001[Music] Welcome to our Board of Education meeting this is our regular meeting for Tuesday October 10th 2023 please stand and join us in the pledge flag United States the mission of the White Plains Public Schools is to educate and inspire all students while nurturing their dreams so they learn continually think critically pursue their aspirations and contribute to a diverse and dynamic world you want to go right to yeah I'd like to ask everybody to join us in a moment of Silent reflection as we keep all of everybody in Israel everybody who is impacted by terrorist attacks in our thoughts and in our prayers and hope and work together for peace thank you thank you um before we do any um announcements by the board want do Cara right School Board recognition yes we would like
002to call um on Miss Cara lions hi everyone good evening so it's nice to be able to be here to thank you in person for the work that you do so Adele herzenberg wanted me to send her regrets she was unable to attend this evening but um she wanted me to thank you from the bottom of her heart for the invaluable work you do and as I'm looking at all of you here it's not just ours but some of you have dedicated years and years of your life to this work um and the work that you do allows our CA members and our wpta members do the work that we do for the children who are in front of us every day and specifically I'd like to thank you today for your commitment to the
003wpcsd educator pathway on Thursday we're going to have a kickoff event and we have a little token of our appreciation for you but we look forward to our shared collaboration so that together we can work to grow and raise our own students that will become Educators here in White Plains and in the area so thank you so much for everything thank [Music] you thank you good evening everybody it's my pleasure to be here on behalf of the White Plains administrators uh and supervisors Association to express our thanks and our gratitude for all the work that you do um the board is tasked with setting the lofty mission and vision that you heard seller read uh and giving us the the resources and the advocacy to make sure that we live up to those lofty goals
004uh at this particular moment of history when unfortunately schools seem to be the Nexus of all of the uh political tensions in our country knowing that we have your support uh is vital to to making sure that we are able to do the work and that we we live up to again that mission and vision so thank you so much for all you do on behalf of of our students and our staff thank you Mr some certificates for you guys oh thank you thank you thank you thank Youk thank you so much for your your kind words and if I may speak for everyone uh this is this is necessary work our work is intentional our work is for all students and it is an honor for us to be entrusted with this very important
005job and most importantly to have you all as our collaborators so we thank you as well thank [Applause] you announ okay thank you next um we will move into um just some brief announcements by the board why don't you start without where we went to the offic oh yes we attended a board Officers Training about uh three weeks ago Rosemary and I as vice president and president of the board um we were there in Pleasantville we heard from other boards in the area and it was a nice learning experience although it was very nice to come back and know that we have the longevity and the knowledge no you could have been there presenting to everyone but it was good I think it was a good exercise for us to go visit uh and hear
006from other districts yes um and in addition I was at the girls varsity soccer game today where they beat Forester 3 Z thank you um and I'll just briefly uh mention I went to the uh a superintendent um evaluation meeting um by nispa and the board officers uh Forum um uh by nisba and you know know as as Kane said it's always good for us to see how other boards are and look for anything that makes what we do even better we are change you know we're change agents and we believe what we do very well maybe we can do even better so we don't we're not stagnant in terms of what we do we're open to change but it's good to see that we're on The Cutting Edge of things and right there at
007the top in terms of of other boards so it was really great um to be a part of that anything else I'll be brief just because my voice is uh not great um oh thank you um I attended PTA Council there was a great turnout with lots of new faces which was really nice um walk by to school with Ridgeway which was really fun um also great turnout um I also attended with Rosemarie the superintendent evaluation um workshop and the leadership academy with the New York State School boards Association and some webinars on school safety and diversity equity and inclusion anything any other comments I just had a quick chance caught a couple of swim meets and back to school night so that was a very nice event too early in the year which was
008also nice yeah yeah swimming right after my heart okay so um next we'll go right to our superintendent report well thank you very much and and um I want to again thank the board of education for the tremendous service to our children and our community um decades and and it it really and Mr Kon I I think you know you summed it up very nicely of course um so to Mrs Lions the support and the leadership starts at the top and you know the Board of Education being committed to Contin ous Improvement being committed to planning uh whether it be strategic planning longrange planning fiscal planning um and making sure that all the decisions are grounded in data um and and experience has uh has gone a long way I think to supporting our children
