00131 p.m. >> A motion Liz and a second Keith. Uh all in favor I and please uh stand for the pledge to the flag. Okay. So, our next item is the public hearing on the 2025 2026 district safety plan scheduled for 6:30. Um, so we're going to open the public hearing on this district safety plan be resolved that the board of education open the public hearing on the 2025 2026 district safety plan. The time is >> 6:32 p.m. >> May I have a motion? >> Uh, Dr. Walsh and a second Michelle and all in favor I. Okay. Uh so at this time we are open up for public comment uh regarding the 2025 2026 district safety plan. Okay. And seeing nobody. So then at this time we will close the public hearing on the 2025
0022026 district safety plan. So, be it resolved that the board of education close the public hearing on the 2025 2026 district safety plan and reconvene the business meeting. The time is >> 6:33 p.m. >> May I have a motion? Dr. Walsh and a second. I'll second. And all in favor? >> I. Okay. So, we're on to number seven on the agenda. So, we're on to presentations. Our first presentation this evening is Lauren Kika, our food service director, who is going to be giving us a presentation of our new digital menu. Um, and then on the agenda for anybody that's viewing online, there is an a link where you can view um the digital menu. So, uh, Lauren Cle, thank you so much. >> So much for having me tonight. I'm very excited to show you
003the ins and outs of our new digital menu um, by Meal Viewer. uh this program and all of its features are at no cost to our community and our families. It's there's no membership fees, no transaction fees. Um it's a complete program for them to use. That would be why using screenshots that I took. Wonderful. Thanks, Mr. Kingonis. Appreciate it. So, our new digital menu will provide the community with 24-hour access, including any last minute changes that I may make. Um, it would be uploaded within a 15-minute syncing period. So, it's it's really a hands-on uh digital menu. Um, it's going to offer some transparency at levels that we've not been able to achieve until now with this program. And um lastly, getting some direct uh student feedback. Uh there's a feature that we'll go
004into more detail later on in the presentation. Um, I've always relied on sales and present, uh, participation and even some staff feedback and in how I write my menus and what I repeat and what I don't. Uh, but this will give a new avenue for parents and students directly um, and more specifically tell me what they're enjoying and what they're not. Um so you can access Meal Viewer through the website provided um as well as by downloading the app on any um smart device. It's available um for the App Store as well as Google Play. So any device can um can download that app. Uh signing up is very easy. There's step-by-step prompts to create a profile if you wish. The program can actually be used without a profile if that's desired as well. Uh
005you can create a profile for a student or a parent. Um and let's review um how you will access the menu. On the next slide, there's a QR code here as well as our link if you wish to follow along and you want to pull out your smart device. Now, I promise I won't be insulted. Uh it's part of the program. And um once you uh access the QR code, just realize that some of these snapshots that I'll provide on the following slides might look slightly different than what the app version provides. Um but it's it's completely user friendly on whichever platform you're using. So once you log on to the website, this is what the page will look like where it displays our three schools. Um, and you can at this point click on
006a menu and be on your way to start exploring. Or you can use that little blue box up underneath the search bar and create your profile. Um, it's five easy prompts that you'll be um, clicking through to create your profile. Um, you'll choose uh, whether you want to start as a parent or a student. Um, and then you're going to choose your school. And you'll be able to add more schools once your setup is complete. I just want to add a little user tip in here. When you're selecting your school, I found that you need to type in the full school name. If you just type in Pauling and then try to click on one of the schools, you have to actually type in elementary, middle, or high school to be able to select it.
007So, you're going to feel like the program is not working. So, that's my little user tip. I have two throughout this presentation. So you can add um additional profiles and additional um menus throughout that profile. You can also set your language preference. Right now we have both English and Spanish um available. Can there's several ways that you can view those two languages. So this is um what you will come to once you select a menu. This is what the page will look like. Um not including my state-of-the-art yellow graphic that I put in there to draw your attention to that announcement bar. I just want to take a minute and um inform everyone of how important our benefit forms still are. They're no longer linked to free and reducedpriced meals uh for the food service
008department, but our district as a whole relies on these forms to apply for grants and to receive additional funding. It can also benefit the community members who um are qualifying for additional district benefits and even state benefits, things like including summer EBT programs. So, it's really important and I'm encouraging every family that used to apply for our free and reduced meals to continue to apply for these other benefits and any new families that may think that they would qualify. The district as a whole really benefits from the academic side to everything. So, it's super important. Um, we're going to work from back not that fast. We have to we have to discuss all of the other things here. So, those three lines, we're going to work from the right side of the screen, top and
009down. So, the three little lines are going to bring you back to your profile if you wanted to toggle between your profiles um to register things like your favorites and rating um meal items and um selecting allergens and all of these things that we'll go through as we we tackle the menu. Um you'll see where it says Pauling High School. If you've registered more than one school, you'll be able to flip through the menus there just by using the arrows. If you go down to the top of the menu, the printer icon will create a printer friendly version for anybody to be able to print and hang on their fridge like we did in the 90s. So, um, you can also toggle between the months. You can go a month ahead, a month back. Our
010menus will not delete. So, if you ever wanted to look back and try to figure out what that favorite was to let me know, you're going to have access to that. Um, you'll see the month displayed that you're viewing. You'll have a drop-own box here to select the language as well. And then you'll also have that orange box which is going to be your drop-own box to toggle between breakfast and lunch menus. I am going to jump over the allergen tab because that deserved its own slide next. So we're going to go into the info tab which is displayed on the left there all in black. We have a scrolling announcement right now. It's reminding families that all meals are provided for free for the 2025 2026 school year. So I wanted to make sure
011that everybody was reminded about that. There's a nutritional calculator built right into this digital menu. We have our my schoolbox link underneath that in case families want to add money to their accounts for any extras and alleviarts and things like that. And then as you scroll down the window, which I couldn't quite fit on the presentation, we have some of our district links right there as well as second meal pricing and things to find there throughout the window. All right, now let's look at that allergen tab, which I'm sure is pretty interesting to most. So far left is what you're going to see as soon as you click on the allergen tab. And then you're going to see the big eight uh listed there. And once you make a selection, as you see we did
