001okay okay right so very happy to welcome everybody to the pelum uh Board of Education meeting of J January 17th 2024 please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Music] all and I'll ask Mr Row for a reiteration of the executive session motions uh we entered executive session for the purpose of discussing collective bargaining negotiations okay um by way of opening remarks I just want to welcome everybody thank you for coming on this icy evening I think we could have almost offered an enrichment program in ice skating or something the way things are around here um we have an exciting evening focused on education and pelum providing
002an excellent education for every student in pelum is the top priority for this board and has been one of my most important goals as board president so we are very excited to welcome our student Honore tonight uh Vincent CNO and in a few moments Dr champ will speak to his accomplishments and hard work also the board continues our focus on education and high academic achievement for every student by inviting Mr burkowitz to provide an update on his vision for pel Memorial High School um Dr champ will also present a midyear report on the state of the district and progress toward board goals um as part of fulfilling the educational vision for pelum and providing the best possible education for every student the board has interviewed and engaged Consultants uh Dr Monica Brown and Prem ital
003from the educational consulting firm of Hazard and young to Begin work on our next 5year strategic plan which we're very excited about um and from having met them I just want to say I have very positive feelings I think we're going to get a great plan out of this process um so with input from the board and the administrative team um over the next weeks they will Begin work on surveys and focus groups uh to put start putting together the fiveyear Strategic plan the board is also proud to support the Performing Arts in pelum and we'll be voting tonight to wave all facility fees which I believe comes up to several thousand uh for the New York State School Music Association Festival that will be hosted in pelum this year and this is an excellent
004opportunity for pelum students to showcase the results of their many hours of rehearsals and hard workor uh the board is also proud to support student athletes at all levels and tonight we will be voting on a winter coaching appointments to support the athletic program finally I know we're all deeply committed to providing an appropriate education for all students and special education programs and we'll be voting to approve funding for services as recommended by the committee on special education um also tonight uh we are committed to hearing from the public from parents and listening and we will have an opportunity for mayor Mullen and community members to speak about the proposed storm water uh pumping station and G uh tank at Julianne's playground I know I understand Mr burkowitz and Dr champ have graciously said that
005they will move their presentations back um so that the community can share their share their voices and uh the board could not complete our work without the dedicated service of our district clerk Pauline Davies Pauline we want to thank you for your hard work and which wish you much success and happiness in your future endeavors and we're also happy to welcome Valerie Miller you have big shoes to fill but we're have a lot of confidence in you and look forward to working with you somebody do some yes like to just take a few minutes of before uh before we move ahead just to say uh really thanks to Pauline I know she was disappointed when she found out this whole crowd was not here to honor her but um Pauline has been a wonderful um
006really support to me as assistant to the superintendent uh Secretary of the superintendent in addition to clerk for the board um Pauline came in at just the right time we had had a a clerk in the district for 22 years so a long-standing veteran and then we had a couple years someone came new to the district brought some great energy um and then came uh Pauline who had the experience that we really really needed um and was looking to step into from a part-time role as a district clerk into a full-time role and to really bring um some Excellence to that office Pauline has single-handedly shifted us into the 21st century on voting um we went from Punch Cards uh way back in the day to a fully automated system it used to be boxes
007and boxes and boxes and bins and I think a box truck to get the materials there now it literally all fits in one bin that she can carry there um so and to do that in a way that um was seamless integrated gradual and very thoughtful was really highlights the the talents that she has um Pauline is there start to finish day in day out of each and every day um and she could not be uh just a better partner for me so she is I'm going to be sorely missed um couple of things that I love about her she's Canadian so she is so nice I know that's a generalization but it is 100% true um she just brought some great uh great spirit and kindness to the office she's been a great leader
008in the office um and she manages to keep me uh keep keep me uh going in the right direction um so I just want to publicly thank you Pauline and wish you all the best um and thankfully she's not going too far away uh she's going to be helping us to transition uh Valerie who were stealing from the high school um so nice to be able to move somebody internally up in the district to uh to fill her her big shoes but just a little little bit of a gift from me to Pauline and I know the board has some things to say [Applause] too again i' invite if anybody would like to say a few words about Paul Pauline I just want to say that your dedication as district clerk has made a lasting
009impact and you will be greatly missed by this board um and thank you for showing us the ropes and for keeping this board running smoothly and keeping us in line thank you so much Pauline I was just telling the group in executive session that when I first joined the board I was like I was um very intimidated by Pauline and I don't you know I don't intimidate very easily because you kept us in check you were like you need to sign up for this class you need to be here at this time and thank God for that because we're able to follow all those advice and like you know timelines you set for us and I really do um appreciate everything you did cuz it made the transition very easy thank [Music] you Pauline I
010know I've only been here a few months but you've been super supportive this transition isn't easy there's a lot to learn a lot of training and other things to do so I really am very grateful to you for always answering all my questions and signing me up for trainings Etc and things that I needed so I wish you all the best thank you and I agree with that all awesome I mean we all do I mean thank you Pauline from the moment I even first uh was considering running for Board of election uh you were one of the first people I interacted with and your level of organization and Clarity of steps and purpose like wow if this is if this is indicative of how the district is running I I'd love to be a
011part of it so thank you for living up to that initial expectation and being on the board it it's a Well oiled machine um but there's a lot of complexity underneath the surface and you make it look very easy and you'll be solely missed yeah and I think I know I can always count on you to be on top of our policies all the updates and definitely reading the election results last year I knew had confidence CU everything ran smoothly and by the book so thank you so much for your dedication and many late nights so as one final uh celebration here I'd like to read a resolution into the record and it's handy to have the deputy clerk in the office right next to you and when you're distracted Pauline you might recognize some
012of the paper and the things in here um so resolution whereas the board of uh the pelum Board of Education recognizes Miss Pauline Davies District Clerk and secretary to the superintendent from 2020 to 2024 for her four years serving the district as Clerk and secretary to the superintendent and whereas Miss Davies assumed her position during a transitional time for the district and immediately provided stability and expertise and whereas Miss Davies skillfully provided support and professionalism in her role as secretary to the superintendent providing leadership and helping to keep the central office running smoothly and whereas Miss Daisy Miss Davies administered three successful budget votes and Schoolboard elections during her time in pelum helping transition the district fully to a modern computer-based voting record system and whereas Miss Davy's meticulous organizational skills were instrumental in helping
013the district offices relocate to the sandborn map building whereas Miss Davies has presided over countless hours of board meeted education meetings taking detailed minutes and spending an enormous amount of time preparing for these meetings supporting the board as a whole and being a part of the policy committee and whereas Miss Davies is renowned for making highly complex tasks look effortless and whereas Miss Davies provided patient guidance to new board members during their onboarding ensuring a smooth transition into their roles as trustees and was always available to answer questions and whereas Miss Davies can do can do attitude sense of humor and abundance of cat photos have been tremendous assets to the district office culture and therefore be it resolved that the board of education on behalf of the students administrators teachers and pelum residents hereby
014express its gratitude to miss da Davies and although her professionalism humor and expertise will be sorely missed we wish her the best of luck in her next chapter building new memories in her new home competing in her favorite sport curling and enjoying lots of Southern [Applause] sunshine okay 3.1 all right and we're gonna vote on this uh sweared Valerie do we need to yes we already appointed her last time okay so this is just swearing her all right okay so now we'll move ahead and swear and Valerie me exhausted so now I will transition uh to Valerie and she'll do the oath of office I just read it I Valerie Miller do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New York and that
015I will Faithfully discharge the duties of district clerk of the pelum Union Free School District according to the best of my [Applause] ability okay and next we have a student recognition so uh each year we are honored to be invited as a district to submit applications for the US Presidential Scholars Program uh and generally for us that invitation has come through our local assembly woman Amy Polland um and pel Public Schools is thrilled to announce for the second time in a row that a pel Memorial High School student has been selected as just one of 25 New York State High School seniors to be nominated for this program I'd like toite invite that student up at this point in time um and that student is Vincent [Applause] [Music] CNO we could not be more proud
016of in and just want to share a little bit about him and Mr burwitz of course is here to celebrate along with him um the US Presidential Scholars uh program is one of the nation's the nation's highest honors for high school students and Vincent's nomination as I said marks the second time in the past three years at a pel Memorial High School student has been nominated um these White House Commission on presidential Scholars select Scholars annually based on their academic success artistic Excellence essays school evaluations and transcripts as well as evidence of community service leadership and demonstrated commitment to high ideals which fits in so well uh with uh the the values of our High School uh Vincent has excelled as a student at pel Memorial High School and get ready for the list here
017he is a member of the the National Honor Society the national math Honor Society the English Honor Society social studies Honor Society and science Honor Society in which he serves as Treasurer he is also a member of the varsity baseball and football teams and has participated in various extracurricular activities including Habitat for Humanity the stock market Club breast cancer awareness awareness Club senior pen pals Club the fight ALS club and the pelic Civic engagement Club he's also co-founder and co-president of the sports fan club which sounds like a lot of fun to be part of um we could not be more proud of Vincent the work that he has done already as a high school student is just incredible I think it it it overshadows I think what most of us think that we've accomplished
018in three times the length of life um but Vincent is you you really everything that you exemplify is uh who pel Memorial High School and the pelum public schools really hope all students emulate so thank you so much for your leadership and congratulations on your award [Applause] [Music] [Applause] do we want to get okay okay I can go check think they know they're working on it glass sometimes still work still recording internally um who want to keep going it'll be posted after um we can pause to a call I think we just keep going up this morning okay you're okay it's being recorded being recorded okay so yeah I just we're we're having a live stream live stream technical difficulties but the show must go on and uh everything's being recorded so um we're going
019to move forward again thank you to Mr burwitz who volunteered to move his presentation back so that we could go forward to um hearing from parents community members and mayor Mullen so we'll invite mayor Mullen to give his presentation thank you um and thank you specifically for uh the opportunity to discuss this publicly uh right now we're finalizing the conceptual designs we're trying to do that transparently um when we held our flood medication town halls in October most of the trustees were hearing the engineers analysis at the same time as the public uh but what we didn't want to do as a board uh was come up with a plan and then run around trying to sell it often times when people only see the final decision they don't trust it uh and they wonder
020why other decisions weren't made so we want people to know everything we know uh see exactly uh how difficult these decisions are why it costs what it does and why it can't be done by next summer so thank you for that uh I am joined here uh by the the village of pelum Trustees Deputy Mayor Mike Carpenter uh trustee Hanan alari trustee Russell Solomon uh also uh Village administrator Chris scelza and The Village's engineer who is also pelum manners engineer by the way Anthony ol from AI Engineers Dolph rockfeld division as you know I'm I'm chance Mullen I'm the mayor in the village of pum before I uh go into the slides uh right now we are primarily focused on the main arteries of the system that all the other lines feed into after we
021finalize the conceptual plans we'll apply for Grants we engaged a grant writing firm in June and we'll start to do the things that you can't really do unless you're ready to move forward they're just too expensive geotechnical surveys some additional analysis on the smaller lines construction drawings bid documents that sort of thing uh and then of course the actual construction we're 18 months into a multi-year process we're trying to keep the thing moving out of respect for those uh getting impacted by flooding uh right now we're on pause uh until we get a commitment from you on the easement I'm not saying that to jam you up uh and I'm not trying to force an answer from you that you're not comfortable with I'm saying it because it's true so uh I just ask that
022you keep it in mind one last thing to say I was told I should make a presentation somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes that would be followed by a Q&A with you I've spent the last few weeks uh condensing this project uh down to just seven slides I was feeling very good about myself uh and then last night when I was on the train coming home from work you sent me 19 questions so I'm still feeling okay about myself uh but I've Incorporated answers to your questions into the presentation my one request uh to all of you is to please let me get through the seven slides everything that's in here is information you need to know to make a good decision uh and then we can go back and answer anything I missed sound
023good excellent uh so a lot of you are probably not going to see this um but uh let's start why are we here when we talk about flooding what we're talking about is a public health and safety issue one that our First Responders see firsthand severe storms pose more risk to our residents lives and personal property than almost any other thing that happens in our community when flooding occur nearly every village department is dispatched to protect our residents rescuing people from their homes and vehicles redirecting traffic or jumping in to help when schools need to be evacuated in the middle of a downpour in one of the most recent storms our Village Hall office employees ran out into the road themselves to direct traffic and keep Pico employees from getting on the parkway this crisis
024has become significantly worse in recent years in fact the village is purchasing a boat right now so that emergency services can still be delivered in in areas that cannot be accessed by vehicle the ongoing damage to private homes and businesses is placing far too great a burden on far too many people and now that Westchester homeowners will be required to disclose a property's flood history when selling to a new owner property values that make up our shared tax base are likely to suffer as well shifting tax burdens onto those whose homes don't flood and preventing properties from rising in value as quickly as our tax levies many of our residents now own properties that may only sell for a fraction of their assessed value vales triggering potential ciari claims undermining residents retirement plans eroding the
025generational wealth so many of us place in our family's homes believe it or not some Realtors are openly telling their local clients not to join Facebook groups about flooding and not to speak publicly about their situation out of fear that they'll go on the record having flooded homes but we know we've estimated roughly 243 homes directly in the flood path this is not sustainable the problem is that threat to every jurisdiction at every level that's why the federal government and New York State have created so many Grant programs and it's why Westchester County thankfully has committed $16 million to The Village's flood mitigation effort to me that's the best evidence of how severe this threat has become for the people we are all sworn to serve these Grant programs also mean that if our community
026is going to take on this challenge it will never be cheaper than it is right now and by the way the picture uh up in the top right corner is of GIB Smith he lives on hybrook when it floods the water rises so high and fast that it pulls lots of stuff off of people's curbs and yards into the road and it sucks them toward the drains where the drains can get clogged so when it rains he swims out into the water with a rake to keep the drain clear just to protect his neighbors homes which is both terrifying and Incredibly heroic it's kind of glitchy oh I was right now slide two our Engineers have spent the last 18 months developing our conceptual plan and that starts with creating a watershed map I will
