001the athet be here right purely if you want to go see der with yeah I gota wait and see I'm waiting on one um meeting it's either going to be Thursday or Friday I don't know yet so um okay as soon as I know okay so comes up fast yeah there's some teachers here and some parents here supposed to be a lot of I didn't know the presentation of the athletes that they're getting recognition of some sort that wear I hope so I hope I hope at least most of it is I think it's a it's a good Chu of about it yeah that was a big one well they're doing their annual reviews so who asked this man what you do all right i' like to call the meeting order can I have everybody
002please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you yes screen okay okay roll call Maran here do I here I'm so sorry Maisha I forgot you Maisha uh here Derk here Danny here Peter here and I am here may have a motion in a second to approve Ro so move second all in favor I the approval of the agenda do we have any comments we'll be voting on it next week so if I wanted to yes I do U Madam president on the approval of the agenda if I were to add a resolution or proposal where would I do that this week or next week uh
003I guess I'm not sure what you mean you want to add what to the agenda something for discussion and oh something for discussion um this week you would asked to add it and then it would go on the agenda next week okay do you have something you need to add very specifically if I could add a proposal to help tweak the start stop bus proposals our proposal that's being uh again presented again tonight so that the board could take a look at it and maybe improve on some things that are causing the community to have some issues so I don't know how you would do that add it as an item I I believe fig out um yeah I guess he would make a motion to add an item to the agenda and then you
004would take a vote on whether you wanted to add it or not I'm sorry I was writing hear what she said make a motion to add it to the agenda take a vote if we want to add it to the agenda is that for tonight or for next it would be added to next week's agenda for us to discuss next week or do we add it to tonight's agenda I don't know how to do this I think we could probably just bring it up next I was gonna say I think we could just add it to the agenda for next week without having to do the vote I think sher's looking I'm not sure that one I thought we could we we could okay do that way yeah thank you so you will further discuss
005with Dr janri what you need yes the conversation to be sure okay thank you thanks any other comments or questions about the agenda okay um comments or questions on minutes from last week we will also be voting on this next speak nope okay Communications we have one letter from Linda lascala uh I know we've all had some Communications from the community um does anybody else have any Communications okay unfinished business we have none Dr janri your turn okay thank you Mrs vaglia um I have I'll be able to get it up or down Dr J I don't know if it's we're having some technical difficulties here we might have to fly without the presentation oh okay um but we'll make sure I think it's posted already so okay so um a couple things tonight but
006first we wanted to start off with um recognizing our uh all Western New York scholar athletes um that are in attendance tonight um we had quite a a list of um our our student athletes who I I know you know take on a lot academically uh but also uh contribute their time to Sweet Home Athletic program to make it what it is um and I want like to call up our athletic director uh Chris shumo to um recognize our student athletes talk about The Fall season and uh U make a little presentation to the board so Mr Shuma yeah all right uh good evening everyone uh my name is Chris Kumo I'm the director of Athletics for Sweet Home Center C School District um I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to
007the Board of Education uh as well as our district leaders for their continued support of our Athletic program um our student athletes don't sit here today um without their support um tonight's about our student athletes uh the students that we'll recognize tonight um thrived in in their particular sport as well as the classroom they are leaders they are the headlights for uh future Panthers and they took on such a leadership role um throughout their season and uh we had about 18 H honorable mentions and we had one uh overall winner for the season so um how this works student athletes who average 90 or above over their six previous semesters are eligible to be um honorable mentions for all Western New York and then it's up to the coaches to write letter recommendations they're allowed
008to select one winner for their team they send it off to a committee amongst the 96 schools in our section and the committee will then base off the letter recommendation um recognize winners for each school okay so we were fortunate we had about 18 honorable mentions uh and like I said one winner so at this time uh student athletes I will call you up uh we have a a nice little certificate for you um and an opportunity to just recognize you for all your hard work and and all your efforts that you contribute to our Athletic program Okay so do you want me to yeah and then they can come around and perfect okay so the first student athlete that we would like like to recognize as a member of our tennis team is Maya
009atala get your [Laughter] picture congratulations great job the next student we'd like to recognize is a member of our Varsity Boys golf team Nathan darling the next student athlete we' like to recognize the goalkeeper for our women's soccer team McKenna Flo the next student athlete I'd like to recognize the member of our girls volleyball team Ella Hubert congratulations good job congratulations Ella I know you'd be here tonight the next student athlete we' like to recognize was a runner for our girls cross country team Kendra capyac Kendra conations Kendra our next scholar athlete we' like to recognize is a teammate to Kendra on the girls cross country team Taylor newent Taylor also just this past weekend finished second at New York state championships for indoor track and field in the event of racewalk the next uh
010scholar athlete we'd like to recognize tonight was a member of our girls volleyball team Margaret Pou congratulations the next scholar athlete we would like to recognize was a member of our girls golf team Emily Phillips good job great job congratulations nice our next our next student athlete we'd like to recognize was a member of our girls volleyball team Cameron Smith congratulations conratulations J and before we get to our um winner for the fall season I know a few student athletes were not able to make it um any any of those student athletes that I did not call okay and then I'd like to recognize our solo winner for the fall season a member of our boys volleyball team Frankie balani Frankie good job turn around [Laughter] turn don't really need to be in thank and
011real quick if I can have all the student athletes that we recognize tonight please come up forward forward we' like to do one quick uh photo before we allow them to be dismissed if they would like we should step out the way say let's step out of the way don't be shy got a little announcer congratulations like the radio parents you can get up and take pictures if that's what you'd like to do please don't be shy all right one more round of applause for all our hardworking student athletes students thank you very much you are welcome to stay for the duration of tonight's meeting or you can sneak out now just Sak you can I can was it nice yeah ready for Monday oh yeah see out there thank Youk I don't know where
012he got it the ks I know to do that in a while it's nice to see the kids you want to talk about come on Chris chicken chicken chicken I was okay okay all right um i' just like to just stop for one quick second and let you guys all move on in fill in so we can see your beautiful faces we appreciate having an audience all right R okay um as many of you have heard um the new proposed state budget has a law um under consider ation uh by both houses and by the governor to uh remove cell phones and smartphones or smart devices uh from schools bell to Bell is the language that is currently being proposed it's not adopted yet um but it's likely to be adopted as part of the
013state budget um word out of Albany is that that budget could be delayed it's supposed to be approved by law on April 1st um however we are hearing that um there could be delays and well into April but we wanted to get started on our work now and since this will be a law U coming out of Albany um we've asked Dr Wilson uh to begin to form a task force of Administrators teachers and staff to discuss potential policy changes to our cell phone policy uh right now K through or prek through 8 are not allowed to have cell phones with them during the day um but they are allowed in the high school and so if this law is adopted um under the state budget guidelines we will have to change our policy around
014uh and it's also a good time to look at the policy at the middle school to make sure it's working for our our teachers and staff so um Dr Wilson is currently forming um she already has a few volunteers that have um um committed to the task force to kind of review the policy and then come up with potential policy changes that would comply with the new law and once we know what that is um obviously we want to comply with that um once recommendations are developed by the task Force we'd like to do student Town Halls to get their feedback um as well uh to make sure that we're incorporating their voice in this and then we'd like to conduct a parent Town Hall um as well to make sure um that their voice
015is heard uh before we finalize or adopt a new policy um regarding cell phone use um in the district so uh once that feedback has been tabulated we'd like to take um the policy to our policy committee um for their review and then finally make a recommendation to the board to adopt into the um code of conduct so um we've got some work uh to do ahead but we wanted even though it's not law yet um we wanted to get ahead of that work and make sure that we're in compliance come the 25 26 school year Dr Wilson yes so we see this is an opportunity to bring consistency around the use of devices during the school day across the entire District so um it's we're in the process of reviewing our code of conduct
