Pittsford Board of Education Meeting - October 5, 2021

001good evening and welcome to the pittsford board of education meeting if you could please rise for the pledge of flag of allegiance united states of america and to the republic for which one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice may have a motion to approve the agenda this evening thanks robin and sarah any edits all in favor opposed motion carried principles report dr balsamo is here from park road elementary school we welcome you dr balsamo and thank you so much for our recent tour we appreciate that so thank you thank you for giving us the opportunity to present to you tonight on the opening of park road for the school year and our plans for some of the work that we're going to be doing this school year joining me tonight and talking about

002park road are tammy fratchy our library media specialist angie stewart at second grade spencer jones at third grade and katie greco at first grade so while this august was not a typical opening uh the weeks prior to the start of this school year were certainly a lot more relaxed than the weeks preceding the start of the school year a year ago we knew a lot earlier this school year what we could do in terms of spacing of students and schedules you know i think back to the end of august last year we didn't even know how we would handle dismissal when we knew that over two-thirds of our parents would be picking kids up every school day so well this august wasn't stress-free it was a lot different than we were over a year ago

003so we wanted to take an opportunity to talk a little bit about the difference a year brings and that was then and this is now pictures from what school looked like last year compared to what it does this year and i know the board had an opportunity to see how our classes are set up for this school year at our recent visit but again i'd be remiss and not sharing how significantly different things were last year and how much we have to celebrate in terms of what we're able to do for our students this school year so last year our classrooms were potted so 20 kids in groups of 10 into two different classrooms all of our kids even kindergarteners were in desks and rows we used a lot of unusual spaces last year our

004gyms and our libraries were turned into classrooms for much of the school year all of our special area teachers were on carts our gyms and our library were being used as classes so all of our special area teachers were pushing into rooms on carts and as colorful as they are i don't think mrs fracci will miss her cart at all she got a good workout in pushing that card around every day our special area teachers had to be really creative last year we didn't have gym space last year because our gyms were fifth grade classrooms so the fifth grade teachers were outside every day and doing some really creative events we had turned our stage into a staff room because our staff room was being used as a second grade pod we filled nearly two-thirds

005two vertis were filled brimmed filled to the brim with furniture from from the classroom our custodians literally took apart tables classroom tables and kidney tables and our circulation desk from our library and all that stuff was stored in verdi's you can see a picture of mr pinero and i doing our dismissal duty every day trying to manage the parking lot it was great on those 70 degree and sunny days not so much in january in in february june brought moving days and we had a very carefully sequenced set of days whereby we pulled things out of the verdes and grade level by grade level we had to sequence our moves because moving one grade level into a set of classrooms required other people to to move out and you know big shout out to our

006custodians who did a phenomenal job in putting things back together i was so impressed that when they put stuff away a whole year ago like they had things labeled and they had to take all the tables apart so they taped the table legs together all those things you wouldn't to thought about in that panic of you know august of 2020. so we were able to put things back very quickly and you know most the teachers felt really good by the time they left in june about how their classrooms were looking so a big shout out to all the custodians at park road and in pittsford for the work that they did this this summer now this is one of my favorite pictures from last year kind of back to where we belong so here's mr

007jones standing here putting his name back on his original classroom on one of the last days after kids had left in in june and we had similar you know pictures throughout the classroom because everyone was getting back to go to the original to the original homes there were some new traditions that we got to start last year we had a the graduating seniors came in we did our the celebration for them with an outdoor parade we repeated that a few days later we couldn't do the traditional students leaving in the bus loop with the honking so we did a parade for our students and our retirees we did our moving up day outdoors last year so those are things we thought went really well and those are things that we're going to continue because they

008went so well last year so there's a lot of things that are now back this year at park road and all the other schools in in pittsford um things that we developmentally appropriate practices and furniture that we didn't have last year like students being able to work in ela and math centers teachers being able to work with small groups of kids at kidney tables we're still distance departments not as the groups aren't as big as they were but we're that's all back and it just feels like a very typical elementary approach and classroom again things like instructional challenge are up and running again that was a program that we didn't offer last year because those teachers were serving as classroom teachers um you'll still see um simple things like kindergartners bringing in blankets for quiet

009time those were things we didn't do last year and that we're back to doing again this year we still have lots of darts on carpet so that we know the kids have that visual of keeping socially distance from one another all of our special area teachers are back in their respective homes and you know that means gym our physical education is in the gym again all of our students have full access to the library so imagine last year they had access to the books that mrs fracci had pulled for them but only the books that she could put on a cart so the full access to the library and all the research opportunities that that presents our our back to us again and all of our students there are things that didn't exist at all

010last year we didn't have any of our performing groups last year so no band orchestra chorus so it was really exciting a couple of weeks ago to see students walking around with instruments and starting their first lessons and our rehearsal groups begin to start up next week so we'll have kids after school being able to participate in these performing groups and those are things that our fourth and fifth graders didn't get a chance to do last year there's still adjustments that we're making the cafeteria is a big adjustment so we can only seat about half the number of kids at a cafeteria table that we that we would typically be able to seat so we pulled desks into the cafeterias to allow kids to sit socially distanced apart and we even pulled we even turned

011a classroom into an auxiliary cafeteria and in one of the first days of school the that class one of the classes in there was complaining to me a little bit about that and i convinced them that this was our executive vip downing room so they think they're very important now that they get to sit in in that room so last year our goals were pretty simple just taking it one day at a time and surviving the school year but this year feels like a normal year obviously safety and security are our primary focus but we feel good about goals that we're setting for ourselves and we're going to work on these more at our upcoming conference day and friday but things focus on connections and relationship building focusing on instructional essentials and consistency across grade

012level and we're going to be rebooting some of our plc work on on friday and giving teams an opportunity to work together and set some goals we have some different academic screening tools that we're using this year that we're learning how to analyze and use with students and obviously that we're continuing to focus on inclusivity both as adults in the buildings but also in the work that we do with kids hi i'm angie stewart i teach second grade at park road our goal this year is to foster both our classroom and the school-wide community all of our classrooms are holding class meetings every day to build peer-to-peer connections many classes are also engaging in a second resource to encourage peers to socialize and continue to build connections all classes will also connect with a buddy

013classroom each month at second grade class meetings have strengthened our class communities students begin circle with a breathing exercise to calm our minds and bodies we greet each other by name share a celebration an expression of gratitude or even a joke on funny friday that's my favorite we play a quick game to start the day in a positive way and we end circle with a listening activity to transition to the learning for the day a community circle brings together individuals who share a set of values to build relationships and at times to solve conflict in the circle everyone is an equal participant whose voice and opinions are valued circles provide an opportunity to come together in a safe supportive and enjoyable way to learn more about each other and to grow as a team some

014of our staff members have received training in leading community circles and will be sharing their knowledge at the upcoming staff meetings hello i'm katie greco first grade of park road and i know mark had mentioned second recess our students love it of course they get another opportunity to play and usually go outside if the weather permits and of course we've also found benefits from second recess and the kids not only get to get their wiggles out and then come back and learn but it also has built our community even more because they have that time to socialize which they have missed out on in the past the past year or so good evening i'm spencer jones i teach third grade at park at park road we've agreed that it's important for our students to foster

015connections outside of our individual classrooms so we have cross-grade level buddies each grade level is paired with another in this manner kindergarten and second grade first and fourth grade and then third and fifth grade we meet monthly or more frequently with our buddy classes to engage in fun group activities or to connect on curricular projects this month for example our fourth grade buddies worked on computer skills with the first graders in the third and fifth graders each connected to play games that were called common ground and also take a step those two different games are designed to get kids out and together and help them to get to know each other better previous buddy classroom projects have included shared writing and editing activities across the grade levels and also creating poetry posters to decorate our

016hallways at park road we also have fifth grade hallway buddies and safety patrol our older and younger students connect through these programs they align a couple of helpful older students to each of our k in one classrooms at the end of the day these older students help to ensure a smooth and safe dismissal time and take care of our youngest students our fifth graders also have the opportunity to join safety patrol the kids are stationed outside and they're also stationed in our hallways during morning arrival and also afternoon dismissal in the morning our safeties are like the walmart greeters of park road school they exchange friendly hellos and good mornings with the staff and also with the other students as they arrive they also remind others to please walk or please be safe in the

