Pittsford Board of Education Workshop and Meeting - March 1, 2022

001and then our non-public services area this really looks at all of our resident students who attend schools that are outside of the district so charter schools private schools with our resident area private schools were also responsible for their nursing services library services some computer software services within there as well so that is pretty steady although you've seen it over the last five years there's a trend starting downward for students who are within their programs just due to enrollment of students out of those non-public schools and back into the district the other piece for complementary revenues it comes out of our title grant so the four title grants are also handled within the office although those funds are to be used across the district what you're looking at here are this year's funds the allocation for

002next year doesn't come till around july and then the grant is finalized in august with proposed funding for next year so title 1 is only allocated to particular schools based on their free and reduced lunch status title ii is for professional learning initiatives title three is for our enl services which this is the first year that we've actually qualified to have that on our own before we were working in conjunction with another district but the number of students we have has elevated to us being able to have our own allocation title iv is for a well-rounded education so there's there's some more flexibility there we've used that for sel programs for safety it can be used for some technology areas and titles two and four are also shared amongst our private schools that reside within

003our district catchment so a few accomplishments just to highlight this year um really having vincent join us as our coordinator of equity and inclusivity has been wonderful his focus has really been just these last few months since he's been with us on building those relationships and understanding the culture within the district and really being within the buildings to be able to provide support directly to our students our administrators working really closely with many of our large committees with many of us here in central office the code of conduct which you've seen most recently and will be completed very soon and i think one of the things that's helped as we've organized the department a little differently with some different areas of focus we've been able to be really planned and thoughtful around not just bringing

004things like the code of conduct forward but then what's the rollout going to be with that so something like the code of conduct following it with some really thoughtful training for all of our staff which will be coming up starting next week and moving in through superintendents conference day and then similarly with our gender identity policy that we have this year following that up with lgbtq plus training for all of our staff to have access to some of that will start on superintendents conference day also be happening throughout our secondary schools in faculty meetings as well and one of the other big things that happened this year is the creation of threat assessment teams at each of our schools so all nine schools have identified a threat assessment team that are just starting the training

005process which will also move into this summer when we have some more time to be able to focus on that training and we'll be bringing a consultant we've been working with for several years to be able to continue moving that forward so those teams are ready starting next school year and then just gathering some data this year from our students and from our teachers around different supports that they need through our youth risk behavior survey which you saw some feedback from and then also doing check and survey with our teachers to be able to provide support at the building and at the district level the things you see on this slide in terms of additional accomplishments i really i have to say are the majority the work of stephanie bark who is our student services

006specialist her area of focus this year really has been on social emotional learning and mental health so the the real accomplishment here in addition to all of these pieces is her ability to get into the buildings to be part of those teams to be able to provide support be a part of those conversations around what types of supports are out there so she's really been a liaison between the buildings between their mental health teams and administrators to our community partnerships so her work particularly with the university of rochester medical center has allowed us to really use those consulting hours to build our own capacity which is is really what we want so some of those groups that c bits group that you see there which is really around trauma in schools that's really focused on

007on covet 19 and and the the trauma that's happened for some of our students due to that are our groups that have been able to be running with urmc clinicians and our own staff in order to build their capacity so they can then run groups of that nature on their own so some of those things um have really just been huge accomplishments that i think because she's had that that time to really be able to focus on sel specifically that those things have been able to move forward and building teams know exactly who they can go to if they have questions about what types of supports might be available for certain students or families the other one i would really highlight that we were just talking about today under suicide prevention she was able to

008collaborate with our mental health teams and some of our community resources to be able to create binders that are living in every school that contain all the resources and really a map to follow through the suicide prevention timeline so everything from prevention intervention post vention with all of the forms right there for people to be able to have access to so as dr heatley was sharing that regionally she told us today that many districts were using that as an exemplar to be able to create similar resources for their mental health teams to be able to have access to in their district so a lot to be to be proud of there as we're looking through all of the work and as we've been just discussing the the budget and and how we're all focusing in

009different areas one of our considerations is does this work really far more in alignment with what an administrator would take on um and with the difference between looking at a tosa salary versus something like a coordinator um we we could really have somebody who would focus more on this work and some of the upcoming work that i'm going to talk about in a moment in a way that they could really see it through to fruition and realizing just the heavy lift that we have here um with the upcoming and current um social emotional and and mental health needs um of of our students and our staff so um so the differential there would be probably between seven and ten thousand dollars if we removed a tosa our teacher on special assignment position and replaced it

010with a coordinator for our social emotional learning some of the challenges um i'm going to stick with that sel lens for a moment really uh as over the years we've we've done a shape assessment it's a school health assessment performance evaluation that looks at mental health supports across the district and we know that some of the gaps that have come out is just having something really consistent at each level across buildings to be able to assess mental health needs and follow through consistently so lots of great things are happening but they tend to be different depending on what building or level you're at so being able to really use those district based supports in consistent ways and really support our mental health teams in consistent ways with resources with curriculum alignment with assessment tools is

011is something that we're hoping to do more of moving forward and then obviously a large challenge has just been that really the time and energy put toward the actual covid response bringing in testing clinic which is going on right now really looking at the contact tracing which has been happening all along the way managing different cases working with families talking them through supports working with monroe county and just all the different changes and protocols as we all know which have been changing on a daily basis so just staying updated on those has has certainly been a challenge this year just going to highlight a couple anticipated projects that the piece about really having some district-wide sel structures and systems in place is really about having a vision for transformative sel and equity and what that

012really means is focusing on that sense of belonging on building those relationships in a strategic way and then having teams and supports in place that allow the mental health staff that we do have and the really strong team that we've built to be able to work successfully and efficiently without without burning people out so that would look like things like a universal screening tool and having actual curricular goals that are linked to the content that that our teachers are already using but something that's a little more cohesive that we know can give equitable access to all of our students to consistent sel strategies and approaches we're going to have ongoing community engagement we've had several opportunities for families to come in and interact with us on a variety of topics and want to continue to

013be able to do that again linking the sel and the equity work continuing our professional learning and the threat assessment implementation for the threat assessment teams next year would be another pretty large anticipated project that we we think will have a great impact and be able to support our teams and in a different way and so with that anybody has any questions i i would just say thank you shayna to you and your department for an amazing transition for this year with all the transitions internally that you're contending with but the focus on mental health and threat assessment in all scl work coupled with all of the unknowns has been nothing short of exemplary this year so thank you good evening i'll be presenting to you the proposed special education department budget um before i

014do that i just want to share that tomorrow is spread the word inclusion day so this is a youth-led global campaign to promote inclusion both of our high schools through their interact clubs and best buddies clubs are very involved in um engaging students through posters and taking pledges over the next couple of weeks so hopefully you'll be hearing more about that so just for a little bit of background our special education programs and services are arranged for all preschool age students who reside in the district who are eligible and also all school-age students who either reside in the district or attend one of the private schools within our district boundaries we also work to foster an inclusive culture we're working to provide supports in general education settings as much as possible for students and also

015supporting inclusive clubs and activities so you'll see that we have been trending gradually increasing the number of students who receive special education services in the district continues to increase this year we have just over 700 students which represents about 13 percent of our total district population at this time we also just this is just one quick data point that we monitor to kind of track if we are moving in the right direction with providing adequate resources in general education settings to support our students with disabilities as much as possible you'll see that this year we have continued to increase the percentage of students who are in general education settings for 80 percent or more of the school day so the special education budget at the district level has three separate categories um the first category

016is the special education office which includes the district office team which is both administrative and clerical support overseeing the district special education processes and programs this also covers things like interpreters contracts legal fees as well as our summer work that happens in our office you'll see that our proposed budget for next year we are flat in every area with the exception of contracted services that area we're budgeting we're looking at a slight increase in primarily because as we've encountered more staffing challenges we've had to reach out to private agencies here and there to help us support services in specific situations so we're continuing to anticipate needing to have access to some flexible options to support us during those times the second category is speech language and adapted physical education so the bulk of our special