016right now at this moment so it's the perfect time for us to consider this work okay I just asked a quick question um is parents are we going to have at least a c I know you're doing the parent town halls but can we start with parents on that initial committee we definitely can can look to add them yes you know just to get their input too and yes feel like they're having a process from the beginning and the only thing I'm thinking is it's just one more thing for teachers to have to do and it's just yeah it's another it's and part of that work is going to be enforcement how are we going to enforce that as a as a team um so that's that's a big piece of this uh and so
017um but we we're going to have to do it um and we'll be ready to do it with a lot of voices um having input into it so initially they were talking about leaving it to the district level and then it all of a sudden showed up there is this a definite doe I mean there's pretty much no doubt that that budget's not going to pass with this in it every year there are surprises in the budget but this one looks like it's on on a track to to get through but it it came from the governor so this is a in her executive budget so I it's got a better chance than I would say in one of the houses was proposed joh if you've heard I just G to say it seemed like
018from what the conversations I've heard that it's a fairly good chance that it's going to go through I also wanted to add for Dr Wilson too in particular there a couple months ago I saw a presentation put on by the superintendent and and the high school principal from lacana not don't know if you've already talked to them or not but they have a policy in place now and how they're handling it what their troubles are what they're trying to do to tweak it so it might be worth they may even be willing to come and talk to the task force once you get started yes so we have a number of um schools that we've been in contact with um that we've researched and we have the information to share with the task force to
019use Lana is one of them um but information from across the whole County and then across the state will be used cool thank you I I've seen that presentation too um at my superintendent meetings um she's presented to the irie1 BOS superintendent so okay um they they kind of got on the Forefront of it for sure absolutely and I know it requires some tweak as they go along yeah besides the time for staff to enforce this is there a cost to this another unfunded so I I would like to see what the Pol the task force does there are districts like lacana that use pouches um which you know um luckily we have lockers here that could be an option for us as well um but they've got to be secure throughout the day um
020and they cannot be used from Bell to Bell so that means no cafeteria use as it's written right now in law no cafeteria use no hallway use um so that's something that we're going to need feedback on um and make recommendations to the board eventually um as this policy develops the governor did propos $12 million in her budget to help that that's not going to go very far having experience um in this work as a principal myself I can say that initially it starts off as something that everybody has to get used to but then eventually it turns into less of a focus that the teacher has to have on the work because the students understand the expectation questions on cell phones okay just glad she's graduating [Laughter] and I will say though in some
021when we did our our superintendent student luncheons there were there were kids at the high school that were ready for a change and and one of our student elected speakers last year at graduation did US almost entire speech on how cell phones in the classroom is a problem yep so um I think there's there's some sentiment in the high school about a change and um we'll need their help to do so well I could see it being more difficult for the parents in some regards yeah I mean I know a lot of parents like to have a connection with their kids while they're in school so that will be an adjustment as well I'm glad you mentioned that Mr liel because that's got to be part of the law there's got to be in the
022new policy there has to be something written about how parents can get in touch with their student during the day so we'll have to the task force will work on that um as well right now of course any parent could call the office when we were all in school our parents had to call the office and then we got note right like I feel like those lines still work might be might be going back old school so we'll get there [Music] um you also may have noticed this week that we are down to our final uh 10 uh Panthers we have in our logo um contest um the 10 uh finalists are represented one one building uh at least one per building so each building has a final um entry in there um we met
023with 26 shirts today to have our students work with the graphic artist team over at 26 shirts to develop them into these Concepts into um what could be our Panther logo so uh we're very excited that this process is moving forward it's been a fun project in the buildings um and fun project for our students there are three finalists from the high school school three finalists from the Middle School one finalist from each Elementary building um they're going to work with the designers um and we met with them today so we're on track for that work and then once the concepts are designed they will be on display probably mid to late April um for our community to decide and then vote on them h a final final Panther on May 20th so um we're
024excited that we're moving forward these are the names of the um in each building that have a uh Concept in the final 10 and these are our final 10 Concepts and they have been published um on our website and I think they went out on social media as well um a big thanks to Christine for doing a lot of organ Christine slel for doing a lot of organizing around this um but we were blown away by the concepts uh and we are excited and we think that we definitely have uh the community is going to have a hard choice but uh Mr Felman if you could flip to the next slide they're there umun is goingon to have a hard Choice picking uh but uh we're excited that you know in in part of our
025branding process that we're going to we're at the finish line here to to get it done so Dr janri I forget how many we used to have or still exist well we had are those somewhere is there somewhere where I can see all them or I have to just look around myself you got to look around I we did get 300 entries from our from our students over 300 entries there may be 300 different versions around the district right now so um from the gym to the carpet here to uh yeah there's a lot of them so but just a great job by our by our students um is the guy with the tie the board member uh the the one with the tie gets a lot of comments that's for sure um we're we're
026excited and this has been student driven and it's that's that's a wonderful piece and then our entire Community will have a chance to vote on their favorite so um we're getting closer and uh just want to thank everybody there's been literally hundreds of people involved in this process and uh it's been it's been fun a fun project uh so far so um last week we uh we received our first three electric buses in the district you may have driven by the transport ation Center and seeing three charging stations for those buses so our charging stations and um three first three electric buses have arrived part of the um feedback that we did receive from the board when we started the initiative over three years ago now was a safety and so um Mr Feldman and
027the transportation department organized a safety presentation held by Matthew's bus uh with First Responders um to talk about the differences in um safety procedures for electric buses versus diesel um but they have arrived we expect to have our electric buses on the road within the next week or so um and they um like I said uh we had a great turnout for our safety presentation we had a few board members there um as well they got to not only hear the safety presentation but T the buses um look at them inside and out um major differences in the mechanics obviously of the buses um and how they're maintained but um our M our maintenance staff has been trained um our drivers are being trained um and want to thank um Amherst Police Department tanat Tanana
028Police Department Brighton fire department uh there were a bunch of others there too um gville was there uh that actually that were there and had great questions of of the presenters and of the district um to make sure that they're as safe as possible so um we do have uh if if and I'll talk a little bit about this later uh but if our EPA funding stays in place we do have a plan for eight more buses to come into the district um using that funding um and so uh we are working with our Architects and transportation department to plan out the next charging stations to uh make sure our buses are are properly charged and ready to roll so one thing I took away from that too is that um from the Amherst police
029they talked about the policy that may have to change so how we get that looked at yep yep we can review that with the policy committee and I think once um you know we've learned a little bit more about them as we move forward you know we can we can look at our policies and make sure they're written properly I have to say I was very happy with the presentation one of the things that really struck me was even though I've seen these buses at Schoolboard conventions and stuff like that was the number of safety features that these things have and redundancies to the safety features was was really it was great to see I mean the number of things just the buses stop on the road if you somebody takes their foot off the
030gas and things like that I mean just there was all kinds of different things like that though so it was nice to see how many of those little batteries are there in there 8,000 8,000 yeah amazing yeah and they and they basically run the length of the bus um underneath encased in aluminum and 8,640 per battery pack so we're excited uh it's been a lot of work to get to this point um and we will continue to be very very diligent in finding every penny we can to uh Finance this project knowing um and I want to reiterate the Mandate is still in place um it may change come budget time but the Mandate is still in place for us uh to buy to have to buy electric buses starting in 2027 and completely flip
031our Fleet by 2037 so um we are on the path to do that we probably be remiss if we didn't say thanks to the person that you in UC me to that is so helpful with the grants and getting money secured yeah Matthews buses who's our partner uh with the busing they've been very helpful with grants and and as Dr destri said they ran um the training for us so they've been an excellent partner you know it's been our position all along to kind of be you know first out of the gate uh with this uh we've been uh one of the leaders in Western New York in this process and we're taking advantage of every Rel relationship that we can uh to get to a point where you know we are rolling these buses
