Board of Education Meeting June 1 2021

001[Music] okay good evening everyone and welcome to the june 1st meeting of the mount vernon board of education 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 mr mccormack will you please call the police good evening everybody trustee red president trustee turnquist president trustee mitchell trustee patterson president trustee mick owen president trustee white president trustee saunders trustee miller president a quorum is present ma'am great um first off i'd like to um i guess we should do communications from the public first so do we have any communication believe we have one speaker clarissa keith is clarissa keith here oh okay okay good evening everyone good evening i felt compelled

002to come speak before the board on how csea employees were not treated as a valued employee of the district during the return of the opening the clerical staff was requested to come and count election votes during covet i didn't understand that the ppe's were not in the buildings before returning before returning for students to return some buildings received ppas to cover ppes excuse me to cover their entire counter where other buildings did not i had to email a number of times just to receive that because i didn't understand where was the difference the district office was closed to the public when the rest of the district buildings were not then at one point the district office had a sign you had to make an appointment to enter the district office however other buildings did not

003where is the difference between one building and in another when we are all one district um the custodial hours will change to 12 to nine when these employees are dealing with the same issues as others as we all are with covid it has changed tremendously a lot of our lives we have lost family members we are having to care for family members we have to take on more financial responsibilities because of covet family members have lost their jobs with these hours how is it possible for the csea members to even if they need to take on another job they could not also a lot of the csea members are parents they are now having to entrust in someone else to raise their children in their parents what parents do not want to raise their own

004child and make sure that they're eating properly they're being placed and tucked in the bed and they're there for their child this is not fair the csea has been taken over by administration via email i was informed that the district was informed as of march 23 of 21. however the past unit president sean peterson received an email inviting him to discuss the 2122 school calendar which i don't understand he is no longer the unit president the administration has taken over civil service but yet he was invited to speak and come and sit and discuss the the calendar for the following school year for csea unfortunately the integrity of mr peterson was not there because had he had integrity he would have told informed we can't mention people i'm sorry our past unit president did not

005state that he was no longer had authority to make any decisions for csea however when i did find this information out i came over to the district office and spoke to the secretary of that department in which they were authorized to send that information to the administration however nothing was done because the calendar was voted on without a csea signature which once again shows us the csea department that we mean really nothing to the district because for the past years it's always been a signature from each unit each union um could you i'm kind of trying to summarize because we are already over time so would you mind just you've already hey is my two minutes up yes okay thank you okay but thank you for your time i just wanted to absolutely be aware

006okay thank you very much thank you yes and good evening everyone sorry i'm not here as you know i am recovering from knee surgery but i am with you in spirit the voice this is liz keith um i don't know what that means administration has not taken over csea we have no interest in running csea and i've there's no evidence or no action that has been taken or decision made by administration to take over csea um secondly i understand there is a considerable upheaval or turmoil within the association and that the state leadership has stepped in to try to navigate and facilitate whatever dissension may be going on within the group but that has nothing to do with the district the board or the administration we had no input in that whatsoever our goal was

007to have representation on the calendar by someone representing cse a if there is a grievance that is something that the association feels has been a violation of any negotiated bargaining agreement those procedures for expressing that agreement still exists that has not changed the agreement has not changed at all even though there's been change in the leadership within the group and i do need to go on record that there has not been a single complaint by any association uh the administrators group the teachers group or csca that ppe was appropriated for sufficient ppe was not provided at the building level if that is the case this is the absolute first um that i am hearing of that so i just wanted to clarify that and the state representatives or whoever is currently in leadership of the

008association can certainly follow the procedures in the agreement relative to filing and or advancing any breach or grievance and i'll be more than glad to try to facilitate and navigate that in terms of the hours yes the schools are a little different than central office because we don't service children so parents need to be able to have access to the building they need to be able to get in but it is not true that the schools were not encouraged to ask parents to make uh appointments uh to get in the building because i've seen those that signage to that affected many of our buildings so i just need to clarify that for the record okay thank you dr hamilton no but follow up with please follow up with dr hamilton if you have first follow

009up with your union but follow up with dr hamilton if you have any for further questions okay sure is that any other community includes communications from the public okay a couple things i probably should have mentioned the beginning one is that dr hamilton is here not physically but he is present at the meeting uh we all hope he recovers soon i know he is the other thing is that we have a new face at our table and that is trustee elect candace sorensen who was just recently elected to school board to a three-year term she will be officially sworn in on july 6th at our reorganization meeting but she is as is our practice with trustees elect she is welcome to sit at the table and start to get her feet wet with procedures and

010processes and we will be taking her through a full orientation as soon as we can make our schedules work so anyway congratulations to candace and welcome to you we look forward to working with you another another point and and we can talk about this more later is that um trustee brenda crump who has served the school district for many years um did was attend to her resignation recently and her seat uh and it's effective today june 1st um because of personal reasons she um had to resign her seat she couldn't give her her all which is all mrs trump ever gave was her all she couldn't give her all uh to her school board responsibilities so she did resign her seat so um as of tomorrow we have an open seat and we have options

011about you know what we can do and um i guess we could we could talk about that during new business tonight we could briefly if anyone has any questions about what the process is and what we can and cannot do we don't really have to do anything but anyway just wanted to mention that um and that's it for now so dr hamilton superintendents report yes good evening again and welcome mrs i'm sorry i am not here to officially welcome you but i look forward to working with you and congratulations uh on your election to this incredible group of people with whom i have the pleasure of working um there are couple of things i'd like to just bring to your attention this evening by way of the superintendent's report there are two tabs that raised

012some question during the chat review session with the president and vice president uh one refers to the ib summer bridge program which i'm going to ask dr gorman to speak to momentarily and the second is the smart scholar program which dr bc will speak to i'd also like to put on your radar that the mount vernon city school district is pleased to announce that we will be commemorating juneteenth this year with a variety of instructional activities although this historic day is formally celebrated on saturday the school's preceding the juneteenth will have a complete teach-in around jupiter and what it means so that our students are aware staff members are well informed and there will be a celebration of literature around juneteenth including use of videos uh juneteen uh what it means and why we celebrate

013it um explaining what gym team means in our history why we honor it and why all americans should honor juneteen for some of our younger students we it will include coloring and poster contests including research on juneteenth's significance a comparison and contrast of juneteenth and the fourth of july celebrations and why those two uh events are distinct in our history and a review of frederick douglass's speech with comprehensive questions uh related to why that speech is so important and a visit to a virtual tour of a gallery here in our own community that explores african-american culture so we are very excited about this opportunity and next year juneteenth is recognized on the official calendar that has already been approved by the board we will also be providing the board with a bond update at the

014june 15th meeting the 2016 bond is effectively complete we will be sharing with the board which punch list items are remain to be resolved any matters that are still pending and reserves that we still have and by all accounts we remain under budget and look forward to sharing that information with you in a poor presentation at the june 15 meeting and and for some of our new trustees you may not be very familiar with the small school small city schools lawsuit but we've been engaged in this lawsuit since i've been in the district and we have some great news the appellate court third division unanimously found each plaintiff district has demonstrated a violation of the new york state constitution has debates to protest i gave testimony on behalf of small schools and we received notice

015over the weekend that this decision has been upheld and we should anticipate increased funding as a constitutional right that cannot be taken away by the governor and we expect that we will see an increase in our allocation based on this new decision more information will be shared with you but this is hot off the presses and i could not wait out off the press and i could not wait to share this with you hallelujah [Applause] dr gorman i'm going to ask you to speak to your tab i'm not sure which number it is now because i know some things switched [Music] um but specifically dr gorman if you can speak to the ib summer bridge program it's under hr so it's sure good evening everyone uh just brief uh briefly i think dr hamilton wanted

016me to elaborate on the ib summer bridge this is the first that we're doing in the district um and it is our first group that is progressing through the ib program and if you don't if you if you recall one of the major major projects in the ib program is a 4 000 word extended essay so needless to say this is not an easy task it is incredibly rigorous and that's why they give dual credit at many colleges for that type of coursework it really requires additional staff to work individually coach the kids go through the theses the proposals what their what the whole essay is about and really help them fine-tune their thinking and actually to not give them that support would almost set the kids up for failure so that's why there's um