009so thank you um very very much for for all that you do it's also principal appreciation month um and you for for all of our building leaders and Dr Crawford it's thank you so much for being here this evening for for all of our building leaders um we offer our gratitude and appreciation as well um it is a team effort in the white PL City School District and and we're grateful for everybody's contribution um this evening I have the great honor of welcoming right out of the gate um colleagues and friends who are here this evening including U mayor roach thank you very much for being here this evening and I know mayor I know there there are other events that that that um are you're going to be ATT attending tonight as well and
010and I want to share uh regrets from Senator mayor she was going to be here with us this evening as well um but she of course is is also attending a community vigil uh this evening in uh in in the memory of those uh those folks who who were lost to terrorist acts of the past weekend um tonight we are we are going to celebrate and recognize uh the white plan City School District and and thank you to nisba and and our our representatives and and Dr he's one of them uh and and it's so wonderful also to have you coming from across the bridge um to to to represent as well and with that I I'll turn it over to to Cheryl yes absolutely I'm going to try to speak as best I can
011um I'm sorry I have leitis so good evening superintendent RI mayor roach president Eller president latisia board members Administration staff students parents and community members I'm standing here in my role of area 10 director of the New York State School boards Association otherwise known as mispa now you've heard that acronym representing Westchester Rockland and putham counties I serve as the Lea zone between the school boards of these counties and the association and as you know I'm also a proud member of the white PL school board and I'm so pleased that we're being recognized with npa's champions of change award one of the perks of my directorship is making these presentations to area 10 districts and I'm being somewhat on the formal side so you guys get the full [Laughter] treatment very briefly for those who
012are not familiar with nispa nispa is the New York State organization that provides leadership to our school boards through advocacy information and programming and a drop of history about the champions of change recognition a excuse me a couple of years ago mispa design designed an initiative to highlight the positive programming that was bringing change to students communities and the school districts of New York state that's the ch I of change program the recognition is unsolicited no application no competition excuse me npa's member relations staff combes through media articles that highlight educational programs in New York state and then member relations also visits upwards of 300 school districts each year to discuss successes and challenges this B Awards committee receives nominations from Member relations and the committee selects programs to be recognized on behalf of the
013Misa president Peggy zugi and executive director Bob Schneider and I'm joined here by Tammy beker of the clarktown Central School District School Board in rockn County who serves on mpa's Awards committee representing area 10 I am excited to present the champion of change award to the white PLS City School District in recognition of our program we are White Plains bridging belonging and building Community I'll just say a few words highlighting this Innovative engaging and impactful program and exhibit and I am thrilled that we have people from common circles with whom we partnered common circles fights anti-semitism and racism by designing Museum like experiences with high-tech Holocaust Education art and storytelling which the board well knows um our high school and two middle schools hosted specialized exhibits last spring bringing 2500 students face to face with
014accounts of the genocide paired with local stories of of resilience as well as engaged in a study of self-identity and group identity examining how we perceive others difference implicit bias and othering an interactive holographic display allowed students to have real time conversations with Holocaust Survivors and other witnesses to genocide and a photo exhibit forc their our students and our visitors to confront their preconceived notions regarding people of different backgrounds opportunities for the community to have this experience were also provided and I and fellow board members were present at many of these events which also included White Plain student presentations so not only were we able to par participate in the program we also heard firsthand the positive profound and for some life changing effects this had on our students so this is the champions of
015change white PL City School District Bo [Applause] ucation and also thank you to school district for being a member of the state school board destination we appreciate thank you thank you thank [Music] you good evening I'm so happy to be here tonight just to say a few words again to commend you when I read about this program and we read over a whole bunch of submitted programs it was just outstanding and we were so thrilled to be able to honor you tonight so it's so exciting and I just have to say but wow I am so impressed with you people made me feel so welcome here tonight I've worked with uh Dr R on the lower Hudson educational Council for years and um and never met him till tonight so it's it's interesting but your