032out uh safely and cost effectively um in terms of funding and things along those lines so yeah we're we're very very happy thus far very happy I think it's important to note that between your office and Matthews and Nera and a few others that we've been able to get the cost down on the fairly close to the cost of a diesel yeah it's probably a couple of thousand dollars one way or other um you know in terms of that but uh that was the goal uh that's what we set out to do to get you know um for just an in for instance for these first three electric buses we gained of about $245,000 uh in funding for each bus uh and then all three of the Chargers uh we had uh charging voucher application
033that was approved through nerta uh and those are paid at $155,000 a piece uh so yeah we've done very well in that realm of things we we might not be the district that has the most electric buses I know we're not but I would say I'm confident in saying we're the district uh the leading District in tapping every penny that we can to find uh to to support this program so um just kudos to Don and Scott Kennedy and and all of our partners that we're working with to to find this money yeah and then there is you know you if if you saw the email that Mr Johnson sent out today uh there is uh legislation in each of the houses uh variations of the budget about the timeline about issuing things like uh
034temporary um stays and extensions and things along those lines so we continue to operate like 2035 is the timeline uh until we're told otherwise but um you know I don't see it going away I really don't might be pushed back but I I was in Albany last week and it's not no talk of it going away correct Mr Feldman in the budget proposal for this coming year are are these buses going to be in use next year these buses will be in use by uh I know drest said the end of March but more likely probably the middle of April time um so they'll be on the road now uh they're all here um so we're moving forward these would these would have been buses that were approved by our voters last May so may
035of 2024 okay so they're going to be in use this year they will be yes are there additional buses we need to purchase for next year so in our recommendation uh in our first glance of the budget um that we presented to the board in February uh we are proposing six buses excuse me four of which would be electric four large electric buses one large diesel bus and one small diesel bus small bus okay thank you and that just um coincides with kind of our replacement schedule uh we're trying to uh with diesel buses we generally run them about 12 or 13 years okay thank you questions um on a on March 7th uh my apologies last Friday we had our um next superintendent conference day of the year um Dr Wilson um had three
036main topics um to approach on and i' like to turn it over her just to update the board on what was covered during superintendent conference day thank you so our our staff across the district engaged in learning together in um a few areas um AI artificial and um intelligence um and as you all know you approved a policy last month um as soon as we had that approval we began that work of making sure that got the message out to all of our our district and so um they engaged in a session everyone across the district engaged in a session in which they looked at appropriate use um a system around red yellow green how do they help the students understand when is understand when is okay to use Ai and when they are restricted
037um but then also highlighting the um the sessions that we already have available we do have a number of badge sessions that are available through our teacher Center and so highlighting that NW work and book studies that are underway to help teachers engage in this work so was about exploring the platforms that are out there um to support schools across the state um so magic school and school AI our teachers were able to dig in and actually try them out they are specifically designed for schools and so they take away some of the things that you might find in a generative AI um they take some of those out of the mix because they are specifically designed for schools and so they were able to engage in that the feedback was very positive a number
038of comments teachers saying they love it um this has a lot of possibilities and and curious and looking forward to learning more those are some of the comments we also had a big week with Franklin cvy through leader and me um we had a combo launch day um with core instruction as well as a launch day for the middle school and the high school as you know we are re-engaging at the middle school and high school so this was the second phase of that they had one phase at the start of the year but we also had a full week of core instruction for our elementary schools so we had three days earlier in the week in which we brought in teachers from across the district so that we keep everyone just immersed in in
039this work we also had a session around the mandated reporting reporting work this was a requirement from New York State um our anyone who is uh certified um educator or in our system must take this U new training the training was centered around really helping to reduce implicit bias whenever we're making decisions so New York State really um wanted to revamp the whole process to help everybody have a different lens on this work and so there was an emphasis on helping everyone understand adverse childhood experiences or Aces right and just across the state everybody engaging in that work so it while it was self-paced um when you got into the meat of the work it was it was it was really good a really good session in my in my op so those were the
040items that and report card writing so um those are the items that are teachers and our administrators were engaged in last week thank you questions thanks Dr Wilson uh a couple big events happening this weekend are high school high school musical Once Upon a mattress uh will be performed on the 14th and the 15th at 7:30 p.m. and on the 16th at 2 p.m. tickets are on sale now there's a QR code up there but it's also um published on our website I sent email home also this week um to get your tickets uh our Middle School show sold out uh all nights so I want people to get their tickets as soon as possible but um always a a great event um our High School Musical can't wait to see it this weekend um
041lot of lot of students a lot of uh staff and faculty involved in in the production and just um can't wait to see it and um should be a great great event uh and then our Dollars for Scholars craft show is Saturday um so it's going to be a busy weekend here at Sweet Home 9:00 a.m. to 3 p p.m. all proceeds uh benefit our Dollars for Scholars Program uh which last year we spent out about $108,000 in scholarships to our seniors uh and so um all donations are certainly welcome and um all proceeds really benefit our go right to our students um in this so we'll have over a 100 Crafters I think Mr Feldman yeah wait yeah yeah yeah about 100 Crafters arts and crafts art 100 Crafters our high school PTSA will
042be here uh doing basket raffle and bake sale uh the Education Foundation will be running uh the concession stand so we are uh ready to roll to roll all right um I've received a lot of inquiries um over the past several weeks regarding start and stock times for the ne next school year um we have taken a lot of feedback from our parents and our community regarding these and um published a Q&A on our website to address uh some of the concerns um we're going to update that uh this week um uh regarding some of the other things that we've heard uh but want to reiterate that we're willing and able and ready to work with our community to make sure this adoption is as smooth as possible um and make sure that their um
043concerns are addressed so so we'll continue to take feedback I encourage people to send emails I responded to a few today and took a few phone calls um as Wells and um welcome that feedback and make sure we're addressing um those concerns regarding the new um start and stop times for the 25 26 school year I encourage anybody to go to our website um and see that and if there's a uh something that they want addressed um please let me know and we'll we'll make sure it gets up there and then finally I've received a lot of questions regarding um some of the rhetoric out of Washington regarding our federal funding and where we see it going um and I have appreciated the community's concerns regarding that I've received a few phone calls and a
044few emails um and I wanted to let the the community know we have approximately $3.55 million in grant money um that's allocated to sweet home from the federal government each year and that's a rolling Grant um that includes our Title One to and three three and four funds as well as some funds for upk um in addition uh there is $1.6 million allocated to us this year as a one-time payment um for EP from the EPA for our EV bus initiative so we're monitoring that those monies very closely in addition to that we also receive um in our special programs Department uh reimbursement for Medicaid expenses um that we apply to the federal government for so we're watching closely what happens with our Medicaid reimbursements um as well so in total we have about $6
045million um really that are uh that that are tied to the federal government and many salaries are obviously tied to that as well um so what we're monitoring is a daily back and forth from Washington about the changing landscape and um whether the department of Ed stays whether Department Ed goes whether if the department Ed goes does that money go with it um we are fairly certain that our money is secure this year um and talking with our contacts in Albany Washington and then um when I was in Albany last weekend we are we're fairly certain that that money will stay intact U this year the one I think would be in a lot of question is the EPA funding um if the government pulls back on um electric vehicle initiatives so um I've also
046received questions regarding our EI committee um we believe in the importance of that work um and the number of people that are tied to that work and the great um work that they have been doing with a motto of all means all um and and um we are looking at policies and practices of the district um that may restrict that motto of all mean all and I think over the past three years we've seen some of those policies and we've changed some of those policies whether and now we're looking at the code of conduct as well to make sure all means all in there and that um there's no barriers to success for any student um at sweet home so we will continue to monitor our funding closely and believe our grants are protected this
