001all right good evening welcome to the yorktown central school district board of education meeting for september 27 2021. can have a motion to go into executive session for the matters pertaining to contractual negotiations and for matters pertaining to the employment history of particular individuals so move second all those in favor aye opposed thank you good evening welcome to the yorktown central school district board of education meeting for september 27 2021. can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence for armed forces and those in our community who have lost loved ones especially remember the brother of dr laurie roberts i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation to god indivisible with liberty and justice for all
002thank you everyone we're going to start with our public comment number one which is on agenda related items nobody signed up okay so we're gonna go right into the superintendent's report okay good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present i'd like to first welcome everyone to this evening's meeting i'd also like to um yvette if we can have the presentation up this evening we're going to be discussing the american rescue plan act funding is that that's on okay if we can just go to slide two so this is just some background and some history on the american rescue plan act the school district has received a portion of this money that in the aggregate it was 122.8 billion but that was not for the yorktown central school district on slide three we presented
003back in july on the first two rounds of federal funding the third round round of funding is in the amount of eight hundred and twenty three thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars there are some specific areas of focus for these monies on the next slide event the four bullets on the screen highlight the specific areas of funding for the arp act first and foremost is to offset covet related costs which there will be some that are included in the grant we'll talk about that in a moment academic support and resources and specifically noting for special education and english as a new language and then of course social emotional support and mental health support as well but we can go down to the next slide previously we used our federal funding to take a look at
004these three categories so coveted facility and safety needs academic support social emotional and mental health support we used prior federal funds to hire additional clinicians in our schools and that's been quite helpful to supporting our students and their needs we have also been able to add teaching staff to offset some of the class sizes and to offset some of the student needs that that we're seeing you've got on slide six this is how we intend to allocate the american rescue plan act funds or the district again that's at 820 some odd thousand dollar number it's special education teachers for multiple years english is a new language for a year summer remedial programs which we ran this past summer throughout the district under mrs o'shea's leadership and some additional support will will also be offering free
005on-site covet testing for anyone who's interested in participating for our faculty and staff they know how to participate for students we require parental consent in order for covent testing to be administered but nonetheless it is a service that is available on our campuses we are not permitted to test families of students who are only permitted to test current students and current staff and again with students it's parental consent and then finally on the next slide we have to submit our plan our tentative plan to sed certainly welcome feedback and we'll collect feedback in fact on our website this presentation will be posted tomorrow along with a form to submit any feedback it'll be right below that link to this presentation but tomorrow morning this will be available on our website so i'm happy to take
006any questions on this if not i'm happy to move into the remainder of my report thank you um cheryl did you have any questions no i'm good thanks me i'm good thank you mike nope nope we're good ron thank you thank you um so with regard to bus transportation providers food service providers there have been some reports in the region of bus driver shortages food service worker shortages fortunately in our district we are at sufficient staffing levels for our transportation contractors and i do want to say that total transportation has done just an extraordinary job every district has certain experiences at the start of the year that delay the arrival of buses whether it's morning or afternoon and there are certain matters that just have to be worked out in the first couple weeks of
007school but total has really taken our feedback in stride to provide our students with a safe experience going and coming to school we just to report we had talked in one of my prior letters and i'll be sharing this update with the community about a testing covid testing option using a saliva model we're going to opt out of that county program we're not going to continue our participation in that county program the saliva test that was being offered to us was a swab we originally were told it would be a vial it's a swab it's it's quite invasive it's pool testing which one positive if anyone knows anything about a pool test you take 12 people run the test one person comes up positive everyone quarantines we want to minimize quarantines we want our kids
008in school every day so the test that we're offering here is a shallow nasal swab and the shallow nasal swab is a rapid antigen test and that's available at no cost on our campus so we will not be participating in the county and there were some other concerns with regard to fingerprinting of the people who were going to come in and conduct the testing as well as some contractual concerns that were provided to us so we will not be participating in that program finally it's spirit week spirit week at yorktown high school so today was america monday each day of the week has a different theme culminating with our homecoming game on friday where it's where your yorktown gear and represent our school and our district friday evening we are hosting somers for our homecoming
