001all those in favor aye opposed good evening everyone welcome to yorktown central school district board of education meeting for october 4th 2021. i just want to read something before we start the commissioner's determination issued pursuant to 10 nycrr 2.60 requires any person over the age of two including all students personnel teachers administrators contractors and visitors to wear a mask while in public school buildings the mask must completely cover your nose and mouth if you do not wear a mask you will be asked to leave our meeting school and school building the mask must be properly worn at all times thank you so can we please now stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence for armed forces those in our community who have lost loved ones especially the mother of mary
002froats the mother of susan sierra the grandmother of alyssa morano yankos and the brother of roxanne nieto 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 we have someone who signed up for our first public comments before we call them up i just want to read something else although state law does not require us to hold public comment period we have chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed to be a discussion accordingly please do not expect the board to respond to your
003concerns and questions tonight speakers were asked to sign up on the appropriate sign up sheet with their full name address and email if you did not complete the sign up sheet with all the requested information you will not be called upon speakers must identify themselves before speaking stating their full first and last name all comments must be addressed to the board not the audience our policy 1230 public participation at board meetings clearly states we do not allow discussion involving or using the name of an individual district personnel or students anyone who speaks in violation of our policy will immediately give up their right to continue to speak speakers are expected to conduct themselves in a civil manner anyone using abusive or inflammatory language using offensive language or in any way causing a disruption will give
004up their right to speak members of our audience are expected to maintain civility and respect for the views of others we do not allow calling out clapping or other disruptions from the audience our first public comment session is 15 minutes in length each person has the opportunity to speak for up for three minutes we will not be extending their first comment period we will be tracking each speaker's time and towards the end of your three minutes we will warn you to conclude if you fail to abide by the three-minute speaking time we will turn off the microphone thank you with that i'm going to call up patricia peckman it's agenda related yeah hi i'm patricia peckham i live on baptist church road in yorktown i'm here to speak in support of the non-discrimination and equal
005opportunity regulation both of my children graduated from yorktown high school my children are biracial and both were subject to some forms of discrimination in the school both overt and subtle i am particularly supportive of the changes that were made to include the perceptions of race and gender identity i hope that it is not just a piece of paper but an actual policy that will be supported and encouraged so that all of our children will feel safe and as they should an equal part of our community thank you thank you very much okay ron we're gonna head into our superintendence report okay good evening everyone it's so wonderful to see everyone i have some updates that i'd like to share friday evening our varsity football team hosted the somers high school football team and that's always
006such a well attended event and after the year and half plus that our students in our community has had it was just wonderful to see so many people celebrating enjoying the evening while the score was not the outcome that we had hoped it was a safe night for all it was an enjoyable night for all and we really appreciate our community coming together a special thank you to the yorktown police department um they had such a wonderful presence at our game and our relationship with the yorktown police department is phenomenal and it's terrific that we can call chief noble that we can call members of the department for their support and they were there and and they provided for a safe evening for our community everyone arrived and and my biggest interest that evening was
007everyone getting home safely and that was the case and i thank rob barrett our athletic director i thank all the event supervisors mr degenero and his team and certainly the yorktown police department for their support our athletic teams our full athletic teams are doing quite well they're really enjoying the new gymnasium if you haven't visited the facility i think that you'll really enjoy visiting the facility in my last newsletter i attached a panoramic view of the gymnasium and again thank you to our board of education our steering committee our fiscal advisory committee for all of their efforts in making sure that every single detail was attended to there were so many hours of design that went in to the preparation and construction of that gym and it is a beautiful facility and our students are
008reaping the benefits we're looking forward to not only having our athletic teams in the gymnasium we are a wonderful school district for the fine and performing arts we have our fall comedy getting ready to go we have our dance company gearing up for production we have our band and orchestra concerts our choral concerts that we're looking forward to we now have a second really viable large space for our students climate controlled mirv 13 air filtration in the facility so all really really good things i look forward to seeing how our performing arts programs will be able to access the facility as well and also our pioneer league we're going to be meeting uh mr rosen's going to be attending a meeting on the pioneer league later this week and we're really looking forward to getting
