Hauppauge School District Board of Education Public Session June 8th, 2021

001okay thank you welcome to the uh june 8th 2021 meeting of the hop hog union free school district board of education tonight is our business and community uh meeting before we begin with the agenda just a couple of notes about the structure of tonight we have a lot of awards to give out to students we have a lot of retirees uh to acknowledge so we're going to skip or go right to that and after the students are recognized we'll take a five minute break let anyone leave that wants to leave we'll do the same thing after the retirements yeah i know i got it uh after the retirement announcements and then uh after that we'll continue with the rest of the meeting can uh ella lily and johnny murphy join me up here for those

002that don't know these are uh dr murphy's beautiful children and i'm going to ask that everyone rise and that they join us in the pledge of allegiance uh that will be um read by uh the murphy children i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] all right skipping right to number five on the agenda recognition and awards or recognitions and awards dr probst tonight it is and ladies and gentlemen that is only the beginning of their very impressive stories these students are outstanding athletes musicians singers dancers and artists they are humanitarians who find ways to make our school and our community better they solve calculus problems before most adults are even

003at work in the morning and they do it all with a smile i'm not sure how they fit it all in or when they sleep and judging from the time of night they sometimes send me emails i don't actually think they sleep at all i'm convinced they might not but in short they're basically superheroes and we're gonna have some slides okay great thank you mr elmer top graduates in the class of 2021 you're a significant group for me because you were entering ninth grade when i started in this role in the district and because you're about to graduate i'm going to let you in on a little secret which is that when i got here you had a little bit of a reputation people told me you were very smart very accomplished very intense and

004very competitive and they were absolutely right i happen to find all of those characteristics to be great qualities so we've gotten along very well over the years you were eager front and center for every initiative dr o'hara and i created when it came to college admissions and post-secondary planning you visited colleges with us you took the psat the sat and the act during the school day you were here in the summer for camp college you took advantage of financial aid and college essay assistance you didn't let anything get in your way not even a global pandemic you didn't just succeed quite honestly you broke records you took more honors ap and ib courses than any top group of students before you and you achieved with ap scholar and ib diploma candidate status as proof four

005of you earned perfect scores on the ap on the act a first in hotbag and all of you scored 30 or higher also a first and where college application results are concerned you've written an entirely new chapter in hop on history with acceptances to more highly selective schools than any graduating class prior five of you will attend ivy league schools another first in hop og many of you received scholarship offers that will make your education at prestigious universities nearly free over the course of the past four years i've gotten to know so much more about you than your reputation for being smart and competitive you are also kind thoughtful creative and collaborative the future of this world is very bright and i am certain of that because i see the future in all of you

006at this time i'll call up each top graduate individually dr o'hara is ready with a top grad photo for you and then you can return to your seat we do have a couple of students who weren't able to attend tonight but i'm going to call all names so that they can be recognized by the community first is vivian chen who will attend the university of massachusetts at amherst [Applause] [Music] next is melody chang who will attend the university of pennsylvania [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] catherine dulce will attend northeastern university [Applause] [Music] [Applause] vincent girardi will attend princeton university [Applause] colin happy we'll attend binghamton university luca ilenardi will attend brown university [Music] will attend the cooper union [Applause] emily kelly will attend the university of california los angeles more commonly known as ucla [Applause] [Music]

007danielle liu will attend the university of pennsylvania [Applause] andrew mayorini will attend wesleyan university [Applause] will attend columbia university [Applause] melissa oliver will attend stevens institute of technology [Applause] [Music] [Applause] nicole petrucelli will also attend stevens institute of technology [Applause] [Music] [Applause] siobhani rayo will attend stony brook university [Applause] [Music] tyler rutley will attend the university at buffalo [Applause] [Music] noah schwarzeffel will attend stony brook university [Applause] alexander vasilicapolis will attend emory university [Music] [Applause] and emma vessel acopolis will attend rice university [Applause] [Music] to wrap up congratulations to our top graduates congratulations oh i'm so sorry emma oh my gosh [Music] congratulations [Applause] lastly congratulations to mr cook the team at the high school especially the high school counselors and all of the k-12 faculty and staff who worked with these students over the

008years and last but never least thank you and congratulations to the parents and families of these students for putting your trust in us to work with your children on this very important journey it's been an absolute privilege and i thank you [Applause] at this hello all right there we go uh we'll take a five-minute break right now to let uh anyone who wants to leave before the next portion of our meeting uh to take off and we will reconvene at exactly 8 20. thank you and congratulations to you all [Applause] like 12 shots already is i'm like oh he's all flagged you're the best he said is yes is ladies oh is thank you thank you hey how'd you know what i was gonna ask you you can tell steve we back up 5b on

009the agenda i'm sorry 5a 2 on the agenda are our uh retirements mr tasman thank you mr barchay dr murphy's going to help me like my vanna white here to hand out some plaques and deserving plaques at this time i'd like to call up our administrative team who's in the audience to help us honor our retirees who are here thank you look at this group [Applause] thank you very much for our retirees who are attending tonight this is all for you right here our administrative team is here tonight to thank you [Applause] i want to thank the board of education dr o'hara for giving me this privilege tonight to stand here before you and honor our incredible retirees who've worked their whole career many of them their whole career here 30 some of them 30

010plus years working in our school district dedicating their life and their profession to our students before this the first presentation you saw the incredible talents of our students get recognized that doesn't happen without the staff that we're going to recognize tonight as retirees and the administrative staff who's up here tonight before you so let's give them a round of applause so what a difference a year makes last year i think we did this presentation and this recognition i was sitting at my desk on a computer and we didn't get a chance to do it so it's amazing that we're here tonight and so thankful that we are to recognize these incredible retirees who again have dedicated their time to our district and they deserve the gift of retirement in speaking with these retirees it's incredible

011when we have our exit interviews they all have the same sentiment they love working here in hop hog they love working here and to me as you're talking to our retirees as they're looking for next going to their next step in their lives when you think about working in a place that you love how incredible how the incredible work that you can do when you're in a place that you love working and these retirees definitely set the bar for that so thank you we had 33 retirees in all this year a large group we have 11 that are here tonight if i do miss anyone please we'll get a chance to call you up but i'm going to recognize the first 11 to come up here get their plaque from dr murphy and get um

012celebrated by our administrative team walk across the line you're here tonight you got a lot of service here we're going to get you up we're going to get you up the steps you're going to walk across like it's graduation okay so let's start first our tech teacher mr tom bucci 35 years of service special education teacher 25 years of service laurie buehl 25 here i'm getting heckled by the husband 20 30 years but it was 27. we were both wrong so it's all right teaching assistant luanne drylak 24 years service hmm elementary teacher 22 years of service cindy irvine [Applause] congratulations all right teaching assistant annette vanelli 20 years of service no all right this guy never walks by you without saying hello and ask you how your day is going i had to say

013that because she's such a ball of energy and positivity don samado custodial worker donny come on up thank you i'm most jealous of his hair the guy's got the best hair [Applause] next up is a former colleague of mine i had to jump on the mic here everybody knows uh this incredible individual she's worked in the district for let's see here 18 years in a variety of roles last of which was in my office i love her to death we all do catherine classy please come on all right custodial worker one judy gruber 18 years of service judy come on up good to see you judy [Applause] thank you so much all right a monitor 18 years of service terry stripoli terry here yes she is me 26 years terry stripoli give her another round

014i believe this is the last um staff member who's in attendance this is my time dr murphy had his opportunity to um recognize catherine um sharon omeda who is works in a personnel office and she's my right hand my left hand my right foot my left foot [Music] does everything you can possibly imagine a little today coming here and organizing these plaques she's going to be really missed but we're so so so happy for her to be moving on and enjoying her grandchildren and her retirement so sharon congratulations [Applause] hmm are there any other retirees in the audience and i only asked that because we did ask that everybody tell us if they're coming but i don't want to miss anyone perfect okay so i just want to read the names of the additional retiring

015staff marie barry teaching assistant robin bertie teaching assistant mary bragg school nurse michelle casans science teacher maria cohen eiffel teaching assistant cindy gallo teaching assistant linda catsiotis enl teacher cheryl napolitano teaching assistant debbie steinman elementary teacher patricia turmine teaching assistant laura weinstein teaching assistant if you know any teaching assistants please tell them to apply uh susan unziata monitor michelle cloak secretary clerical richard frischling monitor tim kuhl micro computer repair tech joanne lawler clerical ruth maxwell clerical janet molizan monitor kathy norton clerical marge powers clerical mickey procaccini custodial worker mike speer chief custodian and our last retiree to bring us into 2021 22 46 years of service for the school district june rush congratulations and thank you all to our administrative team to everybody who's here and again congratulations to all our retirees so thank you

016and congratulations before we break we're going to pull forward one item off the consent agenda seven point two a 2.1 which is the appointment to tenure of employees of the district i'll ask i'll ask dr good evening when i read your name please stand lisa aquilino joe chira stephanie ebbinger stop please please remain standing marjorie faye brett groenemann [Applause] uh geraldine hughes jerry lynews excuse me kristen kelly amanda lederman [Applause] timmy mccarthy uh you know this is about all of them tonight but i will pause just to say this guy tim mccarthy i've actually hired him three times now in my career he's like a bad penny stacey mckee [Music] carolyn muller [Applause] jessica vasander [Applause] and joseph whitehorst yeah who whom we uh affectionately refer to as joseph workhorse so just i'd like to

017make a brief statement about this group and about tenure in general tenure is by far the most important recommendation that any superintendent can make for the for the for obvious reasons i can tell you that every teacher administrator strives to make a difference and leave a lasting legacy over the course of his or her career this evening i'm most proud to have this group of dedicated passionate and most deserving teachers teaching assistants and administrators be part of my legacy in the hop hog school district so to all of the people uh up for tenure this evening please accept my heartfelt congratulations on a job well done and uh my expectation that you will continue for many years to serve the students of hot pog to the best of your ability thank you with that hold

018it applause for a minute thank you with that i will take a motion to approve the appointment to ten europe on the recommendation of the superintendent dr o'hara mr buscarino with motion ms weisberg seconds any discussion seeing none old in favor 7-0 congratulations and with that we will take a five-minute break we will reconvene at 8 45 exactly thank you congratulations again foreign watching everybody so thank you thank you steve let me know when thank you welcome back uh just a quick note about the remainder of the agenda uh number six which we'll be called in a moment is for questions and comments concerning tonight's agenda only at the end of the meeting uh which will come pretty quick is the uh time where we open it to the floor for comments concerning anything related