047year um I would say I'd be lying if I didn't say there was uncertainty in future years um as the uh policies continue to develop in Washington but we'll be continue to be strong advocates for state and feder with our state and federal officials to maintain and enhance money from the federal government um and that money really is meant to serve under underserved populations um throughout the country so um it's important to us we're monitoring it closely we'll be strong Advocates and fight for every dollar um that we can and we believe that um we are using that money um to make a difference in a lot of our students lives so um I just wanted to let our community know that we're on it uh we're going to continue to monitor it we're watching
048um everything from news reports to talking to our federal officials so um we'll continue that work so just to clarify when you say funding is secure for this year you mean the remainder of the school year not this coming school year we believe it's remainder of this school year and next year okay at this point yeah so are upk that we've worked so hard for that yep are are we okay I mean we're registering students now for this so we're gonna continue to move forward okay yep I would just like to caution that as we are believing that this is the way we have seen that things change on The Daily so cautiously optimistic that we are yes following this path we believe that the money the funding is going to remain in place it's
049a question as to actually when we receive the money right um from what I'm hearing in in just for this school year the remainder of this school year uh I'm hearing that we're like going to receive our federal funding post July 1 uh which makes it super fun for us um in the business office but I'd rather have it that way than not receive the money at all um but again as Dr janry said he's heard it at uh the superintendent's level we've heard it at the business official level um that the money uh for the federal grants that $3.55 million that we receed looks to be fairly safe for next school year as we sit here today if if I can say something when I was in Washington on my little visit there they
050they talked about the way it comes out of government that it could get held up somewhere and I think that's what you're confirming right yeah there's some I'm sorry go ahead no no I I one of the things that we're hearing is that if the the federal education department were to essentially close up shop that some of that money rather than now funn funneling through um the federal government would be pushed to the state uh that's kind of what I'm hearing I don't know if you're hearing the same thing but um you know that's a a distinct possibility um you know I I don't know uh kind of where we're headed you know I saw in the news today that they're um shutting down tomorrow uh to kind of re-evaluate and and and take a
051look at where they stand so they've told the education department not to report to work tomorrow um and then see kind of what happens from there okay thank you and that's uh what I have time does anybody have any more questions thank you thank you okay upcoming events it's the beginning of the month we have all of our uh PTA PTSA meetings coming up the High School Musical and the craft show as we spoke about uh next week is our voting meeting um and a few special activities at our elementary schools this brings us to the first open session in accordance with board policy 1510 we hold two open sessions at tonight's board meeting during the first open session comments must focus on an agenda item for this this meeting speakers must be 16 years
052old limited to their comments limit their comments to three minutes and state which agenda item they are addressing speaker should speakers should announce their name address and group affiliation if applicable non-district residents must include their B business name and how they engage with the board participants are expected to address comments to the board president not individual board members and may not discuss specific individuals or executive session topics please note that the board and the administration are not permitted to respond to the comments during these sessions but we welcome your comments thank you for your cooperation I have five people currently signed up so we'll go through these and then if there's time left we will continue uh Cassidy Capello hi thank you my name is Cassidy Capello and I'm a parent of a maple Mir
053Elementary student and I wanted to point out that it's a privilege to be here tonight as a working mom uh I appreciate you guys taking the time and it's uh not possible for all working parents to be here tonight so hopefully I can be a voice for parents who weren't able to be here um uh I'm addressing uh the changes in the busing the start and stop times um I'm the daughter of a retired Elementary School principal I'm the wife of a teacher my father-in-law is a retired teacher my sister-in-law as a teacher I know and believe that public education is good I know that the core of public education is to educate young minds and keep our children safe and I'm very concerned that you cannot shape young minds if they they are not
054safely making it to school in the morning I'm concerned about the plan that you've created for busing and walking for the upcoming school year and it baffles me because I want to know truly where the consideration is for the safety of young students and as a mom to be honest it terrifies me uh the radius does not take into account the actual walking on sidewalk for these young children as the crow flies a quarter mile seems pretty quick these are little legs um the current plan uh you're creating a perfect scenario uh for children to get hit by cars get picked up by child Predators uh cross many streets without anyone there to help them safely cross depending on the time of the year I mean it might even be dark outside I don't know
055if all of these streets are well lit um I work in the media this is already made the local news I know how quickly things like this can become national news I worry about how it looks for us uh as a district I worry what we're saying hey come to Amherst New York where young children at the age of five and six are going to be walking alone every morning feel free to come pick one up off the street um the walk to my from my house to Maple Mir is probably about 30 minutes if you're walking with purpose these are little legs these are kids whose mind wander and I'm concerned uh as a working parent to worry that my child is my child even making it to school in the morning I don't
056have the uh the luxury of being able to walk my kid to to school in the morning I'm I'm at work at 4:30 every morning I work a strange schedule I'm already nervous every day just did they get on the bus did the babysitter get them on the bus um I know I'm not alone in this feeling as a working parent I don't feel this plan is realistic I don't feel it's safe and I feel that many of these young children are not developmentally mature enough to even walk to school alone UNS supervised call me a helicopter parent but my son who just turned seven does not even walk to a neighbor's home unsupervised we walk them or we drive them it's 2025 we see what's happening in the world today I can't imagine him
057and his peers who are still learning how the world Works being considered mature or developmentally ready for that kind of responsibility I ask and beg you to please reconsider your plan I just keep thinking gosh at some point common sense is going to Prevail these are smart intelligent people thank you for the time appreciate it next up we have Melissa hackenberry did I say that correctly thank you hi thank you guys for letting us speak tonight we appreciate it um my name is Melissa Hockenberry I am a parent um I'm sorry I live in the area on Edgewater I am within that 0.25 mile radius um as you're calling it and I have two kids in preschool who obviously will be greatly in impacted by being expected to walk at 5 years old to school
058um I want to Echo everything our last speaker said those are my exact fears and I want to start by saying our children are not lines on a budget I understand the need for fiscal responsibility I work in revenue cycle for a hospital I've been there for 15 years I get it you got to make sure that you're solvent but at the expense of our children it's not acceptable and I also want to bring up the fact that I don't know if you considered but do you understand the liability that the district will be facing not if when a child is harmed if not killed do you guys want that on your conscience because I can't in my good conscience not speak up and say something when one of my fellow neighbors could have to
059go through that um I wanted to reference back to the meeting minutes um that came out of the last Schoolboard session where there was some uh concern expressed for this and it was stated that we've already given people um the ability to speak and if it was important enough enough to them that they would show up that's an extremely privileged um perspective I'm a single mom if I don't work my kids don't eat they don't have a roof over their head and I'm sure there's plenty of other parents like that in the district so to make these changes that absolutely could put my job at Jeopardy considering the changes give six and I think 6 hours and 15 minutes of away time I I don't know about you but I don't know any adults who
060can survive off of 25 or $30 an hour or 30 hours per week to make ends meet especially given the political things going on and the instability in our economy it's going to get worse so as if it's not petrifying enough to parents that we have to worry about the safety of our children on top of it it was another slap in the face to be told well if you want to get to work you're going to have to pay for before school uh care that's just outrageous I'm a taxpayer just like every other parent in the school district I was also you know when scrutin scrutinizing the bud budget um understand and hopefully I understand this correctly the district has a responsibility to bus non-district students that live in the area to private schools