009the pioneer league which is under the arm of the special olympics program getting that up and running i propose my idea to mr rosen to have a decathlon or a school olympics where we can enjoy some friendly competition with some of our neighboring schools in a safe and fun way and congratulations to we had several national merit commended students and i am just so proud of them i won't name them by name but i'm just so pleased that we had five students who were recognized um justin boujard and also isabel carriello valedictorian and salutatorian respectively of the class of 2022 we're so proud of our students there we have students who are participating in amazing research and some wonderful activities in our community i am so proud of everything happening on top of all of
010that we were recently named champions of change by the new york state school boards association for our work in esteem and we continue to make excellent progress as a school district and in my newsletter i acknowledged our kindergartners the class of 2034. they started their first month of what i hope is a great 13-year journey in our school district and seeing our students now entering second month today i visited with our middle school with crompon school and at mohansek elementary school to see the students come off the bus happy knowing where to go and exactly the direction they're headed whereas on the first day they were looking for guidance it was additional support outside now the children come off the bus they know exactly which door they're entering from and they do so safely each
011day with just some other updates if i may we have another board of education meeting coming up later this month i'll be presenting an update and an overview on the work of cultural awareness and equity in our school district that's at the october 25th board of education meeting we'll also be talking about how we'll solicit community feedback and how we'll hear the voices of our community throughout the process and throughout this year so it's something that i look forward to presenting and finally actually not finally next to last because i want to end on on a happy note i just want to share before i get to a happy note um there's this social media platform called tik tok and i understand that there are these tick tock challenges that are taking place in september
012the tick tock challenge had to do with vandalizing school bathrooms to my dismay we discovered that that was the case in some very isolated instances and we've addressed those swiftly which i trust you know this month it's to strike or make physical contact with a staff member and of course that's completely inappropriate and that will not be acceptable so i just wanted to make sure that i share that i'll be issuing a letter to our school community jointly signed by the principals of the middle school in high school and i have every confidence in our students we have amazing children here in this district we we have the best students anywhere in the world and i really am confident that we won't have any concerning behavior any misconduct but but i would be remiss if
013i didn't share that nonetheless and then finally what i'll share is we're honoring october 22nd friday night there's a our final home football game of the season we're honoring all the youth sports leagues the youth football programs we have over 100 students in the youth football program if you're looking for a fun thing to do on a friday night it's october 22nd it's a great game it should be a great contest should be enjoyable and i saw miss reynolds and her family at the game last time and miss carbone was there and uh at the previous game and it's a great time it's a nice event for our school community and certainly all of our trustees have attended a game one or the other i would encourage you to come out it's such a great
014time we'll see the children from grades i believe it's kindergarten all the way up through eighth grade and they'll have their moment on the field and our cheerleaders do wonderful routines and our band is absolutely amazing second to none so if you're looking for an enjoyable evening right here in town come on out to a home football game and you'll enjoy it but if you enjoy volleyball you're welcome to attend that and any other performance check our website because the children really appreciate the support of the community it's something that they value and really appreciate we never take it for granted so if you're looking for some fun events take a look at our athletic calendar take a look at our fine and performing arts calendars i'm sure there'll be something on there that you
015might enjoy and thank you without a turn it back over to you thank you anybody make questions or comments nope all right we can get onto our agenda um can i have a motion to approve the amendment to the 21 22 school calendar which is to clarify the november second date second discussion wrong can you explain that november 2nd is one of those interesting days on our calendar where it doesn't quite fall into the category where schools are closed and it doesn't quite fall under the category where schools are in session for grades k through five we have parent-teacher conferences for grades six through twelve the students are in session we wanna maximize the instructional time while we can six through twelve our students are here so we created just a new color-coded chart to
016reflect that on the calendar the day is still what it was kindergarten through fifth grade is a uh superintendent's conference day it's parent-teacher conferences and six through twelve it's a regular day of school so we just changed the wording on the calendar to better reflect that it hasn't changed the structure of the day ron can you i'm just i know we color coded but i noticed that september 3rd is not colored is that supposed to be green september 3rd there were no students and no staff expected in so it was the equivalent of like a saturday or a sunday for our 10-month staff so it wasn't a day offer it wasn't a day on for students it didn't count toward our 182 or so it was green so it would be blank designation on that
017no designation right similar to it we would treat it like a saturday or a sunday in that case and our custodians are still on their summer hours at that point a little confusing to me it's over so we don't have to worry go ahead all right but it doesn't factor in that date does not factor into our state aid calculation in our 180 days okay all right all those in favor aye opposed we have policy adoption a motion to approve the second read and adoption of the following policies we have zero one hundred non-discrimination and equal opportunity eleven twenty school district records and 6410 authorized signatures so moved second all those in favor aye opposed personnel we have um two resolutions be it resolved that the following employee be placed on paid administrative leave employee
