001and to each and every staff member that supports this district in any capacity is thank you. Quick to criticize but slow to thank your elected officials and even slower to make this happen. I've listened to a few meetings so I figured I would start with that. Now to the part that's probably going to get me crying. As I mentioned, I'm the incredibly proud parent of three children in the district. They are infuriatingly smart, mind-blowingly creative, and always moving. If any of their teachers are in the room, they can attest to this and I apologize. They're my heart, my inspiration, and my North Star. One of them is also high risk for severe long-term impacts of COVID. Their other parent is also high risk. I am fortunate to know many brilliant people in the medical and
002public health, but that also meant that I knew the risks of COVID to my family and my community pretty early on. As I'm sure any of the parents in this room agree, I will do anything. to protect my children. This is why last year I made the unfortunate decision to homeschool my children. Things were fluctuating, guidance was changing, I didn't know the rest. It's not a decision I wanted to make, and it's not one that I want to be permanent, and if you ask my 11-year-old, he will tell you a great detail that he strongly agrees with me on that one, and please God, let me back into the class. This school year, this year, the health and safety of my children is extremely important. and I very closely monitor the decisions that this board
003and the administration are making. I cannot tell you the comfort to my heart and to my soul, the leadership that this board and that the administration has taken. I know that our new governor has made a lot of decisions that will impact your work. Some of them will reinforce decisions that you've already made and some of them may add to it. But you took the leadership and the courage to step in front and make those decisions and protect our students first. My grandfather retired as a first sergeant from the Marines. He was the last living Marine on the freedom train and he died in December and my children and I could die in the Missing World. We have to stop this and that means we have to protect our children so that we don't have
004to do it again. Can you hear me? Not that I need a mic. I'm Michelle King and I'm in Middle Grove. New York, I've been out on Southern New York. I'm here for two reasons. One, I am here to address the mask mandates that the school has set before any kind of a New York State mandate. First, I'd like to state that the science, the data, the facts that have now come out since March 13th of 2020. completely go against masking our students for six to seven hours a day, five days a week. The science, the data, the facts are coming out that wearing the mask for that long is actually more detrimental. to their health and actually protecting most healthy kids. If you have an at-risk student, we have accommodations. The healthy students are
005at about 99.6% recovery in survival. And the science has shown that anyone that is 25 and under is at less than a half of a percent chance of catching or spreading the virus. Secondly, I would like to address what we have now started calling equity and inclusion. Equity and inclusion is nothing but another name, another term for critical race theory. I have personally had to address multiple times to the media, to the administration, to the principals, to the assistant principals, the actual implementation of critical race theory in the classroom. My daughter was personally asked to rate herself on her right privilege simply because she was right. She was asked. to write a paper on why cops can only be racist and cannot protect the citizens of a community. She is being asked to not express
006her true feelings. She's being told she is not allowed to say anything different than, show me they're racist. That is a critical race theory. That is not debate. That is not opening dialogue to see if there are issues. or to see what is going right. Critical race theory is also asking our children to identify themselves into groups. How do you identify gender-wise? How do you race identify? How do you sexually orientation identify? We need to unite our students, not divide. Please stop indoctrinating and start educating. To the teachers who educate, we appreciate you. And my job is a scientist. I work with an amazing aerosol chemist, Dr. Monica Day-Adler. And what I can say is, first off, thank you to everyone in the district. It has been an incredibly, over the last 18 months, great
007deal of uncertainty for teaching, for parents, for everything that we do. The science has had a great deal of uncertainty. It's been incredibly messy. When you have data that's not well controlled, you can get messy results. But science progresses. It's iterative. And when you directly control for factors such as temperature, humidity, whether or not windows are open, ventilation, it works. Even if it's not well fitted, it reduces. So when you directly measure, put a mask on, and look what's being cleaned out. There's a reduction in the number of viruses that can be transmitted to somebody else. That is where the data is now. And I thank the district for going to master it. But also, in treatments and ventilation, keeping windows open. There's a great review article that just came out literally today in the
008Journal of Science. Those are their recommendations of scientists. who have been studying this and studying respiratory viruses that are everywhere. Not just over the last 18 months, but for decades. And it's looking ahead, that's where we want to be. Informed by the science, which means sometimes things are going to change, and that's okay. That's helping to deal with the uncertainty in the way it is. And looking at what the district is doing with the following CDC guidelines. I fought that because it allows for equity. Because equity is not the federal race theory. Equity is about providing accommodations for students with disabilities. CDC guidelines quit asking for buys or accommodations for students to keep what's best for them. For learning for each and every student. So once again, I thank you for what you're doing. I
009know it's hard. I know it's challenging. There's a lot of information. So thank you again. Thank you. That closes our first public hearing. Thank you everyone for coming to speak to us. That leads us on to our alert committee reports. Do we have, we have not had committees yet, but there is a committee that will take a report in the section of our agenda. Our students are not back yet, so we won't have those student reports. And that leads us to the next group. good evening welcome everyone uh just a few uh comments and recommendations i want to start off by uh congratulating our newest members of the class of 2021 uh two weeks ago we had a august graduation ceremony several of our board members were able to attend our high school administration our
010high school summer school staff as well as all of our teachers kate ball who obviously had a significant impact on the success of all of our students' academic careers, but to have the opportunity to recognize nine additional students who earned the opportunity to achieve their high school diploma, it's always one of my favorite ceremonies of the school year. So I want to congratulate these students and their families for joining the other 495 members of the class of 2021. For those of you who are familiar with school districts, there's just a tremendous amount of work that gets done over the summer months. And so I always like to take the opportunity to thank seven groups of our 12 month staff, who their planning, their preparation, their hard work on these 100 degree weather days in buildings
011that do not have air conditioning. So our facilities and operations staff. Our entire technology team, many of them are here with us tonight. We've been working very hard to have devices and all the technology ready for our teachers and students to return. Our school counselors over the summer working extremely hard in cooperation with their building administrators and putting together schedules for our students to return. and we're excited that the class placements at the elementary level as well as the secondary schedules are ready to be shared out with all of our students. We're willing to advance and give families the time to reach out to counselors, make any necessary adjustments. Our 12-month clerical staff will be here throughout the summer answering phone calls, directing folks to answer community members. questions and then obviously all our building
012and district local administrators again are behind the scenes of all the preparation and planning that goes into preparing our schools for the opening of the school year so we have a very successful summer program Lisa's going to touch on a few of those later on in our presentation all of our programs were in person this summer with our extended school year over at Geyser Road, our elementary programs, our middle school and high school programs. We just finished with our first ever Get Ready program for incoming kindergarteners. We've gotten a preschool experience. And so I want to thank our summer school staff who's provided this incredible opportunity for students and families over the summer months. So at this time, last Tuesday night we held our first of two. We're going to do another community forum next
013Wednesday. But we want to continue to keep the Board of Education, the community, as well as all of our stakeholders up to date. The new information the school district receives on a pretty consistent basis. That we've got a strong working relationship with local medical health officials and Saratoga County Public Health Services. as well as Dr. Sweat, our school district physician, has been a valuable resource for our school district as well as the collaboration that exists between school districts across Saratoga County. So I want to, there's Gabe. Kudos to Gabe Mohamedou. Our facilities and operations team has been really good working since March of 2020 and has never stopped. And so they have continued their work over the last seven weeks. looking at the guidance that we've been receiving both at the state and local level.