027spare you almost all of the details of that uh but the main point is this by mapping the flow of water through a watershed Engineers are able to understand what the impact will be for different neighborhoods for different types of Storms and make specific recommendations on how to build resilience our current drains are not even adequate to manage a one-year storm in other words a storm that has a 100% chance of happening in any given year our draft plan would give us capacity to manage storms that only have a 1 to 2% chance of happening in any given Year we're very excited about it now the other thing I want to say on this slide is this nothing we are planning to do in the village of pelum is going to hurt anyone down river
028in P Manor all of us have close personal friends in the manor all of us on the village board we wouldn't do that to them when we met with the facilities committee this was the first question that came up and we spent a good amount of time talking about it it's important to remember we're not adding water to the river the water we're talking about is already going to the river we just want it to get there under the road instead of over the road we're also not impacting the peak flows of the river which is a timing question our engineer has confirmed this and we shared that analysis with you separately we have also posted it on the Village's website and to be clear The Village's engineering firm is also pel maners engineering firm
029they are intimately familiar with the challenges faced by both Villages and are working with us to build solutions for for the whole town now I'm going to briefly highlight the two arterial lines uh that serve this watershed area but even though we discussed this as two lines this is one big project for one big Watershed the first first arteria line which we refer to as the hybrook line is not just for people who live on hybrook it serves two whole neighborhoods from Lincoln Avenue all the way down to Colonial Avenue including Colonial Elementary School which is right beside the main line You'll see that it runs West along Colonial Avenue at the bottom as well collecting water right along the border and from Wolf's Lane and taking it out to the river before it gets
030to the library the entire line is too small and it has obstruction throughout the system basically every home's utility lines run through the middle of this drain all the way down Highbrook so we need to create a new line that avoids those utilities now there's a good slope to work with for this line the streets are wide the front yards are big so our engineer recommends getting to at least a 25 year our draft plan gets us to a 50-year which means it could handle a storm that only has a 2% chance of happening in any given year it's a big new pipe it's the biggest pipe we can put in without reconstructing all the other utility lines now putting in this new line is essential for protecting Colonial Elementary this was articulated in the
031report pretty clearly but here's the way I understand it uh right now there's no capacity in the drain line that runs right in front of colonial so additionally if the river is high there will be even less capacity or ability for water to flow out of the drain at the bottom so the line fills up and no new water can go in the line so the water just flows right over the top of the drains and down the road and that's how we get a river so now all the manholes all along there are underwater they get flooded out water always finds a way to get into the lines now even after we've reined a whole bunch of sanitary lines all around the area additionally as long as everyone else on this block has nowhere
032to pump their water to there's a pretty high likelihood uh that they'll pump their water into their toilets and their basement sinks and that and that water also gets into the sanitary line all of this adds pressure to the system which is so strong even some backflow preventors are subject to fail so the point being until we add capacity to the drains so that water can get to the river or uh at the very least hold more water underground when the river is high there's nothing you can do to protect Colonial Elementary and that's of course saying nothing about the fact that if there's a medical emergency at the school during a storm our Public Safety Vehicles won't be able to get there okay the second arterial line is what we refer to as the
033north pelum line which is where things get much more complicated the worst flooding in town and possibly the worst flooding of anywhere in southern Westchester is actually happening here in this red triangle uh in the upper right corner of the the map on the right it's tough to read the map uh but that triangle is 6th Avenue and seven Seventh Avenue between 6th Street and 7th Street right by Cafe Ami there is also really really bad flooding along Fourth Avenue alongside the tennis courts so to give you a sense of how bad this is the last flash FL flash flood we had most of the water in the high brick area which was really bad had receded by about 11 aish basically about an hour after the worst of it had passed it took an
034additional four or five hours for the water to recede from this red triangle there's an arterial line that collects water from uh between Mayflower and Lincoln Avenue including runoff from Glenwood Lake it flows through the triangle along Sixth Street to the tennis courts then it runs South along 4th Avenue to Marbury corners and then West to the river near the post office many of the homes are below grade or have sloping driveways that flow right into their basements there's far more water to deal with and it's very very flat worst of all there's an obstruction at Fifth Avenue and 6th Street and we're going to talk a lot about that obstruction our engineer recommends getting the drains to a 100-year storm level and our draft plan would get us there in addition to larger drains
035throughout the system we also need to create additional relief drains at Fifth Street and Third Street and as you know we also need to construct a A detention system below the blacktop and Tennis Courts on 4th Avenue with pumps somewhere on that property which we can discuss in a moment before we dive into the details you may have noticed that the map on the right is a little more cartoony than the other Maps that's because it's not a flood map uh it's a redlining map from 1937 for those who don't know redlining was a discriminatory practice that took hold in in the years after the Great Depression and it became the very definition of systemic racism it was a way for banks and Realtors to deny services like mortgages and Home Loans insurance and other
036Financial Services to certain areas based on that neighborhood's racial or ethnic profile in the margins of this map researched and organized by the University of Richmond you can read that this particular neighborhood was Redline due to what was described as infiltration by blacks and Italians fast forward 75 years throughout America historically Redline neighborhoods still tend to have the worst infrastructure and as a result get the worst flooding no matter what community you live in I think this project is going to be a long overdue point of Pride for the community and meaningful on a lot of fronts for what it's worth there is also a significant amount of grant money available to write the wrongs of History like this it's 2024 our board believes this needs to be a priority now let's get into the
037weeds at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 6th Street highlighted in the corner there's an obstruction that's existed since at least 1924 and it's been noted in literally every flood study the village has ever commissioned this obstruction is the entire reason we are here tonight there's a sanitary sewer line that runs north to south along Fifth Avenue which crosses the storm drain uh that runs east to west along 6th Street because they're both gravity fed lines they're at the same level and the sewage line actually runs through the middle of the storm drain pipe within a pipe to clear this obstruction one of them has to be lowered but the second you lower one of those lines you have to have a pump station for the one you lowered so you can get get whatever's
038in there back up to where it needs to go so what our engineering uh what our engineer is recommending is that we expand the drain and lower it so the water flows past the sewage line we'll make the drain larger all the way down Fourth Avenue but there's a limit to how big it can get so during severe storms ex excess rainwater will be siphoned into a retention system that's underneath the tennis courts and black tops from there that water will be pumped separately under to the river through a pipe that outfalls basically in front of my house by Dunkin Donuts that way it doesn't have to flow down 4th Avenue flooding all those properties along the way couple things to say first the detention system would only be under the black top and tennis
039courts and you won't even know it's there just like you won't you don't know about all the equipment that's under our streets right now gas lines water lines drainage equipment the detention system is under the ground the pumps can basically go any where we want them to go on the property as big as the pump station seems in total It's relatively small you can see compared to the rest of the park uh we could potentially put it up along Sixth Street or uh where the current entrance to the park is or if you'd like to explore blasting the rock on the corner to put the pump station there or just to open up additional play Space we can explore that we would like to engage the town of pelum and the Junior League to find
040a design that works since the town is the only jurisdiction that programs this space and the Junior League is the only entity planning to put money into the park now second we've earmarked a million dollars in the budget for both renovation and restoration we estimate it will only take about 400,000 to restore the black top and Tennis Courts as well as anything we need to do to restore in the uh playground area that gets removed during the construction so that gives us another 600,000 for upgrades now if you're interested we'd like to price out uh the cost of removing the rock we'd like to price out the cost of putting in a bathroom or a water feature I believe the town uh has been hoping for pickle ball courts our proposal is really based on
041the assumption that you'd want us to spend our money on things that would benefit the people who use the park since the temporary closure is where the real impact is now conversely if you'd rather us take that 600,000 and write a check to the district so you can determine the best upgrades we can discuss that as well we're really hoping for some signal of what you think is best third the length of the construction is going to depend on what we do uh we're assuming 6 months to a year it's not nearly as complicated as a whole building and the retention systems detention systems themselves are prefab uh but the the park would need to close for some period of time and that can only be determined once we get to that point finally let
042me add a disclaimer these designs are entirely conceptual we haven't done the geotechnical surveys so there may be things we don't yet know that limit our options the thing that's most important to us is that we take advantage of this opportunity to make an investment in a piece of land that is really really important to those of us who live in the neighborhood we're going to come back to this slide I'm sure in the Q&A but I do want to make sure I'm answering questions about the equipment first you got to know detention systems are very very common and very very safe 139 fth Avenue's entire back parking lot is a retention system you'll also find them under big parking lots uh for malls and Home Depots and places like that believe it or not
043there's an entire Water Treatment Plant underneath van Courtland park right now so think of this less like a fragile aquarium or a sink hole that we're hollowing out below the blacktop and more like a series of concrete Chambers buried below the ground just like the storm dra storm drains are below the road that reroute the Overflow water that would otherwise be flowing into everyone's homes and businesses what I've learned is that the system can even be designed to filter the water it collects to remove oil and other contaminants so that we can send fresh clean water to the Hutchinson River that would be a massive benefit so I know it's easy to fear things that we don't understand but in the storm water engineering world this system is no more risky than putting drains under
044our roads or electric wires above our sidewalks it's been standard equipment for flood mitigation for a very long time and in fact the idea to put a detention system in Pump Station at this exact location was first proposed by The Village's former engineer in 1962 so it's been around now second let's talk about the pumps I understand why people have concerns about diesel first because diesel is a fossil fuel and we all know fossil fuels contribute to climate change most concerning is that without proper care diesel can release particulate matter like sulfur other contaminates that can be breathed in and cause various health problems to be clear the particulate matter we're talking about is already in our air but it can produce it at higher levels and denser levels now fortunately for us it's not
0451987 and while diesel is still diesel the technology that uses diesel is wildly different than it used to be mostly because of the EPA the Environmental Protection Agency created a system for regulating nonroad diesel engines that has four tiers one being the worst four being the best the EU created a similar system with five stages in our engineers flood report the engineers recommend recommendation was for a tier three system which I believe is what Bronxville has right outside their school uh to certify as a tier three system you have to remove at least 80% of the particulate matter and other contaminants which is good that being said Public Health Advocates and environmentalists have actually been pushing for years to move everyone to tier four or stage five systems tier four is the highest standard and
046to certify the engines have to further reduce particulate matter by an addition 90% of whatever's left after the tier 3 certification so the engine has to remove 98% of these different contaminants using technology called dpfs there's also UL SDS Doc's but dpfs are diesel particulate filters and the village is very familiar with it because it's the technology in our garbage trucks the rating system for onroad vehicles is different but as an example our garbage trucks have the dpfs and the air coming out of the ex exhaust has less particulate matter than the air we breathe in our day-to-day environment it's much cleaner than what you'd expect and it's far more efficient too it's actually one of the biggest reasons why the purchase of our garbage trucks actually reduced our Village's greenhouse gas emissions by 11%
047so last week we connected with John Deere we were excited to find that their newest model of the pumps we want to get would be EPA certified tier 4 Stage 5 and they were just certified in 2022 with Filter efficiency at 98% so that's what we're planning to do we're going to put these slides on our website so folks can go and that's actually a link uh and they can check it out for themselves I'm a believer that the best antidote to fear is good information and in this case there really is nothing to fear another important thing uh to say is that when these pumps are operating it's very unlikely that anyone will be around them and they'll be outside in the open air which further dissipates the particular matter this is different than
048say a school bus where particulate matter has been measured inside buses at rates that are five to 10 times higher than the amount just outside the school bus these pumps will need monthly maintenance which we can schedule at appropriate times but they'll otherwise only run during severe storms and in smaller severe storms like a 10 or a 25y year it's possible that only one pump will even be operating last thing to say on this point the size of the detention system is a benefit when it comes to how often the pumps run when there's a big rain the chambers will fill up at a certain level the pumps will turn on that's all predesigned to ensure the most ideal release of the water into the system and that outfall process for what it's worth is
049all regulated by the state at that point the pumps will drain the detention tank very fast in a 100-year storm the whole system can be drained in a little over 20 minutes and then the pumps turn off until the chambers fill back up so as big as the detention system seems the size of the detention system is what allows the pumps to operate less frequently and more efficiently avoiding the scenario of cycling the tanks over and over again now you have spoken many times Dr Owen machain and you you've said a phrase uh in a lot of different forums the detention system would hold the water from six olympic size swimming pools that's mostly right that's how much water is currently going into people's homes and businesses and just like the storm drains we want
050that water to be underground where it can't hurt anyone now uh the next point in terms of screening that's the easiest part they'll take up some space but you can see Bronxville pumps are hidden behind a fence it is true though that if you use a drone you will be able to see the equipment uh and the equipment is made of metal uh in terms of future construction and buildability that is genuinely complicated so I do want to pause here because uh let me just ask because some people are really freaked out because they think that maybe you're going to build on the on the site or we're going to buy it and then we're going to build on the site so just for the sake of the public are you planning to build something
051on the site not here to we'll listen to your presentation but we're not here to answer questions right now okay so we're not sure okay so the the detention system what's that we're at 25 minutes are you finished if you would like to reschedule this for another time we can do that this is a health and safety matter so what would you like to do I just I'm saying we're at 25 minutes we're on slide six okay continue great the detention system is concrete so it's not like it's going to collapse if you put something heavy on it the problem is that buildings need to have footings and a foundation no matter what you put underneath them so if you wanted to build a facility you'd have to incorporate that into the design of the
052system or you'd have to do redo the detention system if you wanted to build here later on truthfully you would likely just want to put any future structures on the Third Avenue side which you could still do and then use this area as a parking lot or a play area it doesn't have to have asphalt on top you could put a garden or other more natural space on top and just to make sure we're all clear if you wanted to build on the black top right now uh you'd still probably want to put any new buildings on the Third Avenue side because if you put it on the black top you'd probably get flooded that's why we're here uh final note uh it works and uh the final thing to say here uh the the