012on the next tab where the eggs is highlighted in red with an exclamation point. Once you do that on our menu, it'll now select any of the items containing the eggs and cross them out with a red. Now, I just want to also remind anybody that if you do have a medically documented allergy, it's really important that we communicate that with our school nurses and also my office because just because something is crossed out on our menu for all, it doesn't mean that it we're not able to accommodate certain needs. You know, such as a cheeseburger, if you flag the milk allergy, the cheeseburger is automatically going to be crossed out, but we can certainly prepare a hamburger without any milk allergies in it. So, it's definitely important to communicate um with me and especially
013the nurses. All right, so let's take a look more into what the actual menu will look at. So, here we have September. Um you'll see that the menu is very similarly laid out to the printed menu we used to do last year. You'll notice the addition of some subtitles, which just makes it a little bit easier to read, I think, and and to see all of the uh choices that we're offering for each day. So once you want to look into a specific menu item, you'll hover your mouse over that item um on the menu, and this is my second user tip for the website. Once you hover over that item, you need to then have your mouse go over this new window that popped up because if you remain it on the text of
014the menu item, the window is going to close pretty pretty shortly after. And that was frustrating for me until I figured it out. So second user hip of the evening and to only have two for the whole program I thought that was pretty pretty good. So you could see on um the first day of school we had to start off with the student overwhelming favorite of our copycat lunch the Chick-fil-A sandwich. This is one of my Facebook photos from last year. But my colleague Gary Green has informed me that I need to step up my photo game for this year. So I bought some supplies and we're going to take some um individual photos. So when you look at the chicken fillet sandwich next time, it's going to be a picture just of that sandwich
015and then we will put the waffle fries under the waffle fries category. So it's really going to be individualized. Um and I'll try to make them look really good. Um so we'll look at the the you can go back one more still. There you go. We're just going to talk um about you'll see the allergens listed. If you don't check off your allergens, um like we discussed on the previous tab, you'll see the allergens listed for the meal. And just remember that this is the allergens for the complete thing, including any seasonings, any um condiments that might be a choice to have or have not. So that communication piece is definitely um important. Okay, so I wanted to take a look at another item that featured some different things here. This is our um Dyman's
016corn uh from right down the road. This is on our menu for September 11th. And I wanted to explain to you, you'll see the same nutritional data it generates. You'll see the serving size is also noted at the top of that. And then we have these little circular icons if you see underneath our uh corn there. So this Dyman's corn is always featured in September as our harvest of the month. So you'll see we have our farm to school logo. We have our locally grown and then we have our New York State grown and certified. If you remember um the menu used to have bold print when it was a New York State certified item. So now you'll see that icon. We also have some icons for scratchmade items, new items. Um we're having one
017made for harvest of the month. So it actually says harvest of the month. So there's a lot of um creativity we could do here um with the badges and everything. So that was that was pretty fun for me. Okay, so this will be the fun part for families. Um, when you hover over the menu item, you'll see the picture is what loads automatically. Underneath that is the star, and that's where families and students can favorite an item. That will be highlighted on future menus. You'll see down below where it says Dykeman's Corn, it now has the gold star next to it, so students can register their favorites and find them easily going forward. Um, and it also will analyze that data for me on the back end. I could see which items are being favored
018most frequently or or in more abundance. Um, so it it it's it's useful interaction. Um, now underneath that you would have seen the emoji and once you want to do a rating on an item, it's a scale from 1 to 100 and there is some pretty funny emojis and little sayings that you'll have to explore. Um, and of course Dman's Corn is going to get a 100. The kids are going to go wild for it as always. Um, and the program will also collect this data for me and let me know the ratings of each item and and how that analysis looks on the back end will be utilized in how I write the menus going forward. That's pretty much the overview. I hope that everybody has a good time exploring it. It is it
019is a very interactive and very fun uh program for our menu and I'm excited to offer all of this information to the community. Anybody with any questions or concerns should absolutely call my office at any time. Um, and I'm happy to answer questions from the board now. >> Thank you so much. Does anybody have a question? >> Thank you very much. Um, I just had a quick question. So, are we not sending the paper menus home anymore? And do you have to have an account to view this or is it just it'll be directly on the website? >> It's directly on the website. So, I actually didn't mention that. The links have already been updated. Um, Mr. Kenyon has a has a parent squared um push to go out. I I believe we're going to
020send that out tomorrow. I'll have all of this information available at open houses as well. So, any anytime anybody needs anything, we should be able to answer that. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yeah, >> great. Thank you so much. It looks really interesting. Okay. So, moving on to our next presentation of the evening. Um, we're going to have Mr. Christopher Kinonis, who's our director of technology, who is going to give a presentation on Parent Square with me for a second? Okay, sorry for the technical difficulties and uh thank you for your patience. Um so I'm just going to jump right into it. Uh one of the goals for our district has always been to engage our and our uh parents and um in order to do that one of the one of the ways to
021facilitate that is through the use of technology and through parent square. Parent Square is a new platform for our district and parent square basically allows teachers to easily communicate with their students, parents and send direct messages to individual parents. But the main difference is that parents can also directly communicate with teachers etc through this platform and it's really great. One of the best things about it is that it also provides automatic translations. So if English is not your first language, it's not a problem. just write it in your native language and it automatically gets translated. It's one of the best things and I'll get I'll get into that a little bit further. Um, but before we get into all that good stuff, let me tell you about it's a centralized platform. It's a platform for
022everything in the sense that everyone can communicate. If we wanted to have a two-way communication, we could do that through this platform. Quick translations, as I said before, one of the best benefits. Uh, two-way communications is also something that is available. So, if we wanted to have comments on posts or something like that to have two-way conversations in terms of information, we could do that. And parents have the ability to be contacted in any form that they wish. So, for example, when you first sign up for Parent Square, you're going to get probably like three different types of notifications for the same notification for the same message. Uh, you can modify that and we'll get into that a little bit later. But before we get into all that good stuff and before you can access
023all that cool stuff like two-way communication, etc., got to register. So, if you're getting these emails from a person called Chris Kingonz and he's telling you to activate something that well, that's me, guys. I'm the I'm the person who's bothering you. Um, it's so important to register. Now, you'll still get emergency communications even if you don't ever register. But the best part about Parent Square is that when you register, you have access to all these communication tools. Next slide. And the registration process is really simple. Just click on the activate link. Should have gotten a message from Christopher Ginonz uh inviting you to parent square. You sign up. Now the email that you have to use is the one that's usually on the record for the school for the student. So if we sent it