014And previously somebody had mentioned that Dr. Hopehold, her appointment on Tuesday has come out with some guidance from the state level. And we do anticipate to receive some additional information maybe tomorrow or at least early next week. that we'll be able to take a look at our current status as it is right now with our real new plans and we're hoping by the middle of next week when we have our next community forum on Wednesday night we'll be able to finalize our state open plans so I think between Dave and myself and Lisa we're going to go over to the mic We're going to just, again, try to go through this as quickly as possible with the same kind of questions that the Board of Education have. Not much has changed since last Tuesday night's
015preview presentation. But we want to make sure we can answer questions that the Board has at this point. The current information knowing that things do have the possibility of some updates before the start of the school year. We'll jump into our presentation and then we'll open up for questions and more. title of our reopening plans, our state opening plan for this year. So we have the opportunity to review some of the health and safety protocols in place as well as the instructional model that we are following this year. And then we have the opportunity to talk a little bit about summer programs and some of the current transition activities that are happening right now to welcome our students, staff, and James Mackey School from Star School in September. So to start with, in all the
016conversations that we've been having over the last several months, our district's primary objective is to plan for a full return of in-person learning for all students five days per week. And to do that, we've been obviously focusing on health and safety as our number one priority to minimize any disruption. that we have learned to overcome and the challenges that we have faced over the last year and a half. So some of the key considerations in our planning, like I said, is making sure that health and safety is well-being of all students and staff, members of our school community. and continue to be our top priority. Keeping education equity at the forefront of all of our decisions. We know, based on feedback both from our students, from our parents, as well as our staff, that students
017benefit most from in-person learning. that our city will be our student center in all of our decisions and doing what's best for our children. And also developing great solutions knowing that the local needs of our school district here in Saratoga Springs may be much different than other regions of the state or across the country. So using local information to help inform our decisions. And that collaboration that truly started from the beginning of the pandemic of working with all stakeholders. I think our success over the last year and a half is because of the collective efforts of all stakeholders in the district. So we will continuously monitor our situation here locally and gather the feedback we get from our local medical health experts and know that we have to continue to remain flexible in response and
018adaptable to change. And finally, it's that communication that's so critically important to keep our families informed as plans are developed and things change over the course of the years and that kind of two-way communication is critical to all of our success. So the guidance that we're using to make the decisions and to develop our state health plan come directly from local medical health experts. So Dr. Hughes, who's the director of the Center for Public Health Services, has been a tremendous asset. We meet every week as the Ball-Centrum County School Districts directly with Dr. Hughes and his staff. Also, thanks that he receives from the national level of the Centers for Disease Control. The wonderful faculty and Dr. Shrens are our physician and all of his partners in his practice who serves a majority of the
019families in our school district. Dr. Shrens and his team has been instrumental in our vaccination clinics at the high school and middle school. So again, we appreciate your support. Additional guidance has been received as well as collaboration between school districts across the district. Feedback that we get from our internal groups, so from our faculty, our staff, and our administration, we continuously collaborate with. And also the feedback and the conversations and the daily communications that we have with the parents who call us or email us. And we have the opportunities to listen to their questions and their concerns and do the best we can to answer, you know, what questions they may have at that time. And again, we will resource the section that we have the presentation that will show again, all the information that
020we receive as a district. We want to make sure that the community has access to that same information. So I always like to give kind of a status check of where we are right now. So the 7-8 current rolling average percent positivity rate for zero to one county as of today is still about 90%. It's great to know that 68.4% of our population here in the county is at least able to receive at least one vaccine dose. But our CDC, Community Transmission Challenge, currently for San Antonio County is designated as high, which obviously has an impact on some of the recommendations that we get from public health officials about mitigation strategies that, again, will have an impact. the environment of work for our children in the school. So we continue to promote vaccination clinics, whether
021it be here in the district, or just how we went today here in high school, as well as county-based clinics. So there's plenty of opportunities for families to take advantage for those individuals who are eligible for vaccination. So last week we shared the first round of information that we got. I made a simulation as well from the county and the state organization. What was promising and great for me to see when I updated this chart, pretty much every zip code is just handed to the NRSCC district. From last week to this week, all went up at least by 2 or 3 percent. So even with one week. we're starting to see more individuals being fully vaccinated. So we've made great gains, but obviously as you can see, people of all communities within San Francisco County,
022there is obviously still some room for growth there. So I'm going to turn it over to Dave who's going to talk about the work of our health and safety team and the Langer approach with the several new players and innovation strategies that we have in place for the start of the school year. A couple of things about health and safety. As Mike said, we have a district operations advisory committee working with that group and the CDC recommendations. The curriculum is the Research Board of the County Department of Health, school district physicians, nursing staff, a variety of stakeholders and security that came up with our health and safety stay over plan at this point. As Mike said, we do expect to have new information, new guides from the New York State Department of Health maybe has
023really had some part. So now it's going to change kind of the way we're showing you the safety. So we've worked on utilizing a layered approach to give our students community safety. So there are six layers of safety that we're going to speak about. And you'll see kind of a other slide. And that other slide, if you can throw it, it has some other components like safety and that as well. So the first layer of safety is what we're calling facial coverings or masking. This is a critical measure to maintain this spread of COVID-19. Teachers, staff, students consistently have to wear masks. They've kept others as well as themselves. So we're looking at the guidance of when you are indoors, you can get vaccinated as a staff, as a visitor, as a student. Wear a
024mask outdoors. Masks come off. Transportation, transport masks on the bus. We also believe again, with more clarification from the Cerro County Department of Health, that there will be an impact on contact tracing and masking made out to limit the scope of that as well. Physical distancing is another safety layer. We're attempting to have all students and staff maintain these free points of park when possible. we realize that we have all the students back all the staff back in person there are times when that's just not going to work that's the whole concept of having different layers of safety maybe you can't do one layer you can do another layer of the same when we take our social distancing and recommend it again we realize that's not what's going to happen we also be looking at
025cohorts assigned seating Again, you can't always do that when it's kind of helpful if you have to get into contact tracing. If you have scene charges, a lot of the principals and staff members last year know that. Cleaning and disinfecting, sharing of school resources. we're recommending that you try to limit the use of school supplies that you can keep them so they are individual student belongings again there are going to be times where that just isn't possible and you already have more of a shared resource again we're going to try to limit that when possible continue to pass the efforts and continue the services so we will continue to do that. It's a light-movement to our facilities operations team and all those individuals who have done a great job of working with our staff and
026our community to keep our schools clean and disinfected and safe. We will get services like high-touch service areas, high-touch services on school buses. That is a fact that the community may take place more often. Classroom spaces will be disinfected at least twice a week. If you have a particular facility or classroom area where you know that someone has a diagnosed with COVID or some kind of sickness, then that would be intended to be within 24 hours and cleaned up totally at cost. That would probably be a different program. So super important to be there if you need disinfection. Healthy hygiene. It's also just as important, hand washing. And I know we've been kind of working on that. We've put up with some posters and some videos, recipes for the washing games for around 20 seconds.
