OUFSD Board Meeting 10/30/19

001what do you think the next members you've been to it doesn't say the opposite okay I'd like to call to order the Wednesday October 30th 2019 Ossining school board meeting with dr. Brian Nam please I wanted to start off this meeting to bring up that we had the passing of our Honorable Board of Regent member judeth Johnson last Tuesday October 22nd she represented us on the board of regents that advises the State Education Department and she represented Westchester Dutchess Orange County and Putnam and in Rockland of course where she lived and she was an amazing amazing advocate for our community for the state and for the country and she held many many roles in the state in Superintendent as a teacher was the guidance counselor quite amazing and she was an amazing advocate she made

002me a better advocate and she was a dear friend to many and it was really amazing to hear many people speak about her at her services and I want to just take a moment of silence to remember Regent Judith Johnson please join me thank you okay I'd like to call our student representative Fanny come on up thank you for joining us okay so I'm starting off Brookside had their Harvest Festival recently science research students completed an international Korean science fair Hamad Hasan Wong gold and Raymond Liu won silver today we had our own chess college fair a clam Iran recently had their fire safety assembly and then Ossining High School's future health care leaders class visited the White Plains Hospital and were able to learn how to do sutures and were able to interact with

003a surgical robot so Austin High School's fall drama play titled she kills monsters will begin its production from November 7 to November 9th so the Austin and girls varsity swimming team qualified for the New York State Championship at Ithaca state qualifiers include Emily Rocco Stella Maya may offer Savannah MacIntyre and sincerity Alexander no one let again was named the con Edison athlete of the week varsity boys soccer currently ranked number one in their division and have just won their semi finals game today and are headed for these sectionals finals and the varsity girls volleyball won their quarterfinals match and are also headed for the sectional semifinals as well thank you and now trusty Calif will read our Brad's alright so we have sessions continuing at our Saturday explore and learn I think there's one more

004session this weekend is the fourth that sound right okay those are going very well the Osteen MBK group visited the Apollo Theater to watch a performance of between the world and me by somebody's first name I can't pronounce coats knee she she she coats the osteen students participated in stashed the trash day I think there were a hundred or so volunteers including her own Erin sprang who I've never seen someone is so excited about 100 bags of trash more than that one that it's an incredibly successful and then tons of art it was that wasn't all of our students but it was a lot of our students it was a hundred and twenty people overall about 75 students right the Family Resource Center is open and ready for learning at Park school we covered some

005of the sports straight volleyball and soccer or right in the middle of sectionals and doing great huge crowd today at the soccer game that I think went to the volleyball game right after the soccer game that girls tennis team was where League champions MD held their Unity Day OHS students Julia I Oreo and Federico Rulon were recognized by the Westchester Board of legislators earlier this week there was a regeneration bus piyo bus that visited Roosevelt School which I think included some Regeneron employees on the bus who came off and taught our kids some science just great and then Brookside held its first family engagement night class week awesome thank you okay now I'm going to turn it over to dr. Sanchez okay so we're always humbled by you know just with Twitter website social media

006there's always great things happening across the district and tonight we're pausing to recognize two of our students for their outstanding accomplishments with us here this evening we have a Hamad and Raymond who were just recently noted by Fannie that went to represent the United States and the Korean Science and Engineering Fair and I would say Ossining and the United States Ossining first in South Korea Ahmad won the gold medal and Raymond won the silver for their research on cancer and I want to just take a moment to first of all congratulate them and thank them for representing our country and not sitting at the competition let's give them a round of applause and we just thought you know this doesn't happen every day right and we need to pause when we have these unique experiences

007and unique opportunities that take place and to recognize how proud we are of of our students and so we also felt we want to live a little bit of what you lived and hear a little bit of your story so I want to take a moment to invite you guys up and maybe you can tell a little bit about your experience so come on up all right so this is the easier one like you said last week last week yeah we went to de June the city one of the largest cities in Korea to present our research at the International science competition and there there were around 80 projects sixty-five sixty-five projects from all around the world and yeah it was a great experience so the journey started out pretty good everyone actually got there

008a day before me and I got there were they after Raymond and the first step Raymond visited he was actually able to go through a lot of this Science Festival swished he had planned out for us it actually happened to be so ironic because because on the same exact day Dejan as a city was having your own science fair and our competition was just a little away from that so we were able to go to that favor and visit that whole Science Festival after that day we presented our projects our separate projects for almost two days on the first day we had presentations for almost 5 hours we were judged by numerous of these scientists in our respective fields and closed our presenting zon that day and went on to present the very next day

009for three more hours we had sort of break times in the beginning and after that there was a judging ceremony and so since there were a lot of other people too and here on the stage we were caught with a lot of friends from Iran which I think was a really nice experience to have I was like to add that as part of the science festival like this competition was a big part for us but in the grand scheme of things um jae-joon as a city is kind of like the major science heavy area and our competition was only one liked event among a lot of other things and so they had this hole in opening ceremony that day that I was there where they essentially kicked it off with they had a lot of

010exhibitions that you could go to is kinda like affair and they also had like a serious-looking opening ceremony they had like talking robots and singing robots and it was like kind of showing the innovations and everything so that was really cool yeah yeah so after the award ceremony we went on to actually other than the gold and silver we also want the other Ward's where we and Raymond have been selected to further go to present our research in Tunisia in March there's an festival known and I Fest actually we will actually be going there no because it's crunch time but yeah so I never thought it stayed with a lot of other people and the person who actually and father mistake happens to be on the very far left he's actually the president of the

011Korean science organization so in case if as the fear is one of the only fairs with the Korean science and service organization sponsors there are many other things which they do that throughout their throughout the year for example like in March we participated in this one fair know myself in Sleepy Hollow high school and where some of the students actually get to go to ICF Corinne science and service festival and decoding science service Institute as an institution also sponsors other domestic affairs from where students could get to go to ICF just like a switch had which happens to be in Pittsburgh this year I think lasya stress whisperer [Music] I got away this is the say about it I mean after so for the presenting took up the majority of two days other than that

012it was more like a cultural experience we got to experience not only day June but they took us on a tour of Seoul as well where we got to to the capital so we got to visit one of like the historic palaces and his I think was like a symbol of like their sovereignty from the Empire and like the national government who wanted to tear it down but the people stood up against them so it was a good like experience then yeah we also visited very close to Palace it was at once free almost 3.2 miles of this one Street and in almost had no scars or any vehicles on that street but the street on both sides was filled with numerous shops and those shops at every cultural Korean thing which you could buy

013and that was really cool to see and I guess the major thing way back to the competition is that there weren't that many science fighters mounting but most projects were relating back to they looked at their like their national or the regional environment and they looked at solutions that were prevalent in their countries and it looked at solutions defining these which was something I was really interesting as they weren't so heavily focused on science as normally people from the United States are they were more focused on finding solutions to like challenges in everyday lives that were like more applicable such like water solutions and stuff like that right yeah most of the projects were fine-tuned to the respective countries so how to find unique problems in Iran for Iran for example that was really cool

014to see because to do project we did not only get to experience their sort of life but also sort of see what problems they faced and what they are doing to solve tearful having problems to serve then compare that you've got the problems we face and what what are we doing to solve those problems essentially and yeah it's just that we had this huge board with everyone who was participating in the fair and they had everyone's names on it and yeah our names right there doing that that's pretty cool picture oh yeah that's the chairman of the entire committee right and we were both also judged by him because he yeah she's a well-known science yeah he had I think one of two out my science research career I presented a reporter presented at numerous

015fairs but presenting to him was one of a little tough because he really understands the field of biology and how to judge a project and some of the questions which she asked us were really thought-provoking and I thought that was really nice presenting to him and it really interacting with him yeah that's it that Icarus is wonder if you could say the name of your project yeah so my project is on targeted inhibition of Multan and map gear signaling Network suppresses b-cell lymphoma so just to sort of put it into simple words this one gene known as mult one and it happens to be a very interesting gene because under common conditions if we take off this genes lymphoma cells which is one of the most common cancers in the world they die instantly but

016the problem is that's only that only happens for a short amount of time after some time lymphoma cells develop this resistance so I was trying to find out that what could we do to possibly prevent that resistance and have found as if he blocked that multiple gene with another protein known as arc at the same time resistance no longer happens and that sort of combinatorial inhibitions and synergistically blocks lymphoma growth so my project took a little bit of different take on cancer research so I looked at investigating the nuclear function of a protein known as genes right there I make six essentially to see how it regulates genomic instability so essentially you know that genetic mutations underlie most cancers and now previous research has shown that gene 33 is actually able to regulate DNA damage

017and cell transformation so if we could find out how gene 33 is actually able to do this then we may have a better understanding of like how our bodies are actually able to protect us against cancer and that could help in the development of new therapies in the future [Music] thank you I know how hard it is to complete the science research program as a alumni so very you guys should be very proud of yourselves Thank You mr. pig for your continued hard work on this um as homes continue to do great things and every year raise the bar and it's actually funny the day you guys left they had a texted me to see if I had any extra flags to give you guys I see you guys found one so yeah I appreciate

018you guys bringing in and representing both Ossining and the United States again you know very proud of you guys and keep up the great work thank you thank you so much I just want to quickly just want to say congratulations to you all and and it's but it's very impressive to say the least the research that you're doing and you know I hope that you're very proud of the work you're doing it's it's one thing to to win the award but to see that what the what the context of your research is you know gene and cell studies it's you know potentially you know life-changing for an entire generation of people so you know keep up the good work it's it's it's something to be very proud of thank you thank you wait don't go

019yet I think people ask me all the time I have three kids and they say oh you must be so tired and I always say I will never be as tired in my life as I was when I was doing the International Science Fair circuit in high school so I don't really understand how exhausting all of this is for you the competitions and the travel and you know friggin like put the project aside and the researchers side which is a huge monumental lift this is really hard work and you are on when you're at these fairs and you were talking and you were meeting so many people and you're experiencing so much and you two are working so hard and you are to be commended that you know once you get into science where you

020kind of like never sort of get out my dad's still a judge at the International Science Fair so keep it up stay involved in it and just enjoy and soak up every second it's just wonderful you really should be proud of yourselves a huge huge accomplishment you've really made Ossining proud and thank you very much for that and thank you to your teachers and the mentors and everyone who's just really worked so hard on this program this program is one of the reasons why my family chose to put down roots in Ossining and it's because of students and administrators like you guys here that are you know the word is out that Ossining it's just such a special place and it's because of this kind of stuff right here so thank you very much so