016people have been so kind and I thank you thank [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you did you I hate to put you on the spot no no it was uh it was a lot of fun and um when it was first presented to me Ellen reached out to me and um she's a friend and so I didn't fully understand it but I knew it was involving the schools and Ellen and I felt very like secure and then I figured out what it was about and I thought it was fantastic and then the addition of the Holocaust Survivor as a as an AI positive use of AI uh was was so moving and and you can see the impact it had on our young people and it's what we I think that this board is so dedicated to
017what I think we as a community are so dedicated to to see it come here and so in addition to thanking you for your generosity and for bringing this wonderful program here I want to commend you for your excellent decision to bring this program to White [Applause] PL I just thank you again for not only being here tonight but but for everything uh this program is a is an amazing opportunity it was an amazing opportunity for the white plan City School District and frankly anybody who's listening to me anyone who will listen to me I've been telling them it would be an amazing program to bring to their schools um we're we're definitely going to have common circles Comm mentions as testimony back again in the way plan city school district for our students to
018experience and at the same time we're really trying to elevate and discuss the importance of this program and the ability to replicate it in school districts anywhere throughout the country and you know the reality is um everybody everybody benefit benefits from this type of discussion this type of Engagement and this type of opportunity and so um you know thank you so much for everything that you've done for our children and our community and thank you very much for putting everyone in contact with us and Dr Van thank you very much um for assisting in in so many different ways and helping this program so I just want to thank everyone for supporting our program here in the White Plain School District we could have not had a better partner in all of you um it
019was really just an amazing experience Sue and I spent about uh four and a half months living and working in the White Plain school and I have to say it was a pure joy um you have a gem here you are a beacon I'm so excited that you have this award that we have this award together because we hope that it will continue to be a model for other schools and other school districts and we cannot wait to be back in here to do this important work um we will be sharing shortly with you um I don't know if everyone knew but for us when you do projects like this and programs we want to know that we're making a difference we were here every day many of you were here you could see the
020difference speaking to the kids speaking to the students speaking to the parents who came out for parent nights um and learned along with the the students um but we also did um study right because we want to know that there's we want to see the data so we did pre-testing and we did post testing and we did focus groups um with students and administrators and teachers and parents to get feedback and our preliminary research shows us we increased empathy of the students in this District that not only did they learn about the Holocaust and learned about themselves they learned about finding each other's humanity and now more than ever we need to find ways that we can share stories and we can look at each other and be able to have conversation even when we
021disagree and we can recognize the humanity within each of us so we ask you please let us come back work with us to find ways that we can put it in budgets and we're applying for Grants but we need your help we have lists of school districts who want it we're working up in Connecticut we did a day of professional development with teachers there we share the experience of white planes um and we just thank you because this is a stellar School District friends who came from other school district said why isn't that going on in our school district um we thank you we we miss you and we look forward to hopefully being able to be back next year with all of you so thank you for [Music] this I know it's true thank
022you thank you it's good to see you before you leave I just want to say though we have so many programs that come through the school and um Deb H worked so hard to get to our kids what was so unique about your program is that the evenings you had for parents so many conversations I had with adults that attended and because their kids had gone home and talked about it so that it was such a community project so thank you for just including because you could have ended at at 3:00 but you didn't you open the doors and you you were there some evenings till 7:30 8:00 so thank you so much thank you for we loved it back in Duty again next year you do record oh I know abely thank you thank
023you that that's really ni we we also this evening have another very special recognition for board service and its ACO as it being School Board recognition Dr Randy Stein um served the community in so many ways 15 years 15 years of service um and and yes Dr Stein the board of education has a special tribute for you this evening which we'd like to present to you we don't expect you to carry it out of here we will get it to you but if you would uh join us oh come sit up here yeah tell [Laughter] me that's awesome we have the the the Bell school bell um to to commemorate your service but we also we also have a a special chair emblazed with the white PL City School District logo Dr Randy Stein Board