009football game we anticipate a very large crowd in attendance i would just ask that everyone be safe be respectful certainly of of the players on the field but they deserve to have the attention on them and the focus on them that evening so we would just ask that anyone who's in attendance please follow all traffic and safety instructions that are in place there will be traffic on 202 we apologize in advance we will have police officers on campus additional personnel on campus we are going to the huskers will take the gate proceeds and that will be donated to support connection it's a pink out that evening to support breast cancer awareness and looking forward to a great night competitive night it's going to be great to have our students have such a great football game
010such a great athletic contest to see our students come out to see our band come out to see our cheerleaders come out and to see our families come out and celebrate what promises to be a great evening we last football game we had many of our board members attend and i appreciate you being there where we honored our first responders specifically the yorktown police department and chief noble did the coin toss they thought he did a terrific job with the coin toss and starting the game so i thank you all for coming out it's it's going to be a great evening this coming friday night and the most important thing for all of us is the safety of our students and families who are visiting the campus so we will be sending out a communication
011on that as well and that concludes my report i appreciate the opportunity thank you thank you very much um can i say one more thing the cultural awareness and equity task force will be presenting on well i will be presenting an update of the work on october 25th the task force has not met at this point this year we've had some small meetings um in advance to plan but we will be presenting our community with an update and i think maybe a monthly update moving forward at the board of education meetings is something that we'll be looking to do terrific thank you um we're going to go into board reports cheryl we're going to start with policy sure since our my last update in june we met twice over the summer we were able to
012review 11 policies we adopted five policies with changes we deleted two and we will next be meeting on october 15th terrific freshman audit so the committee met in august over the summer to review the um audit plan for the year with our auditors we also met the last few monday september 13th and the 20th um specifically working with the internal auditor on the technology area intensive review and uh we have meetings set up for next month with the external auditor some more to come on that in the next few meetings when does the we have to accept the external audit report so is that sometime in october yes it gets filed uh october 15th so the committee's meeting on the 6th to review the draft and then we're meeting with the auditor on the 14th
013that was their earliest availability so but i should be able to send it to the board next week when we have the draft terrific thank you sure fiscal advisory mike uh fiscal advisory uh is somewhat inactive at this point in time uh we're dealing with some contract negotiations but other than that uh we pick up again uh in about a month or two once we get uh the budget season underway terrific and for steering um we had the grand opening in the renovated gym we're still working through some final punch list items and a couple of pieces that haven't quite been finished but we hope to be finished very shortly with that and we're starting to work on next year's projects which were already pre-planned to be the air conditioning in the large spaces in
014all of the buildings so that includes the cafeteria in the high school the gyms in the cafeterias in the elementary schools and the gym in the middle school i believe so um i think that basically then i think tom wipes out all of our monies in that fund okay so um i think we're we're doing really well and we're just going to keep moving forward um so we have to board action items can i have a motion to approve the august 30th and september 13th board meeting minutes so moved second all those in favor highly opposed can i have a motion to prove the final fiscal year-end treasury report for june second all those in favor opposed um can i have a motion to approve the claims audit reports for june july and august of
0152021 so moved second well those in favor aye opposed can i have a motion to approve the extra classroom report for june of 2021 so move second all those in favor opposed um we have a resolution be it resolved that the law firm of shaw pearls and may and lambert is hereby authorized to represent the district in an action entitled s anderson s also known as s flosky versus yorktown central school district index number 610292021 under the terms of the retainer agreement between the district and the law firm until such time as a responsible insurance company designates council to represent the district in this matter so move back all those in favor opposed or up to policies this is a motion to approve the first read and adoption of the following following policy which is
0166150 budget transfers so move exactly hold those in favor opposed we have some deletions a motion to delete the following regulations in the policy manual we have 1120r which is school district records regulation and 6410 there are the authorized signatures regulation second all those in favor i opposed we have some first reads the first reads on the following policies o 100 nondiscrimination equal opportunity 1120 school district records and 6410 authorized signatures did anybody have any comments or concerns on those no no okay we're going to move on to personnel and upon recommendation of the superintendent promotion that the following be approved we have certified personnel appointments teaching stipends other compensation extra duty hang on uh teaching assistant changing out hours not changes um coaches and co-curriculars we have some corrections and an unpaid leave of
017absence under classified personnel we have appointments for civil service other compensation teacher eight hours and additions to the substitute list so move second all those in favor aye opposed business office we have emotional amend item 16.15 on the july 12th business meeting agenda from gina sokolov to g jj gmj i am sorry creative growth gmg creative group so moved second hold those in favor i opposed and a motion to approve the budget transfers that are listed below so moved back up all those in favor opposed uh placements i'm hoping no i'm stuck with the following placement yeah a motion to approve the following place and says september 27 2021. so move second all those in favor all all right opposed and gifts grants and donations a motion to accept with gratitude the following gifts grants