019to the district whatsoever whether it's on the agenda or not 5c on the agenda is the adoption of minutes from the business meeting and but hearing of may 4th mr buscarino makes the motion mrs weisberg seconds any discussion seeing none all of us in favor 7-0 questions and comments from the community concerning tonight's agenda only yes if you whoever has a question if you could come up to this mic so the people at home could hear you miss cavanaugh 7.3 let me move back enf it refers to an agreement but no agreement is attached 7.3 e and f miss pirro 7.1 did i say one or three i thought you said 7.3 i'm sorry 7.1.1 e and f e and f oh so there are no uh agreements yet concerning that so both of those

020appointments if they pass will be subject to an agreement which will then be brought at a new board meeting for the public to uh here and for the board to vote on okay so we will say it can you tell us how many your term no none of that yes so oh okay let me i'll try to answer your question so enf concerned the appointments of dr murphy and uh mr tasman uh there are no contracts for that as of yet there are no terms or term as of yet all of that is subject to negotiation but like every contract we have with people that work for the district it will be voted on in public and it will be posted on the uh website for public view all right thank you you're welcome mr

021bruzo if you could it's all right seven point one e and the question is whether you can get the names of the people that are interviewed yeah the answer unfortunately is no uh those uh unfortunately or fortunately i don't know are uh subject to confidentiality uh and uh probably for good reason because we've had and we had a lot of people apply for those positions that are employed elsewhere and um giving those names out would i think probably endanger their jobs where they are uh so no we're not allowed to give those names out 7.1 f as to mr tasman yes yep so um the district's been without a deputy uh since mr stuccio left some time ago mr tasman will remain and retain the duties that he's had with us it's not an additional

022position uh although it is a a title and a uh sign of recognition and you're spoiling the surprise a little bit but mr tasman will be second in charge that's the significance of the title deputy no no no that the purpose of that language there is to indicate that mr tasman doesn't have to reapply for his tenure as the deputy uh because more than 51 percent of the duties that he does now will also be done while he's the deputy it's actually 100 of duties are the same he doesn't have to reapply for tenure to be deputy his tenure carries over i'm sorry well he's already tenured it's just he doesn't he doesn't lose his tenure and have to reapply for tenure am i saying that correctly yeah it's not it's not technically although technically

023the title is new it's not a new position he's keeping 100 percent of the duties he's been doing and we'll probably add another 50 percent on top of that and he doesn't go through uh probation and i'm sorry miss tasman but you won't be seeing him at home okay any other questions yes ms maida so this probably is my last board meeting and since we recognized the students uh this year i wanted to say a few words so our family has been part of the happa school district for the past 20 years and i have had two work two kids varun and jalaj i hope you can hear me that have really succeeded in the efforts that the board has put in and a lot of teachers and administrations have put in and as a

024family i really really want to be thankful for the bottom of the heart with all the effort that has been put by everybody here and i just want to say like couple of words and recognize the student in front of the board and in front of the community that how much effort some of the administrators and of course a lot of teachers have put in if that's okay so mr wankmiller who is a science teacher he has been extremely supportive to both my kids and of course to a lot of students as a science research endeavor that he has brought off and i'm taking my mask off because i can't read uh and the various courses that he has made available to the students uh during the course that he has been here i'm just

025going to say two sentences so i'm very thankful for him that the way he has come up uh in the 20 years of his career in the school district i'm also very thankful to dr murphy who i have seen been as a director of math where we have had multiple conversations and fight over a lot of courses that he brought to the school then from being to the assistant to now the superintendent so welcome to you and congrats and thank you again from the bottom of my heart mrs o'connor who has been the high school principal throughout the career of both my teachers she has helped in creating a lot of matrixes for my kids because they always ended up taking like weird courses and she had to sit down on the board and always

026come up with a matrix to kind of accommodate the courses that she that they took so thank you mrs o'connor i've been miss probes in this bond span of time that she has been here in the students activities that she brought here all the act courses the summer courses and on one on one that she made every child feel very very special it has really really been like you know she has really been there for the students and my kids also and i will really miss her and she has become a good friend over the years thank you mrs probs mrs bonterra who is a great counselor both my kids she has been there as a counselor she really really takes the personal effort in every student to bring them up and take special interest

027in every child and i don't think i would have been here without the counselor even miss carolyn hack and this is something that jalaj has specifically written for all the students all the teachers and he wanted me to bring this out in front of the board i'll just take two more minutes not that much time mrs carolyn hack she is a brilliant teacher and has always been there for both my kids she has devoted most of her own time to the students success and also devoted a lot of her time during the extracurricular activities the second is mrs brian gillen he truly represents what all teachers should strive to be someone who will put all their efforts in the improvement of the students while doing broadening their worldview much as he did with jalaj really

028broadened his world view mr harry shahegan he has been there incredible for both the kids also jalaj has worked with him for four years and built up the model u.n um club from ground up in the school district and he has been an integral part of geology's journey after playing and really taught him what a leadership role is supposed to play so thank you mr shahigan two more to go mrs don lynch she's simply a strong despite uh so much of issues that are going on with her own life she's always been there for the students and she has thought jalaj a lot about compassion um and of course there are many many other teachers that i would like to talk about um there's one more teacher that jalaj mentioned mr brett grossman he says

029that he's one of the most enjoyable teachers to be in the school and he is one of the better exemplified ideal of how to interact with the students so there are many many other teachers mr superintendent dr o'hara i'm going to miss you too and the board of course i am going to miss the whole board over here dr barches dr fotmire whoever i have dealt with and i'm really very emotional right now leaving the park school district because this is my last year and as you all know he has gone to columbia university and i want to tell all the students out there that if you're motivated you can do it you don't have to be in a certain school district to do what you want to do so thank you from the bottom

030of my heart to the hapa community and it has been a great 20 years in the district thank you 7.1 e yes b isn't boy yes yes so the sale of any building and especially the district office building whipperwill will be subject to multiple public hearings where the public will get to speak and be heard as to whether they think it's a good idea or not that the building be sold and then ultimately the voters vote on whether to sell the building or not once um we finish all the public hearings so absolutely there'll be a time for public participation and debate and then the ultimate decision will be uh the and communities to keep in mind also i know um even like it was a challenge with the um meet the candidates tonight the

031people that don't have children in the district um if we can come up with yeah so i mean we'll do our best and the developer uh is going to foot the bill for uh notifying the community but we'll make sure we do our best to let everyone know uh we'll use multiple uh media multiple avenues of communication with the community and the more people that come out and uh be heard uh the better for the board you know we we want to be informed on what the community wants uh so you know we have the same goal as far as that goes thank you you're welcome further questions and comments uh from anyone concerning tonight's agenda thank you uh the consent agenda number seven on the agenda is the consent agenda do uh any members

032have any items that they would like to have removed 7.1 d 7.1 d 7.283 sir 7.283 any others yes mr buscarino i'd like to remove 7.2 c2 please 7.2 c 2. i will sever 7.1 e and 7.1 f any other uh items that members would like to have severed or removed from the consent agenda okay with that i'll take a motion the less those items that have been removed unless the tenure appointments which have previously uh been voted on mr buscarino makes the motion mrs weisberg seconds any discussion all those in favor seven zero thank you seven point moving to the seven uh severed item 7.1 d severed by mr uh scarrito um i'll make a motion uh to table 7.1 d is there a second thank you mr garrido any discussion all those in

033favor 7.1 d is tabled i'll ask that the clerk be advised to put that item on our next business meeting agenda uh 7.2 a 3 severed by mr scarito do i have a motion mr fortmire thank you mr buscarino with the second any discussion all those in favor opposed abstentions uh motion passes five zero two mr barchay and mr scarito abstaining 7.2 c 2 removed by mr motioned by ms weisberg second by mr scarrito any discussion seeing none all those in favor opposed abstentions motion passes five zero two mr varshay mr buscarino abstaining seven points 7.1 e and f which i severed are the appointments of dr murphy and mr tasman as our superintendent and um deputy superintendent respectively before we uh get to those just a couple of brief words from me concerning departing

034administrators that have been with us for uh the last more than a couple of years and have been integral uh to our successes over the last few years first of all dr probst uh is leaving us to become the superintendent of west hampton beach i want to wish her on behalf of the board uh the best of luck uh i hope she has uh some success uh there not not too much um but you know ms probst has been instrumental in improving the post-secondary outcomes of of our students we've seen our application rate and the level of schools that our kids have gotten into just skyrocket under her guidance so thank you for your service dr probst and we wish you all the best thank you i'm sorry i was just saying thank you oh

035you're you're very welcome and uh miss piro um uh is also uh leaving uh us for west hampton beach we are sad to see her go but we wish her all the best uh she has been um a hardcore business official in some really really difficult times over the last couple of years stood uh you know feet to the fire and um at the end of the day always stuck to her guns as to what she thought was best for hophog and the students so again we wish you uh almost all the luck in in west hampton and uh we're sad to see you go [Applause] a couple more uh departures or deportations departures thank you uh i want to um first of all congratulate mrs capisi and miss salvia if you don't mind standing

036um who were elected to the board of education beginning a three-year term july 1. congratulations and just a couple of words that i'd like to say about mr buscarino who's uh departing us and i know mr scarrito wants to say a couple of words about mrs weisberg but uh michael um we're better for having you here uh in the last six years uh you know from the president's point of view you were sounding bored for me uh sometimes when i'm going a little crazy you always uh you know uh rationalized uh what the right thing to do uh was and is and especially your insight uh being a sergeant in the police department your insight as to the security issues uh that the school has faced over the years is going to be very very

037uh hard to replace but you know hopefully we can continue to use you as a resource in those regards the students and faculty of the school district were safer with you here and with your innovative ideas as far as security goes thank you for your service over the last six years you will be missed michael thanks i just want to say thank you especially to your husband and your two girls six years now you've given a lot of service to the community and we appreciate it you taught me a lot of things i did not know about teachers and their perspective sometimes the parents and sometimes the board member gets to look at the teachers i'm so worried about the community side of it so i thank you for that you taught me a lot

038i hope you enjoy your time off now um and we may still call on you for other stuff but i really want to thank you for your time so thank you very much okay um concerning the appointment of our new superintendent i want to first thank uh and acknowledge dr dennis o'hara for his leadership over the last five years um again the district saw new heights under your tutelage we reached new heights under your guidance and again the students were better for you having been our superintendent over the last five years uh dr o'hara is is moving on to islip we wish him again all the best a little bit right but um you know this board hired dr o'hara uh we did make a i think a great decision he fulfilled everything that we

039asked brought the district again to new heights and we're grateful for your hard work and dedication over the last five years uh mr barcher i would just like to tell the board thank you very much returning to hophog uh if you may not know i was an administrator in hop hog in 1998 through 2003. and uh there was a 13 year absence while i was principal at oyster bed high school returning to the hot pog school district to be the superintendent was a dream come true for me and i'd like to thank you and the board of education for making that dream come true and i would like to thank my colleagues in central office dr murphy mr tasman dr mrs pirro any success that we may have had was uh was not done single-handedly