017hallway as well they help locate the owners of lost belongings that are found either in the lobby or the bus and that happens pretty much every day we're proud to be pittsford's only elementary school that has fifth fourth and also third graders on our student council it's a tradition that dates back at park road school for more than 20 years now student council will be kicking off in the coming weeks again and we're excited to be able to jump start collaboration particularly with our sel team our goal is to provide increased opportunity for student voice within the school along with participation in community activities like our shoebox gift program with the pittsford food cupboard which is another tradition at park road as well the return of lunch with the principal gives mark an opportunity to

018learn directly about the state of our school from the mouths of our children and through the eyes their eyes of experience in our building we're also considering other ways to continue to build student feedback and student voice into our school and our daily practices every day and i just want to jump in and add that a lot of those opportunities were opportunities that we didn't have for students last year in terms of not having a student council and not having safeties because you know we were trying to keep kids socially distant so the opportunity to bring these back and rethink them and give students an opportunity for voice and stay in their school or important part of the work that we're that we're doing this year and it's exciting to see all these fifth graders

019getting so involved in our school community again this year we're excited that we started using aims web as a tool for screening and monitoring student progress and it's a quick way to uncover learning gaps in the past we've used f p reading assessments which are also wonderful but usually we don't have those results until mid-october the ames web screening has allowed us to get results within the first week of school and target kids who are at risk or need extra support in reading and math we also have student success meetings three times throughout the year we meet as a grade level team and invite our reading teachers math support person counselor and anyone else needed to discuss next steps for students if we find a student that maybe is an outlier or has some additional

020needs then the teacher will refer them to ist and work with that team as well hi i'm tammy fratchy i'm the librarian at park road some ways that we promote and celebrate equity diversity and inclusivity at park road are through professional development our book of the month and book a day programs ongoing informal evaluations and audits of our library and classroom collections and creation of visual displays featuring both student content and informational content for students and a continued awareness of family backgrounds and compositions in individual classrooms additionally we continue working on our social studies curriculum and its piloting one way as mentioned that we provide learning experiences to our students through diverse literature is with our book of the month program each month a book is selected by a subcommittee of our sel team and

021a staff or faculty member records him or herself reading the book to students the recording is then shared in all classrooms excuse me on the same day or throughout the course of the same week additionally extension activities are provided to teachers so they may continue to use the book throughout the month we kicked off in september with our first book of the month this year your name is a song by jamila thompkins bigelow and in conjunction with each book of the month each student in the school creates a component of a visual display that ties into the story for your name as a song students decorated music notes with their names and whatever else they thought might represent them our book of the month for october will be outside inside by lewin fam this book

022is an important one as we continue to make adjustments related to covet 19. it provides a gateway to talk with our students about some of the impacts we now feel and some of the changes that have taken place because of covid at home at school and everywhere another way we incorporate diverse literature into classrooms and throughout the school is through the book a day program run by the library for those teachers who are interested i select five books each week to send in a book bag down to classrooms titles are chosen with the grade levels in mind as well as the season and any current cultural celebrations each class then reads one of the picture books each day at whatever time is best on fridays i pick the bags up from the classrooms and repeat

023the process the following week with all new books this is a great way to get some of our newer titles into the hands of teachers and in front of students additionally because classroom teachers are able to see more books from the library they gain a wider understanding of the collection and are exposed to books that might fit well into their curriculum in the future we also incorporate various displays throughout the school to emphasize diversity at different times throughout the year last year we hung over 60 posters around the school honoring individuals as part of black history month these posters included individuals names along with what they are known for in addition to qr codes that could be scanned by staff or students using an ipad the qr code is linked to more information about each

024individual through pebble go an elementary database to which the district subscribes and a current example is a hispanic heritage month display located outside of our library our art teacher amanda kirkby is very focused on highlighting the work of many art many artists from different cultures and backgrounds for example last year second grade students were exposed to the work of african-american artist alma woodsey thomas they used watercolor to paint concept concentric circles in a similar style students in second grade also learned about the art of yayo kusama a contemporary japanese artist students created infinity pumpkins after reading a picture book about kusama and learning about her struggles as a woman getting noticed in the art world this past summer teams from each school worked with melanie ward to examine our social studies curriculum at the k5

025level through the lens of inclusivity at first grade we worked on modifying one of our units to include social justice standards and revamp our materials such as books that we read throughout the unit we modified our current our current unit on families how can families be the same and different six of our teachers are currently piloting the unit right now myself being one of them and it's a really fun unit and the kids are loving it and we are talking about different types of families our own families and what makes us unique in second grade we engage in an inquiry unit called do we have to have rules in our curriculum work this summer we deconstructed and rebuilt this unit to align with the social justice standards identity diversity justice and action i am piloting

026this new unit in my classroom this fall along with a team of second grade teachers in the district during this inquiry students have been analyzing the importance of rules considering the impact of not having rules writing a classroom compact that reflects our shared values and then exploring restorative practices to repair the classroom community when rules are not being followed we are going to continue to use csa and microsoft teams as a way to supplement learning and as a communication platform we started using it during the shutdown and during covid and we have found great benefits from both so we're going to continue using seesaw is for grades k through three and teams is for three through five we have discovered many benefits to both platforms including an easy communication to both students and their families

027and it's also a great way for students to learn technology skills while also learning curriculum at the same time although kovitz still impacts our school we are looking forward to returning to some of our fun and beloved traditions that we missed last year in the past these have included our welcome back picnic holiday sing-alongs our halloween parade a flag day commemoration scholastic book fairs field days and our annual student talent show so here are some photos of those things so we wanted to thank you for the opportunity tonight to present on how our school year is open and all the things that we have planned for our students at park road this upcoming school year again not 100 normal but we're really excited about where we are in terms of the opening of the school

028year and what we're able to do for the students in our school community thank you so much dr balsamo we appreciate it and team wonderful job presenting to us this evening and again thank you for your time tonight it was a wonderful presentation i i just like to add it's it's amazing to see um the work that you are doing coming back i appreciate your focus on the students well-being as we work on this transition and both curricular and through sel in the weaving of the two um is extremely critical and i forget who does the um the jokes on fridays okay so i would just ask you um what did one french fry say to the other french fry during their class reunion it's nice to catch up so feel free to bring that

029feel free to bring that to your your friday group thanks everyone [Applause] i know nope may have an approval of the minutes from september 14th please thanks pete and renee any edits to those all in favor opposed motion carried we have a variety of board of education reports monroe county school boards is up and running we have a lot of meetings scheduled within the next couple of weeks this week we do have our legislative meeting tomorrow and we also have the executive committee tomorrow evening and then we also have our other regular committees our board leadership is not until november information exchange is the 13th of october and steering committee is the 10th of november just make sure that you're following your calendars as to where the venue is because that does change based on

030the meeting and also again let deb know if you're planning to attend dates to remember we do have a board tour at thornell road at 7 15 a.m again that's just a tour no coffee and that's on the 7th that's this week if i could just have a show of hands of who will be there okay thank you schools will be closed for superintendents conference day this friday and then on monday schools will be closed again for columbus day indigenous peoples day recess and our next regularly scheduled meeting will be the 19th of october financial report darren thank you first is the treasures report for the year ended june 30 2021. uh you may notice some subtle differences between that and the audit report that we'll be dealing with next that's because the treasury report

031is based on the cash basis of accounting just cash coming in and out versus the approval basis which that we do our reporting on overall we received um almost one percent more in revenue than we budgeted and we spent about five percent less than what we budgeted for for the year so we had a little bit of a surplus there the school lunch fund no surprises we've talked before if you back out the general fund assistance was down about 40 percent in revenue uh half million dollars we did not need to transfer to the general from the general fund as much as we originally thought we would in the beginning of the year so that's good news looking at so far this year our participation is up about 60 over the same period of time

032last year okay so that uh the high points for the treasury report okay may have a motion to approve the treasurer's report please renee and sarah any questions all it is go ahead is that increase this year's increase in terms of number of meals served or numbered does serve and we also track by percentage of average daily participation so looking at the average number of kids in the building and how many you're buying thank you sorry we took a knowledge all in favor opposed motion carried next is the extracurricular activities report um obviously last year we had less clubs operating so the amount of activity is less than the year before and that is in the process of being audited by the uh independent auditors as we speak may have a motion please jeff questions