017education staff are reflected in the building-based budgets so special education teachers and paraprofessionals for example are reflected in each building's budget the centralized services are speech-language therapists and adapted physical education teachers we have 13.6 speech-language therapists and that will remain the same for next year adapted physical education teachers we range between three and four those numbers change throughout the year based on individual student needs this also includes the supplies and materials for those two areas and allows for reimbursement of the speech-language pathologist licenses which allows us to receive medicaid reimbursement for those services so the increase in this area for next year is just related to staff salary increases the ftes are staying the same the final category which is the largest for special education includes all of our outside placements and services so this

018is all of our boces special education services as well as new york state approved special education cert schools we contract for all of our districts physical therapists and occupational therapists through boces so all of those salaries are included in this particular budget area as well as the boces programs that we access for students who require full day programs and the boces services that we provide to the students who are attending private schools in pittsford so special education also has a few areas in which we receive budget support so similar to the title grants that shane are referenced we also receive some federal grants to help us offset special education costs these are the budget history the allocation history for the past five years similar to the title grants we don't receive these allocations until later

019in the school year sometimes as late as june or july so we don't yet know the exact allocation we'll have for the upcoming school year but you'll see that these numbers have been fairly flat over time we also have a certain percentage that we need to distribute to the private schools in the district in addition to that we receive medicaid reimbursement for certain medically necessary services the amount that we received in the last school year was just over 77 000 which was an increase from the year before and the final area of budget support is related to some special state aid categories for high cost programs so for the past school year 2021 we received just over 700 thousand dollars in special high cost aid to support special education programs this was a reduction over

020the prior year due to some of the impact of the remote learning period for us during the beginning of covid so some of our successes are accomplishments related to the special education budget and programs for the current school year we were able to return to full-time in-person programs and services for all of our students within our in-district programs this year we also continue to increase our general education access for students with disabilities as we've been able to provide the resources to support students adequately in general education we also this year were able to return to all of our in-person inclusive activities so meeting our best buddies clubs were able to meet in person our unified sports have been able to resume and this year we added a second unified sport by adding a bowling team

021some of the challenges that we've had this year we've had some out of district placements including boces placements who have had periods of remote instruction for some of our students as a result of staffing challenges and quarantine related challenges so some of our students have had periods of time where they've been affected by remote instruction which has then required some creative programming and service provision to help support them both during that time of remote instruction and then moving forward to make up for some of that time that they lost we also related to that our boces programs in particular have had significant staffing challenges which has resulted in not being able to accept some of the students and having longer wait lists than normal so that's been a challenge for us as well so to

022summarize these are the three areas and the proposed budget for the upcoming school year you'll see overall there's a very slight increase and the increases that you do see are primarily related to the contractual salary increases we've been maintaining the number of students that we place in out of district programs so there's not a significant increase there any questions elizabeth if i could just share that i think one of the most telling graphs that you shared was the amount of students with disabilities that spend 80 percent or more of their time in our gen ed programs is outstanding it's something to really uh be proud of i'm certainly proud of it as a superintendent and proud of our staff for supporting it it's remarkable and the amount that i feel that our students with special

023needs are included in everything inside and outside of school is is extraordinary the all of the unified sports are a highlight not only for us but for families for their peers and for themselves and boy we talk about making a difference in people's lives it's what your department does every day so thank you for all you do thank you and we're excited to be bringing back our middle school unified basketball program this spring as well so that's on the horizon thank you okay next up i'm here to share with you highlights of the curriculum and instructional budget um so again i share this with you every year as we talk about our budget because our our mission around our curriculum really does anchor our work and the decisions that we make in my office on

024a on a routine basis because we are all about preparing our students for their future no matter what their future holds for them so an overview of the responsibilities that fall under my area when we think about the budget certainly the biggest area would be the oversight and support of all curriculum and assessment work for the district and that work is to a very large extent led by an amazing team of 24 standards leaders who are experts in their field have a great degree of credibility with their colleagues and who i rely on on a daily basis to really lead this work in some very significant ways we have certainly with their support and their leadership have have put a renewed focus on integrating equity goals into all facets of our curriculum and instructional work

025and you'll see some of that as i share some of our celebrations as we move forward other areas of responsibility are textbook and supplementary resource acquisition and that's a big chunk of my budget professional learning opportunities and we'll have some information here about some of the boces services that support our programming so a little bit of history in the 510 area of the budget which is the curriculum and instruction line that really is the budget that is directly out of my office that covers just two ftes myself and my assistant as well as salaries for curriculum writing and steering committee payment so that's work that our teachers are doing beyond their regular contractual assignment this budget also includes the district textbook purchasing code which those expenditures are offset every year by some textbook aid from

026new york state this includes travel and conference to support professional learning for all members of our staff all buildings teachers etc and some of our boces services that are specific to our curricular programs and you can see that we're holding very flat in this budget line the 511 code is our standards code so this is the code that includes the stipends and salaries for all 24 of our standards leaders most of whom are still teaching in the classroom either full-time or part-time and we have three standards leaders who are on full-time release right now they have they just again they're my right-hand people they do so much incredible 540 this is our professional development line this is essentially the teacher center here so this is three ftes which is our teacher center director our instructional

027materials coordinator and the teacher center assistant print services supplies and membership we are fortunate in this district to have a such a strong partnership with our teacher center that is unusual for many districts across the region and across the state where our teachers have access to incredible high quality professional learning and the teacher center is really seen as an integral part of all of the work that we do in the district and it's just not like that in a lot of places so it's always worth celebrating i think and then the boces code 470 covers several different areas i've just given you a sampling here and some of these are sort of very directly related to the qrikeon the elementary boces kits that support the boces curriculum or the science curriculum excuse me across of

028all of our elementary buildings and then you see you know urban suburban costs there non-public textbook coordination there's kind of a smattering of things that fall under this general code you see a big spike in this code last year and that's where we put monies to offset what we anticipated would be significant costs for students who continue to require remote learning this school year we're fortunate that we've actually had only a very very small handful like less than a handful of students who have required fully remote services this year and we've we've moved to covering those costs through some of the federal covid related grants that we have right now so that's a big spike in the 21 22 school year budget and that comes out as we move forward and then finally we have

029the budget for summer school and this is for students who need access to summer school services primarily for credit recovery we do not typically have students attend the boces cooperative summer school for new course we allow access to this for kids who need credit recovery or the opportunity to sit for a regents exam that they have not successfully passed yet we are proposing a slight increase in this budget for next year as we anticipate perhaps a little greater need for summer school this year due to some of the learning gaps our budget is primarily supported by the property tax levy we do get some boces aid and some instructional materials aid that comes through our office so some of the celebrations to share with you out of our office connected to some of these budget

030proposals we've certainly seen a much greater alignment of our essential curriculum and instruction across all grade levels all departments all buildings in the last couple of years much greater alignment than we've had in previous years i do consider this honestly one of the greatest silver linings of coven it required covert put us in a position of teachers really needing to focus together work closely together on what the most essential learning for their curriculum is and was and that's provided much greater alignment we've done a lot of work with teams of teachers over the last couple of years creating instructional roadmaps that really outline those essentials align some pacing around those essentials without turning them into mandated scripts and really tight pacing guides but really a sense of focus so all kids are able to access

031the most essential learning for the course no matter who their teacher is we've also done significant work and this is work that certainly will and needs to continue on aligning our curriculum to the new york state culturally responsive and sustaining education framework the biggest focus here for us so far has been in english and social studies and i've shared some of the highlights of that work with you in the past we've begun to do important work around the integration of the new york state social emotional learning benchmarks which shaina referenced and which stephanie bark has been helpful with into our academic curriculum as well as the new york state computer science and digital fluency standards which are k-12 and are expected to be integrated in all disciplines over the next few years so that's a