040and i know the district is in good hands moving forward so congratulations to my two colleagues and again thank you to the board of education thank you dr o'hara okay 7.1 e on the agenda is the appointment of dr donald murphy as superintendent of schools for the hallpark union free school district effective july 1 2021 subject to negotiation and vote voting upon his contract for employment um let's let's i'll call the vote and then i have a few words to say about dr murphy i'll make the motion mr scarrito seconds uh discussion so uh dr murphy where are you i'm blinded by the lights here uh dr murphy we are um beyond uh excited uh to uh be under your uh guidance and steady hand um you know when you and i are in a

041room together uh you know i always feel like you're the second smartest guy there uh and we're lucky to uh we're lucky to have you you know this district over the last year and a half uh you know with the covid uh pandemic and epidemic um dr murphy really was along with central office and the teachers but dr murphy really was the architect of our distance learning uh plan if you even want to call that because we were one of the few districts on long island to be in person uh from day one that would not have been possible without all administration and our teachers but uh really you know dr murphy that was his brainchild and he got everyone on board and um really proved that he is going to be a leader among

042leaders and bring this district even higher uh than we are now it is my pleasure to call the vote to appoint dr murphy with that all those in favor opposed extensions 7-0 congratulations dr america [Applause] don if you want to say a few words don't forget to thank your wife so thank you so much uh mr barchay um i'm gonna take a few moments here if i may and just reflect on this moment and i'm going to start mr buscarino stacy mike i should say stacy don't need to be that formal jim larry gary rob as vice president and and dave as president and you set the tone dave for the whole board i'm humbled and incredibly lucky to be sitting here by tone i mean that i've yet to uh in my six years

043working with the board have a moment where if we can't if we distill a decision down to what's best for kids i always see 7-0 from this board of ed and that's the tone you set for me and for the entire district the process to get here again set by the board was was so worthwhile i just want to acknowledge mr nelson and katie lloyd mrs bilsky mrs gordon from hap mrs olacheya from pta council mr giachetti representing hta you definitely asked a lot of good questions along the way along with the board and i feel uh i'm better off for it sitting here tonight going through the process dr o'hara uh dennis um thank you your support and mentorship has made me a better administrator and leader you've helped me the last few weeks

044in particular so that we don't miss a beat when i begin on july 1st the transition will be that much easier with your support so thank you so much dennis uh for everything and of course the rest of my central office colleagues you may have heard some noises in the front i have my three children here tonight uh ella lily and johnny uh and i have my uh my sister jill here my mom is here you won't see her she's four foot eleven so she's not gonna be too tall in the seat there my other sister is uh uh my sister jill's here my sister patty is watching on youtube my nephew joey's here i got lots of people watching uh and i just could not be here without the support from my family and

045in particular without mr barches nudge my wife selena who's my rock who's my support and who believes in this mission of hophog as a home away from home we intend to integrate our family into this community even more that is what i think it takes to be a successful superintendent is that the uh the community believes that i view each and every student as a member of my own family and so i'm so grateful to have my family here tonight and i'll just add a little anecdote that i got into this career after a pri a previous career i come from a family of educators my father was a principal was a teacher and then a principal in long beach he passed away before i became a catholic school teacher that was my first gig

046and i think it's pretty cool to sit here tonight and and i have a little bit of chills thinking about how he would look at this moment so i just want to recognize my dad and then lastly i just want to say to um the directly to the parents and the students of hop hog um you know our work we're of course looking to end this uh challenging year on a high note we use a lot to be proud of but just so you know beginning july 1 um i'm looking to be a thoughtful approachable uh leader amongst the whole team uh leading with passion and perspective and purpose and most of all getting ready for next year for the new school year and the biggest goal and dream will be that the kids return

047to school with excitement in their eyes and that energy that we all love about the school experience in particular here in hop hog again a home away from home for me so again thank you so much mr varshay and the whole board and i can't wait to get started thank you thank you dr murphy 7.1 e rather f on the agenda is the appointment of mr joe tasman to the position of deputy superintendent of schools he will wear two hats in that position one is the deputy and second maintaining his current position as uh or in charge of uh personnel um so all right let's call the motion first uh i'll make the motion mr scarrito uh seconds uh discussion you know mr abruzo you asked me earlier if we could tell you the names

048of the individuals that applied uh for the position uh i don't mind telling you and i doubt he minds either mr tasman also applied for the position mr tasman blew us away at the interviews blew the committee away at the interviews and gave the committee hours of fits to determine and to decide between mr tasman and dr murphy as our as our next superintendent um mr tasman has gone at this district from our uh from a gym teacher to an athletic director uh to the assistant superintendent and now to the uh deputy uh which is uh you know penultimate position uh within the schools mr tasman is a leader and team builder like i've never seen uh in my career i i don't know you know you say it often can't say a bad thing

049about the guy you literally can't say a bad thing about mr tasman perhaps uh he's a little too handsome but uh you know it is true right so um you know we are so lucky to have this guy i think if you sliced him open he bleed hop hog blue uh he is as loyal uh to this district as anyone uh we are lucky to have him and we're looking forward to him being here for a very very long time continue to be here for a very very long time and uh congratulations to you mr tasman i'll take a vote to appoint mr tasman as deputy motion's been made any all those in favor 7-0 congratulations joe and don't forget to thank your wife who's here wow um first don did a great job you

050said everything i was going to say i think in my head but you did an incredible job as a superintendent can everybody hear me i could talk louder i think without the mic but um first um thank you mr bart that was a beautiful um introduction and i appreciate it beyond beyond words that i don't have the words to say how much i appreciate it but i want to thank the board of education and the committee who put in so much time and so much effort to find the next leader of this school district and you guys with all your work and effort you found the right person i will say dr murphy working side by side with dr murphy for the last 10 years first when he was a director of math and information

051systems and now as an assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and technology his leadership and his work ethic and his dedication to this school district is unparalleled and i'm looking forward to working with him the next for the rest of my career here side by side um i want to thank dr o'hara um i couldn't not thank him and leave here without thanking him for his mentorship and his leadership and having his thoughtful ear in every situation and every um in every road i've had to take so i want to thank you for that always being patient um hook him dennis and then also the everybody my wife and my my daughter i think they could say a couple of bad things about me then um mr barchay um but you know honestly when i came

052here i have some students in the audience so it's nice that i'm here to share you're able to share this with me tonight because when i came in here in 1995 as a physical educator doctor mr marche not a gym teacher a physical education teacher um i never in a million years thought that i would be in this position my whole life my dream was to be a phys teacher and a coach that's all i ever wanted but the people in this community from the students the parents administrators teachers people who believed in me to push me to do more um really put me in the spot that i'm in right now so i'm so grateful i'm eternally grateful to the board for recognizing that work i'm eternally grateful for this community and we've got

053really really great things to continue doing in this district and we're going to get there and keep getting there this is an incredible place um i've i'm going to end it here because i can ramble on my last thought is for 26 years this has been my second home my wife and my daughters can tell you my daughter's being at every homecoming and coming to baseball games and when they were two years old in hot pocket sweatshirts so this has been a home for our family and i'm just so grateful that i could have my career continue here in hop on so thank you board of education and the committee for making that happen i appreciate it thank you before we uh move on i just want to thank a few people who participated in

054the superintendent's search mr giachetti uh kevin giachetti on behalf of the hop hog uh teachers association and our teachers um [Music] ms gordon doreen gordon on behalf of happ mr nelson steve nelson on behalf of ups eu ms lloyd katie lloyd on behalf of our hasasa rebecca bilsky on behalf of uh pps and uh happ and ms judy olachaya our president of pta council they spent hours and hours with us trying to make this decision and provided insight that the board could not have gotten either way so i just want to thank them i don't think anyone's here anymore but i just want to thank them for their efforts okay so we have a few items left on the agenda and dr o'hara has indicated that he needs to use the restroom so we're going

055to take a literally a two a three minute break uh we'll come back at 9 25 and finish up thank you oh really oh is yes here i so hey steve never mind we're on thank you very much steve we good thank you welcome back that concludes tonight's consent agenda number eight on the agenda are um policies which there are none tonight discussion matters there are none tonight new business do any board members have new businesses i'd like to bring up mr cerrito i just have three things mr barter hopefully this is working it's not working uh number one i know the facilities meet uh i know the facilities um met tonight the um do we have any word on the tennis courts was that brought up because i know that was an email that

056we got the tennis courts currently are not part of any capital project that we have on the horizon yet however we did just repair um perform repairs to them so that they can play them on this this season um it does happen the tennis courts age and they need to be repaired so we do put money into them to repair them that they're safer to get through the season until we replace them we will need to do this periodically of course to maintain it but we did we did just recently repair the tennis court i'm going to ask the question again there's still no way with all the great community people that we have the great community companies that we have that we can't seek out donations and have sponsorship for some of these great

057things i mean i i go to chaminade and i got x what do they have x armor armor x whatever they got all over the place there's still nothing we can do as far as that lindsay taking sponsorship i mean why do we have to wait oh yeah so uh lindsay short of giving advice uh legal advice to the board can you just talk to us in general about what the requirements are as far as uh what we're allowed to do as far as sponsorships i think that's what mr scarito's asking about uh but again please you know don't touch on our individual situation generally sponsorships like that are not um permitted but um you know people can donate services and be uh thanks for them um you know with a small class or small

058you know the sponsorships in them of themselves where it depends on it sort of depends on the circumstances and how it's being done if you go to smithtown schools which i know you're aware of they have their things in front of the midtown school district office and it was donated by gassy and they have their name there and that'll be there forever it's in stone so i just i have to ask because i just you know it's there and you know even the townships have now started doing as well and this concert has stuff that's donated by gapsy um which is brilliant for both parties because the business gets you know recognition and it helps the uh municipality and we can work with the i mean we could work with the districts to do things

059that are permitted pursuant to the law yeah you would think that um you know with the squeeze that's on on school districts uh from albany concerning everything that they would allow us to be a little more creative uh as far as fundraising and sponsorship uh goes so perhaps the time is is is right to sort of press uh that threshold a little bit and see how far we can go before they uh you know tell us we can't yep mr credo number two dr o'hara if you could just go over for the people in the audience as well as the people watching on zoom still i guess um the graduation plans um for you know for all three high school middle school than in elementary sir how would that be going sir uh so the

060good news is with the changes and guidelines high school graduation will happen on the football field uh we believe it's likely people won't have to be tested we'll have to have a socially distant graduation ceremony and if you didn't hear me i said it's likely testing won't be required same for the middle school the middle school moving up ceremony and the elementary schools are planning outdoor graduation uh excuse me outdoor stepping up ceremonies as well and uh junior prom will happen on our campus outside so there'll be no need for masks and no need for testing the senior prom is happening at the water mill inn in two different groups because of the numbers in the group or the size of the group so they'll be kind of like two proms and it's indoors at