017additional staff this summer that might not be directly proportionate to um to the teaching of the bridge program that we added how many students dr gorman are registered i do believe there are 63 students in all right thank you thank you dr gordon dr bc smart scholars program also um had board leadership had questions about that that i think being ober could benefit from yes this is the program that we had with concordia and when concordia closed we went to mercy so we are now fully with mercy and it's 75 kids per year so um it's going to be 150 kids this year who has to do the bridge program and we are very happy to know that our kids are marching along and they are doing very well we had 100 attendance last summer

018and i think we're going to have the same thing this summer and those teachers are also going to be trained by the college so that they can become adjunct professors to teach those courses in the high school so that when they graduate they will graduate with at least a certain amount of credits that they can get either associate or they can do two years after college while they are here so that is what that program is all about great and 150 so i mean 75 who are going into it and 75 who will be in it exactly excellent so we have two years that's great and i'm glad that mercy was able to step in you were able to get them to step in yes and and fast i have to give them credit because

019i was going to go with lehman but it takes a long time and i did not want to lose out so we went with mercy and mercy just jump right in and i have to say um thank you to dr gabitan because she worked she teaches at mercy and she helps us to to get everything going so thank you dr g thank you that's great that's great because i know it that was very sudden what happened with concordia yes but you know what we never give up i know that and i don't want to be part of it but they're just beginning to find their way because they are working out some kings with the com with college that you know with concordia at this point in time but everything was going too slowly for

020me okay thank you and lastly as part of the superintendent's report i would like to give you an update um and a brief presentation on my brother's keeper just to keep you in the loop on what's going on how our students are being represented i have to tell you that we have such extraordinary young people representing our district i have heard our students speak i have heard them share their various views and their position on issues as part of the mbk initiative and have i will tell you that i have not been so proud um to hear our students speak and the way they have represented our district and held their own uh even against some other uh speakers and students from other communities of the districts our students have just been phenomenal representatives for

021for our district and i want to applaud and salute them i want to also acknowledge brother muhammad for being the liaison for our district and this initiative so without further ado um brother muhammad greetings of peace to everyone i want to pass the mic at this time to dr gabaton who works with me uh with my brother's keeper as well and then i'll come on after doc hi everyone hi so um it's been a privilege working with my brother's keeper these young men they do whatever i ask from calling them at nine o'clock and say i need you to be on a zoom call with a board of regent they get on it was a privilege to hear one of our students speak right after president obama at the symposium he was poised it's amazing

022they have represented the mount vernon city school district very well so i would like to introduce you tonight to our current mbk fellows martinez john claude and ariel luciad [Applause] martinez will be going to emery university in the fall on a full scholarship and area will be going to nyu with a 70 000 a year scholarship so these young men are asked to do some amazing things they read three books this fall um james baldwin's book which they went and discussed among you know the secretary of education they bought the chancellor among many people uh they took part in a mastermind where they learned how to do a text style conversation and it was a dotted style that martinez presented after our superintendent and i'm our former president and i'm going to let martinez first

023speak about his experience good afternoon everyone so my experience in mbk so it started off i am a 2020 mbk fellow it started off a rough year as you know covid and i didn't get to have the normal mbk experience that everyone has had before me so we were able to converse on zoom and despite the psychological and mental challenges that govitt had we were able to transpire again above that and we were able to become who we are today we gained so much insight from mbk from the mastermind meetings and everything of the sort another thing that we're doing right now is we're doing a service project the service project is based on gardening so in mount vernon as you know there's not a lot of gardening or anything of the sort so what

024we're trying to do is we're trying to improve the oxygen intake in mauronin as well as help fight food insecurity because as you know there are gmos in very various foods and there are cans and all that so we are trying to build this community up from the ground and build the proper food source for everyone in this community thank you excellent now i would like to introduce elia lucia good evening good evening hello my name is ariel luces i'm a senior at the denzel washington school of the arts i'm also one of the 2020 mbk fellows i was mentored by mr gory who was a very inspirational and guided me through my process i joined this program in the in this year very late however with my short-term experience i have learned so much

025that facilitated my growth both professionally and personally throughout my time as an mbk fellow i had opportunity to take part of an activity called mastermind in which they've i read various books such as the fire next time by james bowen when i was puerto rican written by esmeralda santiago and broken bread by atticus torrent overall we had valuable discussions regarding the characters and the prevailing themes in each book studying these work of literature i was able to learn about the different experience characters encountered which helped me to navigate my own life and how to successfully overcome challenges by being resilient steadfast and dedicated we have also offered public speaking training recently i attended the mbk symposium for two days and the objectives were to inspire inform and empower there were several speakers such as the

026new york state commission of education new york state majority senate leader and one of our honored former president barack obama i have gained so much nuggets and words of wisdom one that resonates with me is that it's important to use positive thoughts and state affirmations because it will give you power to succeed but in order to cease to succeed you need to know your life purpose know what distinguished you from the rest of the world and going through a process of self-reflection self-assessment self-adjustment and self-improvement after the symposium i was truly inspired informed and empowered it was a pleasure to serve as a 2020 nbk fellow for the mount vernon city school district i can assure you with my experience and the valuable lessons i've learned will guide me as i continue my education at

027nyu this upcoming fall mbk gave me the foundational skills and the competence i need to be continually relevant effective and the next leader to inspire others thank you so as i say our boys well represent the mount vernon city school district with that it was it is my honor to present the third class of mbk fellow the 2021 2022 mbk fellow from denzel washington john hayden harvey and for marvin and steam academy deshawn blackwell good evening members of the school board and school board trustees my name is john ian harvey i'm a junior at the denzel washington school of the arts in a newly inducted mbk fellow the class of 2021-2022 i'm here today personally to thank you for allowing me to be part of such an important program a program that allows me to

028reach out to my community and raise awareness of the disparities inside of it and finally i just like to say that i look forward to carrying on the legacy entrusted in me to me by my previous fellows thank you [Applause] good afternoon good afternoon my name is deshawn wallen i'm representing the third class of mbk i'm representing mount vernon steve mom vernon steam academy and i'm very glad to be here i'm beyond proud to be chosen and i'm ready to make a change in any way i can great we could do better than that this is the type of excellence that the mbk fellows instills in our young men and to my my two brothers that are going off to college i want to thank you for enduring during this covet era it was a

029little bit difficult however um just carried a legacy and no matter where you go let them know you from mount vernon that's right with that being said with that being said i just want to let the board know and maybe we can deal with it more in depth at another time but that the nbk gardens are in full effect we personally uh through mbk have put together four strong gardens in parker williams pennington as well as lincoln we're using the greenhouse and lincoln and you got to see the pictures and eventually you have to taste the food but i thank you for the support of dr hamilton of course dr bc and the board god bless you good evening thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you to our young fellas i am just these fellows have

030just done such an extraordinary job as you can see representing the district and um they are doing some great things i mentioned to you one of our students who was accepted into the harvard pre-med program as a junior and that's johnny who spoke this evening who i am proud to to be working with and and i'll continue to support and try to mentor him as best as i can i actually learned from him frankly um but we have some extraordinary students in our district and must continue to give them the opportunity to celebrate and speak and share so that they also get the limelight that they so they so deserve so uh salute to those who are leading this initiative for us but most importantly since we consider our young men for being such extraordinary

031examples perhaps the superintendent's report for this evening great thank you very much dr hamilton uh two things i'd like to say to these young men please come back please come back to mount vernon we will we will always welcome you with open arms and we'll always welcome your help and your assistance because we'll be learning along the way in college we're very proud of you secondly on this small cities lawsuit school district lawsuit this is so huge and i i want to thank the administration dr hamilton has really worked tirelessly as have our legal counsel but dr hamilton has really represented mount vernon in an exemplary way in terms of advocating for um for our district for fairness as has mr silver on the financial front with his contacts at the state and of course