032big lift that cuts across all areas and then we're also engaged and this is a real celebration and again some much needed and appreciated work done a lot of work in the last several months and the development of a protocol for the review of all instructional materials and that protocol includes a very comprehensive review of materials through the lens of diversity and representation and i look forward to being able to share that product with you when it's complete later this spring additional celebrations and again this one goes back i think to covid provided us an opportunity to take a big leap here with students and teachers embracing instructional technology tools in ways that they certainly were not quite as enthusiastically or knowledgeably in the past and most notably here is the success of our first

033year of the one-to-one laptop initiative grades six through nine we had multiple platforms for professional learning provided to our staff something again that we were not doing prior to covid but we now make professional learning opportunities available to staff in person um asynchronously synchronously blended models etc so teachers are able to access learning in ways and times that make sense for them and meet the needs of the content and our teachers are extremely appreciative of the variety and the differentiated way that we're now able to present professional learning opportunities and we've certainly had critical conversations taking place across multiple venues around all of our equity goals and their impact on our curriculum and assessment moving forward we will be continuing certainly the work on um revising and updating all of our curriculum relative to the

034new york state framework and our commitment to equity will continue the lift around the sel benchmarks and the computer science and digital fluency standards those are both complicated to weave into all curricular areas and so it's going to take some learning and some heavy lifting there boces has been a great partner in that work especially relative to the computer science and digital fluency standards we look forward to growing our one-to-one laptop initiative and our continued offerings for professional learning and culturally responsive pedagogy we are anticipating and we're seeing certainly right now and anticipate additional into the future some of those lingering coveted gaps with learning and so positioning our teachers to be able to provide tier one interventions and differentiated instruction and the resources that they need to help kids close those academic gaps and

035certainly always at the forefront of our work is that social emotional and mental health work for our students and our staff so pulling it all together numbers wise these are the five big buckets of budgets that fall under my area and so you can see the proposals for next year in each of those areas the two big ones 510 curriculum and instruction you can see how that dollar amount breaks down and it's about uh that total budget comes down to 153 dollars per pupil with the biggest areas going to salary and boces and textbooks the standards budget is 96 of that is salaries again that's our salaries and stipends for our standards leaders and then a little bit for their travel and conference supplies and membership fees when you wrap it all up together you

036actually see a nice little decrease there in the overall with when you put those five budget lines together but it's only fair and transparent to acknowledge that that decrease primarily comes from pulling the monies that had put in been put into the boces code for remote learning now being pulled out so overall we're pretty flat any questions melanie would have been impossible to go through the last two years without you and your staff relative to making so many different transitions specific to covid with all of the multiple meetings and planning and thinking and dissemination over everything not only the learning models but the content and it's quite impressive coming out of this the amount of balance that i think that we have now between autonomy and common essential curriculum and understandings across across the board

037i feel like we've we've hit that sweet spot right now and it's pretty unique to us so thank you for all you've done in your department thank you good afternoon and uh thanks for having me so today we're going to be talking about the instructional services technology uh the data team and their assessment and as well as the technology support through boces uh mkowski here behind me we've got jeff kimmer we're gonna co-present this today so just some background information and just to refresh your memory technology services we really support both the technical and the instructional systems that are leveraged throughout our district that can be anything from a computer tablet phone um anything that's going to plug into your your laptop your desktop peripherals printers servers and wi-fi anything that you're seeing here today

038and then behind us uh we also work with staff and students administration throughout the district and uh my team provides a lot of high quality professional development on a lot of the the technology platforms that melanie was talking about early earlier we support the integration of instructional technology within the curriculum and continue to refine our practices and learn more about the emerging trends of what's happening out there we maintain our infrastructure throughout pittsford schools and we do that with an outstanding staff of around 14 full-time members that's myself one administrative assistant eight technicians and four instructional technology people we also have two audio visual assistants at the the two high schools that are shared throughout the elementary and middle schools and we have one print shop manager that helps support our district as well as

039many other districts good evening um we call it here on the slides data and assessment but i think most of you know us as the data team and we're very proud of the work we do some of the work you see forward facing here visit vr presentations um the second goal here talks about student assessment data i know you see a lot of that in the fall melanie presents that but we also use a lot of that at building levels ilt ilc central office so you may see some of that work here but a lot of that work is used behind the scenes as well we work in conjunction with our business office and we make sure that the student attendance reports not only are good for them but good for the state of new

040york and we certainly assist our secondary schools all schools but really focusing on the secondary schools when it comes to student scheduling and the complexities that come with that we help with surveys i've become very synonymous with surveys but not all of them buildings departments do their own but we are always there to support we're looking around the table we support everybody here we know how well and hopefully we play it well a little bit different than most of the departments we're very small department where i would call a pop out of technology services we have five and a half ftes myself my administrative assistant becca who you've probably all met before three data liaisons which we have an opening right now of which and then a part-time assessment clerk that we moved a year

041and a half ago from student services you'll see that show up in the budget a little bit as an increase as we move that over but smaller group but we are very proud prideful of the work that we're able to turn out that you see and that's done behind the scenes the last part of this is really all-encompassing it goes far beyond just technology services and the data team it's the the boces support services and this includes things are that uh such as for hr wincap and professional development services to the teacher center infinite campus iep direct snap family id the alert systems website hosting as well as office 365 and email services a lot of the things that they do are behind the scenes and they go like i said beyond just the technology

042services and when we look at the accomplishments accomplishments that we have there's a lot of pride in this slide year after year we show this and i think about the customer service that we provide this year we've closed around 6 200 student and staff help desk tickets that's from july to just about now there's a lot of activity going on on our network over 118 million events on the network weekly and we have a pretty high up time of maintaining network stability around 98 percent we've also continued with the installation of interactive flat panels not only at the elementary over the last few years but now we've increased that to the middle school levels and we've satisfied all the classrooms and support support areas with new interactive flat panels and we're looking at some point

043in the future to do that to the high school as melanie had mentioned earlier with the one to one we've worked collaboratively with multiple stakeholders throughout the district to develop and refine systems that really support our one-to-one uh device initiative in six and nine six through nine and then we've implemented new instructional programs that are going to support digital learning as we go into more of a one-to-one environment this summer we've done a lot with putting back classrooms going going away from that temporary learning model from last year reallocating smart boards and light speeds and different things from non-traditional classroom spaces and putting them back into where they should be we've provided professional development on things like discovery education nearpod office 365 and multiple some of the accomplishments for the data team is making it

044through the day and the week sometimes but uh some bigger picture things would be all the survey work we've done that i've alluded to already the third bill on the right or the left column here my left is uh really speaking about nist standards and cyber security if i were to highlight anything on this slide matt and i are along with a company called sera who's our virtual see so that's the vc so they're chief information security officers we spend a half a day every week door closed phones off unless there's an emergency really focusing on learning best practices and then more importantly implementing them for the district we're going to do enough for the next 18 months so we're in school every wednesday afternoon if you don't see us we're in my office with

045two of the best experts locally and if there's anything i would be most prideful or happy or satisfied with is the work that we're doing and hope to share some of that more with the advisory oversight committee come this june the other column i spoke a little bit about the virtual cso the chief information security officer but you've seen the board presentations the third bullet there is around data dashboards we work with all of our principals and department leaders really focusing right now on our secondary leadership team to make sure that we have live daily data in regards to attendance behavior equity and academic achievement and we continue to work with melanie's office to refine that work and that last boy it's not meant to be an all-encompassing list but anything that the the central

046office or the buildings need relative to reports we have been very um happy to be able to accommodate uh most if not all requests in a timely manner that's some of the things that we just did uh this past year so with any great success come some obstacles and challenges along the way and with that as we increase our technology use over the last few years it's really trying to balance that innovation that's that's out there with the safety and the security as jeff had talked about earlier wanting to make sure people understand the risks that are associated with we take we take that next step into a one-to-one environment it's also addressing daily requests while continuing to find the time to refine our system so how do i how do i ensure my my

047guys are in and my people on my team are able to move forward with the programs and the systems that they have and understand how to learn about best practices and continue to relate that to the people that we're working with and the there's that expectation of 24 7 uptime and and just making sure that our systems and our resources are always there and always online and then covet especially with hardware replacements um there's the supply chain issues that we've been dealing with and the rising cost of pretty much everything these days uh the the hardware replacement becomes just a constant struggle that we have obstacles are challenges we have with the data team i think back to the 90s when i started with some of you and we had four email systems and you

