001specializes she specializes a lot with special ed impartial hearings she does pretty much general ed law practice but for our purposes um today we've asked her to review a couple policies one that really just to make sure we're in compliance and she'll go over some procedural things and one because we've had a policy for a while but we haven't been following it which is problematic so i've asked her to take a look at these and similar to what we've talked about before um we're trying to thin out the policies from what is nice to have versus what we must have when we use erie one boces for a service they'll dump any policy they can on to us and some of that stuff is irrelevant for our population at hand you know so the one
002that we're going to talk about today um specific to you know student gender identity that's a big one and most of anne's time will be spent on that but the website stuff you know per paul's earlier request and from what you guys shared with me last year when i was interviewing you know there's a lot left to be desired with our website and so amanda's been working on making changes and and bringing it up to speed while keeping it current so she's trying to tackle some of those loose ends um and it's quite a task and i don't think she'll be complete with it all this year but over the summer i'm pretty certain she'll clean up what needs to be addressed and get it to a good spot but we've we're using ann because
003i really want to make sure um we're in compliance so that every time we look at something you know we're getting the best advice possible and then when we roll it out to our administrators they understand that this is not something you can choose to follow it's a you must follow so and that sound like fairly accurate in terms of how we've engaged in in the dialogue yes it does okay so if i could just have the board members just quickly introduce yourself and your role that would be great john bogard board member hi hi lisinda collier i'm board president hello i'm paul staschke board member good morning good morning and we are the policy committee well it's nice to meet you so and if you want to go right ahead let if you could
004start with the district standards and guidelines for the web page publishing yeah that would be great because as i said i think the bulk of our time will be spent on the the gender identity one and then we can talk a little bit about the training um that you did for our administrative team sure so the um the policy was in really good shape as far as the website one the i made the most minor of changes i just added uh there were a couple of times within the policy where ferba was referenced and ferpa i'm sure you all know is like the hipaa to schools so it's the federal privacy law regarding student education records that applies to public schools in the sections where ferpa was mentioned i also added education law 2d that's
005our new york state privacy law so we have an obligation and we're all still learning 2d it's it's complicated but um just generally referencing that in the policy is important because we have to comply with that in addition to the federal law so i added that in any time we talked about ferpa the the biggest thing that i did well before i go on any any questions so far so and with 2d it just became a law correct i mean so with the last policy it's not that the district wasn't complying it's more that this now addresses the law right it's a it's a fairly new law so the last time this policy was authorized it was not in existence yet right and the only other piece that i want to piggyback on for our
006board members um you'll recall that when i signed last april one of the first things that i heard walking through district office was the logo that we had been using with the banner was copyright material you know so we again it's a relatively minor change into the policy but in practice we were violating our own board policy so our our logo now that is out is um it is changed and it does not violate fair use or copyright material that issue comes up a lot in schools okay so the the biggest thing that i did with this policy was create a staff sign-off sheet and it essentially provides that they are familiar with the policy and that they will comply with it i pulled language directly from the policy into that sign-off form um i
007have found um so i don't do a lot of labor stuff i do a lot of investigations i think because of my background as a psychologist but i have found that staff violating this type of policy web page policies but also any kind of technology policy can frequently be reason for discipline or pursuing a 3020a or other types of separation procedures so it's important to have these sign-offs that they are familiar with the policy and that they agree that they'll comply with it i had mentioned to mike that it's also important that we have something similar for and and i'm not sure what the status is with that but for the policies regarding the use of district technology and uh going on the district's internet and things like that you would probably not be surprised
008but staff can engage in some pretty shocking things using district technology and internet so and they they say they don't know that that's a policy but if we have them sign off on it each year they can't say i that i think we're in pretty good shape with that with lisa brower making sure that um we're up to speed on that and then we when we log on we actually are signing in electronically but i do agree with you following up with her and making sure that we get this in her hands to take a look at and then also having the union president look at it is probably in our best interest as well to make sure people recognize that each year this is what we're doing and amanda um renko is our pr
009person i'll meet with her and lisa together to just try to ensure that when we go forward with putting all this into practice that especially as of july 1 that any website changes are compliant because i know that tina and melanie actually found a couple instances um where you know a different administrator published some things first and last names of students that they shouldn't have um in a newsletter and we we took that down so thankfully those two are are watching social media for for the buildings as well so are there any questions regarding the sign off or the policy for um the district web page and web publishing standards yeah i have one um we have a board member who likes to or was lifting things off the website and putting them on his
010own facebook page um or sometimes taking pictures or whatever and at an at an event uh and then posting him would is this um [Music] part of of the policy or is is it permissible or i just have been concerned that we know about anything personal on students so so that wouldn't be part of this policy necessarily this policy is really about uh staff using the district's website so when they create their own teacher website or something like that that they comply with the requirements for the district and that they don't put anything on the district's website that isn't approved or use it for purposes that are not related to education of students um as far as so let's break that down because there there could be other implications so the board member is going
011to district functions and taking photographs and posting that on the board members facebook page very similar to what parents do right soccer and they take pictures and they post it and these are public events bad about them right and these are public events that they're taking the pictures of yes so that's probably okay um hmm let me think about that here's the thing it's a little different from a parent doing it because a board member is as in a part of the school district right and when we take photographs of students it becomes an education record under ferpa if it's a close-up picture of that student so if you take a picture of the entire football field and you can't really pick out who's who that's not an education record and that would be fine
