001you sure yes sir that's suggested please please have a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence for harold di mateo and louise hughes who happened to be the first education special education teacher many many years ago i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stays one nation under god indivisible with liberty thank you ladies ladies and gentlemen we're about to list a public comment although state law does not require us to hold a public comment period we chose to so because we believe it's crucial for us to hear from the community members about their concerns and issues the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed to be a debate or dialogue please do not expect the board to
002respond to your concerns and questions tonight we take your concerning questions seriously and want a sufficient time to process and research issues in ep any questions from the public should be submitted to the use of the public common form which be obtained online or at the desk with the district clerk we'll have a proper staff member get back to you as appropriate i also want to point out that under state and federal privacy laws we are unable to address any comments or questions about specific students or school personnel we would ask you to go through the appropriate administrative chat channels a total of 30 minutes at the beginning of each board meeting set aside to allow the public comment on agenda islands only public comments the beginning meeting is limited only to the albums and
003the agenda persons who wish to participate in public comment portion of the meeting are asked to provide the name and the specific agenda item about which they wish to speak individual comments on the agenda islands only is being limited to three minutes and are welcomed if you wish to address items not relating to our school district that are not on tonight's agenda another common period is provided at the end of the period for that purpose in the interest of civility and respect for different points of view clapping booing or any disturbance or destruction during either public comment period is not permitted at this point if anyone has wants to address a agenda island please come to the microphone and also address it see none communication announcements received by the board of education yes peggy okay
004uh i had the pleasure of attending meet the author night at fiscal planes elementary school there were between 15 and 20 different authors of children's books it was delightful we got to meet them the parents brought their children and they could buy books have them autographed and it was a wonderful opportunity to see the latest in children's literature and to discover how many people we have living locally who write illustrated children's books so that was very uh rewarding then we had the district science fair and this was uh this was just terrific although with all the difficulties with uh uh restrictions because of covert and uh and them being really uh we weren't sure the district didn't know if they were going to be able to hold an in-person science fair this year but when
005they fight but when they did we had terrific uh just terrific experiments that the children had done and everyone's all the judges said that this was the highest quality they had ever seen though the quantity was down the quality was way up and it was we had the opportunity to go around and talk with the different students about the things they had come up with uh and some of them were very original for instance scented versus unscented candles which burns faster you know i never thought about it but they found out so that was that was really a uh great to see what our students are doing and trust us afternoon please don't leave us all in suspense which is it excuse me which burns faster oh which goes faster actually the unscented burn faster
006yeah see raised a question for all of us all right and then this afternoon we had a number of us had the pleasure of going and seeing the uh pi day celebration at van wyk school where the students from five different elementary schools in our district who have this special who come voluntarily early in the morning for math enrichment with dr irvin miller uh shared with what they've been doing so i believe uh let's see mrs miss johnson and mr lumia and i were all there and at the science fair a number of us were there also miss johnson and uh mr mcfarland and mr lumia and myself thank you anyone else uh john um i would i would like to make special mention of our student athletes from roycey ketchum um i had the
007um pleasure of attending the sectional championship game where the um the ketchum young ladies won the first sectional title in the history of the basketball program um and not to give my age away because that's personal information but roycey ketchum has been playing um athletics for longer than than i've been around so congratulations uh to those young ladies and of particular note um i want to mention that one of the student athletes is going to to pace university next year to be a collegiate student athlete um congratulations to her and and i'm not mentioning her by name because i can't mention all the team members but the team is also very young a lot of sophomores um so there's there's um a bright future for them after winning that sectional championship and then going on
