that helped us during this time because this was the roughest year i came at the i guess the right time i could say but uh it really was a challenging year but we made it through and i just want to thank you guys and thank everyone out there at the my burner city school district for helping us to paris included trustee sorensen do you have anything in the ed i know you're not on the committee at some point we're going to assign and reassign
043committees yeah so uh so everybody can get attached to a committee and and discuss whatever issues they want to jump into okay all right all right so moving on to the human resources resolution 4.1 motion motion um are we voting for each and every particular them or yeah 4.1 yes this is the regular meeting any questions ques questions anybody second did anybody second second all in favor aye aye aye opposed abstain motion carries 4.2 approval of additional k-12 curriculum mapping staff second opposed abstain motion carries 4.3 approval for pay to pay aquatic advisor additional hours motion um i have any questions i have concerns and questions okay so um i know that we have we will be renting the pool to um if i'm not mistaken two different entities right to the pool to youth
044bureau safe haven but is there another program the bronx um what's the name of it i forgot the one that's going to be teaching or that we talked about yeah sorry oh yeah all right disgusted you have my bike can you hear me now okay um so i know that we have another program that we discussed the bronx something something that is going to be teaching the interim the introduction to swimming and everything else so i just as of yet like i just need to know how we really look into it into this program have we looked into how are they hiring their instructors is it are they hiring kids from high schools are they hiring kids like summer programs um if you know are they are they having this kid certified because you need
045to be certified in order to teach you know swimming are are they doing um background checks because still they're going to be working with children and because i haven't i i tried to look into the program to learn more about the program and i didn't find much about the program the only thing i know is that they are linked with um i forgot the name of the school in bay plaza and that's where they practice that's that you know that's but they are it's not really a set program it's an as a so i need to know more about it because i was a bit concerned looking into it sure um we learned of the program through our aquatics director trish ryan she worked with them for many years i believe they were also part
046of the doe in new york and i believe the school is truman um yeah so they did have those certifications we are in the application process where they will have to produce their um now that we're doing the dei they'll produce their dei qualifications their insurance and their outline of how their protocols will be implemented in the in postcovid so they'll still be some of those protocols we did start them at a very very slow pace they're gonna have two days for a couple hours a day and i know you are familiar with the wolverines the the westchester aquatic club and from the owner of that club she was really excited about bronx swim to come in and join with the collaboration of the two of them and the distinct difference between the westchester aquatics
047and the bronx swim is westchester aquatics you must be a little bit more proficient you must be able to put your face in the water and swim where bronx swim is the first time you dip your toe in the water they'll take it from there so that is gives us a diversity on the levels that the swimmers will be able to um to participate in our program we will get a little bit more information as their application finalizes and we will make sure that they meet all the qualifications local state and federal as as far as certifications um through the red cross their lifeguards so we're confident that they'll meet those qualifications and if they don't they won't be able to teach here just just add to that trustee um aside from like our our
048role in responsibility as renters on or leasing lease ors is lessors leasers lessors is a little different um in terms of managing um so we won't necessarily run the level of scrutiny in terms of how they operate and manage their programs as long as they meet the conditions of our no usage facility usage application process so i'm saying that to say that we want to be careful not to scrutinize too much in that regard because then it assumes we take on some liability with it as well so we just want to make sure that our application process covers the district and that the protocols that are expected to be a part of this application are in place no because my concern was more of you know making sure for example that in particular with the
049insurance yeah because i don't want our district to be held liable if something happens and swimming is a very important sport for everybody to know for very skilled for everybody to have however also could be very dangerous you know a kid could just trip and fall in the lockers okay could just running around the pool just trip and fall break a bone and i want to make sure that everybody that is being we we are renting to has the insurance to cover that and make sure also that the people they are being they are teaching our children have been you know checked absolutely our insurance qualifications are very specific um if you don't meet them you you cannot participate in any of our facilities and then just one other thing that because this is always
