001Good evening everyone and welcome to our April 21st Board of Education meeting. We have a tobacco policy in place. There's no smoking within 100 ft of any school building. Please rise for the pledge. Board clerk, will you please call roll? >> Trusty Smith >> here. >> Trusty Jared >> here. >> Trusty Goodrich >> here. >> Trusty Jerome >> here. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell. >> Trusty Kunen >> here. >> Trusty Bishop >> here. >> Thank you. All right, we will begin our meeting tonight with our Woodstock School principal, Scott Richards, welcoming the board. All right, we got a nice crowd tonight. Um, so I'm just gonna basically just go over a couple things I did last time. Um, looks like we have quite a long potential agenda tonight. Uh, so I'm just going to give you
002a couple of updates. Um, last year, last time you were here. I was talking to you a little bit about the fifth grade transition to middle school. Um, that is seemingly going well. Our fifth grade teachers are are meeting uh very often and we are good to go with our fifth graders going up to the middle school at the same time as the Bennett students. So give them an opportunity to interact uh during the day. Uh and the field trip to Bennett uh with Bennett students to Davis Park is also up and running. So that's also very exciting. that'll be a full day for them to basically be together um without any academics and just fun. So, we're really looking forward to that. Um and the last meeting, the afterare program was kind of a
003was kind of a a hot topic. So, I just wanted to give you a quick update on that. Uh the program that we're working with, Healthy Kids, which was also the program we worked with before, uh they're in the process of doing their licensing component. Uh so we should have that in place very shortly. Uh the survey for interest that is scheduled to come out next week. So we'll be putting that out, posting that. Just trying to see what type of interests we have from hopefully incoming parents as well as parents that are currently in the district. I know we've had a couple of incoming parents who've reached out to me. Um they've they've offered to bring surveys around just so we can get some some more information about who's potentially coming here. Um, and
004again, staffing is kind of the key as to whether or not that program is up and running. It is a difficult program to staff because the hours are difficult, especially if you have children of your own. Um, New York State testing window that did start um I believe back a week ago. We're starting our testing. We're supposed to start today. We had a little bit of technical difficulties with our internet which happens. Uh but the kids really are feeling very good about the assessments this year. Uh we actually had a group today. I was never seen this in all of my time where the day before they they asked a teacher to kind of step out in the hallway and I saw her out there. I go, "Are you okay? Is everything okay?" She said,
005"No, they told me to step out." I'm like, "That's and you did." And she did. Um, and she came in today and she found out that the kids had basically prepared um, a thank you to her for the way that she prepared them for the exam and how she made them feel confident and comfortable with being ready to take the exam today. They had today she had chocolate houses and cards and a trophy. It was really, really, really heartwarming. I mean, she kind of teared up a little bit, too. Um, but it it was it was really nice. So, it was good to see the kids feeling good about themselves because the state tests can be a little bit of an anxiety point for some kids. So, it made me feel good to see that
006the kids were feeling good. Um, couple things about PE. Uh, we did finish up a yoga residency which we've now been doing, I want to say, for at least four or five years. Um, that was a full week and we had every student K through five participate. Um, again, this group teachers is doing a lot of collaborating together. Uh so they're actually doing their tumbling unit together uh with all of the kindergarten classes together, all the first grade classes together, all the second grade classes together. It's been really nice to see the kids come together at different points instead of just lunch and recess. Um but learning together and it's been really really wonderful. Uh we've also had a lot of different uh fun educational activities recently. We had Bill Robinson um with this wildlife
007presentation. He's been here before. Um he's still doing his presentation and the kids really enjoyed it. Uh we have kids stock ongoing and this time it's three through five. So this year because we have so many more kids, we had to break it apart um and do a K2 and a three through five version. Uh we do have our science fair coming up on the 27th on Monday. Uh that will be K through five as well. So feel free to pop by for that. I believe we start at 6 pm. Um and my last bit is just teacher professional development. It's kind of getting late in the end of the year here, but we're still kind of wrapping up some of our professional development. And we had reading and writing um professional development for our
008K1 and two teachers. and they had the opportunity of spending a full day together with the trainer. So all the kindergarten teachers, all the first grade teachers, all the second grade teachers to have that opportunity to uh plan together and everything was very positive from their point of view about that day. Um and also we're meeting in committees. Uh we've been working on a phonics uh committee to talk about a phonics program uh for K through three and potentially through down the road. We've had very very productive meetings, very good conversations, and I believe Miss Lapen may uh be presenting on that potentially at the next board meeting with some of the members of that committee. Um so hopefully I'll be able to attend that as well. And we've also been working on our report
009cards K through five, which is a huge undertaking. Um and the K through three report cards, I've been here for 11 or 12 years. They have not changed since I've been here and they probably didn't change a long time before that. So, we've really been having a lot of great discussions where they kind of go one way, then we come back another way. And yesterday, the uh teachers from Woodstock actually presented at our faculty meeting um teacher toteer just about what's been happening on that committee to gather feedback from their peers. Um and it was very well received yesterday. People able to share any concerns they had, any questions they had. Um, and I believe the Bennett members of the committee also ran a parallel faculty meeting at Bennett. So, it wasn't just at Woodstock
010getting their input. It was also the Bennett teachers giving their input. So, I think this process is probably going to take a little longer than we originally thought. And I don't think that's a bad thing because ultimately we'll end up with a much better product in the end. Um, and with that, see we got a lot of student athletes here and uh, congratulations on your achievements and I look forward to hearing more. >> Thank you, Mr. Richards. Any questions or comments for Mr. Richards? >> Thank you so much. Uh, on to agenda item 3.01, recognition of student athletes. Our director of PE, health, and athletics, Janna Janna O'Donnell, will present. First of all, um good evening and thank you for having us. um my coach on behalf of my coaches and my athletes. Um we
011are here to recognize the fall and winter um teams, coaches, and individual athletes and their accomplishments. Um I'd have to say for a small school, it's been a very very successful um fall and winter and we're just getting started with spring. First team I'm going to recognize is the varsity field hockey team. Uh, Gabrielle Tio, Emma Bodner, Scarlett Cordderero, Sage Facero, Migatis, Sage Gearoff, Rosie Gordon, Elena Grant, Elizabeth Kofi, um, Ale Longear, Madison Murphy, Destiny Parker, Khloe Peters, Hely Schmidt, Sophia Somerstein, Indie Soder, and Lily Spatada. They are the recipients of the 2025 sportsmanship award. Um, stand up if you are here, girls. Um, they're coached by Emma Catz. Assistant coaches Jennifer Buckner and Ryan Wright. Section 9 allstars Destiny Parker with second team, Ellie Kofi second team, and Khloe Peters, honorable mention. Next up
012is our varsity cross country team. Um, all MHL third team, Leroy Lewis, section I medalist, class C 10th place, Fiona Green, section I medalist, class C, 10th place, Liam Young, and they are coached by Patrick Burkhart, assistants Briana Funk and Anne Galla. Um, Um, I just want to let you know that a lot of athletes when I met with them to tell them about tonight, they wanted to know if it was live streamed. I probably should have told them that. They're probably watching. Um, varsity girls soccer, class B all-star Vivian Lamb, Class B All-Star Lucia Mcdana, and coaches Brandon Harkin and assistant Kylie Klein. Varsity boys soccer section 9 Soccer Coaches Association 2025 all-star Asher Cohen, coach Jason Kinda, assistants Hely Kang and Carson Warz. The varsity boys golf. Benjamin Baron, Anthony Kristopher, Christopher Christophora.