008um in the regional semifinal and losing a heartbreaker that they had the game tied um with i forget the it was less than two minutes they had the game tied and they they ended up uh coming up short but certainly a very successful season congratulations uh to those student athletes on a job well done it's john mike my wife and i had the great opportunity to attend the rck national honor society sparrows feast benefit concert on friday night i'd like to thank all the gifted students for sharing their amazing talent with us miss gina stevens rck national honest society advisor and consent choir the string choir the teachers at rck and thank all of them for the outstanding talents they brought they raised money for the sparrows feast and they raised over 1400 on that
009particular evening so just like to thank everybody that ran that meeting uh it was a great job looking forward to seeing the rest of the coming year events thank you marie yes um i also was uh very fortunate to be able to go to the meet the authors night at fishgail plains with mrs kellen it was really great to see all those different authors and they are local our science fair um the quality was very high and i can't do some of the stuff that they pulled off and i was very impressed also i was able to event see today's event for the pi event and i want to congratulate every one of those students in those five schools you guys are coming in early and you guys are putting a dedication in and there's
010the math problems they were showing that you guys are doing i can't do them so kudos to you and also um i was able to do mystery reader this past week at fishfield plains for our pre-kinderga or pre-kindergarten and that was probably the best event next to graduation that i got to do is to spend time with the pre-kindergarteners and next will be the seniors so thank you okay after two years i'm looking forward to allowing the students to have a full spring season of athletics without any cancellations and also looking forward to the plays such as cinderella that they'll be having pretty soon and also musical concerts i know the rock junior students will be performing at rc catching this week so i look forward to all those different activities i guess the last
011one i'd like to congratulate the following students from rck first of all uh at the indoor new balance nationals nick casterino set a school record in a 400 meter with a time of 51.7 seconds abe kowalski set a freshman sample record in the 800 meter with a time of 222.78 seconds sebastian smith was a new york state champion swimmer holly bloom qualified for session one for team bowling matt marsh qualified for the states in wrestling and again congratulations to the girls basketball team they were they were exceptional and i also like to congratulate the coaches will help them achieve their particular goal and so far [Applause] congratulations to the john jay robotics team for the second year competing in the regionals congratulate the bowling team for competing in the states foa will be attending the
012regional competition and of course precision will be held in the play mamma mia in the coming months once again that science fair was exceptional i sincerely hope every student who participated continues hypothesizing because that's how you learn you hypothesize and based on those hypothes you draw a conclusion whether to accept the hypothesis or not and today as i said we went to a pie pie day i was disappointed there was no pies somebody said that pie is a ratio between a circumference and a diameter which is true in any event those kids have to come in [Laughter] those kids get up early in the morning before school starts to see dr miller what they are doing is exceptional and i just said to at the little speech that i gave is i wish dr miller
013was my teacher i'm glad that there are five schools involved in the program hopefully in the coming years all of all the tests elementary school will be involved thank you with that in mind the next item in the agenda is committee reports first one mr slash hour capital improvement this evening majority of our last meetings covered under uh item 6.01 6.02 and 6.03 so we'll wait uh at that point to discuss if there is anything else to discuss or any questions just a quick update with regards to the phase four project that was uh leftover monies from our previous capital bond uh those plans are up at scd for review we are anticipating a uh response from them hopefully by uh a played safe and say mid april then at that point we can go
014out for bid which should take another 30 days or so so we're still on target for phase four projects to be completed over the summer and completed by the time school starts in september majority of our uh meeting with uh trustee johnson and uh trustee mcfarland who is uh leading the uh review of the uh proposed uh air conditioning units uh for the schools we've identified a half a dozen buildings that we're looking at out of those half a dozen we've narrowed it down to uh two buildings and at this point we're still waiting for some final numbers from our vendor and then at that point we'll have some continued conversations uh with regards to that project initially the funding for that uh initial project for either i'll say for this year but unfortunately they
015probably have to go into next year based on the scope of work that has to be done and that money is coming from the covet relief funds so again as i continue to say please be patient the committee the full board of administration does have a plan in place to look uh to install air conditioning in all of our buildings for our students and staff so please be patient with regards to that uh and that's pretty much it for the for that for the last meeting then i roll right into let me thank the board members who are in their committee ms mcfarland of course it's chairman uh slushower mary mcgeary and myself you mean marie johnson you guys do a fantastic job i really do what'd you say you said it's marie johnson what