021I just want to pause to give thanks to you for coming here to share our story we've been watching you through photos and celebrating your accomplishments but you taking the time to kind of walk us through is really very much appreciated and I think overall you heard about the pride that everyone has and I echo that as a superintendent and very humbled by everything that you've accomplished and I I took like a palca knee look at the audience while you were telling explaining your your projects and everyone's jaw was just dancing it's just looking with it's just oh right you know the the knowledge and understanding you have at your content but leading up to that involves a lot of hard work and I often say that science research is yes it's about the science

022but there's so much more to it the public speaking the experiences you have there I hope you'll remember for all your life it's a very very unique experience that you have and I also just want to you know again we talked about Ossining pride and this is one of those proud moments and we want to thank you forever for representing us at the competition and everything that you do on a daily basis we talk about Future Leaders your leaders now and you need to know that and we thank you for everything congratulations we have to what I'll call pride certificates signed by myself and mr. oddly of just technology and congratulating you both for everything you accomplished and before I give them to you I also you know in the audience and wearing his hat

023he's he's always on I just have to mister picarello is constantly there for our students miss Holmes is constantly there for our students I still remember having an opportunity just it was an evening event with mr. piccolo and just pause and excused himself because he was contact contacted by one of our students and he needed to get back to him something to do with his or her mentor my point in that is that he's there for you and I know miss Holmes is there forty-two and I think in addition to talented students it's talented staff that make this happen so and pyramus also if I didn't you know also recognize mr. Hancock for his support of the program here at the building level so just want to thank everyone in the Board of Education in

024our community so congratulations let's give our students a round of applause and good luck in STS okay we're gonna move into our work session bleep okay Aleta so it's my pleasure to present mr. elton's Allen to say he's a partner at o'connor davies he works with us as our our accountant and he's my primary contact on any accounting issue he's been working for the district for many many years and we have a good working relationship and he's very supportive of the district's needs so without further ado I'm gonna have mr. kise present the external audit for the 2018-19 school year thank you later good evening just to give you a before I begin earlier in the month I met with the audit committee to go over the financial statements in detail so tonight I'm going

025to give you an overview of what we discussed here's the schedule of what transpired during the 1819 year the preliminary fieldwork was in June that's basically where we test the controls the payroll cash receipts cash disbursements then we had an audit committee meeting in June of 2019 and that's a required meeting the actual field work took place the week of August 12th and it lasted for the five days as I mentioned the post audit committee meeting was in September of nineteen and then the audit report is being given this evening contained within the financial statements and the audit report you have a summary of communications which is a management letter it's a communication of internal control that matters we're going to go over the general fund the schedule of revenues expenditures and changes in fund

026balance both budget Maxwell and we'll look at the general fund balance sheet and then some closing comments so contained within the summary of communications or auditor's responsibilities under auditing standards one of them is that we're required to issue an opinion based on the results of our audit and we did that we issued an unmodified opinion which is known as a clean opinion it's the best opinion you could receive we conducted the audit in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States known as US KS we're required to obtain reasonable rather than absolute assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement which we did and there were no material errors for Geling financial reporting or misappropriation of assets and then we know instances suspicions or allegations are fraud okay the internal accounting

027controls for the district there were no material weaknesses noted the accounting policies were deemed appropriate management's judgments and accounting estimates were adequate there were no unresolved issue issues and there were no disagreements with management no unresolved difficulties encountered there were no consultation by management by other accountants and pkf O'Connor Davies is independent with respect to the district in accordance with the relevant professional standards as I mentioned there were no irregularities or illegal acts okay contained within the management letter of the letter of controls there were five five comments the general fund is in excess of the allowable amount by the state education department which is four percent your fund balance the unassigned fund balance is currently a little over six percent the special aid fund there were some issues in the project lien schedule that's

028basically a schedule which shows all of the different programs within the special aid fund the revenues and the expenditures but it was eventually reconciled the school lunch fund you require or you're allowed to have more than three months worth of operating expenditures in the fund balance at the end of the year the school district had approximately $230,000 in excess of this amount I think you have to submit a plan to the State Education Department I'd say how you can utilize those excess funds the special purpose fund there were inactive trusts I believe they're about twenty four of them and we they totaled about twenty seven thousand dollars basically this is money given to the districts for a particular purpose so all these comments are informational in the sense that it's to alert the board of

029what's going on so you do know you have these 24 trusts with this money in it and they could be given out and the capital assets basically what has to happen is during the during the oughta we make certain adjustments those adjustments are given to the appraiser and then the district it should basically take their opening numbers at the beginning of the next year time into the ending numbers before they began that there were some adjustments that weren't posted at that time but it was reconciled okay this is the general fund schedule of revenues expenditure its changes in fund balance you have your budget left to right the original budget the final budget and the actual and then the variance with the final budget both positive and negative in this particular case they're all positive

030variances so the revenues were originally budgeted 125 million the final budget was increased slightly to 125 million 110 and the actual came in at 127 million 100,000 most of that 1.9 million positive variance had to do with interest which was about 900,000 state aid the positive variance was 270 thousand and there was another 250,000 in miscellaneous revenues on the expenditure side the original budget was 119 thousand again increased slightly to 119 for 12 and the axial cam is one hundred thirteen thousand 348 generating a positive budgetary variance of almost six point 1 million included in the positive variance within the expenditures the Central Services had a positive variance of 500,000 teaching regular school had a positive variance of 1.2 million programs for students with disabilities had a positive variance of 785 thousand and the employee

031benefits had a positive variance of 1.2 million and that was mostly from the retirement categories because the rates have gone down because the market stock market has improved then you have your other financing sources or uses and basically this is a transfer out then you have your net change in fund balance and if you look at the bracketed four million four hundred seventy eight thousand included in that number it's about 2.5 million that was appropriated from the 2018 budget that used to balance the nineteen budget okay so basically what it means is that when you adopted the 2019 budget you had anticipated utilizing 4.5 million dollars of your fund balance which was increased to 4.7 million but the actual results came in at A+ surplus of 3.7 million and if you take that surplus and

032add it to the fund balance at the beginning of the year you ended the 45 million 777 you ended the year with a total fund balance of 49 million five hundred ten thousand okay there's the general fund balance sheet on the top you have your total assets of 56 point nine million included in that 56 point nine million that's about fifty million dollars between cash and investments your liabilities is seven point four million and including that is six million of amounts due to the retirement system that's basically only because of when their year ends and when the fiscal year ends their year ends in March so you have three more months that you have to recruit for both systems and that's about six million then you have your fund balance which is a total of

03349 million 510 which we discussed the non spendable fund balance of a million four hundred thirty five our expenditures that you paid at the end of nineteen that are applicable to nineteen twenty so that money is basically in fund balance but it's not spendable you have 36 million in your restricted fund bounds you're assigned fund balance again includes two and a half million dollars which are using to balance 2019 and 1920 budget and there are unassigned fund balance of eight million two hundred eighty four thousand as I said it's about six point eighteen percent of your 2019-20 appropriations and if you look to the right you'll see the components of the restricted fund balance you have set aside almost eighteen million for tax certiorari these are basically tax certs that have been filed they haven't

034been adjudicated yet so there is a lie potential liability for those and you have the money reserved the employee benefit accrued liability or the compensated absence is that the employees accrue while they're working you've established the Employee Retirement System and funded that to the tune of 5.3 million this year the Teachers Retirement System is new they passed legislation allowing the school district to finally establish a reserve for the Teachers Retirement System you funded that to the tune of 1 million 100,000 you have a million dollars in unemployment reserve liability claims of one hundred fifty seven thousand and you've also established a reserve for future capital projects with that being you have nine point 1 million what that means is when you have a project that comes that you have to do so to speak instead

035of borrowing and bonding you could utilize this these monies and what that'll do is save the district the issuance cost and the interest cost over the term of the project so it's a very smart thing to do that you have the money you should put it away and utilize it when the time comes so overall the district is solid fun bounds they results for the year we're very good and you're in a very good position again we issued an unmodified opinion there were no material weaknesses the general unassigned fund balance is six point one percent you're appropriating two and a half million and your debt anything less than 6% is generally considered good through your managing your debt very well you're 2019-20 appropriation is about 3.4 percent of your budget so anything under six percent

036is considered good are there any questions okay very good thank you [Music] and from the audience right quick a quick question Michael Leda the school lunch - and 34 thousand that's something there ways to use that and if that's something we normally have bad and what the plan you mentioned or so there's a list of ways in which we can use it that the child nutrition provides for one thing that we're not supposed to use it for it is for capital projects anything that enhances the buildings so what we normally like Alan said every year we have to give them a plan so we usually tell them it's going to be for furniture equipment things like that so the program is thriving so it's we seem to always be in a position where we have

037excess fund balance but what I told them is that we're going to use it for equipment we still have some improvements we want to make to the high school cafeteria so I'm just waiting for that information to determine how much that's been a for us to support if we're able to do a capital project for example I know that Claremont's cafeterias is potentially on the list if we were able to use some from the capital line to fund a renovation of project and a capital expense could we use money from this fund when we had to put the new equipment in based on a reconfigured space does that question yes you can use it for equipment for a new space we've done that in the kitchens where we go create another bill see we put

038in new ovens for the feet you know there's a lot of stuff the server I mean that $200,000 can go very quickly depending on what you're buying right yeah those built as well and it's basically just a formality that you give the state any more questions from the board gonna open it up to them I'd like to open it up if anybody from the audience has any questions on this part of the agenda okay I like to thank you you're working I also want to pause and recognize Aleta Zuber for her hard work along with the entire business office clearly they do a really great job so I want to thank them for their day-to-day efforts thank you everything thank you okay next step will happen okay so I'll do a quick introduction during our

039the beginning of the school beginning of the year we've met with the Board of Education we talked that periodically we would have conversations here at the board table as it relates to overall goals that we have and the progress we're making towards our goals so this is a pause we've done some recent assessment of our students and we've been tracking their achievement to this point certainly there's a long year still left ahead of us and there's plans that have been set forth actually the last board meeting the Board of Education heard from our building principals and the action plans that they set forth that being said there glows and grows in here there are areas where we're doing well and we're seeing some improvements in areas that we still need to grow and improve on

