001good evening welcome to yorktown central school district good evening welcome to the yorktown central school district board of education meeting for august 30th 2021 can i have a motion to go into executive session for the matters pertaining to the contractual employment history of particular individual and contractual negotiations so move second all those in favor aye aye opposed thank you good evening welcome to the yorktown central school district board of education meeting for august 30th 2021. can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance and then remain standing for a moment of silence for armed forces especially for the troops who lost their lives last week in afghanistan and for those in yorktown community who have lost their loved ones especially the father of pam chesser i pledge allegiance to the flag the united states of
002america and to the republic for which it stands indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening everyone we're going to start with our first public comment which is on agenda related items and nobody has signed up to speak so we will move on uh before i read that i want to just the per the commissioner's determination issued pursuant to 10 new york crr 2.6 last week it requires any person over the age of two including all students personnel teachers administrators contractors and visitors to wear a mask while in public buildings the mask must completely cover your nose and mouth and if you do not wear the mask you will be asked to leave our meeting okay we're going to move on to superintendent's report okay good evening everyone it's so great to see members
003of our audience and and board thank you so much for the opportunity to present this evening i just want to provide our school community with a reopening plan just an update as to some of the steps that we're taking to ensure that our students are in school and to ensure that our students are uh safe and healthy and and well while they're in our schools you bet we can go to the next i can't see what slides you're on so i'm going to just operate under the assumption that we're on slide two health and safety so we have some goals that we're striving for and hoping to achieve they're outlined here ultimately we have 3 400 children in our district we have 600 faculty and staff for approximately 600 faculty and staff and we want
004everyone in our school healthy well and coming back each day and the protocols change i think one thing we saw last year is that the protocols change quite often they change without notice and we hear them at the same time that the community will hear them and what we're doing is we're looking at our practice revising pivoting as quickly as we can to make sure that we're adhering to what the requirements are and keeping our children safe on the next slide this was issued 5 37 p.m on friday in writing we knew it was coming the governor had announced it um and this was the mandate on six the following day at whatever time it was in the afternoon there was a statement that clarified one of the six feet items and that was [Music]
005that was issued shortly thereafter with regard to the mask the governor's made it clear what the intent is and and what the goal is with regard to masks that's where we are right now in summon substance what that distills down to is that masks are required indoors there are times where the children are going to be having lunch we're going to separate children six feet at that point that has a lot to do with the quarantines because a big goal here is to keep the children coming in day after day so i'll speak about the quarantine in a moment master optional outdoors uh required on school buses that's not only a doh piece but that's a cdc order as well and then there are medical exemptions we understand that some children aren't able to tolerate
006a mask we understand that there need to be some exemptions made we'll have the child's physician submit a note to our school nurse our school nurse will then review the documentation with the medical director and the doctor will make a determination from there with with regard and just to come back to the mask rules if you can be on the mask piece again this really doesn't i'm sensitive to some of the concerns on from parents who from whom i've heard some are concerned that all students should be required to wear a mask and there should be no exemptions and they're even outdoors and i understand that concern there are some who believe that the masks don't have the efficacy that that it's pretended to have irrespective of where you fall on that we have a
007requirement we're going to adhere to it over the summer we had the opportunity to make masks optional we took that opportunity worked out for most of the summer unfortunately for the last two weeks some of our neediest students were home we don't have much information on what the exit strategy is at the state level for the mass policy so we don't know the extent of this we'll learn more as we go on the next slide the quarantine rules i was encouraged to see this change made the first bullet is similar to what we have grown accustomed to for quarantines and it has increased from 10 minutes to 15 minutes so any more time is helpful to keep children in school it's the second bullet that is in the appendix of the definition of close contact
008that will enable our students to remain in school and not go out on quarantine we had students who are quarantined multiple times each year and that's just not good for anyone that's not good for the child who needs to be in school that's not good for families who are working that is a huge disruption to learning so what this says what the new mask policy or quarantine policy says is that if mrs carbone and i are two students in a class if i have covet and i'm masked because we're both masked mrs carbone gets to come back to school the next day and not have to face a quarantine if either of us is un are unmasked then the other would have to quarantine so if i take my mask off i have covert then