050a thing in mount vernon being born and raised as the superintendent will smile right now the owner of bronx swim is a prodigy he is mount vernon born and raised learned to swim in this town and is this is part of his give back he is a he is a non-profit he is going to be charging people to swim in his program as we are going to charge him to rent the facility but i believe it's a good program i do know it only from the periphery at this point because we haven't started it yet but um we're confident that he'll meet all the qualifications okay and i have one i'm sorry i have one more question um why is it that we are just giving everybody until for example like it was just aquatic
051we only give them from the sixth to the 31st and the mount vernon youth bureau and safety um to the seven to august right eleventh you know it for me it doesn't make any sense because that means that we're gonna it's a canal the same could be like a pro professional period see how it works and how everything flows but it doesn't make any sense because we once again have is gonna have to meet and and discuss this right you know and and then the whole process of instruction and learning will be interrupted so why don't we have these contracts all the way till august so i'll do them separately the westchester aquatic club only asked for the month of july they do not um they do not want it for the month of august
052that was carly said we don't need it for the month of august but she has all intentions of coming back in september the reason we only do the summer first is because our program meaning the district's program will change dramatically once phys ed is start is put into the swimming program so we have to see where we land and the availability of the lanes carly has west i'm sorry i shouldn't be calling westchester aquatic club has expressed um their desire to continue in the fall and go forward bronx swim they also only have they're starting slow want to see how their what their level of participation is also have expressed some desire to continue in the fall and as far as safe haven that's just a summer program for the by the youth bureau it
053doesn't exist after the summer thank you just you're welcome thank you for the clarification i have a question about it also really quick um so for the summer when are we going to communicate when lessons are available how soon will we let parents and families know that's first as far as pricing and availability um constrictions on availability for those classes like how many people how many kids are going to get to do whatever in a day how first come first serve what is it then you said that westchester aquatic is has every intention of returning in september how aggressively will we work to find out what our physical education what strain is what what is going to demand of that pool once we bring phys ed back in so that we can quickly determine how
054we can bring something like a company or organization like westchester aquatic back in during the school year also to teach kids to swim we've only got what looks like less than a month and a half that we're going to be giving lessons and this is the summer time people going to vacation kids going everywhere will we are is it our our trajectory to have it that we're going to have some teaching kids people to swim for into the school year even so um yes the answer is that we will do this in a very in short order in a timely fashion um the question is in whether or not we'll have room for these programs it's just the position of them in the schedule we're confident that we'll have plenty of a pool time for
055all for these three anyway for these two actually summer um safe haven will be terminated by then but um westchester aquatic and bronx swim will have spots in the fall it's just about the logistics of that and that is just one thing that i don't handle so somebody else might have to dr gorman or dr hamilton might have to help me on this one the swim schedule in terms of when the um public will be uh advised that i believe that schedule has already been posted it's on the website already yes but not so much so i believe the question was the the fall program we don't do we have that schedule yet dr gorman or dr hamilton no it's posted on the website at the present time is the community swim and free swim
056and lap swim okay i'm scheduled i have not been privy to uh so there is no contract with anybody else yet that's my question yeah exactly yeah i mean no lessons no no it's just free swim and free stuff is great i've taken advantage go take your families go to the free swim that's great but yeah this is my question which is um the agenda item before us to vote on is just to approve the overtime or you know summer hours for these district employees to be there when these things are going to happen but this agenda item is not the actual programs where are we going to vote on the actual programs to bring them in because this this doesn't do anything without the programs for them to be there for dr warming where
057where's where's the contract with west chester aquatic club and safe haven and bronx so westchester aquatic club so i said and dr hamilton please help me with this the facility use stops at the superintendent it doesn't require board action okay so the permits have been issued to both westchester aquatics and to bronx swim yes no that's true yeah our policy is as long as in terms of the swim program dr gorman two things um especially to what you said uh miss sorenson we did not want outside organizations in our facility even if they own all of it we wanted to make sure we had at least one person that might if somebody's running around or using our locker room so that's what the resolution is for tonight for that overtime that's exactly what that is