018and donations at yorktown high school a blessing student trumpet from andy bastian for the yorktown high school music department and at crompon 523 from yorktown septa for classroom books second all those in favor aye high opposed we're up to board comment cheryl uh i don't have anything thanks freshman i'm good thank you mike uh no i'm good thanks i am as well so we're gonna go on to public comments this is our second one before we start i just wanna read something um participation at board meetings in our policy 1230 clearly states that we do not allow discussion involving individual district personnel or students anyone who speaks in violation of our policy will give up the right to speak speaks speakers are expected to conduct themselves in a civil manner anyone you using abusive or
019inflammatory language using offensive language or in any way causing a disruption will give up their right to speak we will be we are allowing three minutes for each speaker and we will be asking you to stop at the end of the three minutes um when you come up please state your name clearly start with stuart friedman i'm sorry right to the microphone over there good evening i support you know your mandate from having masks for the school i understand there's a group that's against it uh you know maybe it will help to tell them that you know that first of all there you know a lot of the people conservatives people on the right have had the vaccine and they're telling people not to wear a mask or get the vaccine so maybe they that
020could be explained to them in fact even the ex-president trump got the vaccine but anyway that's you know very important to me that the children are safe my two children went through yorktown high school my daughter's a doctor my son's also in the medical field she was in the top ten you know they both did very well here and i support you know the board and their decisions i mean i this is the first time i've been to a board meeting and uh it sounds fine what you're doing i mean i have i have no qualms so you know i support what you're doing and it's another thing i heard is that uh there's a group that wants to ban books now maybe there's the wrong time to discuss this but i'll be brief you
021know book banning to me is terrible unless it's you know really outrageous stuff but for example even the uh children there's a children's book writer i don't remember his name but he writes all these books about inclusive uh inclusiveness helps kids to get along better with others and even that's uh one of the this is in pennsylvania i don't know exactly what's going on here but you know uh all i'm saying is that you know masking is not hurting your freedom banning books is a terrible thing for your freedom and education but so you know i came here just to support you and what you what your ideas are and i got a few of mine of course and uh i hope everyone agrees with that that's all thank you thank you thank you holly
022davis please keep your mouse gone okay um so last time i was here i asked the board of ed and dr hatter for the social media policy apparently we don't have one dr heter you mentioned that all hundred 600 plus employees are free to do as they wish on their own time i find that alarming because those surrounding districts have policies for such so i feel like we need a social media policy for educators so that we're all held accountable i'll give you an instance real quick of my son who attends yorktown high school last june he had an incident where he was outside of school not on school but it was an outside incident that was brought into the school by an educator who then reprimanded him in front of his peers humiliated him
023because of something that happened supposedly outside so if we're going to hold our students accountable for what they do then our educators should be held to the same standard if not more um so i have a big problem with that because it wasn't productive and it didn't do anything but put his moral down um so that's that's one question one thing i have i also listen to parents throughout the community of what is going on with the dei initiative i know that dr hatter said we're not teaching critical race theory but we're doing dei so my thing is that with transparency and again accountability i think we all could agree we could have a discussion that would be inclusive if we were included most of the community was not included in this so i think
024that maybe a survey of some sort of questionnaire of some sort that could go out to the community and just explain what this you know dei is going to entail what it's going to be interwoven into the curriculum if we as parents can elect to have our kids not included because again it has it's taking away from academics and um the time of education to have ideologies that most of the community doesn't want to come here and say or be outed and maybe be called a racist um i don't have a problem with that because i know who i am and i don't i just want the community of us to be included and i think that we could all attest that that would give so much affirmation from you guys to the community to
025show and maybe like i said you'll find that a lot of people are not supportive of this so it's just the thought that maybe it could be a better geared towards and see where everybody is at in the community that has children here in the district thank you for your time thank you kimby hi good evening recently there was an article released in the yonkers times where dr hatter stated that crt is not taught in our schools but what wasn't mentioned is that dei is really the graves grade school equivalent to crt you started a task force to implement dii into the curriculum but your task force was not very inclusive when you failed to ask parents of different beliefs to be a part of it but instead filled it with those that support one
026particular group and blm in our town so why do so many parents have an issue with this makeup of this plan well for one this is and has always been a very diverse and ever-changing and growing community and i know because i've been here for 52 years of it and never in all those years have i seen or heard or seen such a divide in people as we have right now d.i does nothing but separate individuals by color or their general gender differences without any real support and blaming today's youth for what happened generations ago what proof do you have the di would be good for our schools where is the data in statistics is there any proof at all you have shown us nothing to support it but you're willing to implement a curriculum