013Sorry, my bad. Uh Jake Jacob Darcy, Gus Franches, Hunter Han, Silus Hijack, Henry Love, Joyce, Jasper Peacock, Maxwell Scandlin, Jude Signore, Jake Slater. They are coached by Mark Signore. They were the MHL division champions and qualify for the section 9 championships this spring is Jude Signor, Max Scandlin, and Anthony Christophora. Our varsity football team, all state, first team, all section, led section 9 with 134 tackles. Chase Madison All state honorable mention all section Jir Mace. All state honorable mention all Kyle Berianne. All State honorable mention Marty Berman and they are coached by Mike Liberani, assistants Eric Madison, Orin Logan and Dave Mallaloy. Varsity girls swimming section N finalist Julia Young. co coached by Jason Young. Our varsity girls tennis team, MHL tournament qualifiers, Nico Stackpole, Bernardet Hughes, Rama Gabrielle, and coach Kayla Stark. Okay, this
014next slide. Um the entire volleyball program, the varsity, the JV, and the modified were recognized by section 9 officials for um the 2025 sportsman award. The varsity volleyball team consists of Jasmine Barker, Quinn Denter, Abig Abigail Elliot, Jada Formont, Mariana Gordano, Sadi Cones, Riley Pier, Llaya Signor, Jade Sta, Stanley, Amelia Sees, and they are coached by Heidi Mox, the junior varsity, Camila Espinosa Vargas, Juliana Griffin, Jacqueline Harlo, Gianna Jackson, Piper Love Joyce, Emma Persinowski, Alice Slips, Alana Walker, Haley White, and they are coached by Britney Burker. The modified team is Star Stling Adams, Marley Bishop Man, Aliva Garris, Annabelle Grimley, Eve Broers, Amara Gums, Aaron Han, Leela Harper, Betsy Harper, Isabella Jones, Maleith Lundano, Athelia Lou Allen, Delila Lynch, Isa Spec, and they are coached by Ashley Bishop. Our varsity girls basketball consists of Alina
015Byron, Alexa Hall, Aaron Kofi, Ellie Kofy, Villian Lamb, Riley Pier, Charlotte Papovic, Rhysa Reynolds, Sophia Summerrstein, and Julia Young. They are coached by Brandon Jarkin Harkin, assistants Grace Halan, and Lorie Madison. They are the MHL on the MHL All-Star Basketball Coaches Association of New York Top 50. Vivian Lamb, MHL All-Star Basketball Coaches Association of New York Top 50, Julia Young. They were the MHL Division 3 champions, MHL National Conference Champions, and they were coached by Brandon Harkin, who was named coach of the year. Varsity boys basketball. Sam Bennett, Ryder Bickl, Ryan Burgerer, Sam Groers, Jamir Mace, Van Mcdana, Luke Militin, Willins, Calvin Peek, Evan Piser, Cooper Slow, and Sam Storch. They are coached by Mark Willins, assistants Aaron Bennett and Kylie Klein. They were the section champions. That's um MHL National Conference All-Star Basketball Coaches
016Association of New York Allstars. Ryan Burgerer, MHL National Conference All-Star Basketball Coaches Coaches Association of New York Allstar Ryder Bickl, Basketball Coaches Association New York Allstar Jamir Mace And coach Marks was the basketball coaches association of New York coach of the year. Varsity boys swimming OCIAA champion 100 freestyle 100 breaststroke. Liam Young, also section N champion, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke. He was also the New York State public high school athletic ninth place 200 freestyle, third place 100 breaststroke with all-American consideration, broke section 9 record, and secured 17th all-time fastest time at state meet. Varsity wrestling girls section 9 tournament. Miley Gatis third place. Ay Longear fourth place. Lily spotted third place. They are coached by Jonathan Lugo, assistant Lauren Parody. The boys section N tournament. Logan Gordon, second place. Jaden Theal, second place. Aiden Blakeley,
017third place. Chase Madison, third place. Dustin Smith, fourth place. They are coached by Todd Faulner and Matthew Shields. Varsity indoor track. OCIAA Division 5 champions. Jeremy Huber, weight throw. Satie Conjas, weight throw. Satie Conj shot put Section N champions. Satie Conjas shot put Sam Navaro weight throw. Section 9 state qualifiers. Sam Navaro, weight throw and shot put. Satie Conj, weight throw and shot put. Quinn Denter high jump. State championship participant Satie Kes shot. Onto our central school varsity indoor track and field record. Sam Navaro, weight throw 39 feet 8 inches. They are coached by Bill Wall, assistant Tom King, volunteers Heli King and Giovana Wall. At this at this time, I would hope and like all coaches, athletes to please stand up. Thank you all so much. Um, on to item 4.01. Our student representative
018of on the board, Jenny Albbright, will give her report. Just want to say congratulations to all the athlete athletes. You guys are awesome. So um within the high school it is officially AP season. Well the testing hasn't started but the prep has. So a lot of high schools are bogged down. Um spring spring sports is underway and it's doing great. I mean track had a meet today. There's a baseball game. It's going crazy. Everybody's doing amazing. We had an anti- vaping assembly today in the high school for 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. It was informative. Um, next week on Wednesday the 29th, the high school is having a blood drive with the Red Cross from 9:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. And I'm pretty sure it's in the wrestling room. So, highly recommend going if
019you can. It's put together by NHS. There's that. And then last night was the meet, greet, and eat, which I unfortunately could not attend, but I heard it was very successful and went amazingly. And that's about it. Thank you, Jenny. Um, on to item 5.01. May I have a motion to enter into executive session to meet with our legal counsel? >> Oh, yes, please. I really want to thank and recognize all of the um well, thank you for what you give us as a district because like we're extremely pr proud of what you accomplished and also recognize. It's not easy. Um we just had a huge reading on AI and what I used to take for granted in terms of sports and other humanto human things I don't take for granted anymore. I really believe
020that this is what will make you capable of stepping into the future and all that you put into it. It's just tremendous. And I just just had to say thanks and for for uh making me so happy tonight. Thank you, Caroline. All right. Now, may I have a motion to enter into executive session? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? All in favor? All right. So, uh, the executive session is going to last for approximately 1 hour. So, we'll be back in about an hour. May I have a motion to exit executive session and return to public session? Trusty Smith. Second, Trusty Kenudson. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 6.01. Uh we have a uh presentation by our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Stephanie Laughen. She's
021going to discuss supporting learning with instructional coaching. Good evening everyone. I'm really excited to share some information tonight. It's about one of my favorite things, my favorite part of being the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction is supporting our uh teachers in their own uh professional growth and um we get to talk a little bit about that process tonight. So, instructional coaching is a really powerful lever for professional growth. It strengthens both teaching quality and student learning. There we go. Um, and it's really about job embedded professional learning that directly impacts the classroom environment. This involves us bringing in uh an individual to work directly with teachers to support their growth in specific targeted ways. So some impacts of instructional coaching, it promotes reflective practice. It leads to more intentional and responsive instruction. It fosters a
022collaborative culture that reduces isolation and builds trust among colleagues. It bridges the gap between theory and practice during the implementation of new initiatives and expectations. and it strengthens instructional practices in ways that positively impact student achievement. So, for example, let's say that we have uh a new math program. The professional development goes along. You might have some initial programs talking about using it and then your instructional coach would come in working with teachers throughout the year one- on-one small groups giving them feedback. And I've got some examples here of what that looks like in Antiora this year. Um, as far as the topics for our instructional coaching, uh, we have a professional learning plan which is linked in the pre presentation that we work with, um, administrators and teachers on every year. We actually have
023a um um parents on this group as well and we have um college representatives as part of this making suggestions. So this is something we work on every year um actually uh every year sometimes it's a two-year plan and in addition to what is suggested in the professional learning plan building level requests. Sometimes you might have teachers uh email me directly or speak with their principles or we have principles say hey we really could use some work on this what do you think about this p practice how can you support us with that that's absolutely um how we go about it and again sometimes there's districtwide initiatives it might be seal initiative it might be hey we really need to focus in on co-eing it could be something like that so there's a lot of
024different ways and inputs to affect our coaching ing that happens. So our um first uh slide talks us about the K12 coaching that we've got going on this year and that's in instructional technology. Uh we have our erosce innovation specialist Russ Travels which some of you he's uh shared with us before in a previous year. He is in district two days per week and he supports staff in their integration of instructional technology. um including VEX robotics, Wii video, the VR headsets, school AI, and he collaborates with the district as a member of the AI circle. So, as we're talking about things throughout the year, he's often at um trainings that we do at Olster Boseies. He's part of the AI circle team that we've been doing with other districts. He's here two days a week
025to have conversations with staff, to work in their classroom, to really give that continued support. And that is a wonderful thing to have, not only to start out with a specific thing, but if a teacher wants to try something, something comes up in the middle of the year, students ask to do something, he's available on a K12 basis to support any anything that the teacher wants to try or any initiative. Um, next are our um math and literacy coaching that's going on this year, K5. Uh, Principal Richards just mentioned that some literacy coaching just wrapped up. So, in math, uh, again, through Olster Bosey's, our math content specialist, David Trer, he supports our K5 teachers two days a week. Um, and he alternates between being in Woodstock and being in Bennett, and he focuses on
026the implementation of illustrative mathematics. We're in the third full year of implementing that math program. uh four years if you count kind of a trial basis with people learning a little bit about it but this is our third full year of implementation and really the use of the instructional resources. His work is not just with the math curriculum. Um it can be in he's he's also working a book study that um our teachers are doing. He does all kinds of ways of supporting them. And again, his role can change throughout the year depending on what's being asked by the teachers, depending on what data shows us, depending on what principles are seeing. And we're really blessed to have that opportunity for them to be with us so frequently. um our literacy support through advancing literacy.
027Christine Holly is um our coach who comes in and works with our uh ELA teachers K5 and she is in um eight days of coaching that she does throughout the year and she supports teachers as they implement their district literacy programs and instructional practices. Christine has been part of our discussion on phonics, on uh the science of reading, on what implementation of that looks like. And in addition, she's been a support to us um when it comes to potentially um making some switches in our phonics program, which I'll be presenting to you uh hopefully in the next board meeting talking a bit about that. >> Sure. So could you explain, you know, what this looks like in detail? So do the coaches sit in, spend some of their time sitting in and monitoring the classroom
028as the teacher is teaching uh and then later on they have uh one-on-one meetings with the the teacher. Uh how does that all work? >> That's what you mentioned is certainly possible. I mean th this can take lots of different forms. So for example, um let's say literacy coaching. This would be where we'll have a a whole day that we do um let's say all the kindergarten teachers get together throughout the district. It will be arranged that maybe the group goes and sees uh depending on which building they're in, they will go into a classroom. Maybe uh Christine can model a strategy that they've been talking about while the other teachers watch, take notes of or a teacher could pro perhaps say, "You know what? I'll try that. Everybody come in and watch me and
029then colleagues give feedback. The literacy coach would give feedback." There's many ways that this could look. It could also be perhaps the literacy coach comes in and works with our first year new teachers giving them feedback on what she's seeing in their classroom and working one-on-one. Again, it's flexibility. It's what's going on in the building, what's happening at the grade level, what do we need at that time. >> Yes. >> So, would a fair way of characterizing it be that coaches work with teams for the most part or at least in their initial contact. It's not a one-on-one mentorship kind of relationship unless that that could become a component, but generally they come in and work with teams. Yes, it starts off at teams and it really depends on who needs what. Um, sometimes if
030we have a building principal that says, I want this coach to work with this teacher based on something that I've seen. Then they can work mo most closely. Or the teachers might say, hey, I'm really interested in this. I want to know more about it. I'm going to try this. Come in and give me some feedback. It varies. It could be um it could be originated from a request of the teacher. It could originate from a request of a principal. It varies. Sure. So, also to continue with some K5 teaching, we've got uh going on this year in co-eing. We've been working with a group called G&R Consulting for a couple of years. And again, we had eight days of coaching with them throughout the uh throughout the year, really focusing on the collaborative practices
031and improving outcomes and inclusive classroom settings. Um Nicole has been fantastic, highly requested as well as um our other our previous coach. You know, these these groups can't spend as much time with us as our Boseies colleagues do because they live locally. It's through Olster Boseies. It's um FTE. We we purchase part of them daily. However, um it's a great way of accessing the expertise of these individuals. Um and then also we've been working for Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility as you know uh for many years and Marie Kay Van Morham uh from Morningside she's delivered 10 days of coaching this year and she started out actually before the school year we had our brand new teachers come in and work with Marie Kay in August to understand the four Rs uh how that's
032set up and really help them get going on their classroom. So much of our work with um Marrique this year was on coaching new teachers because we had quite a few of them this year at the elementary level. She also worked with our veteran teachers on refining and deepening their SEAL practices. So next steps in this process is um we're working to finalize the 2628 professional learning plan as our group. We're going to continue those collaborative conversations with coaches, principles, and faculty on outcomes and needs. Part of what we do at the end of the year is meet with all of these individuals and say, "What do you suggest? What do you notice? What does the data say? Where might we imagine this going if we work further with you?" And then we work on
033aligning the budget. I work carefully with Monica to really sustain our continued growth. Where can the budget speak to um this aspect of what we value to support instruction? Any questions? Anything additional? Yes. >> Um could you just speak to how important do you think this kind of professional development and coaching is to the district in terms of retaining our best teachers to work to continue working for us once they come here? I think it's really important for teachers to feel supported and teachers what I what I really value in in with these coaches is that we have had um some of them for multiple years and when you can get keep a coach for multiple years you have sustained relationship which allows you to have trust and when you have trust teacher teachers can
034become vulnerable right I need help with this. I want to get better at this. Another thing that I really like this modeling is we say to teachers, we have to establish uh classrooms where students are willing to take risks, where they're willing to fail. We learn by failing. We can speak up, we can try, we can take a guess in class, we can say this out loud. So, we want to establish a a classroom environment where students can take risks, where they can learn. It's my goal to establish an educational environment, a work environment where our teachers can take risks, where they can try something new. They've communicated with their principal. Everybody's aware of it. Hey, I'm trying this. It's different because that's how we grow. What there there are some sustained practices that that
035good teaching that has been good teaching and there are some other things that are shifting in our profession where we have evidence-based practices lots of research behind it that sometimes we need to lean into which might look different from where we started or how we learned in college to do it. even if we just graduated a couple years ago, it might be new. And you need to make sure you're creating that environment where teachers can grow and take that risk. Does that answer your question? >> It does. Thank you. >> I This is so great. Thank you. and I enjoyed um I didn't get all the way through, but I really finding that professional learning plan was like finding a gold mine. It was so exciting and there was so much great stuff in there