032dr bennett conroy who reels in money like from places is just unbelievable she's always getting more and more for our students but i really want to thank the administration for their tireless effort in sticking with this i want to thank the board for sticking with this because this has been a lawsuit where every year it's like how much are we spending on this do we really want to be doing this well you know what we stuck with it and the right thing happened and justice is prevailing so it should all give us a little bit of hope that if we just keep fighting for what's right uh good things will happen so i i'm just absolutely thrilled with that news it's just great um i'd like to move to committee reports does anyone have anything

033they would like to share at this point mommy yeah sorry i can't see you through the plexiglass this on yeah okay speak up um so we found out today so the steam graduation modern steam academy is in about three weeks it's on june 21st and a lot of the students were about arms about how it's going to transpire because we're hearing there's going to be like a drive through like the high and like how they did last year but we feel that since this is the first graduating class of steam since it's the last year of principal bradley that we really want a sit-down graduation and i know it's going to be difficult because of covert protocols and how bradley wants us to have it at steam but we could do it at the high

034we could do it at thornton we could rent out a place because correct me if i'm wrong i believe governor cuomo said effective may 1st if you have above 150 people in an indoor place you can rent out a place for like 10 of the capacity so it's going to be expensive but if we don't do the higher store we could run out of place because we really really want especially how special this year and after all we've been through with covert and all that and how special this class specifically this classes we want to have a sit down graduation so it's a suggestion but we would really like that if that's possible how many students are graduating in your class mommy 110 i believe 110. dr gorman yep i um the protocols are changing

035as we speak and we sort of anticipated this but every couple of weeks um things change i have been in contact not specifically with ms bradley but i'll follow up tomorrow with administration there high school is already making plans to do more of a traditional graduation because they're getting the same outcry so we're in constant flux and change i might i will speak to your building leadership tomorrow and i don't disagree with you mame i actually have asked dr gorman to meet with the building principles and share the most recent guidance on uh in-person events they are literally changing daily um i've had three meetings and literally in the last week on this topic and asking the commissioner for a very specific guidance because the fines for operating outside that guidance is significant and we

036certainly don't want to put the district in that position so i agree with you this is a very special year for our steam students um and for mrs bradley and we certainly do want you to get everything that you should in order to make this experience as memorable as possible as pleasantly memorable as possible so we will work in collaboration with the building principles in order to make that happen for you to accept that we can thank you anything else okay and i would love to be there in person to shake your hand congratulate you um okay anyone else uh trustee mcgowan uh we had a policy committee meeting this afternoon uh just with the superintendent and went over the current draft of a new policy to update the efforts of diversity inclusion district-wide that

037includes both personnel issues curriculum issues uh hiring vendors and contractors etc uh so it's going to be a consolidated policy that that kind of brings together what we currently have several different policies into one and try and be a little bit more uniform about it we will have a first draft ready for first read next meeting uh we were hoping to have it on for tonight uh we have a little bit more work to do with uh the legal team and with nisba before we're ready for a first draft quite honestly uh the the the sample policies that we've gotten so far from nisb and other districts are not really as progressive as i think they should be honestly and not consistent with some of the the the outcry and demand we're hearing from the

038community and i think we can do better and so we're exploring the kind of how far we can push this issue uh legally and make sure that we are at the forefront of this effort among school districts and not lagging five or ten years behind so more at the next meeting um trustee mcgowan are we adding one of the things i was thinking about based on something i read i think it was in our newsletter that we get as trustees was about adding something about access to technology for our students in our policy uh we had not talked about that specifically i mean we have a separate policy uh just about access tech technology okay um but i honestly i hadn't thought about the intersection with that although it's it's something that uh if you

039read if you get on board which is the you know it it's it's it's a newsletter from nisba that we get sent to us occasionally i don't even know what the frequency is but there was a very interesting article about the intersectionality of you know the equity and access to technology is really very important and i if there's a way we can have that in our diversity equity and inclusion policy i think would be a great thing to memorialize in that as well but i'm just one that's just one person that's just a thought i have thanks thank you trustee turn quest jones good evening everyone i just wanted to report that um trustee patterson trustee mitchell and myself attended the stop the violence sessions that they've been having in mount vernon it's because of

040our concern for our children to be safe on the streets and us in changing the narrative so with that said um there's two things that's going to happen two things going to happen one thing that happened already um i've been passing out these booklets right here so these booklets are from the youth bureau and the reason why i pass them out is because we want to make sure that we continually uh connect the arteries of mount vernon and in this booklet you will find a plethora of programs that are in our in mount vernon and outside of mount vernon for our mount vernon uh young learners and and young readers um this in the meantime between time just hoping that uh we will be able to uh showcase these programs on our website and so

041i spoke to the director debbie and she is going to she's supposed to reach out to um mr mccormick as well as dr kenneth hamilton in regards to posting the um the electronic version of this booklet right and so again we're talking about connecting the arteries and last but not least um out of that meeting also came where we will be having a um let's talk mount vernon it's for our youth so i hope the mount vernon uh the mbk brothers will be there because uh brother arthur muhammad is also on the venue um and i will be a moderator and i just asked if mamey would please join me with being a moderator as well because this is about the youth and if the youth are not there then it's not going to work

042and so that event is going to take place in mount vernon on june 14th 2021 june 14 2021 at 38 south second avenue mount vernon new york and it's at 7 p.m and we will be talking about uh the youth and the youth forum and the youth forum is what we're having here in mount vernon excellent thank you thank you um tj if you would send that to me please i appreciate it i'd like to add that to my calendar okay no problem additionally um you know as as i think we've mentioned at previous board meetings we are going to be embarking on a redesign of our website and that this would be absolutely one of the most important things that we would have for people to see when they first come on services opportunities

043and services for our youth in mount vernon so that's great and that's a no-brainer great thank you trustee patterson do you have something you'd like to share i don't um we had um we haven't had a budget committee but we had an insurance committee meeting recently and just to give everyone a heads up the process is arduous and painful i mean it's moving but it's really it's it's it's a it's quite a situation i don't know for everyone who doesn't deal with insurance every day but um covet has thrown all insurance into this big um that of like uncertainty and what's happened is everybody has seen to some extent insurance policies go from a thousand to four thousand um which has really effectively made a lot of companies almost put them out of business um

044so we're really endeavoring we're working with all of our consultants to ensure that our insurance costs are not going to see that jump and we should have something to present for our next meeting and we'll have something to present for next meeting i would like to since i sat in on that insurance meeting i would say it made my hair go on fire spontaneously because it's just so hard and complicated and i really want to thank trustee patterson for being on top of this she has expertise in this area and it really is helpful to us because it's a it's a really it's a tough market and it's hard to understand on a good day so thank you very much additionally um just and this this will be new information to our newest uh our

045trustee elect uh sorensen uh we have a process that we've mentioned at a couple other board meetings we have a a thing that we do to try to move conversations along and keep them focused and we have a little a mascot that we use for that you want to hold that up trustee patterson and and this is elmo we all know who elmo is but elmo e-l-m-o also stands for enough let's move on and it's a nice way we learned in a board retreat it's a nice way to say to someone especially on zoom meetings you know we're getting a little bit off topic here because we we always have a pretty full agenda and um everyone has a lot of great ideas but sometimes we just have to kind of reign it in and

046stay focused to get through our you know the issues at hand the most important priorities at hand so um trustee patterson i were talking about this and so she went and took it upon herself to get everybody in elmo so she has an elmo for all our board members and you know we use elmo very judiciously but it can be helpful but she felt it was important and i think it's great to empower every trustee to have their own elmo you can even feel free to use them with your own families you never know so um anyway she's going to pass them out but thank you trustee patterson for thinking of us and for helping us keep ourselves in line trusty red yes um i like to add that trustee mitchell and i attended rebecca