061and to uh bosies and Hamburg that that's a responsibility because their parents are taxpayers I'm a taxpayer too as are these parents in here so to say that we're going to bust private school students before our preschool and kindergarteners is absurd to me and if the justification is taxes again we're all taxpayers was that a clock on time okay thank you okay Rebecca Rogers okay hello I am Rebecca Rogers um I have emailed all of you my concerns so I'm not going to beat a dead horse I think you have heard from these people the safety concerns first and foremost I do understand changes have to occur and you can't please everybody you're never going to please everybody but safety should be at the very top of the list first thing and I'm going to
062kind of go off a little bit of from what they're saying they've already killed the safety thing that's utmost importance how the information was communicated I went to the PTO meeting and we were told slipped in at the very end this was a last resort the walking radius was a last resort I know I'm not the only parent that was told that or heard that couple weeks later we get an email oh it's it's on the it's on the proposal so I'm not sure what transpired in those couple of weeks um also I asked about how you figure out 0.25 I was told 0.25 is five minutes that's not accurate I live over a half a mile away from the school it's it's certainly longer than five minutes there were no Maps provided for who's
063going to be impacted prior to this vote um and the vote was pushed through during snow days again as working parents we were dealing with how to find somebody to watch our children so we could go to work over these snow days we did not get communication about when the revote was going to happen um I've also been told that we're getting advanced notice so that parents can plan accordingly we haven't gotten any communic any of our questions answered about these safety concerns about how we're going to handle before and after school care what are we going to what is the school going to be able to offer us because the Just for Kids program is $10,000 for two children per school year I don't have an extra $10,000 I mean that to me is
064astronomical if I decide to send my child to St Chris that Transportation form is due April 1 sending my child to St Chris is cheaper than sending them to public school and paying for just for kids um another question about safety currently right now my children are so young that they are not allowed off the bus unless I'm standing at the door yet we're saying they can just walk out your school door and say goodbye and walk down the road I'm just wondering how the hell that was considered How are schools going to handle um those Walkers just leaving am I going to have to come to the door and sign my child out and provide identification or if my child is truly considered a walk are they just allowed to leave and and that's
065it the last thing I have which is honestly my biggest pain point and biggest kicker is I did look at the FAQ because I know we were told um to to check out the FAQ that was posted um Point number five says the walking radius this incorporate 0.25 mile walking radius Reach Elementary Schools to reduce the number of buses needed at the elementary level this proposal will allow us to increase the number of buses available for after school runs at after school so we're giving after school activities for middle school and high school over our elementary children to come and get their education these are in the most part with the exception of prek kindergarten compulsory a students who are legally required to attend school after school activities are not thank you for listening Linda
066oh sure hi everyone my name is MAA Juan and I'm from the willow uh Willow Ridge District I live on 12 red maple I have $2 dos going to the willow Rich school um I have really um make concerns about the working decisions it is not safe for our kids to work I Echo um all the comments from the previous parents what I want to focus on today is that I love sweet home my daughter my older daughter started sweet home during coover the first year of Co and I love how the district handled everything uh from Mr Day's um um what was it the meetings online meetings you know listening to all the concerns um to really like this open form it really make me feel really good you know having a first born
067in kindergarten during Co year and and really made a great impression on me and I love that and I'm involved since then I have been volunteering as a PTO board members at the wow Rich school um I had to say this recent decision really um did not sit well with me because it is not the right decision at the expense of our child's safety um I just wanted to comment that I know in the last one meeting um which I think Rebecca covered that if it's important enough for the parents then they will be here well we couldn't be here because one it was snow day and two um I don't think there was enough communication that was sent to the parents there were a total of two emails that was sent in January 15th
068and 17th besides the PTO meeting that I know a few of us uh a few of you attended um besides that there was no uh letters at home there was no text message to say that there was an important message from the superintendent please read your email um but we got text message to remind us to read an email about football tickets there's no seesaw message like there was nothing besides the two emails I know you said it was under the news but as a working parent that have two kids with really um active activities and also volunteering my time for the PTO I really don't have time to watch the news that's just the truth right so two emails and we got an email saying that it's approved D without giving any information without
069giving any safety measures in place you're asking our pre kids pre kids think about that four years old you're asking them to walk in a buffalo winter when it's not safe and there's no safety measure measures in place so I'm asking you I'm begging you to please reconsider I have we have started two petitions one is for the walking and one is really asking you to reconsider the whole thing because another aspect of this is at the impact on the middle school and high school you're asking the middle school kids now to have to get up at 6:30 to take the 6:30 bus we don't even get up there early for for our work how is that fair how is this impacting their education and their uh well-being so I'm begging you to please reconsider
070um for the walking petition I have over 300 supporters and then for the on the other one we just started this weekend and we have close to 100 um supports so please um begging you to reconsider for the safety of our kids thank you Gina KY sure sure just one copy one copy yep hello I'm Gina Cy I am a Willow Ridge parent I have two sons in the district um I live over off of Willow Green basically going to discuss a lot of the same things that have been discussed already tonight um lots of concerns about this proposal that was passed which seemed um abrupt I was at that same PT meeting where it was mentioned that it was a last resort passing this .25 radius walking distance um we all feel a little
071blindsided by the whole thing honestly I know Linda touched on on that a little bit I'm sorry my voice is a little um off tonight the points that I want to just concentrate on since a lot of it is repetitive of what we've already talked about tonight are again these safety concerns and the burden on the working parents um what I passed out are pictures of our local sidewalks now these pictures were taken about two weeks ago when the snow had already started to melt and which was like a hard layer of ice um that day that my children and I were walking to school my one son fell um he didn't hurt himself but it's just just kind of is an example of the concerns um you know my husband has been in touch
072with the superintendent here and um you know in general what we're it we're not getting a clear definition of of what's going on is it because there's a budget or was it because we couldn't hire drivers and in one email I have that we can hire 40 drivers tomorrow there just aren't any to hire well if that's the case then what are we doing with this money to reallocate towards safety there's been nothing to indicate what we're doing for safety that of the sidewalks that of crossing guards again at Willow Ridge there are two main entrances to that Elementary I can't speak of the other three but of the two there is a crossing guard at the main entrance where the cars come in but there is a main entrance in the back of the
073school where a huge part of the neighborhood can enter you know is are are those sidewalks going to be plowed is they going to be someone there to supervise these small young children walking to their homes now um these are some real concerns um again the burdens on the working parents you know you have buses that we're picking up our children at 810 8:15 and now we're not allowed to drop these kids off till 8:40 8:45 with the new time changes what are we doing for that 30 minutes that every minute counts in the morning when you have especially children that are in different schools Middle School elementary what are we doing about that there's just been no answers if we're not reconsidering this proposal what are we doing about these concerns there's major concerns
074here and burdens on families again we are taxpayers just like everybody else how can it be just taken away from us like that that's pretty much all I have to say thank you very much do we have any other speakers tonight [Music] okay temperini eight mon dve I have one child as of next year I have one child that will be at Maple Mir and two at the midle school currently I have two at the the um Maple Mir so as you know I'm against all these recommendations for St stop time um I actually have a question but I know you can't answer it okay um so for the elementary I actually have a question um will there be a specific time one must be picked up for early release like right now in Maple
075if you're going to have an early release you have to be picked up by 1:30 you can't be picked up at the 2:50 when they're released the reason why I'm asking this is the child that will be at M yester next year he's on on a travel baseball team he can't miss these travel tournaments they start at 3:30 I can't even go in the pickup line to pick him up so that that's why I'm asking that question um please don't proceed with these proposals it was a rush vote 55.9% opposed according to the first slide and now I'm going to be speaking on behalf of me and someone in the audience the Middle School sharing the buses changes will not be providing at least for at least my child it's not going to be providing