016aaron aguirre hasn't been on about your adventure marie johnson of course was on the board about 10 years ago in any event about that we cannot do we can't possibly go without mrs johnson she's exceptional sorry marie i'm gonna roll right into uh lac that's a quick one people's names okay because of my explanation i did but i'll start off legislative action had its most recent meeting uh trustee johnson uh and trustee cahill had participated as well as our community members cheryl magettes and jocelyn kaufman as well as our rck and john jay students very simple and i appreciate the work of the committee but the items that we worked on are presented as agenda item 9.03 and 9.04 for this evening i hope everyone had a chance to review the proposed letters and then
017i can answer any further questions at that time when we get to that item so thank you miss pay kevin policy okay policy committee met at the beginning of the month and we finished our three-year review of the entire policy manual uh working on human resources uh those are the 9 000 items uh you'll see a couple of uh them up here on today's agenda and they're just grammatical updates and we also uh revise the homework policy basically making it uh less restrictive because the teachers have and different subjects different grade levels have different policies and different needs for homework so we just took out a few extraneous paragraphs and we did stress that although we do not assign outside uh reading for recreation as an uh overall uh blanket policy we do encourage all
018students to read recreationally during the school year and in the summer and other vacations okay all right and the board members on that committee are uh mr lumia mr sloshauer mr morgan and myself and we also have uh represent uh we have mr lokima for uh representing and miss pedro representing the district so that uh we are still working on a couple of things that we need more information on so we'll be meeting again the first wednesday of the month at five o'clock at the district office it's at the beginning of april to wind up our work for the year unless we get additional matters that have to be dealt with often from the state education department that come down to us rather suddenly thank you thank you duchess county school board association ms kellen
019yes our meeting on uh march 3rd we had a legislative representative from the new york new york state school boards association to update us on how the state the governor's proposed budget is faring in the legislature and what we may expect to wind up with fortunately there is increased aid this year and mr morgan came to that meeting all board members are welcome to come to any school board's dutchess county school boards association meeting and we stressed and encouraged the same items that are going to be mentioned uh later in this agenda tonight from the letters from the legislative action committee so i won't go into those because you're going to hear them later thank you community communication ms marie johnson i would first like to thank miss kellen for trustee kellan for coming uh
020president lumia uh miss cahill was um preoccupied with work i'm sorry that we're working on our schedules to get better ms cahill is a very dedicated person though um she does give me her feedback also crystal schwartz and barbara and i forgot to write down her last name as our community members darren lokima and deborah c from our office we reviewed the changes some of you might have noticed that our website has been updated with a new format we are still tweaking some of the bugs out of it if you see something that's a little crazy or not understanding please feel free to reach out to me or mr lokima we would love to hear feedback on any of the changes that you've seen so far on the website we're pretty proud of what's coming
021along but yes they are still working on the website to to make sure everything is in the right place and feedback is greatly appreciated we will be scheduling a follow-up meeting in the next month and as soon as that is we will post the date and time on our website uh update on forum ms johnson uh yes mr lumia has tasked me with investigating some of the information regarding rck indians there is several forms that i am looking into i am still waiting to hear back on some information and when i get that i'll be able to move on to the next step to bring it forward to the board so uh regarding the stock bridge so at this time i really can't do anything until i get those forms back thank you that's a
022carwel curriculum good evening the curriculum committee met on february 16th there are four board members on that committee we have president lumia vice president mckellen trustee keith odams and trustee john morgan at the february 16th meeting the topic of conversation was a reviewer grades k through 8 ela and math curriculum and resources to ensure alignment with the new york state next generation standards students in grades three to eight will begin uh using uh the k-8 standards uh next year in totality and the state assessments will be based off of the next generation ela math standards during this meeting we reviewed the updated roadmap for the implementation of the standards the curriculum maps were updated and aligned for grades seven and eight this year grades k through six have been aligned to the new standards for