047turner school last week and thanks to mr felicio for assisting us and his um head custodian jeffrey who walked us through the building we were able to talk to the teachers and um happened to speak to principal dockett who was there uh welcomed us he was a great guy and um we're going to be continuing doing some rounds and um next next future in the room in the future great thank you very much trustee white no that was my team that was all right yeah right buildings and grounds and facilities i know that's right he's building an empire okay i understand now i understand uh and and trustee alex sorensen would you like to share any any anything with us or with the community at large now that you're almost fully ensconced um not really

048i just want to say thank you for the warm welcome and i am definitely ready to get the ball rolling and start working to make our schools much better than what they are already so great thank you um one thing i wanted to mention that kind of piggybacks on community involvement in a interesting way is that i i had a couple of calls over the weekend from some people in the uh citizens in the pennington area complaining about young people they're all younger than i am so the young people um maybe allegedly in their 20s or 30s smoking pot drinking and playing basketball uh in the basketball courts of pennington so um one of the things that we and and so so first of all as we discussed a couple meetings going at the high

049school our facilities are basically open from dawn to dusk and basketball courts etc are basically open our tennis courts are open to the community and this is one of the things that the community has actually asked us for they've said we want places where our students and our young people can go to participate in healthy wonderful activities get together and do meaningful things so we are open from dawn to dusk that being said we do not allow any alcohol or drugs on our school campuses at any time it doesn't matter when that is the process for the community is if you have a complaint if you feel that uh people any kind of people any kind of people are creating a nuisance or doing something illegal at one of our facilities after hours that would

050be after dusk the thing to do is to call the police it is not a school matter at that point it is a police matter so i discussed this with mister with dr hamilton last week and i discussed this with mr pelicio tonight and we are going to produce signs and signage for every facility that will be well placed that will indicate what the rules are open from dawn to dusk no dogs no drugs no alcohol no barbecues no fires no loud music whatever and then have a number if people if neighbors want to complain so just just to make sure people understand the difference between school property during the day and after hours and i guess we'll also probably have we don't allow random random people on school campuses during school hours uh and

051that that goes without saying but maybe we'll post to that effect too so i guess we'll be looking at what you know what the signage looks like but we need to make it accessible and widely available and i think also probably post it to the website so people understand because i've gotten enough calls from people in my communities who because i live near the high school saying hey we'd love to play the tennis courts and i found out they can play on the tennis courts so this is a wonderful thing and we're sharing this we are community community schools and we are sharing our facilities with the community so we just need people to abide by the rules and we will post them accordingly so i just wanted to make that comment uh you actually

052just reminded me of something on that note sure related with ryan annex ah yes so i i shared with the board um over the weekend we have been directed by the state to demo or rehab uh the brian and it said effectively we can't leave it like it is and i we were prepared to present a resolution to you this evening that would declare it uh an emergency uh we're advised by council that if that is not the most uh effective way to go about this but i would like to just bring you up to date on that um project and keep you abreast on where we are relative to our plans and how we expect to respond to this this mandate from the state so i'm going to share my screen and ask mr

053pelicio and if it can give me access to share my screen i'm going to ask mr felicio and mr babiello and mr silver to walk us through our conversation walk the board through our conversation today regarding the grimes nx great wrong presentation service uploaded right there we go good evening everyone evening um next slide right so as we know the grimes annex to bring everybody up to speed can you go back to the slide before that one please yeah so the grimes annex was originally the mandela alternative school and many many years ago so approximately two decades ago it was abandoned as a use using a facility that we use so over the years it has decayed and it has come now to the attention of the state that we either have to make it

054usable and be able to obtain a certificate of occupancy or we have to demolish the building so as you can see it is in disrepair and the reason that it's in such disrepair is because it contains acm that's asbestos containing material it's throughout the building so we really need to plan to demolish it and so next slide please so how much will this cost to the community so we've been we went out to bid two times for this once in august of 2019 and again in january of 2020 and the the bids ranged from three quarters of a million dollars to 1.4 million on the high end and the soft costs the architectural fees um are somewhere between 70 and eighty thousand dollars so we anticipate because we have to go out to bid again

055because it's been um over a year since we went out and the costs definitely have changed and we're anticipating them to be slightly increased and we will do that through our new architects k g and d next slide please and it all um it all fits into the 2020 vision it was part of the original bond referendum we will need we do not need an additional resolution to perform the work the board has already located through the bond resolution and the work is contemplated to be part of what we had already gone out to vote for mr silver so we've been advised by the state that the environmental impact statements that we've done from the past are are valid we've been advised in writing from our bond council that this is legitimate use of the

056contingency funds that remain from the bond and we just have to go to the state and get a new uh building permit for bidding and we may have to revise some of the drawings but we don't think that's going to be much with one architect taking over for another architect they will want to examine the documents and make sure that everything is to their liking since they will be responsible for the demolition as it moves forward and um we anticipate going out to bid as soon as the state will approve what we want to do and that should be pretty quick we don't think to be much time wasted for that we can get going on it next slide so we do not this does again meet the criteria of an emergency because it has

057existed as an issue for several years now the attorneys have advised us that we it is not an effective uh or justified declaration to be an emergency when this has been on our radar for several years now but we can make it a part of the bond project because it was originally listed as such so i just wanted to keep you up to date on that of course we will advise you every step of the way when we get to the point where we're ready to act on on this structure but we have in writing from the state that we have to act on this okay um so i had a question we have enough money left over because i thought we might be considering using federal money because this is a one-time so the

058federal the federal money we've been granted so we we do have to tell the state exactly how we're going to pay for that that's required before we can get a permit right we do not have any guidance from the feds or from the state as to how the fed federal money may be used i did raise that question with the commissioner when we had a workshop on this subject we are the only ones asking about demolishing a building and to date we have not yet received that guidance so since we need to tell them something we're going to tell them the bond if the feds approve this in time for us to to change that we can change it the state has said we can change the funding source should we be allowed to use

059the federal money for that absent that we have contingency money in the bond sufficient to cover this plus two items on the agenda tonight uh having to do with the pool and the um and the library at uh at the steam academy with plenty left over for other contingencies that remain okay great anybody have any questions about about this yeah this is jeff now when it comes to the bidding and i know i spoke you know we spoke about this earlier when i first came here as far as how do people from the community get involved in bidding for this situation yeah sure um it's just like any of our other bids it'll be published in our local newspaper on our website we will it'll be here at the district for anyone to to bid

060on any of our work that we have here however i will say that this is a very unique um project because we're going to do what's called a mass demolition it contained so much acm in the building and contaminations in the surrounding structure that um very specialized people to to do this type of work where we would actually instead of updating the building first it all is part of the mass demolition they kind of tent the building removed the entire building and carted away assuming that it's all acm that it's all asbestos containing material so it's it's very regulated at all levels local state and federal levels so again if there is a mount vernon company or a local company that is capable of doing this work we would welcome it with open arms okay

061um and we'll obviously so so the way we're going to approach this mr palicho is obviously to make sure that we are protecting the neighborhood i mean that's the reason why we have to do it this way and um we'll obviously have to do signage and communicate with the neighborhood and ask for their forbearance but i know i know they want it gone because it's an eyesore and it has asbestos but it's going to be a pain while it's being how long does anyone have any idea at this point how long it will take to complete the entire project is or it's just speculation at this point i believe it's it's we're in the speculation point about several months i would imagine um the environmental regulations that are out there with constant monitoring constant we

062will probably be protecting other properties around right building like part of the the job will be to protect there's a house that's literally 20 feet from the property line so that that person's property will be protected at all levels state local and federal level the amount of regulation that goes into removing even an asbestos tile is enormous the way we have to have containment negative air how it's constantly monitored 24 hours inside and out all kinds of monitoring of the air both in and out so yes we are confident that we will protect the area and of course the school building which is also 50 feet away exactly so we're going to have to have a lot of assurances on that and then and then once the building's gone the plan is to have some

063green space there which the federal money could pay for i believe right that the plan after that has not been developed yet it's only been ideas for it but whatever we do it's going to require a retaining wall because it's about 10 feet grade right so we'll have to build up the property even to have just play space but that will have to be a separate project we don't want to muddy this up the project right now is just demolish the building and then we will make plans to do something else we are not certain whether we might have to have a community vote on this on on what to do next depending upon what the project entails when we decide okay well thank you we look forward to receiving darcy and sir i have