076a least restrictive environment um for one of my children on the bus because she has a bus combination and now she's not going to be be riding with her peers um you have to think about the bullying that is happening right now on the middle school buses I'm I'm against we're we're totally against Middle School and High School sharing buses for the times and all the other things that go on with it um it's a 9:15 start now and now you're expecting 7:40 I live 2 minutes away from the Middle School probably walking but yet her accommodations are not going to be met if we do this I'm going to be driving her instead because I don't want her missing school because the small buses leave early and arrive late um and in regard to
077the person in the audience um she's saying that there are very bad influences the kids and from her quote my daughter was given Vape in weed by a high school kid um just please consider a revote because this is the only option there's so many opposed and not everyone can be at the meetings as stated that's all thank you Kim do we have anybody else good evening my name is Jamie manine I live on Glenn Haven Drive and my daughter goes to Glendale Elementary um I think the parents here tonight spoke very very well as to the point that a lot of us parents are feeling right now about our kiddos in the elementary schools and I would be remiss if I didn't stand here before you myself and say that I urge you to
078reconsider for the safety of our kiddos um points that weren't really brought up tonight that I just want to speak to uh is not only for us parents the stress that this brings but to our staff and our teachers at the elementary schools uh I can only imagine what this is going to do to them I can say that I also love sweet home I love glendell they are an extension of my family and just as much there are staff and teachers concerned for our Littles who will be walking in Winter uh by themselves and not have a process set in place and to put that back on the schools to have to make those decisions of what that's going to look like and the chaos that they already ensues in that pickup and drop
079off line in the morning this is going to increase that that there are going to be more parents having to drop up and pick up and I think that the processes weren't really thought out well prior to this vote I also just want to say that if we can have a parent Forum about cell phone usage in a school I think we can have a public forum for parents to express their concerns about the transportation I agree it was snuck up on us and I just want to speak on behalf of parents and our teachers and staff who were work so so hard for our kids um so I just I urge you to reconsider and to revote on this and to listen to the community again it is a privilege to be here tonight
080I am a mom I'm a full-time working mom I have three kiddos with special needs and I don't have the time or availability to come to every single meeting but I made it tonight because I wanted to represent the people who couldn't be here so thank you for your time and please I urge you to reconsider than you anybody else NOP okay okay that brings us to our new business items a through o we'll talk we'll vote on next week a is the optical scan for voting machines we standard language refed every year fam we have to use it every year for voting purposes excuse me is the public hearing and District vote for our May 20th vote sorry can I interrupt for a second the optical scan is there some conversation at all going
081back to the old methods State I thought there was some conversation on the federal level I don't know that M I don't know if you know I've heard nothing on that and we use we go through Erie County to do it so yeah she does right okay thank you okay B is the annual public hearing and District vote for May 20th questions comments oh I did have a question on that I'm sorry I'm sorry um we're moving it to the gym this year as opposed to being in here uh I actually brought that up as a topic of discussion for the board I that's up to the board so so I um only because of the amount of events and people that will be on campus that day um with um between the track meet
082U art show uh music concerts um walking from the high school down um you know we not getting much traffic from those events to uh the vote it was just a suggestion um that's something that we could talk about or you know bring up at any time so today or later we today this conversation now sure I just I was just wondering like what what the goal was there so I know that um we kind of put the panther logo vote kind of bundled with this because we do want to increase voter turnup right we wanted to no well actually we want to find a panther okay and then make sure everybody has a voice in that yeah okay but however we we at the same time we'd figure if people were going to come
083vote for the Panther they might also vote on the budget and they would vote for their new Schoolboard members so um so the other events that we have going on at that same night yes day actually sorry it's throughout the day because we have the elementary track meet okay on the track field yes during the day so I feel like we did this last year too right from what I remember we had yes at the high school at that same day okay um voting is open 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. so it's like an all dayair and there's different things going on at different times but yes you are correct that is but school is in session that day so we would we would plan to work with um we've already talked to principal Baker
084about coming up with an alternative plan for the because this would be if if if approved just in the gym area um and we could come up with an alternative for PE that day because they have the back gym available Turf gym Outdoors if it's a nice day Etc C made a suggestion about a shuttle for the seniors so I'd like that to be considered we'll find a driver I'll pay for it all right so was this brought up just so I have an understanding of the history this was brought up because this was not convenient for people or just because we had so many people attending events down by the high school in the high school wing it was just an idea that I thought I'd throw out there to see if uh it
085would attract more people to vot honestly um was the intention in the gym or the foyer in front of the gym and there's been some debate about in the gym and the foyer so we could the side parking lot to the gym could be an access and then then we open those doors could be an access point there is secur there's security to keep voters uh and the public away from school as school um goes on but we could Usher people from from um the parking lot through those doors and the ballots could be in there as a a convenient measure okay I one of my thoughts with that either one is I wondered since and whoever's running I know two of our gentlemen are running this year plus whoever's running with them has to
086be at least 100 feet from the voting Place Y and I'm curious if we can do that in a reasonable thing or we dump it up in the middle of a parking lot and I have a measure so I don't know yeah that side parking lot is is a is a is a we considered the staging area for for that um and we can map out that if the board is interested in me looking into it more so I know that for most elections like regular elections outside of Schoolboard like bigger ones right um when there when the polling place is a school you don't have school because it's a security concern with just random people walking into your school building with kids so you mentioned security so what does that look like so just
087like the door here to the high school is a secure entrance there's a gate um from the a letic wing into the rest of the school and the cafeteria doors could be locked so no one could get inside the cafeteria doors um uh during that time so we can lock off the athletic Wing from the rest of the the building so no none of the public would have access to the high school and that wouldn't interfere with how kids are getting to and from class because I know anytime that I've been at the high school there have been teenagers everywhere yeah yep yep no it would not we would make sure it would not when does this have to be decided by or this vote I mean to give people proper not this V for
088March 18th oh it would have to be because of the legal notice we have to we have to put so next week yeah my apologies don't cancel just an idea but you know I it will make either one work and you know whatever whatever you decide so we could talk about it more next week and and vote and put it on the ballot or put on the agenda okay show up with the right spot are we good I'm good okay everybody good all good all right no no you're fine moving on to special ed class placements and preschool class placements it's the hundreds of pages to get through this month so I'm I'm making progress It's the yearly IEPs that I'm going through so I'll have it done by next week okay uh monthly financials
089will be posted uh disposal of obsolete property I've got a question about that I see it's lots of lots bads how are we dispose it it didn't say anywhere uh they go to we have a a recycling company that we do through um I think it's Sun King if I remember correctly we we do uh boxes of them they come and pick them and they dispose of them properly also take care of wiping the drives or destroying the drives we do all that we do all that yes y cool thank you do we get any money back from recycling those or no we get a small amount yes okay that brings us to F for bids uh we have our printing various printing bids questions J brings us to the request for proposal of an
090athletic trainer H is an internal auditor Jay is an external auditor like Brian and I along with John staff um had a chance to sit down with them as they made their presentation last week I don't know the days are all running together um I thought they uh put together a very good solid presentation with the with what they would do for us how they would do it and any additional services that they would offer we happened to need them I thought it was worth it good K is is sorry is that the amount um for the first year per year for five years no there's actually different there's varying price instru thank you over the course of it's a little bit front loaded because there's a lot more work in the first year and
091then the prices actually go down for the other four years thank you okay K is the shasa agreement L is a temporary Grant of easement to the town of Amherst is that for the sewer project finally moving forward y oh yes it's actually for an easement piece of property just as we come up north up sweet home just beyond the the property line of of UB right as we get to our service center uh so in that area there we will have mot taking care of by the time they need it yes m is the second reading of our policies could I ask a can I make a request for those policies to be put on the screen so the public can see what we're voting on okay um more importantly on the first readings