024to your email address, that's the email address that you should use to register. And then you just make a password. Next slide. This is the part where you get to choose your kids. Uh uh you can choose and it's really just a verification to say, "Hey, this is my kid. This is this is correct." If it's not correct, just hit the red buttons, say, "Hey, this is definitely not my kid." That's something that we need to be aware of that we can fix. So that's that's uh urgent for us. So it's pretty simple. One of the things once you get into the registration process, you're like, "Ah, finally I registered. All right, now what?" Well, the biggest thing that I could probably tell you as a tip from a fellow parent is to change your
025notification settings. Like I said, when we start notifying you, you're probably going to get it three different ways. You're going to get an email, you're going to get a text, and then you're going to get an app notification. And that's uh that immediately becomes very tiresome and very annoying. So what you really want to do, you want to get in there and change your notification settings. You can choose how you want to be notified. So let's say I'm a surgeon. I really don't want to be bothered by texts when I'm at work performing surgery. So you know what? You can choose to elect to have those texts and those notifications sent to you at a later time in the day. So all the notifications that normally would have happened throughout the day, you can choose
026to save that for the evening etc. What else? Um the best part about parent square is that you can reach out too. You can reach out to your uh teachers. So, for example, I have no idea. I have three boys and I have no idea who one of my son's PE teachers is. But that's okay because I don't have to know. All I have to do look on Parent Square. I can see the teacher on the app and then I can communicate with that teacher, say, "Hey, Mr. Wavsky, uh, my son had a concussion over the weekend. FYI, I already send in a doctor's note, but I just wanted to let you know and that's very helpful. Then the teacher receives that message instantaneously. They say, "Hey, no problem. Thank you for letting us know."
027So that's one of the best benefits that you have direct communication when you want to. Next slide, please. Nine times out of 10, most of the communications you're going to get are everyday communications, like posts. They're just informational posts. What's going on in the classroom? Tomorrow's freaky. Uh, what is Friday crazy hat day? Probably want to have a crazy hat, FYI, just to remind you, etc. Uh, but you can also engage with posts. Parents Square is a scalable tool. So, right now we're in the beginning phases of using it. We're just getting started, but pretty soon we can digitize a lot of things. We can digitize volunteer signups, uh, wish lists, forms, trip requests, uh, signing up, all those things. Those things that get lost in a backpack, those things can be sent digitally. So,
028that's something that we can scale up to. And here we have an example of an instant real-time chat. Again, those chats are automatically translated and it looks like a chat that you would have in a text except it's through parent square which is a safe environment where all of the information is encrypted. uh it's a safe uh avenue for communication. And again, like I said before, really going to want to change those notification settings. Those notification settings come at you, you know, fast and hard, and you're like, "Oh my god, I just got three messages for the same thing." Uh so, you really want to go in there and change it. You can choose text, you can choose email, or you can choose just an app notification. That's something that would just show up on
029your phone. And lastly, language settings. So maybe English is not your first language. Can go in there and change that application to be in your language. And Parent Square supports 180 languages. One of them has got to be you, right? If there are any problems, which there probably will be, uh, please the fastest way you can get that resolved to contact us via tech support at pcsdny.org or you can contact your building's main office. They'll get us to contact you. But the fastest way is absolutely through email because there's a bunch of us looking at that one email address. That's it. That's pretty much it for my uh quick overview. >> Thank you. >> Of course, just a couple of follow-ups. I think this is important. So, um over the last week, we've had some
030conversations and workshops around cell phones and the bans for cell phones in New York State. And one of the things that came up was about well then how am I going to get notification if my son or daughter doesn't have a phone god forbid there's an emergency nothing has changed if for some reason there is an emergency it now will go out through parent square with regards to something that may happening whether there's a power outage or some kind of a roadblocked or if any other you know event may happen that's how the communication piece will go out. Second, another question came up at the uh believe high school um orientation about sports because currently in sports students and parents are using sports UU. Um in my conversations u with Mr. Quonus and as well
031as our athletic director, Mr. Beluchcci, we are staying with um SportsU for now because we know that that gets out to both students after school and parents. As we further explore parent square and what those options may be for student communication, we'll look at that. But for the fall season, it will remain sportsu. Those are two questions from a communications point of view that came up over the last couple of weeks and I just wanted to clarify that with the public. Well, thank you. >> Other questions? more statements. Could you explain to the public about the um the exchange between parent and teacher say that not everybody's going to see that >> um >> right so when there's a direct message or there's a message those comments it's not like social media I guess that's
032the best way to say it is that it's not like social media so you know when you see a post on social media and you make a comment on it everybody sees your comments comment, right? That's not the way Parent Square works. You make a comment and only the person who sent that post or that notification sees that um that comment. Uh so if there's a question, only that user, the person who sent it, the sender sees it. So everything is somewhat confidential in that sense. Thank you so much, Chris. Okay, so on to our next uh item on the agenda. We have our agenda order and I'll turn it over to uh Laura to give us any additions, deletions, and changes. >> Great. Thank you so much. Um we have um a small addendum
033today. Uh we have um six items. One is a resignation um of a health aid and we have um five appointments. One is a special ed teacher. Uh one is a certified substitute teacher and substitute teaching assistant. Um we also have the appointment of a a mentor for the 202526 school year as well as the appointment of a health aid and additional summer days for one of our clerical employees. >> Great. So, uh, be resolved to approve the following additions, deletions, deletions, changes, and order of the agenda as presented. May I have a motion? Dr. Walsh. And a second, shall. And all in favor? I. Okay. On to item number 10. So, this is our first visitors comments. This uh is for agenda uh agenda items only. And Okay. And if you have visitor comments
034at the end of the meeting, we'll have another one uh where you can comment on anything and we ask that you just please sign up on the same paper that um Laura just went over to. Okay. And next up is board remarks. So at this time, does any board member have uh remarks this evening? just want I don't think I ever uh had a chance to uh thank the community for their support um just for voting me on the board and um it's been a real pleasure getting to know our administrative team and fellow board members and I'm just really excited to bring my knowledge and experience and work with all of you and I just wanted to publicly say thank you and uh it's been a great it's been a great run so far.