064a question candice hi candace hi um i'm just concerned because as we all know um we don't see the effects of you know um asbestos contamination in children until years after so i want to know what is the insurance that the community is going to have if you know it's all nice you know nice and dandy when it's happening but what if within the next 10 years we have children around the community or that lived in the community they have developed asbestos poisoning or adults that have developed asbestos poisoning what what reassurance are we giving them that they will be protected if that ever happens so there there are guidelines of course but our specifications uh that are written in part by our attorneys uh deal with that and we have done probably 50 asbestos

065projects since mr pelicio and i have been here in seven years and we are very careful very mindful we don't let anybody touch anything we will protect the community as we have uh the the children and adults in in all of the schools through all these years we are very mindful of it we are very knowledgeable on the subject and we have a lot of outside consultants engineers who will be involved in this project this is not a regular demolition or construction this is a whole different ball game and and we will keep your prize as we move along with the uh with the specifications and plans we're happy to make a report to the board thank you thank you gentlemen i have a question um first of all there's great news that we're enough

066on budget plus with the federal money we have actually multiple options of how to pay for this finally because we've known for years that it needed to come down we've known for years the extent and scope of work that would be required to do the demolition that's why we postponed it for so long if it was a regular demolition then we could just go in with a wrecking ball and do it in a week it would have been done years ago um but the amount of work is so extensive when you have a building of this for what it's worth i used to be an environmental lawyer so right every building built before 1978 has asbestos in it every single building but there's different kinds of asbestos it's put in different places it's used in

067different ways some buildings use it a whole lot some used it a little bit in some cases it's really easy to remove and it's just like a layer that you take off and you're done and in some cases is it literally integrated into the walls of the building and this is one of those kinds of buildings where you can't really be separated easily the the legal term is called friable right friable asbestos is easy to remove this is not that kind um so anyway that's great i'm glad that the circumstances have aligned themselves that when at the 11th hour when we really can't put it off any longer we can finally get it done my specific question is for our benefit and for the benefit of the community can you explain why the heck we

068need architects when you are tearing down a building because everybody understands why you need architects to build a building but can you explain to us why we have to spend money on architects to take down a building just like erecting a building the actual demolishing of a building is done by scope and plans we need an environmental engineer environmental experts and the architect so in order for any plan or any project to go through the state it needs architectural review and in order for us to get the state funding or reimbursement or aid then the architects have to sign off on it um part of as we as you see everywhere to build something you must demolish something if you you know they demolish buildings in the middle of a city and they just drop

069it in place that clearly can't be on the hands of the contractor or the demolition experts so we get the the specific plans on how things are removed when they're removed where they go who can touch them who can see them who can do all those things and that's done through the architectural review and the state has a big architectural review process so one other thing is that this will be aidable as part of our bond funds uh what we don't know is whether it will be over 15 years like construction is or whether it will be in a different way so that still to be remains to be seen from the state and i'll add one more thing so what you get with the architectural plans also is not only the plan you get

070the construction administration as it's happening it's not the construction management but it's the administration to make sure that all of this stuff is followed right to the letter um as trustee sorenson had brought up so the destruction as opposed to the construction right absolutely thanks for that clarification do we have an anticipated um time frame is this happening over the summer is over the fall like next year when is this actually happening so sed um i know pre-covid had a 15-week architectural review lead time i think it's a little bit less and it may be less on the demolition side so we will as soon as we get the okay from the state and we get the secret resolution out there and we do everything that we need and for the environmental impact we will

071be in there and taking it out of there the state is because they're mandating it they may um push this to the front of the line i would imagine one would think yeah that's the hope anyway one would hope i mean it'd be great to do this when the school is not in session yes so yes i mean we ideally we would do it in the summer now we're really close to summer so um we're gonna we're gonna we'll keep you pressed we'll keep you abreast well through the superintendent for sure thank you dr hamilton um anything else before we move on to the agenda to the agenda okay we'll move on to our agenda for this evening um i need a motion to approve human resources resolution 4.1 motion any questions about these resolutions

072okay there being none all in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries may i have a motion to approve human resources resolution 4.2 k-4 curriculum writing team at traphagen approve second any questions about this initiative yeah i have a question um can you just uh dr hamilton or whoever or dr orman maybe remind us so is this a unique thing or is this the typical summer curriculum development at every school what's what's the context for this like the hamilton mayor um so as you know um we actually have a curriculum um an education meeting scheduled on june 10th where we're going to give you a complete over view of the unique curriculum writing process that will happen this summer this specific curriculum writing project is vote is based on writing which has been an identified area

073of weakness in the district we don't have a legitimate writing program yet so these units of study in conjunction with the office of curriculum and instruction are going to be used uniquely and piloted at traphagen and shared as best practices throughout the district and hopefully will lead to better curriculum development in the concept of of writing um and so that that is a coordinated effort to use those and the parallel i want to bring to you is similar to um the robotics program which traphagen piloted one year so they reached out to us and said this is what we're looking to do using um the formats that we've used and and the areas of weakness that they've designated and we're going to support them and help them in that process so the i'm all for

074pilot programs we've done them with great success at various schools i'm just curious is this how was trapagan chosen was that their initiative was it you wanted to use them how how was that they reached out to us okay and that that goes in in conjunction with dr hamilton's mfr process looking at data identifying areas of weakness and growth and something that they are spearheading and collectively are embracing and we are supporting it at the curriculum office as well okay thank you any other questions okay great all in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries i'm very excited about this dr gorman because i know with star scholars we offer one of the things we started offering in addition to s a t and a c t prep and stuff like that is writing because when

075it comes time to writing that college essay it's it's hard so it's it's something that we we offer and i think it's great to get it started early uh may i have a motion to approve human resources resolution 4.3 this is the ib summer bridge program that dr gorman just explained to us any further questions on this yeah just one additional question i had i mean thanks for the explanation earlier but is this so is it your is it the understanding that this will not be needed every year or this is something that will be an ongoing thing every year for just one class or two classes or what are you thinking it depends how many people are going towards the diploma program and their application process specifically this first class we think is really

076important to have that support my assumption is as we groom kids and and build a feeder program for the ib program they'll come in with um a deeper skill set uh the 4 000 word essay though is um for lack of better words a bear that i've been you know that i'm i'm i've experienced um in my other um studies that it's it's a very extensive process and it does need the support of um adults to go above and beyond with the kids it's not something you could just blow out in the middle of a school year um so um tentatively yes but i cannot guarantee we would take a look at our results after this summer as well right i mean my understanding i mean the ib program right once it's up and running

077for years and well established and you have a you know every the whole system kind of in place it's designed to be the normal school year it's not designed to take and require extra work and extra tutoring and overtime and all that stuff that's not what it's designed for but i appreciate and understand that this is a very new thing in a new school district and it'll take a little extra work at the beginning to get it up and running okay any other questions all in favor hi opposed abstain okay motion carries i have a motion to approve business office resolution 5.1 motion any questions about these resolutions yes i'm sorry um item number 10 authorization to use 2020 vision bond vision funds to cover the deficit for the ab davis library emergency project can

078somebody explain please it's the part that insurance didn't cover there was uh also backup for this and the cafeteria resolution so the um when we constructed the budget we had these two resolutions in at the cafeteria overage and the library overage in the budget but in trying to have the budget not going up any higher we had to pull them out and we are able to use bond funds because this was part of the original bond vote talking about renovations and so on in in the various buildings and so it was appropriate to use these at the mount at the steema library we met you may remember we had a flood a number of years ago and the cost of the renovations exceeded the amount of money we got from the insurance and this is

079to cover that overage using bond funds for that which will be aidable and in the uh the cafeteria we did not have sufficient funds to cover the cost of the renovation of the cafeteria and this bond money covers that and will also be aidable are you talking about the pool you mean the pool another cabinet sorry the pool yes place where you swim versus where you eat okay any other questions i do uh you can stay up there ken um thank you for reminding us we always knew at the beginning of the bond there would be a number of these items once we got to the end of the bond to figure out once the final numbers come in as we're starting the process of getting those final numbers now we can sort out some