036that I feel like echoes um our academic goal and a lot of what's in our academic goal. And so I guess just as a new trustee, I'm wondering if you can just help me understand and how like a board academic goal for example would would play into a professional learning plan or if it doesn't if they're kind of separate if is there a tether between them? I'm just wondering if the 2026 to 28 professional learning plan in some way is tethered to like a board academic goal or if they're separate. I just wanted to understand so I didn't make anything muddy. >> It isn't intentionally tethered. um the state gives us specific things that we need to speak to in that plan, we can certainly add it. We want it to be reflective of of
037us as a district and who we are. But I think by any measurement of student growth, you will look through that professional learning plan and all of those things are dedicated to supporting student growth, supporting an environment where students want to come to school, thus supporting attendance. It's all intertwined to me. every meeting, every goal, every every board committee is is an education committee. There if if anybody's meeting and it's not about education, I'm not really sure what it's about, right? I mean, they're all education committees. Every committee, every time we get together should be about and how does this support student learning and how does this make Antou a place where students want to come to school, where we help students reach their goals, where we help them be curious, etc., etc. How are
038we all working together as peace to lean into that? That's super helpful. I just have a followup. I have something in my head. Um so in the beginning of that professional learning plan those bigger categories that are there um like increased rigor you know for best education for all students things like that is that coming from New York state in essence is something they want all districts to focus on. >> No I mean they just they really ask for your goals. you have to establish a certain set of goals, but in the new plan, which you know, everyone will see when when it's done, you know, we would include things that didn't really exist then. You're going to see portrait of a graduate. You're going to see New York inspires. You're going to see new
039focus on specific sets of um content areas based on new standards being released. It's going to look different. It should be timely um based on what's going on. And so there'll be things that you will see in the new plan that weren't in the old plan and there'll be some that that is the same still there and there'll be some new things. Um yes, more than maybe the word that rather than tethered is interwoven. That's what I kept thinking with these smaller cohorts. I think it really speaks to Antiora as a district um that's not calcifying. We're small. We're changing. It's a real opportunity when you see these small cohorts working with one another. I think of course it's going to end up in this with with the students. It's very exciting to me. It
040again, you know, I talk a lot about team building. We had all the teams here tonight. Um, it's it's a to be engaged to be engaged with your students and with your co-workers and the administration, with other educators. To me, that just seems like a really vibrant, um, uh, educational setting. So, um, great to learn about this tonight. Thank you. So could you uh explain uh how does the PTA interact and provide feedback and to the professional development of of the teachers? Do they usually go through the principal? They go through you or all the above. Are are is the PTA included in this profession? We have we have parent representatives on the professional learning plan team. The PTA specifically, I mean, the conversations I'm sure they have with their building principles and the commentary
041there, I would say that information, any requests or questions shared by the building principal would be answered and that information should they feel the need would would be filtered to me. But that would definitely, you know, go through a bu that's a conversation with a a building uh principal. As I would say, any parent that has a question about an instructional practice in their child's classroom, talk to the teacher and the next level, talk to the building principal because no one knows what's going on explicitly more than the teacher and the building principal. Because if someone asks me the I'm going to ask the building principal because I don't know all the minutia. I'm not there all the time. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Thank you, Stephanie. >> All right. On to item 7.01.
042The board of education hereby accepts the minutes of the April 7th, 2026 meeting. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Uh item 8.01 is Superintendent District News. >> Good evening. Um so this past weekend, Kira Juel and on our freshman won second place in the Michael Perkins Poetry Prize. Um, Michael Perkins was a longtime Woodstock resident who, after winning a poetry prize at the age of 14, went on to enjoy a long career as a poet, novelist, essaist, a forest, and critic. Um, congratulations to Kira and, um, thank you to the Woodstock Library for hosting that. Um, also one of our students, Jake Slater, was chosen to receive honorable mention in a New York Times contest. This was the New York
043Times third annual photo essay contest in which teenagers were invited to show their hometowns. They were asked, "What's interesting about the place where you live? What's unique or special about it to you? What do you notice that others might not see?" The more than 1,400 teenagers from around the world um responded with a glimpse into the places they call home. Um some uh included unusual Thanksgiving traditions in Virginia and ordinary breakfast in Hanoi and the judges were all impressed with how the students captured something memorable about the communities that have shaped them. So congratulations to Jake for being among those chosen by the judges for honorable mention. Um that is a huge achievement. You literally can look on the New York Times and find his name. Really amazing. Um as noted earlier, we experienced an
044interruption in our internet phones and email today due to a spectrum issue. Uh I want to thank our director of technology for his diligence today. Uh he actually got in his car and drove and tracked down the spectrum truck. um and you know did everything he could totally out of our hands but he still uh helps work us through it and I appreciate everyone's patience throughout the day with the limited um communication it's always frustrating last night uh as our student rep mentioned was our meet greet and eat and this year's event has truly set a new bar I cannot express how amazing the evening was the amount of work put in to create this event was absolutely incredible the health and wellness committ and the booster club were main contributors and creators. Uh Mary
045Beth Mills was incredible in getting being the liaison with all of the restaurants. Uh and there are so many others that um I can't individually name, but thank you to all of the individuals and businesses who donated for our silent auction. I personally took home three wonderful auction items. And to all of the restaurants who participated, the food was outstanding. um and that I think there were more restaurants this year than we have ever seen and it was truly a showcase of all that this community has to offer. Thank you also to our music faculty and students who performed during the evening and the art faculty and students who provided the artwork that lined the hallway for us to view on our way in. I think that was a stroke of brilliance to have all
046of that artwork on the hallway as you walked into the event. We appreciate everyone who continues to support this event and I look forward to hearing how much funding was raised to support our students. I do uh understand that I think it is significantly more than last year which was a significant amount. So thank you again to everyone who made the event possible and to all the community members who attended because there were a lot of community members who do not have students in the school, do not have relatives in the school but came. Uh I found I I found people there that I knew just from life and they were there. Um just because I think it's interesting data. Uh this this week I got my report of uh parent square engagement. So last
047week we had 71 posts and 394 direct messages with our school community through parent square. I know. Um the budget adoption, our proposed budget is on the agenda for adoption this evening. We are not doing a presentation because the budget as recommended at the last meeting is the budget we are proposing. We will do another presentation at the budget hearing on May 5th and of course at the town uh board meetings as we do every year. I wanted to thank Misslair and our administrative team for continuing to work together and be proactive in our work so that we have again been able to bring a budget forward that does not include a significant layoff is within the tax levy limit. Um, as you have read in the media, I'm sure a number of our local
048districts have not been able to reduce their faculty and staff in small steps the way that we have and are now being faced with making um more significant cuts. We do review every retirement and resignation that we have to determine if the position needs to be replaced or if we can continue to support our students without hiring someone new. If we need to hire uh for the position, we do. We don't ever um damage our programs, but we look carefully at how we support our students and it is a discussion that happens with each position. So, this has allowed us to position the district in a positive way as we move forward. And I really appreciate all of the work and diligence because Misslair absolutely has those conversations every time. Um, and for capital project
049um progress, last week's design meeting included the art teachers and the office staff uh and the principles and was to show them how their input has been incorporated into the design of their new spaces. Everyone to date has been incredibly pleased with the process and the designs. The art teachers both expressed how grateful they were that they are that their ideas and preferences were listened to, heard, and implemented. They went as far as saying that they will have the best art room in the county. Um, as the room design was reviewed, there was really great discussion about how each um area within the room, what each space would be utilized for. They made some modifications during the meeting. So, as the art teachers were looking and saying, "You know what? The kids are going to
050be sitting there. Can we have some shelves on that wall instead of over here?" And the architects literally modified the design in real time so that it really meets everything that the teachers were asking for. Um the office staff and principles were also able to review the spaces um and design modifications made for the vestibule um the lobby and the office space for them. um they made a few modifications during the meetings and we've also included our director of facilities and our director of technology so that during the discussion they can bring in all of the sort of infrastructure and functionality that they have to deal with. So, you know, in the meetings, our director of technology was saying, you know, where are we going to put the hookups for this? And and where's the
051phone going to be on the wall? And our uh facilities director was saying, okay, make sure you leave enough space above the door because for safety, we have to have the numbers on the door above the door. And we need to have enough space to put the emergency exit plans next to the doors. So I think this process has really um set the bar for how we will design and I have let our design team know that this is the model and every renovation moving forward will follow the same process. Um and I did want to ask uh Miss Laughen if she could just share a little update on the work that our um AI circle team has done because I think it's really um coming along. On Friday, members of our AI circle team
052met to finalize the student, staff, and the family AI surveys. Um, the surveys will be sent out soon and will be used to support the team's recommendations to the board on policy as well as drafting a framework for implementation. So, we've been having a lot of really exciting conversations and I'm excited that we're uh getting to this point in our process. Any questions for the superintendent? >> All right. Um, item 9.01 is board district news. Do any trustees have any news to report? >> I just wanted to thank our music teachers and celebrate all the kids that performed at NISMA this weekend. I know they prepare for a really long time. and they work really hard and the music teachers definitely do double time um working with kids who care to put in that level
053of effort and I know once again the onour kids really came away with some outstanding achievements. So yay for them and the music department and just echoing what Superintendent McLaren said about the meet. I I just went home and I woke up this morning feeling really extra grateful for all of the restaurants. I know it's not an easy time to find room in the margins to feed hundreds of people, which is what there were. Beautiful food. I mean, guacamole, salmon row, smoked salmon, pulled pork sandwiches. I mean, hundreds of people. That is such a commitment to our kids and Beller Bash and keeping our kids safe on prom night, which I mean, we can't underestimate how important that is. So, like, if you see the restaurants that were there and you're like looking for some
054place to go, get a family meal, like it it really is above and beyond. And I just I just felt like just saying again how grateful I was. They make it like their food is what makes it possible for us to do that. So, thank you to all of them. I just wanted to to say one more wow about the a student athletes that were here earlier this evening. I know I said it before, but I just wanted to say it again. When we look at our music program, when we look at our athletics program, when we look at our small student body where nobody I mean they are so tight and um they do these amazing things together in person, supporting each other, making us so proud, you know, it really just it it
055does give me such pride and um really makes me say yay on. So, >> so just want to reiterate what uh Trustee Jared said about the meet eat and greet. That was such a great thing last night. I mean, that was u a lot of people showed up. A lot of my neighbors with little kids showed up, you know, which I was a little surprised at, you know, because, you know, it's kind of a high school thing and uh so hopefully they'll have a good bair bash here. It was good to see the community support, but as as you said there, thank you to the restaurants and uh that was a lot of work on their part and the uh Anora school uh band showed up so that was nice too. But yeah, the uh
056the student athletes, I mean um my kids have, you know, of course gone and graduated a long time ago, but I can appreciate all the hard work that goes into athletics. It's uh No matter what the sport is, it can be a, you know, a six-year journey and then they graduate, you know, so hopefully they'll uh continue with those sport events, you know, as they uh after high school. >> I just want to call on any of the trustees who attended the um Bosey's annual meeting and that outstanding event that I was unable to attend. It's one of my favorite events of the year, but I couldn't do it this year. Anybody want to talk a little bit about that? >> So, the Boseies uh annual meeting was to there was some business to nominate
057trustees for the Boseies board. Um but the main part uh was um the kids who are in the culinary program over there put together uh a really wonderful um meal for all the guests. um a whole bunch of, you know, different items. Maybe not up to meet need standards, but it was it was pretty amazing. Pretty darn good. And um and also uh before we ate um a lot of the kids who are in these um various um programs at Boseies from criminal justice, auto repair, they have a whole bunch of and a lot of the kids there who talked about how getting into those programs and being part of that program really um put them on a good educational trae trajectory for them. You know, what we're really trying to do is match kids
058up with the best educational environment for them and for the kids who really need to be at Boseies. It's really great for them and they they were so grateful that it's there. Um, so it was really fantastic to see these young people talking passionately about the passions that they had discovered at Boseies. And I'm probably leaving something out. So, anybody else? >> You did a great job. I just adding to what you said, I also loved um hearing from the students that were in the Boseis programs that were I don't know how you would name them, but not the trade focus, but coming from some of the special special schools, there was like a middle schooler that spoke about how hard it was when he first got to school and how much his teachers meant
059to him and the fact that he was even standing up there and saying thing, you know, was such a big journey. And then there was some older kids that were also from those special programs that got up and made a speech. It literally brought tears to my eyes. Were so lucky to be able to offer that to our kids, too. Unbelievable. Their growth amazing. I was really proud of them. Um, this is just a very quick one, but uh, we talk about um, how music is so important to our district. And so I've been thinking that we don't have quite enough music at our board meetings. So I'm going to do a little song and if anybody knows it, please join. It's going to be very quick. Goes like this. >> Happy birthday to you.
060Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Cindy. >> Happy birthday to you. >> Yay. >> Today is our board president's birthday. In case you didn't >> At least you didn't do the are you one, are you two? All right, moving on. Item 10.01 is acknowledging our public beheard comments from our last meeting. Um, the following folks spoke and we were grateful to hear from them. Jude Kerjian Frank, uh, Jeff Bailey, Emily Saxs, Alec Mecc Mecclj, and Rob Harris. So, I will read the statement that we always read before public be heard. Public and student comments. Uh public and students may comment on any agenda or non-aggenda item. The board appreciates hearing from the public, including students, on any agenda item. Please understand that uh by our adopted parliamentary procedure, the board can engage in discussion
061or answer questions during public be heard. Please know that we hear you and take all of your comments into consideration. The board does reserve the right to correct any inaccuracies or misinformation during public be heard. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Be civil and do not name any particular individuals or promote any commercial ventures or products. People wishing to express express individual student or personnel concerns can bring them to the superintendent's attention in private. Further, all individuals in at board meetings are expected to abide by the rules for public conduct on school property as set forth in the district's code of conduct. At board meetings, speakers and observers may not engage in behavior that disrupts the meeting, such as shouting, interrupting others, blocking the free movement of others, or obstructing the view of others.
062In the event of such disruption, the board president will remind those in attendance of the rules under this policy. Any board member may request a brief recess in the meeting, which would serve as a cooling down period. The board president may order the removal of those who are a threat to safety of th of others or who disrupt the orderly conduct of the meeting. We understand community members are passionate about certain issues. We all want our schoolboard meetings to serve as an example to our students that uh that members of our school board and members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and show mutual respect for one another. In that spirit, we ask that all speakers and members of the audience maintain civility and respect for the differing views
063of others. And tonight we have Trevor Fine. Oh, okay. That was about AI challenges. So maybe he'll come back again. Uh Jude, and when you get to the uh when you get to the mic, just introduce yourself again, please. Hello. Uh, my name is Jude Kurjan Frank. I'm the mom of three children, two in Bennett Elementary, and I'm also a resident of West Hurley. This is my second time standing up here to ask the board to adopt the URR resolution protecting our immigrant children and families and ensuring safer schools. Last week was incredibly upsetting. On Tuesday, I received an email from the from the board in response to my previous email and public statement. My interpretation of that was that the board feels it is already doing all it can with the current resolution. And
064while the topic will be added to unfinished business, resolutions will not be added at this time to specifically address immigrant families so that they will not be quote unduly targeted. With all due respect, these families are already unduly targeted. The point of the resolution is to protect them from the actual real threats that they are facing, just as Kingston has done, just as Socrates has done. On Wednesday, I learned that there was a raid targeting a group of painters in Tannersville. The agents involved carried rifles and conducted this raid in front of children on a school bus. At the last board meeting, one of our bus drivers shared with you that he has asked everyone he could to help for help to figure out what he should do in the event that ICE conducts a
065raid while he is tasked with caring for and protecting the children on his bus. He has received no training and no one in the chain of command could tell him what he is supposed to do. I ask myself, how would having specific trainings and policies in place put immigrant children at more risk? How would providing more communications to families and posting and sharing know your rights target immigrant children more than the agents with rifles would? As I look at each section of the URR resolution, I don't understand how any of them could cause more harm. I don't understand how the board seems to be more concerned about perceived threats than the actual ones. Our immigrant children and families are already scared. Adopting the UR resolution will communicate to them that the the Aiora school board
066will do everything they can to protect them. It will say publicly to those who wish them harmed that the school board is united with the districts around us and stands in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors. We need you to have courage and we need you to act now. Thank you. Thank you, Jude. Uh, Harry Canard. Thank you. Sorry. My name's Harry Kunhart. >> Harry, if it's Yeah, I was gonna say just pick it up over the whole time. Uh, my name is Harry Kunhart. I'm a resident of West Shokan. I've lived in the district for about 12 years. I'm also a father. Uh my son will be entering uh kindergarten at Bennett in 2027. Uh the proposed resolution to protect im immigrant students and families should be taken up by the board and passed immediately.
067The February 25 resolution is insufficient and so general as to honestly lack any real content. The community needs a serious commitment from the school board to place the safety of students above political considerations. That means implementing real policies, procedures, trainings before there's a conf confrontation with ICE uh in Woodstock and Boyceville along bus routes. Uh ICE is in our communities already um and we need to be prepared. I know that a resolution is a matter of words, not deeds. But words have real power. The immigrant families in our community are living in fear and we have the chance to stand with them and to stand up for a truly free public education or we can shrink from that challenge. I'm urging you to be brave enough to make the right choice and adopt the resolution.
068Thank you. Thank you, Harry. Emily Saxs. >> Hello again. I'm Emily Saxs. I spoke in front of you uh last meeting as well. Um again regarding the UR resolution, I'm also a mother of two in the area, one right here at Woodsuck Elementary and another who will be entering uh kindergarten at Bennett. Um I echo what my um my uh colleagues here have said. Um I received your response to our statements last time and and I'm I'm just genuinely confused. I feel that I feel very in the dark about Antura's readiness for potential ICE activity. I feel that we've been receiving messages that there there is protection activity and protocols behind the scenes, but there is a lack of communication with the public about what those might be and how that they might be sufficient.