035The retreats have been very informative. Anony's been amazing with your communication and uh I'm just really excited to be a part of it. So, I just wanted to publicly say thank you. >> And anyone else want to share some remarks this evening. >> Um so then we're on to number 12 on the agenda, which is the board vice president comments. Dr. Walsh. >> Good evening everyone. Um, like Keith, I want to thank all of my fellow board members for their participation last week in our second retreat. So, we had four total days, two days in July and two days in August. Everybody gave up a lot of their own personal time both Tuesday and Wednesday. Um, I want to thank um, Kindred Creek Farm for hosting us. They have a beautiful facility and it was
036really nice to be somewhere other than the middle school library. Um, so we are very grateful to them. I want to thank Miss Rivas, Miss Feliciano, Dr. Sweeney, Miss Gleason, Miss Callen, and Mr. Titus, who all took time out of their schedules to share their work on MTSS. They answered our many questions and clearly put a lot of time and work both into their presentations and over the past year. Also, thank you to Mr. Kenyonus who came and presented Parent Square to us. Um, encourage all middle school and high school families to attend one of the meetings on the new cell phone policy if they have not already done so. I attended one last week and Miss Kellen and Mr. Titus did a really great job um sharing the policy with community members, parents and
037students. Everyone who was present had really thoughtful and valid and important questions. It's clear that our policy has been well thought out. Um and that that we're all in this together and that we know that there could be some changes as we move along, but I think it was really important to be there and to hear. Um if you can't attend, I know there's going to be information on the website. I believe the middle school meeting will be livereamed, but do your best to attend and make sure to get your questions answered. Last week, I was also able to attend the Tiger Club meeting. There were representatives from sports teams as well as the PTA and PTSA. Plans are in place for Tiger Fest, which will happen the first weekend in October to celebrate our
038sports teams and homecoming. I know the goal is to find ways to incorporate all three buildings. I think there are really long-term goals of making it bigger and better, but they have some really great ideas for this year. Thank you to everyone who is going to be contributing their time. Remember to please support the Tiger Club, the PTA, and the PTSA. They all do so much for our schools, and these are entirely volunteer-based organizations. You may have seen when you pulled in, but varsity sports practices officially kicked off today. You probably saw the field hockey team, the cross country team. I know football has been practicing. Um, the boys soccer team has a great turnout this year. Competition starts soon. Varsity soccer's home opener uh is next Tuesday at 4:30. Varsity tennis, volleyball, and field
039hockey are away all by the end of next week. We also have a lot of JV teams and the modified teams for middle school will begin next week as well. Make sure to keep checking that athletic calendar as it is very full and I'm sure there will be updates and changes. I hope everyone has a great um ending to their summer and a great start to the school year, but we will see you next week again before school starts. >> Thank you, Dr. Walsh. And that leads us to lucky item number 13 which is uh superintendent's comments. So Mr. D Carlo, >> thank you president. Um so a couple of things and it's been uh I want to thank the board for their insights and thoughts um on a retreat from last week. I will
040tell you the uh administrators um are so excited about the the work that we have ahead of us and the collaboration and working together. So from myself and from all the administrators, we thank you for listening and supporting uh us in the efforts as we move forward with MTSS. As was just mentioned, we start school next week on uh Wednesday, September 3rd. In order to schools for open, in order for schools to open, I have to take this opportunity to thank all of our secretaries, our custodial staff, um everybody who's behind the scenes sometimes who goes unrecognized in central office in the building. It's interesting because people think, well, it's a summer. It's actually ramping up. It's probably one of the most important and um invigorating and uh a lot of work to get schools
041open. So, I want to thank my administrative team for all their their help and support, building principles, and again all secretaries, custodians, facilities workers uh as we get ready to open our schools um next week. Just a quick little note and um I know Gary is in the audience, but um you know I I know you'll see in a couple of buildings some work that is still being done um with regards to our phases and the bond work. Um not everything will be complete. A lot of that will be done that's not complete during second shift. It will in no way um interfere with the flow of traffic whether it's with buses or whether it's um you know uh traffic with uh cars. All going to be good. We're going to be ready to go.
042But there'll be a lot of second shift work at night that you will not actually see or interfere with the day-to-day oper operations of the building. Transportation information and bus routes have gone out. If you have not gotten them, please make sure to please contact the transportation department. On that note, I have gotten, you know, being a new superintendent, you know, you get a lot of inquiry about things. I've gotten a lot of inquiry about the woods development on Route 22. And um I do have a meeting coming up. Um I'm going to try to see what I can do, but I need the public to understand this. It is not a school district issue. This is a town issue as it is a private road. We are not allowed to go on private roads
043because of insurance and and indemnity issues. We can't. I am trying to open up, you know, with the um the town supervisor to see if there is anything we can do. With that being said, there are a lot of parents that get upset because they're getting ticketed because it's not just the lane that the bus is at, it's the opposite lane. If you're coming down and you're going south and if you pass that bus while the lights are on, people are getting ticketed. Just please be cognizant of it. Again, we're going to try to see what if anything we can do. I did reach out. Um I'm going to see if we can do something. Again, it is a not a school district issue and I just want to make sure that we clarify that.