058as far as the development of the program the bronx swim program has potential for ongoing lessons um he's done a proposal for us twice and we on purpose did not want to just jump head over heels because he originally said let's bring 35 40 people and i'm like slow down and let's see how this goes right now so that that's one venue the other venue after the summer when trish ryan is free from her summer commitments she was successful in providing lessons last year and we also provide posted today i believe for a part-time aquatics director to increase hours for other programs in the summer so the other question i have i'm sorry because some what i see for example with westchester aquatics that's the only one that can say that i am familiar with
059are these hours did you guys discuss that with westchester aquatics for the hours that we are renting them for we're renting the pool for them to provide instruction or is it going to be the the team coming here in practice so according to westchester aquatics they they do both of those things simultaneously anyone who is interested in learning not learning to swim but is learning to be in their quasi-competitive type of instruction is avail they can come in and join and they're also going to run their program for their members as well simultaneously they're offering to give back to the community but like i said they're they're a notch above the what you need to have to be able to participate in their program you need to be able to put your face in the
060water and have a little bit of comfortability in the water whereas bronx swim and it's what it's a great compliment to each other and they both seem to agree upon that both travis and carly are like really happy to have each other because they do a little bit of of different things so i think together they'll it'll be a great program and then as dr gorman alluded to in the fall we will meaning the district will also be offering lessons so we'll have it we'll hit it from three different fronts and i think at that point we'll have a robust swim program so my last thing and i apologize i'm sorry i'm sorry just because i know that we have swimmers and we have a team right yeah i know that so have we discussed
061with westchester aquatics because we want to get this team rolling for the fall sure how we discuss with westchester aquatics to bring our team to their practice so i believe that it's in its infancy and we have not reached that level yet but that is a great suggestion that we will definitely look at because that'll be great if we could just bring our team to get them ready for the fall you know and get and get the team rolling immediately when school starts good questions so can i just sum up what i think like three of us have asked the same thing which is how are we communicating to the public or is it because this is westchester aquatics program in the end bronx these other programs it's their programs are they the ones advertising
062in the community saying come join our programs because it's not a school program um i will um defer that and have to get back to you on that i don't know what their reach is into the community it's not our program we're just letting the public know this is happening so take advantage of it they will do their recruiting and expand their program and what mike uh mr calicio is explaining is the the way this is designed we've created the best combination for beginners and intermediates and then to have access to the members of our community who want to have access and i think for the summer that is sufficient for us to generate some revenue for the pool and have it available to our community and then we can talk about how that partnership
063evolves as we see how it it unfolds this summer okay okay i just want our guys you know i just want our team to be ready too so thank you so uh on to business office we didn't vote we have to vote we have a motion sorry sorry my fault it was my fault i'll take the blame for it um so okay uh motion we've already done that we just need to vote sorry okay all in favor all in favor all right okay opposed abstain motion carries um business office 5.5.1 authorization to participate with other school districts of the southern westchester board of education services motion second all in favor opposed abstain motion carries 5.2 approves business office memorandum number 64 dated july 6 2021 motion all in favor i have some i have some
064questions sorry okay miss mcgowan thank you um i had a question uh two questions number 16 on this list authorization to pay other school districts for health and related services for an amount not exceed six hundred thousand dollars for a school year that is very vague can someone explain what that is for mr silver as i explained earlier today that six hundred thousand is our budget item for the purpose of repaying school districts where our children go we provide them with health services by law so it's approximately fourteen hundred or fifteen hundred dollars a child every child that attends another school district or another school and that's for just exactly that nursing services is a state formula that each school district has to fill out they send us the bills and we pay the bills