053bottom right picture is a before and after of Bronx Field's 100-year flood zone it's a shocking and really exciting difference this would do an enormous amount of good for the people in this neighborhood and our system would also have the benefit of being designed with Lessons Learned From Bronxville experience final slide when we met with the facilities committee they wondered if there were other options or alternative scenarios The Villages proposal is not the only option it's just the only one that's not horrible so let me walk you through the options and please keep in mind we're not picking tile for a kitchen renovation uh this is flood mitigation so our options are genuinely limited our proposal would be for the school district to approve the appeasement uh the easement and let the lawyers hash out
054a reasonable indemnification Clause that makes you comfor aable keeping in mind that being named in a lawsuit is not the same as being liable in the meantime sign theou so we can get started with grants and then we can jointly engage the town of pelum and the Junior League to use that 600,000 to identify some cool upgrades for the park we'll keep moving forward and we'll solve flooding next scenario we don't clear the obstruction if we leave that intersection how it is we just have to come to terms with the reality of that we're not going to fix flooding every previous board has learned at one point or another that unless you go big here you're spending millions of dollars on something that will not really make a huge difference for the people getting hit
055the hardest especially for the people closest to the park and east of Fifth Avenue is there some other way to clear the obstruction let's talk about that now sort of that would mean clearing the obstruction by dropping the sewage line instead of the storm drain and that triggers a number of things first you'll now have to put a sewage pump station on Fifth Avenue venue somewhere in our downtown that's pumping sewage 24 hours a day 365 days a year and it's sewage the second issue is what happens to the storm line on Fourth Avenue to carry that much water without siphoning it off at the top of that line you'd have to put in an 18 ft wide box covert now the problem is the storm drain isn't the only thing under the road so
056you'd have to reconstruct all the other utilities connected to every home for five blocks all all the way down 4th Avenue and around the turn in fact you might have to create two separate lines on either side of the Culvert for the homes on each side gas lines water lines sewage lines making that worse the gas lines are owned by ConEd the water lines are owned by violia it's difficult to land on a single cost for this we have asked our engineer and in full transparency he just refused uh because there's no honest number he can come up with the hard cost of the utility Replacements would likely be tens of millions by themselves the delays and price increases because of dealing with ConEd and violia let's put it this way when we've discussed it
057internally the biggest concern would be whether or not uh we would exceed our constitutional debt limit which is $96 million additionally if we're being honest if we found that money and started doing it most likely ConEd and violia would look at this plan and immediately complain to the Public Service Commission and then New York State and then the state would come to pelum and say why in the world is the school district preventing the Village from putting standard flood mitigation equipment below a piece of asphalt in two tennis courts and I wouldn't know what to say scenario three we secure a different location every parcel in this area is privately owned so that would require either purchasing a cluster of homes and businesses or using eminent domain now eminent domain would displace fiveish families who
058would be entitled to just compensation which to be clear that fee is based on the actual value of a property not the speculative value and they would also be entitled to consequential damages which could be significant in that scenario the overall expense the legal fees in our timeline would make this option not feasible uh in addition it would extract an emotional toll that would take on uh that would be put on pelum families and we don't think that's a good p to go down the final option is for the village to use eminent domain to do a partial taking of this property specific to the easement under this scenario the school district would continue to own the property but the village would secure the easement it would be relatively less expensive to the Village uh
059compared to the previous option and it would certainly be less impactful on pelum residents uh but the amount we've budgeted for potential upgrades would be off the table to be clear it's The Village's position at this point that we'd prefer to avoid that uh at all costs I'm not an attorney so if you have any questions about that scenario I'd suggest you have the school's attorney reach out to The Village's attorney to get more information so that's why we're proposing this path before I open up for questions let me say this I'm not sure where each of you stands on this I know it's a lot to take in I know that none of you asked for this and for what it's worth I'd give anything in the world to not be here right now
060but you're a public body that owns land in the village of pelum and here we are now fortunately there's a long history of between our different jurisdictions the village of pelum runs an entire police station on Town property in a town-owned building for a $30,000 a year fee to offset the town's expenses many years ago Glover field was sold to the district for a dollar right now the village is working with a consultant to do a master plan for the DPW parking lot Village Hall and we're trying to incorporate a facility for the town ambulance cooperation is not an abdication of our fiduciary responsibility it's the Fulfillment of it because we serve the same people if you have ideas on how to get to yes the village board will consider any option forward as long
061as it's fair fair and reasonable but I also want to be clear that what would not be fair and reasonable is treating the health and safety of Village residence as a bargaining chip or treating this entire issue like it's The Village's problem and the school district will be just fine if we don't address it if the decisions made by your board jeopardize our ability to solve the problem or if your decisions add unnecessary expense to an already expensive project or if we're delayed and we miss out on the grant opportunities that that are out there right now the impact of those decisions will be experienced not by me or my colleagues on the village board our homes don't flood the impact won't be experienced by a local political party or some abstract legal entity known
062as the village of pelum the impact will be experienced by your students by your school district parents by your taxpayers who pay their taxes every year and 70% of those dollars go to you already whether they have kids in the school or not this is a good and meaningful thing that we are trying to do we want to do this with you in a collaborative way we hope you feel the same way I'm open to questions thank you mayor Mullen did agree to take some questions people have questions uh mayor ven so it's my understanding that um 100 plus years ago these properties were purchased uh by the district with a very explicit uh purpose to preserve the ability to use this land for educational purposes um and as I understand it every board since
063has evaluated that and said that they've had to you know adhere to that original idea um and given that you know five years from now this room could be populated by a completely different board with a completely different set of um initial interests but still Bound by that original vision from a 100 years ago how would you address that how how is this preserving our responsibility to use this property um for educational purposes with which includes potentially preserving Julian's playground but how would this um be consistent with that obligation Bound by what it's my understanding it's not on the Deeds okay so you okay so your your understanding is we're not bound by any educational purpose you've had the property for 100 years and you haven't built on it so what are we Bound by
064in a village that's 8 square miles we just going to what are we doing okay we have an opportunity to save a whole bunch of homes and families so I guess weigh whatever that is against the benefit to our community yep okay and if an if an easement were approved as you said we would still the school district would still um retain ownership right that's right so what um and I and I think you're saying there'd be some kind of indemnification of course of you say just because you're Sue doesn't you know you're hoping that an indemnification would protect you or us well let me say it this way we've been the village has been named in school district lawsuits that were Personnel matters just because you operate in the village of pelum I can
065I can sue Deputy Mayor Mike Carpenter tomorrow for anything I want but there's a difference between just someone trying to sue you and being liable for something and that's what the easement does that's what the easement is it's a an understanding of who's responsible for what all right and do we feel confident of that that there's language and an easement and demn ification that will in perpetuity um protect the district it's a question for the attorneys I I I don't want to misspeak on their behalf are are there are there any attorneys that can comment on that I think you should talk your own we did just to go back to what we discussed at our last meeting the facilities committee met three occasions and discussed this we reviewed with the architect we did a
066title search we met with the facilities committee which includes Architects and Facilities Managers from other school districts and community members um and we sought Council the recommendation from our facilities committee was not to enter into an easan agreement and that was sort of what we discussed at our that was what was discussed at our last meeting that the easan agreement was not in the best interest of the school district sure so I understand that these this is not working for me hold on okay I understand that these systems have been around forever and are all over thousands of them if I I listen to your tens of thousands maybe more than that actually um and this may seem like just a what if kind of question but I'm going to ask it what if it
067doesn't work well you mean if it doesn't work to reduce flooding yeah like what are the chances of that sure Anthony do you want to speak to that I don't know quite I mean if it doesn't work then we get flooding which is what we have now uh and we get flooding spe typically there which is what we have now I guess what what's the chance that it how successful have they been incredibly successful do you w to yeah why don't you speak to that just to be clear that's the difference in Bron no no no I see that I'm just trying to get a sense of are there have there been situations where there you've run into problems that they've not worked I mean I is this on yeah um as the mayor mentioned
068using the tension systems for storm waterer mitigation is widely done it's it's it's not um you know uh theoretical science it's it's something that we know works there's 3 million gallons of of storage there as the mayor mentioned uh that large amount then reduces the cycling of the pumps the pumps are going to evacuate that water at a certain rate um predicting the water runoff from a watershed is not a mystery we know how to do that um we're we're designing this thing to work it's going to work um I can't imagine a situation where it's not going to work um it's not we're not relying on the ground to infiltrate water that could be you know the the ground is saturated doesn't work this is taking the water and moving it out and taking
069it away and there's a volume there it's there's there's it it's sound uh uh engineering uh practice something well well uh you know often used okay thank you while you're standing there maybe you could speak to a minute for a minute to uh what mayor Mullen was talking about earlier about the impact on some of the other communities or lack of impact from a project like this yeah in terms of uh I guess the the peak flow and and whatever else would be relevant yeah we took a look at that um that question came up several weeks ago and uh one of our uh subc Consultants that we work with actually had a detailed uh analysis that he had worked on on the Hutchinson River it's called a HEC HEC analysis and um so he
070had he has the timing in there for the peak flows of the Hutchinson River during the 100-year storm and you know we use a 24 uh 24-hour storm event as kind of the uh the design criteria um the peak flows in the huderson river in a 100-year event uh reach at about the 17th hour of the storm event uh we we're just changing timing that we're sending the water out as as the mayor mentioned there there's no new Watershed areas entering the Hudson River and our Peaks enter at about the 12th hour so there's an offset so you don't see any appreciable increases in Peak flows in the Hudson River so you're not going to uh notice a difference in if you you're observing the river um again we're not adding water we're just we're
071changing timing we're changing routing um we're we're putting the water in at three locations instead of the one at at First Street where where and or everything goes there now um you know that that the old maps from 1924 it showed a stream going down basically around you know down the 4th Avenue Corridor that that ended up going out actually under where the railroad is and um so this is the corridor where the water just naturally goes and um it's we're not changing any anything in that respect hi May Merin hi I have a question for you because as I was listening so you have these two separate kind of work projects right the H Brook line totally separate from the pumps and the tanks that will funnel the water down that's the water that
072hits the back flow that goes into Colonial and wolf Lane and so that that could proceed regardless of anything else the when we go out for for Grants first of all I'm I've made a commitment to the community that I'm not going to fix one neighborhood and then leave the historically Redline neighborhood defend for itself not going to do that um and the village board I think is unanimous in that uh perspective now additionally strategically it actually if we're just going to talk numbers doing this say one big project is likely going to get a good chunk of it paid whereas doing going out for grants for a small part uh relatively uh in uh uh higher income neighborhood is probably not going to get a lot of Grant support so we feel like there
073is a moral reason and there's a strategic reason to do it this way now when we start getting down to Construction then you know you're going to be piecing it together trying to get things done without tearing everything up at the same time uh but in where we're at right now the whole thing is one thing it is one big Watershed and we're going to fix it is the water from hybr getting funnel to wear no sure this is what we this is what we signed up for when the board done question they can come is it is it there are you mentioned there are a lot of these systems you know across the country um is it common practice or or common to have them on playground or in um parks that are in
074kind of a highly a densely like residential area that's that's typically where you put them right yeah I mean the large large detention systems are designed to go into you know parking lots Open Spaces you know that's that's the whole the point of it is to not take up um land space let's say like an open Pond you know you want to get it underground this way you could put your parking lot over it or put your park over it or so they were all over the place um underground um we mentioned Bronxville there's a detention system under the field there they used it's much smaller and I think that's why they're maybe cycling differently with the pumping but they started with two pumps and then they more pumps to try to bring it up
075um and they used like for that it was smaller so they used just uh round diameter pipes in a gallery we're proposing large pre-cast concrete structures that'll last 100 plus years um so it's it's that's what it's designed for to go under and leave open space on the surface for you to do other things with it um I think you you may have alluded to this but I just want to make sure I understand um how often will the pumps need to be run for maintenance purposes to be cycled to make sure the fuel doesn't separate things like that it's monthly yeah we we actually you know we had a good meeting with the um the pump uh manufacturers that they utilize in Bronxville last last week and they do yeah they do a monthly
076maintenance well they'll run the pumps uh but no more than every two to three weeks would they exercise the pump engines um and every just for short periods of time short less less than an hour um just to perform maintenance you answered many of the you answered many of the questions I tried okay thank thank you for joining um thank you and let me say just out of respect if anybody has questions for the village board or the engineer come to our next village board meeting and bring those questions there just so we can respect the time of the school board or I I'm not saying you can't speak to the school board I'm just saying I'm just saying questions about the system thank you all very much you can both okay okay let's open
077it for public comment to the board any further discussion before we open public comment I want to hear what all right so let's move on and it is very important we do all value hearing and listening to parents and community members and and our local elected officials so we'll move on now to 5.1 Communications and comments from the public related to the storm water project and I guess first I just say thank you for your patience this has been a long night so thank you everybody for hanging in there and um you know just please be mindful I know we all want to get home at some point so we we want to hear what you have to say if you if somebody else stole your comment feel free to say I agree with them
078um but uh do we have a a sign in sheet Pauline or should we go by sign and sheet order yeah yes and the state name and address mmk okay thanks thank you yes mes okay um so I'll call people up in the order that I have here um if you could just restate your name and address uh I see Rosemary B broke Brook oh if you'll come to the microphone please uh right here yeah and just uh state your name and pelum or your address and want to hear what you have to say Rosemary Brook I have lived at 166 Sparks Avenue since 1972 so I've been here a long time and I'm a little overwhelmed by everything that's been going on here because it's rather long but the first thing I want to