044You know, the bus where it stops, it's safe. The way that the bus stops, the kids are not exposed to any cars or any traffic. It is safe in that manner. But as we know, it does bring a lot of questions in regards to the stop itself. But I try to explain to everybody the why behind what's happening with the transportation. Our portal day last week on August 19th went very well. Um I think students um especially in the high school or could have been up and out and about and on vacation and they got up early some cases 4 4:30 in the morning to check to see their schedule. Um and it seemed to work really well. Hopefully this will become an annual tradition that we have polling portal day every year on a
045and on an assigned day that everybody can go on and take a look at their schedule. um and teachers um I talked to you about um sports you that's an important aspect of thing quick update what I will try to do to the best of my ability when there is a question that gets brought up by um an audience member a parent or a community member um either you know the week before I will try to the best of my ability to give an update in this situation I'm giving an update on UPK I can only go certain lengths because as As you're aware, we cannot get into contractual obligations the same way we can't get in and talk about um teachers and and issues when it comes to that. Um however, I did reach
046out to UPK. I had a conversation with both um the director um of the program and the owner. I explained some of the wanderings that I had had um you know, with regards to what had taken place over the course of the end of last year. um we were able to add some additional time to the school day. Uh I know that it may not be happy for all. Um but um we're able to um do some of that. So um we're trying the best that we can. I do and I clearly understand that I learned a lot in regards to this which will help me in in looking at programs in the future and what that looks like and how that operates. Um, but I just wanted to share that that update um with
047the uh community and the board of education as to where we're at. Um, as just was mentioned, we're getting ready for schools to open next week. I was outside today introducing myself to the coaches, to the sports teams. A lot of energy and excitement that's out there. The beginning of every season is a new beginning. So, um, look forward to welcoming students back. Uh, and staff. As you know, next Tuesday we have our superintendent's conference day where I'll be meeting the staffs of all the buildings. Um, and then we'll welcome students back on Wednesday. Just a couple of notes. Everybody be patient. The first couple of days, you know, the buses may not run exactly the way they'll run after a week or two. Their parents taking photos and pictures and so we have to
048be a little bit patient. Usually after that first week to week and a half, things get to be stabilized and we move forward from there. So, uh, I thank you for the update and look forward to a great 2526 school year. Thank you so much. Okay. And that brings us to item number 14, which is the consent agenda. So, reminder, the items with an asterct are items the superintendent recommends for the consent agenda. If any board member wishes to remove an item from the consent agenda, please do so at this time. A consent agenda is one vote which approves all asterct items which have not previously been removed. So would anyone like to remove an item from the consent agenda? So with that said be resolved that the board of education approves all aspect items
049as the consent agenda. May I have a motion Liz? And a second Keith and all in favor I. That's everybody. Now to item number 15 on the agenda. We have our minutes um from our last August 12th meeting. So I'll read it. It says, "Be it resolved that the board of education approve the minutes of the following meetings." Again, reminder, this is the August 12th, 2025 business meeting. Uh may I have a motion? Dr. Walsh. And a second Shell. And all in favor? I And any abstensions? Keith and thank you for that, Keith. Okay, and now the flipping. So that leads us to item 20, I believe, if I'm reading right down to the unfinished business, which we have two items, which first is the superintendent search status update. So, uh, lot to share here.
050I wrote it out this time to make sure I didn't miss anything. And please, if anybody up here, if I don't cover it fully or you want to add anything or anything at all, please feel free at the end to, uh, to comment. So, uh, with our superintendent search, I'd like to take a moment to update the community on the progress the board has made in our superintendent search. As I shared at our last board of education meeting on August 12th, we issued an RFP, which is short for request for proposal for superintendent search services, which was due on August 8th. We received eight proposals along with information from our local Duchess Boseies about the services they provide. Members of the board carefully analyzed these proposals for various factors including cost, timelines, geography, and more.
051From this process, we selected four firms to move forward to the interview stage. In addition, this evening, we began by meeting with Duchess Boseies to learn more about their approach and the superintendent search service they offer as well. The interviews will continue on September 9th, 12th, and 16th where the board will meet in person and virtually with the four search firms that I referenced before. The September 9th and 12th meetings will be special meetings held specifically for these interviews. So, when you see these pop up on the calendar, please note that they are specifically for superintendent search firm interviews. These sessions allow us to ask questions, gather more detail from their proposals, and understand how each firm would guide a search specifically here in Pauling. We are fortunate to have both local and national firms
052expressing interest, and we are confident this process will help us select the best partner to meet the needs of our schools and community. At this time, our goal is to identify and approve a search firm by the conclusion of our September 16th board of education meeting. That's not next meeting. That's the meeting after. We look forward to engaging our stakeholders throughout this process and we will continue to keep the community informed with updates along the way. Anybody want to I spent a lot of time on it today. So if anybody wanted to add something, it would have been No. Thank you. >> Okay. Um so that's that. And then our next unfinished business uh is an audit committee member acknowledgement. So I'll turn that over to uh Dr. Walsh. Um, at our last meeting, we
053uh appointed our community members to the audit committee, and there was just one member that we were holding off on to make sure we had the right information. So, um, Tracy Anderson served on our audit committee this past year. She did a wonderful job. Um, but she has been appointed as a district employee, which is great news for our district, but she will then no longer be allowed to be on our committee, so she will be respectfully um, resigning, and we'll be happy to have her back if her plans change, but we just wanted to make sure we had that clarified. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any other unfinished business that anybody could think of other than those two items listed down? Cool. So, that leads us to number 21, which is new business.