061the watermelon so unfortunately masks will be required at the senior prom thank you john i also want to thank and recognize hofbug education foundation this year's graduation for our seniors will be outside um and uh there was some money short that we needed for decorations and i want to thank the hop hug education foundation for stepping up um and helping our community as well as our you know seniors so i just want to thank them for all their support thank you oh god okay yeah um thank you any other new business from board members new business from administration no questions and comments from the community concerning anything related to the district whatsoever ma'am i'm sorry we uh we made you wait especially with the baby hi everybody hi i have a son in forest brook

062um i moved here about yeah three years ago i just would really love support from the board and the superintendent i know it's out of your hands to please write a letter to the state about removing the masks for children i really appreciate it respectfully i know fomo's threatening funding i know he's coming down hard on all of you i'm a teacher in another district but these are our kids you know the pandemic destroyed i have a business in the community it hurt but not my kids you know that's it responsible thank you thank i'm part of forest brook student government i'm the president of the school and i am in fifth grade miss garvey's class um when we're outside we take math breaks but we're still playing and when we come inside i notice

063a lot of the kids are like dying like and we can't have so many kids out of the room at a time to fill their water bottles up and a lot of kids look like they're gonna like faint and one of my friends she almost did and she like um i believe she went down to like the nurse just to lie down because she wasn't feeling good and i just kind of bothers me that like she had to go down because she didn't feel good and too many kids were out to go get water so yeah good evening everyone i'd first like to thank the wonderful caring teachers of forrest brooke for the wonderful job they've done over the years you guys have truly been wonderful you've helped raise my children into wonderful young people

064they are now in fact you've helped raise my daughter to be active and fight for student rights and she became forest brook's sga president as sga president she wanted to speak up what's right even if it goes against the popular opinion and she tries to do what's right in fact two weeks ago she even went to a rally to represent hopkock and forest brook unofficially as a student government president to unmask the children she was ready to speak up for the cruelty of it and how it's not right and how it is negatively affecting them personally and in their learning and education i am very proud of her and she was able to stand up and stand up for something that she believed in i am in fact here also to help speak on her

065behalf and everybody else's but i'm going to give a different perspective than that of just a parent i'm here to give you a side of the story of a teacher in a classroom while this goes against the grain of most teachers it might upset many of them and our unions i'm here to tell you what it's like to be a teacher mast in the classroom because i don't want to be silenced anymore as a teacher i am telling you the last week in a classroom messed up was cruel it felt like it was over 90 degrees hot humid and very hard to breathe in september i recorded and posted a video of myself outside with a professional carbon dioxide monitor and in less than four minutes i maxed out the monitor while wearing a mask

066i am expected to wear that mask for 40 minutes at a time while talking and trying to teach and educate young children i actually consider myself lucky compared to students though because at least i get a break on my free periods students have had to keep it up all along on all day long except for eating lunches i have watched my students come into class this week looking like they're about to have heat exhaustion especially when they come in from gym or outside some of their faces are beat red and i've had to stop and direct them to the water fountain to bring back just a little cup of water so they stay hydrated because they forget i also tell them to take their mask off if they need a break which leads me to

067something interesting in september i was written up for actually allowing students to breathe in my classroom i told my classes in the beginning of the year that they can take their mass break whenever they want and for however long they want and i was actually called into a principal's office and then brought into district administration and disciplined for not wearing a mask correctly and allowing students to breathe freely i was told the teachers complained about me for not wearing a proper mask and also not having it on even when i was further than six feet away from people and the union fought for this and the union fought for the tougher mass policies not all teachers agree with it and teachers are willing to fight for the students had even presented paperwork from my doctor

068saying i shouldn't wear a mess because i had an injury to my face due to it being broken and surgery on my ear that wasn't good enough no other alternatives they call my doctor and even though my doctor fought for it it still wasn't good enough i was told again thank my union for it i was told again it is because of them i would really like to know why no one has stood up to cuomo and said enough is enough after friday's letter only three districts on long island stood up for being masked what have you done to gain control of our rights and to do what's best for our children why are we not directly in charge of our school policies has the board called and complained to cuomo are you scared he's

069going to come down here has the superintendents even bother trying to get together and stand up together do you really think he's going to take away our money that is our money that is our taxes has dr o'hara tried to stand up or is he too square to get questioned about his license i am just a teacher and i've been trying to stand up all year for my students i have been to rallies i've been written up and i continue to stand up even to my own union and anyone else because what right is right and what wrong is wrong no one is saying that we're taking away anybody's mass right if somebody wants to get a vaccine they are free to if somebody wants to wear a mask they can but currently in new

070york we have a .03 infection less than one percent one is enough is enough when can we just say no no thank you i just want to breathe i would also like to put like to ask anybody who's in favor of wearing masks to come into a classroom with no air conditioning i think it's very easy for any administrator to be sitting pretty behind their air conditioning offices all day long and for their secretaries while we are suffering and wearing a mask they should not be allowed to have air conditioning while so they can feel what we feel and they have to still wear a mask i am willing to bet their attitudes will change and suddenly they'll be willing to fight for us the people making these decisions are not sitting in rooms without

071air conditioning anyone in this room right now gets to enjoy this air conditioning but yet not all students do thank you thank you [Applause] okay yes you can come up thank you i'm here tonight to ask the hotback board of education to represent the growing number of hotpog families that are against the continuation of masking our children in school we're asking you to please write a letter to the new york state commissioner of health and culmo to unmask our children i have my children's pediatric nurse practitioner here tonight who represents my family and many others in the hotpog district who would like to speak on the behalf of our children ma'am before you i think your request uh for us to write a letter is completely reasonable and uh appropriate and we will do that

072immediately thank you you're welcome thank you um and you are dr o'hara or or dr murphy i'm sorry you are you okay well i'm sorry what is your name i'm innocent i'm innocent i just want to know who said that okay he said we would said we i just wanted to clarify because i know the parents wanted to hear that you're stating that you were that the board will write a letter to um dr zucker the new york state department of health on behalf of the students of the district to advocate for um no further mass yes amazing okay so i will you'll have to forgive me because because we're so close and you're speaking on a microphone it's hard to hear you uh but if you're asking whether i said that we're going to

073write a letter the board of education which is who i'm the president of the answer is absolutely yes good okay and we'll do that immediately perfect i'll still speak because i was invited to come in here today i'll probably alter some of it because now you've already you know agreed to do what it was that i was going to request of you my name is jennifer zethner i'm a pediatric nurse practitioner here on long island i've been working in pediatrics for over 20 years i also have three children in the harborfields district i've been invited to multiple board of ed meetings across long island for the last week and the coming weeks because families are incredibly concerned about this issue and obviously with the confusion from governor cuomo the clarification really has to come from

074the schools themselves to please advocate as we just discussed um just some history just you know if anybody else here on the board wants more information um you know like all of you who have children and you know have been through this pandemic since march 2020 there was a lot of fear right we were all very very afraid um i was extremely afraid because my mom started chemo the exact week of the pandemic children were the most afraid children may not have admitted that and might not have known how to express it but certainly they were the most afraid they were pulled from school they removed from their friends and they were concerned they were going to get sick and they were concerned that their parents would get sick their grandparents would die in fact

075that was kind of embedded into their little system that somebody was going to die from what was going on here in the news family members talking about it etc it was intensified when children were then um notified by you know officials right we were all told that children were asymptomatic carriers so now children were wandering around being told um that they could in fact get their family members sick and not even know it right so i i worked throughout the entire pandemic i continued to see my my families in my practice and i often heard family members say to their child they have to wear their masks to keep grandma safe i probably might have even said it to my ten-year-old at one point or another what an incredible responsibility we have put on our

076children wear a mask to save grandma inevitably grandma will die and at some point that child may still think that that was their fault this is this is real this is the way we all work with children this is how children think so we put this incredible fear it is going to take years to take the fear out of our children so the steps have to start and they have to start quickly and they have to continue one of the bigger pushes tonight is to also make sure that the mass do not get reinstated in the fall and i think that's why a lot of family members are out here now these last two weeks right people who people who are having a different experience i like to use a nice word because i don't

077want to put you know i don't like to say we're in two different places but people who having a different experience of the pandemic would say well why are you even bothering there's only two weeks left it's to fight for the fall we are eyes on the fall right um all right so as i practice as a medical provider and we entered into the fourth and sixth month of the pandemic it was becoming very clear from the work that i do from speaking with colleagues from watching the news that children were not at risk for this illness whatsoever in fact children are the mortality rate for coronavirus is equivalent essentially to the flu annually there's approximately 200 deaths annually from the flu 200 approximately from coronavirus every life matters of course but just to put

078it in perspective 4 000 children die annually in motor vehicle accidents so perspective matters and so when they talk about every death and we have to read about every death of course that's devastating to hear but perspective 200 children that we're trying you know everything that we're putting them through eventually the risks outweigh the benefits right um so by the fall as a medical provider working again speaking with colleagues it was also becoming very clear that children were not asymptomatic carriers we were seeing this once the school started we were also seeing it the american academy of pediatrics has stated it other you know well-established medical journals like the landsat have also stated children are not asymptomatic carriers i don't know when that message is going to get loud and clear to the people who

079need to hear it children are not at risk for the coronavirus and children are not asymptomatic carriers um i'm going to skip this part because i don't need to convince you to write a letter because you already are all right i just want to give you you know some more information here the cdc has put out a study a study was done by the cdc that um anxiety and depression rates in our teenagers are up 63 since the start of the pandemic significant mental health issues across the board for all of our students some of that is from the masking and from the social distancing a lot of it is from having to not be in school whatsoever and being away from their their peers um i hear from families across new york state and

080honestly across the whole region here every day i hear from families just today with the heat middle schoolers are texting their parents non-stop it's 90 degrees i can't breathe and the parents will text back tell them you have to take your mask off you know what they say no because they don't want to get yelled at they don't want to be you know i was just speaking um with amanda before you know we would think when we were in high school we would be we'd be screaming out against this this generation they're doing what they're told because their peers are doing it they're getting made fun of if they take off their mask and that goes down from the older grades into the younger grades as well um one final message here for you um

081we keep making decisions again please keep this in mind for the fall in the fall we get sick as a society we get sick we start school we start sports we end all of our summer fun all of our relaxation we will see illnesses in the fall that does not mean the coronavirus is necessarily back and honest but they're going to make us feel like that is what's happening so we will be back in at board of ed meetings if if the master are mandated again in any of these districts because it does look like it's going to come down from district to district here's a way that cuomo is speaking about this an abundance of caution is the words that we keep using for our children abundance of caution there reaches a point again