048can load anything you wanted on your desktop we've come a long way in 23 years it's that careful balance of fostering creativity and teacher innovation but yet following the laws 2d laws or privacy laws on the books with new york state they're not recommendations they're laws so finding that balance i think we've done a really good job is a daily challenge but we overcome that and i would also illuminate the last bullet turnover is happening to the data team in the last year or so folks coming and going so we tend to work short and hopefully we'll bring some stability to our department this coming year so as we look to the the near future we look at some anticipated schedule technology replacements um some of the big projects that are on here are around

049device renewal and that's not only our laptops but that's also desktops macs tablets and various other ipads and then also it's our storage and that's replacing the on-premise storage anything that we're not putting into the cloud into office 365. those are that that's coming end of life in another uh six to 12 months and anticipated um chipping delays are causing us to think about uh replacing that sooner than later so as we look at our technology services budget from a historical perspective over the last several years you're going to see that it's it's broken down into a number of different areas the majority just like other departments the majority of that budget is made up of salary that's around 60 percent and then it goes into boces instructional services boces equipment categorical aid for hardware

050and software and other equipment and we'll take a look later in future slides of more of a deeper dive into those those various categories the budget for my department is relatively small 94 of it is salary based the increase here you see is contractually based primarily with salaries and a little bump up that we move some money from student services to cover that half-time assessment clerk and the supplies she needs to administer some of the assessments that we do throughout the year so we increased you'll find the the granular details in your budget packet of some of our general fund 500 code monies to buy those supplies those are the two areas that we bumped up a little bit from last year and then the final part of this is the boces support which here

051you'll see again from a historical perspective that it's it's been relatively flat the last few years with contractual costs going up based on um devices as well as just overall contractual obligations raising year after year so as we look at our overall budget it's supported through a couple different areas the first is through categorical state aid for both hardware and software and that is based on the per pupil allocation at each one of the schools and then we look at the purchasing through boces in which we generate aid based on what the purchase is for the following fiscal year and finally we look at the technology reserve which is essentially our savings account that we can pull out of with voter approval for strategic purchases that may not be there for the the general fund

052and then some complementary revenues yeah the smart schools bond act that we have we continue to use at various times as well as federal e-rate that we've leveraged in the past and both of these are outside of our general education fund so when we look at our proposed budget here we see that our salaries our contracts equipment and supplies or the various objects that we talked about earlier technology services you can see the increase at in the salary line because that went from last year 7.5 to this year a 0.5 uh increase so now we're at eight full-time ftes uh and then also with that is our our yearly contractual uh salary increase that's that's there this was the table that i was alluding to that shows you some of the granular details uh it

053does show approximately a five percent uh change but again those are primarily in some costs and and supplies and then the the final piece of this is just our boces support where again it there's a three percent increase in that just like i said earlier it does represent additional costs in contractual services and devices any questions the benefit that matt and i have had is folks that we hired back in the 90s and 2000s have stayed with us um it's it's the answer quickly to you to your question is retirement so um it's not competition per se um we're working closely with sean's office it'll be interesting to see who we find because of that competition to replace some of these folks um so it's a little bit of both sides and we'll see if

054the challenge is really there we like to still think that people are on the work for for matt and me and work for pittsford schools more specifically so we have our fingers crossed that we'll get a good pool of candidates to fill these holes if i could just comment one of the things that sometimes people do not equate your positions to is the impact on our health and safety of a district and the work that you've done specific to health and safety relative to covid with creating health inventories for visitors and staff on a daily basis to making sure students are able to stay connected from home to school to cyber security and to being a critical part of our building infrastructure plans from everything from our emergency response buttons to being integral in our

055active shooter responses is is a part that i don't think people can truly can truly grasp so you have a an amazing role with students in instruction every business will say you have to make database decisions but your decisions are only as good as the data you're receiving and the data that we receive is of the highest quality so thank you both for for all you do so that will conclude our budget workshop at 6 54. we'll resume in six minutes good evening and welcome to the pittsford board of education meeting if you please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all before we begin tonight's meeting

056um the board of education would like to begin by standing in solidarity with the citizens of the ukraine and those in our community who have been directly impacted by this week's attacks we'd like to reiterate superintendent pirro's message encouraging any students and families needing any additional support please contact or contact your building administrators during this time may i have a motion to approve the agenda please thanks robin and pete any edits all in favor opposed motion carried may i have the approval of the minutes from february 8th please thanks ted and sarah any edits there all in favor opposed motion carried board of education reports you can see all of the dates that we have before us each of these meetings will be in real time at the doubletree so um if there are any

057changes i'll keep you informed there dates to remember we have the third of march coming up this thursday we have a board tour only of sutherland high school at 7 30 if i could just have a show of hands who will be there i think we'll have the whole gang there excellent and the 15th of march will be our next board meeting so this evening we have to take a vote on a pittsford central school district nominee for the boces board we have someone who has been sitting in that seat who is running for re-elect that person happens to be the person that's named after this room so i think we all know kim mccloskey very well she is highly qualified for the position we've all seen her resume multiple times and i think she

058is probably overqualified for the role and i think dan white would not like me for saying that but i would like to take a motion for nominating i would like to nominate kim mccluskey for the board of education for boces one if i can have a second please thanks ted any questions about kim's background okay i think we need to all in favor opposed motions carried i will let kim know the good news um financial report darren thank you have the treasury report for january we did receive almost five million dollars in the star amount so as of january we've received all of our property taxes for the current year um school lunch fund had almost a thirty thousand dollar surplus so we're all just just about within fifty thousand dollars of being flushed for

059the year as opposed to about four hundred thousand dollars negative at the same point in time year before um the the program is really struggling you heard it tonight with staffing due to absences and people retiring etc we're really understaffed there so it's it's making it difficult to provide some of the options that we normally provide you heard tonight about excuse me the federal stimulus money and the grants etc you'll notice in the special aid fund it took all the way until january to get approval for the arp funds and some of the title funds there so that concludes the highlights thanks darren may have a motion please thanks john pete questions all in favor opposed motion carried thanks jared human resource report sean good evening for your consideration we have the professional staff report

060we have one certificated staff appointment one school-related professional appointment one appointment for managerial confidential one appointment for supervisory technical we have one supervisory technical resignation for retirement two school related professional resignations a claims auditor resignation and we also have spring coaching list salaries and volunteers for your approval as well okay may have a motion please sarah and robin any questions all in favor opposed motion carried thank you next for your consideration is the support staff report we have one payroll clerk appointment one clerk resignation for retirement three transportation appointments one custodial appointment one custodial termination one food service worker resignation and one food service worker termination may have a motion please ted and renee any questions there all in favor opposed motion carried thank you and then finally we have a first reading for tenure

061for a teacher thank you sean thank you student services shayna just had the second reading of the code of conduct for this evening thank you okay i may have a motion please to accept pete and renee questions all in favor opposed motion carried again thank you for your work on that and the team that was involved special education report elizabeth good evening we have csc and cpsc recommendations on the consent agenda thank you superintendents report mike there's not any need for an executive session this evening i do want to give a special thank you to menden center ptsa for the purchase of art supplies at menden center elementary school for fifteen hundred dollars so thank you menden center ptsa a couple updates about tomorrow so tomorrow the governor has in new york state department of

062health have issued a mask optional policy which means that masks will be optional for students staff and visitors in our in our building i did send an email out to staff and to the community this evening absent of guidance from the state so we were uh the worst case scenario which would mean that there would be a policy without guidance so we've been meeting regularly to try to fill in the blanks to the extent we can i think what's critical here just to understand is that for the last two years what we have been doing is looking at the cdc this the state ed department new york state department of health and monroe county department of health for guidance we've been following their mandates we've been advocating for metrics the metrics came out the metrics