027I'm not sure how you do that all the time. That's what they say. You know, soaking the water, that's the best way to wash your hands. If you don't have the ability to use, you know, soaking water and a hand sanitizer, at least 60% alcohol is also something that works. And that resource would be available for our students and staff at the school. Respiratory etiquette is super important for coughing and sneezing. Again, you want to make sure you have a tissue or if you sneeze you cough into the tissue. If not, the next best is to recommend you move your arm into your elbow. So those are some practices of respiratory etiquette. PPE or personal protective equipment. The district will again supply whatever you or our staff or students as far as masks, gowns, gloves,
028hand sanitizer, etc. Ventilation is also important. So the HVAC systems at the school, we set them to maximize ventilation, create as much outdoor air as possible, as safely as the system will allow. There's been questions on the different types of air filters we use. And again, we're using the best filters we can that our systems can handle. So that's kind of an important point. You also want to, when safe, open up windows in classrooms. You also will see, as we'll talk about later back, we'll open up windows on school buses as well. That's super important. I think some school students, I agree, that we do that to help with ventilation. Also, the utilization of fans in the appropriate way and also assist in bringing in further outdoor air and ventilation is another important signal. Vaccination.
029The CDC recommends that all students and staff, all students be vaccinated as soon as possible. um and i said there was a slide that's kind of the six layers there's another this is a lot more probably put on here just things we're looking at from a safety and healthy component We're looking to utilize that concept model. What does that mean? It's a little bit different in each building. Some buildings may have a dedicated space, and some buildings are put in a nursing office. As far as contact tracing, quarantine protocols, we will be working very closely with the circle of county department of health on that as you can see and follow what guidance we have the same thing with the covid-19 testing yeah recommendations are coming out of the county and potentially through the year
030six department of health facilities use we are going to be eliminating the school related groups and really over time looking at those on an individual basis Visitors, again, as long as you're kind of in that high range or high area, which is where we're at right now, we're trying to limit that as well. It's possible, you know, this is kind of a common practice with parents and guardians coming into the office. Again, we're looking at essential visits to our facilities. We also have, as Matt on here, questions about field trips. Again, we're trying to limit it. Off-site field trips, currently. extracurricular activities, after school, before school programs, we're trying to allow those as long as they're following the SSCS code that we're talking about. And again, they started to say, listen, it's wrong. So we're
031supporting our students and our staff. mental, social, and emotional space. And those supports in order for academic learning to occur. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. What our comprehensive support plan is. You mentioned full instruction. And yes, we really are working hard on being able to provide that. And one of the key takeaways from last year's year as we've said is having our students in person allows us to support them so much better and to really be able to read and understand what they're doing we learned a lot about best instructional practices and what may apply in virtual doesn't necessarily fit anymore in traditional what folks have learned a lot and are excited to try in the classroom as well. And again, can't emphasize enough the clear communication. So our model
032is P12. And we know that our P5s were in last year, but this is everyone. And it includes specials and electives. and those will be delivered similar to the way they had them prior to COVID. Obviously, we will take some additional precautions with heartless drugs, singing, and BB. But again, some really creative work being out of that that will continue to... As far as the communication, the use of Seesaw, I will continue with its critical communication and assignments as well as Canvas. And again, I really thank our folks who stepped up and teachers helped teachers with professional development in terms of using these tools that we have and continuing to use them afterwards. The other instructional setting that is always available to parents is the home instruction plan. It requires a parent to track the
033student and create an I-PIP, which means Individual Home Instruction Plan, which they have to lay out for the year according to the regulations of the institution. It's for potential virtual collaborative school with a paraplegic OCs in the Phase VI. Grade levels, this is a comprehensive schedule. In grades 7-12, it's more distance learning. And what that means for 7-12 is there are individual classes that will be offered. So you don't have a whole day necessarily with all of the electives that you have here. So we're working through those responses that have come into us, working with our counselors, working with our administrators and parents, and our committee, including our district physician, to see who that is the best fit. Then when I first got up here, this system of support, and we like to refer to
034it as a multi-tiered system of support, or MTSS, to get it right. So it's comprised of three pieces that are important. And it envisions the whole child. And the three pieces are the academic, the behavioral, and the social-emotional health of our students. And back in the spring when we surveyed our community, parents, administrators, faculty, and we asked for feedback on how to use our funding that we get to bring students back on site. There are two really key areas that came through across all stakeholder groups and that was in supporting our students academically and making sure that they do not fall behind and through tutoring. And then also in the social-emotional group, those were by far the two big pieces that people were in agreement about priority. So we kept that in mind, and this
035is how we planned our reopening. we have tutoring supports we plan our classrooms and support teachers and we've had teachers working over the summer to make sure that we have curriculum that we're looking at that ela program for our k-2s we'll continue to work out what our tutoring supports are at each of the levels for our social emotional team our social workers psychologists And I have those staff up there, because that was one of the things that we discussed is hiring additional psychologists to provide that support. Our counselors, engagement and attendance was an area that we noted last year that we really want to make sure that we scoop up as many kids as we can who may not have any... we have a parson's clinic that provides additional support on site in three of
036our schools the high school, mingle and guyton but we are looking at hiring additional folks to come so that will be available in all of our buildings again knowing we need that support last year the counseling committee created a community resource guide that has a variety of information that parents were looking for last year and it was not available in one place. So the social workers, psychologists, counselors worked together and created this. It's on our website. A lot of professional development on... that is a school trauma-informed instruction, diversity, equity, inclusion, which we'll talk about a little bit later. So transitioning back to school, as we mentioned, there's been a lot of activity going on, so how could that get it back to the field? Our social-emotional curriculum at K-5, the second step, the program, 6-8