018number 5457 effective september 28th 2021 through december 8th 2021 and stipend for employee 5457 will terminate effective september 28 2021 and be it resolved that the board of education authorizes the superintendent to sign and approve the terms of agreement between the district and the yorktown congress of teachers to modify the annual professional performance review the appr plan for the 21-22 school year so moved all those in favor aye are you opposed can i have a motion upon recommendation of the superintendent a motion that the following be approved we have um certified personnel part-time appointments corrections unpaid leave of absence a cta and under classified personnel we have appointments a correction and a rescinding of an appointment second all those in favor and i opposed under the business office i have a motion to approve the
019budget transfers that are listed below all those in favor aye opposed um we have a motion to accept the responses to the recommendations made by the internal auditors for the intensive review of technology second discussion i just want to thank the audit committee and um the administration i know they did a lot of work on this so thank you very much for it appreciate it all those in favor i opposed dan clayton we have a motion to accept the additional work items from the dan clayton for the summer 21 district-wide improvement plans we have additional work aw one two and three these have to do with the external bleachers outside so move second all those in favor on the opposed placements and have a motion to arrange the placements as of october 4th 2021. so
020move second hold those in favor aye opposed and a motion to approve the following contracts for the 21 22 school year we have clear speech dr silvia nacab greenberg graham union free school district green chimneys kids express lakeland central school district listening partners the music conservatory of westchester the charlton school ketchum and the westchester putnam thera team llc all those in favor opposed we're up to board comments pete um i really have nothing jack other than it's actually great to see more and more people in the audience so okay lisa oh i echo pete's sentiments it's great to see everybody here get home safe carol i'm good thanks i would just reiterate um dr hatter's points to parents about these tick tock challenges if you could please speak with your children and let them know
021that that kind of behavior is totally inappropriate in school and will not be tolerated it goes a long way when it comes from the parents as opposed to the administrators so thank you yeah i second what mike says so thank you very much um we're going to go to our second public comment um i'm not going to read all of that all over again for you but i am going to remind you that um we do not allow discussion involving or using the name of individual district personnel or students and anyone who does do that will immediately be asked to stop speaking so we will start looking at thomas masson good evening [Applause] pardon me i can't read with my glasses on my name is tom maron i'm a proud parent of a student in
022the high school and i'm a volunteer youth leader here in town before i actually go to my comments i want to echo something that dr atar earlier said about the performing arts and the arts programs here in town the arts in yorktown central school district is one of the reasons that i moved here because this district supports the arts and i know that any district that supports the arts everything else is taken care of already so applause i wanted to say that i have a great deal of faith in our district i've seen teachers and administrators work tirelessly to help them i support the district's approach to incorporating uh diversity and uh equity and inclusion as the state mandates into into their curriculum at all levels uh there are some people who disagree with this
023and i would direct them back to new york state board of education i think that uh this board the administration and the teachers here do a marvelous job at supporting our children and educating our children and bringing them to a level of excellence that cannot be it has not been equaled anywhere that's all thank you thank you thank you rachel frederick i'm a little bit short good evening dr hatter and members of the board my name is rachel frederick i'm a yorktown heights resident with three children one of which is in the school district now and two will begin shortly i am here out of great concern over what happened in lakeland and what i hope does not happen here i am here in support of full implementation of dei and of all of you
024and in hope that you will be able to withstand the noise that may come at you in the coming weeks i wish you strength in your solidarity to our district to each other to truth and to our students i want to take time to remind everyone what began the noise this is not about politics or adults who wish to guide education policy or groups like sos or yfj this is about our students it was our own alumni our ycsd alumni bravely came forward in the summer of to recall experiences that felt unjust and unfair to them they recalled microaggressions and bias rooted in racism transphobia and anti-semitism perpetuated by students and staff unfortunately they did so with nothing to gain for themselves they had no skin left in the game they did so with the
025hope that those that come after them don't have to experience those things this doesn't make them anti-american this doesn't mean they disparage our district this is humanitarianism humanitarianism this is progress this is working for a better world for all students and being the mouthpiece of the voiceless this is what america claims to uphold as sacred this is what makes societies and civilizations better this is about the students and it always has been change always comes progress must progress and love always wins so i wish you strength in pushing forward with that progress i wish you clarity through it all and i thank you for all of your service and your commitment to our children and our district and a better world thank you very much thank you debra porter patricia peckham hi i i'm embarrassed