033all in favor opposed motion carried okay and next is the external audit report and management letter i don't know renee do you want to same thing on behalf of the uh or oversight committee just a couple of quick things to mention we had our audit oversight committee last wednesday september 28th it started off unfortunately i had to come a little bit late but it started off with the claims auditor report by cindy hegarty um she just gave quick reviews on her duties daily monthly and an annual basis she offered then to our new members robin and jeff congratulations we're glad that you're part of this new committee um gave examples of purchase orders um some of the things that we talked about is that and this i found absolutely amazing is that in the past

034fiscal year 2021 we had more than 10 000 transactions and she cindy audits all of those transactions um and despite all of the you know coveted needs that we had less than one percent of the errors that were made were either policy or procedural errors they were all rectified and three percent were simple clerical errors and there were no instances of fraud and that's that's outstanding over 10 000 transactions that is impressive um we also talked about uh taking a look at the new board policy which was in our packet uh for tonight uh we have our first reading um we also heard a very extensive report in darren i'm kind of hoping you can talk more more to this tom zuber he's a partner at mengo metzger and barr he did an extraordinarily phenomenal

035and very in-depth job in going over our audit report um but i would i'm going to pass that back to you to talk about the very specifics of that so tom started out by talking about the from looking at all the other school districts and the firm audits a lot of school districts throughout the state the key word that he described last year was uncertainty schools had to deal with a lot of uncertainty including financial uncertainty everything from the state withholding transportation aid after the fact from because of the year before um unemployment etc he felt that the district did an extremely good job of dealing with uncertainty and that's because of our past practice of preparing for it we were that we were well prepped as well as not overextending ourselves at the moment

036so that we were in a questionable position for into the future our balance sheet real quick real quickly i'm going to back up for a second he talked about the huge 65-page audit report most of that are things that the government accounting standards board requires to be in there and those reports are basically taking our financial data and trying to make it similar to a corporate report and it's not real useful even moody's investor services and if you're borrowing new york in stock exchange etc they don't even look at those reports very much so he said to draw the attention to the management discussion analysis which is about seven pages in the beginning of the report our balance sheet is good you will notice that our fund equity decreased by about 1.8 million dollars that's

037because of the voters approved the capital project so six million dollars came out of the capital reserve we were able to put over seven million dollars back into reserves the various reserves which we called doing in september and our surplus was about five percent which he's finding to be on par with most school districts that they that they audit okay renee congratulations on being the chair of that committee okay congratulations and for the republican record they didn't vote on that prior to her coming to the meeting i was going to ask if she was there while you voted on that she was there okay all right may have a motion please to approve renee and sarah questions all in favor opposed motion carried thank you thanks darren human resource report sean good evening first for

038your consideration we have the professional staff report we have a part-time physical education staff appointment part-time to full-time previous tenure appointment we have eight school-related professional appointments three resignations for school nurse teacher a nurse and an srp and finally we have an srp resignation for retirement for kevin ebling with over 14 years of service to the district may have a motion please jeff and pete any questions all in favor opposed motion carried thank you next for your consideration is the support staff report we have two clerical appointments and one night supervisor cleaner appointment two bus driver resignations we have resignations for a part-time clerk and two school aides and in that i'd like to recognize mary dupoy and her 19 years of service to the district and finally resignation for retirement for trisha kane in

039our student services department with over 17 years of service to the district may have a motion please thanks robin and sarah questions all in favor opposed motion carried thank you thanks sean curriculum report melanie good evening i am very pleased tonight to welcome casey sanderson here he is the standards leader for our business education department and he is here tonight to share with the board and the audience the process that the business department has gone through over the last couple of years to be recognized at the state level for cte endorsement and casey's presentation will explain what that means before he launches into that i do just feel a need to acknowledge the heavy lift that this work involved many many hours really intense work on the part of the business department the work started

040a few years ago prior to the covet closure but under casey's leadership they never missed a beat throughout the closure and the temporary learning models last year they continued to work tirelessly to put this project together to get our business program recognized at the state level so thank you and thank all of your teachers for all that you did i certainly will and thank you thank you so uh good evening everybody my name is casey sanderson i teach business at mendon high school as well as i am the standards leader for business education in the pittsford district this evening i'm going to talk to you about the process involved in the benefits of our cte certification but first i'd like to start just by introducing our department a little bit we have one of the

041largest business departments for the size of school in new york state we have 10 business teachers who are divided almost equally between the two schools depending on the year almost always one teacher will travel between the two depending on needs at the two schools and we currently offer 18 different classes which is more than just about any other school again our size in the rochester area we teach everything from keyboarding to accounting from to virtual enterprise and digital business strategies and very many of these classes come with associated college credit so the students can earn dual enrollment high school credit and college credit while they're in the classroom but this evening i'm here to talk to you about cte and cte stands for career and technical education not concussions as we were talking about a

042little bit before the meeting started cte is instruction that prepares students with the technical academic and behavioral skills to be successful in careers and future education so why us why now the simple solution the simple answer to this question is it's what's best for our kids we took a really hard look at what cte the cte endorsement does and what we found is that we have students in the pittsford district who qualify for this endorsement on their diploma and are already doing the work so by not being cte certified we were not allowing them to have that that acknowledgement for the wonderful work that they're currently doing it allows us to acknowledge that greatness in all of our students it also encourages us to have a format to keep pace with a rapidly changing world

043of work and it ensures that we're keeping ourselves and our students college and career ready it really gives us direct accountability to our most important stakeholders our students and our parents and again it's really about this was not i really want to emphasize this that this was not something that anyone came to us and said we need you to do it really was something that we knew we wanted to do because we felt it was what's right for our students so what is cte and how do we get there i i have to admit the process was not always great when we look at this these are all the same person so when we started it was awkward it was hard it really and we'll get into it a little bit over the next couple

044of slides it currently is going very well you know we have been certified by the state and what we're really looking forward to is the future the future of where cte can bring the business education department here at pittsburgh so what did we have to do the steps in the process involve a self-study which is an internal look at our curriculum program opportunities for students then an external review by community members business leaders higher education teachers signature by our superintendent and board president and finally certification through the state that we had done all of the necessary requirements the self-study was really that first awkward picture it really was the first time that we asked this question of how do we know we're preparing kids to be college and career ready how do we know we're

045doing that their simple answer was well because we know what we're teaching but how do we know that and that really was a step for us to look at our curriculum and say well in order for you to be college and queer ready you have to do this where do we teach kids to do this and how do we know if they know that and it really this was a long process i know melanie talked a little bit about the fact that it took us a couple of years and it did because when we started this we had a checklist and we said yes are we doing this yes we are yes we are yes we are but then we had to get really into the question of how do we know we're doing it

046where are we doing it what does it look like when the kids are doing these things for us where do we see the standards directly tied into our classes when we see more than one standard apply in one or more classes that is that intentional is that a standard we really need to concentrate on in more than one place and finally we knew we had to make change we knew that we knew that when we were going to get through this self-study it wasn't so much about finding the problems as much as where is the true starting point of the business education program and how do we move it forward the second part was an external review and this had probably the biggest benefit for us and it was very nerve-wracking our external review committee

047involved two two non-business teachers in the pittsford district a state certified cte teacher from outside of the district a professor from a business professor from rit a partner at the flynn marketing agency here in rochester and a regional sales manager from one of the largest companies in rochester and those people were given our curriculum and our internal report with a list of questions that we asked the biggest all they focused on was if a student took these classes do you believe they would be college or career ready do we meet these checklists do we meet these boxes to ensure that the kids that we're preparing kids in the pittsford central school district in the business department to be college and career ready and at first we started with us in a big room and all

048of us sitting there and what happened is what happens a lot when you ask for feedback is we had a lot of yeah buts we immediately said someone would say are you doing this or i don't see this and we would immediately give the yeba we do it it's just not there so we actually backed away from it and had them do it independently and a little bit of what we do here in pittsburgh and said you you get your chance to talk we'll sit here quietly and then allow us to respond it was such a great learning experience because things that we assumed um that people would understand about our curriculum having non-education non-educator eyes on it was so valuable was just so valuable the next part about a cte that must be there

049is work based learning i i want to make clear at this point that not every student who enrolls in business education will receive a cte certification will look at what the requirements are but every student who gets a cte endorsement on their diploma must have a work based learning component and that work based learning component is a supervised guided and reflective work experience they have to have a minimum of 150 hours of that supervised work experience within their four years at pittsford schools at the two schools we currently have 60 students enrolled at menden and just under 60 students enrolled at sutherland and the cooperative work experience program which would qualify for this piece i'm one of the things that we also had to create is a work skills employability profile this the external review

