001[Music] do i'd like to call the meeting to order and the first order of business is to elect a temporary chairperson i move that we elect michelle schoenfeld as our temporary chairperson second second all those in favor aye opposed okay next we administer the oath of office to the superintendent of schools i do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york that i will faithfully discharge the duties of superintendent of schools of the white plains city school district white plains new york according to my best ability signing and now we administer the oath of office to the three board members who were elected in may for three-year terms mr leticia mr ricky calligraphy and the constitution of the state of new york
002and i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office a member of the board of education of the city school district of the city of white plains [Applause] and now we remind everyone of the two time capsules that were buried on school grounds that will be recovered in future years one is through 2283 this was buried at the white plains middle school and is to be recovered in yes 2283. it was buried in 1983. that's 100 300 years and the other one is at george washington school was buried in 2003 and is to be recovered in 2053. next we elect the president of the board of education i nominate rosemary eller as president of the board of education for the second second second all those in favor mrs ella will you take your oath i
003do some solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the board of education of the city school district of the city of white plains in new york according to the best of my ability rewind i do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of president of the board of education of the city school district of the city of white plains new york according to the best of my ability [Applause] that's what happens you have two people named rose on the board so i actually
004got here so it's all good and my job is finished and you may now take over thank you next we'll have um nomination for the the office of vice president of the board of education i nominate charlie norris to the office of vice president of the board i do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of vice president of the board of education of the city school district of the city of white plains new york according to the best of my ability [Applause] next we have a resolution for establishing meetings of the board of education be it resolved that the first regular board of education meeting will be held immediate
005will be will be held immediately following this reorganization meeting and that future regular meetings of the board of education of this of the white plains city school district be held at the board of education office on the second monday of each month during the year at 7 30 pm or as otherwise voted on by the board as per our attachment may i have a motion second questions all in favor thank you next um i may ask for a motion for items three through eight on our reorganization agenda second do we have any questions all in favor aye aye aye next we have two oaths um first mine i do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully
006discharge the duties of the office of school district clerk of the city school district of the city of white plains new york according to the bets of my ability and then we have lindsey rose and the musgraves in the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school district treasurer of the city school district of the city of white plains new york according to your best okay thank you thank you and may i have a motion to adjourn the reorganization meeting good evening everyone and welcome to our regular board of education meeting today is tuesday july 6 2021. please stand and join me in the [Music] pledge with liberty and justice for all the mission of the white plains school district is to educate and inspire all
007students while nurturing their dreams so they learn continually think critically pursue their aspirations and contribute to a diverse and dynamic world good evening everybody i'd like to ask for you uh you're joining me in a brief moment of silence in memory of renee van heck district-wide carpenter 1965-1976 thank you now good evening everybody it's nice to actually be here in public again and i think that goes a long way to hopefully seeing what we're going to see in september first and foremost i don't have any inside information as to what the pk 12 guidance will be come september but as soon as we do have that we'll make sure that we definitely share that with you first thing that i wanted to address prior to the board talking about um any announcements that you may
008have is the shifting of our elementary school assistant principles now i suspect that a number of the parents who are in the audience this evening are here for that reason and i want to thank you for that i also want to thank you for to all of you who have reached out to me um with with concern related to the shifting of assistant principles let me start by saying this as teachers and those of us who are in the room who have experienced this as teachers we stand ready at any point in time to shift where we need to be in the organization whether it be a classroom a grade level a school whatever the case may be that's part of what we do it doesn't take away the sting of the feeling of losing
009somebody that's part of your school community whom you've come to love right and so my explanation this evening has nothing to do with trying to take away the feeling of love that you've come to have for your assistant principles in fact that's a wonderful thing and it's to be celebrated i would be concerned if nobody cared quite frankly because we've heard from so many parents and guardians at our various schools it's demonstrable to me how valuable these leaders are in our school organization the reason behind shifting assistant principles is simply this when we change the environment that will help to allow for our children to grow as well as our leaders again i'm not trying to change your mind and thinking that joe rica is best for school a that's the way i feel i