012to post once you start getting certain close-ups of students that could become an education record now we we typically have an opt-out that parents have to sign every year if they don't want their child to be part of that and as long as that child is not part of that opt-out that should be fine and that's why you see superintendents post things on their twitter feeds up close pictures of students stuff like that that's fine students engaged in projects stuff like that that's totally fine but we do just have to be mindful of who which students have opted out usually that's a very small number if any each year and make sure that we don't post a close-up photo of those students on anything sponsored by the district well we do have a mennonite population
013in our school okay they would not like that at all that's true um that's true but they should be signing that opt out then if they don't like it there's nothing obviously we need to respect the cultural and religious practices of others but there's nothing in ferpa that says if they have a religious reason that they can't have a photograph of their face that we can't post that but they can get around that by signing the opt-out that should be going out every year it does and i know um amanda is very good about making sure that anything that goes on our website is compliant so that that is the benefit of having a single point of access so send it to your point if it's grabbed off of our website it's already gone through
014that you know process and we do update that annually that is part of the beginning for back to school packet um but from time to time things change you know with custody situations or people you know change their mind and revoke it but we try to always keep that up to speed and and i think what ann is saying about that education record is important for our administrators as well you know to remember that they could be unbeknownst to them advertising an education record just to make sure they have the proper sign offs and names as well that's good to know all right another question for you is that the website manager appears to have a great deal of authority and power can that be challenged by a faculty member staff member and they're using
015basically their own criteria aren't they which seems a little faulty who's using their own criteria the website manager yeah yeah and who is the website manager i was wondering that as i was going through the policy amanda renko is our pr person okay this this year is the first time we've had a dedicated person so we were contracted out with city boces in the past and you know we had a part-time person overseeing it and there were changes that were made um you know she tried gina up there trying to keep it up to date as current as possible but you know with webb's website and social media information it's constant but amanda um is a journalist by trade and you know she's up on the headline 2d she's a boces employee that oversees our
016stuff and as i said earlier to the group on here excluding you ann um you know each week she puts a message out to the building admins to say hey i'm working on x y and z anything specific you want me to change anything you want me to update um but i'm thinking she also goes through the different pages for teachers and checks on that stuff as well yeah it should be a pretty broad standard that she applies for the most part teachers are only posting things that are educationally relevant on their websites but i once ran into a teacher situation where they were posting on their march madness pools on the district website right that's clearly there's nothing educational in nature that that's that's obviously not appropriate so it it should be pretty black
017and white um is it related to their instruction and their work as an employee or not um there isn't anything written into the policy about being able to challenge that the superintendent or the board would always probably have an authority but don't forget the district owns this website so you really do have total control over what goes on there well my concern was that if amanda is the manager this year and she retires and and i take over not a board member but uh i'm another person i just take over my policy will be different none i don't need the word policies my practices are different than the last years and it could be inconceivable as inconsistent that's possible but again the the standard is is that is it educational in nature is it relevant
018to what the school is doing um because it doesn't just have to be educational if they're a coach for example and if they wanted to post uh their practice schedule that could be something that would be relevant to the running of the district so okay yeah i i definitely think that you guys have an obligation if you think somebody's abusing that power or not applying it the right way to make sure that they're they have the training that they need to know how to do it but i think maybe john and i were headed in the same direction on this um so so amen is our website manager but see in my mind who who's ultimately responsible and that to me would be the superintendent or the board i'm not sure honestly that's one of
019my questions if let's just so i have two pieces here let's answer the first one uh if someone were to to um publish pornography on our website who's responsible for that is that the superintendent or is that in other words who's legally uh held at risk on this it would be so it wouldn't be the end of it it would be the district the entity of the district so it's not like individual board members would have any obligate responsibility um or the superintendent would have an individual responsibility but it would be the district overall that could be liable for that okay that answers partners so if we can all go to the very last page in fact the very last paragraph where it says oversight that's the first time in the whole in the whole
020uh policy where we mentioned the superintendent right in my mind the superintendent is ultimately responsible for the for the website for the website management for a district website for a school websites and so that's kind of what i actually had a little alter alter uh a slight alter of what i wanted to put on it was like the superintendent responsible for the district website administration and then john going to where you were and has the ultimate authority to approve or disapprove i would take exception to that i mean because you're going to have me sitting there staring at the website all day long and i can't i i possibly can't commit that kind of time you know the way it's worded now it's me or my designee now certainly with the software that we have
021that flags everything i mean i get multiple messages a day when kids get on stuff and look at you know inappropriate material with their chromebooks and i get alerted to that and then we have a process set up where you know the building administrators will take care of it and then report back to us and let us know what's going on same thing with like amanda the the role that she has she's our designated person because again i i just don't have time to make sure everything's up to date and current like she would and that's her her area of specialty sure so and i wouldn't want you to be i wouldn't i wouldn't even beg for you to be involved that you know on a on a every basis but that's what i thought