023several years now this is in ela and in math the website leading and learning has been updated with resources that teachers have access to um in teaching the standards to making sure that their students are prepared for whichever a new procedures or topics may come about because of next generation standards the next meeting is scheduled for march 23rd and the topics that will be addressed at the next meeting is the health curriculum and also a review of academic intervention service and response to intervention strategies and the use of data to make instructional decisions thank you dr carwell last but not least of district safety mr lukima thank you trustee spencer uh good evening the district-wide safety committee met on march 3rd there are four members of the board of education on that committee uh president
024mumia trustee mcfarland trustee odems and trustee spencer we thank you for your attendance uh we've talked briefly about the draft 2022-23 district-wide safety plan and we also talked about the now new availability of wi-fi calling in our schools which is uh going to greatly enhance communications for schools like ketchum and oak grove who have terrible cell phone reception uh brian shanahan from the altera consulting group was on hand he talked about some of the individual work he was doing in the schools and the table top exercises that the schools are running and we also spoke about the recent increase in incidences of that the district has been dealing with and some of our communication strategies surrounding those incidents thank you mr president i'd like to thank all the chair people of each of these committees
025they do a great deal of work and sometimes they not really appreciate it so thank you very much for all the work you guys do 5.01 superintendent report debunk thank you good evening president lumia vice president kellen members of the board of education in the wappinger central school district community i have a couple of announcements the first announcement i have is i would like to commend mr adam pantser for all of his organizational efforts in regards to the district science fair which was on march 5th i had an opportunity to attend and could not believe some of the projects that our students had worked on k-12 so congratulations to all of them in addition this afternoon i attended the annual pi day recognition ceremony at van wyk junior high school as the wappinger central school
026district was the host for this event today there are a number of school districts that participate uh with dr miller and his program from the math and physics exploration center fortunately we had 70 students from our elementary schools who were recognized for their mathematical acumen and they had an opportunity to speak today about what they learned and we got to hear from their parents and again a truly exceptional program that we look forward to continuing here within the wappinger school district a couple of student recognition announcements van wyk student madeline ziola who's a seventh grader she won the local and state essay contest sponsored by the meslinga chapter of the daughters of the american revolution madeleine will be entered into the national competition congratulations to madeline we also had van wyk student vet cadera who's
027an eighth grader who won the district in state scripps spelling bee he's entered in the scripps national spelling bee he will first compete in the online qualifying spelling bee the top 20 scores on the test will compete and the final spelling bee uh in march and that will determine who from the area will compete in the 2022 national spelling bee we wish vad the best of luck we we're sure that he's going to represent loppingers well and i'd be remiss if i didn't congratulate some individuals uh on some outstanding achievements president lumia the roycey ketchum girls basketball team section one champions congratulations well deserved john j cheerleading team won the westchester putnam duchess rockland association sportsmanship award congratulations john j cheerleading president lumia mentioned royce and ketchum student cross country and track member abby kowalczyk
028john j student and bowling team member louis fred receiving the section one sportsmanship award and rck wrestling team matt mash uh for his wrestling performance and again congratulations to all of our students we have many many in person i quote in person thankfully performances that are going to be done by our schools in the area of music and fine arts we ask that you look at the district calendar and attend and support our schools and support our students it's also great to be in person this evening and with that the superintendent's report has concluded thank you the punk 6.01 capital project uh eddie i think you have an update on that go ahead that doesn't work i don't think yeah you know just in case you know what i like to stand i mean just
029a real quick for some clarification we do have on the uh proposition with some roof work that's being done on john jay just to clarify we're only replacing the old damaged part of the roof because we just repaired a section of the roof due to the storm from last year so i didn't want to you know misconstrue any of the information so it is not the entire john jay roof it is just the portions of the roof that are 30 to 40 years old we did repair a section of the roof so just to clear up that little item there and the other thing with regards to district office where we do have roof leaking also just to clarify that not only is district office in that particular building but that is also orchard view