027that asks my child to be less oppressive while he is already being raised to not judge others by the color of their skin or their gender preference you have already allowed the use of brain pop for quite a while imagine my surprise when my son was in fifth grade and was forced to read racism in our society a built-in system of bias that makes life easier for white people and more difficult for blacks political beliefs have never had a police in our schools and i feel that still applies today dei is taking away away rights of individuals to have separate goals and dreams and assign grievances from one race to another it shares that black and whites with equal education cannot have similar outcomes you don't get similar outcomes in the same families it's what
028makes each individual unique and amazing we need to go back to teaching our children that hard work and fortitude i'm sorry is still important every parent should have be aware that neutral subjects like reading writing science arithmetic are being are taking a back seat to this new curriculum and family values well they're being dismissed dei gives the appearance of inclusivity but actually only caters to one particular group that's already celebrated as a district you've been you have been unsuccessful in handling bullying how do you expect to implement a program like dei with so much unfamiliar there's so many things unfamiliar with it at this time or the fact that not all students teachers or parents are for it you're placing your beliefs over ours don't you think you should protect our community by doing what
029schools are supposed to be doing and teaching them academics thank you thank you um pj please state your full name when you come up to the microphone okay i do um my name is pj and i live in yorktown no i need i need a full name first and last name please paul jones sorry i go by pj i apologize hey thank you for allowing me to address you all tonight i want to touch on two topics today first issue is the teaching of crt the students at yorktown in yorktown school district i am aware mr superintendent you are on record along with lakeland superintendent that crt is not taught in schools crt dei any other way you label it is the same racist teachings anything that teaches a child fun it teaches a child
030judges judges others by the color of their skin religion sexual orientation anything else it's fundamentally racist by nature call manure by a different name it still smells the same bad and so is your crt crt is bad you think we must think we're all stupid we don't think we see this if that's exactly the same thing second topic is your guidance counselor doc armstrong excuse me excuse me excuse me we do not mention names or people by their position i apologize okay you're a guidance counselor first off he is a member of a hate group yorktown for justice i am also aware of your policy that allows outside activities on his free time but his actions could have negative ramifications i'd like to bring some in evidence from his own postings from his own postings
031as of evidence tonight here are a few examples of his positive negative effects there's a board on an easel you are you act white on the second easel it says black people are displayed by they're not are displayed their intelligence they're not in they're not imitating whiteness because intelligence is not inherited inheritancy white inheritance white trade black excellence is real and not nothing to do with white prop proximity which in turn could be construed as being racist he's also quoted in an article yorktown high school counselor was last to address a mostly white audience telling them the importance was not in the march but what they do it afterwards he is this is not my job who is this is not my job anymore he is black saying you're dressing the racist she's addressing racism
032the job is white people quite honestly what you were doing what and what you were doing you were going to use your white your privilege for something good i can only assume it means white privilege because hope i hope you will okay um he's also on that same on a video at that blm rally stating racist speech i can have i can arrange to have that video sent to you if you care to see it in my job i am bound by 10 seconds please i am bound by a code of ethics and conducts i if i cannot engage a client i'm in the parking lot even on the weekend i'm sorry your time is over your time is over thank you very much you're done that was all our speakers are may i just
033address so i'm looking forward to the opportunity to present on october 20 i'm sorry our time is up please okay i'm not going to have this discussion with you i'm going to ask you to sit down thank you so i'm looking forward to the opportunity to present october 25th at the board meeting because i think we do need to clarify what's happening what's not happening because what i heard this evening is not happening so i appreciate that and i appreciate the conversation i appreciate the public comment period it's helpful to hear the thoughts and the reflections from members of our community what i will share is on october 25th i will provide you with an update as to where we are and what's happening if there is so what i said at the july 12th
034board meeting i thought was very clear we will not be teaching anyone to not love their country our high school spirit week today was monday america monday if that is not the case bring it to our attention if there's something that you're seeing that's concerning bring it to our attention in terms of some of the other concerns those are not the case and if there's something that runs counter to that please let us know and and i would encourage you to bring it to our attention what i said july 12th is as true today as it was then it will continue to be true it's understanding it's kindness it's respect it's empathy to all people to all people that's how we're approaching this and that's what i just wanted to conclude with so i appreciate
035the opportunity to say that thank you can i have a motion to adjourn it's a move second all those in favor i oppose good night everyone