010want joe there yes i understand if we could replicate you know and do all those things we absolutely would but the point is that the shifting of folks in the organization is driven to make sure that we're doing the best we can possibly do for our children all of our children throughout the school district now folks have asked me why this year well i will submit this to you this year next year five years from now you would still feel the way you do it might be a little bit different because you're not coming out of a pandemic or because you haven't experienced some of the things that you've experienced personally in your pandemic experience which we've learned is all a little bit different all of us and we've all been through it but we've
011felt it differently we were looking at making this shift last year clearly that wouldn't have been advantageous for our kids or our school communities so this year will allow us to make that transition in a time where we're already kind of moving through transitions again not meant to change your shift your thinking but to give you our thinking some folks have asked me why the last week of school simple it should have nothing to do with the celebratory aspect of the end of school for our children these are adult conversations about adults and i didn't want them to be conflated with the things that are going on in celebration of our kids at the end of the academic year after a really challenging year and the question came up why right before fourth of july
012because that was as quick as i could get it out to you before the holiday and allow our colleagues the appropriate time to be able to transition and make sure that we have that overlap that we need when we make this swing there was a great question post roads in the house why post road why is post road left with the opening well quite frankly mrsario is in an enviable position because she has the opportunity to now seek and find a brand new candidate to best meet her needs with mrs lasser moving to george washington perfect no way again my words tonight do they do they take the the staying out of how you're feeling they don't but the reality is this in a multifaceted and dynamic organization such as ours disruption supported disruption and
013change is good none of our leaders at any level in our leadership tree should myself included and believe me i'm experiencing right now should never be comfortable and that's not in a negative or dangerous way because when we're a little bit uncomfortable as you all know we're growing so just like teachers in the classroom just like students in the seats the administrative and leadership team is part of that growth process now that's the explanation it doesn't change how you feel and believe me when i say this to you i respect that some parents have come to me and said hey i wanted to be part of that planning process i respect that too but there are aspects to human resources that they really aren't community you know prone don't lend themselves to community because here's
014the deal people feel how they feel and unfortunately don't have the same level of insight into every facet of the organization that you might have in say one two or three particular schools depending upon the trajectory of your kids so the last question i think um that was interesting to me well they're all interesting but was so now should we expect that the principles are going to be shifted next year no you should not expect that what we're looking to do right now is support our assistant principles support our principles and again continue to move the educational program forward because at the end of the day any change to adults is all meant to benefit kids the only reason we were able to do this is because we have extraordinarily talented assistant principals we couldn't
015do it if we didn't because it wouldn't be right and it wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't be proper for myself as a teacher to knowingly put somebody who's not going to be successful in a new role so again my explanation this evening is not to change or try and change the way you feel but give you rationale behind the objective and why we did what we did hey and i don't think this is going to happen but guess what if it doesn't work we'll revisit it just like everything else and if i made a mistake i'll tell you i made a mistake i don't think i did but if i did i will what we really need to do right now and again not telling you what to do but welcome our new assistant
016principals and give them the same support and encouragement that we've always given the folks in our educational communities so that we can move forward with as little disruption smooth as possible and certainly we're going to do that on our end too so that that i just wanted to give that that explanation because i know that folks who are going to have questions thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for that next we're going to move into announcements um uh by the board and just a few things i wanted to touch base on as we ended our school year many of us attended and participated in the elementary school graduations and i hope i can speak collectively when i say being there and and seeing the buzz of excitement after the year that
017we had brought joy you know to see families being able to be there to share that moment brought joy to see the creative ways graduations were done to keep everyone safe really brought joy and i could see that that that's what we needed as a community as a school community and i just wanted to say thank you to to every elementary school principal assistant principal and staff for what you did to make that moment memorable not only for the parents and the students but for us because we needed it too so thank you rosemary can i just add to that announcement about um the moving up ceremonies but i also appreciated that not every single student was able to physically be present and there seemed to be a real effort to include those children who