065once a year after the year is over for the perp for the cost of providing those services which are required by law any other questions thank you yeah i had another question on uh number 24. landscaping uh michael just i i just what do they do i just don't know what landscaping services other than our own buildings and grounds personnel so our buildings and grounds personnel do grass cutting leaf collection but a more the more advanced type of landscaping slit seeding bed maintain bed maintenance irrigation stuff that's above our skill set that is what we farm out to picture perfect also i know we're talking dei they are a minority owned local company they fit all the and they're great i must give them that plug as well and um again we are going to
066go back out to bid because last year we got a one year contract for them we're going to extend it to just throughout the summer we will be out to bid this summer and if they prevail they will continue otherwise it will be another company but we're very happy with the results that we have from them no thanks i just wanted to clarify what they what's landscape thank you trustee mitchell did you have a question um yeah really excuse me i just want to cover to a number three only because of course you know that's a huge number and i want to understand what is it cpi to me just what does it mean and 5.2 number three uh yes yes cpi it's the bus contract the cost plus the cpi our contracts our contracts
067on this for transportation and the state rules provide the transportation companies may increase their cost to us by the cpi consumer price index of may of whatever year we're in so the consumer price index i think was 2.1 or something like that perhaps a little bit more in may and that's what the transportation contract goes up unless we choose to rebid the contract but our experience in recent years has been rebidding the contract does not go well for us and so we decided in this case to renew the contract with the cpi at the consumer price index yes in increase is this to say that this 4.27 number is what it costs us for turning your back to oh i'm sorry thank you does this is this to say that it's costing us 4.27 mil
068for the purpose of busting children for special needs students and in homeless that's for one year that's the question that's for one year and that's out of district that's transporting maybe 50 45 50 buses a day to various locations as far as rockland county some of them so this is for out of the district and so that's just out of district then we have a separate contract for in-district and all of these all of these buses are uh classified children okay thank you thank you any other questions on that all in favor hi i'm staying motion carried opposed nobody opposes right motion carries uh six uh school improvement 6.1 authorization to approve school improvement services memorandum s 22-1 dated july 6 2021 motion questions yes just so i'm understanding um i these so these are
069private schools right in our in our city but they fall underneath our jurisdiction yes okay you need to know that that's the only question that was that was my that was my question because i'm trying to understand why we're funding schools who are paid tuition that we see no parts of yeah to some extent why we're funding and their their private schools i just understand well they're different i mean one and two are different but go ahead i can explain that those private schools are part of the title one um agreement and every year we have to meet with them and those who have our kids from mount vernon in their in their buildings must say they want to participate in title one funding so we have to give them that so they use their
070title one funding to hire their own folks to come in to do their pds or whatever they do in their in their schools and we are the lea or the lead educational agency right in title one we effectively are the uh we've all authorized to release those funds thank you so um when when i first when i was first voted on um i sat with ken silva and he gave me a tutorial as to where monies go and where they don't go and and how the churches need to start paying taxes that's all i got to say that's a much much bigger debate than just mount vernon ken gives you a one-on-one 101 yeah opposed abstain motion carries 6.2 authorization to approve school improvement personnel memorandum p 22-1 for july 6 2021 motion in favor
071opposed abstain motion carries student services 7.1 approval for student services memorandum number 14 dated july 6 26 20 21. fall in favor wait oh motion okay i'll get there any second second okay i had a question sorry is that okay that's fine um can someone remind me i know we do this every year but the difference between three and four and five so we have the committee and then the preschool committee and then the subcommittee yep mr paul is here this evening thank you this is the the difference mrs depaul on the subcommittee uh this committee on special ed cse um the preschool subcommittee 3.5 so item number three is the committee on special education so the cse itself makes recommendations for more restrictive environments so when you look at that there's less people that
072can make that determination as a chairperson um for item four subcommittee on preschool special education that's our team that makes recommendations for students three four and turning five-year-olds so that's a separate committee five years and under and then item five those that resolution includes all members of the csc so it itemizes psychologists special education supervisors general ed special education teachers all people that can participate so the board needs to pass the action in order for those people to make those recommendations at the csc okay thank you thank you you have questions i just had another question um how many and and if you don't know that off top of your head that's fine but how many students um from i know we pay many other school districts for our students who attend there how many