080of the accounting issues of these old projects i'm going to ask you i think you know what i'm going to say number 12. uh can you explain why this employment contract is being put up to us now even though it's back dated to january 1. can you tell me what that is transportation consultant oh the transportation consultant so uh you and i have discussed this yes we have offline so contracts previously had been done in a different way when we had our own in-house attorney and our outside counsel ingram and smith has not comfortable with the process being done the way it was done and so they want these people and the next item as well alicia glover to be uh as part-time employees rather than as an outside consultant this process took a long

081time to get done obviously since she started working for us in january and here we are in june and we're approving this back to january as we did maria carlos at the last agenda when you pointed out the length of time it took to get to that so here we are with that she has worked from january through may without having gotten one cent to help to train our new transportation person i would also tell you that they used to be in excess of two people in that department possibly two people plus a cons uh a per diem and now there's one person running that and because of covid we were not able to do the appropriate training in person and our transportation as you know is almost 100 buses every day and it is

082uh very complicated and mary is helping us through the through june and she'll be done at the end of june to get our program right and to train the new person we thank miss danielle for helping the district for so long without a contract thank you very much i'm glad we can finally pay you and we will work with the administration to and the attorneys to have this not be a problem going forward thank you miss daniel yep okay any other questions on uh business office resolution 5.1 and all its component parts notwithstanding that there is no cafeteria no only kidding okay all in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries may i have a motion to approve business office resolution 5.2 for this class trip second any questions i had a question did you sorry

083did you okay um i'm a thousand percent in favor of uh celebrating our inaugural eighth grade graduating class it's awesome i just wanted to clarify in terms of the district cost for this uh that this was a school led decision about how to use their um their uh sorry their field trip funds and not not an extra allocation as for the district because traditionally um i don't think it's an official policy but traditionally we have an unofficial policy of having graduation trips paid for by the students and staff and pta and other sources outside not outside funds that's my understanding anyway which i think is the case here i just want to confirm that yes they took it out of their field trip funds specifically at park and it was only for the buses yeah

084thanks yes sorry oh we did that to you only kidding okay so all in favor sorry i had a question sorry uh will the students be swimming i have no idea will the students be swimming [Laughter] i only ask because some people go to holiday hills and they say that the students can't swim and then some individuals say that they can swim so just wanted to make sure that that was clear when the students go up to holiday okay so that's the first two pictures there's lots of swimming there's the place right [Music] do we have assurances that these students are vetted for swimming ability before they go in the water i think they have life guards yeah but still right so if the students are going to go swimming then the the the staff

085also have to be ready to be in the pool as well so just you know just dot that eye and cross all the t's got it okay good point thank you any other questions so are we okay with approving this tonight we're okay voting okay all in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries [Music] all right may i have a motion to approve school improvement resolution 6.1 motion okay this is the uh the smart scholar summer bridge program we discussed earlier yes any further questions all in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries i have a motion to approve student services resolution 7.1 second any questions all in favor aye aye opposed abstain okay may have a motion to approve student services resolution 7.2 motion second any questions about this work i actually do have one question

086though um okay so i understand that mount vernon high school has many more students than the other two but how come i would assume that um the population is pretty much the same for steam versus the performing arts academy so why is there three for one and one for the other can that one person do everything that the performing arts academy needs so who we talked about this in our prep meeting today dr smith if you'll i'll respond to this from trustee paterson please good evening everyone good evening um good evening basically at denzel washington there's one counselor that serves grades 9 to 12 due to their enrollment and mount vernon high school has seven councillors and right now steem has two and a half that serves grades nine to twelve we actually put that

087in the abstract because my question is how do we know that we need as many counselors for seven hours based on uh this unknown variable how well students do in summer school who attend summer school whose schedules need adjusting uh so we may not all of these people may be utilized and they may not all be utilized for the full seven hours uh for five days um so i actually asked uh the cabinet to update uh the abstract on this so that would reflect the potential uh change in under utilizing this or redistributing some of these to your point if mount vernon has a less need based on summer school schedules or schedules that need to be changed perhaps one or two of them can be reassigned to denzel washington to support that counselor okay

088it does say maximum maximum hours so no i was just concerned about workload that understanding is population of steam versus population of the performing arts is not that disparate to justify even two and a half to one right i just wanted to make sure that that one could hand that we weren't setting somebody up to not you know got it the number of students will be attending school summer school who need to summer school is drastically different between the two sites as well okay so it's based on student participation yes it is okay and other factors you know summer school tweaking schedules new admissions coming into the district um it's several factors perfect thank you thank you any other questions all in favor aye aye opposed abstain motion carries i have a motion to approve

089superintendent resolution 9.1 motion does anyone have any questions about these matters i think we've discussed them pretty exhaustively but if anyone has any questions [Music] okay all in favor aye aye opposed abstain okay emotions carry can i just make a quick comment president yes just a reminder to i've said this before and i'll say it today and i'll say in the future it applies to all agreements and settlements with uh members of the staff we cannot discuss them publicly privately individually board meetings or otherwise just a reminder thank you okay uh well the motion to approve board of ed resolution 10.1 this is the adoption of our calendars everyone had a chance to look at it basically is following our tuesday every other tuesday format with uh tweaks for holidays etc mr mccormick has put

090this together and worked obviously with uh before the team has worked with uh educators is everybody familiar with this i have a motion to approve this so moved second all in favor opposed abstain okay we have a calendar and just uh we know our last official board meeting of this fiscal year is june 15th so we hope everyone can endeavor to try to be there and then um our reorg meeting is july 6th all right may have a motion to approve resolution 10.2 acceptance of minutes from 5 18. motion second nice job any any questions all in favor aye opposed abstain may have a motion to approve the minutes from uh resolution 10.3 the minutes from uh may 25th motion second any questions all in favor aye opposed stain thank you trustee turn quest jones

091great okay great guess what that's the agenda but i just like so for for for new business just just um to what i mentioned earlier um just to make it clear to the community because i did see some postings on facebook today from from different people about trustee crump's resignation which is effective this evening which does leave an open seat i just wanted to explain to the public what our options are we don't have to do anything we've been functioning because trustee crump has had had been on a leave of absence for several months which the board did grant her we have functioned very well with only eight members but we are a nine member body and in the event that we would come to any kind of tie break we we definitely need nine

092nine members so our options are to appoint someone um [Music] to yeah to appoint someone to take the fourth highest vote getter um or obviously we have the option to do nothing so i just wanted to know if anyone had any concerns or comments about that i wanted to also give trustee mcgowan a chance to comment on his status since he he will be ending his term june 30th at this point that's very open-ended are you oh over to you micah oh my gosh okay um technically just because i'm the policy nerd uh technically we could also call a special election oh how much would that cost which is a terrible idea we should not do it that would cost a huge amount of money um it's uh it's been an honor to serve on

093the board for six years i ran because i'm interested in continuing to serve the community and and help as much as i can and i'm i'm willing to continue to serve that's why i ran if if people are interested in having me do that that's i think that's all i got to say right now um i'm sorry i know that i might be out of line but i do believe that divorce should consider um keeping mikey on board he is a very important member and like i said i may be out of line but i just want to put that little seed out there thank you candace right now we really can't do anything because micah is still a board member until june 30. we can actually do anything we want we spoke to gus

094today we can vote at any time we can vote to make have him take over trustee crump seat as of july first but he would stay in his seat until then so we can vote on that now we don't have to wait to vote on that we can vote on that at any time according to our attorneys yeah that's an update just because i was trying to clarify for for trustee mcgowan nope nope there's no reason to wait we checked the school so uh um we getting ready to vote i was going to say like i know i cannot i cannot make commotion or anything so are we are we getting well so here's the thing if the board wants to vote we can vote it's a very simple vote it's basically would be having