009everyone within a six feet perimeter irrespective of whether they have a mask on or not will have to quarantine so as an illustrative example you bet this is that first slide with the docs slide six so if student desks are at this distance in this example and it's just illustrative in this example if this student comes down with covid this student has to quarantine that's in an all mask environment so one student comes down with covid one student quarantines under the old quarantine rules this is what we were facing in the way of quarantine or if the student is unmasked is that the diagram with the several boxes that's who quarantines so if the student let's say the student here with the blue dot contracts covid does not have a mask on all of those
010students quarantine irrespective of whether they were wearing a mask or not if they were wearing a mass acyl quarantine now you take that through a middle school and a high school schedule and you multiply that by seven classes there are a lot of students who are going out on quarantine on the next slide this is going to enable us to maintain continuity of learning and at this point i think we all agree we want our kids in school i think we agree on that on the next slide i just want to share i'm fairly confident under the protocols and parameters we're putting in place that quarantines will not result from in-class contact i i'm i'd like to even go out on a limb and say we will not have quarantines however i won't do that
011because i i never seem to be surprised by some of the answers i get when i speak to the department of health and consult with them on whether quarantines are necessary i will share with the community that i cannot make assurances on the school bus i cannot promise you that the distancing will be there and that there won't be quarantines we have cameras on most of our buses we have um different avenues that we're using labeling the seats numbering the the rows we're trying to address quarantines and minimize quarantines in that way from the school bus perspective but i cannot promise you the school bus won't result in quarantines there are some small groups and related services where the children will be in close proximity those happen in small group instructional spaces quarantines may result
012some athletic activities what happens when we have a positive case is we reach out to the department of health we explain the fact pattern to them and defer to their advice and their guidance because you'll know we're not the quarantining agency the department of health is and we'll work with them and i believe that athletic exposure will be limited and quarantines will be limited however i have seen instances where they have told us that we have to quarantine an entire team so i wouldn't assure you that there won't be quarantines and then out of school they're going to be exposures out of school whether one member of a household comes home with covid and then your child is now quarantined as a result i also want to share that vaccinated children and adults are not
013required to quarantine provided that they remain asymptomatic as well as somebody who tested positive for covit in the last 90 days so they haven't amended that i keep checking to see if they have amended it from 90 days to 180 days and the department of health had not has not made that adjustment at this point next slide event just some additional health and safety measures i i'm fond of these health and safety measures because they're really not necessarily seen they're happening but they're not necessarily seen so for example we disinfect every instructional space every night and we've been doing that for more than just last school year we've had bad flu seasons and we've made that adjustment and we're going to continue with the daily disinfection of our instructional spaces and you don't know it's
014happening until you come in the next day and maybe there's a little film on the desk that didn't get removed that night or maybe uh some of the teachers papers are a little crumbled because they came in contact with the moisture from the solution but those are happening at night again completely safe completely effective for school setting the ventilation is also extremely important in our school buildings we're fortunate to have an excellent ventilation system we have multiple sources of fresh air that are introduced to our school classrooms each day and that's something that we're very proud of so we have unit ventilators we have an hvac system and certainly we have windows that can be opened and um we certainly will do that the buses are disinfected and i don't need to go through the
015entire slide but i wanted to just share some of the strategies that we're taking we have plenty of masks if anyone needs a new mask or if a child needs a new mask throughout the course of the day they don't have to wear them outside so if the mask gets lost during lunch and during recess we can certainly provide a new one and we're going to try to get the kids outside we set up a beautiful outdoor space for our high school there are actually two courtyards in our high school one is for lunch where the children go out and they really have enjoyed that space and then there's another more quiet setting where children go out there and they'll read independently and we have created outdoor spaces in all of our schools that are
016very well utilized on the next slide there are just some additional health and safety measures there there's talk about the vaccinations not vaccinations that's not something the district is going to wait in those waters we're going to [Music] take our direction from the state and obviously comply with any mandates that the state puts out the district is not requiring vaccinations we are going to be required to covid test any unvaccinated employee or contractor every week so people who are working in our school buildings will be required to have a covet test weekly if they're unvaccinated we have both a rapid antigen test on site and we have a saliva based pcr test as well that we would partner through westchester county that's through a grant and at no cost to the district we're going to