073students from other districts attend in mount vernon zero and access our special education program zero right a few years ago a lot of districts were inquiring and um asking about our programs for students with autism but we weren't confident you know in the programs at that time but our programs are six years in now yeah you know we have seasoned teachers we have behavior specialists that come in and support so you know we're more than willing to do intakes and you know meet with families from other districts to see if their children meet the profile of our programs and that would also require a revision to the board policy on accepting out of district students i've never seen any need they want to pay for it why would we say no thank you mr paul
074any other questions any other questions all in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries nothing in buildings and grounds number 9.1 superintendent reports superintendent approves resolutions dated july 6 2021 motion [Music] i just wanted to ask about the the new uh reading gardens what's the overall plan for that is it happening is it something to be built is it the schools handling it is it buildings and grounds is it this summer the photos give me some more information we have uh drawings which we obviously had to get in order to um get a price on it but it's it's minor to bench some landscaping a gazebo and it will be the prop both projects will be fully funded by a green space grant and is this that's great and thank you assemblyman pretlow um for this
075uh are these being tied into the school libraries in any way if they're a reading garden like how are we connecting it to they are and they will also be open to the community for people who may choose to to on their walks want to sit in the gazebo on the reading garden and read we'll also be looking at scholastic as one of our partners um to to also tie that into our classroom and school libraries okay this is your mic's yes this was part of a grant that that you availed yourself of and why did we just pick two schools uh that was all the money but i mean it was exactly that was now there may be another bout of money that may become available uh that we can talk about utilizing differently
076for other green space in the district okay or making a green space for that matter can we it depends on how big the pot is and for hagan as yeah and as a reminder for trap hagan especially for the newer board members this was this was all this was part of a plan that we got this land several years ago for for this purpose yeah okay so um i already discussed that um we seconded it um anybody all in favor aye aye opposed i have to abstain on this resolution okay we have two abstentions motion carry seven to two um ten ten point one except minutes of uh june 22nd 2021 motion motion second second well in favor hi i oppose abstain i i have to abstain because you all did the world's fastest board
077meeting so i got here like six minutes after it it's already the meeting was already over this was right before the retreat so i have to abstain okay okay so motion carries okay okay um 10.2 policy second reading of diversity equity and inclusion uh yeah no again nothing to do here this is the second point but rick i see nothing's actually been attached i was okay we will reattach the same version that was at the last meeting again but we'll do a third reading after i talk to nizaba about him okay okay all right so motion second nothing to do okay nothing okay so you have to vote on motion to adjourn i just have one question uh did we resolve mr mccormack did you resolve the the follow-up retreat date so we had circulated
078several dates for a follow-up retreat i was going to talk to the group tonight we are currently looking at either september 21st or september 28th but i believe mr mitchell was not available on the 28th that's right so if we can do the 21st um has everybody has everybody responded are we yeah i'm available i can't do august 3rd no no we're not doing the third we've already moved on september september 21st did you hear from trustee sorensen did you did you respond to september 21st i'm good with this okay okay okay and trusty red are we all good yeah well i think 21st because then we can book her and there's no other meeting for july we have no other meeting unless it's going to be a special meeting necessarily did we get all
079our ipads back from the students we did a phenomenal job with collecting ipads um laptops thank you um we collected over 3 600 and those students who are in summer school are keeping theirs uh and we have about 450 if i recall correct that need repair okay good statistically statistically that's very good that's great can i have a request maybe sorry madam president i just had a question for the superintendent um can we i think it'd be helpful maybe dr gorman by september by the beginning of the school year can we have some kind of just report on um lessons learned with respect to the devices and how we're intending to use the devices going forward because we're still using them but it's not covered anymore i think it'd be great at the beginning of
080the school year to talk about that that's all okay did we adjourn that yes okay motion to adjourn if we didn't can yes