079say is that I am very much in favor of some type of flood mitigation Pro uh project because the entire town needs one um having had having had to call the fire department uh to ask if they could come to pump my basement out and being told well you have less than two feet but people at other parts of town have three and four feet we can't come right now they did call back you know the next morning and ask so I know that this is a problem throughout the town and I have listened extensively to the mayor's two presentations in October um and since there hasn't been a public hearing or comment where we are able to just talk about that uh I do I want to say just three things one is the
080uh plan for Highbrook uh is a 25e storm plan and I really feel it should be at least a 50-year plan be because the presentation was a 25 the mayor said he would look into into it I don't know if he did or not but I just want to go on record saying it should be at least a 50-year plan the second thing is um at the end of his October 26 presentation um he said uh the next thing we have to do is go to the school board and I don't think there'll be an issue with that um but if there is we can either take four homes or we can go back to the drawing board and look at another type of project I'm here to ask that that's what the mayor should
081do is go look at another type of project that does not involve school property does not involve Julianne's playground and 100 years ago and I went and looked at at what was written when the board bought this land it was for the future use of the school district and the education of the children now right it's not in any deed but the intent was there's not a whole lot of land left in pelum and you do not probably understand that this town is going to explode very soon there's 127 Apartments being built across from Village Hall there's 39 at 139 or 27 at 139 fth Avenue there's a proposal for 75 one and two bedroom apartments on Sparks Avenue with the possibility of more there's a gas station on a wolf's Lane that had a
082proposal for apartments and I know what the developers say they say oh they're only one and two bedroom apartments they won't bring many children to the school district when I asked the mayor about the 75 units and the children he said he spoke to the school board and they said that they could absorb the students well you may be able to absorb those students but when you look at the future development that's coming to pelum because when those all are built the work ethic or the work hours have completely changed from when those were kind uh when the concept of we'll get young people they go to New York to work they'll be young couple that's not how it works anymore couples people know the pelum schools they know they're excellent schools they want their
083kids to come here and they will sacrifice to come here I worked for Harrison for 34 years and I was the Middle School principal I had a parent come in and we talked about their child and uh she was a single parent and she said you know Dr Brooke I sleep on a pull out sofa in my living room I put my girls in the bedroom that I have because I want my kids to go to the best school district I can get them in and people believe that for pelum they want to come to pelum on Sparks Avenue we have and Manning Circle we have 18 kids under 18 years old 15 years ago we had five people are moving in Brooklyn Bronx wherever out of state they want to come to pelum you
084need to keep the land you have cuz there is no other and someday some board of education what is going to have to make some decisions and Harrison they just passed the $ 79.8 million bond to add to their schools because they did what's PM's doing adding all the apartments down Hallstead Avenue people have moved in and what happens the school district exploded people want to come here so I urge you do not sell give away your rights to that Land There is no more land thank you thank thank you Rosemary we always love to hear from former Educators that was wonderful all right next ien Feldman and looks like please be on deck Joe Marty hi good evening my name is Eileen Feldman I live at 86 First Street which is at the corner
085of Highbrook and First Street I have two children seventh grader and a ninth grader and they walk to school every day um besides being a resident and someone personally affected by the flooding that occurs in town and has put in a lot of personal funds to remediate what's been going on in the last couple of years I'm also a professional engineer specifically focusing in Water Resources so I'm very familiar with the projects that have been proposed and the different ideas that have been explored Lord and the way to do it and from a first from a public safety and student safety standpoint I stood on my deck and watched the day on September when the high broke was flooding and I saw fire trucks in the intersection and the schools were closing Colonial was closing
086and parents were supposed to go and get their children it was a scary day as a parent for all of us but knowing that parents couldn't get to their children that my children couldn't walk home from school I know that on First Street I worry about this and I certain that the parents in North PM are feeling the same way as a professional engineer doing Water Resources I know these Solutions are real and they work and they're implemented all the time I've been involved with them I think it's so exciting that we can put our infrastructure under Parks under spaces that are public amenities that we can all use as community members for perpetuity to be able to use Julian's playground and still have a great water infrastructure underneath it I've been working on these
087projects I know they work I want to encourage you to really support this for the safety of our children for the safety of our community and for just the betterment of the whole village and town thank you thank you thank you for sharing your Professional Knowledge Joe Marty and Scott next oh okay okay hi I'm Joe Marty from 275 Highbrook my son graduated 2015 so thank you all of you and thank thanks to Gina Archer thank you very much he was really very helpful um I wanted to talk about three things one I wanted to focus very briefly something since I think you've heard some of the risks of of flooding you you've heard it I I want to hit on a few other things two I want to talk about I would like to
088support what mayor Mullen was requesting however delivered however consummated legally I'm I want to support what the mayor's asking for there there's there's real promise in fixing flooding with what he's what he's proposing and finally I wanted to make a pitch for your cooperation your cooperation as a partner with the village and fixing this on the on the fourth fifth 6th 7th e8th Avenue in North palum they've lived with this misery for years and it's getting worse they lose furnaces they lose washing machines they lose valuable things they're probably not even using many of them aren't even using the basements for something that would be considered living space but they have things down there that get ruined year after year after year and it's getting worse uh during storm as a as a sign of
089how bad that is during storm uh super storm Ida in 2021 just half the length of hbr Avenue as a metric lost 22 cars 14 washing machines and dryers and 12 uh furnaces the cost of this is immense I mean half the people who are clapping for the last person probably have written checks for 20 and $30,000 to fight flooding in their own house it costs money next I mean how broad is the effect the um it affects every child every child at Colonial it affects the flooding affects every person who has a child at the middle school and has a child at the high school um it ALS chance mentioned 243 houses that are directly affected probably flood every time there's a heavy rain that's 200 million in excess of $200 million of faest
090value he hinted at some Market depression and once people start figuring out and figuring out that these houses are flooding they they are they are are they I they are either reduced in value now or they will be reduced and it won't take a lawyer very long it's not a threat but I we you know it's going to happen people are going to ask for assessments to be reduced if assessments were reduced either by sales price or by um or by just in general people uh doing saries and trying to reduce their tax assessment by 15% that's a difference of $31 million drop in assessed value it has an effect because it moves that burden off to other people in the village finally it's a big problem and I respect the village of pelum trying
091to fix this big problem this board and the you know the people be that came before you solved the big problem by building the Hutchinson school there were a lot of people who said no in the same kind of meeting who are angry didn't want to spend the money didn't want to take the risk of doing it but you guys get came together built Hutchinson school and it's it's remarkable we're asking for the same level of cooperation with the village work please work with the village don't treat them as a disinterested partner don't treat them as arms length to be bargained with at the at the negotiating table only they are your constituents you know your those children are your constituents thanks thank you thank [Applause] you I will keep it brief and thank you
092for listening I've been a trustee uh for two terms so I know that this is hard um say say your s ferara I'm at 2011 hybrook Avenue um I'm on the corner of hybrook and first um I have already spent more than 30 $5,000 um due to flooding um over the last couple of years even though I have two Su pumps and other systems in place it's just not enough things have changed um I I really urge you to consider this easement um and just find a way to really make this work um I think we've you know as others have said we've worked together before and we can do this again um I know that there were some questions about you know can we do the hyper corridor but not do North pelum as
093someone who lives on hybrook I I find that not to be a solution we're we're neighbors we're in this together and if we're going to fix the hybrid cor Corridor we cannot leave North felon behind we just have to do this as one project take advantage of the funding that is available now and might not be available in a couple of years and again just let's think of this as you know we're all neighbors we're in the same town and this impacts all of our kids thank you thank you is is there Scott Scott bandol oh sorry for mispronouncing hi Scott Bol 455 Third Avenue I just signed up thinking it was a signup sheet for people who are coming but since I have your time I live on third I live on Third Avenue
094um and my wife is here tonight with so we live across from the playground and I really liked your question a 100 years ago the Educators you guys bought that land to educate children that Park is sacred to the town of pelum is there nothing sacred anymore that we have to we're going to resort to a playground where children learn how to ride bicycles and learn how to walk I know every inch of that circumference where those those machines are going to be um I get the problem of climate change and flooding my basement floods um I had to to max out a credit card this past fall to buy materials to mitigate my flooding which I did and I get the need for people need assistance but to to rely on the board of
095education to solve the village of pelum problems seems insane that they would resort to Julianne's playground go up to the sandborn map Factory there's tons of asphalt up there parking lots up at the at the map place um under the Gazebo if that we're just throwing Parks out let's do it in Chester Park let's I'm being factious the go back to the drawing board and find a different spot for the diesel pumps that are going to be a nightmare for that Park if they're going to be above ground and they're going to be visible and take up a footprint of that asphalt that's a terrible plan as Educators what's more sacred than little children playing soccer there every day waiting for the ice cream ant to come and now we're going to implement the these
096it's it seems insane that the words are even coming out of my mouth that that's an option to a Sacred Space like a playground in a town that's shrinking that people come from all other towns to come to that playground because that is a sacred spot for young parents my kids learned how to walk in on that asphal and it just seems that you need to go back to the drawing board um I don't think you guys need to finance this this this operation and I commend you and thank you for your service and thank you thank you okay one more oh this is from The pelum Examiner from from the uh Anthony oliv who works for Dolph rotfeld engineering who I believe is the ones who are doing this this this project is that
097quote unquote as Engineers we can't tell you that we'll solve every flood event so now we're talking about 25y year 100 storms next year it's going to be a 200e storm as climate change gets worse and they're saying in the article that they can't guarantee that what they're going to do will work just okay thank you Alison Anderson hi there I'm Allison Anderson I live at 231 nyak Avenue um I have a son at Colonial and a daughter at the middle school and I really just want to voice my support um for the Board of Education in um collaborating and coordinating with the village of pelum in flood mitigation um pelum one of the things I love about pelum is that it's a community that Prides itself on the importance of community including in the
098context of our school community and the communities around our school and the flooding that we are facing now and indeed as everyone have pointed out what we will be facing in the future is going to going to be getting worse and worse um it not only impacts um you know it does impact our children's ability to learn which is directly you know the purview of the Board of Education I see this in my own children my son who's had faced the flooding at um Colonial is anxious every time it rains a lot constantly asking me mom do you think that this the bathrooms are going to close at at at Colonial Gan they're going to a problem what if you're not home what if you're at work when I get sent home you know so
099this is a problem that is directly in the purview um of the of the school system um the flooding in pelum but it also impact impacts um children when they see their ability to learn their ability to function their well-being when not just the schools but the the streets flood around them their homes homes flood and their neighborhoods flood um I also understand from all the presentation just thus far that Julian's um is actually will be um improved um um through the village of pelum um this is not about um um cut you know shutting down um Julian but making this place for our children to play more safe ultimately through flood mitigation and again that's why I'm um you know a voice in support of um cooperation with the village thank you thank you
100okay Alicia Bergen okay thank you uh yeah Amy Rios um I pass okay thank you uh Sandy f f former Sandy fiori uh 450 4th Avenue uh lived here 69 years taught at Hutchinson school for 25 years love it so blessed was I um and I live across the street from the playground for the past 35 years and um oh I'm sorry um did you miss all of that okay sorry taught taught at hudes school for 25 years so blessed there lived across the street from Julian's playground for 35 years lived in pelum for 69 years and I just um I did not know a lot of what was going on so I came tonight and this is all very overwhelming um and I guess I would also like to say I hope that we
101can go back to the drawing board and maybe look at some other areas yes we all need um the flooding situation to be addressed our home floods to the basement but Julian's playground is also an area that is I agree sacred to the children everyone has uh grown up their Generations have learned to ride their bikes have all you know all those different experiences and would hate to ever lose that once you lose that it's gone and I think I agree that we are having so much construction going on in the town we are going to get so many more children that we may need that property as a teacher we used it and it may certainly become something that we need in the future I'm not against the retention I would love to see
102the water taken care of but can we look at other places is where those pumps can be and not take anything away from the small area that our children have thank you very much thank [Applause] you uh Peter Cardella ha arei my name is Peter cadella live at 56 Lyon Avenue I'm in agreeance with our friends from North pelum that Julian should not be imposed on we want to take nothing away from our friends and Neighbors in the Heights the Highbrook project should be a completely separate project yes it does affect Colonial school yes it should be addressed yes our mayor and our village board should also look at alternative plans like he mentioned that the engineering firm he said blatantly did not want to price out do we maybe go to another engineering firm
103that can price this out that can look into it and you giggle that's funny I'm glad but you know what if they don't want to do it there are plenty of other engineering firms out there no I'm sorry we didn't miss the point this is this is our town I've graduated in ' 04 I'm glad I'm glad it is yours also but it's affecting a lot of people my parents still live two houses down from the playground my children still play at that playground we talked about particulates and 80% of it gets evacuated and filtered out that's still 20% those particulates are going to land somewhere they're going to land on playground equipment where our children play it's it's utterly insane that that's even an option I thank you for your time and I commend
104you guys on the difficult decision you're going to have to make thank you thank you okay uh Colin Lee s how you doing my name is Colin Lee sang I live at 5196 Avenue I'm in the area that chance pointed out as a triangle and I don't think anyone here has any idea what water is unless you live over there we're talking about a playground you're not losing the playground I hear everybody's talking about they're going to lose the playground you're not losing the playground we're asking to build something underneath the playground now let let me let me say this let me say this as as as as someone who works for ConEd all of our infrastructure is on the ground no hold on let me finish all of our INF infrastructure is on the
105ground we have Ste steam we have gas we have electricity in low and Manhattan due to the flooding from Sandy they took on a project to build walls around the oil of L manhand to protect the residents now regarding the question will it work it will work the Romans have used this technology the city of Tokyo in Japan they have huge underground Caverns the the um Singapore use the same thing if you ask will it work it will work like the wheel water will flow into an open pit you will not lose the payr now I'm talk in terms of diesel you talk about diesel in particular you could also use what they call renewable sustainable diesel which has 90% just in the fuel alone has 90% less reduction to regular diesel combine that with
106particular filter you it's like a UPS truck sitting in front of your house and you having a heart attack we have it it will put out less than a UPS truck if you're afraid of diesel we could even Explore what we use in con say we move water is we use electric pumps so you could go to electric pump but you're not going to lose the playground and just so that everyone understand it's not the kids that live um use the playground the kids in the flooded area use the playground also we're not losing the playground we're asking to build something underneath the playground what the pumps are very small you very hardly see them they're very small the pump is not bigger than the house you're misinformed the pump is you're talking to a