030high school so although we always seem to refer district office in a lot of the conversations orchard view is part of that building so i just wanted to clarify that as well okay uh and thank you miss johnson for sending in some questions hope i was able to clarify that tonight with those two answers as well as uh your other uh minor concerns that you had thank you mr schauer with that 6.02 kelly whereas the board of education of the wappinger central school district district or board proposes a capital improvement project consisting of construction of improvements to and reconstruction of all its buildings and sites including original equipment including building repairs roof replacements pavement replacements heating ventilation electrical and systems upgrades life safety improvements renovations salt shed replacement and infrastructure replacements together with furnishings machinery
031apparatus apprehensions and incidental improvements and expenses in connection there with project and whereas the proposed project constitutes a replacement rehabilitation or reconstruction of an existing facility that qualifies as a type 2 action set forth in 6 nycrr part 617.5 state environmental quality review act secra and whereas the board has considered the information and documentation which describes the design and intent of the proposed project now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the waffinger central school district based upon the record before it including the general specific and detailed knowledge of the board of the proposed project and under the applicable standards of sacra and 6 nycrr part 617.5 hereby determines that a the proposed project is classified as a type two action and b in accordance with article eight of the new york
032state environmental conservation law the board is not obligated to conduct any further environmental review of the project so move second second all those in favor aye unanimous 6.03 resolution authorizing inclusion of capital improvement proposition at the annual school district meeting and election peggy be it resolved by the board of education of wappington central school district ditches duchess and putnam counties new york as follows section one the proposition here and after set forth is hereby authorized to be submitted for the approval of the qualified voters at the annual school district meeting and election to be held in sense school district on the 17th day of may 2022 section 2 the school district clerk is hereby authorized and directed to include as a part of the notice of the annual district meeting and election notice with reference
033to the submission of said proposition in substantially the following form notice is hereby further given that it said annual district meeting and election to be held on may 17 2022 the following proposition will be submitted capital improvements proposition shall the following resolution be adopted to whit result that the board of education of the wappinger central school district dutchess and putnam counties new york is hereby authorized to construct improvements to and reconstruct school district buildings and facilities including original furnishings equipment machinery apparatus and appertenances together with sight and athletic field improvements new salt shed and other incidental improvements and expenses in connection their width and a maximum established cost of 20 million ninety five thousand dollars and that set amount or so much thereof as may be necessary shall be raised by the levy of a
034tax upon the taxable property of said school district and collected in annual installments as provided by section 416 of the education law and in anticipation of such tax obligations of said school district shall be issued the school district has determined the capital project is a type 2 action pursuant to 6 nycrr part 617.5 c 1 2 and 10 formerly 8 of the regulations of the new york state department of environmental conservation promulgated pursuant to the state environmental quality review act secra the implementation of which as proposed the school district has determined will not result in any significant adverse environmental impacts secret compliance materials are on file in the office of the school district clerk where they may be inspected during regular office hours upon appointment section 3 this resolution shall take effect immediately point of
035information um the estimated cost of that is 20 million 95 000. thank you hi thank you uh miss johnson does anybody want to remove any item from the agenda was that okay resolve that the board of education does hereby approve the following consent agita and agenda items as stated 7.02 an addendum 7.03 and addendum 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 and 7.1 one uh thank you good evening everybody i'd like to take a quick opportunity to congratulate miss christina martinez who was just appointed to the position of assistant director of special education and welcome her to the wappingers team thank you [Applause] thank you miss martinez brings with her several years of experience in special education most recently with the new york city department of education and we believe she will be a tremendous
036asset to the special education department our students our families and our administrative team please join me in giving miss martinez a warm wappingers welcome congratulations 8.01 approval of the revised 2021 202 school calendar whereas the board of education adopted the 2021-2022 school calendar at their meeting of march 8 2021 whereas it has been determined that the 2021-2022 school calendar requires additional revisions now therefore be it resolved that the board of education does hereby amend the school calendar and adopts the 2021-2022 school calendar as revised the following change was made to the 2021 2022 school calendar the first give-back date was changed from april april 11th to april 18th second second all those in favor aye aye unanimous 9.01 approval of the small smart school bond act implementation be it resolved that the wampington central school