040still moving forward so I want to thank Kerri Ann the elementary principals have done a lot of the work in terms of analysis dr. ROM Tim Shelton has been very helpful in doing this analysis as well so I want to thank everyone that was involved to this point and in advance thank karien for walking us through some of the data so good you doing everyone and thank you for giving me this opportunity to give an elementary update and to tell you about our kids and how they are doing as we dive actually very deeply into our fall benchmarking so tonight I would like to address about six topics I'm going to be sharing some information about our attendance data our behavior data our achievement data our volume access and choice goal for our elementary system

041of calling the next topic for a discussion called digging deep we did some targeted data work this year and I am happy to talk about what that means to our system and we'll end our discussion tonight talking about actionable steps because remember while there will be a lot of glows there will be a lot of grows and I've said this many many times that data always is a force for improvement so it's important to just piggyback on what dr. Sanchez said that this year we expanded our learning and our analysis work to many more staff members our data meetings in years past were district-wide and we would all come together and have these little mini updates and and then we moved into building level data meetings and we had these small groups of people talking

042to us and and we would go through the data and come up in small groups with an analysis and some steps but this year we really opened it up to a lot of other people and so on each in each building the data team included people like not only the administrators but ApS we had our reading teachers we had our coaches we had a school psychologists in some cases we had social workers E&L teachers and so we really put together a wide stakeholder group to help us take a dive into all the data which in all the years I've been here is probably some of the most robust data that we have looked at collectively as educators in the Austin school district and when we got together in each of our buildings we grappled with

043six really essential questions and I think they're important to call out question number one was how do our students perform compared to national norms so we're gonna look at the national norms and I'll tell you we're pretty we're doing a pretty good job with national norms are there groups of students who outperform or underperform others and you will see that there's some definite truth in some of our subgroups outperforming in some of our subgroups of kids underperforming our students making improvements from year to year our students making improvement from fall to spring and what additional information would help us in this work so we in in our meetings we were like okay do we have an update on things do we have enough data what else should we be looking at and I'll say right

044up front that it's important to recognize that we have just launched an analysis of our students with disabilities because they are included in all of our data tonight but we're going to be taking a keener dive into our students who are receiving special education services and it will probably have even more of an update on that subgroup so we when we sit and we talk we say what else what else what else and so the biggest question I think that we took on in our in our groups is this question of so okay with all this data what does this mean in terms of shifting our practice everything is about shifting practice and improving our work and outcomes for kids so I'm going to start tonight with attendance data you all received your big book

045in the I was delivered to you right there's so much data in there and my job tonight is to take all that data and try to highlight what it all means and so we begin with attendance and what you see here is just a sampling of all the different lenses we look through to analyze student data attendance so for the purpose of this evening I'm just gonna highlight a few of the data points but no I hope that you did already take a deeper dive but know that obviously there's plenty to look in in each building we looked at chronic absences per year total absences per month September absences absences by grades absences by race absences by poverty and the effects of chronic absences on achievement and so there's a lot of data in that

046data book about all of those data points I'm just going to pause for a second and highlight two of those data points that are really worthy of celebrating we there's everyone knows we've been on a mission with attendance and so this slide shows that our district chronic attendance for our elementary system and you can see that there is a decline in chronic absences in our system and that is really something that we should feel very good about because there's a very intentional work going on around attendance and we had to sneak in the secondary look as well so if you look at AMD and the high school you'll see that it's not only our elementary system that is improving around attendance but it's really the entire district that's improving we always say this if we

047have our kids in school every day then that's the simple formula for success and achievement so with the patterns and the notices of our attendance efforts this year it's really important to recognize that that's a September September's data is much more promising than years before we did seen you'll see in the data book there are some spikes there's a there's a spike a data point with shows of the months and how many kids are absences absent across the year we definitely recognize that winter Spike's we have attendance spikes in the winter time and we know as a system that we need to think about our attendance efforts differently in the winter time I want to point out that our building every single building in the district has an attendance team and that attendance team is

048not only reacting to our students absences but being very proactive in sending out letters sending out communication being sure we saturate our community with the message that kids need to be in school so one thing that we were noticing too about our September September data is this we had a lot of discussion about are our kids taking longer summer vacations and might that be some of the reason for some of the September absences and very we are going to actually look a little closer into that data to see if that is some of the reason for September September data the other thing that we did talk about is that sometimes our kids leave our district and they don't get taken out of our system in September and that brings down I mean that brings up

049the attendance so we're taking a look at why kids are not starting the school year with us and like I said we're not just being reactive to it we're trying to be proactive we did talk about starting our work for September next year around attendance in May so that our everyone knows like whatever you're doing for the summer the first day of school matters so we've got lots and lots of action steps around this but these are just some highlights so the next area that every team took a deep dive into were is the behavior student behavior so again you'll see here are just some samples of the kind of data points we looked at some of the lenses included average referrals per month referrals by types of problem behavior across multiple years referrals by

050ethnicity and referrals by location so we keep track of where in our buildings we might be preferring behavioral issues and remember that this is just a sampling more details in your data books so I think this slide is very important to bring out and to be very transparent about I have to highlight it and this one is refer is that the referral by ethnicity and if you've had a chance to look at it it's very hard to see but it's really important to say out loud that we are referring our children of color too much and it's important to highlight that our Latino population is being referred more than any of our subgroups in our district so this is really essential information that we could have probably hypothesized and predicted but it's it's when you

051when you when you put it down in a data point as I said before it's it it just keeps pushing you to get better and better and better and to be better for our children but it is important to recognize so our referrals though if you just in general look at all the data it's really important to recognize this our referrals across our elementary system they are down over the course of three years so we are referring this is the good news less and less children but our black and Latino populations are referred disproportionately to others and particularly our boys of color are referred more than others but in general our referrals are down so I'm going to speak a little bit about the achievement data we there's lots of different lenses here in this

052again just a sampling but to name some of them some of the ones that we looked at were media Nouriel oral reading fluency by grade levels so sorry excuse me across multiple years oral reading fluency by risk levels reading fluency by race over multiple years but we not only looked at our students this is really important through the national norms but we looked at our students through our internal norms and this is very important for me to talk about we took note of math automaticity and we also look very carefully at our kids independent reading level through the TC assessments that come with all of our programming from Teachers College lots of different samples were looked at it's important to stop and pause at some that speak bigger stories for us and take notice of

053the our reading fluency by ethnicity and and to look at some of what this speaks to us you should know we have this for every single building and the patterns vary in degree but it is important to point out again there is growth there are such promise in our data this year and we are building and strength but we still see that our students lag in our Latino children are not performing as well as other subgroups and our our our our black students are not performing though they are making growth so some things to really just put out there in terms of the patterns and the noticing zuv achievement so again I want to say that when you look at all the data points in that book there's a great promise our fall data is

054probably stronger than it's ever been and that always makes us feel you know very hopeful but it's important to recognize that while we are actually exceeding national norms in many places we do our own glance of our kids so that internal lens we know that when our kids are in the 75th percentile not the 50th percentile our kids are really on a trajectory of success not only in our school district but in in their life so our internal lenz that we really live by in terms of our practice put our kids at lower numbers and so we're paying very close attention to that by looking and looking at their data more frequently strategically monitoring them keeping track of their growth along the way but again it's important to recognize that our data continues the show

055that our black and Latino children are not performing as well as other children another very important piece of our story when it comes to studying our children and looking at data is our very important goal of volume access and choice so it's important to recognize that we're sending this message out all over the community that when our kids read a lot and when I say a lot I mean books numbers of books and when they have access books at their fingertips and when we give them choice we match books to who they are and who their interests what they are interested in then we we lift stamina we we lift it all up and when kids are reading more achievement it just equates to achievement so this is just a chart that we share a

056lot with our families and our kids and just internally as educators so our little people in Park school they're reading those little books 12 to 15 books a week our kids that are a little in upper grades we want them to be reading depending on where they are as readers four to six books two to four and when you get like it - to Claremont and early part of AMD we're asking kids to be to read one to two novels a week this doesn't happen if our kids are reading a book in school and a different book at home that's impossible parents always look at me like missus I posed for real it happens when we partner our work from the school to the home so if kids are reading lots of pages during the

057day and they go home and they read lots of pages they're gonna get through novels and the truth of the matter is it's not about the minutes it's about the number of books that that equate to achievement so we put a lot of effort in this including working with our library media specialists they are I'll just say that that they're doing a great job and it's important to celebrate what is going on in terms of circulation last year we have a whole like spring several months of data showing improvement in circulation but this is just another fine example of what's going on just in September so sometimes you know people say the libraries aren't open kids are not getting there early on in the school year we opened them up day one and you can

058see the change in circulation data really supporting our goal so patterns in noticing so you should I think it's been noticed that we're flooding our community we're saturating the community with literature kids are being handed a book everywhere they go we are moving toward we're not there yet changing the way we use reading logs in schools instead of tracking the minutes our kids are reading we're go we're moving to are tracking the number of books it's important to recognize that every single building in the elementary system has set this as a goal there's a whole buzz around it kids are keeping track there's bulletin boards everywhere our message is just read circulation as we said is higher than ever in our libraries in each of our buildings there are thousands and thousands of new books

059we've committed to really purchasing books to meet this goal and every time we purchase books we do it with that lens of diversity we want our children to see themselves in the text that they get to select from every day in our schools so I did share that one of the things I was going to talk to you about were some of the new data lenses that we took this year and with the help of some of our principals some of our future leaders in the district our coaches who helped us gather some data we took a more targeted look at some places so you'll see a sampling here again justice of the targeted lenses that we were looking in so you'll see that we looked at the language stages of our E&L population and

060in some places we're looking at student voice so some in some places we asked our kids hey how do you want to learn in this building we're looking at our RTI efforts and holding on to who's there who's new to it who's just who's exiting it but again this is a sample including a real glance at our extended day programming who's who's signing up for them who are they how many kids are doing it why are there some kids not joining why are there some subgroups that are joining more than others and so we're looking at all this you know a more targeted lens to help us tell our story better and I think to help us really address some of the grows that you're already feeling in the data so for example you'll see

061here this this this particular data point really has we've spent days if not weeks talking about this one which shows the language progressions of our ENL students and this shows when they started in our system and how their stages have developed and when we looked at this we saw that a lot of our kids are sitting in this expanding stage of language growth and so we just sat down and we've been doing so much talking about this and really have to say dr. Sanchez is pushing everybody to say what else what else what else and that's what we're doing with all of our data and so we're coming up with other actions that we might not have if we hadn't taken a deeper dive into some of our subgroups so we're looking at subgroups and