095it would be voting to have trustee mcgowan um assume trustee crump's seat as of july 1st which would be for a one-year term and he would have to run for re-election next year that's it until the next election until the next election next election right so i mean it's up to the board if they want to vote now or wait till the 15th or whatever but there's there's no reason to wait if that's what the board wants to do so i'm just putting it out there for you let's go let's go what did you just say so let's go let's go let's go you want to vote yes okay do we need a do we need a resolution before we vote okay mr mccormick is putting together a resume she was not planned no i

096just i just wanted to make it clear to everybody what we could do what we can't do um and it's not my decision it's the board's decision what what do you want to vote if the board wants to vote then we will vote if that's the board's wish don't whisper in me it would be resolved that this board of education hereby appoints trustee michael mick owen are you on is your mic the board would be voting on a resolution be it resolve that that this board of education hereby appoints trustee michael mc owen to fill the unexpired term of trustee brenda l crump effective july 1st 2021 through may 17 2022 which is the date of the next election that's it's not the unexpired portion of her term though no it's just a year right

097i can add that no it's just no i'm it's just a year that's not the no oh yeah no that's correct it's not one it's just one year because she has two years she had two years left one year should you the person who is elected whoever comes in with the fourth highest amount of votes at the next election will then fill the unexpired term of trustee trump so they will take office effective the day after the election through june 30th of 2023 and it's also confusing anyway um so if the board wants to vote on this now that's fine um we have we have a potential resolution uh we just need a motion trusty red i i the motion carries wait i i still have to abstain oh no oh yeah what about the

098nose what about the nose that's right i forgot you're not allowed the nose that would be pretty funny if i said no and i'd get outvoted abstains i abstain i abstain okay so the motion carries and i am very happy about this because it's not my decision but i do feel very strongly that we have a very very effective team um and i think continuity is serving this community in this school district very well and i i think just keeping it going keeping the good things going that we have going and refining and continuing to hone our skills as board members and to learn from our experiences is is really important so and i appreciate your willingness trustee mcgowan to step in and continue to serve thank you and and i really truly appreciate the

099vote of confidence from my fellow trustees and trustee sorensen elect um thank you it's i have now been on this board you know most of the time i've lived in mount vernon and um i will whether i serve for one more year or never again or 10 more years or whatever it's been an honor and an experience i will never forget and has tied me to this community in a way that i could never have achieved a different way and i will always be grateful for that for my own sake and for the sake of my family great thank you um is there any other business that anyone would like to raise for this evening or are we i got stuff wait a minute we take back the vote i forget about that vote i

100didn't say that some of us drive each other nuts but we love each other and we all have a very important role oh now we're passing out the elbow wait before she gets the elmo here come the elmos um dr hamilton what is going on with the pool can we get an update please when can people go swimming you're on mute sir um if you can facilitate the update on this for me i would appreciate it that has i know we reached out to dr gorman and mr felicio please i'm gonna buy one yep um okay we have um pool operating hours in june july and august um [Music] i spoke to mr gonzalez today in anticipation of your question tonight and uh he said uh so a couple things um there's been training we

101have three lifeguards that are certified and untrained um there's others that have to go through the intake process that are are being certified so we just have to process them as well we'll have open swim basically throughout the summer through from june 7th through august 14th with pool maintenance and weekly maintenance of three hours um 5 to 8 p.m for lap lanes and open swim 5 to 8 p.m and 9 to 12 on mondays wednesdays and saturdays and i'll what i'll do is i will take this information share it with uh reckon we'll get it on the website asap and we have the um three three lifeguards is enough to staff that no we have additional ones that are now just have to be processed on intake okay that's why we're waiting a little bit

102and do and do you with with covert restrictions what is it going to look like like is there a is there a small cap do we have people to register in advance we're doing contract tracing i just don't know where i need that stand so what's going on what's going to look like when people come to use the pool on a saturday morning um i don't have all the procedures right in front of me but i will clearly get them for you and and make them available um i do know that we're going to keep the same five dollar charge for individual 10 for families but we'll give you a whole write up on all covet procedures and maintenance do people have to be vaccinated to swim i i do not believe so that is

103a requirement okay we have any program are we going to have any programs like the mommy and me swim and the different programs that we had during the year during before covet right now we just have the open swim piece because it was so hard to coordinate because the rules are changing so much it really comes down to staffing right now we will put in for an administrator an aquatic advisor substitutes summer pool maintenance staffing lifeguards and safety officers so at this point i don't have those other programs in place yet because we used to do um swimming lessons for the kids certain ages we had private lessons as well for that as well but we do not have that in place because it's been so choppy and getting those procedures in place does it

104look like we're going to get them before the summer i do not i don't want to i think we tell you something that i don't have for you i think we have to be hopeful that we'll resume to normal in the fall you know we know this has been a trying time for everybody and uh so hopefully we can get it all set for the fall will the um people have to make reservations or they just show up will they have to make reservations or they just show up uh no you can just show up okay so i'm thinking maybe in addition to putting it on the website we might want to put out just a one-page flyer or something like that because there is such a huge interest in in utilizing the pool so

105maybe mr mccormick we do just a simple one-page flyer after we get our credit from the post office for not delivering all the newsletters we'll be able to afford to pay for that and get that out to the to the community at large well this is also one of those opportunities where we can go back to the city and go to the department of recreation as trustee turnquest jones and i have spoken ad nauseam and we can provide this back to them and say hey listen this is what we're doing so now we're all on the same page as to what's happening and i think that going forward i think one of the big focuses we really should be ensuring and i know that it's been said once already um is making sure that we

106have the classes coming back at some point because i think it's imperative there are i'm not mistaken there are no other pools that the public can access in mount vernon um so we need our kids to learn how to swim my kids have to learn how to swim um no i was i was gonna two things number one i'm a bit concerned about the fact that people are not gonna make reservations so the you know the social distancing and the numbers you know allowed into the pool and within the copic are the kids or families will be allowed to use the lockers because i know there are other pools in other places that kids are not allowed to get dressed in the lockers because of kobe ki in families they just have to come and

107leave leave as they come but i'm really concerned about the fact that we do not have a system in place in which people have to reserve a lane to swim because we may have our you know x number amount of people coming in expecting to have access to it and we may be overcrowded that's my first concern and and this one is just a question and it's more because it is more uh a selfish question because i know that my son's um swim team has been trying to rent the pool to practice here in mount vernon is that something that mom when it will be taken into consideration to bring extra revenue to keep the pool going uh yeah we we um always serve hours first as well and then we cost analysis out and

108we have specific meetings a lot of that comes with the cost of security facilities staffing and so it the one or two times that we've had those conversations it actually wasn't worth it to the district it was almost lost for the district at that point but to get to your point about all the procedures um i i can have a presentation on the 15th for those procedures as well as a board resolution for you so even though i'm seeing that it's that we had a tentative schedule for the seventh i believe that it should go on the 15th as a resolution should accompany it as well for the staff okay wonderful thank you okay that'll be great if you have whoever this this room is you can have them send me uh just send a

109request to me so that it's on our radar and we can begin to look at whether or not it's something we um can work out and schedule around the parameters for for the pool based on guidance on capacity and restrictions that we have to implement i will do so superintendent um because one of the things that she was that i presented to her when she you know asked me about the pool was that if she is willing to um like lower the cost for the community because it is a westchester pool and she does train um olympic swimmers so i wanted her to lower the price to for our children so they could learn how to swim and it's a great not because my son is in it but it's a great um team and

110so i will tell her to for you the information and hopefully you know something could be done for our children to learn how to swim with good people very good i'll be on the lookout thank you will do great see you okay trustee mcgowan i got two more um one is i just wanted to make a comment about i meant to say this earlier when we were talking about the facilities and using the fields and walking areas and everything this has been an ongoing discussion for years we had talked about a lot when we did the gram remodel and should we lock it up should we leave it open how should we handle this and ultimately the decision was to keep it open and uh and for the community and that's the right decision but