018were not able to be there in person so i did appreciate that as well that was a very inclusive kind of experience that was my next sentence thank you that's okay that's okay so of course it was inclusive because that's who you are um and and not a surprise um for the first time in a long time middle school moving up and the high school graduation at white plains high school the feedback i think was outstanding but most important was our students and we celebrated a lot of success that day you know our students are going off in the world to contribute in their way and i know that they will our students were resilient they stayed the course they supported one another and and most of all the success cannot be you know just
019cannot be overlooked because they have a skill set now that no one else would really have right as they move up they already know how to to be resilient they know how to use their voice and i'm really really proud of that we have we have a student whose artwork will be in the in the capital next year we have one of our lady tigers who will be the first lady tiger from our school to be in the to go to the naval academy we have so much to be proud of and it's all because of what you contribute as administrators as parents as as colleagues in our offices everything comes together like an orchestra to make it right for these kids and that's what we did and that's what we did during a tough
020time so i really just wanted to acknowledge that and i'm sure board members will have of the comments but i have to say that so that you hear it we did everything together that we could like a well-tuned orchestra to bring our kids to where they needed to be and will they be stronger for what we've done for the choices they've made whether remote whether they came back they will be stronger and they will be able to adapt to any situation so i wanted to thank you all for that secondly i did have the opportunity to participate in the educational summit that the secretary of education asked for white plains to participate in and i have to tell you that is a great honor but i don't take that honor on my own i know
021that every single person up here um sitting contributed whether michelle don't miss that email they want you to respond whether i had a question um you know i could ask joe i could ask the cabinet member and the support from from all of you um could not you know have meant more to me so i really do want to thank you um i really want to thank you all for that and that's all i have to say i'm gonna i'm gonna am i on am i on john oh good so i'm gonna jump in for a minute uh rose rosemary rosemarie is very um humble and we've all served a long time together we've been sitting next to each other for 17 years um but she's remarkable and um the leadership um this past 15
022months has been an amazing time it's one of the most amazing times i've ever experienced in my life suddenly we were closed and we all do this because we love the kids i love the kids and we that's why we do this that's why we spend so many hours doing this and suddenly we were in a place where no one has ever been i had a neighbor who came up to me a fourth grade girl and she said how did they do this when you were a kid and i said we never did this no one's ever done this before we had snow days and occasionally something would happen and schools were closed and to watch the way the school community and the greater community came together but the board and joe the cabinet three
023of them were here tonight their their teams the ptas the principals the teachers the people in the cafeterias the custodial staff the nurses maggie nurse maggie it was a remarkable thing to watch there were moments of fear and moments of doubt but to watch the way we came together particularly at a time in the united states where coming untogether seems to be the only way to to do things but we came together and we um with a single purpose and a single voice all standing facing north making sure that the staff had what they needed so that we could deliver to the teachers and their families and to keep giving uh meals and to to do what we did and to be a part to be a tiny i was a tiny tiny part of
024that is something that i will never ever forget um and the recognition that we've gotten it's kind of cool you know we had michael cardano come here and rosemary kind of plays down what she's involved in but it's pretty awesome and then today randy weingarten opened the american federation of teachers the national federation of teachers and there were all these photographs and things about white plains um we have a lot to be thankful for and i and i and the parents this is a remarkable thing particularly in this day and age so i just i just rambled a little bit but thank you to everybody and i just feel really humble to be a tiny piece of this can i just say that we also don't rest on our laurels so that we are ever
025vigilant that for some children um this was not the best of years and so that we are providing summer programs for those children um to ensure that they have the experiences that they need if they need to catch up and again for the coming school year that we are allocating on you know budget funding to ensure again that our students get what they need in order to overcome anything they need to because of what happened this past year in the past 15 months so we are constantly thinking ahead and looking toward the future and what our children need thank you i just wanted to give some assurances to parents who some of whom we heard from there were a lot of people who felt that they weren't getting information and no one really knew when