062thinking much more seriously about what else like we can't keep doing things the same way we have to do things differently because all of our children need to be successful so some patterns and noticing so obviously I've said this we have subgroups need us to think more innovatively about our practices to ensure better growth we have to say out loud that our en l students are underrepresented in our extended programming seems kind of surprising to us when we first discovered that but that's the truth we have to say that the the some of the data that we collected about student voice particularly in fifth grade is really a we think of a strong culturally responsive practice that we think should be extended and just in general tracking our students and in all of our extended

063program programming gives us this opportunity to take different approaches to keep things because their kids are really responding to them and to say nope we have to do something very different to get more children involved we're just trying to be much more intentional with our extended programming and always our data tells us to keep that keen focus on diagnostic work keep that keen focus on small group work keep that keen focus on the kids that are receiving interventions so every single building has their own action steps based on the data that was discussed in each one of the buildings but I went through all of those pages that you have and try to highlight some of the ones I think are important to the whole system so it's really important that we continue to take

064deep dives into the performance of our ELLs as I said many are hanging out in these stages of language development for sometimes we feel a little bit too long than we're doing something keep thinking about why that's happening we also talked very seriously about getting closer to our students really looking at kids that are underperforming and developing these profiles for our kids like who are they who are they as learners what are they doing really well what are their barriers and to really be very targeted and intentional about helping to shift support for kids so we also are thinking seriously about bringing a building the capacity of our teachers to understand the learning progressions around ENL learners and how language works so that that can become part of the profile and become part of the

065way we adjust our plans and teaching strategies for our kids we are very seriously not identifying we have already identified our children of promise and those are our kids that we say move like you know just almost their kids those kids that we know that need us to be very very intentional we're calling them our children of promise and we're monitoring our small group are printing a very keen focus on small group instruction for them and we are strategically monitoring them and the coaches in this district in the elementary system are really working closely with teachers to work on small group but also to hold on to the growth of these children and to help build their personal reading lives we are seriously taking a deeper dive into our black students to determine what else

066is impacting growth when language for most of them is not a barrier and as I started today you uncover while you look at your kids and your students and then you start to say oh we need to look at this group better we need to look at this group better and we definitely need to pick a very keen focus and a deep dive on our students with disability and conduct a mini analysis so that we can service our children better and in more inclusive ways and to build on all the learning that's taking place with the consultants consultants that are in the district GNR and so this is a very big goal for us we had a special education meeting today as leaders and we have looked very kis already started this work looking carefully

067at our delivery maps that we talked about last year and beginning the work of planning for next year already and it's important to recognize that the changes in referrals we think potentially and we're because it's the start of a new year are a result of our SEL efforts we definitely believe that they are down but it is super important to say out loud again that even though our referrals are down my students of color particularly our males need us to do other things to be in deeper relationships with them to understand them to get closer to who they are and to respond to them in every way that we can to be sure that they are performing up to their potential so I personally want to thank there was that binders big right so I

068want to thank personally all the the principals who had a lot to do with putting that together and Tim as as Ray said was instrumental I want to thank the teams the data teams in every single building Brian for partnering with the elementary I do always have to stop and say that we have some of the finest educators and in I personally think in the world the teachers are run you know wrapping themselves around the data and and working really as hard as they possibly can to continue to assess our kids and to shift their practices on behalf of our kids and finally for Ray for being just relentless about this important work of data-driven teaching and learning and I thank you very much for your time I'll take questions or reflections okay all right

069I want to start by saying thank you for putting this presentation together was a lot of data to go through you know on my own and I appreciate you taking your time to go through these points glad to see that attendance or absences are down and attendance is up I did have a few questions though when it comes to reading how do we or how does the elementary schools determine that the kids are actually comprehending what they're reading are their book reports or their logs that they're filling out to actually you know determine their not just going through and not taking something out of the book there's that's very multi-dimensional comprehension is built in lots of different components of balanced literacy so we built it through read Aloud's we build it to shared reading close

070reading and our children are reading independently and we are what we what the most powerful way to monitor comprehension is through individual conferencing and that's when a teacher sidles up right next to the person and says let's talk about your book and we do these things called running records where we listen to them read and we ask them some questions and and and and from that we determine comprehension skills all of our units however three through five have pre reading tests in them and post reading tests so there's more formal summative assessments in the TC units not so much in the younger grades because we it's our personal one-to-one work with kids that tell us whether they're comprehending or not is there anything like in place where a few kids read the same book and

071then they take some time to talk about it tons of book clubs book clubs start really early in our units of study you know even we have this theory that not theory but we when we purchase books we always purchase multiple book copies of books on purpose so that kids will even organically just pick the same book to read and so they they start talking about it remember I appreciate the question that it's really actually the reconstruction of knowledge through conversation that actually helps you comprehend what you are reading so book club start really at Brookside school and they go straight on up there all over the place in Clermont and Roosevelt and lots of them going on in the middle school thank you and then one more question I think you answered it already

072but I just wanted some clarification as to how we're determining like what books are given out or ordered like we purchasing books and Spanish a certain percentage are there a certain percentage from authors of communities of color how we determining who's represented and how those books are then distributed well we look at our population right and so we want we want a lot of books that represent that look like our community right but how are we determining it it mostly I have our librarians doing it with with diversity that's their number I mean and then I run by every single one of their titles and my coaches are looking at books too that match the units and that match our kids so we have found lots of different companies that sell diverse texts that we

073are latching onto including a woman that we met down in New York City at Teachers College who lives out in California that has a ton of very diverse books that really match our community and some Spanish books so everywhere we can find a vendor or people that are doing this work around diverse text and being sure that we are being culturally responsive with our the books that we have in our schools we reach out to them we're using multiple vendors how accessible is the library during the day like one Kim kids ago it's open all the time in the elementrees I mean they I mean I would tell you that in third fourth and I believe in fifth grade they're getting there but the kids are checking out their own books so like they don't

074we're not even we're not trying to form we're like come in pick a book they're going zap they zap their own books these we're really trying to make our libraries the hub but also just give this autonomy to that that that journey of their own choice and time in our libraries so I would say our libraries are super super busy excellent thank you maybe not yeah maybe not so Feeny calm is common for us to kiss agregate that way and with specially NL but this round hasn't been done that way I know that he's mentioned I'm concerned about dyslexia screening for students and I don't think it's mandated screening are you able to talk a little bit about what teachers are trained to look for in terms of those dyslexia in students when they have

075a student is maybe I'm not sure I can say that they've been trained to diagnose a child with dyslexia but we do have a process where we study our children and when teachers assess and monitor growth if they begin to have concerns about a child they bring them to a team of specialists in the discs in each of their buildings and they talk with specialists who are range from school psychologists to the reading teachers to social workers and we problem solve around kids and make determination it makes them determinations about you know what is going on with growth what are some of the barriers and if we think the barriers are bigger than something we can't do right in our classrooms then we will refer them to the Committee on special education whereby a group

076of people will get together and run a lot of different educational tests to determine if children have learning disabilities but our teachers are they are they trained to say oh I think this child might have dyslexia they are trained to monitor their kids very closely through conferring through formative assessment like I said through some summative assessments with our pretest and our protest post says we look at data with our teachers on a regular basis so we have these kid talk meetings and when we sit down and look at data with our teachers we don't just line up one thing we line up multiple assessments from our conferring notes or our running records depending on what grade level it is and as a team of people we start to make those to have those discussions and

077if there's a concern because if we feel like that that barrier is not something that we can handle then we bring in people that are skilled to do that with with us but I do understand what's out there about dyslexia I mean I think yesterday Teachers College held a big workshop on it and we will get on board for sure to stay on top of it it's a lot for everyone to get through sorry do appreciate all the especially so early in the school year so thank you very much so just a couple of things I guess I'll start off where that conversation left off in terms of I guess the dyslexia concerns are growing is there any like with the first steps in Ossining basics and the home visits is there any kind of

078you know is that is do you discover how you can possibly introduce sort of looking out for those implications or telling the parents how they can start you know I guess utilizing those type of resources to kind of get ahead of the curve when it comes to that I can't really say that like we go there and say these are the big milestones to pay attention to but I do know that first steps is a very safe place for our families to bring questions and wonderings about their own kids and their growth we bring our parents all kinds of information about how to support their children and I just think there's a there are people wrapping their arms around early intervention in this community that is you know the children are being supported through the

079early intervention work that's being run by our school district so we have people at Park school that are not just servicing or assessing kids from Park school but they're going out into the community and says assess in the community but I to say that we're going out and saying hey keep an eye out on this it could be a sign of dyslexia I don't think we're being intentional about that in that sense so I mean I know I would say we're not doing that right you want to just say something no just an you know simple way we don't have a screening tool we don't screen for when we I think Carrie Ann's point is really important that we do spend a lot of time sitting with children and diagnostically looking at what the needs

080are and eventually he does lead to you know potentially you know identifying the child but there's no screening tools I know there's discussions taking place statewide and there's a lot of sort of a further discussions around that taking place even conferences that took places only is this week but we're aware of it we understand it you've brought you've been I would say ahead of the curve to in terms of bringing it up to us as well it's something to really look at carefully we just want to make sure whatever that tool is if there is an implementation of a tool that it's done thoughtfully and then it fits in within the structure of our work as well thank you can we just maybe discuss at some point in the future again having a committee for

081advocacy efforts toward Universal screening for dyslexia again I know a few parents who would be happy to serve on this volunteer and I'd be happy to be on said committee I think you know when it's something that affects 20% of students nationwide and perhaps 20% of students in Ossining I think it'd just be a prompt and proactive thing to do just really quickly when it when we looked at the slide for the district chronic attendance for the beginning of the year 2018 versus 2019 on average it went down but I noticed there was a spike in Clermont for this year was that was there like extenuating circumstances or paramon spike I think when we sat down as with the team it was there were a few kids that were removed out but they they stayed

082on our roster like you can't close out you can't take children off your roster until you receive information from the new school that they're attending and when we sat down I think that was the reason for the spike okay is that what you remember yeah I'm the big extended vacation yeah when we keep far yep probably not totally clean for that very reason that you'll see a pattern if anything would only get better not worse because you know to that point there are families that leave the district notify us are still in our roster there's a period of time before we can take them off so the data that you see here still reflects students that potentially might not be attending our schools that are still you know I'm on the rosters at the beats