050committee was was so important to this work because they helped us create this list of employability skills what are they currently looking for in their students knowledge of work based skills and my a lot of it was some things that were going to be very hard for us to put a test score on communication professionalism punctuality which then went right back to that work experience because we know there's things that students learn best by doing and sometimes work is one of those they have to show attendance they have to keep their grades up across their curriculum including but not limited to cd cte and pass a three-part assessment so this is where we are now pittsford currently at the end of last year in june was approved by the state to have two cte programs

051these two programs were decided after looking at the current enrollment what students take as well as looking at data that came from mr kimmer's office about future graduates and what they enroll in i mean excuse me past graduates and what they graduate and enroll in in college so we have a business market management and entrepreneurship track and a marketing track which are our two most popular college majors in you can see up there that the students must complete they have a requirement for which classes they have to take as well as a half unit 150 hours of of work experience if they do this they get a seal on their diploma that they have a career and technical endorsement and this is really the future and this is what i'm most excited about this year

052we started our school year at menden high school and across the high schools with really focusing our work around what is the vision of pittsford central schools and it was so great for us as a department because the cte work lend itself so great to this because cte has a recertification process every five years we have to recertify and in order to do that we have to have a direct accountability and partnership with business and community at the recertification level we must show growth and improvement and there is room and requirement that we add both student and family members to that review committee also it really models this love of continual learning again this wasn't something that we had to do the business department chose to do this because we thought it was what's right

053it's been a lot of work and a lot of learning for us and i think that every one of us would say it's been nothing but a positive experience it's also one way to dissolve the line between business and community we really are bringing in businesses on the review committee we're looking for new voices new businesses that will be part of saying what are those skills necessary for people to be successful in this world of work in the future one and finally it really is a step in the right direction for students to be able to personalize their educational experience we now offer a way for students to receive the accolades for being a business student that they may have been missing in the past is there any questions can i just before you jump

054in with questions i'm sorry i just want to also acknowledge again the significance of this work casey just referenced he kind of slid over it quickly this is a a process that they will have to continue to go through every five years for recertification and i think for me one of the most powerful things that's come out of this process is it really opened up in the department some very deep and challenging and purposeful conversations about the curriculum about common assessments that's brought about higher quality curriculum and much greater alignment in the curriculum instruction in the business department between the two schools and really importantly the um it's it's done what in a way that probably nothing else could have done strengthen the collaboration within and amongst all the teachers in the department because they

055had to work together hand in hand to complete this process and they all bought in 100 casey's telling the truth i never came to him and said this is something that you need to do this totally came from members of the department wanting to seek out a way to recognize the kids and make sure that their program was of the highest quality in new york state so it's been a really remarkable journey for the department it certainly benefits our students we have hundreds of students enrolled in business classes every year um and they're they really stand to gain not just by that seal on their diploma but by the work that's gone into the process behind the scenes so thank you 100 that is so important for us is that the seal on the diploma

056is an extra right the the the knowledge that we're doing what's right for the kids was so important for us and just a piece of that tomorrow i'm speaking on a panel for cte certifications through the state of of new york and they actually asked a representative from pittsford schools because we came at it from a direction that they haven't really seen before a lot of the direction of the cte schools has been about you know the an additional graduation pathway or how do we get additional points for our state report card and we really came at it from a place of what's best for kids and best for us as a department what melanie said about you know we don't have a state curriculum we don't have a regents test so that this really

057was an opportunity for us to sit down and have these conversations around why are you teaching it this way what is it how is it working and what can we do to make it better so thank you thank you casey does anyone have questions just really quickly first of all congratulations great for the kids group for the district thank you and just quickly this is a nice sanctioned or who yes this is the new york state um board of education no excuse me new york state education department yes certification through the state okay and how many schools offer this program casey do you know so currently there's about eleven hundred schools in new york state that have some cte programs these programs are range some schools have them in things like farming so that this

058career in technical education has a wide variety and it really tries to meet all of them in the rochester area the exemplar district prior to pittsburgh was fairport and their size they currently just to give you an idea of how many students they push they have go through their program last year they had 33 students received the cte endorsement fairport high school and have you received any feedback from higher institutions regarding this program uh yeah absolutely so one of the questions in the slide is on college credit so in the business department lots of our um lots of our classes offer college credit and at open house and when we interact with parents one of the questions we always get is does this credit transfer what colleges does it go to and what the cte

059at the state has said is that the higher education in our and our rit professor who looked at our internal review to do the external review said that this is a great step to ensuring that you have a high quality curriculum that will benefit the students and ensure that that that credit transfers so there has been some some really good commun conversations around that that's great anyone else thank you so much casey thank you and please be sure to thank the staff [Applause] okay special education report elizabeth thank you superintendent's report mike there is a need for an executive session this evening to discuss current litigation may have a motion please pete and robin all in favor opposed motion carried uh just to recognize that probation and tenure policy is in the consent agenda and

060we do have the first reading of budget adoption 5130 if there are any questions at this point okay i have some other pieces of information this saturday at 9 00 a.m is our homecoming parade so if board members central office team audience members want to attend it's on main street in pittsford we'll be there about quarter to nine and we'll be part of judging the the kids science this year uh oh update on kovit [Music] we started this week our testing protocol which means that any staff member that is um not vaccinated can elect to be tested so we're working through that process right now i feel like it's going smooth we are also extending this to long-term subs coaches contractors etc a special thanks to jeff and his team shayna and her team for

061orchestrating a lot of this work it's a lot of data collection that we have to report on weekly our cases as of this morning for the district range anywhere between zero cases in a building to up to three this number is obviously fluid but i feel like we're doing a really good job with mitigation we probably will be going back to reporting out by building cases again on wednesdays last year we did this and then we ended up stopping towards the end of the year bless you for a few different reasons one was some conflict with what's happening at the county's reporting to the state reporting to our reporting uh and which is the most up-to-date which i feel is is resolved now and then also the sentiments this was going on for so long

062that people felt overwhelmed with with getting the numbers every day but since we're in a new school year we have a different um type of variant we're dealing with and people are certainly seem interested we'll we will begin that process another call for your help um for everyone that's out there and i'm not sure to what extent all of you are are up to speed on this but there's a really disturbing tic tac challenge that is out there for education specifically so if you think about tic tac and think about the different challenges that typically adolescent age students are involved in and they ask you to do something they challenge you to do it and then you videotape yourself doing it so one of the positive challenges was the ice bucket challenge it went to

063something real positive and you saw a lot of goodwill happening with like the uh the ice bucket challenge uh we're in a position now where we're dealing with something really disturbing um and uh can't stress enough um how we do need your help to reinforce this at home i did ask the principals to share a message with with their families to also reinforce this at home but in september the challenge was to vandalize schools in october which we're in right now is the challenge to smack a staff member uh and to record it and to to post it and these things are national so these aren't tic toc challenges for pittsford these are tic tac challenges across the nation and if you google it you can see where it's happened examples of how it's happened

064and then it goes all the way through june which is flip off the front office there's a month for to encourage theft in schools and so this is all of the bad wrapped up into social media that you can can imagine so we will continue to communicate with students and parents about these types of things that are happening on their social media platforms but again this is something where pulling your child aside for ten five 4 3 minutes and sharing how how inappropriate this is and how it's a great example of not living our mission or your values so i want to talk about uh some of the the recent events and i'm going to talk a little bit uh globally um about some terms and processes uh so um we went through um one

065of uh the most disturbing things that we can imagine so if we if we back this up our summer we came off of working collaboratively with 80 plus people to focus on two days of working on our equity goals we came out and hopefully you've seen what our plans are for the school year hopefully you heard from park road what's happening in their building relative to equity and inclusion feeling really good about that going into the school year feeling real really good about not only having these goals but an equity coordinator to help us move towards those goals and spending time with staff on opening day around equity and inclusion the year felt really good starting off as far as being on the right path and then on a friday we did receive a disturbing

066notification friday evening around a video that was posted so i want to share with you what happens when things like that occur from from my lens you've seen in some of my communications that you hear me say words like this is not going to be tolerated people will be held accountable to the highest level and in doing so without getting into specifics i would also share that it is a struggle in talking about student discipline in front of a community it's a struggle trying to convey that things are okay or will be okay or they're being taken care of when there are other factors that you can't share so not sharing that this is what happened in this case but there are things investigations where things involve mental health that are very personal and private