026are we going to start thinking about and planning reopening i want to assure you that we did that the day that we closed all of those plans were taking place throughout the entire time that your kids were sitting in front of zoom nothing that came after that was done lightly or without thought and i also want to assure you that the day that school closed and probably before that last week we're already planning for september you may not hear of every step you may not hear of every plan you will get an announcement at the appropriate time but please don't feel that people are on vacation and you know and in september you're going to get a letter that was just put thrown together over a weekend that's not the way it ever worked and
027that's certainly not the way um ed house is going to work this year and the board certainly would never allow it so just know that those plans are already in place and as always the only thing i can ask you is to please be patient you will hear about what's going on you will hear about the bus routes they're going to be changes um we don't have cdc information yet september's months away and you know that from one day to the next this has you know been changing for 15 months so um i know that the board trusts dr ricka and his entire staff and i'm asking you to support us to support them and enjoy your summer and know that your kids will be safe when they come back in september next we'll move
028on to the public participation portion of our meeting the board will entertain comments from the public on any issue with a time limit of three minutes per person and a maximum limit of 25 minutes please respect the privacy or dignity of any individual and know that the administration would be happy to privately address any concerns do we have any public participation if so please step to the mic to my left and state your name and address for the record good evening my name is jennifer rubin i live at number five easton avenue and i have a child in the ridgeway school i appreciate your comments at the beginning of the meeting dr rickra but for me the lack of transparency in the announcement was just shocking after a year of phenomenal transparency and in some
029certain circumstances over communication for me personally this isn't about my feeling of our ap at ridgeway i adore dr crawford i hope she has the opportunity to stay i'm sure whoever will replace her will be wonderful this for me is actually more about my trust in the board and in you as our superintendent i would have thought that an announcement as important as this would have been communicated earlier so that we all had a time to digest it and voice our opinion in businesses succession plans are known they're announced well in advance and whether we like it or not we do have to think of education as a business and we are trying to attract top talent and great families into our community we've all embraced the school choice program when i toured each of
030the schools when i had an incoming kindergarten my vibe with the administration had a lot to do with the school that i ultimately chose so for me seeing it unravel unexpectedly without a retirement without a resignation just what feels like what is best for the community is very unsettling so i would like you to please take that into consideration hi my name is audrey bowman i live at 55 ogden avenue white plains new york i want to start out by saying thank you to all of you guys thank you for all that you do all year long for all our schools all the work that you did over the pandemic our children needed that and thank you that being said i along with many other parents have concerns coming out of this challenging year we
031had concerns before this announcement we had concerns about our children's education their anxieties their health what we didn't know to be concerned about was that there would be a steady administration in their buildings the changing of all the assistant principles affecting the administration of close to 3 000 children after a year of such turmoil it should come with some solid rationale it should come with an explanation of how it how it's going to benefit the kids i do believe you guys are all trying to benefit our children that's why i chose this community that's why i work so hard for this community but there should have been a chance for parents teachers administrators to voice how they feel it's difficult to give the support that we normally would and i think all of you know
032that we normally would and that the district thrives on the way this was done means that kids don't have a chance to say goodbye to some of the most consistent people in their lives it feels as though that is underappreciated and undervalued the assistant principles are the heart of the school and the community it feels like the communication is kind of breaking down most families have little to do with the ap in the building but the ones that do are the ones that desperately need the steady force those are the kids that have lost parents had house fires don't necessarily have enough to eat i understand that it's your right to move the assistant principles but the district has felt fairly transparent over the last years that i've been involved pta council is a great
033place for parents who want to be involved speak directly to dr ricka and a board of ed member we all give up time to be there that would be with our families working to support them and a million other things it has been lovely to exchange ideas and speak directly to both board members and dr rika but how do we know going forward that what that there will be any discussion over the major decisions we are in a relationship i do the best to do my part i go to the meetings i organize the fundraisers i show up to events i teach my kids to be respectful i speak at meetings i read letters and bulletins and up until last week it really felt like you guys were all doing your part as well you
034show up to those same meetings you write those letters you write those bulletins you go over budgets you answer those questions you listen and you fully address concerns but after last week i'm not sure how we can continue to trust that issues affecting our kids aren't being kept only for private discussions thank you [Applause] hi my name is lauren craver i'm at 4 darby court i'm just going to read this letter because i hate public speaking but this is a letter that was written by um ridgeway parents and um we collected on a national holiday just in a few matter of a few hours over 150 over close to 150 signatures from parents at ridgeway but here's the letter um dear board of ed members and dr ricka we are white plains parents who would