022ultimate authority and then with your uh with your design need to do the daily work well that that's pretty relevant with all areas of the school though i mean so pretty much you guys oversee me and i oversee everything else so i i think that's pretty much the way it's implied um but i do think the way we have it structured right now and again amanda started i think the first in november tina right around there late october first of november where she was dedicated us she's really done a fantastic job with corralling that and and i also want to give lisa brower um props because she's she's been on top of it so last year when i used to see all these tag lines compliant with edvar 2d we actually have a staff development
023as part of our annual training that says you know you've signed off on it in terms of the web page publication stuff that ann just provided us with i i think that's a natural segue as well um and ultimately if amanda saw something that was inappropriate she would bring it to my attention and it might come through bob or it might come through megan as our compliance officers first and then get to me and then then up the chain to you all so just just food for thought as to why the the broad stroke there is better than the the fine stroke well that's why i wanted to say ultimate responsibility or ultimate authority because of course your day-to-day would be the designee it just seems strange to me that all of a sudden at
024the very end of the document we mentioned the superintendent will have authority to approve when the whole time we've been saying the website manager will have the authority it's not a big deal to me okay i'm not going to war with this but it just seemed like it could be awarded a little better i think the word ultimate in there is not appropriate though because that would mean to me is that it's the is a step as opposed to in general i think uh if you see something or she sees something that's that you can deny it ultimate to me means it has to go to her first designee first and then to you and i i don't think that's i think this is a broad and the broader it is i think the more
025power it is because you can use if if you were talking about someone that wanted to challenge it who with whom would they challenge it and i would think the superintendent would be the ultimate authority okay he or she is in any district for everything basically yes right we wouldn't want the website manager to have to deal with people challenging it i hopefully this wouldn't come up too often but i read this as the website manager being the designee um because the superintendent decides who is doing that website manager is a made-up term right it's it's not like an official role within a district but um yeah the superintendent if there was an issue that would be the final person to consider and make a final decision okay like i said i'm not going to
026war over this this is fine i think regardless it's worth the conversation with the administrators and with amanda specifically with that in mind so that they're paying close attention to it and ultimately understanding where we where we're going with respect to making sure we're ad law 2d compliant we're not publishing an education record unbeknownst to the child the family or even the district and i guess making sure that our materials are school and educationally appropriate but i think that that's that's exactly why john we wanted and to come as well because i think with so much of what we're worried about in this day and age is liability i mean so to paul's point there is so much that we're vulnerable to on a daily basis that i think having the assurance that we've had
027a professional go through this for us and look to make sure we're you know stopping things before they become a real problem that that's that's part of the why i think this process is invaluable for us put a little investment up front to save us in the long run which in my opinion is a perfect segue to the student gender identity um and this is something that i think we're really uh behind the times with i hate to say that but we're we're about five years overdue where we need to be with respect to training for students that are um transitioning and transgender children and and i'm going to ask and that you just kind of walk us through that because our our last policy um had some of the right terms but not necessarily
028the corresponding education component with it right i um there's there's a lot in this policy that's the same but i i just started fresh because there were there were so many different directions that i i thought it was important that we go in so um i didn't revise the old policy i created a new one with some similarities and some differences so i'll walk you through that um the the previous policy was done about a year after sed put out their guidance for transgender students so there was nothing wrong with it as of the time it was written but this is something that's constantly changing so it's important that we we stay on top of those changes so just and you all have it in front of you right oh okay so just working through
029it the definitions i updated the definitions so that they're a little they're more current for the definitions that we're using now with transgender students um the harassment and bullying is pretty much the same transgender students are protected against uh under the dasa policy the dignity for all students they're also protected under title nine um and and i referenced the relevant policies there that you have on that as far as issues of privacy this is this is a tricky situation so with transgender students we have to take everything on an individual case-by-case basis there are some transgender students who are totally fine with everybody knowing that they're transgender and that they've transitioned there are other transgender students where that is very private information for them and they do not want anybody to know they only want
030people to know what their identified gender name and pronoun is with transgender students the state guidance has told us that we need to follow the student's lead so with whatever what the student wants to be called how they want to be identified who they want to know we have to follow their lead with that and so it could look different in every situation and and that's for anything that could come up and that's throughout this policy i'll talk about how what the student want may be different in different situations so if a student doesn't want people to know about their transgender status if it is a child who is biologically born a male who now identifies as female and only wants everybody in school to know that they're female the state guidance says that in
031their records we're supposed to from the time that they say i'm female we're supposed to identify them that way from that point moving forward in their records and anything from before that should be kept in a private confidential file and not accessible not in their cumulative folder where any of their teachers can go through and look at it and learn about the student it's in a private confidential file so this section this issues a privacy section um addresses that and also addresses that there could be situations where we do have an obligation where we have to disclose their transgender status such as medical situations stuff like that um but but this section has been updated now this is this is usually a big one so are there any any discussion or questions about that how
032would you handle um the transfer of a student who has trained um whatever you transition they've transitioned and they they've already transitioned then they transfer into the district well that yeah that's a good one too but also from one level to another in other words if it happened at the middle school level they go to the high school level the one principal knows it maybe maybe not and it's in the best interest of the student i think that the high school principal knows it too or the nurse or somebody i don't know that confidential file becomes so confidential how is it handled do you want to jump in on that or do you want me to give my opinion first why don't you start though by nature everything that you just described would be that