082that the risks outweigh the benefits districts across the new york here and across the region are sending letters the letter to goes to governor cuomo goes to dr zucker to the local department of health as well if you want examples we can get them from other districts if you haven't met already with other superintendents to see what other schools are doing to advocate for this and we're spreading the message to all the parents to do the same if one child had to wear a mask in school if there was one child walking around your hallways who had to wear a mask every single adult would be afraid for this child he has to wear his mask while he's doing running in gym everybody would say he's going to pass out we're afraid for him he

083shouldn't be doing that if one child was wearing a mask in this 90 degree heat and was sitting in a classroom and couldn't breathe we would be so concerned for him we're not concerned for all the children though when they're going through it it blows my mind on a daily basis that if one child was it that child would be screaming and yelling and complaining we'd all be concerned for him yet every child is and when every child is they say nothing because they listen to their authority they listen to their peers and they keep their mask on and you know when they complain when they go home if you have children if you they stay they keep it together while in school when they go home is when everything comes out all right children

084one final quote here i just want to tell you we want to have you all please advocate for children that there's no mandate for mass there also should be no mandate for this vaccine because as joe biden has told us as joe biden said in february of this year children are the safest group of people in the whole world thank you so much for listening to me i really appreciate your time do you mind staying for a second i really want to thank you uh you know it's very nice to hear you speak intelligently and and thoughtfully about this um thank you and you incredibly articulate and thank you thank you for speaking with us you know we're up here um and it's easy to yell at us you know i would have faced i

085tried not to yell at anybody i get excited because but certainly you're all i get it i get it all right but understand we all have uh children in the district as well all right i have a kid with asthma that's stopped [Applause] all right let me they they said they're going to yeah so i have a kid with asthma who struggles with the mask i'd like to respond so all right you know i i was going to share with you no your child has asthma it's very difficult to have asthma and have to wear a mask yeah i was going to share some personal stuff but it's all right so um you know your request to uh write a letter like i said is is reasonable and uh it will be done immediately excellent

086and if you need more res you know information or resources i'd be more than happy to um provide it to the board as well so thank you so much thank you thank you do you mind uh emailing or or whatever your comments is that uh because there was some good stuff in there the the articles from new england journal and madison america the position that we take absolutely i'll give them to mrs mclaughlin and she'll send them off yeah please absolutely thank you so much [Applause] uh wendy there was someone that was coming up behind yeah you're next miss cavanaugh hello hi my name is tara vasquez we've spoken mr barshea just want to say thank you for reaching out to me with your concerns about my daughter you're the only person that followed up

087with me regarding my daughter the school nurse did not follow up with my daughter after two weeks instead she wore this mask to school and was put into isolation i walked into school today with this mask on she asked me to to see what would happen nobody said a word to me i sat here no one said a word to me because i'm an adult and i know my rights my eight-year-old daughter is terrified to get in trouble she's a rule follower when there's not enough rules she puts rules in place i ask her every single day if she's taking mass breaks and to my knowledge she was and after field day i found out that my daughter had to run a potato sack race in 96 real feel with the mask on i'm pretty

088sure the gym teachers could have figured out a way to do the field day where the kids were six feet apart where they didn't have to wear masks it was my fault as a parent for not confirming that before she went to field day i assumed that the school used common sense because a couple weeks prior she ran a half mile with no mask on the fir i freaked out when she came home and told me i ran a half mile today because i was like oh my gosh did you have to wear a mess it's just crazy that those are the things that i have to worry about i don't know anything about her school we just moved to the district a few days before school open so we were a little bit of

089disadvantage we didn't get to be involved in the reopening process it was new waters for us to to figure out on our own so i took a reactive approach all year to see what the school was going to do i was very happy in the beginning i heard from dr o'hara a lot about covet i said wow this is great i always i feel very informed as a parent and then all of a sudden i realized the only time i heard from him was regarding coven i felt like there was nothing else going on in the district no positive message at all it's already you guys have already agreed to write the letter but i went and i printed out as many letters as i could find from other districts surrounding districts mostly in suffolk

090of letters that they've written to cuomo to their parents advocating for their for their kids it's crazy to me that we have to be here and ask you guys to do this i understand that comac jumped ahead and they had to reverse their decision i don't want that for hot pog but we can't stay quiet either what does that do we open our doors to have a vaccine site at the high school you can get vaccinated pretty much everywhere i sent an email out and made the joke you can pretty much almost get vaccinated at mcdonald's there's no reason why there should be a vaccination site at the high school the government has already infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives almost every aspect there's no reason to open our doors and allow them to

091come in even if it's after school hours to inject people with an experimental vaccine it's not even fda approved i just don't understand what the purpose of that you send out a survey asking for people's opinions i just think that was a formality because i think it was the next day that it was like up it's already scheduled and i'm just like my mind was blown because when i moved here i was so excited because my i grew up in ronkonkoma i graduated from connect quad high school and when i graduated in 2010 and i moved away i started i had my daughter i had to drop out of college at 21 i had to raise my daughter with my husband and we've been trying to navigate life she's eight years old now we finally

092bought our first house i was so excited to come to hot pog because my mom was like it is very conservative i lived in queens for seven years flushing queens and then i went went to westchester for the previous year didn't think that new york city could get worse until i went to westchester then i came here and i'm like wait a second why are we taking a reactive approach approach instead of being proactive they want to mandate this vaccine on our kids that is the end game i'm pretty sure that's why the other districts surrounding us didn't open the doors for the health department to come in and vaccinate our kids because they know the end game cuomo i don't know if it was yesterday before i can't really keep up with the guy

093but you know he wants our school nurses now to vaccinate our kids during school when it comes time for that how are you going to tell him no you already allowed the health department to come in here you already allowed the government to come in our schools how are you going to tell them no who stands up for our kids my daughter attended the unmask our kids rally at steve ballon's office i sent an email out to everybody here and i attached pictures of her i also printed them out so you can all see this is my eight-year-old it says unmask us now so when i started i said about what happened my daughter mr barchay was the only person that followed up with me a couple weeks after field day she was playing outside

094soccer with the mask on about an hour later she went back to her classroom she threw up in her mask she was so afraid she would get in trouble she didn't take her mask down you can die from inhaling your own toxins but my daughter's such a real follower that she didn't clearly she didn't know that i didn't know i had to coach her on that either so she went over to her teacher with throw up in her mask and her teacher's freaking out to get the mask off her she threw up two more times in the classroom she was sent down to the nurse the nurse did not even take her temperature her doctor was very upset by that because we're not sure if it was heat related or not because her temperature was

095not taken instead she was cleaned up she was given something to drink and then she was given a mask to put back on while she was with while she waited to be picked up that's infuriating she had just puked three times in a short period of time to then be given a mass to put back on when she's clearly isolated she's isolated from people there's no reason for that and of course she put the mask back on i get it walking out of the school perfectly fine my mom had to pick her up that day because i was home with my eight-month-old and i also work from home and as soon as she got to the door she burst it out into tears and she had a envelope in her hands you would think it

096would be maybe a report from the nurse what happens what what she how she cared for her no it was a covid release form and my daughter was in tears because she was afraid that she would have to get a covet test to go back to school so she gets home she takes a nap she sleeps about three hours wakes up completely fine i took her temperature mind you when she came home no temperature i called the doctor he said let her sleep bring her tomorrow i let her sleep she woke up completely fine she wanted to go to dance class i said no um she wanted mcdonald's for dinner i said no gave her some crackers nothing happened the next day nothing she was fine we went to the doctor and he was very

097upset to find out that the nurse didn't even bother checking her temperature also i asked mr gagliardi to call me he did call me right away with the email that i sent mr barchay called me right away too he asked her teacher to call me her teacher called me the only reason i know what happened is because of her amazing teacher her teacher also informed me that i that my daughter rarely takes her mask down when the teacher allows for mass breaks and this is somebody who i ask every single day if she's taking her mask down for mass breaks had no idea that my kid's torturing herself by not giving herself mass breaks so i asked her why why are you not doing why are you not taking your mask down because i don't

098want anyone to get in trouble i'm like what do you mean well there's kids always walking near my desk and i'm like okay so then they're not following the rules that has nothing to do with you she doesn't get that and i tried to explain that to mr gagliardi before i knew that my own daughter was guilty of it that some kids can't advocate for themselves some kids are timid they don't know how to stick up for themselves clearly my daughter is like that who's going to do that she's lucky to have a teacher who is amazing and i would have had a mental breakdown a long time ago if it wasn't for her but this is not the same for all kids there are some kids in third grade and and it's mostly elementary

099because the older kids are able a little bit to advocate for themselves they don't get any mass breaks at all and it's teacher specific and it just bothers me that it's like that that some that kids are being treated unequally i'm all for equality equality not equity they're different in case people don't know i'm all for it but kids are not experiencing that they're having very different experiences and that's not okay when i go to work i don't get to pick what rules i want to follow you guys set the rules and the teachers have to follow them it's not the teachers that run things our kids are suffering and i understand oh it's been a successful school year for who yeah our kids were in school but there's a lot of other things that

100come with that you know how much time i've had to take off from work i don't remember sending when i sent her to school being told that i have to do all these remote learning days and now recently i've been she's been out of school in the last month more times than she's been in school because of the hot days which is why i went and bought this mask because i can't do the remote learning all the time when i work from home and i have an eight month old with me also so i thought this would solve the problem apparently not 9 45 in the morning i got the call when she wore this to school from the nurse who hasn't called me in two weeks from my daughter throwing up so of course

101i'm very angry and what does she tell me if i don't get up there my daughter will be thrown in isolation and she was didn't know it at the time because i flipped out and said you better have the principal call me mr gagliardi is very responsive he called me immediately and we were had a discussion and i said where is my daughter right now and he said she's in her class found out later on she was not in her class that is not his fault he did not know that i found out that she was in isolation because the nurse put her there as soon as we got off the phone mr gagliardi went over and removed her from isolation and put her back in her class where she belonged while she waited for

102a proper mass to be brought up for her that's outrageous completely outrageous and once again shows how rogue some of these staff members are and want to make their own rules she's six feet apart in her class and her teacher allows them mass breaks and whatever there's no reason why she had to be removed they made her go down to the nurse's office while she called me when she got off the phone with me she made my daughter with the same mask on walked back to her classroom crying she was crying and had to pack up all her stuff in front of her fellow second graders who are now like oh my gosh what happened they're all like speculating and it's embarrassing she's hysterically crying to then go to isolation for a few minutes to