024of Education member 15 years of service and recognition of your dedication and self service to the children in the community of way City School District and this we will always have your chair [Music] [Applause] she'll use it she will use it right we'll hook it up after the meeting and we'll bring this to you that's awesome thank so much so you know you're not going to get away without um us saying anything so Randy you you need to know and everyone all already knows but you need to just accept how grateful we all are to have been your your colleague your friend our doctor our doctor you know they're not you're a champion for every child um you are intentional with that goal and that's what made us a strong board I'm not done told
025me something about this I'm not done Randy okay um we'll miss you we've learned from you we are thankful to have worked with you and to have learned with you and you always have not been afraid to have the hard conversations or say the things that need to be said and I'll take a point of personal um privilege and and for all of us you know you've answered our questions and I can say that when I was at a point with my mom and I needed to hear uh from a doctor that cared for me you you advised me accordingly was it hard yeah but it was what I needed and you saw that so you've been more than a colleague um you've also been our friend and our doctor and that's much more that
026any of us knew that we would get when we met you it's our honor to have worked with you and you're not going anywhere you're still volunteering but we need to let you know how much we love you I can't tell you how extraordinary it has been to be part of this family and I do mean family most of the time we were really functional moments but family and I I I truly love each and every one of you because coming here and it being about the kids and what we do and how important they are couldn't have been it was my second vocation medicine is who I am and what I do but school and School Board is absolutely the same it is our children are so important to us and this board is
027only concerned about that our children and what makes their education and their lives better and I couldn't be more proud than being part of you thank you wo got to sit over there thank you Dr Stein she didn't know not until she got [Laughter] okay yes yes yes it's true remember I sore throat and Dr Stein showed up in the office full gear test family it's true she has followed me home from meetings with her stethoscope in my kitchen there you go um we also and this is again fitting um as as I'm about to uh welcome our auditor this evening to to provide the the update on this year's audit but I do also need to recognize Mr Tim Dono for all his years of service on the the district finance and audit committee
028um unfortunately he's working you know so he could he couldn't be here but um Dr Carol T and I did share thanks and appreciation on behalf of the school district U for his many years of service on audit and finance um so thank you very much to Mr Dono and thank you the Dono family for sharing him for all those late nights that that he was out with us making sure that we were all working to the best of our ability to provide for all of our children so thank you Mr Donal as well and with that I would like to uh introduce Mr Christopher angata I'm from Rocky Smith who's here this evening to provide the Board of Education with an update on the district a good how you doing good evening Board of
029Education members good evening Christopher Ang partner at firi Smith uh and this evening I'm here to present the results of the 2023 fiscal uh audit of the district uh just to confirm the scope of our services nakaki Smith was retained by the district uh to perform an audit of its financial statements uh for the year end of June 30th 2023 uh we also performed a single audit of the federal a programs administered by the district as well as an audit of the extra clash and activity funds of the district as part of our audit we do conate issueing management letter presenting any findings or recommendations on improving the en counting procedures and internal controls of the district I'd like to take a moment just to uh talk about the conduct of the audit uh I'd
030like to commend the district on a timely and accurate closing of its books and Records this year I'd also like to take this opportunity to cite the excellent cooperation uh we received from the business office uh in particular I'd like to thank the efforts of uh of an car as well as Marcy moscowitz and their entire team for uh really the true um dedication and diligence that they provided throughout the course of the audit process this year uh we did meet with the audit Committee of the board of education on October 2nd uh to review the financial statements in a in a detailed fashion um however I will provide the the full board with um some uh overview of the financial statements uh of the district this year um all of the uh auditor reports
031that are contained in the financial statements of the district I happy to report this evening that we did Issue a cleaner un modified opinion in our a reports uh there are four of them uh throughout the course of the financial statements um in terms of the financial position and activity of the district this year uh the general fund annual budget uh was within the tax state uh tax cap that's prated by the York State and did operate positively this year uh the general fund fund balance amounts were all within legal limits uh and were deemed to be reasonable as part of our audit process uh some some numbers with respect to the financial statements Capital assets this year totaled 161 $9 million uh the bonds of the district or bonds payable total $50 million with