026to say this is my first school board meeting that i've attended and every year since my kids were in when i came here and they were in middle school through high school i was like this is the school board meeting i'm going to and work gets in the way life gets in the way i want to echo what miss freddy said and mr marin said most of my neighbors and friends really support our admin our yorktown superintendent staff teachers and the school board and the dei uh curriculum that is getting formed and coming hooray because diversity equity and inclusion are the very values that our country is built upon and teaching the whole truth of our history is so important for educating our children to be able to make good decisions growing up to becoming
027better citizens and um having a better place world to live in you know the truth is truth is everything so thank you very much and i echo everyone else's comments you know be strong keep up the strength thank you um [Music] jim mckean i'm sorry when we asked you to print clearly it's so i could read your name just repeat everything okay katie fetter hello there good evening my name is katie schmidt fader i live here in yorktown um i still have one one daughter left in the district my son graduated last year i just want to echo a lot of what has been said here tonight especially what mr maron just said about the arts the arts have been my life i have been in the performing and visual arts my entire life and
028have been proud to serve the last five years as the executive director of garrison arts center and so i'm always thrilled to hear that the arts are being supported and that there's so much here my children have gained so much especially from band and orchestra so thank you thank you thank you i also do want to stand in support of diversity equity inclusion curriculum i feel it is absolutely essential it is so important and it really breaks my heart um today to read how a lot of what those initiatives represent have been misrepresented especially in our neighboring district of lakeland um you know i love america i my father fought in world war ii i care so much about this country but i am also willing to admit that we still have a lot of
029growth that we have a lot of evolving to do and that our children can can build a better future and to understand and respect diversity to strive for equity is so important not not just cultural diversity but to honor those students who might have learning differences or neurological differences i think the more and more we can do to support all of our students and make everyone feel safe and welcomed is so essential so thank you for the work you're doing um keep fighting the good fight we're all here to support you and we're so grateful thank you thank you janet jerimelo hi good evening sorry i have some notes here my name is jenna jaramillo i have a kindergartener at brookside so thank you for checking him out last month and a three-year-old who will
030be here in just a couple of years i support you superintendent i believe you have been a strong and communicative leader i believe you will continue to guide this district in the right direction the mission statement of the yorktown central school district is to provide a comprehensive learning experience experience that emphasizes the education of the whole child the first two bullet points that explain how the mission will be achieved are as follows providing students with the knowledge skills values and attitude that they need to be competent contributing and compassionate world citizens and valuing diversity and global consciousness i support dei in yorktown and i think it's part of what yorktown is already i want my children to learn and understand what was and is not right in society and feel motivated and inspired to make
031things better they will leave yorktown proud and go to college excited to meet different people from different backgrounds build relationships and enter the workforce able to collaborate with whomever they will radiate openness and kindness this is my dream for their future as yorktown graduates some parents are unsure and they just want more information what exactly would be taught through dei and i get that i would like to support more open dialogue on the matter as this conversation goes and will continue to go i wholeheartedly support diversity equity and inclusion initiatives i am open to being involved in a respected respectful and productive exchange of ideas yorktown is strongest when we get off facebook and look into faces we are all here in the best interest of our children's education and development we should be the
032role models they can look up to thank you for your time thank you appreciate sullivan rothburg good evening board members and superintendent hatter um thank you for letting me speak um i can can i just ask you to state your name i'm sorry patricia sullivan rothberg my son graduated last year and i i am a big supporter of this board and i want to thank everyone and dr hatter and i want to just say that what happened in july when those alumni came back and you all listened that was huge that's not easy that's really hard work it's hard to do it in a corporate setting it's hard to do it in a school setting it's hard to do in a family setting you guys were brave you were courageous jackie you led that meeting
033exquisitely it's really hard to take inventory and stock and i just have to say that even though my son is out of the the district and we had a wonderful experience i'm here to support your initiatives i'm here to support dei i'm here to support change i'm here to support you guys think maybe we can do it differently maybe we need to learn you showed humility you showed openness and this is happening across the country in all sorts of institutions what happened in lakeland terrifies me to have somebody leave i don't have the full dossier i'm not going to act like i have it but i am very protective of this board of this administration i think you guys have sailed through really rough waters the pandemic alone like a plus across the boards and
034then to have all of this i just want to thank each of you you guys the ones that are volunteers you guys put so much effort in and you've really shown tremendous vulnerability and strength i will have your back and i know a lot of other people who couldn't be here tonight will also have your back and thank you for letting me speak thank you and that is the end of public comments so can i have a motion to adjourn someone second all those in favor i oppose thank you all very much have a good night everyone