054Anybody have any new business this evening? I know there was one thing Keith, do you want to bring up? I wasn't here last meeting, but I I appreciated the uh public comments that were given, especially about the the prek program. So, my thought is I know it's difficult for some people to come up publicly and speak. Uh so, I was wondering if we could discuss. I know we have a timeline for people. I believe it's 3 minutes. Is that something we would be willing as a board to discuss maybe increasing that time just to take the pressure off people where if they have I know the last meeting there was a lot to be said and sometimes there's a little bit of pressure about getting that all those comments in in a threeminut time period
055so I was just throwing it out there to something for us to maybe discuss in the future. >> Yeah I'll I'll start. I mean, um, right now we have policy, uh, 12:30, which is public participation at board meetings. I hope I'm getting that number right. I'm pretty sure that's it. But, um, so it's in that policy. So, um, I would not I would also be in favor of looking at that policy where it's stage three minutes and maybe looking at some additional time um, as well. Like you said, I think it's very tough for somebody to get up there. Um, I think time goes quick and I think especially last week we learned somebody has something to offer that's positive for us to reflect on and superintendent to look into. Um, so giving them ample
056time to be able to share their concerns and all that. I I don't think looking at additional time is uh is a bad thing. >> I certainly I understand what you're saying and I I love the idea. I ju I just want to be really thoughtful in what that would look like because sometimes we have very packed meetings and some people get very passionate and I think a lot of time can also leave I don't know the community us like really vulnerable to a lot that somebody might share. So I just think just think it's think we just helpful. >> That's a great point too and and also in the policy it states that there's a collective time of 30 minutes. So technically only 10 people could speak for 3 minutes each to get to
057that. So that's another part of the policy that could also be worked or rewarded or all that if if a discussion uh if people wanted to have a a future discussion about this too. So that's also a great point. I also think you're not thinking like 10 minutes. You're thinking maybe add another minute or I just don't want the time to hinder the person that's getting up to speak. said, "I'd like to come up to I don't know if I can get this in in three minutes and then we're we're actually losing information that be valuable because that information that was shared at the last meeting was extremely important to hear." So, I just I know there's a balance. I just thought it would something that we could discuss further. For transparency, too, I think
058the last meeting I felt terrible doing it, but obviously we have the policy. I believe I cut the speaker off at 3 minutes and 20 seconds. So I understand it goes quick, right? It's um it's definitely true and there is that balance. You know, we don't want 10 minute soap box. That's not what that's for. But I think it's worth discussing maybe a minute. I mean, we say it all the time. We want people to come up and speak and share. There's a minute. I mean, I know it doesn't seem like much, but I think the act is is um altruistic and I think it supports what we believe in is we want to hear from our community. So, I thank you a lot for bringing up that. Uh, >> I think it would be
059great for the policy committee to visit. And I think also maybe looking, you know, at what other districts are doing. I think 3 minutes is pretty typical, but I'm sure there's somebody who has something different. So, maybe seeing what somebody else has that's different that still maybe kind of addresses some of the stuff that Liz said um, you know, would be worthwhile to to pursue. For sure. >> Thank Keith for actually bringing that up. I I mean, as someone who stood up at that podium, you know, it gets it's scary up there and 3 minutes does go so quickly. Um so when you really have something to say, I really think we should look at maybe five minutes um time limit for something people have to say. So something I thought of too is is
060going to four minute or you know a slight additional time. It it gives everybody 11 playing field level playing field, right? So if somebody's saying something that we want to hear more on, we're not extending their time, but then somebody else comes up and we're like, no, you three. So I think that also levels the playing field where, hey, there's a little more time for whatever you want to say. And four minutes is still I mean people are taking time out of their evening um just like we are to to come to a meeting and speak and it's obviously something they wish to share. And um you know, as long as we continue with our strong guidelines and keep it productive and and worthwhile, I think it's definitely worth looking at. So maybe we can
061just jot this down as a um when policy committee meets for the first time next month, maybe this could be one of the policies. Cool. And any other new business? I had a question um about presentations. Do you think maybe next meeting or as far presentation schedule for for the year finalized or >> I can get it. See the mostly it is. Yes. So the next meeting the presentation will be on special education that will be um Tara Moffett the attorney and our director of special education >> but I will I will give you a finalized copy. Yeah. >> Okay. Cool. >> Welcome. Okay. And anybody else for new business? That's right. So now we're on to item 22 on the agenda, which is the second visitor's comments pertaining to the district. So again, for
062now, it's three minutes per person. And I will read Yes. And I'll read some comments before we invite uh our speaker up. So this is per our policy, too, if anybody's wonder where I get this from. So, we welcome visitor comments on agenda, sorry, on uh any district items at this time. When speaking, please state your name and address and identify the organization you represent, if any. Individual comments are limited to 3 minutes to ensure that all interested visitors have an opportunity to speak. And as a visitor, please address your comments to the board president. Comments will not include profanity or discussion of individual district personnel, students, or individual by name. The board will listen to all visitor comments, but will not respond. The superintendent may respond um require the question in writing or invite
063the speaker to meet at a later date. And the board president reserves the right to end a visitor's time if these rules are violated. So with that said, um and please correct me if I say your name wrong. Um Emma Dehan would like to come up and speak. Hi. Um, I'm Emma Dehan. I live at 6 Petro Lane in Pauling. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Um, I'm here with my husband just to speak to the board about our experience with the class placement process at Pauling Elementary School. um and voices serious concern about how that placement process um is affecting our daughter daughter's emotional well-being and what we feel is her access to a safe and supportive learning environment. Um in kindergarten she was placed in an ICT classroom that was only
064confirmed to us after the school year ended. During that year this class structure caused her ongoing emotional distress. This was compounded by one classmate whose negative interactions escalated to physical threats by the end of the school year. And despite our best efforts to address the issue at the time, the experience has left a lasting impact on both her and our family. In first grade, she was placed in a different classroom setting and away from that particular classmate and began to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically. Her academic records and teacher feedback reflect as much. When second grade class assignments were recently released, we discovered two things that immedi immediately raised red flags for us. First, that she would again be placed in an IT ICT classroom. I was unable to locate this information anywhere across district