067to a family there's things that happen when there's special needs or students with ieps or different disabilities that are tough to communicate and there's also things that happen where there's a lot of different agencies that are involved and a lot of communication sharing and a lot of information coming in from a lot of different places so in this particular incident when i share with you the highest level of accountability it means that will take a case like this to the highest highest possible part we can the highest level we can which is a superintendent's hearing so i want to just walk you through what that's like because most of us have never heard i've never shared what a superintendent hearing entails primarily because we really don't have many superintendent hearings period so if you think

068about a superintendent's hearing you can think about it almost like a um a courtroom this is where we hire someone to come in actually let me back up so what the law states is we can suspend someone for five days and anything beyond those five days we have to have a superintendent's hearing if we feel it's it's warranted so let's just make sure we're on the same page with that so in a superintendent's hearing means you're suspended at a five-day minimum and then we need a hearing officer uh to hear your case to see what that extension would or would not look like so a superintendent hearing means that we have a hearing officer that's impartial we hire out this year someone outside of the district not associated with the pittsford central school district in

069any way shape or form and that person brings all parties that are in the hearing to a point where they all have to swear in so they have to take an oath that they're going to be honest the hearing officer then reviews everyone's rights and the rules for the room and those rules our have to be followed according to to the hearing officer at that point the district presents evidence to the hearing officer and then the other side has an opportunity to cross-examine the district's evidence cross-examine with any applicable questions and then once that's done then the hearing officer will get into a guilt phase and determine based on the evidence so a lot of times at this point there's a recess and the hearing officer will look at what's presented on both sides make

070an impartial judgment about what would be uh appropriate so the first thing that that person does is say guilty or innocent and let's go down the path of guilty so if one is found guilty then the next phase is called the manifestation hearing that we have to have and the manifestation hearing is for students with disabilities to ascertain whether or not the student's disability played a role in the behavior let's continue down the path of let's say the manifestation hearing showed that it did not have an impact then people are brought back in as a whole group and the district can present additional evidence evidence like attendance records previous behavior etc and then the other the other side can bring in any other additional witness like character witnesses evidence rather like character witnesses then the

071hearing officer takes all of this and then makes a determination of given all of this here's the recommendation so that's the highest level a district can go through relative to taking something serious and bringing it to the highest level so when i share or as i shared when when we say this is you know people are going to be held to the highest level that is the highest level and um the hearing officer will then bring to me a recommendation relative to what the rest of the consequences should be beyond the five-day suspension the other thing that that so after that happens things aren't done because the last thing that we want is to say someone is suspended for let's just say months several months we still owe it to that student to provide support

072what we don't want is a member of our community any member of our community to have to leave school for several months and and come back with the mindset of not feeling connected or supported in any way so in different types of hearing outcomes you'll often see many of us as part of a support system for for both families or if um one family needs more support we we will work we will work with that we also feel responsible for restorative practice during the point of suspensions we also want to make sure mental health is being addressed during long-term suspensions we want to make sure that a behavior is not repeated we want to make sure that when it is time for a student to return that he or she feels like they have the

073tools to come back and be successful and also never repeat again the the previous behavior so when this process ends with a hearing it doesn't end and it really never ends to be quite honest we are involved heavily in in the lives of of students to make sure that when they come back prior to when they come back and when they're here that there is no threat and to the best extent possible that there is a point of restoration so that's the highest level that explains to all of you and to the board again what a superintendent's hearing is like giving you a flavor of what happens post superintendent's hearing and i also want to address the the differences if you will between a superintendent's hearing and an investigation because while this is happening we

074also have in the news and in a lot of social media instance incidences at mendon high school relative to fans and players with the soccer program so when there's an allegation if we were just to take this situation as it is right now we go through a as long as process is needed to try to ascertain where the truth is and then at the same time working with similar to the the hearing the consequence and the restorative piece the hard part for me and for other superintendents and for other building principles is that a lot of times there's an accusation and people are found guilty automatically through social media without an investigation happening so i i think it's important for everyone to understand that my role is to be imp impartial and to get to

075the bottom of of of what happened and when this happens so soon as social media grabs hold of that um it's a lot of it's out of our hands and we can't comment on things because we use the phrase it's an ongoing investigation while all of that's happening people are getting hurt all over the place so we have people of color that are watching this um and it hits them right here and it's not the first time they've been hit here in here a pit in their stomach and here we go again and it's real pain we have the person that's being accused who is who may or may not be guilty or innocent who's living this out on social media and then we have the accuser who is wrought with other sides of social

076media being thrown at them and so the hard part during an investigation of this sort is that there's a lot of stuff going back and forth and it causes a lot of harm i would also mention that when this stuff happens we're also dealing with kids trying to internalize all of this stuff that's happening and then the damage it's causing them on on depending on the scenario both sides so what we where we are right now is we've been doing student interviews we've interviewed site supervisors that are right there in our student section we've interviewed coaches we've interviewed players we are in the process of reviewing more game film we take into consideration parent and spectator observations and accounts we meet with and interview referees superintendents so greece and pittsford superintendents greece and pittsford athletic

077directors are comparing our notes and what our investigations show and as as late or as early as today we received new evidence and and so at some point you have to look at everything that you're sharing and you can come to one of three conclusions either based on the evidence it doesn't support the allegations based on the evidence it does support the allegations or we're at the point where each district will have a different perspective of what happened so we are now at the point where we're finalizing looking at the last pieces of evidences i believe and i would ask for people to not jump to conclusions on on what happened i would ask for people to um know uh and that when when things like this happen and what happened before that we will

078be as thorough and as impartial to get to the bottom of the truth so we can get to the truth at the end so we're at the point where we had two major things one accused one definitely happened we've gone through processes for both and we've left a lot of people injured along the way including people that are here our community people around the table our staff our kids our students of color in particular there's a lot of hurt that's out there and so recognizing that hurt we knew there were things that we had to do to expedite many of our equity goals and so we kind of had to take a um a fast approach to address a lot of different things so we had to have time with the students so we had

079an assembly with with our secondary students with the notion of talking about the impacts of social media talking about the impacts of of racism talking about behavior talking about dasa our code of conduct and having that face time with them um we had emergency staff meeting because our staff were um similar to every all the rest of us saying what the heck is happening here to share with our staff where we stand and how the best thing in the world that we can be doing right now is loving our kids and knowing that our kids are carrying a lot right now we referred to the concept of invisible baggage quite a bit where kids are coming in to our halls in our classrooms with things that you can't see that way weigh heavily on them

080we also are in the process of communicating with our community around our very next community engagement piece which will be community circles where it will be facilitated by perry and the children's institute to bring the community back in and allow the community to to have that process of sharing their thoughts and and the district listening uh and providing feedback um as part of that healing process we're expediting that part of student engagement and working with our students to create an advisory committee to the district that work is has begun already we're also working with places like urmc and the monroe county office of mental health to discuss supports for bipac students and staff as well as our our students and and families that may be in need of additional supports our efforts around professional development

081is ongoing including this friday and including next week with administrators around racism and the last thing i would i would offer is that we are pursuing um we're investigating different programs such as interrupting racism through youth voice which would be a one session for staff to be part of to see what that involves and then ideally bring it to students so student leaders can be part of supporting one another so we have we have a lot going on right now and we also have we're in the final stages of our equity coordinator position uh and when you have a any kind of position there's um three three choices at the end um one is you you find a number one candidate and you offer the job and they accept the second one is they reject

082and you if number two is someone that you're recommending they may accept or number three as you go through the process and if the pool isn't as strong as you had hoped you can we can start the process over again so we are at the final phase of the equity coordinator position and looking towards that person is really helping us uh expedite uh the changes um that we're hoping for uh i'm i think that is that thank you everyone okay mike i don't i don't think you mentioned the date for the community circles which is october 13th 6 30 to 8 p.m and i believe that will be a calkins road thank you okay may have a motion to approve the consent agenda please renee robin all in favor opposed motion carried old business anyone

083new business i do have a public comment to make to our community in response to last week and this is on behalf of the entire board of education the past year and a half we've been focused on keeping our community safe during a public health crisis recent events remind us that our students physical emotional and psychological safety is and must remain a priority throughout our schools in our greater community as a district we appreciate and welcome the significant role we play in the development of every student that enters through our school buildings our students spend an important portion of each day in our care and we willingly assume responsibility for that care and hold ourselves accountable when we inadvertently make mistakes that disrupt it we work very hard to support and sustain every child's continued