069Um, part of your email in response to us uh last time said that Antiora is one of only two districts outside the NYC metro area that has a safe dozone designation. Once hearing that, which was news to me, I compared the 2025 resolution to the NEA suggested or sample resolution to see if we are in step with that guidance as well as comparing it to the EUR resolution. And I found so many specific and actionable items missing from the 2025 resolution. And so I'm asking you to address our questions in terms of some of those specific items like staff training on response protocols, including denying access on buses, notifying parents of interactions with with ICE, of student interactions with ICE, documentation of ICE presence, rapid response protocols for students in the event that they are
070suddenly deprived of adult care, protecting student data beyond just what's collected at registration, as is suggested by these different standards um and other data disclosure safeguards looking into any any possible legal protections beyond furer review which are all in that suggested guidance. So again, your email stated that the board is committed to ensuring that the administration has done the necessary preparation and has the procedures in place to protect our students and our staff. I am ready to take you at your word and that is why I'm pressing for specifics in your communication to the public about what is being done. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Would anyone else like to speak? Please introduce yourself and tell us where you live. >> Sure. My name is Kasha Donghue. I live in and I work as a
071tenants rights attorney representing some of the most poor people in Olter County. I am also a friend and an ally to some of the most vulnerable students in your school district. First, I want to thank you for your service as school board members. I know that this is time consuming and difficult work and a position you've only taken on due to your commitment to bettering the lives of students in the school district and that includes keeping them safe. You as a school board say you have a commitment to protecting our children, but yet you won't expand your outdated resolution and you haven't acted urgently. We do not have the luxury of time. We are living in unprecedented times where immigration agents are innocent people without regard for the law or public safety. I am fearful
072for our children. their immigration status and the trauma that the presence of immigration agents in our schools would bring. I am terrified of the prospect of children being detained and facing deportation. There are lawful ways that as a school district I'm calling on you to follow Kingston and leads and adopt the proposed resolution that confirms your policies and procedures your district's commitment to protecting immigrant student and families. And to be clear, the residents of Antior are asking for this. Over 100 people in Antior alone have signed a pledge committing to supporting this request. I strongly urge the board to act quickly to adopt this resolution and affirm your district's commitment to taking action that supports that all students can attend school safely. Again, the time to do this is now quickly counting on us and
073they are counting on you. >> Thank you, Kasha. Would anyone else like to speak? Thank you. Right, we are going to take a brief break. We'll be back in 10 minutes for sure. You want to set the timer? Okay. Thanks, All right, we're back from break. We're on to um item 13.01, discussion and pos possible action. The Entoura Central School District Board of Education hereby approves the 2026 2027 Olster County Board of Cooperative Education Services Administrative Budget in the amount of 7 million428,827. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second, Trusty Smith. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you. Item 13.02, the Ontario Board of Education hereby cast their ballot for the Olter County Board of Cooperative Services. Uh, seat one is a soy seat, a three-year term limit, July
0741st, 2026 through June June 30th, 2029. and the candidate is Christa Behringer from Soerties. Uh, seat 2 is an atlarge seat. It's a three-year term limit July 1, 2026 through June June 30, 2029. Uh, seat three is an atlarge seat uh with a three-year term limit of July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029. And seat four is also an atlarge seat and uh it is a three-year term July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029. Um the three uh folks that are running for those three at large seats are Don Donald Green from Walill uh for the Walill school district from Newberg, New York. uh Maria Kaplan from Ellen uh for Ellenville from Ellenville, New York and Suzanne Jordan uh for Kingston, New York and she's from Kingston, New York. May I have a first Trusty
075Kudson second? Trustee Jerome. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 14.01. The board hereby approves items number 14.02 through 14.10. Um, may I have a first? Trusty Smith. Second. Trusty Jared. Any questions or comments? Trusty Jared. >> It's just amazing to me the donations that come in for our graduating seniors every year. Thank you to the community. Every meeting I'm like, "Oh my gosh, more." I know they really appreciate it. It's beautiful. >> And we uh I I was assigned to uh review the schedule u this meeting and I did and everything appears to be in order. I also want to uh thank the great number of um volunteers who are being approved on tonight's consent agenda, too, that work in our school buildings. as volunteers. Any any other questions
076or comments? All right. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. On to 15.01 contracts and independent contract retainers. Uh the board of education will approve all contracts and independent contract retainers um that are covered in items 15.02 through 15.08. May I have a first? Trusty Jared second. Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? This is this portion of the meeting we usually have nobody here anymore and tonight we have some people. So I just thought I I always would like to explain to unpack what you see if anybody's watching at home. Um it it seems like we're just saying yes yes yes without reviewing these things. But you should know that we get this agenda and all the contracts that we are approving days in advance and we all study them over the weekend. So, please
077rest assured that your trustees have gone through the individual items in this section and uh and it's it's not that uh it's not that we haven't looked at them. Just wanted to say that. >> Thanks. That's that's actually important. Trusty Goodrich. >> And uh in addition to Thank you, Trusty Kson for saying that. And in addition to that, some of us uh do request for some additional information uh usually by email or sometimes in person, you know, so we we do take this stuff seriously. >> Thank you. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. On to item 16.01. We're in policies. So, um, tonight we have the first reading of policy 5520, ECA, student activities fund management. And, uh, just for um the members of the public that are here, we put the uh, policies
078on the board agenda for a first reading. It just means that the policy committee has reviewed the policy. the um the board has an opportunity to read through it uh ask any questions about the policy and then at the next meeting we uh we always put it on one agenda and then approve or or revise at the next meeting. Um item 16.02 uh is a first reading of policy 5685 automated external defibrillators. Item 16.03 03 is a second reading and adoption of policy 1611 procedure for the annual district election. So the Ontario board of education hereby adopts policy 1611 as written. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Jared. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 16.04, second reading and adoption of policy 7621, rights of students with
079disabilities under section 504. The onor board of education hereby adopts policy 7621 as written. May I have a first? Trusty Smith, second trustee Jared. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Thank you. That's unanimous. Item 16.05, second reading and adoption of policy 8130, non-discrimination and equal opportunity. The Ontario Board of Education hereby adopts policy 83 8130 as written. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 16.06, policies reviewed are and are okay. The board of education hereby accepts policy public complaints as written. Uh, may I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Smith. Any questions or com? What's sorry Trusty Jared? Trust Sorry, Trusty Jerome and Trusty Jared. Um, any questions or comments? Okay. Uh, all in favor? That's unanimous. Thank
080you. Item 16.07 is uh to resend policy 5540, publication of the district's annual financial statement. Policy 5550, maintenance of fiscal efforts, title one programs, and policy 5560, use of federal funds or uh for or political expenditures. The board of education hereby resends policies 5540, 5550, and 5560, policies that are considered non-essential per New York State School Boards Association. May I have a first? Trusty Goodrich. Second, Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? >> And on the educational note, uh, school districts have a lot of policies. If you looked at our you stack up our policy book, it's it's going to be very very thick. And so um it rescending policies that are considered non-essential. NISBA is the the advisory board to all the school boards in the state and they they really keep on top of
081the law and advise school boards like ours. And so rescending policies and making the policy book somewhat approachable is as important I think as and keeping other policies up to date. If we really don't need them, they shouldn't be in there and that's why we're doing this. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. All right. On to committee reports. Did any committees meet in the past two weeks? I don't think we did. Okay. On to unfinished business. Um the board will discuss unfinished business which includes the discussion of the student support resolution. >> Um just this evening we got a lot of feedback around the email that was sent out and how that didn't really land how there were a lot of questions around it. Um, and one
082thing that really resonated I think was Emily maybe um, mentioned it like explaining what I know we have protocols because I'm in discussions not only with the public but I'm in discussions with my board um, and I know and the administration. Sorry guys. Um, and I was hoping that somebody maybe better equipped than me, maybe Eric as to to take us through like some of these scenarios of protocols or maybe that's Victoria, I don't know. Um, of what happens. Um, I there was uh I wasn't at the last meeting unfortunately, but Jeff Bailey um talked about not knowing what to do if something happened on the bus. And my understanding is that there are protocols and there are protocols if a family is in distress whether it's an the loss of a parent the o
083by oding or abduction or whatever that there's definitely protocols in place. So I think it might be helpful to share some of those with our public. So um I don't know that's not me though. >> Certainly. So, we do have protocols and they have been shared out with all of our um faculty, staff, and contractors a couple of times over the past couple of years, but just based on um this call for more information, uh I am going to happily share them out again this week. Um, and they have to do with things like if ICE shows up, our faculty and staff and anyone who would answer the door has been explicitly told, do not let them in. Ask for their documentation. Immediately call the principal who will immediately call my office. Any documentation they
084have will be um taken. I will look at it. I will send it immediately to our attorneys. they do not enter the building unless they are legally allowed to enter the building or a vehicle. Um, and that was shared very um, deliberately and very clearly multiple times, but as I said, I am happy to share it again. In terms of families who may have a crisis or an emergency, we obviously have emergency um, contacts for every student. We also have a staff who does wrap around if there is a crisis or an emergency for a family for a student. We know our families and our students and we have people who have specific roles who will support that student and that family in a crisis regardless of the crisis. But as I said, I will
085share those protocols out again because reminding people is never a bad thing. to keep it top of mind. I know we had discussed that and I think that definitely if we're being repetitive great let's be repetitive but that is something that we can do is share them regularly right now right because it is a this is a moment >> um and we all know that um so thank you for that and I also um the the emergency protocols again they're for every student this wraparound procedure happens for um uh and okay thank um in asking a lot of questions to our attorney who is so generous in answering all of our many questions and looking at our current resolution and the resolutions from other districts and shared with us. I did I I did have
086a concern about including and addressing anything other than our students because it is my understanding that there's really nothing within our legal power. It's not in our wheelhouse as a public school district to interface with anybody other, you know, than our students. And it just made me feel that possibly using language that might imply we could might perhaps lead to a situation of of leading to a misunderstanding with adults. that we were able to create some kind of safe space that I don't see legally we actually can do in all situations in in many situations. So, I just wanted to say, you know, sometimes it's it feels like in this moment that possibly in wanting to extend a a feeling of safety beyond a student that we that we could perhaps create the opposite effect
087in creating a false sense of security for adults. And I that's a concern that that came up for me in reading this in terms of what we can legally do and what you know the the the languages you know that some would wish us to do. I would hate to yeah outcome like that >> just so I understand you. So you're saying that that um if we go beyond our purview legally then then the a parent um of any child but in the case of the group that's here tonight an immigrant might feel that we could do something that we really can't and that might put their that they should really know the the truth of what we're able to do. And I I do think that that has been our approach. you know, we
088really want to be very transparent actually, which is why we're trying to, you know, be a little bit more specific. Um, but that's what you mean. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And I really I I everybody here tonight, I share your passion for for protect protecting to the maximum extent that we can um all of our students. Um When I read the K the the UR the full URR resolution and the one that was adopted by Kingston um it did create concerns for me um um and frankly for our lawyers too um uh because um there's I don't want to talk at length about this but there's um you know public areas and private areas in schools and there's different rules. Um, and uh, some of the the UR resolution um, seems to me to
089be over broad. Um, and I will also just say just as a matter of how our board has generally worked in since we've been together is that um, it would be out of character for us to sort of um, rubber stamp um, texts that came from outside our board. We really like to try to think through issues and work through them ourselves. Um, and I know that's going to be disappointing to hear for some of the people tonight. Um, and I apologize for that, but we we are we really are trying to be thoughtful about um um not overstating um what we can do as a board, but we want to do the most we can do. Um but I do take the point um from many of the speakers tonight that maybe um there
090are existing procedures that we have and policies that we have that haven't been communicated as clearly because I know there is a lot of anxiety in the community about this and reasonably so. Um, and so I would like to see us work toward um I don't know whether this form of communication is an actual amendment to our first resolution. Maybe in certain areas it could be um or just um you know a communications outreach, but that we as a board and also in our oversight um um capacity um really um request from the administration um that they really share with us um you know like um Superintendent McLaren, if you know uh if you're um whatever you're sending out to everybody to reiterate the policies. I'd love you to copy the board and I just