111the community it's a two-way street right it's a it's a partnership we have with the greater community but it only works if if the school's grounds are not abused so it's mutual respect we respect the community we want the community to use our facilities but they got to respect them and they got to follow the rules and one thing in particular that is a constant issue is organized sports group sports people especially groups from outside of mount vernon coming in to use our fields which is an issue and so listen if you want to go play pick up basketball with your friends have at it have a great time you want to walk the track after dawn on a weekend be my guest if you want to organize a league or you want to teach

112you know organize lessons and get paid money to use our facilities to teach a sport things like this happen that is not okay without a permit you have to come through the proper channels get a permit so that we know you have insurance because what we don't want to do is somebody get hurt on our fields and have a lawsuit and then everybody loses right because then we gotta lock up the fields and everyone's unhappy and tax dollars go up and nobody wins there right so please work with us we we have great property and it's your property community it belongs to you but we got to use it in the right way come get a permit go to the right channels get your insurance and then have great time so i just wanted to

113remind everybody that's how it's supposed to work uh and last thing is just a question for the trustees it's graduation time right so like every school is doing a million different graduation events president miller do you want or need to assign us to participate should we just do as much as we can to be at different events we haven't really had that conversation which we often do at the end of the year right well i guess i guess because um a lot of presume right a lot of them resume tomorrow i'll be participating in the steam high school convocation which is zoom um rick mccormick sent us all the link to that we're all invited to participate in that um and you know it's as trustee forsen said it's awards i think yeah it's awards

114this is graduating class from steam so yes and um there is if in the weekly confidential dr hamilton listed all the events at every school and we know that some of us have kind of adopted schools so you should endeavor to participate in your school's whatever graduation it is we've got pre-k graduate we've got moving up all over the place and we've got you know so we've got we've got to give our props to the pre-k kids so you know we've got we've got a lot so if you refer to the weekly confidential and if you think you can't make the an event at the building that you kind of have adopted then please reach out to other trustees to see if they might be able to um i'm planning on attending you know all

115the high school events but um let's let's just try to coordinate and see if we can divide and conquer and support the students um the way they need to be supported but we do have the list of everything that's happening and it's crazy the last couple of weeks of june unless the last three week well the month of june is is going to be very very busy as always oh also i wanted to give a if it's okay i wanted to mention that the pta scholarship picnic is on june 10th you can still buy um seats a picnic table the menu looks great i selected my food for the table i bought but i just want to encourage people we always have such a great time at the pta dinner dance this is going to

116be different it's a picnic but um it is on on june 10th with a rain date june 12th so if anyone wants to buy a seat um or buy a table uh please reach out to mr mccormick to get the information on it anything else i just wanted to say one thing about um trustee uh chrome's resignation at last week was not scheduled we did not have advance noticed that she was going to resign effective um at the last meeting um so i feel like we never got the chance to like you know publicly thank her and and give her props uh so i've i've done that privately already um but i wanted to just publicly thank trustee crump for and i would have said this regardless of what just happened i meant to say

117this earlier uh my term but trustee crump has always been a role model for me she was one of the first names synonymous with education empowerment and mount vernon um that i ever met and um just she has a long legacy long before she was a trustee this most recent time of help helping students and parents in this district and that legacy is in no way whatsoever lessened or tarnished at all by her resignation we honor her and just so grateful for her service and she's a rock star yeah here here i agree she's done it she's done a great job well she also said she knows where we all live so she was very clear about that she's not going away so we know we will hear from her and she will keep us

118honest um one thing i just want to mention real quick and then we can have a motion to adjourn as i just got a text from someone who's obviously watching our meeting yay we have viewers the outside soccer teams are on the graham soccer field now this evening the abuse is from the outside no one from the school district intervenes well that's because it's not a school district matter at this point or am i wrong about that dr hamilton it's dusk call the police yeah you can call the police because when we get those calls all we do is turn around and call the police and the community can do that independent of us i get their concerns legitimate concerns um but we don't have a round-the-clock security or patrol vehicles so uh all we

119can do is call police and ask them to come and escort people off the premises which they generally do and sometimes they return as soon as the police are gone but please to our community members please call the police and report your concerns to them great yeah after dusk they are trespassing right that's that's legally what's happening bottom line but the people are complaining about them next to the school not on school grounds because once they finish playing soccer they congregate right there by the school let's be like 30 there'll be like 30 or 40 of them out there yeah so it's it's a police it's a police unfortunately it's a police matter and uh we have to view it as such and this is you know it's where it gets very blurry between school

120and city and all that but but we have law enforcement for a reason and i you know hopefully when we put up all this signage i hopefully maybe by the 15th mr felicia we can have a an update on the signage and how much it'll cost and when we can have it done i would really like it to be put up definitely by by the fall at every building so i think we can probably afford it so i just think it's important and then everyone's forewarned um about what the process is um and i'm sorry i'm sorry we have to do this but you know it is it is what it is we all once again as trustee mcgowan said we're all in this community together i was currently i'm sorry because i said during

121the election i was very concerned because i didn't know if it was because we rented to the east chester um flag football league the little kids but they were coming they had a full practice in traffic so i didn't know i you know i was just i'm learning the ropes so i was like well okay we're renting the fields that's pretty cool we're bringing money into the school you know and now i'm learning that this may not be the case and also somebody a couple of um community members from trapagan were saying the same thing that people are gathering at nighttime and even selling drugs in the trap pagan field so and there was a gentleman as a matter of fact also your wife was telling me there was once a time a gentleman living

122within the bushes at hagan well so this is once again this is a police matter so we all now know what to tell our neighbors when they call but we would like to one of the reasons we're kind of making this announcement at a public meeting is so that our administrators who have worked tireless tirelessly um all year and all week and us also the board members who work tirelessly all week most weeks uh that we don't get the calls on the weekend for things that are out of our control that the calls go directly to the police so um i am currently in classes with the mount vernon police department and one of the things that i started off by saying earlier was how do we connect the arteries and so one way of

123connecting the arteries is where we have the conversation with the police department as to you know things that are taking place we have one of our city council members his name is derek and derek goes on community drives um but uh i will make sure that i have a conversation in fact tomorrow i don't know if anybody here has yet been a part of or taken any of the classes that the police department gives but i suggest that you take it it is a really mind opening tomorrow i am doing a drive um i think the drive starts like around five o'clock because they wanted to start and then us to see mount running from daylight to sunset and so they're going to show us different things um and i will bring that up to

124them and then i think that we should make sure that we keep that part of the artery connected so that they can also tell us some things that we don't know what's going on because if you call me at eight o'clock i'm gonna be in the bed and you know right the pajamas on i know you don't want me to come elementary down in my pajamas talk to the football team but yeah so just you know we have to make sure that we keep the the arteries connected and and let individuals know what's going on and they can also let us know what's going on so so dr hamilton and mr pelagio as part of the sign initiative let's make sure that we communicate what we're doing with the police department um and and the

125city government so they understand um exactly what we're doing and i do think like if if people in the community see this happening uh please call the police because what you're looking at is trespassing it's the same as if somebody was having a party in your backyard without being invited um but all i think they should let us know too like do let us know that it's happening especially if it's something that's happening regularly at a regular time every night at 10 o'clock on a saturday night or whatever let us know so that we can work with the police department too because we have to find a solution to this i mean what we don't have is we don't have the staff to go patrolling all 17 buildings every single day at dawn and dusk

126and we just we don't have the staff to do that it's not reasonable to expect you mean from dusk till dawn right well i also think that when you're talking about a particular group if there is some type of designation i.e um trustee alex orrinson said that she saw east chester football well that's a group that we can then go to directly to write them a letter we can say hey listen cease and desist you don't have authority or the right to be here therefore you are not allowed and that is a very um non-um what is it confrontational conversational way to handle the situation and it also again keeps everything very civil yes i mean please please come just fill out the permit and give the insurance and then you can come sure right

127please come pay our permission so there are paths forward okay great thank you all right may i have a motion to adjourn motion second all in favor abstain okay motion carries thank you everyone thank you thank you thank you dr hamilton you