083of schools so that'll improve and I just want to note one of the things universally as we started to sit with principals that we heard in terms of why students are out is it was an it was a nuance and it really something we need to talk more about is extended vacations that families have taken meaning that you know schools started but they went on for a longer vacation so you know why carry an brought up before that maybe we need to start talking to many as family start planning there just the importance at school starts we're here and we want your child here more to talk about that but it's important okay lastly so we have the presentation and it's covering reading attendance and referrals and so how would all of that correlate when

084we're looking at the chronic issue we have with the referrals with specifically our black students who we know this has been an issue for a while how are we digging a little I guess deeper into they're given the proportion of the percentage of their referral rates given the population percentage and how are we trying I guess approach that in a different way given the I guess the chronic occurrence of that even though there are improvements I think the disproportionality is still pretty glaring I'm sorry I didn't hear all of that Melissa if you could just repeat like the key part of it so basically I I'm asking how what different ways I guess always seek to approach the disproportionality z-- that seem to be chronic in that area in terms of the percentage of referrals

085related to the purse the the guess the demographic percentage the glaring I guess so I guess this year more than ever I'll say the first thing that we're doing is we are actually identifying not only the group of kids but we are writing down their names and we have teams of people in our building some leaders and psychologists social workers coaches and everyone knowing who they are like really getting close to to to our kids not just saying oh this is the group in your class but know then knowing their names and being more intimate in relationships with them as learners and and with their families I would say that's like really our number one job is to go much more intimately into the work around relationships with our kids and and what they actually

086mean and to figure out what it is like I said the barrier is in design differently we just had a whole I'll just say this we just our new movement is and in what does it mean to run small groups in our schools and it just sat with a bunch of educators just yesterday saying okay we need to identify what it is our kids need in whatever they need you need to design a small group for it so I would say we're putting a very serious emphasis on intimacy knowing our kids there every of their profiles very well we have coaches keeping track of growth more than in and then we have in the past and we're just very serious this year about very intentional small group instruction so this thing that has not changed

087so much right we've seen a pattern right so and I just want to pause I say coming out with data puts us in a vulnerable spot right sometimes we want to engage this conversation with our community with our Board of Education and so and this isn't in Ossining solo this is national we're seeing these patterns with that being said I think all the things that karien notice is really important other parts of it is obviously we've embarked and trying to expand our MBK efforts we're targeting and working with our young men of color we're looking really carefully at you know culturally responsive teaching and practices that are taking place in our classrooms to make sure our students are truly engaged in learning we're looking really carefully to see if these same young men are part

088of the extracurricular activities to engage them in different ways then we have in the past and certainly having one-on-one conversations about them with staff and looking really careful yet are we seeing the same pattern with some of the things with some of these students that were talking about right um meaning are we seeing a pattern from second grade to third grade third grade the fourth grade and that speaks to a system right that's not just an individual classroom that speaks to a system and so we're having and engaging those conversations I wouldn't say we haven't done it in the past but we're delving even deeper now than we have in the past so let's just add a little bit more to what Kerri Ann said not to repeat when anyone else has said there's been

089a lot of great points made I think there's two things that I think need to be very commended I think the circulation in the library and the intentional efforts made this year to make sure I mean those numbers are staggering in their difference and I think that's really important getting books into our kids man and I know that there's been really intentional efforts to expand classroom libraries at the elementary middle school in particular to not only add books but to add books that represent our student body and so I think there's been a lot of work from going look you mentioned the people outside the district and then it's certainly tangible you know I thought I've seen it my own kids in the books they brought home I think there's still work to do potentially

090at the high school I think we've heard that too so I think there's really you know strong intentional efforts there and it certainly can feel the tangible progress in that front and I think as others have said you know the challenge of referrals you know I guess I would you know as you're looking at this closer and getting better more to it I think I would encourage you to come back to the board with recommendations as we adjust over the course of a year I mean I just saw on the paper or the other day a neighboring district is doing kind of something very different with their athletics program and met and how they're basically working students to work through stress in difficult situations and so I think referrals aren't exactly the same thing but

091there's a lot of stress and learning how to manage that and so I would encourage as we're looking at these to be really responsive and come back to us where maybe there's additional resources needed to to address it but I certainly appreciate the depth I appreciate the honesty of the presentation and you know look forward to more information as the year goes on I just wanted to wrap up by saying thank you for the presentation and and yes the data in presenting the data like you said it does you know there is a vulnerability in presenting that but I appreciate you pointing out the efforts and in the willingness to look a little deeper and and figure out how we can you know possibly want me to find a solution Justin going through this data

092I did notice in one of the graphs I don't remember which grade it was but there was like a huge number of referrals and the vast majority were behavior on the bus and I i I don't it probably hasn't been looked at but I'm wondering if it may be possible to later date to get whether or not there's any correlation between that and the length of the bus rides and whether or not there is monitors out bus I will tell you that principles are working that's some information we can get for you for sure but we've already held bus driver breakfasts for inviting them to join us in on our PBIS work and so we engage with them to help us we do know that when our kids come off buses super happy and come

093not even so much calm just happy and joyful that their that's a real prerequisite for a successful day so I appreciate that I guess yeah echo thanks for the work I said a couple times over the years when we had these conversations I still view in my mind a spreadsheet with 5,000 lines one for each kid and ultimately we want to figure out what do we need to do for each kid and this is I think as close as I've ever seen us get and you may actually have that we do have lives the way that I've never seen us through all of this thank you yeah yeah because it really I mean I'm not a like you back into the word sub group because resource-wise they hate you it's hard to think right each

094500 5000 individually but ultimately the end the day you want to know that every kid has is different has certain needs and all that stuff so this is great to get a sense that you know we're as close if not there that we've ever been and I'm an amateur on stuff so I can look at it not gots questions but I you are more skilled so I want I said I do think there is just a thought that you had the I think you mentioned have you asked kids how they want to learn I know there are assessments out there then theory over time could be a more scientific way of asking me which is a great you know great information and I don't know if there's as we get simple third grade version of

095what corporations do at a larger scale our panorama the tool actually goes down to third grade and there's been some discussion about surveying our kids so we do have a tool that we it's been in our circle of thinking and discussion so carry on I also want to echo thanking you and the team for this is an enormous amount of data and we still know that you know what's required of our students based on what's mandated and required and how we have not enough recess and those are things that we we really need to continue to look out and to figure out because we know when students are getting nurtured through the day that they'll you know be able to be motivated on many different levels and I think that's I'll leave it there for

096now and I'd like to open it up to the audience please state your name welcome good evening Latonya Russell Hughes I have one child in the district I have to remember it's just one now I'd like to also thank you for highlighting the data that you just presented and it is challenging or sometimes a bit scary right to to have these difficult conversations in the open so I commend you for being transparent I have worked with a number of districts throughout this County and that is always been a challenge so that's something that I'm very proud of as a resident of Ossining but the one question that sort of came to me as you were discussing some of the data there are two points you talked about I think someone asked so what are we

097doing to intervene with those kids we were seeing those referrals and you and I I think it is important that we get an understanding of who those kids are what their needs may be but I do want to caution that we don't want to track kids it becomes very easy for kids to gain reputations from one building to the next [Music] and that's as a mother of two black children that is a very big concern of mine we know that if one teacher has had a difficult year with the child it becomes really easy to sort of talk about the kid in the teachers lounge I'm the daughter and a sibling of educator so I know what I speak my other question was while we're tracking the kids are we tracking who the teachers are

098that are making the referrals I think it's worth noting if there's a preponderance of referrals coming from a handful of teachers perhaps that's a training issue for those teachers much more so than it is a behavior management issue for kids I appreciate it and I do really appreciate your opening comments about our kids and with all my heart believe that our kids are deserving of all new starts and that I recognize in every behavior that we might recognize in a moment as being challenging that our kids are on a journey of just growing into being humans and adults and it's our job to nurture them along the way so I appreciate that we don't ever want to label our kids and we're I have to say we're very careful of that in the elementary system

099we actually have you know we we fight even wanting right to write anything down particularly in our earlier grades right so I appreciate that and wanted to say that I absolutely share in that thinking and support that way of supporting our kids so in terms of teachers we look at our teachers data every single every single year not only one time of year but multiple times a year and our teachers get their data actually you know and in private ways we don't go public and say here's all of our teachers and we don't put it up on a screen but we do put up our data our building data in front of our teachers with no names on it and then at some point they do get some private data about how their class did

100fare the year before and we enter conversations about that so that we can always start a year thinking about just what ever everybody here's the thing about teaching and learning everybody needs to take that stance of I can get better right so do we do we look at teachers and do we speak to teachers we definitely do look at teachers and we do look at their data and we do speak to them when we see patterns that need to be addressed so could you be a bit more specific about what speak to means because speaking to and actually giving and providing and training with tools so that there's change and their behavior are actually two different things so in terms of behavior I would say I mean I I would say that we we support

101each other so when kids are struggling with behavior you know I mean the teachers I'm not how are the kids yeah I'm thinking specifically so for instance yeah when I have members of my staff that have difficulty and challenges with managing their groups of kids yes we have a conversation and we try to sort of get to what support that staff need and ensure that they receive those supports so that we they can not only are have they been made aware that that's a concern but we've given him the tools hopefully not always but hopefully that they're able to actually manage those behaviors so I guess what I'll point out is that we've made a commitment to some behavioral specialists in the district okay so that's really important to recognize we've had behavioral specialists in

102the district but we added another one this year and it's there it's that that role is there to support teachers and to not go in and solve a problem but rather work with teachers to build their capacity to work our kids so we've had behavioral specialists but we added one this year as well I'm sorry if I didn't quite get your question Thank You Sonia okay welcome Myrna Forney from I have two kids in the district I had four kids in the district but two of them were calling yay first of all I want to thank you for the information and for your report I thought it was wonderful and very informative and I have come to speak to the board and to the administration as I said I would return I this topic is

103is the information that was provided really was informative and I can say I want to start first by one use when you talked about tracking the kids as a parent of a child of color my heart just started beating really fast so I mean and and and I don't want an explanation I just want explain why I just want to be able to define what I meant by tracking and and and I don't think it's what you sow so if it means you're in if it means that I look at my child who's struggling and look to see in any way on an ongoing basis those behaviors I don't care what that means that means that that black child is being targeted and when I say targeted this is what I mean and I go