107guy who moves a million million gallons of steam this is this this is I understand what you're saying but but listen you're not going to see the promps okay listen I I I we to excuse me you know okay thank you that's the end of the signup sheet [Applause] but if there's if there's anybody else that wants to speak yeah maybe just we can have line up yeah and just say your name and David elazer I live at 261 Highbrook Avenue about four houses away from Colonial School our house was severely flooded by Hurricane Ida that's our personal loss uh I think that this is the beginning my wife is a PhD in environmental science this flooding is going to get worse much worse in my personal opinion Colonial schol school is not viable in
108this situation you will have to build a new school somewhere else or raise the school if you don't fix this problem it will not be fixed on Highbrook alone we've heard so I really don't think there is much Choice uh my understanding for people who worry about the playground is that the Board of Ed would like to keep that property in case they want to build something else there someday so that's a likely bigger threat to the playground than preventing that possibility entirely by putting something underneath that's useful but prevents some other building being built there so for those love Julian's I think probably it's going to remain Julian's longer if we use it in this very productive fashion thanks thank [Applause] you Marin zalinski 61st Street um thank you all you're all volunteers and
109odds are none of you are enjoying this hard balancing decision and so is the Board of Trustees for the village of palum I have no doubt I think it's worth underscoring one of the last things that mayor Mullen said which is that he wishes he were not in the situation and what I heard is someone who is a messenger who has clearly spent a lot of time making sure that he educated himself as much as possible on what the options are and trying to debrief all of us and you on what the engineers have been saying for more than 60 years you have to do what you feel is best for the school board and the village board has to do what they feel is best as well that's all of your responsibility obviously and
110it sounds like what the engineers have told the village Board of Trustees is that the only realistic options for dealing with the storm water are in the area where Julian is or right across the street in terms of researching other options maybe if you wanted to spend 10 billion your possibilities would open up but what the engineers have said is that there is no amount of money that was within their wherewithal that they can seriously consider the options before the village what I heard were condemning multiple houses by eminent domain or using a portion of Julian's and then returning it uh to the playground to the vast majority of what it is now I hear the con concerns of people about losing any it's a tough call but it's also it seems to me incumbent
111on you to recognize that even if you decline as a schoolb to participate The Village may feel they have no choice if the options are condemning people's houses and losing that housing for a residence forever or temporarily closing the playground and then restoring the vast majority of it better they may I mean when I say that out loud I think they should do that and I would bet that the majority of Village of pum residents would support that as well so it seems to me what you all have to consider is how do you want to balance a decision that makes it possible for everybody to get the most of what they need and if you just say no it seems to me likely there's going to be or a very good chance that there
112is a lawsuit and I would hope that we can negotiate together in the way that tough negotiations always go which is nobody gets everything they want but they get enough to avoid a worse option thank you thank you is that is that a is that a realistic possibility that the school board would would face a lawsuit I guess we'll find out the May said that they could potentially um seek eminent domain over over the portion of Julian that they want the easan for no no I'm I'm definitely that could be could end up in litigation I think was what she was saying as a result of that if that's the path they went down no no I understand eminent domain has been mentioned several times I I what I just heard was a particular lawsuit
113against the school board is that a possibility I think she's refering okay okay thank you anybody else public comment okay well I want to thank everybody um we wanted to have this opportunity to really listen and hear um and I think everybody should pat yourself on the back we all deserve some congratulations this is democracy at work and you came and participated and I think we did a great job um they say sometimes you don't want to see the sausage be made but when you hear you know back and forth sometimes you can have a a better outcome and I've certainly experienced that in my service with the board of education so again thank you all and I think we can all be proud of our work here [Applause] tonight we need a do we
114need a break take the the meeting is not over um principal burwitz is presenting the vision for his high school I mean for our high school it should be of interest yeah as well yeah take a [Music] yeah [Music] okay thank you um just I guess an announcement we heard there was a live streaming problem for the beginning of the meeting but it was recorded So the full thing will be uploaded on YouTube soon um and now we're ready to move on to um where is it Mr burkwitz report on the vision yes for p Memorial High School yeah and I just want to thank Mr bur for coming back tonight I think I see Dr Callahan here in support too so appreciate you being here and appreciate especially the late hour um really uh
115look forward to hearing from you I just thought it would be a great opportunity to bring Mr burkowitz back to give us an update on uh we heard from him about a year ago in a a a very thorough work session with a large uh faculty he turn out um here he's by himself tonight with Dr Callahan um but just to give us an update on the great work that's been going on at pel Memorial High School in the last year so Mr burit take it away yes okay thank you so much Dr champ uh yes Dr champ as you've said uh Dr champ and members of the Board of Education thank you for welcoming me here this evening uh nearly one year ago I had the opportunity to stand before you with members of
116my team to present div vision for pal Memorial High School that been crafted over the prior 10 months with stakeholder feedback and tonight I'm here uh to present uh a brief overview of our year-to-date accolades rearticulate our vision present our year-to-date progress and identify our important next steps so as you know pel Memorial High School is one of the finest schools in our County State and Nation uh some of the recent accolades to share are not only our Statewide in national rankings but just this year and new this year uh we received the distinction of being an AP School uh part of the AP School honor rooll uh Platinum with access to be clear the AP uh has placed Us in the top 6% of all schools across the country that offer AP courses based
117upon our student performance and the range of students uh uh access to to uh the wide variety of courses we offer once again we are uh pleased proud and honored to have a regeneron science Talent search top 300 semi-finalist in our nation's oldest and most prestigious science and math competition um this year for a second year in a row uh we have a student that received a perfect score on an AP exam most recently in computer science principles as you know from the fall four National Merit Scholarship semifinalists to uh presidential scholar nominees in the past three years most recently this evening's honory of Vincent slno um and of course the recent uh congratulations to our colleagues Master teacher uh Mr AJ quacken Bush Master counselor Luis Barcelo and upward growth in our regions and
118AP scores from June 2023 when we stood here before you a year ago we presented a vision uh which I'd like to restate ours is a vision of Excellence inspired by tradition we're 102y old building empowered through Community Guided by Three core values we are working each day to inspire our students to achieve their full potential within and beyond our classrooms working each day to help our students create high level demonstrations of learning across the disciplines and it's critical that we create a strong sense of community and develop students of character all also connected to our vision is helping our young people be prepared to engage as adults through community and through meaningful acts of service right now during their youth so they can be prepared to participate in the types of meetings that this
119evening has just uh had the evening's presentation ours is a vision of graduates who think deeply communicate clearly and take an active role in their community so they can graduate with purpose instructionally ours is a vision of coherence to be clear we already have Dynamic courses across the disciplines and this must continue we already have expert teaching across the disciplines and this must continue and one next step that we've taken this year is to introduce common academic habits among our professional faculty right to support students growth and achievement these habits introduced last year include a commitment towards the teaching of inquiry skills developing critical and creative thinking skills making sure that our students across disciplines are articulating to authentic audiences seeing multiple perspectives thinking flexibly embracing the growth mindset and of course uh we're prepared
120engaging within the classroom and Beyond the classroom culturally ours is a vision of relationships connection and belonging where every student faculty member and family feels valued and recognized in the current language of New York State welcomed and affirmed we also have a focus on enhancing the transition for our students from middle school into High School between the grades and of course in preparation for students postsecondary planning so over the past year under my leadership we have worked to implement the following and I'd like to present these updates for you uh over the past year under my leadership we have introduced this authentic learning uh protocol to bolster the teaching of common academic habits and when colleagues gather together for this kind type of professional conversation they're looking at the habits I've previously presented and asking
121one another how exactly do you teach that within your classroom what does it look like for Learners to demonstrate that they've mastered these habits and how are you tracking this with qualitative or quantitative data we've also very proudly been accepted by the state of New York at the Department of Education as a seal of Civic Readiness school this is very significant our students have a pathway towards graduation that is not dependent on exams alone but for certain students and for any student when they are positioned by 12th grade to pursue the SE of Civic Readiness through their demonstrated Civic knowledge Civic skills mindsets actions and experiences so very deliberately starting in social studies our teachers are looking at projects and units of study that apply with the guidelines that apply to the guidelines of the
122Seal of Civic Readiness next year's n9th grade Global Studies team of teachers will be introducing this to the nth graders as a vision so that they can understand what's ahead of for them in high school and of course in the next several years we're going to be working to develop a senior Capstone project to have our students working again to have credit for diploma and graduation purposes on meaningful work engaged in the Civic experiences of being again a resident civically involved at a high school level on local state and National issues over the last year we've met as committee both as uh professionals adults working uh within the building but also within the site based team to talk about our senior experience internship the vision that every high school student at palel Memorial High school
123will have a multi-week opportunity before they graduate to engage in a self-directed internship to be very clear and you likely know this students in our award-winning science research project have an internship they must study with a mentor and it's incredible but ours is a vision we not only does that access of mentorship and internship take place for science research students but frankly for every student pel Memorial High School because it's part of being ready for post-secondary planning we're also very proud and grateful for the support of the Board of Education uh in the community for the drop-in math program which was introduced last year and which has continued under my leadership Dr Callahan's partnership and our teachers this year one of the most important introductory steps we've taken to continue our Dynamic offerings for all
124students is the dual enrollment and Link programs so as you know through your support we've introduced the astronomy class this year previously introduced the data science course and those courses are now available starting next year to be linked for college credit with Iona university we've also set up the opportunity for summer pre pre-calculus for students also from and with Iona this is again important because there are some students who are going to arrive in high school not yet prepared by their scope and sequence from middle school to take calculus and having the opportunity to stay within our scope and sequence at the high school level and then to take this additional coursework over the summer helps them Reach This goal of calculus before they graduate as you know with board support some years ago we
125introduced characters and conundrums under my leadership an important course for students to engage in interdis iary study within the English classroom with texts that are posing moral dilemmas and it's really a course in ethics um Humanities research is a course that was introduced over the last several years a very important uh again addition to our uh students learning experiences as they engage in in-depth learning experiences um and produce uh again in-depth research I'm going to talk more about that shortly and with your support for next year we will be introducing AP Computer Science a that's a Java based programming language that complements and prec provides the next Co scope and sequence for students who've already completed computer science principles very proud that our sociology course now associated with a semester-long opportunity for students to participate
126in Supa again Syracuse University project advance and then lyrical lit is a Humanities actually english-based elective um being introduced next year where the craft of songwriting and uh form and lyrics will be studied um in the English course um so these are very important cuttingedge courses and I share this with you to articulate that we're always looking to make sure that our coursework is aligning not only with State Standards but also with the the the latest and most important uh learning experiences for all students speaking of learning experiences for all students as you know and as we've celebrated what an opportunity this fall through the chasing space initiative to welcome Leland Melvin to the high school and to the district our on ongoing ask scientist speaker series giving students the opportunity to really engage with
127professionals and recent grads who are practicing science and creating a again talking about a owed through Community a pipeline and vision for what is possible in their years both within P Memorial High School and in the Years Beyond a long-standing tradition from the pelum Civics and counseling department are career panels but I'm pleased and proud to let you know that in addition to that work which is often focused on uh um a range of careers uh through the partnership with our skilled trades and local uh police and fire departments we were introducing uh our students to Skilled trade career panel just last uh spring in our high school and we look for forward to having that again and some of the most exciting applied learning field trips that have happened this school year include the
128humanities research course with Miss rice going to for University's archives where they were literally looking at primary sources from George Washington uh last week's AP biology course led by Miss BMA Mr Johnson to regeneron's DNA research learning experience chamber chorus in jazz band uh through the generosity of a local parent who's professional at the Metropolitan Opera Mr Pani uh welcoming our students to the Metropolitan Opera dress rehearsal and of course forthcoming through board support international travel and study trips returning to our students uh for France and Spain so these are very important world-class learning experiences which have taken place and are taking place now under our leadership and my leadership whole child work is very important obviously cultural competence whole child care and authentic learning I'm going to talk about whole child work that we've
129focused on this year and over the last year uh in the past our high school multi-tiered systems of support committee meetings quite frankly we're taking place twice a month and we've uh focused on making that a weekly committee because it's important for us to be focusing on academic and social emotional learning and progress monitoring um this year I'm so proud that uh we presented that we wanted a vision of peer mentoring and we had a cohort of students primarily 11th graders but also 10th and 12th graders that applied and being supported uh by Janette Connelly and Leela zahad our social worker Mr teren huan for once a month learning experiences to support nth graders uh really with a fun light touch activity that's supposed to Foster and build the bonds between the students quite frankly
130because this is our first year I set up an intervisitation with a neighboring high school that's had a peer mentor program in that District um frankly my home District uh the peer mentorship is limited to 12th graders which is a way of saying it's required that the seniors are peer mentors ARS is open for students in grades 10 through 12 but the purpose of the intervisitation which Miss Connelly and Miss zah had participated was really to look look at a Master model it's not necessarily replicable here for a number of reasons but there are some important learnings that that intervisitation uh um allowed for and we're very excited that we're going to continue to think about what are we doing well and one of the ways that we can deepen the ninth grade transition through