065websites, the parent portal, or in the parent square communication app. It feel it felt like an intentional emission, and as a parent, having a school withhold critical information about your child's placement feels grossly unfair. We only became aware of this via a semi-public Facebook page. And finding this out through a forum like that felt like a breach of trust that we've placed with our children with the Pauling School District. Our second concern was that she would be placed in the same class as with the same student that we raised concerns about in kindergarten. When we brought these concerns to the administration, we were immediately immediately told that our request for a classroom change was, and I quote, rejected. We then took it upon ourselves to meet in person. ultimately escalating the issue to the district
066office to more fully cons explain our concerns and we are still awaiting a definitive resolution. I want to be clear that this is not specifically about a preference for a certain teacher or even a class structure. Our main goal is to protect our daughter's right to feel safe and supported at school. Something we believe is not being upheld in this case. As I found, according to the district's code of conduct in section 5300.15 on student rights, all students have the right to be protected from intimidation, harassment, bullying, or discrimination by students on school property. How can this right be honored if our daughter is placed in a classroom with the very student who has previously com caused her harm and threatened her with future harm? Further, the handbook states that administrators are expected to maintain
067and encourage a climate of mutual respect and dignity for all students and and ensure the safety of the student against whom harassment, bullying, or discrimination has been directed. Right now, we believe our daughter is not being afforded these protections. She deserves a school experience that is free from fear and emotional distress, and as parents, we don't feel her well-being has been fairly considered to this point. I respectfully ask the board to enter this feedback into the public record and encourage the district to re-evaluate how class placement concerns are addressed so that all students and families in the future feel heard, protected, and supported. Thank you, >> Mr. President. I can speak to it, please, as it needs to be up, you know, an update on it. So, indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Dehan um spoke with
068me on Friday about their concerns that they just shared. Now this morning I met with both the de hands because they've have a lot of information that I'm not aware of. Right. This happened and they were in kindergarten. We had a lengthy conversation with regards to it. I don't want anybody to think that didn't follow up. I did. Um I got some insights from them. But there's a couple things that we really need to be clear about. Okay. Um when you are in a small little district and we start mentioning about students, everybody then knows who that student is and and what h what winds up happening is this. Kids develop and mature. This happened in kindergarten. Okay? And yes, probably the student in kindergarten was at a specific level, but things change from year
069to year. We have to be cognizant of a couple of things. And I'm and I want everybody to be clear. I will make a decision involving this, but the decision will be made on the information that I've been given because yes, Mrs. Dian spoke to you about some things that happened. I subsequently in turn spent a lot of time to the audience and everybody else doing some research, asking where the information was, asking about emails, asking about things are brought forward. So, I don't want anybody to think that I haven't spent time looking at it and dealing with it because I am. And their situation is different because here's what could happen being in my seat, right? Oh my god. They come up, they complain to Mr. D. Carlo and now everybody's going to complain.
070We'll never have an ICT class here in polling again. An ICT class, you should not know if it is a general ed or special ed. You shouldn't know. Obviously back two years ago there probably were some issues in that class to be honest and some of you around the table know that and I think a lot of parents understood that and as a result of that there were some changes. We now in that classroom had a special ed teacher that wasn't even there the entire time. She was there half the time. Our new model is that the special education teacher will be there the entire time with the classroom teacher. When a parent has brought this concern up, my advice has been, please, like everything else with the chain of command board, please have a
071sit down and get an understanding with the teacher, with the special education teacher, with the principal, and any support staff that there may be to really get a better understanding of what may happen. We are in a small little school district. Every child, eight of four, at least once, is going to have to be in an ICT class. I submit to you the same thing is going to happen in middle school, five, sixth, seven, eighth grade. The likelihood is one of those years you're going to be in an ICT class. And a true ICT class, right, if it is done the way it should be, actually is a great experience because when those students who have to go out sometimes for support, whether it's speech and language, whether it's OTP tier, there's actually less kids
072in this classroom and there's more one-to-one instruction. An ICT class is like every other class. It has students at grade level, students above grade level, and some below. And it usually is a 5050 mixture. I've come to understand it wasn't that way in kindergarten or for for the DN's child back in kindergarten. Now, it's the level playing field. So, there's a lot that goes into this. But and I want to be clear. I did respond this afternoon and said to to the deans that I will have a resolution for them tomorrow. But now people are going to think, "Oh my god, the deans got up. They made the statement and now Darl is going to change his mind. Let's everybody come up and make a statement about that." So I'm letting everybody know my decision
073will be based on what information I've gathered. But no matter what decision I make, it has nothing to do with Mrs. Deian getting up here tonight and speaking. I want to be clear about that. Okay. The other thing, everybody's situation is different. Because I may have to move a child out of a classroom does not mean it automatically happens to everybody else because there are situations that are unique and I have to do my homework. But I am going to share the following to every parent. When something happens that upsets your child, whether it be bullying or something else, we need to have it reported and codified when it happens in an email, in a conf in a in a meeting or a discussion because then it's memorialized and then sometimes it makes things easier,
074right? And we get it. Things happen. Sometimes happens with adults. I was a middle school principal at another school district and over the summer a number of adults on a on a street had issues with adults, right? So I had a basically in August switch some of the kids around because of what happened, right? Things happen, right? Sometimes things happen with kids. We need to know. We always want to do what's best for students. But it can't be cart blanch because a child is put in an ICT class and now all of a sudden I don't want my child in there because they're not going to get the proper education. That's just we can't do that. But we'll look at situations and if we have to do certain things, we will. But I I I