037also uses it, and at 9-12, we're looking at developing what that looks like. And each level is different. and behavioral. This has been in existence since before I came here four years ago. But looking at how we can make sure we are emphasizing the positive and how the behavior of good citizens impacts students. When we think of having students back, these are the tricky pieces that pick up the whole child and we are always looking to improve those supports. What happens though, if we have to end up pivoting like we did last year sometimes in pockets and sometimes in larger pockets from on-site based on how we'll save them. But we will have set up and our teachers will be prepared after going through setting up their communication expectations and the technology to then switch
038to virtual using Zoom and conduct classes that way until it's safe to come back and then they will. The plan for quarantine students, we're still working that out, looking at what potential products we can use and what is appropriate in terms of a setup. One of the questions that came up was, why are you not doing Hyman again? One of the reasons that we have chosen not to go with that is because it was not as beneficial to the students in the classroom as well as... providing quality instruction and the research does not support crisis-based hybrid instruction. So we will continue to work through making sure students have access to the information. Given the advances in mitigation, we are hopeful that any more teach will be shorter in nature. One of the other things that
039came up that folks were concerned about were lunches, how our students went to be eating lunches. And in the middle and high schools, they'll primarily be going to cafeterias. There may be some small additional classrooms for them to go in. At the elementary level, there will be a combination of classrooms. Last time that we spoke last week, it was looking like they would be in classrooms, but as you know, as we go through, we're looking at furniture, principals are looking at spaces, all the cafeterias are different spaces, so depending on the building you're in, it may be more in classrooms or less in the cafeteria, but predominantly in the cafeteria. in your individual buildings are working through that. Okay, so I'm just referring to this middle one. Is this our teachers doing hybrid basically when
040one student is out in quarantine or just the whole class? Okay. So they will have their, if it's a high school student, for example, they will have teachers use Canvas to post their assignments. So the assignments will be available online and they will go to that. This is talking about a larger group, whether it's, say, it may be a whole class. A whole class. Okay. Thank you. A whole class. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. They took an update on technology and connectivity. Through last year, we learned the importance of having technology for all of our students and all of our staff, of having access to a computer device and high-speed broadband or internet is essentially a transformation of equity. So the district has been working hard to continue this one-to-one program, offering it at all
041different levels. we are leading one-to-one at maple avenue we are three levels one-to-one in the high school and providing opportunities for other students to bring their own device and other resources for our classroom at the high school we also work hard to have classroom sets for all of our elementary classrooms and bringing out devices for those students as well we will work hard at that make sure they have that access and then also to make that possible on trying to support our families and teachers who may need internet access at home. Most likely using a device like i-Dialyze or a pass-by device that will allow people who need internet access at home to access the internet as a online resource in their time. Also just wanted to give a quick update on transportation. transportation schedules
042are available next week so please look for that. You should get an email that comes out that has the link in it to have more information about the information for the dealer. We have next report that the state government will be more on buses especially federal land-aid buses as well as our facilities will have a time-related review of this inspection process for changes taking place. and we'll talk a little bit about the ventilation that's pretty important on a bus. It's on our cafeteria, we're above that 45 degree mark, and we need to pack over to help ventilation on our buses. It means that we're right up to the dollar in the church. Before I jump into our food services, I just want to recognize Jeff Woonwright and our Transformation Department as well as the work
043we did with our school principals in the last several months. We did surveys of all parents to help us form a rally for seniors. throughout the year and so in the last uh the previous years we go by the percentage of actual ridership and now we actually have certainly been feedback from all parents and whether they have requested actual transportation between homes on a daily basis and the difficult families were not taking advantage of district transportation the opportunity to opt out as a result of that we've been able to reduce the number of bus lines at a time when it's coolers are really having a hard time filling some of their dry opening. So to Velker, working with Jeff, and then Coach Metto, and again just looking at best practices and rounding procedures. So again,
044it's always nice to know that we can improve our efficiencies, but we're also meeting the needs of our community. And finally, just from a food services perspective, because I don't think we can say this enough, because I'm still surprised based on this feedback. I hear from kids, I hear from parents. Last year, the federal government supported food, breakfast, and lunch for all children, irregardless of your financial background. So this year again, all enrolled students in the school district will have access to both food, breakfast, and food, lunch. uh parents today throughout the school year so um our conservation department has done an incredible job meeting nutritional needs of our students and working through some of the health and safety protocols and providing all the operational health and safety guidelines uh to get to the nearest
045nutritional needs uh but we will continue to promote to campus to make sure everyone is fully aware that breakfasts and lunches are freely available to all students this year So previously I mentioned about all the resources, where the guidance, the information that's guiding our decisions as a minister. So we'll continue to share our information as we receive it. Again, whether it's from our local health experts, information that's coming down at the state level. And next Wednesday night, as I mentioned, will be another opportunity to... For the community, last week we had over 600 parents participate in our pre-perform, which was an awesome turnout. So we hope we have a similar response next week. And we have the opportunity to solidify our sailing plans for the charter school in Pennsylvania. So questions? Come forward. Now, don't
046look at the hand. I might have missed it as well. What options are there for parents who are either afraid or uncomfortable with the return to school? They're afraid or anxious about it? For any parents who are either afraid or uncomfortable with the current plan. Children are not necessarily federated. Right. So those are the conversations actually we can have right now. This has been a fabulous conversation with parents. We're going to hear something about the transition program. Some of our kids have not been in school for a long time. And so having the opportunities for our kids to get back into school now in the summertime, higher school, to help alleviate some of those concerns and those fears and those anxieties. Again, whether they're family, you know, parental questions or concerns they have, or the