103then be removed kids don't belong in adult fights and i'm tired of it no one's asking you to break the rules but if you're not willing to stand up for our kids who is it's may or it's june i don't even know what day it is i just want this year to be over but i will homeschool my child next year if this continues and i know a lot of other parents will too i know the school's lost over 100 kids in the last year i are i'm new to this district so i'm just really meeting these people just recently in the last two weeks i already know at least 50 50 people that want to homeschool their kids next year if this continues and imagine how many more if they mandate this vaccine we

104need the board to stand up i every day i'm advocating to our elected officials but they don't care about us there's been school districts i think it was rocky point kama swag and shorum they teamed up together and wrote a letter to cuomo that is powerful after what happened this past weekend massapequa yesterday stood with their parents their administration and the board against cuomo it's that is what leadership is that is true leadership that is truly fighting for our kids it's amazing to me how people will just jump when they want to pull funding if i tell people to vote no on the budget i'm hurting the kids right oh it's all about hurting the kids if you vote no to the budget but cuomo what he did yesterday threatening funding that's fine right no

105one's going to stand up for that what about the mass police what are you guys going to do if the mass police show up at our school why is nobody asking these questions you're going to allow them in our school then they come in what happens what if they see my daughter and they don't see what they don't like what they see are you guys thinking about these things the government has infiltrated our schools and you guys are sitting back and just like well we're playing it safe don't want to give false hope do we you're not giving any hope we need you to fight for us we need you to team up with other school districts to fight for us it's amazing how we always want to be like comac and smithtown and all

106these other ones but when it comes time to actually act and do something that real leaders do silence so i appreciate that you guys are going to write the letter but you have to do more you guys have to be advocating every day every press conference you need to be at otherwise this is never going to end right if you guys if you want to speak just come up one last thing i just want to show you my daughter's face think about that please tyler can you do you mind forwarding me copies of the letters that you can take [Applause] thank you [Applause] good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you for staying this late and hearing us out my name is suzanne bono i am a parent i am a step parent of a seventh

107grade boy and a parent to two little girls one who was in forest brick kindergarten i'm actually here with just a slightly different perspective but to start off i know a few of you i can see you i know dr o'hara you are our father mr buscarino mr kraffa but i asked the rest of the board and individuals in this room could you please raise your hand if you have a child regardless of age i do ask could you please raise your hand okay so i'm coming to you in a position of asking you about your morals and the core values of yourself as a parent okay so yes you've agreed to write a letter as a parent i'm ashamed of every single individual on this board and sitting in front of you the reason

108being is that you are not doing your job as a parent which is setting an example my number one job and i believe every single parent out there our number one job and our number one priority is always our child correct yes would we put ourselves through flames would we allow ourselves to get hit by a bus would we put ourselves before our child yes or no yes or no yes no okay so here are some of the questions that i have for you and um i just want to start off by saying that i have one child who's been in ei for um pt for a gross motor delay and a speech delay okay she's not um she does receive services through the district now because she's about to turn four i also have

109a daughter who had no speech issues whatsoever until this year what does this have to do with anything this has to do with the fact that a simple mask interferes with a child's speech tremendously my kindergartner who had not a single problem whatsoever was leaving was mixing up sounds was end was cutting the ends of words off so instead of for instance instead of saying hand she would say han sand sen are you understanding where i'm going it was it was a consonant solution at the end of it all because of the masks that we're wearing so i want you to take that into consideration what would that be like for you if your child came in and you knew that you are not doing a single thing and there are little children out there

110yours included who could be potentially developing a delay due to the things that you're sitting there wearing here are my questions morals and values have you tried your best to bring up your child or children to be a follower or a leader do you want them to be a sheep is that okay with you have you taken pride in teaching your child that it isn't always right to fit in versus the fact that perhaps i know that this is my number one priority is i want my child to be uniquely themselves i want them to stand up for themselves i do not want them to fall in line with someone else hell i'm standing up here with blue purple and pink hair i am a former teacher stay-at-home parent now the last thing in the

111world i would ever want and i think i can speak before all of you is you would not want your child to just go along and follow the rules would you or would you like them to know that their voices are being heard if your child or a child in this district witnesses an act of bullying or abuse would you be proud to know that your child stayed silent i think not or do you want to bring up your child to stand up to speak out to do what is right if your child has been a victim of abuse whether it is physical mental or emotional do you want them to stay silent or is your job as a parent an educated an educator or a board member to teach our children our future to

112speak out against those evils to stand up for themselves i think you see where i'm going with this my son who's in seventh grade just follow me for a second i've always he's actually my stepson i call him my own we don't we do not need to share blood type or dna he's mine is not very assertive he hasn't gotten to that point but ever since he was little i've told him being unique being crazy is good it's different it's great it's a wonderful thing a few months ago he asked to go get a shake with friends after school and we said okay all of a sudden lo and behold fast forward he never wound up going when i asked him what happened he said he was supposed to go with two other boys and

113two girls and one of the girls was speaking poorly about someone in his family um and then he found out that this another one of the girls was speaking poorly about another friend and he kindly said could you do me a favor could you stop speaking about them like that could you just stop for a little bit and the girl said no and he said well then i'm not going this group that he was supposed to go with were part of like more of like a cool crew it was one of the most proud moments of my life to know that my son stood up for the other boy that my son stood up for what was wrong regarding regardless of the fact that now these other individuals and we all know that peer pressure

114is huge in middle school is that i knew i was being a great parent i was a part of that because i was teaching my son to stand up for what is right so my problem with every single individual in front of me is that i don't give a crud about the letter that now you're agreeing to write you guys should have been the first ones there dr o'hara i could be wrong how many how many children do you have four boys right yeah because i saw it on social media i would like to know if you can truly actually this goes out for all of you can you truly go to sleep at night knowing that you have done everything in your power to fight for your child to fight for the future to

115fight for your future grandchildren can you go to sleep dr o'hara you don't even have to answer this this is moral like a rhetorical question can you go to sleep at night knowing that you have done every single thing in your power to fight for the thousands of children in this district that you have done everything in your power so that god forbid you are not here tomorrow that your four boys can look up at you and say goddammit my father was amazing my father was brave he did what was right and he stood up he stood out and he spoke out if you can't let me i'm still shaking i haven't done public speaking in a really long time haven't been in front of the classroom in a really long time i didn't want

116to be up here you asked my neighbor up there she said you're going to speak and i said no and then i realized what kind of parent am i doing what kind of example am i setting for my daughter if i just sit back there and listen to everyone else what are you doing what kind of example are you setting for your child for your grandchildren for the future of america for the children of hop hog what kind of example are all of you sitting i know some of you are sitting there rolling your eyes because i can see it but you want to know what i see here's what i see i see that you are setting an example of cowardice of being a follower you're teaching our children that their voice does not

117matter you are teaching our children that one person cannot make a difference and i don't care if it's one person but i'm sorry dr o'hara and i'm so sorry because i know you're leaving i don't know if that's why you're tiptoeing around it because you want to go into your new district quietly but can you can you guys really go to sleep at night and sit there and say i am proud to be sitting on this board of education i am proud to be representing the children of this district and i am a proud mother or father because from my perspective i don't think any of you should be able to sleep at night [Applause] thank you ms cavanaugh two things real quick um what is the status of the positions uh the two super

118assistant superintendents positions yeah the positions have been listed uh posted i guess they call it uh and uh we're receiving applications so if we have a couple of week break are we doing i can't i can't understand you say it again if we have a couple of week break is there going to be interim superintendents is that the plan as we said uh i think two meetings ago uh they'll either be interims or uh permanent they'll be continue continuous leadership in that regard okay the other question i don't know if this came over on a question to the board on facebook people are asking about the universal universal pre-k i don't believe we are having it but i just want to verify and i think it's something to do with this additional funding it's just

119not the funding from the state but i'm not sure if it could be clarified for the people listening you're asking to clarify for us to clarify we're not having if we're definitely not having the pre-k and the reasons why we couldn't do it murphy yeah we we have not made a decision yet we're investigating the viability there is money available to districts but we have to have discussions with the board to see what's possible so there's there's no decision yet but it's something we're looking at okay um not for myself obviously and then i just want to uh thank all the ones that are leaving i have enjoyed all of you um you've all helped me personally with the pta so you will be sorely missed but i have all your contacts so if i

120need anything i'll uh be calling you uh joe don i'll need your contact information so i could you know get a hold of you too thank you thank you miss cavanaugh any further questions or comments from anyone how y'all doing tonight look a little tired a little coffee moonshine something like that i'm from the south okay we moved back up here a year ago my wife icu nurse she thought it'd be a great idea to come to the wonderful state of new york i don't think it was um one question i have is why can't y'all be more like florida i mean every single thing lifted every school district lifted desantis a total boss you're afraid of a man that i've been to his house every weekend having barbecues in his driveway with the feds

121okay that hate him he's a disgrace anybody who listens to him is a disgrace he's not long for office and all the people who follow against him and with him everybody that's watching what he's doing there's a lot of educated people that understand about government overreach and when you start messing with our families you start messing with our constitution you start messing with that eagle how how fitting the hot pog eagles what is an eagle what does it do it's a symbol of freedom a symbol that everybody's allowing to go by the wayside in this country by the day by the day policeman being targeted in every community you know um normally i'm yelling at people over a bull horn and it works works great it's cool we talk a lot back and forth they

122yell we yell you know um but what happens what what gets addressed at the end of the day it's it's like the bible right you give the beginner's version of the bible to your children and then you read the king james version because you understand it well you're teaching these kids fear you're teaching them division which we all know in this country they're trying to divide that real good they're running that stake that's another question i have where do y'all stand on critical race theory how's that going to affect the schools coming into september um just how patriotic are you at the end of the day what does america mean to you because to me it means take your masks off have a backbone work for a living pay your taxes don't sit home and

123collect your unemployment checks and think that uncle sam's going to pass you a couple more breadcrumbs once a month that's not how life works that's how i was raised had my ass whooped every day if it needed to be if i acted out of line teacher told me once i was looking out a window never forget it grew up in massapequa it was plain edge high school i won't name the teacher but she told me you're never going to amount to nothing looking out that window well i became an oil rig welder down in the south and i've made more money looking out that little small window than i could have ever imagined and now i have that money to allocate and put it into use that's what formed the southern loud majority it's also

124what forms separate new york state divide and conquer two movements that were working very very closely with and i'm a hop hog community member i live right right around the block my children both go to school my daughter to the middle my son to the pines elementary they're taught to be leaders in my house dogs guns flags america freedom what i saw go on in this school district just in the sports world that's all i'm going to speak about because i don't know any of you well enough to commentate on any of your characters except mr o'hara i don't like you very much but that'll be dealt with on another day and in a polite respectful way with an email or something like that that you'll never respond to you know something like that um