104back to when I was my kids were in elementary school and I tell this story all the time as a parent who was fortunate enough to go into the classroom there was a little black girl in the classroom who was extra energetic I'm just gonna put it that way every time something happened in the classroom anywhere near her whether it was her or not they called her name every time if it was the little boy the little white boy the little left you know anybody else around her her name was called and that behavior became tracked for her as she grew and so sometimes our tracking of behaviors because we're trying to figure out what that child needs sometimes it's the the instructor who doesn't know how to interact with that child I thought she

105was just an energetic little girl but that behavior became a target for her it put a target on her back and as she grew she got in more trouble and I'm not sure that it wasn't a combination of her maybe taking on the qualities that everybody was saying she had so I say that to say that as a person of color when I hear those things it makes me nervous and sick to my stomach but that's I just wanted to say because I think we need to start having these conversations out in public and I don't want to have to hide that reaction so I the reason I really wanted to come with last time I came and talked about the subject matter the academics that were being taught and today one of the things

106that I wanted to talk about was who is doing the teaching and I sorry I just it was really makes me nervous but our kids who whose teaching our kids whether it be black children white children Latino children children of Asian descent any any whatever they are enriched by diversity what the selections that are made are changed by the people sitting at the table and I've been a resident in this district for over 20 years involved in the school system for over 18 and I can tell you that sixteen years ago or so I sat in this room and in a room in Park school and had Angela white give me almost the same information about black and brown children being the ones that are referred more being the ones that are reading less being

107the ones that are struggling more so for me I'm here to challenge this district and the board in particular that the conversation needs to change we've changed programs throughout the district we've put things in phase but what we have an knowledged is that the the impact of systemic racism is what prevents those numbers from ever being eliminated from ever being reduced to a point where 16 years from now someone won't have to sit here and tear the same numbers being produced so I think that I'm challenging the board to look at and and to create an action plan around recruitment I have had numbers of conversations with Ray with Ray's predecessors about the difficulty this district faces in hiring people of color and I think the district also faces a problem of developing the people

108of color that they have in the district and retaining them and I say that because as part of my work I still work in over in a lot of different school districts and I'm often faced with the idea and the and the reality of the fact that there are a number of principals assistant principals and administrators in other districts will Dixon Paul bratter Leticia pain Jamal Lewis Cori Reynolds who came in this district and left this district to go off and be successful other places and we had them and there were talented people and the things that I've learned from them is that what was the most frustrating and I feel this as a person of color all the time is that they were under a higher level of scrutiny with regard to their professional

109performance and their ability in comparison to the peers of the city of different ethnicities and I say that to say that as a person of color you often find yourself no matter how you are credentialed sitting at a table having to ask to be heard and ask to be believed for the things that you have expertise in at a higher level than somebody else and so what that means is conversations people have to start reflecting on what they're asking the supports they're providing the demands they're making and those things all happen through active decision-making around the way you do things and so you know I repeated you know I've had conversations with administrators in the school district and even as recently as a couple of years ago they were there was an issue around the

110drama arts performances and they looked for a person of color to support the the drama program here and I was told by the administrator after a person of color applied a person of color who was experienced that instead of hiring the person of color they hired somebody else who was not of color because that person may want to come here five years from now when the person that is doing the music retires so instead of having a person of color at the table now that was the explanation that was given so I often witness the district's words not matching its actual deeds and so I've looked around and just just by way of conversation the Education Trust did a not wide and expansive review and talked to black teachers to talk about what their struggles

111are and so if you I think it's interesting because I think it's very reflective of experience it's called through our eyes and you can go online to the Education Trust it's just kind of informative about how teachers experience teaching black teachers of color and what I would ask is that the board kind of challenge itself I am hoping that you guys will focus on developing a strategic plan around really impacting diversity and ridding our district of of systemic racism and what does that mean that means I want an assessment of what the equity programs are doing I'm asking that you consider doing anti-racism training to scale in the district right because we don't realize the impact of just decision-making I can tell you that and I've said this from day one I I cannot say

112more great things about this district when I go I love the fact that we have access to Ray Ray I have very much respect for you and the work that you're doing I have much respect for the fact that we can come to this board but I can also say that throughout my experience here I was always concerned about the fact that teachers had to get to know my children to erase perception about who they thought they were and that's some things that you can only get by persistent training and professional development and support and so you said that you guys had a behavioral specialist I'm gonna find out later what that person does but I think that's different when Latonya asked what you do for the people who are sending out the referrals it's

113different than saying we're giving you support so you can learn how to deal with Johnny who's bad but it's also a perspective on why do you think that Johnny's behavior is any better than Stevens be Stevie's behavior which might just be almost the same but you're familiar with the way that behavior comes to you and that familiarity gives the teacher and ability to respond to Stevie who responds just like my son Jimmy at home differently than it to the other kid who doesn't look or respond like my child at home and that comes from professional development and support so I'd ask the board to look at your budget and to lend and rate to look at the budget and what he's asking because I really do think that in order to deal with systemic racism

114we really have to have honest and open conversations about it we have to acknowledge that you're not necessarily a racist if you either benefit from the system or support the responses that the system gives and that's only learned through training that's only learned through professional development that's only learned through support so that people don't have to feel guilty that they responded differently to Jimmy than they did to Stevie because that's just what happens what you know I'd ask the board to develop a plant to address the impact of systemic racism on the discussions being made about our children and I just say again I I cannot say enough that I love this school district and the reason I'm here is because I think this school district is good it can be great on some level

115and we can be excellent if we put forth and decide to move forward in a way that maybe everybody else isn't but we need teachers we need administrators that look like our children and we need those people in the room because by having those people in the room it enriches education and the experience for everyone so can can I respond thank you thank you Myrna would you be so kind to submit your request of us if you when you know tomorrow email the board thank you so I'm gonna respond if it's okay um I appreciate the push but I also caution us about any form of data both the qualitative that you've collected through you know what I'll term has you know our colleagues in this case in other districts the data that we see

116here is just looking at it through a single narrative right and I think that's what Latonya was referencing in terms of when we're talking about our children is be very careful about the single narrative that we create when I talk about sixty percent of our district being Latino there's more to the story than sixty percent of Latino right not every Latino is the same I'm very different than others that you'll see the point is that we have to get further right that being one and maybe we need to be more transparent about the efforts we have made regarding hiring I'll just give you a sense we had three openings last year for administrative roles two of them were hired or Latino or Latin X to be more appropriate all right and one was a black

117educator homegrown prior to that there was two openings that I recall because I was just starting notes one was another Latin X educator another black educator so my point is that there are many administrators and I myself left this district a Latino male left his district because there wasn't an opening here and I'm thankful because just earlier on we recognized you two Johnson who ended up serving as mentor at that time and then thereafter but I left this district because the opportunity wasn't here principals stay and when I start looking at our data just collectively you know I many of our administrators do stay right and that's both a good and a bad problem because you know I have a building principle at Claremont that's been here more than 20 years as an educator I

118have a building principle at Claremont School has been here more than 20 years we have a principal at the middle school who's been here more probably I guess about 15 years my point is that there's a lot of longevity here that sometimes preclude us from making some changes and I wouldn't change anything about who these individuals are and who's leading our buildings as well probably the only newest person in terms of building principle is Michele Greer who came to us from Bedford but I would just want to go further into the you know the discussion about what we've done as a district and what we're doing because there are some for her lack over it some you can see some real movements I would hope and I think the data really needs some sort of

119discussion like we're having right now 60% of our our district is Latino right and you know what I've been told research and everything else basically you want your your staff to mirror your demographics I would say where the work needs to be done is where we have our Latin X educators right that's where the work really needs to be done it's a challenge for us even with our MBK movement of just being very honest in terms of really reaching our young men our Latino men right so there's an acknowledgement of where our efforts need to be and I be honestly like we've talked about even internally how maybe we you know we have students that go through dual language programs we have students that come to us already with a strength of the second language

120and how can we get them to become educators beyond the TSTT and maybe it's a homegrown model that we need to talk about and Nancy dela Cruz our director for en el and I are trying to figure out maybe there's something that we can do internally because their strengths already we know I mean we just started with two great students that have extreme talents that we got to show them the light that education is a great field and what forever reasons are you know it's becoming a beyond just the diversity we're seeking just finding great educators in general is becoming the pool is shrinking right it's and that's what the research is out there so we got to start create thinking creatively and not necessarily let the world to figure it out we got to

121figure out here in Ossining so that we continue to have great teachers coming in and educators and diverse educators and maybe we should have a presentation about the equity in the race conversations that we are having in the context and not easy conversations just here at the high school I want to say about less than a month ago there was a teacher led conversation around microaggressions I'm not I would say confidently that not every districts engaging those levels of conversation and maybe it's not transparent and maybe we need to maybe that's the communication that we need to kind of get out there a little bit further and we've just been asked just more recently to see how we can extend our efforts our equity committee work to may be village in town and how we

122go out into our community and begin to do the education and that was something that was decided upon by our equity committee and still more to hash out about there because there was an incident that occurred in our community that people are responding to down by the waterfront by the park and they're asking how we can assist and more collectively not just assist but work as a collective district with the community and educating in this area and I would say more than that our students are leading the way our equity committee at our student level here at the high school start with six students it's now at 20 plus students that's a positive movement in my mind because they are in turn educating our staff and their experiences and hopefully educating intent is to educate

123our youth as well but that's a real movement that we have gone from six and I was told the other day by their students that it was like 25 and I wouldn't live in and limit it there I think there's probably more to come and similarly at the heist at the middle school and how do we expand the discussion was how do we get them to go to the Elementary's engage in some discussions with some children so just want to say my statements are not in defense we do need to have these courageous conversations and I'm thankful that you're here to engage in the dialogue but I I want to just want to make sure that the dialogue is a dialogue that that we can share some of the efforts hard efforts sometimes we push

124back you know I'm not gonna say it's always easy but we realize what we need to do I think it's becoming more ingrained in our district is this is the culture of the work that we're going to be doing and we're not letting go this is four years of an equity committee you know we've had reports in the past and we're trying to build sustainable models moving forward in structures and through student leaders building leaders and district committee leaders and it's not perfect yet but we'll get the perfection and we want to reverse the trend of what we're seeing out there nationally I had a I won't say just I had a moment when looking at our data over the weekend that was disheartening right I'll be very honest in in the same public conversation

125that we're having here and I look at our Saturday work we have close to 200 kids registered there's only four ENL students registered that's problematic for me as a superintendent to sit here that means that there's something either in our communication or others that we have to work on but I want to share with you the board and everyone else is the level of dialogue that we have the self-reflection we're having that we can do better and it's a it's a conscious looking student by student to see what's going on you saw like these green and red charts it's a mr. galas point that's that's a student row that's a child over six years and saying is our system responding to these students in the way that we want it to respond to and are