131peer mentoring one of the courses that I talked about and presented at an authentic learning uh committee meeting earlier this year was a ninth grade Discovery class thank you to assistant superintendent Tracy Holtz who had introduced us last year to some models from Northern Westchester and some other schools in the region that have a discovery course that's a terminology for how does it feel and how do you discover ever the academic skills the mindfulness the digital literacy and uh frankly there is ship building to help you be successful in high school and certain courses have certain schools have a discovery course we're still exploring whether or not it's the right fit um and I can talk more about why that's still an exploration but we've certainly been meeting as a committee of professionals and by
132professionals I mean the faculty and staff of pal Memorial High School along with our site based team it's been part of our conversation there as well I was so happy last year to talk with you about the possibility of a community service opportunities fair and boy did the community show up this fall we had a fair that took place in October right ahead of our club's uh fair and right before homecoming great opportunity for students to meet members of uh any number of local organizations and I don't want to leave anyone out but uh the rotary was there the pelm Civic was there the uh Junior League was there um we we had a whole host of folks from pelm together and from Project community and from hugenot church and its purpose was to make
133sure that in a school that cares about service and has a graduation requirement for community service that we're not going to Simply have our students find the opportunities on their own they've always had the opportunity to connect with the counseling department for support but rather um in a model that um I know is important to us all that pelum takes care of pelum and so what we mean by that is that if they're going to learn about service opportunities Let's help make sure that those opportunities can take place within pelum in addition to any other opportunities that take place in nearby sites such as Hope Community Kitchen and other important uh venues for service so we've talked about whole child importance uh and whole child care and whole child initiatives uh with a site based
134team uh through my monthly principal's coffees and certainly most recently at grade wide assembly we talked about uh from a whole child standpoint digital literacy and some balance online and making some smart online decisions as part of our whole child work uh this fall through partnership with the PTA uh we were grateful to welcome Chris suvin a former New England Patriot who struggled with personal addiction um at the end of his career and his wife Kathy suvin who suffered uh just a a tragic personal loss of her child as a 12th grader when her child was a senior um this was a message really about decision-making care and Community um but we had two Full House assemblies one was for grades 9 through 10 one was for grades 11 through 12 and this certainly aligns
135with our commitment to whole Child Care uh this is photos from last week's recent again trip to regeneron with uh students from AP biology but again Hands-On learning um of course you're familiar with Leland Melvin's visit you were there and a bit cloudy but uh full house if you will for our community service opportunities Fair many other photos to to share but in the interest of time this is a handful of snapshots and highlights getting back to our work on the last year to support the whole child and to partner with the community again salvin's message took place in October and our PTA is presently working to bring a leadership series that would be uh an online simulation um uh coming actually from Harvard Graduate School of Business uh where students would uh participate in
136uh doing a mountain climbing simulation it's actually a Leadership Model that's been used by one of our PTA parents in uh board president Teresa Mohan in some of her graduate classes and uh the dates haven't been finalized but we're looking forward to that leadership series of course we're eminently grateful for the PF for their ongoing work and for the community support for the PF so of course the chasing space initiative which is still ongoing uh tremendous funds for new marching band uniforms and what I'm calling a unified art project everyone's familiar with our unified basketball team where students come together for a number of reasons to uh compete athletically um students from our foundations of learning program students who are not part of foundations of learning coming together um but there was a minig grant
137written this year called uh really calling for an art project um with a similar purpose of unifying our school Community it's going to take place later this year with Miss walls and Mr solazo and students from their classes and we're very proud of that um pelum Civics has again been such a strong partner for palel Memorial High School through the academy plus program the community panels I just want to acknowledge that this year we've had the opportunity to have project Community reaching out to some of our students primarily athletes after school with a a a series that's going to to uh again help give them a range of information about healthy choices um in quotes how to save a friend and hopefully how not to have to have a friend need to be saved and
138to make sure that everyone's making very healthy decisions um friends of pum Sports have led the capital campaign but I've been so proud to part partner with them as uh the capital campaign and thank you for the board support and for the business office and the facilities Department helping to make sure that we have an updated fitness center for our student athletes and for our uh of course classes and pelm together uh have regularly scheduled meetings with palm together their summer internship is really quite Hallmark for our students uh their ongoing mental health support to help our students particularly with access to social work uh and counseling outside of the building very important and their parent support groups uh very much appreciated by the parents of P Memorial High School as well so now I'd
139like to talk about cultural competence and work we've done over this last year you may be familiar perhaps not that our English language learning coordinator Miriam gashi has really spearheaded a linguistic and cultural ambassador program this year supporting students within pel Memorial High School and across the district so one initiative that's happened in partnership with Miss Lundy who advises our uh NHS National Honor Society peer tutoring program is to have NHS peer tutors presenting more importantly not presenting but rather working with English language Learners direct uh peer tutoring that's amazing we have a cohort of students uh that are spending time going to Hutchinson School uh that cohort has been selected because of their language fluency uh student who's uh fluent in Albanian a student who's fluent in Portuguese a student who's fluent in Spanish
140um just to name a few working again a with k5s uh L's at Hutson school and most recently Miriam gashi on behalf of our English language Learners coordinated a panel that took place at Alumni Hall with recent grads from the last several years at pal Memorial High School who are now in college meeting with current L's to talk about what their transition was out of pal Memorial High School and into college and what an incredible learning experience that was to have again students who know each other because they were all in high school together uh just a year or two ago but now having the opportunity to talk about how they uh transitioned um into into their college or university so I'm going to pause now to talk about the New York State cultur responsive
141uh sustaining framework as you know that state framework has four priorities but the first two which is what I'm going to focus on tonight uh focus on creating a welcoming and affirming environment and providing high expectations and rigorous instruction for all very important and when we talk about a welcoming and Firming environment that is certainly ongoing work as you know earlier this year we did a survey for our students for climate and culture and we talk about high expectations for all of 715 responses we have uh over 90% 91% students who uh say indeed my teachers expect me to do my best which is a great data point and when we have uh again a similar question of do you receive a variety of learning experiences high expectations for all again uh 93.4% of our
142students over 700 well 715 responses this is very important data to demonstrate that our faculty and teachers are creating incredibly high expectations and helping every child see their potential to fulfill and and and to fulfill those expectations but as you know a school is never done with its work and so we have important work to continue and that's why I'd like to talk about the next steps for this Vision so just last week just last week we had the opportunity as you may know to meet with a master scheduler right and Michael redig was in town who uh helped right to help think about what we're doing well and to help us think about next steps and I'm going to be very transparent the high performance of the school is an absolute source of Pride
143the anxiety that some students experience to meet the standards of the school is an area of focus it's an area of focus and so the conversation with Michael redig was about ways in which schools that are also High performing have rigor and balance deliberately within the school day very deliberately I'm not making any move mes we're not making any moves for next year but but but based upon the range of schools across the country that also have high performance and also have students that have a lunch in a school day that was one conversation Point why do we have students that don't have lunch and might be coming to school from 7:30 in the morning till 2:51 or 3:11 and not have the pause and break that they might need so we're going to be
144continuing to focus on the ways in which rigor remains essential and also that balance might be incorporated within the school day very excited that the Seal of Civic grus is going to be expanding for next year you may know that right now that pilot is taking place only with about 60 students and I'm grateful for Mr sharo certainly Dr Thompson and the whole committee that's been leading the work but next year the senior class at large will be prepared and offered up the opportunity to pursue the Seal of Civic Reus as part of their diploma uh Pursuit and graduation and in due time as mentioned we look forward to having a senior Capstone project connected to the seal we're going to continue to focus on this interde department protocol to bolster the ways in which
145we're teaching to Common habits again this is professional discourse this is professional learning uh at its best those students and our students are already receiving again coursework that's aligned to those habits that we were discussing but indeed when professionals have the chance to not just talk up the spine between grades 9 through 12 in a particular department but across the Departments this strengthens their practices and ultimately impacts student learning so that work will continue we're going to continue to discuss the feasibility and explore the feasibility of a discovery course I think that connects in some ways to the conversation with Michael reig and of of course uh conversations related to a senior experience internship which we're eager to Pilot remain ongoing a few more brief remarks I'm mindful of my time uh our mtss work
146is going to continue it's very important as I've just mentioned with more referrals than than we've had in the past related to anxiety quite frankly uh to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our students academically but also social emotionally uh we're going to continue to meet with student groups uh in groups of students but individually as well to receive their qualitative feedback uh in addition to the survey we want make sure that we're re receiving their qualitative feedback about their learning experiences and about the ways in which we are and or can get better at creating a welcoming and affirming environment for all and of course as you've mentioned during this evening's board meeting there's a forthcoming work to develop a future strategic plan and our work remains to not only fulfill the
147future strategic plans but to partner with District stakeholders and committees uh to create next steps aligned with the New York State Department of education's blueprint on graduation measures and I'm going to begin to close um my talk about that so in recap ours is a vision of Excellence inspired by tradition and empowered through Community with graduates who think deeply and communicate clearly and take an active role in their community so that they graduate with purpose this Vision I'm proud to tell you presented last year aligns with the New York State Blue Ribbon Commission on graduation measures a report which was just publicized this November so again we're ahead of the curve I want to show you how closely we align I'm very proud of this um I've mentioned our values to inspire to create and
148to serve mindful of this alignment here we go so as I mentioned to you ours is a vision of graduates who think deeply in the exact wording of the New York State Blue Ribbon commission about graduates are critical thinkers and Innovative problem solvers who are literate across content areas and indeed I love that sentence but I want to acknowledge that thinking deeply and that very sentence from the state uh absolutely align ours is a vision of graduates who communicate clearly and the state themselves as State uh Blue Ribbon Commission an effective Communicator is a vision of a New York State graduate and certainly we will align with that as well ours is a vision of graduates who take an active role in the Affairs of their community and the state has a vision for students
149that are culturally competent and social emotionally competent I would submit to you that in order for us to take an active role in our community we need to be culturally competent and we need to be social emotionally competent so these are very much aligned even if the language isn't identical and finally ours is a vision of graduates who graduate with purpose they have a sense of what they have achieved and what they would like to achieve and what they can do to impact again the Affairs of their community and take an active role and state of New York is talking about graduates as part of this commission that are Global Citizens and indeed all Global citizenry is in fact quite local so we're very proud of this vision and I hope that you'll see how
150closely it aligns with what the state is describing as their profile of a graduate last year I stood before you and I talked about for me a very important need for a logo there's a number of reasons why I think that's important it helps to point one's uh Compass towards true north we we had a contest this fall uh and we opened it up for students to submit a logo and uh we got a number of participants and a number of revisions and at the end of the day and you can see talking about multiple entry points there's four logos that are presented here one is in the standard uh blue and white of the district and the other ones with the yellow pop of color that's been introduced over the last several years two
151do not have the phrase and the other one does the other two have the phrase of Excellence inspired by tradition and empowered through community and so tonight for the first time in public I'd like to congratulate greater Sophia Greco who is the winner of our logo contest for her beautiful submissions and also thank the finalists absolutely and also thank the finalists uh Malaki Pearlman and Eric Fontanella um so in closing I'd like to just remind uh and and state that pal Memorial High School is one of the finest schools in the county state and nation and under my leadership we have demonstrated our commitment to Excellence rigor and academic achievement across the disciplines instructionally our Cutting Edge courses continued commitment to Dynamic teaching and alignment with academic habits will strengthen our instructional coherence and our
152impact on student learning culturally we're using quantitative and qualitative feedback to ensure that we provide a welcoming and INF firming environment for all Learners with social emotional Wellness too under my leadership I believe that we can achieve the goals of this Vision while upholding the academic rigor that this community expects of pel Memorial High School I thank you for the opportunity to lead and I thank you for the opportunity to share this update with you thank you Mr burwitz um certainly would offer if board has any questions follow-up questions I will mention um adid Roy is our student who W who was uh selected for STS yeah um this year so we will be inviting her to an upcoming meeting we just got that notice late last week so we'll be looking forward to honoring
153her here okay there were many exciting um um elements of that presentation particularly the the percent of students who think agree and strongly agree to the idea that their teachers expect their best that's really exceptional well done um and really interesting the senior year internship possibility to mimic what's happening with the science students talk a little bit about that H how how do you envision that growing so that all students would participate yeah thank you for that um we we actually had a committee of teachers that went into summer looking at and kind of agreeing who's going to look at this school who's going to look at that school and so you may be familiar that there's actually quite a few schools in southern Westchester that have such a program and one model that stood
154out for us was a pilot that took place I'm frankly in Byam Hills and if you go to their website I know that Dr Garcia was part of that from back in his days their website is still very clear and saying they started with a pilot and then they expanded it and then they expanded it further it got to a point where there's a Tipping Point and all students participated we did a focus group actually with a group of current seniors so they could talk openly because our sense was that if we did a focus group with Juniors it might feel pressure so the seniors we just kind of acknowledge this is not yet an opportunity that you'll get to participate what are you thinking there a few there's a few critical questions that came
155up that we're still trying to probe the first one was um and I'll just actually start with the the enthusiasm someone said I love it I think this sounds amazing and I have a friend in Eastchester who does it and I think if it's marketed well this could be great so that was like wonderful right and another student said I am part of science research and I know how difficult it is to get an internship and so I'm really concerned just about the logistics and the infrastructure and that's a fair question and a fair comment and the third person again there was more than three people but the third comment that stood out uh for me was just a very real cultural reality and a student said Mr berkwits you're describing the possibility of an
156internship in the final three weeks of school but if you start with a pilot I'm concerned that I'm gonna miss out on having lunch with my friends in the final three weeks of school so the question is a little bit of like who's ready to jump in who's ready to jump in and so our sense is again that if we can start with um something small and I've had uh some conversations with pum together particularly because their internship and thinking about ways in which um what if we could have 20 students what if in theory if we could get them by chance enrolled in a course that they're already choosing to take I don't want to name a course because I don't want to put pressure on the teacher but what if the possibility was