125these kids were muzzled like dogs playing sports okay every one of these kids and these coaches they busted their ass to try and get these kids on the field to try and get the mask restrictions lifted i mean what you what what what this whole new york experience has been going from florida to here they call us slow down south it's totally reversed it's like the fast lane and this is like i don't know what happened 1910. okay you need to do something your letters don't mean anything because now of course they're after the fact you know everything's after the fact in this country right now everything is after the fact and you saw what happened over the summer you saw these rallies you saw what happened when the people assemble that's when they listen

126when there's 20 or 30 people back here you guys aren't going to listen you're not going to listen when there's 10 000 and you can't walk into school in the morning you can't go to your offices that's when people listen just a little lesson on government overreach i know you're all very educated people but there's also some of us tin knockers and blue collar guys that are very very educated on government overreach and we'll continue to let our children know that the school district is implicit in affecting their mental psyche on a daily basis and at a certain point you're gonna that dog cage is gonna rattle too much and the dogs don't come out y'all have a good night thank you any other comments or questions concerning anything related to the district i just

127want to ask you a couple questions um we all know we want to get rid of the mask that's pretty evidence but has anyone put out a survey to find out what the parents in the town feel about the mass or the vaccine for that matter i'd be curious to know what the entire area is feeling i know there's a lot of fear and i know a lot of parents who are fearful my sister's a teacher i grew up in virginia i'm also a southerner and she's you know she got the vaccine and her and i got in a big argument over the weekend because she's still a believer that the kids still need to wear their mask and anyway it turned out all right we made up but i'm just wondering what's the temperature

128you know what are people feeling i'm trying to be respectful other people i know they're afraid of the virus everyone's experience is different um but how do we feel going into next year you know are we i don't i do not feel comfortable vaccinating my kids i know some people do and that's their choice i know some people want to wear a mask and that's their choice i don't want to vaccinate my kid where do how do things work for us when cuomo sets the standards do we have any legs to stand on to go against him even if you guys do come at him fighting back like what is what can you do for us if the government is coming at you yeah you have the four yeah you're good most of the comments

129you guys are all saying you know you're gonna find it hard to believe we all agree on i know um certain things we can't talk about was an executive session but one thing we asked an open session was we asked about what happens if we deny wearing the mask we just go to school tomorrow and say we're done we were told basically they would remove us okay that's not gonna go us get us any further voting is the number one thing i know jesse came up and you know he florida we have to keep florida red um you're in a blue state okay so when people are hands are tied it's very tough to swim as you say i'm not going to give up i know mrs bono said that you know i can tell

130you that all the other six board members fight every day for the kids and the community i know you did okay and we want what you guys want i hate wearing this i'm employed by the state okay i know let me talk i promise because i i we're gonna let you talk we've been here the whole night i'm gonna give everybody a fair chance here but we we have to do what the state allows so to say to shut down the school that's not going to help the students either right i don't think there is any easy answers i'm never saying give up i think you got to keep on fighting i think it's fantastic that you're here i think the board is being respected and we're trying to hear everybody out we we do

131care okay but please appreciate the state has a lot of control and i think you guys understand that yeah you know it's very easy to say you know what nephew i'm not going to pay my taxes eventually they come take your house okay you can be so strong until you're living on the street right okay so keep fighting i i've heard the letter stuff i'm gonna be honest with you i think the letter stuff is a waste of time yeah okay i've been i've been on this board for over nine years i think the letters was a nice gesture to make you feel good you walk back and sit in your seat i've never believed in letters if you want to get to the heart of this jesse's got the right thing you got to

132sit in his driveway you got to show him that you mean stuff okay and that's the problem we need again i'm here what you say yeah but i guess what everyone wants to see is that you guys come and rally with us protest with us do you really believe what we're saying i think they're concerned about their jobs that's what our concern is is that maybe you guys might be more concerned about maintaining your position well we're not paid so there's no position yeah no it's not about no no it's not that i'm not saying that that you got to keep fighting i i i would be more than happy to go think but i i also have a family okay i work i work seven days so i'm not going to say that you

133know people can say what they want i i do work and i do pay my taxes and i do fight okay but i would go to one i don't i'm not going to speak to other board members but i think the approach is you have to get more people on your side than people against you yeah you know i voted the other way and i lost the election this past fall okay i still think it was cheated but i i i feel you know okay that's the way i feel but i'm not going to turn against the people now that i need on my side because in two years if i don't get it back we're screwed yeah okay so if we don't start bonding together as jesse pointed out and we keep dividing apart

134guess what you're not going to conquer crap so my name is everywhere you're well you're welcome to invite me anywhere i don't hide my name you're welcome to invite me anywhere you invite me invite me anyway if i can go i'll go yeah but i do have a family so and they all have families so you can't criticize somebody because they're taking care of the sick mom and taking care of the you know a nailing child we have a leg to stand on with the mask i mean if we have enough parents that i'm gonna be honest with you in a red state it's hard yeah i mean in a blue state because what if we even if we have the teachers on our side well the teachers once again tell you one thing it

135was a teacher union teacher new york city shut down for the longest time you feel the way we feel as one spoke before i i think you have to keep fighting i think you have to bond together i think the more people you can get together but there's always more ways to tackle something than just getting aggressive i i'm going to speak freely this is not against the border against him this is me rob scarito speaking i don't like how the other side is speaking right now to be honest with you i hate the division i hate watching the news the only thing good about the news right now is i'm busy because new york city is moving out because it's totally divided in new york city it's disgusting okay but i think the way

136this group has got to approach it is is to get more people involved and there shouldn't be room in the driveway for him to have a barbecue there should be so many people it should be like all those groups that are going through the city yeah if he's having a barbecue that means there's room so get more people involved but this is me talking i'm not talking for the board i think you have to have a different approach i think negatively attacking people that have been fighting this whole time for the board and for the community is not going to get you stars if we could do something i can promise you at least i would have done something okay three schools the other day you know this tried to f cuomo right what happened

137they all had to reverse it like that it's not intimidation what happens is they control the person does he charge you fees we heard fees is that the case the school gets feed like you like they control the state funding they control state funding so you you wouldn't be paying your teachers somewhere along the line you'd have to stop something yeah so so we're going to albany is what you're saying i'm going albany well i like jesse's idea i'd rather be at cuomo's house because that's why i know where he lives you know um you have to go where the people are going to hear you because that's what they do they go to our politicians and they attack ours well thanks for listening to us i can't tell if you're smiling or frowning because

138you've got your mask on it's not by choice it's not by choice but please appreciate it we've all stayed here this whole thing we've stayed here this whole night we are trying to listen and we don't want the vaccine so if this video makes it anywhere and that should be your choice this is america i don't have a problem with that for now it's our choice but you can still fight for it don't give up don't give up on america you know thank you you're welcome to they are um of losing their jobs so i would like to know what the repercussions are for the faculty and staff even administration within hot pog if they were to align and speak openly you say what the repercussions are i ask this at work today i'm in

139real estate as you know they know you very well exactly but long story short so i went to the office today my dad is 81 years old he's been doing real estate 42 years he's having a hard time breathing so i took my mask off with my dad i got reprimanded as well okay because i'm in office i am man i'm licensed by the state of new york i don't have a choice in the matter i go into a house that's not air conditioning i have to wear a mask that's the requirement i don't like it but i have to provide for my family yes i like my community but my family does come first and i'm not going to shy away from that so if anybody in the school started saying they don't want

140to wear a mask i'm not going to not gonna call the mask police on him we're gonna try to figure a way around it which is going to kind of why i'm back up here i don't want this to come off as a personal attack on any of you some of you guys i've worked with over the years so i know you guys are trying to work for it so now i'm asking what can we do to get more effective because i know i get in trouble when i tried to do it where i was teaching i was reprimanded but what can we do together to get our voices can the superintendents come together and be a full force if you massapequa comac and all of them stood up to cuomo together and says united

141we are standing against this if we have strength in numbers what would be effective because i don't want to just blow smoke somewhere i don't want to just be ineffective and be noise or heckle i want results so if you help tell me how to get results i will focus my energy to that so we are efficient together can the superintendents on long island stand up to cuomo together that's like a question i'm asking can the superintendents i can't answer that i don't see how because your state funded and you if you close down to school you and i both know we've worked many events together i want my kid in school i i don't want somebody shut me down and sending me to a different district i'm not okay i'm not going to give

142up fighting and once again i'm speaking for myself so his masterpiece was still wearing masks they are so this is anecdotes they don't work show me a letter that works [Music] mrs vasquez you have every right to keep writing letters my personal opinion i think it's a waste of time okay that's correct and you would ask many other me unfortunately for them superintendent who has the ball to jump on and align with the other people online um is dude all right hang on guys just it's hard for us to hear you so come forward if you want to speak um did were you done i'm sorry well i would like to know then is there something effective that could be done like can we have dr o'hara and dr murphy since he's coming on reach

143out to other districts and try to band together can we get something with all the superintendents standing up together because i do believe if enough stood up as one then the cuomo could not hurt us yes if one or two it's easy to shoot down but there's strength in numbers and i think it would be more effective if we all came together if you went to smithtown many parents feel the same way maybe you can get that superintendent comac if you get other people in our like-minded communities together then we might actually be like enough is enough and stop it can we ask that he reaches out then or the board reaches out to other boards and maybe as long island communities we come together or if you have a suggestion like what can we

144do and what would be get effective results i think what jesse's do i i think you gotta action speaks better than words and this is my opinion i'm not speaking for the board i have to emphasize that i think it's fantastic you guys are here tonight but we're not the people that can make those changes the people that can make those changes are paid politicians in a blue state that love control i hate it i hate it i hate it but if we're not going to bond together and they keep allowing us to divide you're going to get nowhere we can write a hundred thousand letters that's why it's not going to matter the superintendents got together if we unite how can we unite more and be effective i i don't think there's enough people

145i i think you have to get more people than that i i think if you saw what happened with the election unless you're going to make it a two o'clock in the morning drop you're not going to get enough votes you have to get the people out the grassroots routine is the way to do this is what makes america great and proud nothing can never be overcome you just have to get the people together and keep passing the word i really believe that my mom was a big smoker when i was growing up and i hated it but the tobacco industry had for the longest time the biggest they had all the commercials they had everything on the newspapers the magazines years later people said this is disgusting people are dying or lung cancer this

146is terrible and look people fought back i never thought i'd see that day but it happened so you know i know when one of the parents had said we look at our kids i tell my kid to be a fighter and to be a leader okay sometimes it is okay to follow to help and listen to other people's opinion because if you're only opinionated you're not going to ever listen to someone 100 you have to listen to the other side to understand where they're coming from i could respectfully disagree with you but you have to hear them at least 100 correct god gave us two ears in one mouth we're supposed to listen twice as often as we talk sometimes we talk so much we don't listen okay i think the people up in here