126they getting the same level experiences or are they all in remedial classes are they getting enrichment experiences that we want all children to have you know ultimately those sometimes those are the triggers for kids meaning like that just lights them up in ways that we've never seen them before the arts be athletics and other other programs of interests we want to make sure they have access to it and if we're gonna provide the opportunity that the axis that they're taking advantage of it so you know you sparked a good conversation and and I know you're always going to push in a and I mean in a constructive way how we can improve the work and please don't take my statements as a sort of a defense it's really just articulate and the passion that I

127think all of us have towards the work that we are doing you know Carians presentation was a collective effort she was spokesperson to it but there was a you know there's a lot of people that contributed to it and we all own it we all do even today we had a conversation about our UNL learners we concluded with our special education students and we're gonna continue going through until we get it like we want to make sure that this our district continues to respond to the needs of our kids and mr. Snyder made reference before is like what do we need to look at in our budget it's not too late it's October so part of looking at this data is saying what do we need to do now to respond and maybe even try

128something right that may just really come based on just gut instinct it's gonna potentially work on behalf of children that's really the conversation and why we're having this so early I'd encourage you to come back because dr. Ahn will be standing looking at secondary we haven't shown secondary because a lot of that will be based on you know first quarter who's failing who's not and data center around their work so anyway and join them and join us in the work is the other part of it like we need our community along with our school district that's when it's really gonna push and I think that's an area that I think we can collectively agree that there's work to be done into anymore anymore audience comments or questions for this kinda item thank you carry on

129and thank you everybody for this really important conversation and brave conversation so now we're gonna move into our regular meeting I'd like to I'd like to actually take a motion to make sure I get this right this is one of my as my first year being president making sure I get the Robert's Rules correct I want to take a motion to table 4.3 you know that 4.3 resolution to approve an agreement with Mercy College so I'll open up the discussion it was just more of clarification that we didn't have in time before the meeting so I just want to table it and get more clarification and then bring it back when we have more clarification that's my reasoning for wanting to table it just a question and you if take this table and have any

130impact on something that's waiting for it the answer is Mercy College is waiting for us excuse me but I understand if there's a want a desire to gather some more information believe this is aligned with what we've had in the past but with triple check to make sure but obviously this is a the sooner we can get started the sooner we can start registering kids for the program as well when's our next meeting 13 13th of November I guess my question just is it can't wait till the 13th or do we have we table this do we have to have an emergency meeting sooner to keep in line with what you need to do I mean that's my only question I mean I'm not opposed to tabling it but I also don't want to put

131something stop or I want to be responsive to it so I had a preview and an understanding that this might be tabled so he talked to doctor all him he's gonna gather some more information with mercy if it becomes like it's gonna delay programming for children and we'll let you know and we need to do it prior to which is is likely to the 13th and we'll come celebrate a meeting okay okay so any more comments or questions regarding this resolution to table okay all in favor aye aye opposed abstentions okay thank you all right I'd like to take a motion to vote on resolutions 4.1 4.2 and 4.4 through 4.7 4.1 resolution regarding the Hilda Bona vest award 4.2 resolution to adopt the following policies as a second reading v 605 voter registration for

132students and 62 400 - our investment resident regulation investments of regulation 4.4 resolution to adopt the district K through 12 guidance plan 4.5 resolution pointing additional consultants for the 2019 2020 school year 4.6 resolution to approve the minutes of the special meeting of September 11 2009 teen and 4.7 resolution to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of September 25th 2019 any comments or questions discussion we just want to acknowledge in 4.1 acknowledged Distinguished Service Award I believe that's 25 years of service in our school district we're to point that out that's what 4.1 is amazing congratulations and I just want to thank mr. bradshawe for is many years of service here and in the district and some continued happiness in retirement you're watching congratulations any other discussions okay all in favor aye opposed abstentions

133okay [Music] I'd like to take a motion to vote on resolution 5.1 it's almost 5.1 resolution to accept recommended placements do I have any any comment any discussion okay all in favor aye opposed abstentions moving into the regular meeting business office matters I'd like to take a motion to vote on resolution 6.1 through 6.9 resolution 6.1 resolution to approve treasurer's report four months of June through September 2019 6.2 resolution to approve the budget and revenue reports for the months of June through September 2018 6.3 resolution to approve the quarterly student fund treasurer's report July through September 2019 resolution 6.4 resolution to renew the agreement with the Ossining Children's Center 6.5 resolution to accept the risk assessment for the 2018 19 fiscal year 6.9 resolution to accept the intense intensive review of revenues and accounts receivable

134internal audit report 6.7 resolution to accept the external audit report for 2018 through 2020 6.8 resolution regarding the acceptance of a donation from the OSS early childhood PTA arts and education 6.9 resolution regarding interfund transfers except for 2018 through 2019 yeah it just was read differently than print which is model by that any discussion I want to talk of the donation thank you to the OSS early childhood PTI or your donation any other discussions okay all in favor aye opposed abstentions okay we're moving into the regular meeting personnel matters I'd like to take a motion to vote on 7.1 through 7.8 7.1 resolution regarding civil service staff resignations 7.2 resolution regarding support staff resignations 7.3 resolution regarding professional staff appointments 7.4 resolution regarding bus the tendon appointments 7.5 resolution regarding professional staff appointments before and

135after school programs 7.6 resolution regarding annual professional performance review accountability 7.7 resolution recording per diem substitute appointments 7.8 resolution regarding approval of school volunteers any discussions as always I'd like to thank a lot of our volunteers for making it happen and always showing up it means that it makes the difference okay any discussion all in favor aye opposed abstentions okay and our next portion is audience recognition anybody from the audience would like to any yep welcome my name is Montana rez Anya it's the first time I'm here and I am resident of Ossining for 13 years I'm here my daughter goes to Claremont she's in third grade and I did my best to resolve this issue and but my concerns were not responded effectively and and I'm here so you can hear me and see

136if something can be done I I'm back to school night on September 26th I noticed a bad order in the gym the order is from a floor varnish that was installed during the summer the order is a volatile organic compound are there chemicals you may have heard of it it's there they are gaseous material give off gases and gasoline anything the byproduct of wood coal natural gases acetone the part nail polish remover benzene which is in paint glue carpeting it's we are surrounded with VOCs these are chemicals that are harmful harmful to breathe and specific especially harmful to children whose brains are still developing and they can cause they can aggravate allergies asthma autism and they can cause cancer long-term exposure can cause cancer on September 27th I emailed me Shamsi about this and she

137notified the district one month has passed and let me tell you what happens of what what has happened so far first they did I asked them what they used what was the name of the varnish they sent some information to the New York State Education Department and the Planning Department senior architecture and she told them that it looks okay but that was not satisfactory to me so I myself reached a New York State Education Department I spoke to the senior architect and number of emails has been exchanged with Miss Zuber and many other staff at the district were copied on the email I requested for an indoor test air quality test BOCES did a test they emailed me the report and it's not satisfactory and I like to share with you why upon arrival there

138were no noticeable orders before I say that I am a licensed architect have practiced for 37 years architecture licensed architect architect and I am certified lead architect Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design New York State Education Department recognizes me as someone who has knowledge in this matter and can render expert opinion so now going back to here upon arrival there were no noticeable orders these VOCs we are surrounded my average people I can say that have been desensitized to vo see to these orders because we are surrounded carpets this material there is no smell because when they are installed the older the off-gassing is at its maximum and over time it is less and less so this carpet is still giving off gases but is to a lesser amount and it's not noticeable but the

139varnish at the gym has was installed in the summer and they did not take proper steps to allow that off gassing - or to expedited and September when the school night it was a strong and I happen to be there again a couple of weeks ago and the smell was still there I happened to be there with the PE instructor and he said I don't smell anything I said well okay but and we were going to hold a meeting there he didn't have any other space he said well let's go to the gym so we went there and I said no I can't stand here so it's something that is not subject to one person's opinion I am very sensitive because I try to eliminate these chemicals that caused these issues so I am more

140sensitive and also I've been told that I have a sense of a smell of a dog so that on top of it the second part of the test is that I mean I asked for the test on the vo sea level but they did they also tested the amount of co2 level which I also it's raised an alarm III I talked about that as well okay now just so I could this aside it says at the end that if there continues to be a concerns the district may want to consider asking and asking an outside consultant to perform the testing and evaluation of the gymnasium so I put this aside they did with this and this is like the chart to total volatile organic compounds a co2 level and carbon monoxide levels at what temperature

141at the relative humidity level at different locations in the gym and at the last column says that normal length range for the vo see they say it was acceptable within range and in this report I asked them what standards they used to compare their test results with they refer to ASHRAE its American Society of heating refrigerating and air conditioning engineers I went through this and I couldn't find a category actually there is a category tables that total vo C and this is what it says it says for new building materials and furnishing precise glide guidance on T V or C total volatile organic compound concentrations cannot be given there is also a lot you know the paragraph here there is insufficient evidence that T V or C measurements can be used to predict health or

142comfort effects and there is some other stuff at the at the end it says setting target concentrations for T V or C is not recommended setting target concentrations for a specific vo C of con is preferred well this is total there are many types of organic compounds that give off harmful gases and there is a list list of that and I mean these are all chemical names I mean I mean you know this you know you read it is hard even to pronounce them all chlorobenzene chloroform butan fancy I mean the list goes on so here and they say it's within the range if this doesn't support this and as for this co2 level it's not even here I couldn't correlate their findings with this document the levels range from the 830 to 870 ppm

143particles per million and they're acceptable range is 350 to 1000 so 870 very close to 1,000 a high range you're talking about reading about children read more books how could a child be breathing co2 I mean this is high that means close to the high range how could this child be able to to perform to learn when there is not enough oxygen level in that gymnasium that child from the gym goes back to the classroom and tries to learn right so co2 is a concern here do you mind if I just interject for a second I understand the concerns that you're bringing to the board in our attention and we're happy to review some of the materials that you provided yes but I just want to be on record number one that the safety and

144security of our children and staff along with our community is number one priority right and upon you presenting the concerns we've taken every potential action and maybe there's some other things we need to do to clarify I'm happy to sit with you personally to discuss this and certainly report back to the board in terms of where our discussion is but we looked at this really carefully we had you know when you brought it even though we don't think there's an issue at the time we still wanted to triple-check because if there's anything that's in the wrong we want to make sure that it's right and stand behind that that's when we reached out to both C's which you made a reference to yeah third third party look at it and and run examine that just