063have led to a mass optional policy and so i i do want to acknowledge the fact that some people are elated and some people are going to be anxious going into tomorrow and as a community we need to acknowledge that type of dichotomous relationship between the folks that are going to be in school tomorrow and ask for us to be good neighbors something i've been asking for a long time is to be good neighbors and respect each other's uh thoughts around um why or whether or not we're wearing a mask or not wearing a mask the um just to speak a little bit to some of the metrics leading up to this decision has come down to the vaccination rates hospitalization rates positivity rates pediatric hospitalization rates what the governor announced in her decision was

064that new york state has the highest rate of adults fully vaccinated highest rate of teens fully vaccinated second highest rate of children ages 5 11 fully vaccinated uh there's been a 98 decline in cover 19 cases continuous downward trend in cases for 51 consecutive days probably 53 consecutive days now the number of children testing positive for cover 19 is declining to levels that we haven't seen since before we've returned from summer break pediatric hospitalizations have declined by roughly 80 percent since the omicron peak and when you juxtapose that data to our current data in pittsford we have two cases at the middle school of students that are positive right now and we have two elementary students so we have four total students out of uh about 5700 which is certainly positive we um our zip

065code one four five three four um has the highest vaccination rate in the county and our pcsd students have the highest vaccination rates in the county as well and i share those two pieces of data with you along with the state data to reaffirm that this is a safe environment for our students to come back to with a mask optional as far as making the decision we did reach out to the community and look for feedback albeit not a scientific survey it was a perceptual survey to see where people felt in the event we had a mask optional decision to make as i've shared before we had 89 percent of our families and 92 percent of our staff that said that they would already support or would consider supporting a mass optional policy if certain

066criteria were in place and the following criteria are in place which include a lower infection rate since january a lower hospitalization rate access to testing access to district-based testing lower pcsd infection rates access to masks and then the last thing we couldn't accommodate was starting after april break so but we part part of that was having windows open so we can certainly work within those those boundaries we have recognized the importance of staying true to the guidance provided by all of the the major areas which has been part of the decision making process to go ahead and affirm that tomorrow we will be mask optional today we received from dr mendoza's office and executive bellows office some facts that were also in my email for those that are worried about coming back to school because

067of being immunocompromised or having family members that are immunocompromised relative to the importance or the significance of the can 95 masks within themselves what we are what we received was that they are 83 percent effective so for the families that are concerned about coming back tomorrow know that if there was nothing else in place um and an excluding vaccination rates that the masks alone that we'll have available would provide a substantial amount of protection and then if that's the starting point with the can 95s if you again are are concerned about covid we have multiple layers that we still have on top of that so tomorrow means mask optional it doesn't mean that everything else is thrown out the window it's quite the contrary our other protocols will stay in effect and just like how

068we we started and have changed throughout the last two and a half years we're going to start with what the mandate says which is mask optional mortal start tight after that and we'll see what areas we can loosen up with but as far as what tomorrow is going to look like in the in the near future protocols the same lunch protocols snack protocols meaning uh at the elementary level for example we have um things in place where students are having snack every other row and then they will put their masks on so the difference here is they have snacks every other row some kids will put their masks on some some will not we'll continue with our district-based clinics we'll continue with all of our disinfecting our health screenings we will have take-home clover tests

069available at any time we will encourage classrooms to have windows open when it makes sense we'll continue with health hygiene practices we'll encourage people to stay home on sick we're going to continue with weekly random testing and we will be notifying elementary classroom families if there are two or more cobra positive students in in the classroom i also in my email i sent out a q a and these are questions and answers to most of the emails that i've received from parents staff administrators over the last week so i'm not going to go over all of these but i will highlight a few of them one is that mask shaming vaccine shaming all of that shaming cannot happen um i i i just make a plea to everyone to to keep our behaviors in in

070check uh this isn't about um winning losing right or wrong uh this is about people dealing with a crisis in their own lives and us as neighbors dealing with it with a loving heart and being able to support one another so a lot of our messaging in the morning two kids will be around that during the day in classes some of our morning circles will be around respecting people's rights to wear a mask and not wear a mask and i think that's a really big start in teaching our kids within our schools that sense of humanity and valuing different opinions so mass shaming is not going to be anything that we want to or will have part of our school district other uh questions why don't i start with questions that we don't know yet

071the answer to uh so it's a little frustrating again that we have guidance or we don't have guidance when a mandate has changed so some of the things that we don't have answers to what will new quarantine and contact tracing protocols be with look like with an unmasked population so we don't know that which is okay not to know it right now because we we have a few days to um to figure out from the time someone is covered positive um quarantining um we don't know the answer to that what that's going to look like and we don't know what the return to school is going to look like after you're covered positive so right now you're out five days and then what will days six through through 10 look like we we just don't

072have guidance on that i think all the other questions you can you can certainly see i won't go over each one individually here tonight but i will say that it's a big deal we're going to from two and a half years of masking to making a mask optional having something on your face or or doing something for two and a half years and then stopping to do it is is a significant change for a lot of people so again someone's going to be easy and someone's going to be really tough so just ask for everyone just to be respectful and i know that we have a room full of opinions here we have six thousand students with opinions and then their families with opinions and i think i've heard almost every opinion and i think

073the board has heard almost every opinion we've been trying to be respectful to every single one of them we certainly know that whatever decision we make there's going to be people to disagree but we will continue to be adapting to the changing environment we'll continue to reach out to the public health officials to make these decisions we'll continue to challenge things that we don't think is right and we'll continue to get answers to our community as soon as we get them so with that i opened up for any questions so mike i just want to make a comment that the guidelines just came out as we're sitting at the table no so it looks like i have uh some work for tomorrow so we'll be receiving a follow-up to my email tonight with regards to

074whatever those guidelines say okay tells you how quickly things change um may i have a motion to approve the consent agenda please thanks renee and sarah all in favor opposed motion carried old business new business okay with that we will go into public comment i will say we have rules of engagement for um public comment first of all you need to be a citizen of pittsford a resident of a citizen of pittsford a resident of pittsford are you it depends on what you're what you're seeking we can't speak on behalf of a private school okay well right now anne-marie it is about if you're a pittsford resident and it's pretty clear on our protocol not necessarily because the urban suburban students are our students they do attend our schools we have 11 write-in submissions and

075then we have all of these that were just submitted to me so i'm going to read every one of them this evening because i don't want to have any bias with anything that's been submitted either online or in person so i am going to go through each one of these and i'll probably go back and forth between the two thanks ann marie we're going to begin with a write-in submission and again i ask for civility with the audience members that are here in attendance and the moment that goes away we are going to shut down public comment jennifer o'sullivan is 41 burr oak drive hi i'd like to know what the transition plan is for shifting masking to be optional particularly what is the plan for families that selected an alternative learning plan as a

076needed accommodation before they were okay with masking become becoming optional so that was one of the q a's that i did not read there is a process for families who do have a medically compromised or immunocompromised child where this environment may not be safe for him or her or they so they will work with their building principal we do have a process to see if they were qualified for remote learning via boces tadahara lava kumar do you need my address please okay i did write it on the card oh that's fine i have it on your card yeah that's fine okay um so my name is dada hot that was my pronouns is she her hers as a school-based mental health therapist who has worked in the schools full-time for the past three plus years

077i would like to talk about trauma and increase mental health needs and how that relates to the pandemic and not the masks two years ago when the pandemic started and everything shut down our world turned upside down we asked teachers and students to do something that they have never done before teach and learn remotely crisis learning is a traumatic point for everybody during this time stress levels increased and many were shocked and feared of the unknown many struggled with food or services such as laptops and wi-fi and even child care school was the least of many's concern during this time last year we moved to hybrid and remote learning models the kids were socially distant in each school for two days some kids were still completely remote hybrid hybrid kids were only able to see