033once the child's changed their record and they've identified by the gender that they want recognized as you know they're transitioning to everything in school tool every school record would start to reflect the gender marker the student's chosen name everything that would move forward would would be that chosen name so let's say it becomes bill for example bill's records now will reflect bill from fifth grade forward eighth grade forward ninth grade forward with with respect to the confidentiality there is a process that we have in place where the records prior to being identified as bill would be sealed signed off and kept under lock and key and as ant said the the biggest piece when it comes down to issues of privacy may be in the medical arena so if bill was a female at birth
034and was transitioning to male the nurse may also understand that the child hasn't gone through the full transition process meaning surgery etc but again between ferpa and hippa the the medical practice the practitioner would be bound to confidentiality under those things so in my experience most children that start to transition um as ann said you you have to treat them individually but most once they start to transition and realize that they have support they're more and more comfortable with letting people know what's actually going on with them because they feel accepted and able to you know move forward with their their identity right the the standard that we want to apply is does an individual school employee have a legitimate educational interest in knowing this about this particular child the school nurse probably always does
035because there are exceptions made for medical records and things like that um maybe in most cases probably the building administrator may have that that legitimate educational interest as well and and again it's it depends on the situation and it depends on on different factors that are there so in my experience the building principal would know um in my experience typically the school psychologist would know um you don't always have to have classroom teachers no though they may not have a legitimate educational interest because when you get to testing then you have to use the original name so if i'm a math teacher and the student is taking a standardized test let's take bill for example the bill's not the name that's on the test so i'm confused so there are certain situations for standardized tests
036where we have to use their legal name and if that was a situation where a teacher was administered administering the test then they would probably have a legitimate educational interest in knowing so i'm not saying the teachers never have that legitimate educational interest i'm just saying it's not an automatic okay oh that makes sense to me and again it depends on the student so some students may just tell everybody themselves right and that's totally different than a student who is feeling very uncomfortable with people knowing i was taking the worst case scenario as far as transfer of knowledge in other words i don't want anybody to know period so here's the thing okay so ferpa ferpa is an umbrella that goes over the district so if if a prince if the middle school principal tells
037the high school principal and maybe there really isn't a legitimate educational interest the most important thing is that the high school principal keeps that information confidential right but the most important thing for ferpa is that we don't let people outside of the district know private student information without consent um and and we have to obviously within a district keep it as private as possible but there's no ferpa police it's unlikely that there would be some kind of cause of action against the district if one principle disclosed to another we should try not to do that but but i i think that the ramifications and and the risk is pretty low for that from a legal perspective where you would get into trouble as if it was becoming a gossip right and everybody was kind of
038chattering about it and if the student was experiencing some kind of negative effect from that that would be problematic are we ready to move on yeah please do yes okay so school student records in new york state if a student is transgender and um identifies as a different name from the name that is on their birth certificate there is no requirement in new york that they have a legal name change new york is tells us that we should identify them by their identified name regardless of if it's a legal name change or not and the only exceptions to that are things like standardized tests that require the legal name um and when a student needs to use their legal name for medical care so if the nurse has to call their pediatrician and their legal
039name needs to be used in that situation um but other than that we are not required to uh have them legally change their name we are supposed to call them by their identified name and that's from and again we can't so if a student says i'm transgender we can't say well what's your name now okay that's what we call you that's not how it works we have to work with the student and say you let us know if you want to be called by a different name and if so when and and we work through it with that student it's not the same for every student so for the board the one piece that i would assure you of is there is a pretty much it's a process that we actually ask the administrators to
040go through you know we talk a lot about how policy guidance procedures so this is something where unfortunately because our policy hadn't been changed we tweaked the procedure administratively to make sure that the administrators had what they needed to do prior to this actually happening and it'll be compliant with the policy but because when students come forward and identify the t the administrators didn't have a working checklist as the steps they needed to take so we've kind of worked through a few things um not with ann on that particular situation but with sarah to make sure our our practices were in alignment with where our policy would go and um it's step by step as far as how they're you know going through uh the name changes and most often cases it's the student comes
041forward and identifies to a trusted adult and then we start the conversation there in terms of getting more supports in place that trusted adult could be a classroom teacher it could be the school counselor school psychologist in many cases when i was a building principal it was me and then we would sit down with the counselor and the supports and the family and then go step by step to ensure all the children's or all the child's needs rather were met and that really is specific to the school records as well you know because again in some cases students don't even want to go home and disclose that this is what they're doing at school and you know it gets to be tricky when you go in and look at yearbooks and you know all of
042a sudden you see bill is identified by a different name other than bill so from one year to the next parents start looking back and say well i never consented to that and as ann said well it's really what the child wants to be identified by and then as far as the official school records you know taking all these necessary steps into account and that that's going to kind of take us to the names and pronouns right so when we say their school records if the student is saying this is the name that i identify as their transcript their report cards all of those things would reflect their identified name um names and pronouns we've talked about this but we do follow the students lead this can be tricky in practice especially when parents are