032current year principal payments of about $7 million uh the energy performance contracts of the district were $2.7 million with current year decreases of $870,000 uh perhaps the biggest liability on the district's districtwide financial statements is that of the other post-employment benefit liability which total $37.4 million and did in increase this year approximately 1.9 million uh the other pension plans of the district that being the teachers retirement system and the employeer retirement system uh the district did have net pension liabilities this year totaling $21.1 million uh and in conclusion I would also like to mention to the Board of Education this evening that we did not site the district for any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal control U and that would conclude my presentation for this evening but I'd be happy to address any
033additional comments or questions just yeah just uh um one question were there any comments regarding um any areas of improvement any management comments so we did have one um area of improvement that we uh suggested to the district this year and it's really a best practice recommendation uh and that is with respect to uh a capitalization policy uh for the implementation of the two gby standards the governmental Accounting Standards Board uh statement 87 and 96 and those are with respect to leases uh and subscription based it arrangements and our suggestion would really just be for the district to put a policy in place uh similar to to that of your capitalization policy uh really just to set the thresholds and methodology uh for the implementation of Standards uh Chris thank you and I guess just
034for the for the viewing audience again you said we're an an unmodified opinion so of course that's the best opinion or the highest rating that that we could get as a district which is great and um I guess the other part is just again you didn't me you didn't see any material errors or anything else you have any trouble getting information anything like that everything went relatively as planned and no material weaknesses no significant deficiencies no errors um and everything that we did ask for was provided by the insurance terrific Chris as the newest member of the audit finance committee could you define unresolved matters and then tell us if you found any unresolved matters in this audit yeah so unresolved matters would be uh anything that would be a discrepancy that we find throughout
035the course of our audit uh it would also be anything that we were not provided um and as a result of our audit everything like I said everything was provided by the district uh there were no matters that were unresolved great thank you thank you thank you Dr thanks to the team business business office um very much thank you um just a Madam president just a couple of of of quick up updates as well I just want to remind everybody um to join the PTA if you haven't yet joined um we are doing great in the white plan City School District in terms of early bird specially I think there was a I think there was a recognition for five of our nine schools so far I've already qualified for that early bird status um
036celebration so um if you haven't yet and folks who who are watching at home there's still time there's always time to join the PTA so please do that it kind of is right um also uh the Smart Storage resolution that the Board of Education um put forward last month has received a great deal of positive feedback from community members as well as members of um the moms Dem Action Group for the common sense uh notification uh for safety for children and I just want to thank the board for that and give you that feedback as well um and we'll continue to share that message with our community also just a reminder the community input session for the 20 oh my goodness 2425 budget is right around the corn 21st I believe is that right Dr
037you think so 21st of October 23rd of October and we're going to be doing that via Zoom so we'll be able to have many many folks participate whoever's whoever is interested in participating that's great and uh that wraps up my superintendent's update thank you thank you thank you thank you stud do we have our student I don't know that we have student than please come on up unfortunately dilia cannot be here today due to work obligations so I'll be saying her information as well starting off with Ridgeway Ridgeway successfully celebrated bring sorry successfully celebrated bring a special adult day with over 200 participants kindergarteners learned to Future cycle most excitingly 2 by two Animal Haven will present at an assembly next week may be a bit biased but the high school shoes been similar in
038East clubs are in full swing as the sixth graders get a hold of their new school environment there's also the first annual fall tiger festival September 28 where the students participated in team building activities and enjoyed different craft stations as well as a visit from Tony the Tiger to top it off a peace room has been implemented where students and staff may go during the day when they need some quiet time the lucky children at Post Road participated in their back to school picnic September 22nd many students come out with their parents at to partake in magic shows and Ice SWS on the top of celebration on the topic of celebration in October 6th there was a there was a party to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with traditional food and dancing including the white fls
039high school Maria board what a crossover Mr sorio was also very excited to say that their Girls on the Run team is up and running pun intended um this will be their fourth season and in November the girls will run an official 5K speaking of sports we move on over to a PL High School School athletics and I'm supposed to be reporting on the good things here so I will skip the football team and we will talk about the other athletes picture day for the athletes was a success as well as the official beginning to All Sports which are now in full swing moving on to de's information um for Church Street Elementary School the C our CCS tigers are doing their part to reduce their carbon footprint by walking or biking to school and