092and we have a subject line there that I I think state of New York and the federal government have different views on that I know this one is particular or specific to uh I think it's pregnant women but uh there's a lot there and I just kind of curious the public knows what we're voting on there so give me just one second you want more than just what's on the agenda you want each individual policy up there or what I'm confused on what you're asking the actual policy itself that we see in the U the backup that can be done I think he means the pink spreadsheet yeah I think it's many pages too the ones for the first reading is 46 pages and no so if we can just get through the first couple
093pages so at least the public can see what we're looking at this is actually going back to the the first 3421 is that the one about Title 9 yes it's actually reverting back in time the only change on there is is the female Title Nine coordinator that's based on changes to the from from the federal government that we're not moving forward with several policy changes that have been recommended right they've all been pushed out and we're going back to where we were again there's a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication out there so I'd like it to just be on the screen to show exactly what we're voting could just be the solution that says we're doing this that's fine I just wanted on the screen so the public can see it that's fine I I
094also would like to remind the public that it's on post on our website yeah so that's that's from our website if you go to the board um page on our website and type in the meeting you'll have access to those documents there that was the second reading yeah so these are all the first reading policies is that what you mean Mr renold right yeah that would be fine if you could do something like that again just tie the the actual vote into what we're voting on and so the public can see it okay they can I guess always go back to the website and look at it suest but okay again it's just I like them to see what we're voting on as we're voting on it if that's logistically okay thank you how long
095should I to see okay um that brings us to Smart schools preliminary investment plan we'll have uh more information on that next week is the public hearing any comments or questions that brings us back to open session would anyone like to address the board and if so would you like me to repeat the rules I'm fry 8 mon drive and I want to um some address some of the topics that were discussed by other members in the first session um I just want to give you example so I'm against everything that the elementary schools St um parents were talking about but also the Middle School of course sharing the buses is the main concern time kind of a little but I want to give you an example so my kid did go to a private
096school for a year and a half and I see where the the speaker is coming from that you're catering to private schools over your own students and districts as an example he went to a school about 10 minutes away that was a private school there was a high school next to it that was a private school but um so he got out at 2:40 and he got on the bus with one two people in his grade level and like maybe two middle schoolers also that were in the swe home District then they went to a Bosey Center to pick up and then they went back right next to school because Sacred Heart was right next to it and they got out at like 255 okay so 2:40 he gets home at 10 10 after 3
097so how is that possible 30 minutes he is getting home at 10 after three where this year he's on this bus he gets on the bus according to the app he gets on the bus at 3 o'clock he is on the bus and he gets off at 3:40 3:45 so how are we having Public Schools getting off the bus at 45 minutes after we're not catering to the public schools give the give the Public Schools more buses and contract out these routes I mean his bus is not even full either when he was at the public or the private school bus okay and why am against the um and the other part of the sharing of the buses there were high school students on this bus but again the high the bus was not packed
098that's my whole reason the bus is going to be packed because even one in one of the superintendent slides was we need to fill these buses why are we the expense of middle schoolers getting up at 5:36 o'clock to get on a bus ear two and a half two hours earlier that's that's all I'll say thank you Kim anybody else hello again my name is n Juan um I forgot to mention one point so I wanted to come back and thank you for the opportunity for me to speak again um I wanted to know if the um building use committee has considered the neighborhood pickup instead of um eliminating buses for the houses near um the schools because I heard just today that Williamsville is going to Neighborhood pickups and they are door to door
099we're not the only School in in in the region that's door too um as far as I know willville is door too for elementary school um so is um orra Park and I just heard today that they learned from their superintendent that they are going to naborhood pickup um starting in September so um if they are doing that why are we not considering that because I heard that that was on a proposal um but that was shut down so can we look into that to see if that's going to make an impact so everybody will have a chance and get to school safety instead of you know just cutting the bus and um tell the parents to figure out thank you thank you anybody else Melissa hackenberry again um just wanted to reiterate the need
100for the revote um and I think it would be beneficial to you guys to potentially reconsider the communication methods um I thought it was ridiculous I got three text messages about the Powderpuff game but I didn't get any text messages about this I can only imagine how many parents are going to be blindsided when they get their little postcard in the mail talking about their bus route and they're figuring out how am I going to actually keep food on the table how can I keep my job what am I gon to do this wasn't thought through and I think it was also extremely disingenuous of these the folks on the board when reached out to um first of all we didn't get our answers um I got maybe one out of the five questions that
101I would answer I had asked questions about bus stops that never got a answered in actually out of I think the four or five emails that were exchanged I had asked in every single email will this mean you're eliminating my bus service and not once did somebody answer that question directly NE neither did they answer the bus stops it was just financial decisions and uh bus driver shortage secondly I think it's important that you do a public session to let parents you know speak out this is going to be all over the news and I would hate for it to get to the point of national news but I for one think that this is completely unsafe and I will keep raising my hand until somebody tell tell me what safety measures are going to
102be put in place for 5-year-olds and I just want to ask y'all something to consider internally don't have to answer out loud would you let your 5-year-old or four-year-old grandchild or child walk to school unattended in snow ice wind storms in the dark in the morning knowing that there's I think at last I checked 23 sexual predators on the sexual registry throughout Amherst that alone should be a major major concern to all of us that we are going to publicly let people know hey our kids are going to be unattended because you're again forcing parents to choose between food on the table and getting their kids to school and keeping them safe I think that's a lot to ask considering the school district is not coming back to say hey and we're going to do
103this for you hey we're going to open the doors early for you hey we're going to make sure that you don't have to pay additional cost for that before school care because of the changes that we made instead it has been in my opinion um kind of callously thrown back in our hands to say deal with it and the public if it's important to important enough to them that they will show up this is important to a lot of people but there's a lot of people who also don't know this is going on based on the communication methods chosen by the school so I would urge you please to consider a revote um and please consider listening to the parents who pay the tax dollars that keep these doors open thank you thank you good
104evening my name is Emily mck I'm an English as a second language teacher at Willow Elementary um I'm up here to just Echo the um different things that our parents have said here tonight but as a strong advocate for our multilingual learning ERS and our multilingual families it's in uh discouraging to hear the way that the communication was sent out to our families I'm curious if the communication sent out to our families was it translated was it accessible for our multilingual families as we look around our room tonight I don't see any of our multilingual families represented are our multilingual families being considered in our communication on what's going to be happening with walking with different bus times just like to miss hen Barry's Point parents that might get um the little card in the
105mail is that going to be communicated to our multilingual families in their native language are they going to have the access that the rest of our students have as a district that Prides oursel on our Dei Mission and motto we need to be making these considerations as well for our multilingual families we have an incredible beautiful diverse Community we have amazing parents we have amazing supporters teachers advocates for these families it is our duty as Educators to consider them in these consider um conversations so thank you so much I look forward to hearing changes that will be made about these conversations thank you anybody else hello everybody I'm Christine Stewart I am here on behalf of High School Musical it is this weekend and we are excited for production and we want to welcome everyone
106in the room to come and see our kids our high schoolers have been working really really hard they were evaluated by Shay today we are up for a Shay's award I can assure you that this is a very funny show uh very age appropriate and we encourage our Bo to please come out and and see it um I'll be here afterwards I know some of you have already gotten tickets and I thank you for that and to our elementary school parents please it's a princess theme it's the princess in the pee so don't let the Once Upon upon a mattress kind of throw you off it is got some adult humor in it but it'll slide right under the kids it's absolutely a wonderful night out so please come and join us thank you thank