145come in and not trying to take this jokingly not to just do a smell test but really run tests the results are not supported if I could I'm I'm offering my time along with you know others to the table and we can sit down I think at this point we need experts here I I don't I'm not asking the board to take my board yeah I just I'm asking that at least as a professional who is practicing architect who is certified in this area to take this to the next level and hire consultants for who are specialized in this field because many architects are not you know we have more there are offices engineering offices and there they they focus on healthy and environment for the schools for houses for the office environment mmm what

146you're requesting right now is that we perhaps get an additional third party to know honestly I in my email I requested to have a conversation I my intention is sincere and constructive my intention is not to point fingers things is done it it was a wrong decision to put this varnish on the floor I mean any of you I mean people who own houses you have wood floor you may have had this situation you know varnishes that they smell so strong strongly in the beginning this is it was a mistake in my opinion to install that varnish in the gym but it's done now what do we do about it the thing is that standards are minimum they are not the best standards if we want to follow the standards that's not the best price

147in practice you may find a test that shows that we are within the range but that doesn't mean that is within the range of in our today's life there are we are striving for better and living and working environment so Vivaan we need to go above and beyond the minimum standards set by our state agencies and federal agencies that's what I'm asking I would totally agree with you in terms of you know we we don't have said that let's go you know we took that she'd send it to the New York State you know they email it and they said okay or even the second time this shouldn't have come to me if you believe that you should have said oh this is smells it's bad even a little my nude is older that gas

148is not harmful I mean to me no there shouldn't be any order not not even a little bit that's not acceptable for our children whose brains are still developing let me get to the CEO so so if that ask my expectations I mean maybe I so you have to do better I the reason why I thought maybe sitting down because there's there's a lot of details to be sharing it's almost done I know it's the end of the night I'm sorry but that's not the reason why co2 level the team is high ceiling windows how high above is not accessible to continuously open and close them there is no other means of fresh air in the gym co2 level is high because there is no fresh air there is no way to get fresh air

149in their gym there is no central HVAC how do we fix this okay this is an issue it's really this co2 level is as bad as vio sea level winter time even if the windows you know they probably they may close them I mean I didn't see ladders that I mean you you want to close and open the windows you need to have a large ladder accessible I didn't see that ladder in the gym it's done with the pole but is high above its circulation happens up there it doesn't happen down there more than 20 feet as for co2 okay I'll make suggestions as a professional you can you know up to hire consultants and see what they suggest wood floor they don't install good flooring the gyms anymore there are better material you know

150for gym so that it's do we want to keep it off gassing is continuing is not going away and I don't think we should live with that I think that should we have to fix that we have to remove the source of the of the earthing you can sand it but sanding and there is no material varnish that is healthy so there is no solution to that sanded leave it bare right that's not acceptable removing it there are many products good products in the market that they can be installed I think they really not need to look at that option it's a long term Claremont is not going anywhere we have to live with these buildings we need to improve them fresh air field new windows at a lower level at kids level it can

151be done it can be done during Christmas if you put it high priority the engineers can design it is not difficult get a contract it can be done during the Christmas holidays windows they can add kids level installed fans industrial fans to circulate the air and that's it basically thanks for listening to me and I hope I see some good results good thank you very much for bringing this to you know more to our attention and to looking and researching it even further for all of us we appreciate it and I know yesiree will follow up with you so you know I understand the concerns you brought it I think the board's very clear as well if there was anything the board needs clarity on will clarify for them but I want to make sure

152that you know that we'll we'll get back to you and we'll communicate and make sure that you've you understand well I understand um and videos okay um we're gonna move into board discussion board committee and liaison reports and board dialogue just a few quick things wanted to say thank you to the Austin High School and an indoor nurse students who stash the trash with us on Saturday and I was mentioning the crowds but I wanted to thank them as well I wanted to thank the Austin Fire Department for fire prevention and Fire Prevention Program they've been doing the schools in the last couple of weeks ofd is the biggest Volunteer Fire Department in New York State and they do tremendous work for our community so thank you I also wanted to thank the high school

153middle school volunteers who helped out at the for so fierce festival at Cedar Lane Park and also the PTA for the Brookside Harvest Fest they did a great job and it was a pleasure to be a judge for the pie contest so thank you to all our volunteers that's all I have to say well what pot for the pie contest well pie what won it was an apple pie contest of pie number six I don't know that applies to but it was a great they were all great pie we now be serving it and can the cafeteria okay great so this past weekend Frank Lisa and I as you know went up to the New York State School Board Association and 100th convention there was a lot of vendors there a lot of informative workshops

154going on as you know they had the business meeting but at the culmination of the three-day three days which was very insightful to get to see all the discussions going around the state that other boards are having around the resolutions that were passed and some that were not just I would just like to recommend that perhaps in the future maybe we can set aside time to kind of deep down as a board into some of those resolutions in the future I know that you know normally those discussions are had at the you know there's already council that kind of meets and discusses those resolutions and then we kind of you know sign off on them and you know rightfully so but I think there were there were some deeper conversations that happened at the business

155meeting that were very interesting that I think we could benefit as a board from if we kind of analyze some of the resolutions and on a deeper level but it was a very insightful three days there's a lot going on around the state some a lot of which we're already doing here in the district so that's something to be proud of you know the advances that we've made you know not to compare us you know to other districts but it does give some insight into the work that we're doing in the progress that we're making so you know anyone else wants to I mean one thanks to the three of you for heading up there the less I know you mean years ago west but used to do a conference call that board members could

156dial in and listen to those like informed conversations before you went up there like so that way is because it's like that the more people you have in the room the deeper the conversation and nothing against the seven of us but like we look at it and it's you know what kind of scratching of the context that in the business room like yeah couple other people I think last couple years right Frank's been on some of those conference calls that have happened he's brought it to us but if there's some middle ground that gets us up to speed so we can talk in more detail about them before yes sure I mean there's been years where we've gone through each one and taking the time with it every year West but does have their you

157know you'll get an email and your board email and I remind you when the meetings happen but basically we probably spent two and a half hours of a lengthy night that could have hiked one another two hours so I think the challenge with doing it here is you know how much time do we really have to dedicate to that depth I would say it's probably a good idea if we go to the West but meeting that's where you'll get more of the depth and certainly there may be a few things to bring back from that here and basically go through but they you know the the tricky part it's a lobbying platform we're not writing legislation and and you know that all those things go along so it was an interesting conference there was a

158lot of procedural things at the end of the day they said you know there was a quest to extend the business meeting and people were going to miss flights and so it got dramatic but yeah it's a good conference there was good good things that we took yeah and no thank you Frank for your work on the committee and I think what we realized sitting there is that you know when everybody collectively is spending their time on all the potential resolutions and the lobbying effort you're starting to think about it you know we've all all the board's across the state have looked at it but then you're all in the room and then there's discussion right you're hearing points of view from all these districts and then even if you thought you were in favor

159of a resolution or a lobbying piece you realize what the some kind of implications some of the implications I think that were were happening and I'd have to give kudos to the CRO in school board because they were up there and they were really analyzing you know every every word as if it was legislation and I think that's really good so it was really helpful so thank you Melissa for being our delegate and Frank for being on the resolutions committee and I Melissa and I also spent the pre-conference at the the skull the school law seminar and the state has passed many many laws this past session and so that requires all the various agencies to regulate that and for us to adopt them where we're necessary so there's a lot so if anybody would

160like to look at this feel free to and I also about back the that we can we can reserve you know everybody take it out pass it around and then we also brought back the book of all the variety of different topics that were discussed so we have a couple of them so thank you for that and next year it's in New York City so hopefully you know more of us will be able to go down there easier we also have the boards association convention the national one is in Chicago in April and we have one person I see this is written for me to read one person budgeted for this convention but you know so we'll draw straws who wants to go to Chicago to the National Board Association but she was trying to

161craft that a lot of variables for dynamic soon you let us know how much later on that's what I'm too or and I attended the one in Philadelphia last year and it was massive I mean massive so not only were you meeting different board members from other states but just assists you know so many different things what was really great for for me was the topics that were discussed on the national level so and then the following year it's in New Orleans so Chicago then New Orleans and so from there still been involved in this Saturday explore and learn academies we have the last one of the fall session on Saturday and I think that the high school students who have really been pitching in to run it have been fantastic and they are to

162be commended and I know many of them weren't necessarily recruited they asked to become involved which is that's lovely so I just wanted to thank those students who on Saturday mornings have been getting up early to come help out and you teach their fellow students that's pretty special thank you and there are two advocacy opportunities coming up so it's 10 o'clock in case anyone still listening at home there is a parent advocacy with anything special guest George Latimer coming on Saturday you know I think there's gonna be a foundation aid element it's something that we talked about in our Advocacy Committee meeting but really just sort of working with parents to get them involved and what's going on in our school district what's going on in policy what's going on in Albany and how they

163can help out in the efforts that this school has been engaged in for a number of years so we would love a lot of parents to come out and join in that conversation I also saw an OPEC there's the wings and Tings networking and presentation on tips for a successful parent-teacher conferences and that's on November 4th at the Austin public library at 7 p.m. when was that advocacy thing so the right way fair funding sort of advocacy group is here at OHS on Saturday do you remember if it's at 10:00 yes they're in the same time as the extended learning thing yeah you have a follow-up meeting with the policy committee meeting again two weeks I guess that's after our next board meeting but to heart the policy conversation right here about Memorial and recognition

164policies we have a meeting set up with some of the high school leadership to talk through some of those issues with them to get feedback then we'll then report back to the board we hear there fourth is a regional board board regional dinner creating responsible digital citizens its money if you want to it's Monday night it's at the Doubletree in Tarrytown it's a West PUD meeting and so it'll be the school superintendents from the four counties and school boards as well and so it should be a good session and if you have time you should talk to Ellie to to wedge support and lastly Melissa and I attended the Ossining staff development center committee meeting where where the teachers discussed a variety of different professional development courses that they're looking to bring to the staff

165in Ossining so it was my first meeting of the year in this committee I'm new to the committee it's Katherine Melissa and myself that are on the committee and we're looking forward to you know being part of this and learning more and any more discussion take a motion to adjourn our meeting and move into executive kids are working