047individual children themselves. So with those multi-tiered systems of supports that we have available for any students who have anxiety issues. uh What option is available to them? Even though the children are not medically graduate level, they're available to the whole school or child with a virtual option? No, so the only eligible students right now for the full-seat virtual model is for medically graduate students. So those are the parents who have applied for the last seven days and have a team that's doing those applications. and Dr. Srenza is providing some of that support. So again, those are for severe medical conditions. Again, all school options for colleagues of the elderly and families. Again, who are at this point just not ready yet to send their children to school. But as I mentioned in the first slide,
048our priority as a district for the last several months has been to reopen school full-time, bring personal instruction to all students, and help them to enjoy school. Should we talk about providing an option for them? It was somewhere to not affect. So that's where those support services are in place. We are prepared to help those families, work individually with families that have concerns about the advocates and the advocates for the unscrupulous. But the in-person model is the model that we're putting into this institution. I'm just trying to understand that. as it relates to 7th through 12th who are ready virtually, so much is not available today. Correct. So the virtual model, the hybrid model that we had last year, as I mentioned earlier, the feedback that we got from students, that we got from our
049faculty and staff, as well as our parents, it was not an ideal situation for our students to be working on. It's not research-based. It's the best in our school practice. So we committed to our teachers that we do not have a hybrid model available this year. Our primary goal is to get all of our kids back in person. And it's in schools where our students have access to student support services that our children need at this time. So we are well prepared to have student counselors or psychologists or social workers work directly with students and families without concerns of the school. And then I have one last question. I apologize for the word number, but I'm trying to understand. I just wanted to understand that. So the board is one of several stakeholders in our
050community who's been playing a very active role for the last two months. They've been recruiting our role from the beginning of last year. And again, the record of the addition that I've applied to the board is the operational decisions that we're making as a district. Those are administrative decisions based on recommendations that we're getting from our county health officials and that's my responsibility as a superintendent to inform the Board of Education about progress that we're making. We're in tune for discussions like these through the board to provide feedback to me just like other stakeholders. We hear from our parents, we hear from our staff, we engage with a variety of stakeholders but ultimately the decision is open, operationally open school. that lies with some of the other students. In conjunction, obviously with the board, having
051conversations like this, getting feedback from all of you, but we open school every year, and we have an open school for as long as Saratoga State has been in existence. But at the start of every school year, our board doesn't authorize any of the superintendent, again, the opportunity to open schools. So it does not come down to a vote from the board. Our kids are coming September 9th, whether they're ready or not. And it's our responsibility to work with them as a team to make sure they're fully prepared for us to provide help and see the product for our students and staff. Yeah, I was suggesting a voice, a proactive conversation. So that's really the opportunity right now that we have these presentations. The presentation is intended for the board. We've got a few presentations,
052so this is an opportunity for the board to ask any questions that are of our team that's been developed. I appreciate the question, Andrew. A couple years in I was trying to figure out how things work. So I think trying to figure out our division of labor at any given moment is a good thing to ask about. The way I think about this is that the administration is leading the operations. and that the board is generally more involved in systemic policy questions. And this, as we've just heard this presentation, there's so many lawyers for this, they're consulting with different government officials, different experts, different stakeholders. And I will add that the administration has my full support in this right now. And I think that if we ever, as a board, wanted to have a stronger
053voice, we would just say let's lets us together try to nudge the administration in a different direction. So the board has at times offered a resolution and that's kind of a symbolic gesture and it's kind of a symbolic statement that tries to get them operationally shifting a little bit. But for me, I'm very comfortable with this division of labor and I know not every district operates this way. But when we get to ask them questions, we get to give input, we get to try to sway each other to try to press them for certain issues. You can always, at the end of board meetings, you have a moment where it's called agenda planning where you can propose an agenda item and try to get a majority of board members to put it on the agenda.
054And so you have this venue to try to persuade them, persuade us. So those are the two things that I'm thinking about in terms of provisional labor and how to sort of intervene in that. I don't know if that makes sense. I have two questions. The first one was, I think for Dave, what are we defining as correct NASBs and do we have some sort of shared definition across the district that we have an understanding of like... you know, covering, positioning, materials, et cetera. How are we handling that so we're making sure that definition is clear and possible? So, the Saratoga County Health is really recommending the mask use. It's the consistent, direct use of masks in kids' schools is really what's going to continue to make a difference. So, we'll continue to share out
055some of that information that we used last year for service group. Okay, great. I wanted to make sure that I made a little lot of the last question. My other question is for Lisa. On one of the slides you mentioned about the quarantine is more than five days. So I was up there saying that quarantines are 10 days. Is that? So the reason why, sorry, the reason why that slide was still working for you. is what the exact guidance is going to be. For example, is it going to be 10 days or negative COVID test and show that it can come back sooner. And there may be less time that students have for quarantine. So we're still working through that. And that's why I was out there that as we are trying to explore and
056have different conversations about what we can do. Are there better ways to... The goal is to shorten those times. and get kids back to school who are healthy and able to do so with testing and other protocols that we use. Hi, I just have two more questions and then I'm done with questions. This does have to do with quarantines again. I'm just putting my teacher hat on. So if I had one or two or three students in the same class that may be out on a quarantine, it may be better for everyone. And I apologize if this is a union issue, but I did look for him in the audience. I don't see him. But if a teacher wants to record the lesson for those students at our home or have them Zoom in, if
057that's easier, are they allowed to do that? Those are some of the things that we're talking through as we get back. The recording is one of our always. I refer to me as a teacher, but I'm not mandating anyone to have to. Okay. And I understand that masks are allowed to come off for eating. Are there any other times, whether it's teacher discretion or if the student needs it, where they can take a mask off? Yes. It is at the teacher's discretion, and there will be time for it to make sense. We encourage folks like tonight, if you want to be able to drink, you're going to be able to take your mask off. So there will be time to have the mask free as well. Thank you. I guess this question is for Lisa.