043not on board um and that requires a lot of navigation on the part of the district to try to balance the rights of the parents with the rights of the student in that situation but we are supposed to default to following the student's lead and the students wishes in these situations so this um this section addresses that it's important that people have a lot of personal opinions on this and i get that i understand that but it's important that we also make sure that our own employees are respecting the student's name and pronouns um and and that's on the district to be sure that that's happening people slip up and it happens but if an employee is consistently calling the student by the their the name and pronouns that the student does not want to
044be used that can become problematic and that could become a discrimination issue i've actually had to address that in the past with a staff member who refused to uh use the correct pronouns and name you know very intentional refusal so it was it and we have it in there so and i appreciate you putting in the intentional and persistent piece because i did have to address that with a staff member um and their personal opinion and subjectivity got in the way of honoring what the child's legal rights were this this next one the restroom accessibility um you know you'll recall that this is something that in december the governor put out a mandate and gave new york state public schools a very specific time frame to put up markers identifying gender-neutral bathrooms and facilities and
045that was the um i think it was probably the catalyst for a conversation we recently had right and and i i tried to be really careful with how i worded this section um so students are permitted to use the restroom or locker room that corresponds with their consistently expressed gender identity at school that is something that the state has told us but i added that consistently expressed because there's always concerns of oh well the boys are just going to go into the girls locker room and say that they're that they identify as girls now i haven't actually come across that happening but it's a concern that many people have so that consistently expressed and then i also added that any any individual regardless of gender may request increased privacy or other accommodations because some people
046may not feel comfortable in certain situations in the restrooms or the locker rooms and um even though we have to allow students who are transgender to use the restroom that they identify as if somebody else feels uncomfortable with that they can get accommodations in that situation we can't force uh transgender students to only use the gender neutral restrooms or to only use certain designated restrooms a lot of districts have tried to address this by for in in the locker rooms for example putting in private changing areas and anybody who chooses to can use those private changing areas but we can't require transgender students to use those when it's not required of other students i noticed you also changed it from student to any individual so if you have a staff member that's good i still
047wonder how this works in practice um the policy sounds good might be exploring some of this i have yeah go ahead a lot actually so um it from my experiences personally it's gone remarkably well i would say to you our administrators currently are are doing a fantastic job of accommodating children's requests and they're working with students and families but my experience and and really is comes down to basic human value and how do you treat people with dignity period you know if we keep that in mind usually we we come out okay on the other side um but as ian said i think about the accessibility there are a lot of people who are not necessarily transgender but feel uncomfortable in large group gatherings because of body image or you know fear of using a
048restroom in a public place so you make sure that you're accommodating their own personal needs we've asked our athletic director and the director of facilities to look at putting in privacy curtains to change in the locker room behind curtains uh to make sure our restrooms have the appropriate stalls and dividers up um but i think in terms of you know the consistency consistently expressed gender identity um to ann's point i never had a child walk into a bathroom that they didn't belong just to say well i'm identifying as this today because it's tuesday and then tuesday afternoon i'm going back but i think in in society's eyes that's exactly what happened and i did have to uh deal with a very particular situation where an outsider was targeting one of my children um to the
049point where law enforcement got involved so i think this is a good the way it's written is very very good so in my my experience this the students tend to take this in stride it's typically the adults that that have a harder time with this in my experience be that staff parents community members but the students really are are pretty open-minded about this kind of stuff for the most part and hopefully that will change as the students become results right right i mean even when i was a student this was not something that was in my awareness right it is it is something that's changing in society as far as people being more aware about it people feeling uncomfortable and changing has been there for decades yes in my experience that i always had students
050who in middle school level they would do everything and anything they could not to go to the locker room right i was one of those i understand completely yeah yeah it's not pleasant when you're an adolescent to be in a locker room for the most part so i like the idea the curtains up and that kind of thing is a real step forward and at low cost and it's very effective i hope now mike we've already uh uh identified the bathrooms that are restrooms that are uh in what do we call it individual or gender-neutral yeah yeah yep and all in both schools right yep so they we're working on the final marker to be permanent what we did was they printed off um they printed off some stuff that we felt would be appropriate
051and we have those up while we wait for the placards to come in to be permanently mounted and what we're trying to do is identify other areas because as zan said it can't just be one particular facility they have to have access to the facility based on the gender they identify but i often try to relate it to people like the ones where you have children as you grow go to an airport or you're in a restaurant where it's a family family area because you know if you're an adult male taking your female child to the restroom you don't necessarily want to walk into the men's room and vice versa with an adult female taking your your young male child into that so i we liking the gender neutral to that and basically say it's
052a facility for anyone um but it's also something that for children who are looking for a single unit facility sometimes that's the most comforting thing as well this next piece the the participation in physical education and interscholastic athletics has really heightened people's awareness to say when you group you know be mindful of you can't say boy girl boy girl anymore or do activities exclusively based on gender assignment per se and i mean assignment meaning for the role for the particular class not how they identify uh by gender but i think in terms of like phys ed classes if they were doing a square dance unit you know typically you would try to partner male and female students up or if you were doing sex specific activities based on particular gender you know male or female