037district has developed a smart schools bond act implementation plan number five has presented the preliminary plan to the board on february 7 2022 as advertised for public input on the district's website for 30 days and conducted a public hearing on february 28 2022 and therefore be it result that the waffles board of education hereby approves the smart schools bond act implementation plan number five as presented and be it further resolved that the waffles board of education hereby authorizes the superintendent of schools or designee to submit the waffle central school district smart schools bond act implementation plan number five to the new york state education department for review and approval in favor of the 2022-23 school calendar resolved that the board of education does hereby adopt the 2022-2023 school calendar as submitted by the assistant superintendent
038for compliance and information systems and recommended by the superintendent of schools that's right can you guys hear me all right will's in favor unanimous 9.03 approval of advocacy letters mental health funding let me comment i'd like to thank mr slushauer for sharing in this particular committee i think there is an excellent letter so go ahead sorry resolve that the board of education of the wappitje central school district does hereby approve the attached letter advocating for mental health funding as drafted by the legislative action committee and does hereby authorize the board president to sign the letter on behalf of the board of education marcia peggy's second any discussion all those in favor aye aye unanimous 9.4 approval of advocacy letter school resource officers resolved at the board of education of the waffle central school district that's
039hereby approve the attached letter advocating for school resource officer funding as drafted by the legislative action committee and is hereby authorized the board president to sign the letters on behalf of the board of education yeah i would i would like to thank the legislative action uh committee for that letter i just wanted to inform the public that in next year's recommended budget i am going to recommend that the district have four school resource officers one at royce c ketchum high school one at wappinger's junior high school one at john jay high school and one at van wyk junior high school and my hope is that the letter by the legislative action committee um will continue to show that these issues that we deal with in our schools are not district issues they're not necessarily state
040issues they're national issues so i'm hopeful that that letter is well received and successful and maybe either the federal or state government will provide us with the money we need to be able to provide school resource officers from our local police departments in our secondary schools so thank you but john thank you dr peggy i'd just like to say that i was uh in lobbying sessions with the office with the staff uh people for both uh assemblyman lowler and uh senator uh state senator sue serino and with assembly woman dede barrett herself and all three were very supportive of what we what we were requesting they understand the difficulties both with the mental health situation in the state and with the need for school safety school resource officers and school safety officers and they were
041appreciative and i hope that they were are able to influence the uh legislature in albany and get that their approval of this additional funding thank you thank you thank you 9.05 question yep i just thanks i just wanted to thank everybody on the committee i also want to thank the superintendent for uh some of his input and i want to thank all of the board members here tonight for your support for these two letters thank you and our and our students as well on the committee they were the typist along with their employment all those in favor raise your hand please is there a need for a quote the second letter so we did okay okay thank you peggy okay all right 9.05 first reading of policies again it's the first reading if anyone in
042the community has any question those policies please address them to peggy keller the chairman of the chairperson of the political committee the silent reading so that's it okay not uh 10.01 are there any additions to the agenda i would like to make an adjust addition to the agenda i might i'll hold those a favor hi uh unanimous peggy okay all right uh 10.3 library book review yes uh whereas whereas the board of education received a complaint regarding the book genderqueer a memoir by maya kobave one copy located in the john jay high school library which has never been checked out by a student on january 13 2022 and whereas the board of education has reviewed the book and considered the following materials instructional review committee recommendation policy four five one three library material selection policy
043one four two zero complaints about curricular or instruction materials policy one four two zero r regulation dr bonk's march 12 2022 written decision and recommendation with regard to the instructional review committee recommendation now therefore be it resolved that the waffles board of education does hereby adopt the march 12 2022 superintendent's decision and recommendation and is hereby directs the superintendent to permanently remove the book genderqueer memoir by maya kobabe from the school library motion key and second memory johnson discussion all those in favor unanimous 11.01 comments from the public good evening board of education first off i'd like to say that i think it's very very nice to see the children our children participating in all of these events and i really do from the bottom of my heart i appreciate it i see all the