058There was a slide that had the sentence on it, research does not support crisis-based hybrid instructional settings. And you and I both elaborated on that afterwards after Amanda asked the question. I just wanted to get a sense. So are you saying that there's like a national consensus forming based on last year's? experience that is sort of gelling around the idea that you know perfect reaction to another pandemic hybrid is not the way to go is that but Well actually, this is research that's been out there because there are hybrid academies that have been in existence. And what we know is a choice and it is a very planned out blend of what is going to be in person and what is going to be individual. and that is where the research comes from. So it
059wasn't necessarily spawned out of this, but the research that did come out last year supported the initial research about hybrid learning, which was it is a much more planned and deliberate structure and setup than... Okay. I got confused by a financial moment ago. I the impression I got from the presentation was it local county experts following national experts were saying to us that they recommended masks at all times except during real times and outside. Is that is that where we are? And you know if somebody has a drink of something that's like having a meal and there's flexibility and all that. But there's not any size mask breaks for something other than meals. Or to have a cup of water in the classroom. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Hi, I just have two
060questions. The first one is, we were talking about the grant funding we received for tutoring and SEL in particular. So I was just wondering if that's been figured out, how that's going to be distributed, and who determines how that gets distributed? How is a student qualifying for those services? So those are some of the things that we are working through as we speak. I think there are some of the pieces that at K-5 level, for example, our FDL program, every student K-5 gets that and 6-8 as well. We have worked with consultants that help us develop that. For example, we saw up there grades 9 through 12. SEL program, it looks different than it does on the other age levels. So, we're working through what exactly that looks like and as far as the tutoring
061piece in terms of how you qualify for that. So, that's one of those things that we're working on. Thank you. Just one other question. During the community forum, there was talk, and I might have missed it, but we were talking about, talked about having possible testing on site for COVID for unvaccinated students. I'm not sure if that was left out, vaccinated students as well, but I feel like would that be open to all students? Because as we know, vaccinated people can get COVID. So we were, if you remember last December, we put out an initial parent's task report that said that at the time there was some new threshold rates that were required in testing in schools. We've never really gotten to that level, but we have the Dynx test available to us here in
062the district. We've not looked at specific situations last month. So I think we're going to be getting more directly from the state in the next few days. But even at the county level, the county has applied. been granted money federal money to help support school districts in screening testing as well as diagnostic testing so you know the concerns we heard from families that have kids were contact traced and had to quarantine it took several days for families to get the test out in the community which should have held up kids really in return school if they were not sick back so the county is actually hiring staff to help support school districts Again, incredible effort on their part. So what we haven't really ironed out all protocols. It still would require parental consent. So we
063wouldn't be screening or doing a diagnostic testing without parents consenting. But right now, we're talking like high school level for our high risk sports. In order for those athletes to continue to be able to participate. The vaccinated students, again, as long as you're not symptomatic, we're okay. unvaccinated students at this point considering that weekly testing of unvaccinated students for participation in those higher sports as just another layer of mitigation strategy. So we're not to the point yet with the county of Portland yet or what's going to happen here in the next few weeks. Alright, so we're going to roll right into the next presentation. So at this time of year, based on all the feedback that we've received from our teachers the previous year, many of you have learned a lot about professional learning, learning
064communities and professional learning teams. And our district goals and priorities for the year help inform the buildings in establishing their building level goals, which then trickle down to teacher and classroom level. So in August each year, based on the feedback that we've received throughout the year, we would like to share our pathways, our priorities for the upcoming school year. And so having the opportunity to review our priorities based on the core values that were established back in 2018. with community participation, stakeholder participation, and we created the pathways to hack with and re-roll our vision statement around our four core beliefs. It's an opportunity for us to plan and also monitor our progress throughout the school year. So as you see, the vision statement is something the Board of Education is very familiar with and that
065is the basis for all of our initiatives. focus on professional development and planning and support. So our mission statement is that the San Francisco community will empower all workers in an engaging and collaborative environment to inspire their personal pathways to the future. So pathways for all students was something that was language that came directly from our students. And again, the four core beliefs is what our vision is rooted on. So each one of us is just going to take a few minutes to review each of the four core beliefs. We've seen that in introductory statements. Hadn't been consistent over the last three or four years. But the priorities below each year based on feedback that we get from our staff and from our district team, we spent a full professional development day reviewing the language,
066strategically aligning these priorities with our district vision. And so this will help provide direction now to the building level to our teachers in the important work that's ahead of us this year. So I'm going to turn it over to Mrs. Hinton to talk about that group opportunity. So all of these are tied to metrics or statistics. Over the past two years, those have kind of gotten very bulky because now having state testing, which is usually a data point, whether it has been the New York State pre-paid exams or the regions. For the past two years, the regions have not been required as... So we have to look at other ways to be able to measure that. So internally we have been examining and looking at metrics such as standardized test form to use as another
067piece for our students. um about earning college credit or career credentials. So, I'm currently enrolling as the students are able to earn credit toward their high school diploma, as well as taking courses here that count for college credit. and they're focused more on offering students that opportunity while they're here in high school. And I think particularly English classes do not have a lot of those options for students. And it might be for students who maybe they are intimidated by taking an AP course and maybe they want to start with a college course. or maybe they're not sure. So this provides a number of opportunities for students in a variety of different areas to do that. One of the other places that we hope that is career credentials. So we do send students to our OCs
068for different programs there. But the state created pathways that individual high schools can set up for students to earn career credentials here. So we've done that in business, in chemical super science, in engineering, and we'll continue to work through that so that students have that opportunity. work with Generation Ready as well as our local BOCES culturally responsive practices. So this is a framework from New York State which has four pillars of their framework. And it really, if you look at it, it just makes sense for what we should be doing anyway. Creating a welcoming and learning, affirming environment, inclusive curricula, and assessments. ongoing professional learning support, and reference and instruction. So we will continue to do that work, which we have been, and it permeates all aspects of the district. One of the pieces that
069we do have though, as I mentioned, we didn't have New York State tests, but we do have cohort statistics. Couple of things about data. Number one, there really is never a shortage of data. What there is, is a shortage of usable, easily understandable. That is up here, our graduation cohort, statistician cohort, is a group of students. And for our purposes, we're looking at four years. So they enter as freshmen together. So in this chart, we have 2018, 2019, in 2020. And you have the top row being all students, and that's the number of students that entered together. So in 2018, there were 541 students in the cohort. And then next to it, there is the graduation rate. Of those 541, 91.1% graduated. Now these graduation statistics also represent the district. not just the high school.
070And again, I mentioned that there's no shortage of data. And the reason why I point out that this is a district is because it includes our students who may be placed in residential... facilities or they may go to programs that are outside of high school because we're presenting as a district we're using our district data when mrs sal comes up and talks she will show you high school data specifically so if it looks different slightly it's because of that This is district F. So anyway, if you go across you can see since 2018 our triathlete graduation rate. And we hover around 92% and that's the all students category. As you go down the left hand side you see our student subgroups. In June, typically we give accountability presentation of data for all the subgroups that
071go much more in depth. But those are the subgroups that we pay attention to in terms of our overall 92% is really good. But what about all of our students in each of those subgroups? How are they doing? If you look down at our Native American, you'll see that the number of students in the cohort is great at a couple other places too because those are very small numbers that we don't show because they're not easily identified. So that's why that's great out. But in 2019, that was 100%. And you can go down through each. um So these are some of the disaggregations that we do that will say, okay, what kinds of supports for students and what do they need? The last thing on this slide I'll point out is the Advanced Regents diploma
072from Colorado. And we have increased to about 62%. This was the last three years. This is the data from the class of 2021. We go from looking at June through August graduation rate of 94.2%. They may be looking there and say, how can we go down and keep on some more graduates? One of the things we are focusing on is cleaning up our data. And we have hired Abigail Adams-Snell to help us go through and clean the data. She came on board in July, so that is what we are doing. We are finding things out. But again, when you go from 92.4 to 94.2, you do have that 2% increase. Our advanced grievances went down slightly from the previous year, about three points. Our students with disabilities, graduation went up by 13% over last year.