053sex it's something where you go through and now you say okay we can no longer just use those two characteristics to define what we're you know identifying the activities by and i don't know if i did a great job explaining that but in terms of more along the lines of saying hey how you group kids or how you group students rather it's important that you keep in mind there there may be students that are uncomfortable being designated male or female and your activities should not necessarily um reflect that right and then i also i kept as far as the sports i kept that purposefully vague because the new york state um public high school athletic association does have current guidelines on what we're supposed to do uh when a student who is transgender gender non-conforming
054wants to participate in the in the team consistent with their identity and but that i don't know if you've noted if you've seen in the news even recently there's multiple states that are passing or considering passing legislation on this um this is a sensitive topic um they say that people who are biologically male should not be able to participate on female sports teams just because they're typically bigger and stronger um and that's unfair i'm not here to give any value judgment to that um it's pretty politically charged we need to do what new york state tells us to do so by keeping it fairly vague in this policy whatever the current guidelines for new york state are is what we will comply with um the other activities that one right there that's pretty much it
055it corresponds with what i said with phys ed the sex segregated uh situations so you know i've asked our administrators to be cognizant of overnight trips you know where you know typically you would have you know females room with females males room with males on a trip and in this particular situation again if you have an overnight trip to washington dc child identifies as female it's okay for that child to room with other female students same thing if they were a student who identified as male it's okay to identify or place them um with other students and other male students on that overnight trip and a lot of times as ann had stated um this is usually resolved by the student and their peer group in my experience when we had a group of students
056go to new york city or go to an overnight trip for a choral concert accommodations were not an issue because the child and their peers made sure that they were placed appropriately and the adults that were supervising um were great with facilitating that right i did give the the principal the authority to figure this out on a case-by-case basis typically it's not an issue but if we have a student just like any student right if we have a student who really wants to room with certain students and if they're not comfortable with that for any reason that's an individual case-by-case situation that we need to work out with but i put in there with the emphasis on maximizing the student social integration because the way the policy was written before made me a little nervous
057uh that it seemed like we could require the transgender student didn't come out and say this but the language was such that we could maybe deny a transgender student's request to room with with other students uh of the same gender so we should usually this is not an issue for the kids they usually have their friend group and they want to live they want to room together so a few years ago we went through a kind of similar situation john do you remember with the um honors trip to no you i don't think you were principal then um to new york and they divided thing the kids up but a mother and a father were going to be in a particular room with a bunch of girls and those parents raised the roof you want
058that man in their daughter's room i don't maybe you remember how it was got resolved but um it was to the point of almost canceling the trip i recall it was a a real big issue i like the way that you could that you consistently use the word consistently uh asserted school that's sort of that to me kind of eases my mind and also covers a lot of issues right and if you'll see i even i even took care to remove the gender-specific language within our policy uh there was a lot of he she and things like that and i i tried to take all of that out so that the policy itself is reflective of current best practices for how we address these issues um and then the last thing is the dress code
059we can't require any student to we can't have gender specific dress codes and we've known that for a while now so you can't say boys can't wear skirts um the dress code we can have the skirt lengths have to be a certain length right um but that applies equally to boys girls or however they identify so we can require them to adhere to the dress code but it cannot be gender specific and that's regardless of their gender identity so it seems to me like if somebody's transgender and they've had gone through the surgeries mike as you suggested that that becomes a non-issue it's as john mentioned that when when someone's in transition i think that's where obviously it becomes kind of sticky it really is i mean for a variety of reasons i mean so
060much of what we talked about in terms of societal norms and the pressure that these children face as they move forward and you know come out and identify that takes a lot of courage and a lot of times you'll see you know this this parallels with our mental health stuff because the enormous amount of pressure that these children are under and financially most children that come out and identify in their school age experience don't have the the financial wherewithal to go through the actual surgery and i i know that in many cases it's they start off with the progression and then they actually you know if they're fortunate enough have the surgery after they graduate my experiences anyways have been the majority of the students who came forward with me as a building principal identified
061started the transition and then were hoping to have surgery after after graduating high school there was only one exception to that and probably i want to say 15 cases where students identified and in transition there was only one that was planning a surgery prior to graduation but a lot of this really speaks to again you know basic basic human rights and treating people with dignity regardless of uh gender regardless of identity and educating people on the fact that gender identity is not the same thing as sexuality and really for our purposes and i'm thankful that ann you know took this on because she said it in 2015 state ed gave guidance and you know not a lot of our administrators were up to speed with respect to the actual professional development side in terms of
062what we needed to do to be compliant so ann conducted a training with our administrators and i i have to say i think it was in january i don't recall what month it was it might have been february but i i want to say um early this year that she came in and did the training with us so like ann said at the beginning regardless of what their personal um opinions are this is going to give us a lot of information as to how to meet students needs in an educational setting and i think the policy does that and i think the changes she's made have have helped us out substantially will there be a sign off this one too on the actual policy for their training or or what what do you mean uh