040the student council is up and running the student reps have met to work on new plans and starting an anti-bullying awareness um campaign there was also an amazing start to the school day with a special with a sorry there was also an amazing start to the school day with a breakfast for dads and special adults George Washington unfortunately did not respond so moving on to marinick Avenue School um they're very proud to introduce our new safety patrol team who are excited to give back to the community by creating relationships while supporting teachers and classmates and the school itself there's also introduced a buddy system where each class is partnered up with another class to create Buddies the focus is to create new relationships while strengthening the community third fourth and fifth grade students each made
041a feather and filled with images they arranged into giant wings for spanic heritage month now to White Plains High School White Plains High School held its annual Student Activities Fair many students took advantage of it and signed up for new club opportunities we also want to congratulate the 19 Tigers recognized by the College Board the prestigious academic recog recognition program in the United States and the honors outstanding High School juniors and seniors in their exceptional academic achievements particularly under representative minority groups there's also a great performance by the White Plains High School marachi band at at the bito and show um there was also a guidance night at senior college application in tokit Highland Middle School Highlands has built a community with the new students and are starting off the school year very strong strong
042with new activities and sports to deeper to Foster deeper relationships with one another throughout the school year starting on October every F day we'll have an elongated morning period where students and teachers will will engage in circles to explore values Rambo had an open house which is a huge success families came out to meet the staff learn about the areas of studying each discipline along with services that are provided at rochambo it was a very successful evening that's all thank you [Applause] fre sorry I'm sorry about before would you be able to if it's possible would you be able to email me the update uh after the board meetings is that is that something you could do love to be able to feature yeah yeah yeah sorry that sounded so rude when I said that
043I'm so sorry about what I don't like the whole thing whole thing yeah the whole thing yeah that would be great thank you thank you very much and the trunk Retreat is going to be on the on Halloween trunk orre okay rat this is a class of 2024 they're trunk Retreat trunk 3:30 to 5 yeah you're going to have to come up with a theme another theme manli can't be in the scary thank you thank you to our students Halloween Halloween day next we'll move to our uh uh the portion of our uh meeting where we ask for any public participation do we have any public participation okie dokie any public next we'll move on to our summary action items we have summary action items 4 through 8 may I have a motion so moved
044second thank you very much m president uh I'd like to thank uh all all of the uh very generous donors for the donations this month we have a students dictionary and animal gazeteer this is an annual it's an amazing annual donation to all of our third grade students um offered forward by Mr Robert lent on behalf of the Elks and and over 500 over 500 531 um dictionaries in that the children really really love so this is a great and really grateful for it um Casio electronic key lighting keyboard LK 100 for the white PLS High School fine arts department from Stephanie Bader and 175 gift bags containing essential school supplies for the students of the White Plains City School District from shoppr of Scarsdale so thank you very much to all of our generous
045donors thank you thank you we are indeed very fortunate to be in such a generous uh Community all in favor hi hi NE next we'll move next we'll move to our individual action items the first is the external auditor Financial um uh statement um may I have a motion so moved second do we have any other questions just a comment thank you to uh obviously the business office and all the other departments that assisted the business office office and getting all the materials and supplies and uh any financial information to get everything in order it's a busy time over the summer and uh certainly appreciate everybody's hard work thank you all in favor I next we have the recommended um approval to standardize future types of hbac and building management controls throughout the district may
046I have a motion so moov second and I I'm sure Jim you can add a little more about this but this is really so that there's consistency with um how those those units work and they work the same and just being consistent throughout the district um yeah yeah everything talks the same language at the same time the same iteration uh that standardization should just make a better environment for everybody in our schools same software yeah yeah thank you yeah all in uh may I have a motion so moved second second all in favor I next we have the recommended approval of the budget development calendar for the 2024 25 school year may I have a motion so move second questions all in favor these are a lot of dates a lot of public dates like