073So that's when you also ask, what is happening, what are you doing? And then the economically disadvantaged went down slightly, 82%. When we're looking at all of this data, we start digging deeper and looking at what is our curriculum, what are our supports, whether it's academic or whether it's attendance, all of those kinds of things. A note for this is that the regional exams were not required. So we would be remiss if we did not say that may have had an impact on that. Obviously that is something we're aware of and we will do others. This year is collaboration, we're being cooperative here. And one of the key parts in our district are professional learning communities. for professional learning teams at the smaller grade level or content level. Over the past year, they were critically
074important and I think teachers will tell you that was one of the saving graces of this fair and challenging time. As I mentioned, we have new assessments that we're using to look at how students are progressing and adjust our curriculum and instruction as well. And they talk about technology. An important part of the collaboration is integrating instructional technology to make student learning and digital community system across our state and other requirements while we're expanding the use. I'm going to keep expanding our use of Canvas. I think you saw a lot of potential tonight for other advanced systems at elementary and secondary level for communication purposes with our parents, but also we can do digital collaboration boards and communication with students. um skills Here's how you do it. I do. But we're starting to look at
075those now and use those for our teachers. Sorry. No, it's okay. I'm just rumbling here. Sorry. That's okay. That's something we're looking at. We're looking at three goals. There are standards that are K-12. We've integrated to all our different circular areas. We're looking at how those fit in. We're continuing to, as I already mentioned, this is presentation one. Scanning our one-to-one program. almost there at the secondary level, and I try to continue to provide those classroom sets for our elementary students as well. Another important pillar is community, providing opportunities at all schools and families to be active partners in supporting learners' success. One of our priorities is the assessment improvement of our comprehensive district wide safety plan and also our code level plan. District crews responding, building crews responding to practice our safety drills, tabletop
076potential situations and preparation for current and adverse situations. We're also looking at the district response team, trying to do more with outreach this year. We're trying to schedule some of our meetings out of district office at the elementary buildings at different times. We're trying to set it up so we can maybe have faculty and community, get more people involved, better understanding of our emergency preparedness programs. And we're studying about that with that course this year as well. Another key component is evaluating strength in communication systems. the classroom building additional models. So a couple of exciting items that are happening here from the communication standpoint. For Manny, our director of communications, is meeting us to redesign our additional website along with, yes, along with the design too. So we look here along with kind of the
077new yellow and kind of the new fast text. This is our third version of the gas repair. So I'm actually working with the capital to design that. The process is very extensive. It will take over a year. They already started and we're working on a cat's eye for Laura. We've already done a bit of work. She created the Capital Region and website survey that went out with a bunch of our stakeholders. We have that data. Capital Region and Laura are also interviewing people and getting information. I also know Capital Region has done an analysis of our existing website. What are people going to follow up with? Those kind of things. And I know they all have started looking at our different pages and really simplifying the site, sending us a page quickly. So I think
078Laura has talked about maybe towards the end of this new year, we'll be ready to actually move over to a new site. It's a very expensive process, but again, I want to give her a little less credit for giving us that now. Another initiative that's happening in two locations from the perspective of the counseling committee. They've created a great resource guide that's available for our families to utilize. It's actually on our website. It's on the K-School website as well. Again, great resource as far as supports. I would like to highlight some of the things from the document. For the child care, family assistance, COVID components. housing, shelter, food assistance, legal services, again, I'm just getting through some of the, just a lot of great resources. Medical, dental assistance, mental health and suicide prevention, self-defense and
079recovery, again, that's just being able to do a great resource that's available for families. So again, that's all. Personalization. So our fourth and final program is on personalization. Lisa earlier talked about how to get some kind of assistance or support, develop support for students' academic, social, emotional, and behavioral needs. So again, teacher teams, and age-grade teams, we've worked together throughout the year to evaluate our current programs and services, and future opportunities for our continues to improve. For the last several years, both our high school and middle school has had teams on our time and space committees reviewing our bell schedules and their use of time within the school day. And so this year we're excited to hold out. adjusted schedules in the new schedules at both high school and high school so with the building
080level committee's commitment now with the three implementations also to monitor and continue to gather feedback about the new schedules from our students from our staff and parents and then finally we're excited that we're into the design phase of our legacy project so very thankful for the support last December In passing, $130 million legacy to FICA. Our policy is going to have a significant impact in our educational and learning environments across the country. So we're working on a weekly basis. We've got a presentation coming up in the month for the Department of Education to kind of give you a sense of where we are right now in the design of the case of the implementation. So we're going to have a significant impact on modernizing and innovating learning environments across the country. So throughout this, obviously
081you have to have systems in place to monitor that progress. So whether they are health and safety related, focus on the student center. staffing and spacing. These district level goals are kind of the 30,000 foot view that can share in developing the building level. And then with our department heads, we have the department level and rate level. And this is where our PLTs come in in developing the smart goals, which are specific, measurable, achievable, timely, and also include inclusion and equity. in all the roles at the grade levels. And then we monitor our progress throughout the year. We report out at the grade level, at the ability level, in the departments. Lisa mentioned the investment accountability report and the presentation that we do on each year, as well as Tim and Joe's significant leadership in
082the areas of academic return on investment. how does all this play with our budget development and allocation of district resources. So, a lot there, but again it's been a collaborative effort to put together this document each year. So again, the board's moving tonight. That will be shared out with the building administrators tomorrow, including our opening day presentation of all staff when we come back here for Labor Day. And then the true work, the real work, begins continuously improving teaching and learning across the district. Questions about the pathways? All right, awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for those reports. It's great information. Yes, there are a number of modifications. First I'm going to remove something from the consent agenda on page 16. This is under personnel and on page 16 is items M and N.