063well yeah oh yeah like we were the other one we're doing a sign off sheet um so that we're sure that the staff is at least knowledgeable about the web usage so do we need to have us go ahead i haven't really thought that far ahead about whether they need to have a staff sign off speak and and the reason i i'm leaning towards no is because we don't do that for every child you know to say we do a staff development for all children but i would say to you under nasa and making sure that we're compliant with the dignity for all students act there's a component that they have to identify with and then as far as the actual book talk and the study what i hope is that this stuff becomes more
064and more a part of our practice no different than if we were working on uh special ed compliance and when it comes down to how to how to educate in any setting so that we're we're not looking at students that are transitioning as a particular population but part of our population you know like we would with typical children exceptional children children with special needs that type of thing i think that i think that training and an oversight is more important than a sign off for this kind of stuff another question for you these two uh policies are not what we would get from erie one boces is that correct these are basically massaged a little bit by you so the the first policy that i did i barely changed anything so i find that the
065erie one boces is a really good starting point and sometimes we have to make lots of changes and sometimes we don't have to make many the the transgender policy there are elements in there that are consistent with that eerie one but it's more updated than than what we had should we not make a notation at the bottom then that it was it's not word for somehow word for it's not word for word eerie one boces no i don't think you need to worry about that because the policies are your policies as the board members um so regardless of where you get them from it doesn't matter once you adopt them they're yours well what i'm saying is historically historically it it's it gives you a little bit of history behind who did it and when
066and as opposed to just saying oh i must have been here he won both of these policies and it really is not totally yeah i'll leave that up to to you guys to decide if you want to identify it that way in my experience um districts typically modify those erie one boces policies pretty frequently but every district is different that that's so and to speak to that point we would put the adopted date in there right it would be as of march 2021 but i think to john and paul's point and cinder can attach to this as well what had happened was the district went through an a policy audit and we have so many policies that are that are in need of review we're trying to tweak things that make sense specifically for north
067rose wolcott versus you know everything that was recommended by erie one boces because what with that service as you know they just dump every policy out there and whether you you know take the time or have the ability to go through it or not they basically overwhelm a system and push it all at you and then some of it's irrelevant but you've adopted it as a policy because erie one suggested it and we're saying look that some of that stuff is just purely minutia we need to get away from it and some of it is so not relative to what we're doing here we also need to look at it that way so to the policy committee members tina's going to give me the update on where we are audit wise i think for our
068purposes what i would suggest is you know we don't need pan for this um that we kind of let ann go if she's done or if you have any other questions for her but for our group what we should do is carry on a quick discussion as to what we think are the natural next steps and my my finding has been having her and sarah work with us saves me so much up front you know because again it kind of gives me it takes it from such a broad perspective and gives me the the laser beam focus that we need in order to make sure we're compliant on behalf of our district and we're not vulnerable to something that we haven't necessarily adhered to based on what everyone's um you know subscription has offered us
069and that's not to say that we're ever vulnerable based on what they provide us with it's just vulnerable when we take it and adopt it in mast and we haven't looked at it and tailored to meet our district's needs do you have any of you have questions for ann i don't i don't have a question and but i i still have a little underlying concern and mike how you you find out that we you know we must adhere to the uh and and take good care for the individual i i'm i'm completely understanding them all for it my little concern is that sometimes i worry that we compromise the masses for an individual that's i don't see any i don't want to change the policy i don't see anything that that i can say other
070than that i'm just a little uncomfortable that we do that so that that to me i think this is something where i think there's power and ambiguity because i think when we read it we take it case by case that's how we should apply it it's similar to like the vision statement and and you can attest to this because we talked about it last week you know sometimes when you have ambiguity or broad stroke it benefits us because we want every person to pick up that policy and say okay when i read this i want to make sure michael pollan's needs are met and i want to make sure that i i'm doing this so if michael pullen picks it up and he says listen you know when it comes down to you know cisgender
071people can read this policy and identify that he's okay with the way it's written so i think that that's why it comes in that way um and we want it to be up to the the reader not necessarily just the author but i i agree with i understand where your your point was and and it's well made giant did you have anything else for ann uh no i think you did a great job with the uh the body especially of this last one thank you very much yeah not a good discussion that was great thank you you all said i am yeah okay paul you're all set as well yeah appreciate it and thank you very much thank you have a good day you too thank you bye bye so obviously for our policy committee
072we we have to figure out you know how to get through the policies in an effective fashion make sure that we're compliant with state ed make sure that we're compliant with the policies in practice and again i think that we've we've identified a few instances this year where we weren't necessarily following through with the policies the way the way they were written you know in in both of these discussions this morning um we've identified two specific things that we weren't necessarily compliant with one being the fair use and copyright material that we've since amended and then um with the student gender identity um you know the subsequent training that went along with the policy that was created in 2016 but we've worked to correct both of those so i just need the group to think
073about what what you feel is the most appropriate way to move forward um we don't need ann to represent us every time but i think it's good to have our legal counsel read through our policies and make recommendations to us and what we could do for purposes of efficiency we could actually give them chunks so that they read them and then we get the edited version with the strikethroughs and then when we meet we can discuss it and go forward that way um and then whatever additions that they add we'll see those so strikethroughs might be red and then additions might be green that's what i was going to to ask you about if we had the changes for the credit union what we do is we get a summary sheet and then we get