091loop us in so that we can feel confident and communicate to the public that um we're doing as we're doing everything we can. Um um so um I would like to see us move forward. I I I I I do think we need to do something more than we did in January of 2025, at least in terms of um explaining or unpacking. I think the the 20 the 2025 resolution is it's it's very limited language in a way and it you know it's almost legalistic in a sense and I think we can just sort of fill in the blanks about what what we're trying to do by saying you know we're going to ask for a warrant, we're going to call our lawyers, we're going to stop them at the door. everything that we're going
092to do um uh within the bounds of the law. Um and but as a board, we can't responsibly put our staff at, you know, ask them to do things that are beyond the bounds of the law. Um and that's really what we're strug That's what we're we're considering. So, I just wanted to say that >> I just wanted to add to that again because we're in this every day, you know, um talk and and communicating as a board. We don't mess around when it is within the bounds of the law. like we will absolutely do everything that Victoria laid out um in terms of by abiding the protocol within our schools we won't hesitate where we hesitate is going beyond what our lawyers say is legal is legal and I agree with you Rick again
093trying to get more specificity being specificity being more communicative like these are places where we can improve certainly um but we don't yeah we don't rubber stamp. It's it's and it's not easy um necessarily. So I just want to add um I agree with everything that was just said here and it's important. Uh we do defend the law to the full extent. And just to remind everybody, we are not in the business of creating new laws here. We can't do that. We can make sure the laws that are on the books are abided by. And that's our most important issue. And I would encourage everyone uh to contact your congressmen, US senators, the governors, and tell them what your concerns are in addition to the board here. We take this stuff serious. And I would
094encourage you to go outside the board and do what you can there as well because again, we can't make new laws here, but we can make that the laws that are already written are we're going to abide by them. Make sure that the local and non-local law enforcement doesn't go beyond the law. And I just want to also say the phrase constitutional rights, right? Because that's also it's really about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody, you know, um on our on our in our buildings, um on our buses, um every place we can. um assert their constitutional rights um because that's not just the law. That's that's you know um making sure that um law enforcement and obeys the constitution and I can understand why there is concern that certain um law enforcement may not
095do that. Um I really do. But um and so uh the other part that I take to heart from the the Kingston resolution is that we need to make sure and we as a board need to make sure that the point people in our district understand what th what those constitutional rights are and can recognize a valid warrant all those things. So, we as a board are going to be um requesting information um about that and um so it's not just it's not just obeying the law, but it's also knowing your rights, right? That's that's what this is about. I'd al also like just to say that um when you know when this board and and former boards for that matter uh draft a resolution, we never um vote on a resolution without having it
096examined by our attorneys because, you know, we we have attorneys to assure us and the entire community that what we're doing is legal and and you know, if we're making a promise, it's a promise that we can keep. Um, you know, we're really uncomfortable um giving anybody a false sense of security. That I think that is at least that's my biggest concern. I don't want to give anybody a false sense of security that we are making a promise or we are making a policy or a procedure because a resolution is a big deal but it really is a position statement. It is it's it's really you know it's not really an assurance and it's not a guarantee. So, you know, that's where I struggle with um putting anything into our resolution that we really can't
097make happen uh legally. Um oh my gosh, there was something else. Caroline, you go and maybe it'll come back to me. >> Well, I was just going to say as a positioning statement, I think that Rick brings up an interesting point. I mean, I think we could position ourselves carefully and within the bounds of the law perhaps if we go back and look at that language in a way. Where can we fill in the blanks? Where can we where can we within the bounds of the law, you know, make it very clear that yes, um, your rights, your us to protect those rights, you to know them, protecting every student. I mean, this is public education. That is why we do this. as volunteers because it's it's the protection of those of those rights. And
098so perhaps there's room for that. I I hope there is as we like we won't let this obviously this is too big an issue to just you know pass over. Um but we really want to explore it. >> I just wanted to make one point of correction. Um, Trusty Kudson, I I actually don't want our staff to know how to identify an appropriate legal warrant. I want them to take it and send it to me so that I can send it to the attorney. They are not and should not ever consider trying to determine that. >> Yeah, I misspoke. That it will get to the point person. >> Yes. >> Whoever that point person is. Right. >> Thank you. >> And and it's it's reasonable, especially a district our size to have that be, you
099know, one point person. I I think it's also important to note that um something that uh Trustee Jared brought up when we discussed this, you know, closer to the end of our last meeting, um we do have a district safety plan and every so we have a full district-wide safety plan and then we have individual school safety plans. They are strictly confidential. Um you know, they're made with a confidential team. um they get sent to uh state ed every year. You know, police uh are involved in planning those local police are involved in making those plans. Um very very specific that address like every issue that we can imagine, you know, every scenario that we can imagine. So, you know, again, we have a lot in place, but we can't make it public. um you
100know that's it's illegal for us to make that stuff public but um I also feel that you know some of the procedures that we have in place and our staff do know what to do uh in in the event of any kind of an emergency but this this is a very specific type of emergency. Um, and the superintendent has sent when we when we passed the resolution in 25, a a specific email went out to all staff and faculty, you know, explaining exactly what the procedure would be. Yeah. And it'll go out again. Um, the other thing I just wanted to mention was I I reached out um I've been I've been in close contact with um some folks that are involved with URR. Um uh I did reach out this week to the executive
101director of um Alzer Immigrants Defense Network uh to find out what additional suggestions he might have in terms of training or informing our staff in a better way or an additional way. Um I'm waiting to hear back from him on a meeting um hopeful uh for something early next week. So, you know, we're not we're not ignoring you. We're not ignoring you. We're just we're we're following this process like we follow all of our processes and we're we're doing it to the letter of the law because it's a public school district, taxpayer funded and uh that that's just how we operate. Anybody else? All right. More unfinished business. our discussion of a new direction for students in an AI world. So, we were starting on page 88 with risk four and going through the end
102of the risk section at 118. Um, but you know, we can just talk about whatever stood out to us. Um, yes. So somehow I went down this rabbit hole and I found these two presidential executive orders on AI and I found them very interesting. I read them a number of times and one was uh one president order 14179 removing barriers to American leadership in artificial intelligence. And I can read the whole thing, but that's pretty much what it's all about. It's about, you know, making sure we don't have anything get in the way of making AI as powerful as it could ever be. Compete against other governments. And then there's another executive order 14110. You can look these up. Safe, secure, trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence. So, I like those words, safe, secure,
103and trustworthy. You know, it's kind of important, you know. Uh, a couple of the other things that I words that I took out of this that were kind of useful was um, you know, productive, in innovative, and secure, but at the same time, we don't want to be irresponsible. Um we don't want to have social harms. We don't have fraud, no discrimination or bias or disinformation. Uh disempower workers, stifle competition, and we don't want to, you know, pose risks to national security. So, in reading that second pro uh executive order, I thought, well, that's something that maybe we should consider as we read through some of this for one of our resolutions or policies on AI. We could have our own, you know, goal for AI on what we want for our school, you know,
104um, and it doesn't have to be a long thing, but it can be an objective, you know. Um, we want to have kindness and empathy or because we want to make sure these these AI tools um, instill the you know, the the human side of whatever we want in this in you know, what we're doing here because we don't want it to go down the dark side. >> I haven't read those presidential are they resolutions? Is that what you call it? >> It's an executive order which is a little bit actually like a schoolboard resolution. >> Yeah. Right. >> And that it is not a law and it doesn't really Yeah. So, >> but my point was going to be that I noticed in the reading that uh you know other countries and other government
105governments have protection regulations yes >> on uh on the use of AI you know and you know this is more specific to AI in you in use in schools but the United States does not which I thought was really interesting. Again, there's no federal regulation in the United States um that will constrain anything really. And when you when I hear an executive order that we're going to take un unchain AI in in the uh you know that that tells me basically like you know safety protocols would be a feder to these very powerful tech companies and they probably are being having the the the wheels greased for them to not have to put in safety. So I wouldn't I'm not encouraged by those those um executive orders unfortunately. Um yeah, the in terms of regulation
106the the report says that Europe is is ahead of us. They have some privacy um restrictions that are more robust than what the US has. And what so since the federal government is doing nothing in the US, it's fallen to states and they listed about five states including Florida, Montana, I forget the other three and California has some pretty good AI regulations apparently. Noticeably absent from the list is New York. Um so um this is something now I I can say that the um the legislative relations uh what's what's the name of our committee? Legislative Leah's action committee chewed chewed our representatives ears off about AI when we were last up in Albany and I don't think it'll be the last time but New York really as as the state that we are um you
107know thinking about safety in many ways um we shouldn't be behind Montana in terms of what we do um to protect our kids from um so this first section is really about data collection. It's about privacy for students. And um again, as in the first section, I think it's really something that parents first need to know about because I do have faith that or I have hope um that if AI systems are integrated into the um educational system in New York that they make distinctions sort of safer models that train on very uh constricted data sets. Um and they're safer for kids because they're not um large language models are collecting data voraciously from everybody all the time, right? Um but um any of our students that at home are using any kind of large
108language model or specifically the section that really stood out to me was these companion or um social bots that that romantic they they call it. I think we know that's a that that seems to be a bit of a euphemism but um um that that there was a staggering statistic that that companion bot um was scraping data like something like 24,000 data scrapes per minute of a user. And so what that creates is this digital profile that can follow you that can follow you through your life. And there's a concern that kids who talk to these things about their emotional problems may be tagged as someone with emotional problems into their adult life into employment. Um, so we're really in uncharted territory because these large language models, they they train themselves by absorbing all the
109digital data. So the more you give them the your digital data, the more you're giving up your identity. And um, so it's a real safety concern for all kids, our kids too. I'll stop talking now. Let somebody else talk. I just thought it was informative for us to on page 94 and 95 there's a lot of discussion about education law and protecting children of different ages and um you know I note as you know that they are trying to highlight that this age of 13 to 17 is a particularly challenging age because there's certain like copa which regulates digital platform data collection under 13, but there's a gap between 13 and adulthood. You know, something that and in you know, later on there's discussion of different things affecting younger kids more than older kids. You
110know, I think that there's there's information here in terms of the risks for different age groups that I think that we can pull out as are thinking as a district about what feels good to us in terms of like how this serves our kids education and if the juice is worth the squeeze. Um but there's also you know in what you were speaking about Trusty Kudson was also what jumped out at me which is that you know these are big companies you know which you also mentioned in the last meeting with big ambitions and we are in essence trusting that you know technology big tech you know is going do without any state regulation or national regulation or education regulation not you know find ways to collect data and for me I had to like
111put it down because I kept writing like but what are but what is that what does it mean what would they collect and I was like well let's just sit and think about this you know these our children to them are a commodity so just like all of us shop for something on Safari and then you go to see the picture of your niece on Facebook and you're getting ads for that same pair of shoes. That is exactly what they're doing with our children except weirder. They're shopping AI like personalities to them. So, you know, kids are already like, "Oh, I like Claude. Don't use this." Or, "Grock is this." They're like they're looking for a lifetime buyin to their AI platform because if they get to your kid when they're really young because they've
112got a super fun thing, then that's the that's the one. You're a Mac generation. Like we were all Mac generations because Apple, it wasn't that they were nice that they gave a Mac laptops to all the college campuses so we could sit there on Macs. It's that everybody who is in my age bracket all is on Mac and now our kids are all on Microsoft because it wasn't out of the goodness of their heart that they give them all Chromebooks. And I think we need to have a really big dose of skepticism when it comes to allowing this to you know present itself as altruism because like it's not altruistic. It is not. They are trying to find ways to make the case for like all the shiny pretty things, but we as parents and
113guardians of these kids, we have to be like, "Show me the money." Like, "Show me where this ends here." And the last thing I want to say is like yes AI for education could all happen but all of our kids have a web browser right now which has AI literally like built into it you know and John Rhyr is having to literally code out every time they try and push in AI like has anybody else noticed now you type anything into Google you don't get to see search results you get to see what Google whatever AI wants you to say dive deeper with AI How? And these are kids. They're not going to read below that. They're just going to go, "Yes, AI. Tell me more." Like, it's not appropriate that we have a person
114who has to be the man trying to keep this out of a web browser for a a small child, you know? So, this is just me saying I really I think when we talk about data and safety, we're also talking about like co-opting our kids for profit. Unfortunately, we don't have a tech support person like the school does for for ourselves in our in in each house, right? Because the AI is built into the games as well. It's built into everything. So, I just want to read what's on page 96. the rapid scaling of AI technology not optimized for children, few limits on technology companies and confusing government regulatory enforcement environment. So really the fact we don't have any uh regulation we don't have any regulation for kids. So think about that. So just before