035like to raise serious concerns not just about our children's educational welfare but more importantly their emotional and psychological well-being it comes as a great surprise to the community school administrators faculty staff parents and children that there is the district-wide reorganization of top school administrators it seems to us an abrupt conclusion of a plan that at no point included white plains parents in the discussions what is more disconcerting is the timing of events well into the summer break during a time when many families are away while we are grateful for how the school district has handled the past year our children our children are still reeling from events of the past two years ridgeway has gone through distressing times for two school years now beginning with the leaving of mrs tasha brown families needed significant time
036to manage her exit events have accelerated at a very fast pace in the midst of adjusting to the departure of a long-time pillar of strength and getting to know our new administrator the pandemic hit without needing to elaborate each family has had to deal with unprecedented psychological and emotional challenges to say the least we are all still trying to find our footing the coming school year has still brings uncertainty to that end dr crawford has been a constant in our children's lives through all of this families especially the children have drawn strength and comfort in her and miss torres throughout each change they have encountered both at ridgeway and in their world as a whole and together they will continue to provide this together they form an unbeatable tower of strength while we battle these
037uncertain times they've spent the last two years building a rapport that assures us that ridgeway is being led by a competent consistent and caring team reassigning dr crawford will only erase all of that and start that process at bridgeway all over again we believe that all white white plains school administrators and staff are all in their own way highly competent and capable the majority are loved by the white plains community no doubt however as ridgeway families moving towards rebuilding why obstruct the momentum and the path in doing so we have a single goal of wanting our children to succeed this can only be achieved successfully with psychological and emotional stability taking away the children's symbol of normalcy and consistency now is a is a total disregard for our children's welfare we fail as parents and
038educator educators to uphold our mission change is most welcome and ridgeway has been has seen more than its fair share of change in the past two years as parents we strive to bring consistency in these trying times we do not want to rock the boat any further for our children we respectfully urge you to reconsider the decision to once again alter such an important position at ridgeway dr crawford is very much the heart of our school and our children need her to remain there we appeal to you as parents to ensure the emotional and psychological well-being of our children and our families we are all still staggering from the past two years events please consider what is truly best for our children please keep dr crawford and mrs torres at ridgeway thank you my name
039is steve magnusson i'm at 10 cobb avenue um i'll speak uh as with an understanding that yes we understand teachers shift roles on an annual basis sometimes unexpectedly the the position of a vice principle is quite unique um the associate principle um in many ways becomes the hands and feet um that the the principal cannot always attend to yes the principal and the vice principal always know the students names they're able to engage but in my personal experience my daughter had a severe anxiety issue and became the assistant principal who was able to intervene on a weekly basis to give her the stability that she needed for transition and was instrumental in her actually wanting to go to school so we understand that on an annual basis a teacher might be changed from fourth grade
040to first grade and that's an adjustment that a teacher can be to grow but that's not going to affect a child who's going to come into that school year with a new teacher no matter what the teacher had taught the previous year it's a little different in my experience with the associate principal in that the the role is has come to be a very personal and secure role within the school that creates the environment that creates the stability that fosters growth to actually get my child into the classroom and so i think part of what was unsettling about this is that you know we've celebrated in the past the promotions the transfers as a way of encouraging um and being able to say goodbye to certain faculty members and certain teachers but done so in
041a way that's not so haphazard as to just shift schools for the sake of what seems to be to us irrational but we understand you know the the board and dr ricka that you have uh your reasons um but for us personally it is a very difficult to swallow so that's a lot good evening my name is bonnie gordon i live at 20 north lake circle i just wanted to share a personal experience so i have a fourth grader at ridgeway and a first grader my first grader lost mrs brown going into her kindergarten year and i spend all my time at ridgeway um so that was very something very personal to her to not have her there when she was going to show up for kindergarten and then she went through a pandemic she