157that we have one group of students already in an English class and we say to them we're asking you to Pilot this and we'll see if we can encourage them to do so the two structural realities we have are the following there is a stip in that's still in place from the wise program a program that had been in place some time ago but I my sense from the teacher feedback is that we're looking to have the possibility of two teachers not just one working on this because it's a heavy lift and so there's some conversations that I'd like to have that's not necessarily in public about what the financial concerns are about how we can uh incentivize um because the reality is that um having a student do this uh having a teacher set
158up this internship for 20 students I want to make sure they're not going alone so the plan language is I think it's very achievable because we already have students doing internships through science research I think it's very achievable because we already have students doing internships through pelm together I think it's very achievable because we have an infrastructure knowledge base we can learn on the lean on the science research knowhow and the pelm together knowhow and quite frankly when I've discussed this with any number of colleagues and parents through site based team as well people have said Reach Out you know when you get ready and you have that marketing letter and can spread word not only to the residents of pelum but potentially to your friends and say and by friends I mean your professional
159colleagues right is there anyone who's willing to Mentor in these disciplines and we can name what that looks like this can be very very real world exciting um there's a lot there's a lot of potential there there's some Logistics we're still trying to work through thank you and is are you envision is like a job experience or is it more like a senior thesis or that's an excellent question and it's really in two parts um the first one is and and and I want to be very clear about how these could go to one of two ways the first one is the Seal of Civic Readiness has a vision for a service project for 25 hours now our students are not going to be waiting until the final stretch of senior year to complete 25
160hours their community service will already be done but the idea of doing something meaningfully over the year and then culminating it potentially with an internship that's align with what you've already been working towards that's already connected to the vision for a seal of Civic Readiness and then there's a reality that there might be some students who in fact don't want to pursue the seal for any number of reasons and they too deserve an opportunity to consider I don't want to speak for our colleagues that are in local Service as in uh Town municipality but I think that we have a great opportunity for students to do career exploration for essentially three weeks following the culmination of what would be traditionally the AP testing window even for students that aren't taking AP courses just how do
161we align it for that final stretch so that the May to June Continuum is really a strong finish where students are out of the building engaging in meaningful work embedded for up to you know uh the exact hours per day um needs to be codified but you're talking about the possibility of 30 hours a week and that they are reflecting and then a teacher is checking in let's say for instance um you all were my class and now you are no longer coming to the building well I'm to be checking in with this set of the room on this day of the week and I'm going check in with you4 on that day of the week and I'm checking with you4 on that day of the week and also we need to really make sure
162that the work is happening and the work that I'm referring to is how do we make sure that students are not just sitting in an office or on a job site and watching but is there a task that they can do that will meaningfully have them thinking for a brief moment of career exploration um uh there's some really exciting momentum that we're seeing from other school districts that have had this in place for a number of years and they can be an exciting way again to take uh The Real World experience that some of our students already have again going back to science research or those that pursue the pelm together internship in the summer and bring it to as a possibility for every student before they graduate from our high school okay are you
163sure can can you talk a little bit more about the course the ninth grade course that's still under consideration sure um I I'm forget I'm forgetting what you call I'm happy to do that yes yeah um well I'm gonna I'm going to answer your question and I'm also going to connect it to Michael reic okay because the the scheduling conversation led to a little bit of an aha but I I just want to be plain and and and say it for our public there are some schools that are setting up an opportunity for students to really have a transitional program that helps them learn how to be a high school student and the components of that include several aspects one is executive functioning think that students are organized because they're in Google classroom or because
164they have a calendar uh that's digital but in fact it's hard right the world is very hard and teaching to Executive functioning skills is very important so I just want to acknowledge what that can look like and there is a model again that there the one that stands out that that's really kind of Hallmark for me as a health teacher up in Yorktown who incidentally had been a student teacher here in pelum some time ago and really has a range of resources helping children think about let's start with executive function then there's the reality of digital literacy it's a state requirement and our students and all of us right now are engaged in screen time but the healthy ways to do it and the healthy ways to uh be mindful of how to express yourself
165in your digital footprint um we teach into it it's part of uh coursework now um but it can be very impactful if that's part of the ninth grade experience the third part which we have right now our social worker pushes into a writing seminar and provides multiple sessions on mindfulness I want to be clear it's it's very important and wonderful lessons but it's a push in and so the thinking is if you had Standalone course in concept on the flip side of uh a writing seminar could you instead of having a study hall in that nth grade flip side of writing seminar have this discovery course potentially led by a health teacher um right now our faculty is is kind of full programs so the question of where is a staff member is a real
166question um where would we get this person and then the second question which is very important um sometimes you need to say what you're going to say and have someone push back and say have you thought about uh in meeting with Michael reig and talking about this discovery course as it happens which I still think is very meaningful um there was a little bit of an aha moment where he said even if it's just one student if you have at least one student who goes from 7:30 in the morning through essentially 2:51 p.m. and doesn't have a lunch that's that's that's part of your balance problem right now and if you're going to introduce a course that's also going to have a component of how to have balance that might seem that might not seem
167like the perfect fit right now right that in order to help students have more balanced and successful High School experience you're going to have them take another course why don't you give them lunch so I don't want to make it either or but I want to suggest that that's an important conversation how can you and how can we potentially have students engage in a discovery course and also make sure that we're not taking um uh adding it in such a way that it's going to give students who presently might have a study hall that's used not only for productive studying but also to give them greater time management opportunities after school and and have them engage in this course workor so there's there's um some important considerations I hope that that answers your question thank
168you um I was hoping you were talking before about um the Seal of C Civic Readiness uh diploma and I didn't quite understand how that works is that like a regent diploma with sort of with honors in Civic Readiness or is it like a separate it's a great questiones a great question I I'm going to be a little technical perhaps um you're already with me but just to say it the state already has what's called a 4 plus1 graduation requirement right a four plus1 so you have to have an exam in four core academic subject areas and and a plus one so for instance in addition to a math science English and social studies you can take a second a math science English or social studies essentially the seal would fulfill the plus one so
169that's that's that's very exciting because it is an opportunity for students to have uh their credential and ification for being ready to graduate at a state level fulfilled by a project oriented approach that's not contingent upon exams and particularly for some students that might be um really an assist but I think for all students what's so exciting and the language is a little bit complicated um we're basically already preparing our students as 12th graders to pursue this because coursework including going back to Middle School including the incredible work they do the community project exam performance in fact uh despite talking about not having exam students are required to pass socialized exams and so certain performance at a Mastery level there's basically a grid there's a there's a tally that the state gives schools and a
170local committee needs to basically use um uh an individual assessment of every child based upon what they've performed the course they've taken their performance in the courses their state exam performance and again community service project or uh deeper um engagement in the community that they can get credit for so I was thinking about this um as a as a clear way of saying that uh the seal is something that we're presenting to all students in next year's gradua class as something that they can pursue most of them are really close by way of what they've already done to be positioned to earn it but there will be more steps they'll have to be taking take and in due time what we're thinking is that this is a great way to have um and I'm not
171suggesting the poster boards over your shoulders but but I am going to suggest a showcase moment you have a public exhibition of Civic engagement that that um we we look forward to creating we do not yet have that in place but that's very exciting so that we're deepening the ways in which students approach their acts of service right now I think many of our students are doing important purposeful work but quite frankly uh the goal is to move a little bit from a requirement towards uh again uh something that is um deliberately crafted to have impact right now you can get your community service requirement by doing any number of things and the thinking is what would if you did something deliberately over time and how could that position you for an internship or how
172could that position you just to feel like you've youve focused on something and that Focus even if it's not your long-term Pursuit uh can be really really meaningful for a number of reasons great thank you that's probably something you could write about like in a college application 100% so I'll give you a quick aside because I don't want to be long-winded but last week there was a a um well opportunity for service and number of our current nth graders were panelists for the pmhs info night for current eighth graders and Mr vain uh my colleague in the counseling department was asking the students before before they closed what's one Magic Moment you've had this year and interestingly enough one of our young uh students a nth grader um said my magic moment was speaking at
173a town hall where I was asked as a young person to speak about my experiences in town and that was incredible because actually that connects to seal of Civic Rus that young person is already involved with our Student Association here they took their time to be part of the panel that's a second instance and the third instance that this person cited was that they were already involved with um basically Community Based conversation at the dronco townhouse now that's a young person who's positioned themselves whether they choose to or not to be involved in Seal Civic Readiness and probably to have some sort of Action project um really exciting and so a lot of our students again are already positioning themselves by uh to to pursue the seal through what they're already doing but we're going
174to help make it more purposeful those students did a great job too oh thank you I mean and thank them yes is there anything else that I can answer yeah quick question about the um I think there were two courses that are now going to be Iona university course so astronomy and what was the other one so we have a data science course which started last year and we have an astronomy course that started this year and thank you to Dr Callahan and to our teachers um and you'll see in our course catalog right now that teachers excuse me students that participate in those courses have the opportunity to participate in the Iona link um they can get college credit for their participation as pal Memorial High School students in those particular courses in addition
175you may be aware that we have a lot of other dual enrollment courses um I won't give you the whole list right now but those are new additions we're very proud of them go so the the student who have taken those courses can apply for the credit they will be able to as they take the course uh um for next year I don't know if that's appliable right now yes gotcha okay it's this year as well okay oh okay that's great yes thank you Dr Kell well thank you thank you for the opportunity to be with you very impressive work and I think we can all appreciate the vision um and it's going to be very informative as we work on the Strategic plan thank you for your time thank you for the opportunity thank
176you [Applause] you all right I'm going to encourage our administrators and uh we have a special guest we've got our our professional developer Earl Hunter is in the audience tonight please go home tomorrow morning comes very quickly thank you for being here we really really appreciate your support thank you and presence um so we do have one more presentation tonight and that uh is just a brief update on the midyear report from me um Julian is there a clicker so I can stay here or I'd love to just kind of take it from here ding thank you very welcome um so I am G to go rather quickly through this I know that the board and I have had a lot of conversations on this and when I certainly uh be respectful of the hour
177tonight um so uh just as a reminder uh that we worked together as a governance team of eight um back in August at our board retreat over actually July and August to develop the three goals for the year so the goal areas around finance and Facilities academics and climate and Communications and used kind of a a smart goal format to identify and lay out the uh really where we want to go to by the end of this year and how we wanted to get there Milestones along the way and different deliverables so as far as outcomes particular starting with finance and Facilities these are the ones that we identified um that by the end of the year some things that we really wanted to dig into and have a good sense of so progress this
178fall these are some of the deliverables um that we have already uh touched on this year that are things that are happening and are in progress a demographic study we've already gotten drafts we're doing some proof reading there we'll be getting a finalization soon uh room utilization report is coming along with the building conditions report as well our architect is working on both um the facilities committee thank you to Jim and uh John Condon who uh left he was here for a while tonight but I've already set up we've already set up two site visits and we were hoping to do two more um to continue just to see what other districts are doing how they're doing it trying to find districts that have some comparable um programs and challenges from a facilities perspective with
179us and to see some exciting ideas and things that may spark our uh interest uh for the future especially heading into strategic planning um certainly finance and audit has met multiple times a lot of different uh major Financial considerations going on this year Safety Committee we have a committee coming up I believe next week end of the month end of the month uh with very packed agenda with a variety of different safety issues that have been raised to the board level throughout the fall um so we're actively looking forward to that and to U making some progress there um as the board is aware we did have our early board discussion in October and we'll be coming back to you February 12th with the first overv view of the budget again that's a very broad
180high level overview not a lot of detail uh but Jim's office is uh is aggressively looking uh working on getting that put together we just did get our first state aid run today um so we're analyzing that as we say and seeing what that means for us so there's a lot of back and forth on that the first is not the last so uh it's a it's an estimate to start with and we'll be uh sharing more of that information with the board at upcoming meetings um and as uh Michael's already mentioned strategic planning uh we did an a impact work session in the fall to kind of lay the groundwork to identify what of those most important things that have come out of the last two strategic plans that could serve as a foundation
181as we move forward so we'll be launching the strategic planning process uh the Consultants uh are confirmed to be here at our February 12th board meeting so in addition to the first overview of the budget um they will be in her here in person to present the timeline uh the plan for strategic planning um deliverables Etc to get that process up and running um and we've already internally begun our back a few months ago ad beginning our administrative Staffing discussions with the guidance that the board had provided to us and with some of the landscape of what we anticipated uh financially and as was mentioned a couple times tonight uh Mr Michael redig was with us last week uh Dr Bowman uh led a variety of sessions with him to take a look at both
182our Elementary schedule and secondary schedule and look for some ways that we might think about um how we can use the the how can we use space excuse me time in addition to the space and Facilities to better support our programs as we think uh to the Future climate and Communications these were the outcomes that we were looking for in that area and really two big efforts in this area the uh Communications audit that was conducted last spring we did get the recommendation report from them and now the board has seen the uh the communications um strategic plan that was also uh commissioned as part of that work so um Alex Wolf has been doing a tremendous job working aggressively through uh meeting those uh milestones and the different action steps that have been put