115we leave this this 13 to 17 um age bracket, I do really want to highlight that I just want to read three quick sentences that I highlighted that that points to why this particular age cohort is at is at greater risk. First one is that student data is uniquely valuable because students form foundational habits during critical developmental periods. MAC generation, right? And then vulnerabilities combined with unsupervised home use enable extensive harvesting with less resistance than from other populations. Why? Because they're still kids, right? They're not they're not grown adults. And then the last thing um um so if you're you if your kid is using chat GBT or other open AAI tools their prompts uploads and outputs can can contain student identifiable information. Yet it remains unclear whether these interactions constitute oh I'm reading the
116wrong thing. Uh well this is interesting too. Uh constitute education records under furpa. So there is a fura aspect to this too. um when they occur on thirdparty platforms. I kind of doubt that it does the way current law is written, but I don't know if it's not directly maintained by educational institutions. Like how can our district control what goes into a a large um AI model outside of school? They can't. Um but what I meant to read was um there's a significant regulatory gap for teenagers aged 13 to 17 who are prime AI users. So they they are the this is an age that is really using it a lot yet they're treated as adults capable of providing their own consent without parent involvement because copa only protects 13 under 13 right and once
117you're 18 you're an adult but if you're 13 14 15 16 or 17 in terms of the tech companies you are a legal adult but we all know that a 13 14 year old to ask them to to assume assume that they can make adult choices about what they're going what information they're going to give to a large language model is unreasonable. Now, can we saw this as the Ontario Central School District School Board? No. But I do I I just want our uh our parents to understand what's what uh what what we're facing. Uh said this a lot at the last meeting, too. It's I really view this as just an educational community education outreach and I wish the gentleman who wanted to speak on on AI and publicly heard had stayed because I
118really am curious what he was going to say. Um I was just going to say that um I did reading I don't know if I read the right section but um I started getting very curious for student feedback and for teacher feedback because we're reading a research paper which is great and it's educating us and it's it's but it really wanted me to you know I'll go home and have a conversation with my daughter. But just as a board, again coming back to that idea of community conversations so that the children can share their experiences, how they're using it, how they're not using it. It may allay our fears, it may compound our fears. I don't really know. But it seemed it seemed weird that like I'm just reading about them without asking them. I
119think the timeliness of the AI circle group and their surveys is spot on and I'm excited and fascinated to have them go out and get the results and that will again that will go to our students, it will go to our faculty and staff and it will go to our families. So there will be three separate surveys that we can get get a lot of information from. and Trusty Drum, I just wanted to refer you to page 107 for example. Um 104 also has this peppered throughout this study are quotes from the study participants, teachers and kids. Um the the the the fifth risk is about you know you you start using this tool and it just it's like a feedback loop of convenience and you become too dependent on it. It's the There's they
120they identify three levels of dependence like using I AI for everything using it kind of often but trying to control how much you use it and then truly trying to avoid using it. Um but like so here's a quote from a student. I'll just pick out one. I think I have become very dependent. It has become very tedious to read a book again to re research something on the internet to write a document as I used to do before to spend hours there doing work is very tedious now it's easier more relaxed for example last term I had a paper while all my colleagues were researching until the we hours of the morning I said I'm going to sleep I got up the next morning asked AI to do it and received an A but
121not by reading but sorry but by not reading I think I'm falling a little behind and that's why I want to go back to reading things the way I used to without relying too much on artificial intelligence because I think it's caused quite a bit of harm. And that's from a student. And and and one of the points that came up last week, I'll just say, was that the population they they they surveyed experts, they surveyed teachers, and they surveyed students. And the the group that had the highest level of worry that it was affecting their critical thinking skills was not that it wasn't the teachers, and it wasn't the experts, it was the students. So the students are aware of this. I appreciate that. And the I've noticed the quotes. I think that I'm
122always aware that when you're putting together something like this, you're framing the content. So, it's not that I don't believe them and I'm not getting value with it. I just want to hear from our own students what their what their experience is. and and because there is this um you know I've I found some of the the definitions earlier um in the paper um on cognitive development as the growth and maturation of thinking processes of all kinds including perceiving remembering concept formation problem solving imagining and reasoning of course that just lit me up because again I think about our sports I think about our music I think about our arts these are things that I've said over and over, AI cannot do those things. You can't you can't wrestle. Well, I mean, but you can
123you can't really wrestle the way that I'm talking about wrestling with AI. And I think that what I appreciate with all of those disciplines is the problem solving. When you do a play, when you're thinking of your next play, when you're using the leverage of your arm against somebody's neck, when you're running down the field, gauging where the ball is going to hit your hand, when you're translating music on a page, those are all problem solving, imagining, reasons, concept, remembering, perceiving, like all of these things. And that's why I just keep on you know knowing that technology will be a part of our lives and will be a part of our educational system but also always keeping this human first part because those are the things that the other things there's dropping off and other
124things the the writing I have some other quotes where it talks about because children aren't writing they're not remembering and they're even not knowing really how to write anymore right um so um these other activities I think is really important for the formation of their um brain elasticity. And I found the one student quote um kind of fascinating where they wrote, "If I have a lot of work piling up and if I have an assignment that I don't see the value in, I'll just use it." And I I thought that was really fascinating from the student perspective, from the teacher perspective. You know, if there's students that are um unhappy because they have work that they don't understand why they're being assigned and they see it as busy work and maybe they would offload it
125to AI. But I also wonder if that is kind of a skill that's going to translate into adulthood into a job where there will be portions of your job that do make sense to maybe run through AI so that you can focus your intellectual capacity on something that is more um more requiring of it. I don't I don't know. I was sort of struggling with that as a as a theory, you know, if but I thought it was really interesting that that was how this particular student was determining what to use AI for and what not to. Um I I um have come into contact um with different um startups using AI and I spoke to one woman it was interesting generally in an in an enterprise in a business situation now you're seeing that
126the upper management really wants everybody to use AI they're use it use it use it and the people who are at the worker level the real the middle in the middle of the organization are like I'm working so hard already. I have no time to figure out how to incorporate this into my workflow. But this particular woman, you could call her a coach or a consultant, goes in and she sits down with that that workerbe, that person who's doing everything and she says, "What's the thing that you really don't like to do?" Because they obviously like to work and they're doing a ton of work and she helps them solve that. This is sort of speaking to your point like there are very effective ways to use it that free you up. could potentially free
127our teachers up to have a more like interactive, you know, group assignment or do something else because she doesn't have to worry about or he doesn't have to worry about um doing a task that's very time consuming and repetitive and that would be um well handled by AI. But I do think that there are places where you know what's that thing where it is I think it's what I'm trying to talk through but I'm going to get to right now. know it's like determining where it there is a very good use for it and using it for that but not getting lazy about it and letting it do everything for you because people will get lazy about it and then they all of a sudden they can't write an email because they haven't run it
128through their their uh their um tool. I just want to quickly respond to um the quote when you said about you know the students said well this there's no value to this assignment right and that made me think of what super assistant superintendent Laughen was talking about last week and it's also in if you look at the box on page 109 the addressing students AI dependence um really what's key here I think and and I really like these the way they talk about how to potentially mitigate these issues is that it's communication right between the student and the teacher. Right? Ideally, if a student gets an assignment they think has like ideally our teachers aren't assigning giving assignments that have no purpose or no no right. It's just maybe that the student can't understand what
129the purpose is. Right? So ideally that student would then go go to their teacher and say I don't understand what what is what what is this for? And the teacher could communicate that. But um this box on page 13 really talks about just the way to avoid falling into the trap is to talk about the trap and talk about um you know make sure there's awareness they talk about awareness agency abstinence and advisories um for A's um uh you know giving students agency um they they suggest possibly keeping encouraging students to keep a diary of how often am I using this and is it too much? Um, I wanted to make one quick comment on the abstinence portion because I read a very interesting article in the in the Washington Post this week and this
130goes back to anxious generation. Um, but you know what anxious generation was more about social media and what it has done to our brains and our emotional state since it's been around. And there was an article came out this week in the Washington Post said two weeks of abstinence from social media can erase 10 years of attention span and uh cognitive decline that if so if you've become tick- tocked into not being able to finish a book literally if you just put it like you know they they they had people put in this um app called freedom on their phone which prevents them from opening any social media apps. They were off it for two weeks and they got something like 80 or 90% of their their their attention spans lengthened back to like 90%
131of where they were, you know, before they had social media. So, we are a resilient species and there are solutions to this and and I believe a fellow trustee told me that they are aware of some some kids in our district who are aware of the term what was it? Uh was it digital? know it was um dopamine detox, right? Because that's what social media is. Every time you're scrolling, you're just getting little dopamine hits. It's like it's modeled on slot machines in Vegas. The same dopamine hit that you get when you pull the, you know, when you update your feed, you're basically pulling a slot machine. Um that's what your brain thinks you're doing. And and and it's the same thing. It's really the same thing. just retraining your brain back into more extended
132thoughtful ways of engaging with whatever you're engaging with. So, and I just wanted to say this is all very doom and gloom, the section that uh that we were reading, but um that was a bit of good news that really encouraged me this week. Yeah. So this is about the risks and the re and again to reiterate why we're doing this section rather than the benefits section which precedes this and I encourage everybody to read because again this study is not completely one-sided but that that the the benefit section was really more about ways that educators can um you know specific educational uses which I think is more in in it is in the educators realms not in the board's realms. um uh to to sort of figure that out. That's why we have the
133the the AI circle and um and there are some really there are some you know this is going to be around we cannot stop it from existing and there are really good uses for it but the whole point of this report is we need to um enter into our relationship with this technology really thoughtfully and and with awareness. what our superintendent reiterated uh that hit home for me and u you know it becomes aware of gee maybe I shouldn't use it and maybe I should take the the time to to do the exercise you know there's plenty of classes that I had no interest in you know I mean I'm an engineering student and I had to take sociology now the last thing I wanted to do was to to take sociology if I had
134AI Oh, I would have used it, you know. But should I have, you know, um I was very involved in math and science personally in high school and I hated English. But maybe maybe if an English teacher sat me down oneonone and said, you know, English is important and here's why. Maybe, maybe, probably not, but I doubt it. But, you know, it was worth a shot, right? And I highlighted the same page that you highlighted, and I'll read one of the sentences. Uh, teachers can build student awareness about AI over reliance through open discussions. At least we could teach him that. Maybe >> the last um like big idea that I think I just wanted to question out loud with all of you wonderful folks. I'm trying I don't know what box it was under,
135but it's on page 101. book kind of culminates on page 101 talking about safety and it it's sort of the end of a whole section about um misinformation, echochambering um distortion of information. And the sentence it kind of ends with is biased data sets cause AI to act as a distorted mirror amplifying dominant worldviews and reinforing reinforcing harmful biases. And for a second I just remembered being in fifth grade and having like a big social studies textbook on my desk and like with the pictures and the things and I was like, "Oh yeah, that's something the board of education does. It approves textbooks." I thought to myself, holy moly, like now our kids have this rabbit hole where it's like a fun house. It's like the information is almost warping and changing as popular narrative
136warps and changes and then what they're putting in is kind of influencing maybe what they're getting back. And if you ask Grock if United States is a great country, Grock will tell you United States is an amazing country. And if you ask, I forget which it was, Claude or Chappie GBT, it'll tell you the United States has a very tragic history of slavery. And you know, it's like I wonder how a board of education reconciles choosing textbooks which are supposed to in theory be chosen for like all children to share a base knowledge, which is so important right now. But yet like the thing that they use the most which is like a web browser and these AI programs are doing the exact opposite where a teacher like doesn't even know what the information a
137child could receive back on researching something could be completely filtered through what the web browser is that they have in their home computer. like how do we even and so what another just coming back to the age groups like it it led me to like later on in the next risk it it talks about how oh it's all about age page 105 that um age and experience can mitigate over reliance as older students may prefer to read through multiple sources and think critically about the information and to me like that's another sort of thing for us all to have like I think Jenny would be totally capable of taking in like Wikipedia and what Claude says and her textbook and the library, but I don't think that my sixth grader is ready to do that.