042developed a tick she made it through first grade and now i have to tell her that her other constant won't be there when she comes back in second grade this is a child a seven-year-old who has gone through so much and has shown such a strength and just such growth and her family has everything she comes from an educated household where her parents are constant and in her life all the time and just still has been devastated by the last two years of what has happened to her and to know i had that she's going to show up in september finally hoping for that normal school year that she has weighted her entire she's the youngest of three sisters she's watched everybody in her house have a normal transition into school and her turn hasn't
043come yet she's still waiting and she's seven at what point are we going to give these children just one year to heal one year of compassion she's seven she's not 17 she's not 27 she's seven and she hasn't had that year yet in school and i don't have the heart to watch her walk in on september and look for that one constant has been there all three years well actually since she's been there and she won't be there and i'm sure who's going to replace her because i love this district and everybody who's in it will be great but it's not going to help her in that moment of need and i just feel as a district we didn't think about that littlest tiger that second grader who hasn't had that normal year especially at
044ridgeway they've gone through a lot of transition and one more year was all she needed just one year that was all i asked i appreciate it i would like to sediment some of my other friends feelings before i did this i actually was an executive in a real life big company and we always had succession planning and we always communicated it to our team to our staff to everybody well in advance i always knew when i was getting a new manager it didn't just show up that day it was announced to me well in advance and i feel that this was not thank you [Applause] thank you everyone for your comments and as we echoed um you know joe yeah yeah again i just want to say thank you and thank you for for sharing
045your thoughts and and and i i feel everything that you're saying mrs gordon you know hold on hold on let me finish thank you i appreciate you sharing sharing that and i appreciate all of the experiences that that folks have gone through this is a very difficult time it has been a very difficult time our children are going to be okay because we are going to make sure as the adults in their community that they're going to be okay if i have a heart attack and die on my way home tonight god forbid we're gonna be okay it's not the person it's the community and the white plain city school district has the ability to be versatile and nimble and change and we as the adults in the community have to be able to accept
046that and support the kids we can create a level of anxiety and stress in our children without even realizing that we're doing it i'm not taking anything away from anything that anyone has said that's real it's happening that has happened in your lives but here's what i'm going to tell you in any school in any classroom in any organization there is an amount of time that you have to be able to share information with people it's important that you talk to the people who it's going to impact first the assistant principles right and then the folks who it's going to impact next and that's exactly what we did and folks this is not tomorrow this is september this is as close as you can get in a school district because of the way that we
047function to being out in front and that we were really really and i appreciate what you said about you know the timing again why not the last week of school why not two weeks why not the beginning of june because it's about the kids and i know that this conversation is about us and we had to have it but we had to have it now when the kids are done so i'm not expecting to change your mind and for you to like the decision i just hope that you can understand that the steps that we took were not haphazard they were intentional and they were intentional to try and put a separation between our children who do deserve every bit of a normal situation which by the way shifting teachers or principles or assistant principles
048or all that that's that's not stuff that kids should have to worry about that's for us so when the children arrive at their elementary schools on the first day of school they're going to be greeted by two loving administrators and a school full of loving teachers teachers aides security guards and everybody else again i'm not saying that this isn't shocking to the system and you know i love you you know i love to say yes you know i i love to make you happy this is about making sure that the district is moving continuously moving in the right direction to support all of our children again if if we find that we make a decision and we make a mistake in the decision and i say we me i'm gonna own it but what i
049don't wanna i don't want you to leave this evening ever thinking for a minute is that your sentiments your experiences your perspective and your feelings don't matter because they do they truly do so thank you for for sharing and emailing and calling and i really do appreciate it thank you oh superintendent's report um well you know i just want to echo and and thank everybody for uh a tremendous job and i'm not going to go back into uh you know the pandemic i think we're all experiencing the trauma associated with that enough but to trustee brady's point we are ramping up and as rose mentioned we are ramping up and making sure that we have the the appropriate folks in place to be able to support our kids when they come back to school in
050september now i don't know what the new york state department of health guidance is going to be yet i think we'll get it before august 30th like we did last year but i do anticipate that there are going to be some changes and it's going to be a lot more typical a lot closer to typical um the big question is will the children have to wear masks that i'm not sure about yet um you know there's still a back and forth on on whether or not the the close question that follows quite right behind is can my child wear and absolutely yes we already have talked about that and for anybody who feels that that's what they they prefer any child who feels that that's what they prefer absolutely that's that's something um you know