183in place related to that also uh Dr Garcia has been taking the lead with our staff climate survey so thanks really to both of them for a lot of work Dr Garcia worked with a small team of Administrators to really thoughtfully plan out questions in that um we uh had to We were supposed to have our first briefing with the researcher yesterday so that didn't work we will be meeting with him very nice in San Diego I'm sure it was lovely in San Diego probably much warmer um but we will be regrouping with him next week as administrative team and then he will be present at our January 31st meeting to share in person the results with the board as well so we were did get uh again the draft of that report and uh
184I think a lot of positives that uh I was able to preview yesterday while I was U at home um so really exciting some work coming out of that so those really set the stage for the work in this particular area um so our survey has been done climate surveys you saw one in Mr berkowitz's presentation tonight as well Middle School and High School have both launched fall surveys there will be end of the year data to compare uh to both of those to see uh hopefully some areas of growth based on the work that's been conducted this year um Alex is part of the communication strategic plan has been working on and the uh crisis Communications uh plan in particular and a variety of other resources to go with that um Jim and Tom
185Drake are going to be planning at our upcoming February administrative cabinet meeting I believe is what we talked about unless we have to make adjustments for budget and March so March uh upcoming meeting to do some tabletop drills crisis uh drill practice with our team and we're hoping to to involve Alex in the communications piece of that as well as the logistics of it as we talk about incident command training uh because all are key pieces uh We've initiated staff newsletters this year um and you doing that through um parent Square which has been really uh very just such a great seamless system U also I've been holding luncheons with staff so I've got a couple of those coming up so I think the last week of the month there'll be a couple different so
186witson wraps are quite delicious and getting lots of those and getting really most importantly time to spend with staff that's been really great conversations uh parent Square we did launch this fall and we have found it an incredibly useful tool um much more seamless much easier quicker more efficient uh and I think designed for a much more modern parent um so we're excited about how that has gone and certainly would welcome feedback on that from the board um student advisory councils are up and running those are things that I just generally do annually and strategic Communications plan we've mentioned this uh already moving to the next area of academics which is always the core of our work um we really uh identified these outcomes that we would like to see and to work on throughout
187the year certainly focusing on academic growth and achievement as well as finding ways to continue to monitor the mental health and social emotional side of uh working with our students so again to just to run through a few of these uh continuing with our that smart goal format um we have developed a new uh role in the district and again boards Weare this through the budget process School culture coaches and PD consultant um Earl who was in the audience with us tonight um he's been with us since about 8:30 no it's about 10:00 this morning um meeting with our school culture coaches I was able to be part of that and really some great conversations there he's been doing a lot of um focused group basically uh GA data Gathering um really excited about some
188ideas that that uh is are coming from that conversation and actually uh that may lead us to we're hoping to uh some opportunities for um engagement and discussion with Community across the organization with the community um in as I heard the uh discussion of the Seal of Civic Readiness maybe we can even tap some students into those efforts next year um so our committees are up and running as well uh many board members are very involved in those you've heard reports uh and updates there um Dr Bowman has done a some tremendous uh outcomes presentations for the board uh for the public we had a great work session as well with her where we were able to uh take a look at the progress that the district's made both in advancing our use of branching
189mines for the mtss process um and rolling that out I know there's time devoted in upcoming superintendent's conference day to continued expansion of that work and also working at the administrative level to start to wrap our minds around the capacity of uh the data dashboard uh that is connected to Infinite Campus which um is called Data visz so and I know that as part of strategic planning we're also then uh one of the reasons that we selected Hazard young and AA was uh a tool that they offered as well to extend uh an outward facing uh dashboard so so I know we'll be continuing to have further discussion about that as we head through strategic planning so uh what's ahead I've touched on most of this um so again presentations coming up at next meetings
190launch of the Strategic plan the budget process those really I think are some of our biggest key uh key moves in the next couple of months we will be getting the results of all the other data collection that we've been doing the qualitative so the site visits the room utilization the building conditions all the tools that we're going to need in hand to get us towards that end of year goal especially in finance and Facilities of having a solid review of our finances and also a strong review of our facilities that should position us for whatever is next uh as far as uh finance and facilities in particular and as the board knows we're in the midst of various uh negotiations with various units so those will be ongoing throughout the spring as well and
191then we always look forward as we approach the end of the year the tenure and retirement celebrations so may is generally our tenure celebration June is our retirement celebration not a lot of retirements this year one uh yes yes we do have we have a couple uh Dr zanki which I know has been announced earlier and U Mark finnean uh longtime District employee longtime uh Union president for the district as well so um he served a a key leadership role in the district and he will be retiring at the end of this year as well that brings me to the brief end of the presentation so I will uh just pause there and ask for any quick questions from the board I know the board has been part of most of this work so it's
192it's very familiar territory so but really thank you for your support and your continued uh work in that I want to thank my cabinet and they've just done an incredible job um we sat I still remember we sat in August and we mapped out okay if this is where we need to be let's put the months up on the wall and we War gamed it out and um done a tremendous job of staying really on track with that so um this would not be happening without them without the work that they do and then by extension our leadership team uh at the you know the building level so um really thank you guys for that and look forward to uh bringing the end of the closing thing closing the loop at the end of the
193year uh with everything accomplished that we set out to do thank you yeah well done thank you I just wanted to say Dr champ when we met in um in August when we did our Retreat I know it was a a tall order of the things we the board gave you to accomplish and um we're almost there right like we're halfway through the year so I'm glad to see so much has been accomplished so far thank you and and I just look I'm looking forward to completing the year because I do think we've made a lot of progress this year and some of the things such as the data dashboard the facilities uh review that we're currently undertaking um starting the budget process earlier so there's a lot of stuff that we did ask uh
194in August and I'm glad that you know the climate survey I mean it's a lot so thank you thank you to you and cabinet for all the work yes thank you I agree with all of that want highlight Nat Natalie mentioned was you know behind closed doors we we saw the work that um Dr Bowman had been doing with the data data visualization which I thought was really first class and fascinating and a great piece of work um and uh you know look forward to figuring out you know what components of that can be exposed the public um I know it's not all of it but maybe some can um in in in some shape or form because it's really fascinating work and and very impressive right and and even just showing the public how
195how the data is used to sort of Drive some decision making in the district is would be pretty cool to do that well thank you very much appreciate that y okay okay uh we've already done 5.1 yeah good uh 6.1 was me you have any committee reports I thought we were committees though I don't know that we've had any committees since last time all right and we are excusing we're foregoing yeah the um cabinet reports I I would just say if uh if anyone I know the board the cabinet send sorry guys okay um I know that the cabinet does send home uh you know memos you know I send home memos to the board certainly before board meeting so while we're not having them report if anyone did have a question certainly wanted to
196offer that up because I know uh a few items may be on the agenda for vote and certainly want you to feel comfortable that you have all the information you need on what we're presenting tonight so just open up to see is anybody have a question for any of the assistant superintendents okay all right thank you uh we have another opportun opportunity for public comment just say your name and address before we all fall asleep um I'm Anna Raph I live at 437 Second Avenue I came for the Wastewater discuss whatever storm water discussion but I stayed for the great presentations um I have two children I have two children in the district uh one's a nth grader one's the 12th grader um uh I just wanted to say that I thought felt my senior
197had a really great educational experience at the high school I particularly wanted to call we don't really go very much in the weeds but I really wanted to call out the English Department I don't know if you know we have an amazing English Department the literature is subversive okay like the um the discussions they have in class are like challenging and they really do the teachers do such a great job of using the literature to really talk about you know like important like life life and all of its facets um I and I've like reached out to a lot of the English teachers just in parent teacher conferences I feel like they're very they speak very freely they're very genuine they seem very unencumbered which I think actually is very rare or becoming more rare
198in public schools um I am a uh editor at like a large national news organization I guess that makes me an expert in the English language but it also makes me an expert in that I am very aware of all the incidents that go around Nationwide in terms of school boards up in arms Banning book you know Banning books or really kind of putting restraints on teachers and I do want to commend the board and the school um for being kind of courageous and that it doesn't that doesn't really seem to happen there I guess that's also credit to our community um but that definitely takes a lot of courage and I just want to thank everyone for that because I you know we talk a lot about social emotional learning but I just feel
199like the discussions she's had in that class have been so Central to that like both academically and socially and kind of for her growth so I just want to thank everybody and especially the English Department and the English teachers thank you okay great thank you thank you thank you for sharing that yeah can I I just want to sort of echo that English Lit grad undergrad here um I think that you know stem rightfully so has had a very very good run over the last 10 15 years it feels like qualitatively um and I read a very sort of for me depressing article in the New York Times that I think I shared with Dr champ Dr Bowman about how the number of the enrollment in undergraduate English courses at the college level has just
200fallen off a cliff you know it's like down by sort of a almost catastrophic amount um and so I you know I have kids I have a kid in the high school and I see the instruction he's getting in English literature which I just care personally about and I Echo what you say I think is you know really reassuring to to see that English is being taken so seriously and being taught so well and we shouldn't forget about it [Music] yeah okay so we can move on to financial motions reports and motions and I would uh accept a motion to Pro approve item 8.1 through 8 6 as a consent agenda so moved okay any comments or questions about this and this does include the calendar yes thank you um which has two weeks in
201the winter yes lead with the good news yes um I can maybe touch on that really quickly let me just pull that up um I was going to say while you look for that yeah I just want to say thank you for the nisma um as a parent that pushes um and I do mean pushes for their kids to do nisma every year um they'll be glad to have it in town and not have to drive 40 minutes to another town to to do this event um so I'm really really happy for that thank you and I also think it will bring other students here and kind of the aware Ness that it brings when parents come in because every time I go to another high school I'm always like looking around checking around you
202know the doors what's going on so I think it's going to bring other parents to kind of look at our town and look at our high school in a different way and get that exposure so I think it's a good thing allbr yeah and I would say I do appreciate the board U being willing to wave those fees um I know uh Andrew Von bakov our music coordinator um I know we spoke a lot with Dr Bowman um and work with the business off office myself um and it is is it is an investment and I think it's you know it is a on the one sense like it's everyone takes a turn at doing it but it is also you know a real privilege to be able to bring people into your space and
203to to show your support for the Arts and to give students that at home opportunity to continue to challenge themselves as a former music teacher and music student I I did all that and it really is very meaningful student to students so thank the board for um it is taking on a lot our facilities team is going to be taking on a lot to make it happen of course it's going to be amazing because everything they do is topnotch um just want I really to recognize though that it is that added burden is uh appreciated that the board would support and wave those fees um as far as the calendar real quick there are a lot of regulations around how this happens it's not just that we kind of make it up and do what
204we do each year um the biggest one is that the uh state of New York State education department sets region rating day which is the last day of the school year and then we back into that so next year it's pretty late again it's set for June 27th we have to get in 180 days by state regulation our teachers contract is 185 days so that's what we do is we start with that last day and backtrack it all the way in to get 185 days put in the required um uh state and federal holidays put in the required contractual holidays and breaks make sure that we have the right number of hours in the in days of the week hours in the day hours in the week um squeeze in some superintendent's conference days and
205I do want to express appreciation to to the pelum Teachers Association um who has agreed uh by large majority to come back to have their superintendent conference days before Labor Day which is what is going to enable us then to have a solid two- week break at the holidays so thanks to them for the cooperation and collaboration and making that happen that also gives us a full February break and a full spring break with an extra Monday after Easter um Passover aligns with it this year so that that works out very nicely um we do have the uh certainly the new contingency uh day comp compensatory days that are in May I'll bring those up now because it is relevant to yesterday the way that that works is we have two additional days in that
206calendar that are marked as compensatory if we take one snow day we lose one of those days will then become a school day so in the current schedule we used theow day yesterday so now one of those will become a school day if we use the second one the second one becomes a school day so it's going to snow on Friday it is gonna snow on Friday and I'll be back up at five o'clock with Jim and John texting with them in my be superintendent buddies um but yeah we we try to preserve those are good motivator to try to try to preserve as much as possible um but those are they are there um for uh kind of a balance out so that's kind of just some nuts and bolts but but uh again
207very appreciative to them their cooperation so that means students will start on Tuesday after Labor Day it's going to be a short summer it's going to be an early start but it's going to be uh a good year so Dr champ and do we also have a new holiday in January that we are recognizing this year thank you thank you thank you yes we do have a new uh we will be recognizing Lunar New Year that is a new holiday that all school districts will be off school so that is end of January we're happy to put that in there um two things that still need to be added to this calendar so I will be bringing it back to you um one of that one of those is parent teacher conferences um Dr Bowman
208will be meeting with the team of teachers uh this spring once we've kind of gotten through both Cycles because it's a board knows we made some adjustments this year so we want to go back and see how those adjustments worked out um we may try to make some shifts in alignment um that that would impact the calendar so we'll be coming back to you with with addition of those and we also have not added in the PLC days yet for this year so that's something once we get parent teacher conferences settled we get the basic framework of the calendar then we'll see where that leaves us with PLC days and those will also be coming back to you uh later on this spring great great thank you all in favor yep all in favor any
209opposition no okay uh all right so I think I would accept a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.4 as a consent agenda so moved okay second any comments or questions here nope pretty straightforward yeah okay all in favor I I any opposition no all right and then I will accept a motion to approve item 10.1 motion to approve Schedule D so moved second second okay all in favor I any opposition no and there's an opportunity for new business I have none yeah and so I think we can move on to a motion to adjourn so moved okay second okay all in favor I I and the motion carries unanimously okay thank you right thank you all very much all right and one more round of applause for Pauline for her last board meeting thank
210you Pauline all right