078half of their friends because of the way they were split and then remained remote they became more secluded behind their screens more isolated and oppressed we saw an increase in social isolation depression and suicidal thoughts during this time humans are social creatures so when asked to do something we're actually used to it causes anxiety and depression during this time teachers have been working on how to ensure everyone was getting the information they had multiple lesson plans and also had to deal with how their own children were going to school or not going to school this year we've been able to return to school full-time start back with all the activities including music programs and sports kids are able to see all of their friends however the students are back to school with a new set

079of obstacles they have to learn how to deal with people again in 2020 when the world shut down it created a traumatic point when trauma occurs people get stuck at a point of time during this time people only know how to survive they struggle to do new things including learning when kids started coming back to school we saw an increase in what people call the mental health need however when taking the trauma-informed process we see the bigger picture people do not process trauma while they're in it while the trauma is happening people only know how to survive once the trauma seems to be ending and passing people are able to start processing it right now we have an increase in mental health needs and not enough staff to take care of everyone being able to

080return to school full time with masks and vaccines allowed for people to start the process of trauma while processing their trauma now we are moving rapidly into the next phase of removing masks we haven't even made sure the students who need help are receiving it we now are going to continue to stress out an already stressed and maxed out mental health system lastly we are currently in the midst of a staff and bus driver shortage if by removing last too soon then we end up having more of a shortage and having to close down we're taking a huge risk of re-traumatizing our kids and adults as a therapist and a person it is so much harder and takes so much longer to process the same trauma the second time around people lose hope and trust

081that things will ever get better when they're re-traumatized we haven't completely processed the trauma of the pandemic as is seen in the members of our youth risk survey and families are willing are waiting for weeks to talk to a counselor or therapist and now we're jumping into something that has a potential to cause more trauma i really hope the plan is put into place for this surge as we will see people to continue to process the trauma of the pandemic thanks tadaha i'm going to read a write-in submission by sadie shrama from 30 jordan road i'm writing today about the change in masking policy in schools honestly i'm not really sure what to say it just feels like parents are being unheard and dismissed and questions left unanswered the district survey indicated that parents could

082support a mask optional policy if there was a clear plan that included other mitigation measures the if is being completely ignored i've had a 16-year career in the nonprofits profit sector and with that i've been involved in a lot of change management more than i'd like what's happening here is just really bad change management we all knew that a mask optional policy would be coming at some point but for weeks parents have been seeking answers as to what that would look like and those questions are being ignored we thought there might be a plan handing out masks and tests is a good thing to do but it's not a plan what other mitigation measures are going to be put in place will there be a change in distancing requirements will we invest in air quality

083what about the folks who indicated that they need an alternative learning model this change does not feel well thought out and i do not understand the rush surely we could hold on a bit longer until you had answers to some of the questions until we could open windows and classrooms and until younger siblings had the chance to be vaccinated to send an email saying that we're going to mask optional in three days within us with an aside about how we still don't know exactly how it will all work is irresponsible there's a way to thoughtfully consider the impact here and get to a mass optional policy that does not dismiss the very real and valid concerns of many parents scott georgia scott george 70 woodland road and i would like to talk about the future

084of pittsford schools education in march 2020 the learning and education of my son and daughter was just dropped my son left in july before a diploma was issued and he's now preparing to go to romania with an infantry unit my daughter never recovered from remote learning and hybrid learning and mandates and masking you need to never let this happen again teachers must educate our children about covid with science and research years ago many believed in the loch ness monster and they were afraid of something called bigfoot years from now people will look back on us and say i cannot believe they thought covid was a greater risk to children than the flu because of this bigfoot thing you can't get bus drivers so i drive my daughter to school every day you cannot find substitute

085teachers my english my daughter's english teacher has been gone since the first week and it's been a revolving door of fill-ins she spends part of english class as a study hall but who am i kidding it's tick-tock children need to be educated about truth not fear with me tonight are other parents and we've formed a very organized group we've bonded our relationships because of a common goal to improve the education of our children we want our schools highly ranked like they used to be so we'll be here this year and we'll be here next year some of us will be here in five to ten years as i study the board i see that many of you may not be here in five to ten years and and that includes you mr superintendent as you

086approach retirement age but i see that you sarah have a chance of being here that long please do not forget about us please do not forget about the damage that bigfoot did to our children and to your children thank you i'm going to read a writing submission by michelle ricks michelle is eight turtle creek in pittsford as i've stated at prior meetings and in prior emails i have many concerns about the current plan for having masks optional in our schools american academy of pediatrics is still recommending masking in schools vaccination rate of 5 to 11 year olds is low and there are new studies suggesting the effective effectiveness of the vaccine in this age group is significantly reduced over time even in terms of preventing serious illness we're just returning from break where many families

087traveled it seems prudent to wait a week or two and see if the community infection rate spikes just recently the indoor mask mandate was lifted there's not been enough time to see if there will be an impact on county infection rate there's been no communication about other mitigation measures air quality measurement improvement windows open and fans etc there's been no communication about how higher risk activities like band and chorus will be handled i think that's been addressed this evening as well there's been no communication about how exposure notifications will be handled without masks even one infected person in a classroom will constitute an exposure of everyone in that room will parents be notified if there's one positive case in any class or lunchroom or pe class how will notification be handled for middle school and

088high school students will they need to sign in to every class study hall teacher hour library time is there anything you feel wasn't answered that can be answered i believe some of that is going to be in the guidance as far as notifying secondary parents okay colleen evans sure uh i appreciate everyone's time and attention tonight as well as our school board members that i had the opportunity to speak to over the past couple of days jeremy if you could address the board you're not addressing the audience if you could address or jerry i'm sorry thank you so much i appreciate that um so um jerry evans at 30 thomas grove in pittsford okay and i appreciate the opportunity to address you all i did have the opportunity to speak to several of you over

089the past couple of days and certainly appreciated that opportunity i'm the chief of emergency medicine as a emergency medicine physician at a regional hospital i have had the privilege to care for our communities during this life-changing pandemic to hold the hands of those who have lost their family members old and young a couple of weeks ago i sent a four-year-old to the icu their risk factor was not cancer not chemotherapy it was asthma okay this pandemic is not done we are still admitting patients patients are still going to icu our last peak was only a few weeks ago the newest variant omicron ba2 which is in europe now is expected to become the dominant variant is 30 percent more contagious than the omicron we have now which is four per four times as contagious as

090delta was before that my point is we have a highly contagious virus that is transmitted by respiratory particles there is a concept called source control which is part of primary prevention primary prevention is stopping the transmission and vaccination we have hung our hat on vaccination a bit it seems to be very effective for adults unfortunately the state just released data yesterday that our vaccines for 5 to 11 year olds or we prevent infections against omicron in 12 of the cases 12 of kids get protection from the vaccine and by the way our vaccination rates i don't have exact answers somewhere between 20 and 40 percent that age group we have to consider that also their risk of hospitalization uh dropped from about a hundred percent down to down to down to fifty percent protection so

091the vaccines unfortunately are not as effective as we had hoped i recognize that i'm running out of time here i want you all to know two million kids got covered uh in january okay 900 children have died during this during this pandemic seven thousand children have uh long-term inflammatory syndrome related to it long-haul covid the children are not immune the adults in the building are vulnerable mask optional does not provide the first layer of protection in mr apparel i have to say i'm very concerned that children who are compromised are being considered to be it's too risky to have them in normal classrooms and they're allowed to go to boces or have remote learning i don't believe we're meeting the education requirements set by law for our district by having these compromised marginalized children sent

092off site because of our desire to go mask free for everybody else thanks jerry thank you so much thank you i'm going to read another write-in submission bonnie mcgee i'm sorry i can't be there in person but i want to make sure that my voice is heard and there are at least 20 families who wrote you a joint letter who feel the same way we're incredibly disappointed in the rollout of the mask optional policy as of tuesday morning we have basically been told by the school district that masks are optional starting wednesday and that details are still being worked out even if we get an email this afternoon this is too little time for families to digest the material and prepare our children for tomorrow this is a critical decision that the superintendent is making