084growth and development joining us in this effort and there's no more noble effort are their families and friends including the broader pittsford community together we must reiterate our commitment to our district's mission statement of working collaboratively to inspire and prepare our students to be their best do their best and make a difference in the lives of others in that respect we commend our upstanding students who saw something and said something through their actions they personified our mission by calling out racism and reporting threats of violence in our community in doing so they played an essential role in keeping our community safe although some of the recent incidents occurred outside of our schools and as a result outside of our immediate control we recognize the adverse and traumatic impact these acts have on our students and

085families feeling unwelcomed and unsafe in school is unacceptable there's absolutely no room for racism or acts of hatred within the walls of our schools or in our community we can assure you that any reported incident is thoroughly investigated as superintendent pirro pointed out this evening and appropriate disciplinary action is taken swiftly as was the case last week and over the weekend it's imperative that our entire community join us to ensure the safety and well-being being of our student body finally please know that our code of conduct our equity policy and core values outline the structures behaviors and protocols that we expect from our students and our families and that our students and families expect of their school district we encourage our pittsford central school district families to review our policies in light of recent events

086as we enter this new school year behaviors that violate our policies will not be tolerated and offenders will be held accountable in closing for the district and our partners in education a large part of ensuring all students are safe is educating students and families on our commitment to equity and inclusion for years this has been at the top of the district's agenda we have made considerable progress though we readily acknowledge more needs to be done and we need your support be informed engage with your children your friends and your neighbors join us at our upcoming forums and community circles on october 13th and constructively share your thoughts and ideas it truly does take a village and a town to raise a child and we welcome your partnership thank you with that we will begin public

087comment before we begin we did have some people write in i'm going to give preference to those that have come because we have quite a few people here this evening and i'm going to read the protocol statement associated with public comment the pittsford board of education values transparency and public comments meeting made during its meetings as such the pittsburgh board of education provides this agenda item at its regular meetings board of education meetings are not public forums rather they're business meetings held in public where dialogue is not normally conducted with the audience members the purpose of this agenda item is for the board to receive respectful and constructive feedback opinions and information from district residents if a person who is not a district resident wishes to address the board they must clearly state their purpose

088comments are taken under advisement by the board of education and superintendent of schools respect and civility are required during these meetings particularly as we have students routinely attending as part of their coursework comments should be in reference to an interest or topic not an individual each speaker will have the floor for no more than three meeting minutes you can have three meetings but minutes would be better and yielding time among speakers is not permitted the board president reserves the right to limit the total amount of speaking time in an effort to avoid repetitiveness if speakers are attending with other residents with similar input we ask that the group designate one person to address the board for speakers who do not follow meeting and decorum protocols the speaker's privilege to use the floor will no longer

089be recognized by the board of education i would just ask a lot of you wrote on your cards but did not include your address so when you are called up to the microphone if you will please clearly state your address that would be most helpful and i have a time keeper to my left you can see our time up there we will begin with jeremy shure hi good evening my name is jeremy scherr i live at 4 chipmunk trail i'm a parent of two park road elementary students after the unity rally in pittsford on saturday people in the audience made a demand which was do more and as a white man and a parent of white children i'm here to echo that demand and to make it myself do more do more to confront and

090resolve the crisis of anti-black racism in our schools this is not a crisis that is based on one incident it's a crisis based on an endless stream of anti-blackness that we know about because black students and their parents in our schools tell us it is happening our schools are a community and as a community we respect and protect all of our members we do more than say that black students in our community deserve protection and respect we ensure that they get it just as we would if people were targeted because they were gay trans muslim jewish neurodivergent or disabled for example the community believes and values the words of black students and their parents when they say that the racism they deal with is constant and not the result of an isolated incident a community

091gives unconditional support to black children those who stand up and speak and those who don't and it promises unconditional support protection and respect for those students if this school cannot make those promises specifically and directly how can it call itself a community if the school cannot confront its problems to protect its members it must hire professionals who can it must set clear goals and initiatives and give updates on when and how those goals and initiatives are being met and it must prioritize anti-racism policy concrete policy as if it were something as integral to the school as buses and lunch a community doesn't relegate black student speech to walkouts and rallies because those events occur as a last resort out of desperation those events occur because the voices of black students are not being heard and

092the community understands that an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us and that is again why as a white parent of white students this is my problem and i'm asking this board and this administration to do more thank you thanks jeremy [Applause] next i have nicole hi sidoo i missed you hi nicole how are you um so i could just state your your oh sorry my name's nicole sedu and i live at 39 mccord woods drive thanks um so i'm the mom of three brown-skinned kids um in the district and those kids have experienced some racist incidents both in pittsford and another district and so i'm glad the district is paying attention to matters of race all children deserve to feel welcome protected and celebrated in their identity in the

093school and it's absolutely unacceptable for kids to be exposed to racist bullying in the schools however i do have a couple of concerns first i'm not sure that the highly publicized and dramatic nature of the district's recent attempts to deal with racism are actually in the best interest of the kids a blow-by-bill account of the school's investigation raises emotions in the community and puts kids of color on the spot in the district and i'm worried that it will actually have a chilling effect on kids wanting to report racist incidents if they feel that their reports are going to create huge waves my own kids didn't want their reports to be an explosive matter of public debate they didn't want to ruin anyone's life they just wanted the behavior to stop and they wanted to feel

094that the teachers and the administration were behind them and they wanted to feel that the authorities in the district would explain to the other kids what was wrong with what they were saying and doing so still it was hard it was very hard for them because they have to go to school with those other kids and it was tough um so swift efficient calm i think it's the best way fair is the best way because these kids coexist in a community um and we don't want kids of color to feel like i can't report because i don't want to be you know on the spot and in the spotlight um second i think we need to keep incidents involving students in perspective racism among the students in racist building is not acceptable and must be

095dealt with however let's keep in mind that schools are not going to solve problems involving race in this country saying racism is bad should not translate into draconian punishments for kids the fact of the matter is that we live in highly segregated communities in rochester with the majority black poor population downtown sitting side by side with well to do majority white suburbs that's written in our own school population three percent african-american kids in pittsford 14 in monroe county so that's not there's a problem there but kids didn't cause those problems and schools didn't cause those problems those are adult problems deeply rooted in history and demanding adult solutions so the burden of those issues lies with adults and we shouldn't forget that thank you thanks nicole julia good evening um my name is shuya i

096live on charles field run um first of all thank you for all your dedicated work to our schools teachers parents and our children at the same time i would like to present my concern regarding pittsford recent reactions to student incidents without rigorous investigations our school quickly jumped into conclusions our high school students spend study hours and class time for walkouts and they spend more school time attending assemblings in the auditorium for speeches although dei is important in education it is only one of many focuses to all schools anti-racism is in addition only part of dei moreover biased anti-racial voices create confusions and a fear among parents and they block incidents from from being reported as a consequence the fact is biased anti-racism voices are not even part of dei a mom i have met parents

097of all sorts of identities they moved from brighton fairport and even california to pittsford they're here because of our high quality education unfortunately many parents of all sorts of identities are now pulling their kids away from our schools they're disappointed by politics flowing into our schools as well as reduce the quality of education school board do we really want our schools to ignore the majority of our parents wishes and only focus on the loud voices when good and dedicated parents leave our schools we will no longer be the pcsd that we love on the main page of the department of education it says our mission is to promote student achievement and the preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access i sincerely hope the board can make great decisions for the

098majority of the silent but dedicated parents that love pcsd thank you thank you okay crystal hello i'm crystal petit freyr at 14 south pittsford helene i'm a parent of two my eighth graders at hawkins road middle school the original plan for tonight was to tag team parent my eighth grade son planned to come with me and my husband stayed was going to stay home with our four-year-old however i'm here tonight while my son is watching a sports game i think it's over now but um because he's tired he needed a break so while we teach him and we live by advocacy um his question to me today was what can i ask them i don't know what to say they already should know he's already he's 13 and he's already tired of saying i was

099out of the country last friday when news of the racist and violent video went viral as a parent of two children in the district at one of school age it was unnerving however add a new lens to that as a parent of children of color i was terrified i was not home with them i was immediate i immediately contacted my family to check in and make sure they were safe and okay then i started asking questions questions to staff question to committees questions to faculty no one had any answers no one had any ability to provide comfort to my family and to other families of color so since last friday i've been in motion has unfolded yet very little communication has gone out to the district families more incidents not related to the race this