138I think that they would just be like tell me more AI and be like AI said. So I think maybe in our policy it's just something to keep in mind how often they talk about like different brain development ages being able to perceive it for what it is which is not like the truth. Yeah, I would just only point out that textbooks also can be problematic in terms of them being again I think these were calcified ear earlier but being outmoded or but what they did do is give people a base like a base to connect on whereas what you're describing is like every day it's different every student it's different so then that's like a very turbulent sea as opposed to like a cement see you know so so so what is you know
139that will be part of our challenge like how do you solve for that right because it's not a se it's not the textbooks like they used to be it's just not going to be and and that's so now you know again I go back to the it's human to human it's like building teams it's having cohorts of teachers working and having different people come in and having really tight community like that's how I think you have someort connection and foundation because I I don't know I don't know how one solves for that in the digital landscape right now. >> Well, I think at the minimum you know um communication it's it's really about communication to me and and part of that and it's a difficult one for I pro I think for a lot of
140because 13 to 17 year old um time period coincides with adolescence, right? Which is when your parents know absolutely nothing, right? But um it is no but I I would just encourage any parents watching to really make an effort to understand what tools your kids are using because it does make it does make a difference. They quote in the in the study that uh Elon Musk, you know, programmed Grock to to, you know, not worry about if this opinion is politically incorrect. And that the end of that line was praising Adolf Hitler and anti-Semitic tropes. Um so the tools matter where it's you know Jonathan height talks about how you know we have been in the past decades super focused on safety in the physical world and completely ignoring safety in the in the cyber
141world. So, it's it's um you know, awareness of that uh what tools you're using and how you're using them is something that teachers can certainly talk about to kids, but it's it's a 24hour um ecosystem that these kids are in. Which leads me to I don't know if we could can um can I just so I I I want us to maybe consider talking just briefly tonight about where we think we can go with this next steps um because I don't know if we want to keep reading more of this or um um we had talked maybe about trying to organize some sort of event for parents or the community Allah our world cafes and I I wonder I was thinking about that a little bit and I'm thinking we're my initial thought and I
142want to hear everybody else's thoughts on this is that We're getting toward the end of the year and that's very a crowded calendar and maybe this if we were to do something like that it might make a good back to school fall kind of thing. Um give us more time to figure out maybe we could try to pull in a speaker or something. But is that something that the board thinks would be valuable for for returning families in the fall? I think you're so right on and I think that it will also give us some more time to hear from the AI circle and to hear you know I I've sort of been reading this and just being like this is just for so my mental landscape is prepared to understand you know it's some
143way the deep level that the AI circle's been kind of like thinking on this so that I'm not sort of like you know and then maybe somewhere between that we'll figure out um the best thing to do. But I think the fall would be great. I think parents are mentioned over and over again in this as the third people, the most important communication partner and so I think that you know the impulse to do that is right on and I would really hope that it would also be able to be like rolled into some kind of beginning you know, understanding about our district's initial feeling about technology and AI and like how it aligns with values and you know, it would be really great if that could if that could like come together. And so
144I think if we wait for the fall, hopefully we'll be able to have if not a full policy some kind of like beginning of like an ethical statement or something like that that it can like come together with. I love the idea of trying to pull together, you know, a community event and having a speaker would be great and I do think that um it's too late in this school year to make it happen before June 30th. So, yeah, would be a summer project maybe or something prior to summer. I think that continuing to read this document is a great like it's prep work, right? And so we could do that, you know, talk about it just like we are. It's not like we're, you know, we're processing, right? And then we'll come back and
145then hopefully then we'll be ready to take some action. We'll have the surveys. That's really exciting news. Um so we're just we're um yeah, we're learning So, one section we could do if we wanted to keep going is uh starting on page 124 is sort of where they start sort of start laying out recommendations for mitigating risks and harnessing benefits. Um um we could there's this is where they get into their their three Ps. prosper, prepare, protect. So, I don't know. Let's see what page did I say it starts on 124. Should we go through? We could just do prosper goes to 142. Or if we do prepare as well, it goes to Sorry, I should have looked at this before the meeting. Anybody find where protect starts? Protect starts on 151. One up to
146so the uh up to 151. >> Yeah, it's 27 pages. That's that's manageable. >> Yeah. there the the study's author's charge at the beginning was just like people in a leadership position should try to advance some action on you know there are a million actions you could take just do something in the next two to three years and so this might give us some ideas okay great talk everyone okay any new business. >> I um just this and this conversation does feel very much in tandem to me about the conversation that is like exploding all over around um technology and children and studies about best practices and positive and negative impacts. I followed Jonathan Height really closely. I have for years. I've read all his books. He is literally come out to make a statement
147that like he his new banner he is picking up is educational technology and it's like a really big thing and there's school districts all around us that are addressing it, looking into it and I just feel like when we finish this AI moment it would be really responsible of us to just tune into that. Maybe we could read something similar. I know there is a lot um just so that we can be checking in with what that looks like um you know since roll out of all kids have a personal computer around like 2014 and just take a look because there's a lot of like data being looked at right now that I think is really important not to ignore. Um and it also feels very much aligned with the AI conversation because these Chromebooks
148are like how these kids are experiencing a lot of this, especially the elementary age kids who like very well like might not have a device at home or have parents that like don't want to give them an iPad. Something that Jonathan Height says is like, you know, we spent all this time talking about social media and like keep your devices out of your kids' hands as long as possible, but then we go to school, we would put one in front of them. It's really the same conversation. And so I just wanted to put out there if anybody else feels like maybe we could like dip into that after AI because they think they might be more connected than they might seem sometimes. >> Yeah. I was so curious, right? Like when I first joined the
149board, I was outraged that children couldn't like do remote work, couldn't couldn't do their schooling remotely to find that we have such a big district and not everybody in our district h is even capable of having a connection. And now I've sort of evolved to the place where I'm like, "Oh, yeah. I don't I don't want that to happen at all. I want our children to be like playing together on the field and and doing music in classrooms." So, um I'm just curious postcoid that was really um and and again, you know, happy for the administration to like educate us on what you've seen because you've seen it in a much closer way. Um I think it doesn't have to come after. It could potentially come with or maybe not. I don't know. I guess
150it is almost this summer, but um but it's it's very very interesting and of course we've only been on the board for three years. Um and so um I would love to explore that topic a little bit more and in the same vein as everything that we do try to like really look at it and talk about it and you know um understand it if we can. I I totally support that conversation. you know, just getting my I just wrote down edtech. Where are we now? >> You know, that's sort of the topic, I guess. >> And trusty Jared, if you have like a reading list or, you know, something you you think we should all and I'm I'd love, you know, I summer would be a great time to me to like really like
151we could we could have a board summer reading list and then we could all do it at our at our leisure. I don't know if it's a beach read, but um you know, we could do it Any other new business? Any RFIs? >> So, build on uh what a previous trustee just mentioned. Um what percentage of our students do not have access to the internet that's fast enough really to remote learning. Do we have any idea? >> Oh, she's she's putting on her Google glasses now. So, according to our director of technology, John Rymer, he just answered Trusty Goodrich's question and said we're we have around 15 students who um we believe do not have access to the internet. And it sounds like there in like the far northwest end of the district closer to
152Margaretville where there is a you know a glitch uh or Yeah. But there Yeah. But there are efforts uh on the Margaretville end to uh to put in more infrastructure. Any other RFIs? I'm just wondering um if our what is the age that children have a web browser on their schoolisssued Chromebooks? I I specifically meant at school just because there are par, you know, parents can make a choice about giving their kid an iPad. I was just curious. So, it sounds like Victoria is going to weigh in. Yay. I think John was referencing preschools because our UPK programs have iPads. Not necessarily just preschool age children, but have iPads. So, I think the answer to your question is all ages have devices that have internet browsers loaded on them. Any other RFIs? Going once, twice.
153All right. Not at the moment. Okay. So, may I have a motion to adjurnn? Okay. Trusty Kusson second. Trusty Jerome. Uh, all in favor? All right. Our next meeting is that's unanimous. Our next meeting is May 5th and it's at Bennett Elementary School at 6 PM.