044kids finally without mass which i think is a great great thing because i noticed with my own son with his friends they are loving it so i would like to thank the board of education for all of these events that they are making possible for the kids it really is a tremendous help for them for their personalities and for their growth thank you second thing uh the thing that i have heard is we're spending all of this money on the district for things like okay air conditioning and other capital improvements that we're doing i don't know about you but when i was a child i didn't have air conditioning we had fans we opened up the windows or whatever that's fine that's all fine and good uh one of the things that i noticed is
045that which is a nationwide thing right now we have a shortage of bus drivers right now and one of the things that comes to my mind is well why do we have a shortage of bus drivers could be covered could be a lot of bus drivers yes retiring we're all getting to a ripe old age but the other thing i think that we need to start thinking about is maybe we should start paying these drivers just a little bit more because i mean let's face it the only way you're going to get more people to come to work is to yeah pay them a little bit more and one of the things i noticed is that we keep spending all this money on other capital improvements and everything else but what about the people that
046drive the kids to work and what about are nurses in the schools they're they have been on the front lines as of the news lately the nurses are health care workers sorry they're getting thrown under the bus a lot of times and i think that we could do a little bit more if even with let's say uh our nurses in our district who i believe that well let's put it this way we are the what fifth largest school district in the state and to my knowledge they're one of the lowest paid why is that so i think that if we would just think about if we're going to start talking about children and taking care of them why don't we think about the people when our children are in the school system getting driven to
047school getting taken care by these workers maybe if we paid them a little bit more maybe we could get more workers and more training for them and that's all i have thank you hello my name is cheryl miguets i'm a resident of the town of poughkeepsie and i want to say that i've noticed this year that the board and the administration has put a lot of focus on helping the students to try to move forward from the effects of covid whether it be the um the social and emotional needs the anxiety as well as focusing on learning loss i noticed this morning as i was going through my regular habit of looking at the agenda for the monthly board of regents meeting that there's no discussion yet of any possible contingency or changes for the
048regents exam in june so i'm assuming that as of now they're going ahead as usual but i just want you to take a look at the students that we're sending to sit for these exams this year many of the students who will be taking regents exams in the district this year have never taken a regents exam in their life the that's freshmen sophomores and juniors because of the events of the past two years and a number of these students particularly the juniors may be taking four regents exams this first sitting and some of the juniors may be taking three regents exams and the checkpoint b foreign language exam if we are really interested in helping our children with their recovery from the learning loss and from all of the stress that they have been under
049one of the things i'd like to ask you to consider is to prepare the students as usual for the stress of the exams but in this district we traditionally count the regents exam as a final exam worth 20 of the students final grade and i know the past couple of years we have like last year students who took the exam we had a no harm policy in effect and i'd like the district to think of these students particularly those who are taking four exams who have never studied for and sat for a regents exam before and either not count them as 20 of the final grade average or at least reinstate the do no harm policy so that we don't have students who are for example in algebra two trying to continue forward from not
050having had all of algebra one have all of the stakes on the test if they're passing the class but um not doing exemplary work that 20 could fail them in the course and they'd have to repeat the course as well as the exam so i'd just like you to think of the emotional well-being of our students thank you good evening my name is theresa morley and i've now and i've lived in this district about 25 years wappinger school district is one of the largest school districts in new york so imagine my surprise when hearing the district school nurses are grossly underpaid damn near poverty levels um it's criminal that women get paid 70 cents on the dollar but it shouldn't happen in wappinger's central school district especially the district i pay taxes in i'm asking
051the board members to address this glaring injustice to stop shamefully exploiting the nurses and provide a fair opportunity to earn a respectful wage and benefits that they deserve thank you so you know the comments that make a motion to adjourn all in favor unanimous now thank you for coming