047this is just the transparency it's just so much is going into this and to get the public involved so thank you for all these dates I mean how many thank you right yeah it it's a lot of opportunity including online being able to submit questions as well so it's really um an equitable approach to getting feedback um on the budget and thank you for supporting that effort um and really allowing us to be in as many places as we possibly can be to to communicate and with everybody and our website will be a place where people will find information as well absolutely yeah and the first Zoom is October 23rd yeah and that's amazing that it's it's amazing that it's my zoom too process community community input yeah it's amazing that it's Zoom because it'll
048give so many more more people the opportunity to be there any be there from anywhere they are thank you thank you for that next we don't have anything else no only kidding next we have the recommended approval of the administrative appointment for Carrie bopis it did I say Baris pois um for um for the director of Elementary teaching learning and assessment PRK through six may I have a motion so moved second oh sorry third yes please well first of all Dr prop thank you very much for being here this evening with us um and thank you sir for for accompanying and and also uh for for your support too because the amount of time and effort and energy that Dr but po spends with in school district supporting our children and and our community um
049is extraordinary Kathy congratulations um this is a a great great moment um and we are so happy and so appreciative uh for your time and your talent um that you're going to continue to bring to our our school district and our community and Dr hand um thank you as well as Mr pepper and and the the search committee of which I know was a very long process and an important process um many meetings many many different interviews a very talented pool um and so we're really extraordinarily thrilled this evening Kathy to to be at this point um with you and uh congratulations almost there needs to be a vote sorry can I also add that this has been a very thoughtful process to look at the kind of administrative support that we need in this
050District to move it forward especially when it comes to data and that is going to be one of you know Kathy's big um initiatives here that we're really going to be examining J which is something that the board has really wanted us to do as well so thank you and I I just want to add that for those of you who were not um not privy and didn't have the privilege of sitting in on our interview of Kathy I said that it was like sitting in on a TED Talk yeah because she was amazing and I'm so excited for you to do this and to step up into this position it's going to be wonderful for our kids yes yes thank you thank you as you can see the question we we are all excited
051for what we know you will bring and also I have to comment um you are always smiling I don't ever think I have ever seen you without a smile and that's really important around um you know students so just thank you for bringing that energy as well all in favor I congratulations do you want to say something quickly oh I would just like to really thank you but I I really do want to thank all of you for this opportunity to step into a new position and serve uh the families of White Plains I am so super excited um to step into this and I really appreciate all of your support as a board uh we could not ask for a more supportive board um I'm really looking forward to serving in this position and
052working collaboratively with all of you with our principles teachers and everyone and thank you again to Dr hand and also my administrative colleagues our principls Dr Crawford and to all of you um Board of Education and Dr Rea thank you all so much congratulations thank you thank you so next we'll move into our board committee reports I think oh that is so nice that is [Music] [Applause] beautiful nice that's a nice pict picture yeah thank you thank you yeah good job kid yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly next we'll move into board committee reports I think we've heard the the results of our last um a uh Finance audit meeting in the report tonight um we also met um as a committee for the HR and all of that as you know is confidential any other
053committee reports uh curriculum met and we discussed the new uh New York State learning standards and how they're going to uh trickle down to our regions and how that's going to change sort of the way maybe the sequence uh which I think we need some more discussion there but we heard from Mr Eaton as well as uh Dr Dodie about their recommendations and I think you know the board should review some of their suggestions and should continue to talk okay anything else uh special edmit um we looked at administrative Staffing uh long range plan planning um updates on uh Special Olympics at the middle school and uh the Continuum of services uh which will be part of our 2425 budget and then policy committee policy oh yeah we're working our way through those policies yeah
054we sure are right [Laughter] Cheryl we got a new one check out my f too yeah you never put it away you never put it away any other um any other reports um before I close out always have to to really thank John Shepard you know he's the [Music] yeah we're going to streamline I told Mr Chef we're going to streamline get him the Tech equipment so he doesn't have to take a box truck over here bring straight we so we just have to let you know that we appreciate what you do how you do and it's not only for us it's for the community um so thank you thank thank you so cool and now I'd like to make a motion for us to go into exec session to discuss negotiations and contracts may
055I have a motion so move second second all in favor I I have a wonderful evening congratulations Dr happy Halloween [Music] congratulations