100violent video have surfaced the district is now react and reactive reactive mode but families of color have been targeted on social media in person and in school for years the board of election or board of education was elected to serve and protect 100 percent of the student population why are we continuing to fail to protect the four percent of the black students and instead sweeping these racist and violent acts under the rug to protect the white students futures our children have futures too our cult of action for the district contract and hire professional experts to do restorative circles pittsburgh needs new eyes with experience in racially driven emotional trauma this is traumatic for our children teach by action see something say something only works if the leadership puts action behind their promises why do we

101keep looking back as a district why do we keep showing our kids they do not matter emails do not speak volumes actions do and require all staff and faculty complete more sets of training pertaining to dni it is a thing and embedded in our culture as an everyday thing not as a scramble to remove our presence in the media you all have an email invitation waiting in your inbox some have already responded it's to an event put on by the levine center to end hate on sunday october 17th that's a start it includes some of your colleagues from local districts and it is free i urge you to attend and reflect lastly please look and really reflect on your responses in the recent events if they instead impacted your children and henrietta and victor you

102would would you have responded at all yes i'll leave this with you in this quote from mlk our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter the balls in your court to become voices in your silence thank you thanks crystal [Applause] tadahara hi my name is tara hathawa kumar slavin my pronouns are she her hers and my address is three order drive this is my son tj i'd asked him to speak but he was a little nervous so he's coming up with me so mine is more about words matter when people see and hear the words no credible threat it downplays the situation it minimizes what is happening and the response as a therapist one specific situation i would need to break confidentiality is if someone threatened to hurt someone

103else the video that surfaced was a threat the student in the video reported having a gun to violently hurt a group of people this is a threat regardless of whether the weapon is real or not it is still a threat this is a threat to every black and brown student in the district it's not isolated to just one school this is an act of terror and creates trauma this is racial trauma to a huge group of our kids regardless if they were immediately impacted or not every black and brown child and family were affected and threatened i ask if you saw this as a credible threat would you have allowed the student to be at the school on monday if you had acknowledged the harm it did to the safety of all bypak students would

104you have acted differently finally why has the board been silent until tonight you all signed a governing mission to value and uphold student success and positive relationships with the community in addition to many other things but you have all failed to protect our kids and definitely have failed with positive community relationships remember being silent is an action thank you [Applause] i just want to respond to one part of that this morning i had a parent advisory council and i shared this part um some every situation is different when something happens at four something on a friday you have to interview the other student so sometimes the student may come in just to be interviewed i would say that in a situation like this if an interview needs to happen it probably should have been at

105a different place so i i do want to acknowledge uh that part that part of it and i would also say just to our previous speakers comment crystal we do we have trained people that are coming in and doing restorative circles we do have trained psychologists psychiatrists and social workers that are coming in to work with with kids in different ways as well so just want to make sure we're acknowledge that [Music] thanks mike catherine doyle sixth round trail drive thank you for allowing me to speak tonight my daughter started in the pittsford school district may of her year in kindergarten yes i am the world's worst mother i made her change schools that late and she recently graduated with the class of 2020. the other thing you need to know is that my daughter

106is chinese it was really fun that last year at school so we spent over an hour talking about her experiences in light of this new incident and so i think [Applause] one of the things that particularly struck me we have this you know see something say something right well shouldn't it apply to teachers as well in her freshman year they're reading that old chest not to kill a mockingbird and melanie thank you at last for diversifying the curriculum the minute she left one of the kids got up in a conversation in the class on that book and said well we elected obama there's no more racism things are fine now and so i said as i often had to do in the four years she was at mendon so what did your teacher say and

107the answer was nothing he just went on to the next person so in my life i have taught introduction to us government and we've brought up some of the same issues and those have been difficult conversations because there are a diversity of opinions but the one thing i never tried to do was let a teachable moment like that pass why do you think the election of obama ended racism what's your evidence for that but teachers are scared to have these types of conversations a because i don't think that we've had the professional development to help them facilitate those conversations and b because they're afraid of all the white parents who are going to call up and say why'd you pick on my kid in class again education is supposed to broaden the mind isn't it

108so i would say that we need to do better and that i talked to my daughter and her opinion was it wasn't worth it thank you catherine deepika singh i do because i'm 15th math record it was my understanding that that student didn't come in just for an interview that he was actually in the classroom until fourth period anyway recently in several unrelated incidents students engaged in race and racist monkey chants the casual exchange of racist speech and most alarmingly a student brandished a gun on social media stating that he carried it quote to kill the n-word the administration has been complacent and negligent for decades in dealing with these well-known and well-documented racial issues the inclusivity advisory committee iac was created three years ago and i'm confused as to what his role is i

109know that several isc community members have resigned feeling that it wasn't actually working towards its goal this is how i saw it utilized during black history month two years ago a class of park road tried to recognize 100 black inventors the project was an abomination that featured numerous photos of caucasians representing black inventors most disturbing was the district's response when mr piro was initially invited to speak with evan dawson he declined stating that the parent who reported the discrepancies my husband jerome had already met with the principal and this iac and was satisfied with the district's response that was a blatant lie he had not met with either and he was not satisfied with the district's response and jerome actually eventually did meet with the principal the principal cited confidentiality as the reason that he

110couldn't go through the photos together collaboratively with jerome these pictures without any student names were plastered all over the hallways of park road for everyone to see but suddenly they were confidential mr apparel you're always calling out for the parents to please help here you had a black parent willing to work collaboratively with you on a botched black history project and you weren't interested in his perspective then you went on record to the media misrepresenting the facts you understated the quantity of errors present and didn't even own up to the number of photos that we sent you you also stated that the errors were acknowledged in the classroom but we know they weren't further confusing about this iac we were told that the kids could not be re-educated properly because the issue had become too

111political but it was an iac representative chosen by the district itself on social media making it political now fast forward to today it is of no surprise that we have students in schools that can callously and casually screen racial slurs from the sidelines without the coach uttering a word it's so acceptable that it's become a fun game as in this boy making this terrifying video just to one-up his friends and how racist he could be the district's response and lack thereof continue every time racism comes up in the district and every time you act surprised mr apparel you have been prioritizing your reputation and the reputation of the districts over the safety and well-being of our children your dishonesty misleading comments empty promises and lack of transparency has led to the loss of trust in

112you and the board board members i'm almost done board members you've been elected and entrusted by the community to do good for our children why have you been silent what's your end point what will it take for you to act for someone to be bullied into suicide for someone to be shot and killed it's your responsibility to hold the super encounter and superintendent accountable or to find alternative leadership when the current one is failing i implore you to do your job [Applause] thank you do you want to say something if i could just respond uh to a couple of the comments there uh the first one i would say um if i were to do the park road situation all over again i would do it differently um my own reflection and and learning would

113say um that needed to be dealt differently and so i i apologize for um jerome uh for for not meeting with you directly um and uh in that undoing um some of the things that happen that's that's on me and i will accept responsibility for that the um the second part i would just ask for everyone um i uh to be careful uh about what happened at that mending game um until until there is a until there is a finding we do not accept racism but we do not also want kids to be accused of something if it's not happening so we need to be really careful about rushing to judgment there thank you cd shroma hi my name is sadie trauma i live at 30 jordan road it's good to see everybody in the

114flesh i'm typically an observer from home but i did feel compelled to be here today to show support and solidarity with the students of color who have been so impacted in a very public way over the past few weeks but also over and over and over again through the history of our school district i'm here to ask the board why and how this keeps happening and what your plans are to change mr pero i was glad to see that you called out the racist behavior in your second email to parents last week it was important that you use the word racism i'm glad you did it shows a step forward that gives me some hope however these steps are just so small and they are so slow every time racism occurs in our school district

115it seems as though the reaction is how could this happen here this isn't us but clearly it is if you talk to former students who graduated 10 20 30 years ago it's clear that racism has always been a part of the culture at pcsd we have a reputation of academic excellence always some swept under the rug racism do we want that to be the legacy of our school why is that a reputation we're trying to preserve it's time for bigger and bolder steps we need an anonymous reporting system where students can report racism when they experience it or when they see it we need swift and strict consequences for students displaying racist behavior and we need more than a vague email before a news story breaks your second email was better the information tonight is