107you anybody else uh I guess I just want to uh Echo some thoughts that came up my name is Cassidy Capello spoke earlier um with the neighborhood pickups are we considering the thought of bus stops because I guess I would feel a whole lot more safe about a group of children waiting together for the bus than walking independently um again I I ask uh would we let a 5-year-old walk down the street unsupervised to go to a neighbor's house we would not why is this even being considered if we have uh such an amazing School District which I'm so in love with my kids experience so far why are we not considering the safety of these young children as a parent the only thing I care about is are my kids safe that's really all
108that matters to me as a parent is are they safe are there needs taken care of and safety is a need if we have the ability to uh have such a passionate thing about we're getting a new mascot and we're getting 26 shirts involved how cool is that why aren't we taking the kids safety as seriously as we are about a new mascot I mean man I'm really excited the art looks great but are these kids goingon to make it to school in the morning that terrifies me as a working parent terrifies me that it feels like the common sense is lacking here and I know you are a room of educated smart professional people and many of you if not all of you deal with young children on a daily basis where is the
109common sense these kids are not developmentally ready for this The World Is Not Safe the sidewalks are not safe there there is it's just there's nothing about it that makes sense for these young children to be walking and I please urge you to listen to the voices here and know that just because we're the only ones here speaking to tonight we represent the voices of a bunch of parents who couldn't be here tonight thank you thank you anybody else going once going twice okay thank you all for your comments um that brings us to Personnel we'll be voting on it next week anybody have any comments or questions I don't have a comment or question on Personnel but I was wondering can I just make a general comment sure um I just want to say
110I do appreciate everybody being here I know that we cannot answer questions but I've said this when we've had large audiences and parents and um stakeholders here I know with 100% certainty that every board member considers these comments and after the board meetings whether it's through other discussions we have on the phone you know privately um or then we debate out here we do consider all of these things and we take them to heart um you know I I um uh I voted against this proposal but I also accept the outcome of it I think what's important to know is that um a lot of things from our perspective um you know we're looking at it at a at a high level some people are looking at a lot of more details um um and
111we do you know have to consider a lot of pieces to it what I think's important now is that um all these comments and I'm confident in the district and in our uh board members that we will work to improve and make this the best implementation you know a lot of legislation you see nationally is approved right and then there's subsequent tweaks made to it and we've seen that over time um and so I'm confident that you know you're going to be heard I you know not everything is going to go exactly as everybody wants it but I know that um we're going to work hard to make the implementation of this um you know work as best we can um you know for me the somebody asked the question would you have your um
112you know young child I have a four-year-old and my old I have four kids a four-year-old the oldest is a is um uh 12 and I won't let my four-year-old go across the street to the call the Act without an adult so you know I know I I understand and I empathize um so those are things we got to continue to work on um you know for you and um and you know I I'm I I think I'm fairly confident I speak to the board and speak on behalf of the board in that um you know we do take all these comments to heart and we are trying really hard to for the best outcome for the community it is really hard decisions a lot of times but um again I appreciate and I know
113we all appreciate all the comments and feedback sure so I have a question kind of on the heels of that um this is my first goar around right this is my first year on the board and it is a very steep learning curve um and sometimes when you ask more than one person the same question you get different answers right either due to a person's based knowledge or their experiences with things I don't know how this works but I heard the word revote like seven times tonight is that a thing that happens after a proposal gets passed by the board majority in my experience it has not happened but I will defer to not in my 19 years so is it that it hasn't happened or that it cannot happen because I want I want
114to make sure that we're listening to everyone that was here tonight when they're asking this of us is this something that we cannot do or that we are not willing to do it would be a long discussion disc cannot no there's never a cannot I mean a board can vote on things to get it back to the floor Rees a long parliamentary procedure if you're get a vote on the exact same thing otherwise if you're starting over on specific things that's a different store right and that's I think where we kind of run into a wall about this is that we can vote on it and the results might be exactly the same but I think what people are asking for if I'm hearing you all clearly is that there are pieces of this that
115they are not comfortable with that they are not willing to say okay this is what I want for my children so I know that the building use commun uh committee has worked exhaustively on this I know that you have created 700 different plans and there was something wrong with each of them right I get that I wasn't there for any of it but you have told all of us that that was what happened leading up to this but when we listen to the concerns of the community either through the emails that have been sent or the phone calls the text messages the people that have showed up there is massive amount of discomfort around the kids walking is that component of it something that can be taken back to the drawing board and reworked believe
116that's what Mr rabid hool's asking for is if I can if I can early on in the meeting uh folks I I did ask for an additional item on the agenda our voting meeting next week to take into consideration exactly what everybody said tonight uh because we have received and we have heard all your concerns and I've actually uh encouraged folks to to send emails to come to board meetings to tell us why you have concerns here I personally had some concerns with it and as uh Brian said I voted against it the board voted for it and moving forward with it so I think myself all as a board single board member all I can do is encourage a reconsideration and maybe some tweaks to the plan so that it helps you the community
117who we represent we work for for you not for the district and that's my position on that and that's why I hope again we have a good discussion next week and we maybe can find something a tweak not necessarily a revote but something we can do with that that meets the needs of our community especially our parents and their children so thank you I will welcome the conversation I have also heard every single one of you I've read every single email I have not been able to respond due to personal reason I'm not going to respond due to personal reasons I can't all of that to be said I would like to remind the board that in the proposals of this plan there have not been very many specifics because they haven't been worked out
118yet there is a reason that the bus routes don't come out until August it's because it takes a long time to plan for a new school year so some of the questions we don't have the answers to yet we will continue to make sure that every single one of your babies is safe because when it comes down to it every single 3500 students in this District are our children we think of them that way and I know that there are many of you that do not believe that but if my children were still in elementary school they would be walking and as a parent I would be walking with them or driving them I'm a working parent as well we're not doing this we're not doing this we're not doing this okay well we are
119not doing this if I can just what I am saying is there are still many pieces of this plan that need to be worked out we do not have them okay we don't we won't have them next week either but we will welcome the conversation why would we why did we vote on it then though that's that's the thing so we're going to have six months of work where nobody where nothing happens we're to pay people forward unless we had the okay to move for can't schedule bus roads until we know who's coming to the school no I I understand compon that you're talking about that are not figured out yet I don't I don't know what that means so we're talking about the walking but I'm talking about the walking piece right just listen
120to parents talk about how uncomfortable they are with The Walking piece this is not a bus route question this is a kid walking to school but until we start doing the bus routes and mapping out the walkers but we already mapped out the Walkers we put the maps on the website the radius maps are on the website did we contact those families and say your children walking no we did not so that is a tentative roughly this 0.25 mile radius roughly these children are going to have to walk children with accommodations like special Le students are not going to have to walk they will probably get a bus there are many things that haven't been discussed at this level that have been discussed behind closed doors in order for the administration and the buildings to
121do the work that requires to be done if this change goes through we as a board have to say yes do the work that's what we did last month we said yes yes do the work let's figure this out let's figure out how it's going to work with safety and culture and all of the things that we find important here at sweet home we asked for that to be done and anybody that says otherwise about any of us sitting here clearly has no idea what's going on well I guess I don't have an idea what's going on and I would love for you to not yell at me I would love to not have Integrity called into question Amy didn't call your integrity into anything we're moving to Executive session may have a motion in
122a second to move to Executive second all in favor I hi we will not be returning