074the strikethroughs and then we discuss that and it shortens the discussion greatly um my one question and i've got to ask it is you alluded to the procedure book are the procedures up to date then for you i'm laughing because there is no procedure book i'm creating as we go with respect to transgender stuff yes we are up to date because again i reached out and made sure that what we put in practice some of what we part of our administrative procedure book will correspond with the policies and we're creating the procedure book to correspond with it part of our procedure with respect to student gender identity is based on practice that i've used in the past and it's based on um work that we've actually completed with uh sarah through harris beach so that
075they made sure it was compliant but we are the the policy the the policies that are referenced on the web page are all current or under review and as i said earlier tina's got the um the list the policies from the last audit that we have to go through we can cycle through and reduce the discussion but i do feel like it's best to have somebody do that for us and you'll recall we talked about having somebody do that in the fall but then the cost became prohibitive and i said i would not i would not support it to the tune that they were going to charge us but i think that once we get through the rest of the policies that were identified under the audit you know to just kind of keep ourselves
076current i can go back and make sure that the administrative procedures are all in alignment with the new policies now mike just to bring us up to date and current uh with these two we have to put these on uh distribute it to the board for a first read second so on and discussion and then vote on it so these two are going to be the next board meeting yes that is correct you're going to send these around to the board members first tina will put those out and then we'll go through the same steps that's why the adopted date is still open right now because it's probably not likely to happen until um you know the the end of april right the corresponds with the boces vote because i think that one's a wednesday
077meeting for us and i think we've identified was that the 2018 uh 28 yes yeah so 2018 you know they'll get the first read and then the discussion and if we adopt it'll either be the 28th or the first meeting in may be like i can do the first read at the first meeting in april on the second read the second okay that sounds good and as far as going ahead with it i agree with your plan um i think we really do need to have it expedited with a strikethrough somebody to read it strike through the changes and then it makes it a lot easier well i think it helps from a professional development standpoint as well i know the three of you are big on making sure our our staff is up to
078date with the teachings and learnings about everything especially with the policies and i think that you know we've got some situations here where you know again policy that's four years old a lot could change relative to technology you know technology usually you get that brand new tv and then by the time you mount it on the wall there's a new ad for the knox great tv that's put up there so you know same type of thing with with student rights and and student records they're changing constantly so i think that that's a good thing we lost your volume john i'm okay with that too as long as it doesn't cost too much because i thought that send john and i given our experiences in life that we could we could start going through policies and
079do some sorting but as long as it isn't you know as long as it's cost effective mike i'm fine with having somebody go through in advance of us so certainly it'll save us a lot of time yeah but we need the legal end on there to make sure that we're worth we're good yeah i would never suggest we delete or or change something without getting a legal uh job on it yeah i think that that's the biggest thing i do agree the experiences the three of you have are fantastic and i think that the component that we just need to make sure is again it's got to be tailor-made to north rose woolkid you know there's there's so many policies that as you know that have been implemented that we may need to get away
080from because they're not mandated the ones that are mandated we always want to make sure that they're up to date and comply we're compliant with them the ones that are not necessarily relevant anymore remove and ones that become new we want to add and i think that that's a huge piece and we did you know very intentionally um sarah and i talked about how to break it out so that it's it's worthy and worthwhile and i actually consulted with a local superintendent to ask him what his thoughts were as well um but i don't feel like we're in the same position the other superintendent talked about how it went over a period of time um and i don't know that i have the same amount of time in which they had to go through it
081you know i think from our perspective we're we're pressed for time and we have a sense of urgency especially hearing that the group went through the audit and identified some and now it's just let's break them up and take manageable bites and keep moving forward i agree so you will be the key person who will steer us in the right direction as far as the policies the numbers the and the procedure that we use between myself and tina yeste you know if we she will you know go through these as well to make sure the policy numbers correspond with our current offerings and sometimes that's also what happened from you know erie we'd have to just go through and put extra eyes on it but great service we're going to continue with it right now
082until we get our you know fine print taken care of and you know we refine what we have and then uh you know yes i hope that i am the one that can kind of guide us through because putting that procedure book together as well you know it has to go hand in hand and we have to make sure that you know they make sense atina did a fabulous job before of keeping the group straight and and pointed in the right direction she usually does now you'll you will remember that we were going through these with scott and we had a meeting where we had like some ridiculous number that we were going through and we stopped i still have my folder and there's i don't know eight or ten maybe tina you remember that
083we have yeah there's some that are still left i was talking with mike about that we still have some from the audit that we didn't finish and when we had some changes and i'm gonna get all those to him and we're gonna look at them and decide how to go forward with them that's my priority right there paul is to start with that audit and those will be our focal point for the remainder of this school year and then you know my hope is between april and july we can make a very conscientious push to get that eight to ten narrow down whether we get them all completed or not that's yet to be seen but the goal would be to try and complete them all by july 1st put them through the policy committee
084and then any changes that we need to make in terms of over the next three months we will have the time and the ability to add those then so that when september starts you know the the dual read from every policy that needs to be changed will have occurred so that in september when children come back you know we're we're up and running again and then we're taking smaller numbers of policies to break down with the policy committee it's an admirable goal yeah very good okay okay all right i will keep you all posted on the other stuff with the variants for construction but you guys have a great day thank you for taking time out of your schedule and getting this done thank you right cindy you're going to make sure this is on
085the agenda for the night tina and i will we we have some time um yep okay thank you all right thank you all all right bye bye have a good week everyone