051that is that is going to always be available will the barriers still be there no the barriers are down and we don't anticipate the barriers will ever go back up unless we're going to keep them god forbid we need them again yeah um what about all of the other you know temperature taking and all those things we will as soon as we know whether or not that that's something that's going to have to happen i'll make sure we get that out to you immediately but we are planning for a typical year we're planning for typical transportation we're planning for typical athletics and the arts and all of those amazing things to be able to get back question might be out there i want my child to be on remote learning for next year i'm not
052comfortable sending my child back to school yet we don't know what the answer is on that question yet i know that the new york state board of regents are considering that very very carefully um considering the fact that geographically our state is enormous and very very different depending upon where you are um we know that they're struggling to try and find you know the the best balance but the biggest push right now as you're seeing is vaccination we also know that there are people who are uncomfortable being vaccinated and that's fine too we are of course going to be making vaccination opportunities available anywhere we can for folks who are willing and able people have asked me i always say talk to your physician right ask your ask your child pediatrician or talk to your
053physician that's always the best advice in terms of vaccination for you and your family coming from the school district so again we'll definitely give you the update there on on any changes to new york state guidelines there is a lot of conversation in the public right now about critical race theory crt and some of you may have heard about this critical race theory is typically a course that's taught at the higher highest levels of education typically graduate school sometimes law school because it is very theoretical in confidence somewhere along the way there was a conversation that that in k-12 or pre-k-12 education there were critical race theory courses and folks have actually called and asked um you know is there a critical race theory in being taught in white plains and the answer is no
054we don't teach critical race theory if you ever want to look at i mean it's a very complex topic it's very very complex and you can imagine in a k-12 setting it would be inappropriate based on the child's developmental level in most cases what we teach in the white plains city school district is history social studies peace love care for one another honesty respect core values that are part of our mission and part of our vision and have been part of the curriculum which is wide open for everybody to view for all time none of that has changed we've always valued our diverse community diverse in the way we look diverse in the way we think diverse in where we hail from what we what or who we worship all of those things and you
055know i've been really pleased because i think comparatively to in in other areas the questions that we've received here in white plains have been relatively minimal which is a good thing i think because most folks recognize that they have access to the curriculum they can talk to their teachers they can talk to their principals but i wanted to make sure that i got that out there just so that you know if there was any lingering questions out there or you know if you if you hear of somebody talking about it i have heard a lot of news stations of all different types talking about critical race theory in america's public schools but i have not met somebody who works in public schools that is actually teaching the crt class never and i've looked um and
056you know so i just want to get that message out there because i think it is really important that children learn history i'm a history teacher that they learn history accurately and with the opportunity to question why how and when and one of the things if you heard any of my graduation talks this year um at ridgeway at ridgeway in fact i i told the kids to question their teachers and question their textbooks and and ask why and think deeper about some of the sort of time held you know thoughts that we have because that's what makes school a place where people grow and what's the ultimate goal for them to be smarter than us to beat us out to be better at the world than we are and you know i just wanted to
057make sure that i touched on that because there has been so much conversation there but that's where i'll leave it no crt courses the last thing that i'd like to do is recognize a very very important person this evening sean lewis is with us and and for those of you who may not know sean years ago just a few we started a full scale and i have to give ambikara taisha and the safety team credit for this because it started i think just the year that i came or the year before i came with altera where we took an assessment of our entire school district related to safety and security and we have come as you know so far from where we were in terms of our safety and security operations our protocols our plans
058and making sure that our facilities themselves are safer now nothing's a hundred percent but when when we recognize the complexity associated with our school district the size of our school district i mean at the high school alone i think there's like 98 exits something like that right sean close to it um you know and we can't do that like i just mentioned i'm a history teacher right i'm not a security expert so we knew that we needed a security expert and sean had just i almost had graduated but but just retired from the yorktown uh police department and like the minute he retired we hired him so sean has never actually been retired he took this part-time job and he's been with us every day ever since and through a lot of challenging situations as