075I would be remissant if I didn't give the board and the public an overview of where we're at because that's an important there's a lot that goes into what has happened and what took place and I want to be clear about that. Okay. So, thank you. I know I was way over 3 minutes, but I think it's important for clarification's sake. Um, and I do respect the deans for coming in having a conversation with me. Um, and like I said, when I when I first spoke with them on Friday, I wanted them to come in because it was obvious that was much more to the story. And I did spend time with meeting with them today. They provided me with some additional information and I know I'll make a decision on what I think is
076is best moving forward. >> Thank you, Mr. Thank you for coming to speak tonight. I want to make sure I say that, too. Um, uh, I know it's nerve-wracking, as we said before, in I think it was 3 minutes and 27 seconds, so it's a note for the policy and all that. But thank you for coming tonight and speaking and, um, thank you for your for your response, Mr. Carlo, too. And, and that's all we can do, right? We can have conversations and we can make sure that that we're heard and and and um and all that. So, I I thank you for that. Um, with that said, that's all that's signed up on the uh Can I just say one thing? >> Yeah, you definitely can. >> Um, I just want to say as
077Mr. D. Carlo was saying that, you know, these classrooms are very important and they're a very safe place. Um, and they should run smoothly and you should never know that your child's in one because they everyone has the support they need. Um, if you find whether you know you're in the classroom or any parents in the classroom and you find that you're not getting that experience, that's when we really want you to come and let us, you know, you know, after you went through the chain of command, you know, that you're not getting the experience that you need because we don't want people and children especially walking away traumatized or scared of, you know, um, an experience they had. All our children deserve a safe place and a good experience. And after you speak to
078the teacher and the principal and the superintendent, you know, if you need to come to us afterwards, please do because we want to make sure that these classrooms are a safe place for everybody. >> Thanks, Michelle. And um okay, so uh the last item here and then we're going to make an uh make a motion to go back into exec after this with no action being taken, but uh is board president comments. So, I'll do my comments really quick and then we'll make a motion to go back into exec if that's okay with everybody and then we'll come out and adjourn the meeting. Okay. Um, so my board president comments are going to be like I said very quick. Dr. Walsh and Mr. D. Carlo covered a lot of them in their comments. Um, we
079had multiple retreat days over the summer and Dr. Walsh said thank you to all the people that need to be thanked and Mr. D. Carlo acknowledged all the people over the summer that worked so hard that even I as a board member previous to this year in my new role didn't even see the extent of the work being done. Um and it's given me a real appreciation for all these people that um you know the summertime they're getting ready to have a great school year for this year. Um and so the kids can come in day one and hit the ground running. So thank you to all those people um that are doing everything dayto-day over the summertime to make the school year great. Um, in addition, just a couple of dates that I wanted
080to point out and that are coming up this week. So, tomorrow, August 26, we have our PTA playtime and popsicles at uh Pauling Elementary School. Uh, I haven't looked at the weather, but the rain date is the 28th. So, hopefully another beautiful day hopefully. Um, and that's at 5:30 p.m. So, PTA playtime popsicles 5:30 p.m. tomorrow. Uh, in addition, we also have our cell phone policy town hall meeting for families of elementary school students at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, which is really right after the playtime and popsicles. Okay. Um, we have more coming down the pipeline as far as elementary school parents and related to cell phone. Obviously, cell phones were not allowed at the elementary school, but there's other initiatives if you've been paying attention to the meetings that we are going to kind of
081start talking about and looking into, that's not as time-sensitive as perhaps getting the rest of the stuff ready for day one of school, but um so if you're thinking, why do I need to attend that cell phone meeting? Uh my kid is in first grade. I I think it would be great. I think it'd be really informative and lead to things to come that uh I think a lot of people would support. Uh, in addition, on uh Wednesday, August 27th, we have our cell phone policy town hall meeting for families of middle school students, and that's at 5:00 p. p.m. right here at the middle school. Uh, on the 28th, we have a cell phone policy town hall meeting for families of high school students at 10:00 a.m. Dr. Walsh mentioned she went to the
082one in the evening last week. Uh, and this one is for uh is at 10:00 a.m. for anybody that can make it. Then next week, we have another board meeting on the 2nd. And then our first day of school is the 3rd. So, it's going to go quick. summer is fastly ending, quickly ending, but um I can tell you that the work that I've seen firsthand, uh we are ready to welcome students on day one and have uh an amazing year. So, uh with that said, those are my comments this evening. Um and again, uh we are going to go back into exec. So, I'm going to make a motion sorry, uh read that. So, um I'm glad make a motion to go back into executive session and no action will be taken. Uh, may
083I have a motion, Keith? And then may I have a second, Michelle? And all in favor? I. Thank you so much. and we'll be back to close the meeting. Okay. So in the future if wh sorry in the future if we want to amend the agenda to include an executive session we have to make a motion to amend the agenda to include something like that and then u make a motion to adopt the amended agenda. So we'll do that before you know before adjouring is my understanding. Um, so I'll reconvene to open and then we'll discuss those >> and then I'll give you this language to to read if that's okay. Okay. >> Okay. Great. >> Um, and I think I forgot the time too when we did that. But anyways, well, I got it.
084I got it. >> Um, okay. So, uh, reconvene to open session be resolved that the board of education reconvene to open session. The time is >> 8:18 p.m. >> 8:18. May I have a motion? >> Uh, Jen and a second shell. And all in favor? >> I. That's everybody. Okay. >> Thank you. Sorry about this. >> No problem. >> Oh, my handwriting is terrible. >> No, this >> Sorry. >> 13 years of eighth grade. Did you read anything? >> Um, okay. So, um, be it resolved that the board of education makes an amendment to the agenda of the August 25th board meeting to add in executive session. Uh, may I have a motion, Liz? and a second Keith and all in favor of that. I that's everybody. And then lastly, uh be resolved that the
085board of education adopts the August 25th, 2025 board meeting as amended. Uh I'll make a motion for that. Can I have a second? Uh Jen. And all in favor? I. >> Thank you so much. >> Okay. Thank you. So now that should lead us to closing the meeting. So get back on to our Okay. So adjourning meeting. So be resolved that the board of education adjourn this meeting. The time is >> 8:20 p.m. >> May I have a motion, Liz? And a second, Keith. All in favor? I. Thank you. And have a good night everybody.