116better but would it have happened if the stories weren't in the media i don't know parents need to know when this happens and that it's being taken very seriously because when a student who appears in a racist threatening video on friday is in school monday morning it doesn't give us much faith and when the board of education fails to make a public statement condemning this behavior until tonight it doesn't give us much faith anti-racism should be so undeniably embedded in our school culture that our leaders are talking about it every chance they get it should be woven into every meeting every conversation every open house sporting events theatrical production band concert you should be emphatically telling and showing parents and students that we are actively changing the culture instead of being known as the school

117district that is apologetically racist let's be so unapologetically anti-racist that that's what the writing story is about if you take those bolder steps you might get pushed back from people who want to keep things the same the folks who don't see color but i know you can handle it and clearly you have a lot of parents behind you too at the unity rally last weekend you may have heard the student's message to do more and i really hope you'll listen thank you for your time thanks sadie jen canning hi i'm jen canning 21 rights parkway i want to spend a little time though i appreciate the information on the process of what happened to the student involved in the incident i think we need to spend a little more time on on the trauma and

118the impact that it had on our school community the united way's 21-day racial equity challenge which i understand many of you participated in uh writes a different and emerging ex explanation of racism contends that interpersonal racism is actually a symptom of a more fundamental system of racism an array of cultural norms and institutional practices and policies that routinely produces racially inequitable outcomes often without intent or malice we have seen a string of interpersonal racist acts not just the video but text messages and potentially what happened at the soccer game to name calling to many microaggressions over many years that continue to happen and that are not addressed in a way that acknowledges the harm done to others or that promotes education and restorative justice it was curious to see the email from the principals about

119the tick tock challenges that did acknowledge the harm to the community that being the community of the custodians and the administrators that had to deal with this tick tock challenge but that same consideration wasn't uh promoted in the emails regarding the incidents that affected our whole pittsford community these interpersonal racism issues are also creating an inequitable learning environment in our buildings which is within the board's purview to address the students do not feel safe are not given the opportunity to heal and are not satisfied with the conditions in which they are being asked to learn at the um at the auditorium gatherings assemblies at the high schools which my children attended students asked to speak and were denied that opportunity there is a pattern of harm that has created a culture where this behavior continues

120to happen what we have been doing isn't working by ignoring the trauma that keeps being inflicted we fail to ensure that our students understand empathy understand impact versus intent and understand that their acts of racial harm will not be tolerated in the larger society this is a disservice to all of our students the board can and should create and ensure implementation of policies that are restorative and educative in nature that protect students from continual trauma and that illustrate an anti-racist stance our board of education as elected officials need to answer to the families to the whole community and address this failing of your most important constituents the children of our community thank you thanks jim [Applause] sussman thank you my name is john sussman i live at 29th street bridge lane just to remark about

121procedure you have the opportunity to reinstate public comment at the beginning of meetings i think that would be appropriate in light of the length i'm the parent of three children in this district in eight years of addressing its leadership and this board both publicly and in private communication in volunteer settings and a district committee appointment i have never invoked my children's status as among three percent of black students in pittsburgh not when a poorly conceived black history month assignment was displayed in the hallways that they walk each day not when one came home with a homework assignment containing a racist cartoon not when a slavery worksheet brought shame upon our district not when some community members use procedure to block the creation of a district level equity position in an organization meant to advocate for

122children and families in this district not when a vile word was allegedly deployed on the track and playing fields that my children use each day and not when a gun ostensibly for harming black people was displayed by a member of this community maybe i felt to do so would be unfair to my children maybe i felt this body would incorrectly see my worries as the narrow interest of my own family rather than all students maybe i absorbed rhetoric that mislabels advocacy for safety as divisive or partisan but when my family discusses these matters at the dinner table they are personal so tonight at least i won't pretend i'm not without a pit of dread and worry for their welfare in my stomach we are not making fast enough progress on the equity issues that have

123demanded our attention for years hiring professional development achievement we cannot be the best until this progress occurs so neighbors you are my neighbors after all let's double down thank you thanks john [Applause] [Music] [Applause] annalise hello i'm going to be a little repetitive i think a lot of us have similar ideas the first is transparency i just wanted to echo what the students have been saying they're saying things have been swept under the rug when they're reported they feel no action is taken to the point where they don't trust the administration and they're not reporting i know you have to respect people's privacy but when people are being held accountable but the students are being harmed in the broader community so we just need to build that trust with all students that they feel like

124people are being adequately addressed and held accountable the district keeps saying no credible threat that's the language from law enforcement it's dismissive of the severity of the issue at hand the definition of credible threat is having the intent and the means to do it right so the law enforcement lends and it's great that the police said that this person didn't have the intent or the means to do it but when you continue to use that language especially in front of students it's dismissive it's failing to recognize that this is a threat this is a very real threat and it caused real harm words really matter and actions matter more the district did dodge acknowledging the systemic racism question that i asked at the curriculum night it it said we address individual instances of racism we

125need to have a shared understanding of language including acknowledging systemic problems exist i asked the superintendent why the district isn't taking an anti-racist stance after the tasha potter night it didn't come up in the q a and you said i don't know what you mean we've denounced racism multiple times this is a red flag denouncing racism even repeatedly is not anti-racism anti-racism is ongoing action when three union endorsed board of education candidates or campaigning refused to answer questions from a community-wide group on anti-racism the three people released a statement so it's not that the questions were ignored but the word racism wasn't used the word anti-racism wasn't used the questions were avoided we need to be able to talk about hard things and say hard words and in times where there isn't a crisis we

126want to be able to trust you with all of our children and to be able to discuss these things so that needs to be built up like we need to hear from you that you recognize the problem and that we need to be anti-racist when a parent holds a weeping child day after day that because they're being invalidated at school because of their identity this is a red flag you've been trying for years it's been insulated it's missed the mark continue to bring in outside experts not one day in october but we need continued outside support when you say it's so not pittsford to have outside people come in with curriculum that's a red flag bring in the outside people diverse perspectives the more the better let's support all of our students we don't need

127our students of color our bipac youth to have this burden every year it's not okay thanks thanks [Applause] mike higgins good evening thank you for uh taking the time to listen to all of us here um i know sometimes it's not very easy um mike higgins i live on sunset boulevard um as a parent of three pittsford kids and a veteran who had the opportunity to figure out where i want to spend the rest of my adult years i was privileged enough to have an opportunity to come and live in pittsford i've lived in seven states been to 37 some odd countries this is a good place okay pittsford is not without its warts but this is a good place to raise families and i think it's taken everybody in this room to make this

128place what it is right now i'd like to take a minute to just remind people that this is a strong community there's a reason we have the ability to come here and do this and not become some youtube video because we act like knuckleheads okay we can come here we can disagree we can have adult conversations about hard things again i think pittsford is a special place and that's another example as to why on the flip side i think and i would like to applaud the board for not falling into the tactic of self-flagellation and just saying oh my god we're all horrible we're monsters the fact that you've been diligent and you've taken time to come to the right answer or a more deliberative answer is appreciated by many of us this is a

129great country we weren't built on guilt by accusation well it is not having been on the other side of the table having done investigations it's hard to wait until you get all of the information it is hard to look at somebody and not come to a conclusion before all the information is there it's difficult and i appreciate the fact that you're taking the time to come to a more complete answer as i walked in here is my first time in the building i did notice children learn what what they live the sign just outside this room here i would highly recommend that everybody in here read that before you walk out and then read it again and think about the kids that we're trying to raise here there's a lot of good on that plaque

130out there i think i'm going to put one up in my house madam president one thing you said earlier i agree but i disagree it doesn't just take a village it takes parents to raise good kids the issues that we're dealing with parents are part of the solution they're also probably part of the problem last thing i would like to say is again having lived all over the country chosen to raise kids in a fantastic school district with great neighbors that i care dearly about as we move forward to find more solutions to this let's please remember that diversity is more than skin deep look around the neighborhood look around our schools look around this this room here it takes all of us to make this better and i think until we listen to everybody

131and honor everybody it's not going to happen thank you thanks mike so with that we do have write-ins but given the fact that all of these write-ins are repetitive of what's already been shared what i'd like to offer those who did write in we will respond to each one of you via email tomorrow if you have any remaining questions did i cover everyone who did fill out a card this evening i want to make sure everyone that's here has had an opportunity okay with that i'm going to close down public comment session and may i have a motion to adjourn to executive please thanks pete i need a second robin all in favor opposed motion carried thank you very much to the community for showing up tonight thank you