147and i won't speak for the six members i know my heart we feel a lot the same okay but once again we have to come together and figure better ways i i think the negative approach is is always the toughest because that's what they want people off and you shut down that's why i was trying to ask for the most effective ways to actually do it okay if you get anything i think gathering gathering groups you know i think coming to these meetings and gathering groups and getting the word out is never a bad thing i think you guys see tonight that we've we've listened you didn't put a time limit or anything i was surprised and i thank you for that i thank you for attentively listening to all of us yeah i think

148it's great with jordan you have to keep fighting if there's one thing you can teach your child or anybody is to keep on that's what made america my daughter she was happy to come she went to the rally she's willing to do something yeah and i think it's fantastic and she did fantastic there thank you thank you thank you um i just want to say i think she's absolutely right you guys need to make a stance and nassar has lifted the mass grande for the real estate agents i'm i'm almost sure no ma'am well i controlled by a library i mean you could be incorrect i'm not going to argue with you but yeah i am correct but anyway what i want to say is you guys do need to make a stance because you

149guys are the backbone of this of the whole school district and for you to reach out to other ones who are feeling the same way you are afraid that no one's standing up with you you might find yourself very wrong you might find out that these other school districts are very much willing to stand up and fight with you especially those who have taken the stance already like your comac like the massapequa the patchogue reach out to them and say that's all i can do reach out and ask they may want to form an alliance we need if we don't get enough alliance against como we're not going to do it because people are afraid to get up you have to stand up and you have to try at least to see if somebody will

150stand with you and you know what take your mask off it's time i've taken mine off and i am a grandma i'm not afraid i think one of my family thinks i took care of them i think and i have autoimmune diseases i i'm suppressed so i don't care i think it's a bunch of crap it's political and i'm done with it when my little grandson of five years old gets off a bus and i said did you take your mask off during during lunch break or when you're going outside he tells me no grandma you know what i have to do i have to have the vaccine five years old what are you teaching them i've had enough of this and i'm not letting anybody scare me into wearing a mask take your mask

151off nassar said you don't have to wear it stand up get a set of balls go out and fight because i'll fight i'll be the first one standing in front of you that's good so let's do it [Applause] hello well my name is jose vasquez i'm here to advocate for the kids i understand like you said your hands are tied but you're the only one where the olive branch to reach out to us and inform us where information on how to go about it right what you've been doing this whole time right two weeks before the school end dr o'hara why are you dragging your feet do you know it was two weeks to stop the spread and here we are still advocating for our kids and where's dr murphy what route are you gonna

152leave them with i don't understand this like the age group for kids are zero to eight and have a 99 survival rate of covey with or without a mass social distinct or the new experimental drug which by the looks of it that's what you're promoting advocating why are you not providing health research anything else why are we pushing this vaccine it's insane the nurse even said it herself come fall is the flu season is this all a dispersion to replace mass with jabs like which is the end game like we all hear a year later we are fully aware of the of the science why are we not following the science why are we still listening to politicians and waiting for their marching orders what what are we waiting for you keep saying that we

153need to stand together and you literally told everybody here that they should write a letter and now you're saying letters don't work like that's very confusing what which approach do we take you guys are the ones to lead like the lady said show us the way if you guys stand up and take your mask trust me everybody on that on that youtube and social media will follow through with all of you guys regardless of a job or not the school continues you might be here this year or next year you you out the door you going somewhere else live your life why are you not advocating for the kids now and if that's the case give up the title why are you still holding them why are you dragging your feet two weeks till the

154school ends don't you think it's a little fishy what was your what's your end game what is it dr o'hara ask me the question again cause i couldn't what is your egg name what are you trying to do to advocate for the kids you know the kids are the least to be infected with cobra and have the highest survival rate of it 99.9 why are we advocating a job mass and social distancing it makes no sense we come a long way to get to this point where we are now and instead of taking advantage of these things that we could all help out each other like you said numbers do work then why are you guys stiffing or stiffing us away you're avoiding us you're saying it causes division but it does cause division because

155it's true i guarantee you sixty percent of all of you are vaccinated right or not but yet you still choose to wear a mask what is it for on stage i've seen people not wearing masks standing next to each other and choose to choose and pick which ones to wear like it's either mask off a mask on what are we still doing it's 90 degree weather the hub department did not tell anybody or inform any of you guys to make kids wear a mask it's insane they release groups to get affected mass was supposed to protect you guys the adults from getting sick or getting the kids sick how did that change how did we go from stopping the spread to flying in the curve to finding the cure to to to to to vacuum

156mask and now on on all society to allow it to happen on school grounds schools is for education they got a hospital and clinics if you want to get the the covet or whatever it is why are you allowing it to come to this school do you know the peer pressure that causes on kid the social pressure on top of all this that's going on now you have segregation happening in school these are the hats and these are the have nots is this is this this is where it's leading to and i'm from the city i don't know nothing about the suburbs and i came over here thinking this is a better chase and now it's it's it's becoming the same thing it's insane leadership starts from the top and i'm staring at leadership right

157here and i know like you guys said your hands are tied how about us our hands been behind yours this whole time why do you keep saying your hands are tired you guys are the voice of us and you keep saying your hands are tied tired from where you're tying them yourself who's tying or cause clomo coda himself he can't force anybody he's up to the school district aren't you guys the school district that's a question are you we're the school district sure so then so is he wrong for what he stated mr vasquez do you pay taxes every year of course i do why why why wouldn't we i don't believe in him who me believe you're a smart intelligent man sir in other words there are state rules that we have to follow

158and stuff that happens i understand i understand i understand all that stay with us but we have to have some conversation i have a family as well to go home to i know you have children as well if you want to ask me a question that i can gladly help you on i'm more than happy to partake and help you guys to the best of mine i'm not going to speak for the other board members okay my faith my name has been everywhere my phone number's out there so if you can't reach me that's your problem because my name's been after many years okay i i agree on your side i don't agree when you start saying that we're not good parents no i'm not i've never i never said that i said if we

159all truly believe the same thing then we should all stand together right or wrong aren't we here to to to to support you asking me a question and i gave you the answer mr vasquez and like i said i think you're doing the right thing okay and i'm not speaking to you as a board i'm speaking as rob scarito i think you're doing the right thing i believe in democracy i do think if you keep fighting sir you can overcome anything i think the way the country is right now they want division sir i think the masks are a way of controlling congregation cuomo played a joke on us on friday with zucker i i think that they put him on not a joke because first of all let me ask you a question when

160he says mass inspector what is a massive spectre i have no idea exactly that's a made-up term there's no such thing as a mass inspector and mr o'hara will be a free marker talking about massive push the microphone out of the way it's hard to hear you no it's actually it's a microphone it's actually i just don't understand don't use the microphone just talk to us i just don't understand what's all the fear like are we here to advocate for all our kids and do it together 100 percent or are we gonna pick and choose no should never pick and choose we're gonna do it but the governor say no but then the governor is saying it's up to the school board but then the governor saying oh i can't force anybody to do anything

161so who is it it's a lot of things mr vasquez it's not only mass sir it's it's state mandated testing it's a lot of things but once again you have to keep fighting i know you believe in democracy if you believe in democracy you have to fight you i don't have any magic beans i don't have any magic beans sir i'm just like you sir like how long can we do it the school year is literally over in two weeks and we're still not trying to advocate for our kids i can promise you if you give up it'll never change sir but i said if you give up it'll never change so you got to keep fighting but i don't think anybody has any magic beans here for over a year now over a year

162now we've been wearing masks sir i don't know about what your position is you choose to wear a mask because i haven't wear the mask this whole year sir i choose to wear a mask because what i'm trying to do is abide by the thing so i can keep fighting for my kids i also have a state managed job that i don't want to lose my license i provide for my family i'll tell you again my family comes before you okay i i totally agree with that and i don't know what you do for a living you could everybody practice right yeah that's that's guaranteed but now i haven't said one thing that you're not wearing a mask i i i i haven't made a comment i think it's it's a choice and that's me

163personally yeah we all should be given the choice in the kitchen and i agree with you but you said it before sir we shouldn't shame anybody else if some person chooses to wear a mask it should be the same thing there you go and i know i have no problem with that sir we're on the same page but yet again i get it that your first year telling us to write a letter but then you say i didn't say write a letter sir i never said write a letter i don't believe i ever said write a letter i said i said action speaks louder than words i think that's my i responded to the request from someone to write yeah that's where i got the confusion once you have a choice you go to the

164voting booth you got to keep trying things i'm not saying tonight but i i i i i if i had a magic bean i'd gladly give it to you i don't have it but you know what i teach my kids you don't look for a magic bean you keep looking you keep fighting and i'm sorry i apologize if that's not the answer you want that it's an easy answer that i can take out of my pocket it's a book answer it's not a book kind of question no of course it's not this is my first pandemic i got to be honest they haven't been through many before so i'm going to fight i was home for three months no no work and then you know what i told my kids we'll do it i had

165two kids in college i'll figure it out i adjust adapt okay but i'm going to keep fighting i i think we have similar philosophies but i i think once again you're not asking us a question we can answer if you ask me a question i i i'll gladly answer but i can't answer something that has no answer sir i can't thank you for your time so you honestly you honestly believe you honestly believe you honestly believe mrs vasquez that king cuomo cares about us because i don't i don't where has that gotten and it's a [Music] through mockery they could do something because our kids are suffering i care that's not the only one middle country wants to know what their students are going through i want it to change i i i want it

166to change if you think that's the magic bean let's do your community it [Music] um [Music] um regardless of what their decision is that you side themselves they'll whether you're not feel that they life a voice because you do hold some form of power to give others to allow others would you just think about that when you come together there are so many those numbers could multiply exponentially it makes a lot of sense but i i believe that's that's what i talked about before i i think you have to keep fighting [Music] and i also think america wasn't founded on leadership i think america was founded on people i i think sometimes our own leaders have left us have let us down so i i think this is where the people have to come american

167people [Music] i agree thank you so much further uh questions comments anything from anyone related to the district whatsoever yes that's not exactly true i always advise people if they're going to talk about their own child i think i've been consistent with that but um you know anyone always has the opportunity if they don't want to be on camera not to not to be on camera uh we've shut it uh i don't want to mention any names but there was a woman that had some anxiety at the mic and she asked us to shut it and we shot it we've been consistent with that um i hate the fact that these things are televised to be quite honest with you but uh if someone doesn't want to be on camera they can certainly request that

168we shut it off um sorry further uh questions or comments from anyone concerning anything related to the district whatsoever with that i'll take a motion to adjourn our next meeting is july 6 2021 which is the reorganization meeting for the district uh mr buscarino makes the motion miss weisberg is not here uh i'll second um any discussion all those a favor six five zero mr uh dr kraft and ms weisberg absent thank you very much