083So we're removing Robin Cornell and Carol Brown. Those two items are fully removed. And the next thing is an addition. I draw your attention to the full addendum that was included in your folder. Quite a bit of material there. I'm not going to read it all, but on the addendum it's listed as Personnel A, items 1 through 5 out of 6. That would obviously throw off the numbering, but we're going to roll with that. Please insert that into the consent agenda. And then there's a couple modifications on page 5 of the regular agenda. Under item 4C, you'll see the name Elizabeth Wood. The name is not Wood. It should be Woodard. W-O-O-D-A-R-D. And then on page 15 is item 13J, related to Sandra Fakura. There's an effective date of September 6th, 2021. That should be
084August 31st, 2021. And then finally, oh okay. My mistake, right. So what I just said about August 31st for item J also applies to item H and I. So on page 15 is items H, I, and J. The date should change from September 6th to August 31st. Thanks. And then finally, we have to remove on page 19, we're going to remove item 11 from a roll call vote. And I'll just say for continuing a new member of the board that sometimes we have a legal requirement. Or we choose to pull something out because we want to vote on it separately. In this case, we have to pull this out, so that will become its own motion momentarily. What's currently listed is item 11 on page 19. And those are all the changes. Does anybody have
085any questions about everything I just went through? I move that we pass the resolution. currently worded under item 11 on page 19 but now as a separate resolution and if you're okay I'm not going to read through the whole thing just trust that you guys are all literate so I have offered the motion and I'd like to get a second any discussion Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
086Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. and that's how we prepare for discussion about our contentment agreement. Thanks, and we'll be done. All right, later. just uh would like to make a few welcome remarks uh as you can see through the agenda we've been very busy uh with personnel um retiring so we've got so many hopes here uh to recognize so i do want to say we just completed our three-day computer orientation program uh it's a wonderful walk-on effort with ssta and our veterans program Hillary's office, office 4 and 8. We have 24 teachers participate over the last three days and it's just an incredible
087group of educators that are welcoming to the district. Tons of energy and enthusiasm. Our mentors, we had guest speakers come in to work with our technology training. They had building tours. We had a bus tour of the district. Most of the SSTA was pretty much what we're calling in. So we're very excited to welcome our newest members of our staff. So just a few names, Alexander Blanchard, Christine Snow, Megan McGarrett, Rita Rhodes, Anna Forrest Santiago, Alicia Salia, Jennifer Bean, and with us tonight is Emily McCarroll-Hein. So congratulations Emily. This is Judah, our Missing Jetta. We started the hiring process in January. So again, thank you to all the committees, the teams, and all the building levels who have been involved in our recruitment and hiring process. And again, we feel very fortunate to have this
088talented group of educators joining the school district this year. Thank you. Thank you so much. Alright, that closes our business meeting and brings us to our second public comment period. Do we have anybody here wishing to address the board? Okay, we have one. Alright then, let me go ahead and... to remind everybody who was and we'll take you in turn, that's fine. Please remember the ground rules for the public comment period including asking you to use speakers and audience to conduct themselves in a civil manner. We're looking forward to hearing your comments and voices and opinions. We do not allow comments about specific individual employees, students, or trustees and ask that you use the same content to review. repeat three of these speakers um just get your name and address for the board sure my
089name is kyle brown from seven hill press 9th and i just wanted to state some The suicide rate for kids ages 5 to 14 is 1.5. Homicide, kid being killed by homicide is 0.7. Carbohydrate and vascular disease is 0.6. Drowning is 0.5. Fluid and moldy is 0.3. and suffocation is also going to, or COVID is. So I just wanted to put those facts out there so that you know, you know that it's really not necessary for students to be masked, but I just wanted to have that point put out there. Thank you. Thank you. Is there somebody else who was wishing to address the book? uh Thank you very much. Is there anybody else? And I just wanted to say, I think a lot of people have to do with the view of it. And
090also, I just wanted to say, I just agree with you guys, because you really get the choice. And once I find my own way of doing this, putting it out there, it's a part of the experience. And it's easy to not have your own house. And those are for now. And those are two more of your house. Those are done. Thank you. All right. Any other community members who want to speak? We will close our public comment period. And that brings us to adjournment planning. And we've got two items on here already. Do you want to address the two or do you want to do it? We've got our third workshop on September 2nd, next Thursday. It's history. I'm hearing the word. We'll email you. We might be late. But it's done. Yeah. Way too
091far to do, right? You've got to get through about five minutes before then. We'll email you and remind you what time it will be our first workshop. I'm asking if you're returning warmers to the blue packets I gave you last year. I know you held it really tight, dear to your heart all year. And you know exactly where it is and how everything will arrive. But I'll give you some updated material for it. And if you are new, I'll provide you with a packet of updated material as well. both of you coming together for our first workshop and then we will work on dates for our second workshop. And the second thing on the journey plan is our annual convention that's on October 23rd through the 26th and so I think Lisa has got everybody
092signed up and although she's on vacation this week she is trying to she's going to try to get right on transportation when she gets back so she said just remind her email about that to let her know how we're trying to get there so we can have that conversation going and thinking about her food or what we're doing No. Alright, so let's re-sign that form for Tim to break in tonight. And then one thing I did want to ask for Jim planning as we've now had our buttons in for a couple of years, I would like to suggest that we ask our policy committee to just take a look at that and see how it's working and see what kind of issues have been brought to the attention of Dave and his staff as they've
093made those assignments and anything that... we need to revisit and we need to re-look at just as a matter of looking at this policy that's been in place so i'm wondering if the majority of the board might support that work great so i will ask Natalia as chair of policy to take that up thank you is there any other board members who have an agenda to add your agenda is to be out of here okay i just would like to thank in particular i mean thank everybody who makes donations to the school district but in particular because this was a student and recent graduate and neighbor of mine i'd like to thank ava herzog class of 2021 for her her donation through grant application that she made to the science classrooms of a microscope and
094some other scientific related supplies that she deemed and the curriculum deemed. necessary very proactive and really just a what a great spirit that Ava had in doing that for a group of students that you know she's not benefiting from it's for the people coming after her so I'd like to thank her for that. Any other questions? All right, I just want to thank our administration team and everybody who's been working tirelessly to get our students back into the buildings. And again, our facilities folks who have been working through this crazy summer, and ours as well. So we're gearing up to our last few days of summer, and I know that's finally hot out there at the summer, but it's almost fall. And I'm just grateful for everybody who's been putting on all that work behind
095the scenes. With that, can I get a motion to adjourn? Tony, it's Connie. All in favor? All right, thank you, everyone. Good night, everyone.