059you all know and i have to tell you i am so grateful sean not only to have worked alongside you but also to have learned from you i still and ann will will tell you this is the truth i still break the rule every single time i'm supposed to stay where i am when there's an emergency every time i break that rule but at least sean was there um you know always next to me so that you know i got forbid something happened i guess you could knock me out of the way or something sean um but i have to tell you you know it's been an amazing journey with you we've learned so much our district is so much safer but not safe in a fortified way safe in a in a knowledge way
060our security force had never had a department meeting never when i brought them together to meet with me for the first time so i could talk to them about safety and security and get their ideas about what security looked like in the district they thought they were all getting in trouble this is the first time the superintendent ever talked to them so you've really brought us to the next level and tonight we want to just thank you sean is officially retiring but he's turning over his keys to an amazing guy jake harrison who some of you know he's also a dad in the district um and he will be the retired state uh state police officer and he will be taking over and working closely and coordinating with sean during the transition along with john
061laplace and sean we have a special citation for you this evening in recognition of your outstanding dedication and commitment to the safety of the children of the white plains city school district more importantly and i think more apropos we have for your wall because that's basically who you were like playing superman and sean just on behalf of board and all of us here in white plains thank you so much [Applause] part time in arlington support time well if i can just i'm going to be responding safety and security really belongs to everybody and i'm going to say across the district starting at the board joe and frank all of all of uh everybody the administrators at the schools custodians security guards everybody takes it very very seriously we couldn't accomplish all the things that we
062did in such a short period of time if we didn't have the support of everybody in the district even the people i mean it really does take an entire community to just be constantly at it and i want to thank all of you for the time um we have done a lot of things there's a lot of things out there that you wouldn't even think of that that we had to put together in all aspects we've all spent a little bit of time together right doing something and uh once again thank you very much [Applause] so these you just i just want you to be aware whether it's in the curriculum or not it's being discussed in these classrooms so you're making a great point and i think i think it's an important point for
063everyone to hear right so as teachers our job is to present information and then allow for discussion it's never appropriate for me to give my opinion unless i say in my opinion right right um and even then i have to be very cautious because like you say right kids are impressionable and particularly if they happen to look up to to you right that could change the way in which they think it's so as teachers we need to keep a very very careful handle on that and you're right sometimes you can step out of lane there's no doubt about it but that's that's an important point that we need to continuously as educators in the classroom remind ourselves and you have to do it every day you know i can't come into i can't come into
064any meeting whatever i think personally i have to leave outside and it's not easy yeah but you're right that's part of the job for sure yeah thank you thank you thank you thank you next we'll move to our summary action items we have summary action items four through eight may i have a motion please second and we have our donations look at me forget yes um item c we are grateful um for the following donations five copies of the book just ask by justice sonia sotomayor from selma ortiz for the elementary schools uh teacher resource books from elizabeth dan for use district-wide 2731.3 cents from the marinac avenue school pta for additional seating in the mas outdoor classroom if you haven't seen it yet it's really cool it's um they're like logs that you can
065sit on um and two clarinets from susan hessny for youth district-wide thank you very much thank you any questions all in favor we'll clean off the clarinets before yeah yeah next we'll move to our individual action items the first one is the recommended acceptance of the resignation of celia strino director of secondary special education effective at the close of business on july 16th may i have a motion any questions all in favor you know i just i just want to say celia wasn't here long but we really want to thank her for what she did while she was here she brought some wonderful eyes and expertise to the district we'll miss her but with every change comes opportunity so and you're right congratulations to her in this absence of moving up in next um under
066individual action items we have board discussion for all committees i think we really don't have any reports right right not since the last meeting and before i ask for a motion for exact um session um john thank you again for what you do um providing um for our community to see our meetings we appreciate you and all you do and your team and uh lastly thank you everyone for being here thank you for your comments um you know remember the administration is here um should you need to further talk or you know any suggestions or ideas you may have may i have um a motion to go um into exec session no action will be taken right any questions all in favor aye aye thank you everyone for attending on a rainy night thanks everybody
067be safe [Music] you