093and as such it requires time to get the new rules correct and time to share with the community it's appalling that there were more hearings about the full day k than there have been about covid policy we want to know what school is going to look like as of tomorrow the superintendent mentions social distance with masks optional will they reinstate social distancing especially in small classrooms or areas like band or chorus where presumably you now allow children to sing and play instruments without masks or bell covers what does the policy look like if there's an exposure in a classroom is there a threshold of infection that will trigger a reassessment of the policy these are just a handful of the many important questions that need to have been decided and the parents need to know

094the answers to well before tomorrow okay meredith graham hi thank you for taking my comment meredith graham 21 northfield gate uh i just want to first say thanks to the board and administration as well as all the teachers out there who have been working tirelessly tirelessly through this i know this is not going to be easy for them tomorrow i have a lot of empathy for them i hope we can all be kind especially to the teachers i'd like to just state that it's surprising that we haven't heard very clear recommendations about staying home when you're sick and using the tests before coming back tomorrow people will not have masks on it's been great to have those tests come home i think the people who have requested the tests are are probably going to use

095them but i don't know if the people who aren't going to be masking tomorrow are also less likely to use the tests i'd like to understand more about what the plan is if someone is symptom has symptoms in the classroom um i was really happy to hear my child had a circle this morning with their um their teacher and they talked about masking and how we're going to respect everybody's choices and i think that's great uh nothing was said about what happens if you know this child next to me is coughing and i'm uncomfortable uh are they gonna still you know be expected to go to the nurse and have a test to make sure that it's just a cold we're gonna see more colds we're gonna see more illness now uh we're gonna see

096teachers getting colds and illnesses all of that is about to happen so i'd also like to understand for the teachers um are they going to be you know okay at the front of the room really cold uh you know will kids would sometimes be asked to ask there's so many questions yet in their mind about this i know i'm not the only one worried but i do also just want to draw attention to the idea of having anxiety around us right so i don't think i'm anxious about the masks i'm wearing masks because we aren't yet in green zone if we were in the green zone i would feel great about taking off my mask because i would know that we're in a situation where it's very unlikely that i would get covered and i'm

097not worried about that anymore but we're not there yet so i'm not i don't have anxiety about it but whatever i'm just losing logic and using the guidelines that have been out there and i'm hoping that everyone else also thinks about that i know there will be people who aren't looking at that and that's fine and that's their choice but i'm guessing tomorrow might not be everyone filling out their masks as some think it will thank you thank you meredith david mensch hello everybody dave bunch 35 deer creek um on the note um i put on the card one of the numbers that has never been disclosed we captioning not recovered in available days how many kids have had it and recovered i know the numbers are there because they've been reported i'm kind of

098wondering is it 70 percent 50 60 because those children are your barrier to other people catching it they are the natural barrier to stop it as we all know so that would be a good number for people to actually know also referencing what the doctor had reported is that in the country 900 children have died of covid there's 320 million people in america what number of those 900 is also a good thing to know what number of those 900 had comorbidities how many had five comorbidities six i know the average i think 80 percent of all people that died had an average of five comorbidities i believe so what is it in the children as well we're looking more at the kids and in the school and then we talk about vaccination where how many

099countries in europe have stopped using an mrna vaccine for children multiple countries have stopped the modern vaccine for the kids or the people under the age of 30. why is that because of all of the adverse events the myocarditis the heart injury that happens you think it's rare but it happens and then the last piece is one thing that i looked up i remember last time i was here i was talking about the going to do an asbestos abatement job with the little blue masks because they're so incredibly effective for stopping small particles i also learned that the average human being exhales 14 ounces of water per day we have over 350 kids i think just in the school alone all exhaling 14 ounces of water per day so unless you're going home and wringing

100out your mask and filling up a glass with about eight ounces of fluid that vapor is going into the air it's spreading out through here we can count up the number of people just in this room and when you logically think about it that's where the virus might be going it might be going along with the water vapor that's the argument that it's on the water particles those water particles aren't going home with you in your mask you're taking you're leaving it right here in the air so give that a thought as far as using logic and science follow the science thank you dave colleen emmons um i will start with gratitude thank you for listening amy you spent an hour with me yesterday um thank you to the board uh thank you mr piro

101i know that i don't envy your spot at all in any way shape or form so i want to thank you first colleen if i could just ask you to come a little bit closer you can't hear me i can't hear you if you want it if there you go height challenge right um i cannot speak to the scientific part of this it's not my it's not my spot but i can speak to the human part of this so i want to share a couple stories with you hopefully you think of them tonight i'm not here to um you know haunt you or i am not here to be an adversary i just need to represent my children because that is my one and only job in this life is to protect them um back

102in 2002 and 2020 when coveted started to become a thing their dad is an edu physician and we are very deliberate in how we speak to our children and we have two very anxious children so we immediately started talking to them back in 2020 about covet so that they weren't scared so that they knew that their dad was safe and that they knew that things he they didn't have to be scared of him when he was coming home that things might change and that we would be okay um my son the following week had a student out a classmate owl and he said the word kovid he was threatened with the most severe punishment possible um and i had a meeting with mr debell the following week the district closed the reason i'm sharing this

103story is because throughout these past two years we've been very deliberate and how we have presented the challenges to our children math scoring is not fun for anybody i don't want it to stick around nobody wants it to stick around and not a single person here is exempt from covet nobody has has whether it's a loss of friends time family members i lost a grandmother nobody is exempt and we have been very deliberate in empowering them and in saying to them masks protect you and they keep you safe they keep daddy safe and they take care of others we have empowered them to take care of others so here comes all these mask mandates and it's fascinating because i am a twin mom i have buried a child one of our twins have passed away

104i hear people talk about statistics with only 900 children dying and i have a unique perspective because as a twin mom that has lost a child i have had people say oh at least you have your child your surviving child and i look at them and i think gosh which which child would you pick to die and i feel the same way about the 900 children that have lost their lives at what point is there a fair statistic um and i have watched my child survive sepsis skin grafting um heart surgery bilateral brain bleeds hours and hours of therapy he has put in time he fights every single day he's thriving at the road thanks to mr debell thanks to his fantastic teachers and i cannot thank them enough but here comes this masked mandate

105being removed and i want so badly to look at them and confidently say to them as i have done in the last two years you are okay and i cannot do that and i really think that with open communication and having time to be heard and ask questions and be thorough parents like me can look at their children who we have so deliberately empowered to take care of others and care that we will be okay with this mass mandate being removed i am here because never in my life have i felt like i can rest protect my children i have lost countless hours of sleep because i have to trust you to make a decision for my child when i have seen those children fight and i need your help to be thorough and i

106need your help to be hear these parents concerns um thank you for the thank you thank you colleen [Applause] a write-in submission by jeremy sher the district had the choice to continue mandatory masking or switch to an optional policy in choosing the latter the district accepted an increased risk of cova transmission in pittsford schools to manage this risk responsibly i expect the district to determine and publish objective transmission criteria that if met would trigger an automatic return to mandatory masking the health and safety of children is not a political or opinion-based issue it's a it is an uncertain time parents have the right to rely on clear guidance and commitments from the district while everyone hopes that covet is soon a thing of the past please prepare for a scenario where covid remains a health

107risk in schools and that's for chipmunk trail another write-in submission by dorothy bausch barker at 17 northfield gate with the mask optional policy starting tomorrow the district will need to work with the health department to determine and publish objective transmission criteria that if met would trigger an automatic return to mandatory masking this is important for the safety of our children and acknowledges the very real possibility of increased disease prevalence or additional variants we we can hope for the best and plan for additional scenarios laura pullum hi thank you um i wrote this down because anyone who knows me and there are a few of you know that i will talk endlessly laura if you could just give us your address sure laurapullen398 mendon wrote my daughter is a third grade student at thornell i spent

108the first two years of pandemic teaching first remotely and then in person at a small day school and i am now employed as a registered nurse for the county and a substitute teacher and nurse for the district i have straddled the two professions most affected by this pandemic over the last three years i have seen it on the front lines as a teacher as a parent and as a medical professional i support the plan to unmask but not right now we are unmasking at the earliest possible date without a plan or protocols in place to reduce the risk of a spike in cases the email that parents received today stated that you are still waiting on guidance and guidelines and yet we are moving forward many students have only recently been vaccinated and are not

109yet eligible for boosters and their younger siblings are not able to be vaccinated at all recovery rates and previous infections are not indicative of immunity there is no immunity for covid i ever heard a teacher today at the high school stating that she had had coveted twice she had been vaccinated three times she felt she was immune she was planning to go masculine tomorrow she still is and that's okay i told her if i were still teaching i would go mask list for lectures but not face-to-face with students she did not realize that she could still contract asymptomatically and pass covet to immuno-compromised students and families when people are vaccinated they have antibodies they are less likely to be hospitalized they are still capable of being infectious they can spread covet to those who are

110most susceptible we have heard about moisture expelled which is over a 24-hour period and gets absorbed by skin and materials and masks we have heard about the risks of vaccines which are in fact very rare and specifically triggered by hormones in pre-existing conditions i am not again not opposed to unmasking but i do not understand the recklessness with which it is being implemented thank you laura [Applause] another write-in is from david walker at 4 candlewood drive i'm writing to voice support for continued masking in pittsford schools he cites a recent study show showed greatly reduced vaccine effectiveness in children ages 5 to 11. this is especially concerning for those of us with younger children who are not yet eligible for the vaccine we have a newborn at home and i'm very concerned about the increased

111likelihood of school transmission another write-in submission annelise johnson i know many many parents who have reached out to the superintendent with concerns and questions and even resorted to a petition who still haven't heard their questions answered or been responded to and engaged with here is my email from several days ago which didn't receive a reply i've become very used to a lack of responses particularly regarding dei a value we're supposed to share and making progress in supporting students is adversely impacted as a result there are vulnerable families and kids who again seem to be ignored for the comfort of some a vocal 20 percent who have been ready for this for quite some time this is a pattern of the district with issues of race and gender identity and now medical needs a pattern of

112dismissal and disengagement this isn't okay this is an equity issue and it should be done right that midweek break email had many really concerning word choices indicating biases of the writers i can share more feedback if you'd like to know what i saw this unmasking change is a rushed timeline and not enough information about how to engage for families and engagements that have been largely ignored change is hard and a good transition plan should in theory make that easier with information provided in advance of the change to all impacted people all families and students time for questions to be answered and having all the information and time to process and a way to bring up any additional concerns before the change occurs a recorded zoom meeting with question and answers would be a great start

113for parents to get this transition plan and ask questions then giving families time to bring information to kids both from their teachers and their parents if windows are going to be open will they adjust seating for those with risks etc also having a way to report risks this is all going to fall on individual teachers etc what about middle school high school kids who have several and passed during a crowded passing time again not enough information no clear plan to engage to assure safety waiting guidance from the governor isn't enough another right in michael delgado at nine chatham woods i wish you good luck during what must be a difficult time i also have some questions could you explain the reasoning behind dropping the mask mandate for activities like chorus when a temporary continuation of

114masking seems possible and prudent how are the students being prepared for this shift and for the different approaches that families will take will the district be sending any guidance any wording that will clarify for our kids why we're making this change why it's necessary to do so now and why it's safe what is the district's approach to establishing the difference between shaming people for not wearing masks and having the right distance from them i think you've covered a lot of those and with the guns there will be more um kelly galvin at 10 concord drive i'm writing about the new mask optional policy i feel as if there are unanswered questions what's the infection threshold that will trigger a masking policy again how will this affect the test to stay policy i was symptomatic but

115not too sick to work for three days before i tested positive with no masks students will not be protected from these infections but negative testing peers what protections are in place for immunologically vulnerable students and the last one i believe cj you're here i timed this out at 2 45 and i shortened it so if i run over give me five seconds i changed a little bit based on what someone had said dear mike in the board i'm very pleased that the mask mandate ends in our schools tomorrow i want to give credit where it's due i've been critical of you people in the past i want to give credit where it's due and i want to give you credit for that now i'd like to speak about a couple of things that were brought

116up by people who are still scared of this and it's reasonable to be scared we have been it's a scary thing it's a terrifying thing and people remain scared the truth is that we have not we are the 49th state in the union to drop an a general mass mandate this isn't happening in a vacuum we are the 49th state to drop a mass mandate only hawaii is after us okay so those who are worried that we're doing it too soon or doing it recklessly or doing it carelessly we have the combined experience of 48 other states some of which have sent kids to school for a year and a half without masks okay with excellent results excellent safety results there's a world of evidence out there that supports this we are behind the curve

117we are not ahead of the curve that's just the worldwide fact that's the facts people haven't dropped dead because kids haven't worn masks in other states it simply hasn't happened and it's scary and it's something that a lot of people need to come around to but it's true now i'm going to take on faith the number 900 pediatric cova deaths in the united states and any pediatric death i'm a physician i've lost i take care of adults i've lost half a dozen or so patients to covet it's terrible they're all older they're all older folks but even still i don't want to diminish any death i don't want to diminish any covet death i certainly don't want to diminish any pediatric death but there are 75 million children in the united states somewhere between 200

118and 500 children die from the flu every year in the united states we don't shut down society for influenza nor should we we've been doing this for two years other places have shed some of these restrictions faster than us they're doing well you're doing the right thing it's hard it's painful some folks are ready some folks are not the last thing i would say is this and then i'll stop is that there is trauma from keeping kids home we know that now you know that there's trauma from not seeing somebody's face those are not insignificant so i want to thank you for what you're doing and i want to encourage you to stay the course you're doing the right thing thank you [Applause] and our final comment is eric cooman let's go up okay all

119right eric 118 wood grain um yeah i want to thank you for bringing up the code of conduct changing the code of conduct and actually addressing the fact that that will be shared with the students tomorrow i think that's a really big milestone and good progress for the district covering shaming and health privacy so thank you for that um i just wasn't i wasn't planning to talk but i i felt compelled like i had to um just to share the fact that for two years we've been putting our faith in the cdc new york state health department our governor and it's been totally okay we're one of the most conservative states in the country 49th state to go masculist and have that option high vaccine rates that we talked about this is all we followed

120for two years we have a survey that you thoughtfully put out to the community get their input that supports this move two weeks ago we were told that this is coming so it's not really a surprise and we even have new advice and mandates that support mass choice from these institutions everywhere our kids go outside of school nearly everywhere i should say they have the mask choice the only place that they potentially didn't have it is here in school it's about time that our school matches not only what the cdc is recommending and our state is recommending but what you have taken the courage to follow and and recommend as well why is that guidance no longer good for people when it's been good for us for two years so that's a question i have

121for the whole district and i think that that the board for taking this step and following the guidance thank you thank you i want to thank uh those that wrote in and and for everyone that spoke today i i think that one the one takeaway i would ask for everyone um in here and everyone that's watching uh is to see and feel and experience the different emotions from different people that's it doesn't matter what you think about this because it's your feelings and it's your thoughts and we need to deal with it as a district so in here we i think we had 12 people talking about the masking wanting to keep it and another 12 saying we don't want to keep it and that can keep perpetuating the reality is tomorrow we're going to

122start mask optional we are going to do our diligence and and keeping our students and our facilities safe the biggest thing that we can do as a community is come together here i thought i got my three minutes taken away the biggest thing we can do is stick together as a community i would ask that i would say i i don't even i don't appreciate looking out and seeing someone speaking and someone rolling their eyes it's not showing empathy i i really tomorrow when school starts i'm going to ask for kids to be empathetic in order for kids to be empathetic their parents need to support that so i'm really hoping to goodness that we can make this help us become more together than divided and thank you all for your investment for coming out

123this evening thanks for those that had the courage to speak tonight thanks for those that wrote in we're going to get through this and i just hope that we can get through this in a real healthy way together thanks everyone thank you with that may have a motion to adjourn i have ted and sarah all in favor opposed motion carried have a nice night everyone thanks everyone