017keep that covert dashboard going on our website it's transparent it's honest it will let you know exactly how many cases we've had where they are and and you can see it over time that state dashboard has been inaccurate from the first day that it happens and you try to correct it and you reach out and there's never a response on how to correct any inaccuracies you find out about a covet case two weeks after the fact or a month after the fact and there's no mechanism to input historical data into the state dashboard it has been inaccurate from the start our website is the most accurate source for information we go in and post the information we send the information up to the state it doesn't always transfer into their website and i've shared that
018with them very openly uh we'd like to get back to field trips we'd like to do that on a limited basis the school bus honestly is the part that is a little concerning and some of the venues most of the venues that we would consider aren't very crowded and then we're limiting large in-group events in in building indoor events at this time so we're not going to have many of those moving forward the easy screen we're going to move away from at this time that was a daily health attestation that we requested our family and staff families and staff to complete we're going to move away from it because it wasn't a very good indicator of kovitt in our school so we look at the data we see if the initiative or if the approach
019was beneficial in identifying coveted cases it really was not so why continue to do why continue using it we're not going to have the daily health screening even the temperature checks that arrival had not really impacted the coveted circumstance or or it didn't really have much of an impact in terms of the identification of covid cases so we're going to remove that as well at this time and i think i should preface everything with at this time as the situation changes our approach will change and that's where i said on the first slide we have to be prepared to adapt to a very fluid environment arrival and dismissal at our schools will follow a very similar procedure so for our school community as you dropped off children at whatever building your children are enrolled that
020process will look similar please be patient in our parking lots please follow the traffic rules if someone's directing traffic and asking you to go one way or the other way please do it here to them we're all just trying to keep our campuses safe for each other and for the children so please do adhere to the traffic patterns traffic rules traffic speeds in our parking lots and we ask that you not arrive to our campuses too early we have classes that go outside for lunch or for afternoon or many of our teachers are trying to get their students out more often so there's just a little bit of security concern as we have cars start coming to our campus without an appointment and we have children outside and not a not a really strong way
021to vet every single vehicle that arrives for dismissal so we ask that you not arrive too early the dismissal times were sent home by the principals at the at each school so that that should be in your inbox if not i would suggest that you reach out to the school principal for additional information on dismissal and arrival times on the next slide we're going to remove the signage in the corridors as well we had six foot markers and and different markings on the grounds in the building trying to get back more normal that's the goal here yes the children will be wearing masks but the reality is we're setting up a system that will have them in school every day and removing some of the more overt indicators the temperature scan as soon as you
022walk in which really didn't prove to be very effective and some of the other mechanisms that um are a little more overt signage on the corridors one we're going to go with lockers at the middle school in high school so we'll be using lockers again middle school and high school our free lunch program we're really excited about that continues that's not a yorktown central school district initiative that is a k-12 usda initiative for actually pre-k to 12 initiative however i've been alerted to supply chain concerns so please check the menu frequently if your children are anything like my children they'll look at the menu and say yes i will eat that and if something else is substituted in its place that that can be upsetting to a child especially a child who has their heart
023set on having a specific menu item so i would just ask that you be mindful of checking the menu often more often than the first day of the month where you print it and just post it the menus will change and i've been alerted to that by our food service director and we can go to the next slide our distancing academic classrooms we're going to distance three feet however that's been an industry standard for us as you have an aisle to walk through that's at least two feet and from you put the students at the center of those desks it's a three foot distance even if you put the desks facing each other it's more than a three foot distance there are spots for six feet but we're not going to be using the barriers
024i think you know my feeling on the barriers from the very start was not very favorable we purchased great barriers they were terrific we used some of the federal grant stimulus monies to purchase those ba the barriers they serve less good than they do in terms of restricting airflow so the benefit really isn't worth the restricted airflow that that's provided so the student barriers will not be used they won't be used in the cafeteria because we're going to have the appropriate distancing and they won't be used in the classroom and that was the biggest concern that i heard from students once they returned to in-person learning every day were the barriers those were not and any student i see some students in the audience any student will tell you that the barriers were not a
025uh a very popular nor were they an effective mitigation strategy next slide yvette after school clubs are going to continue and they're going to continue in person there has been some talk about high-risk sports and school districts canceling high-risk sports if all students were not vaccinated well i'll tell you as our students need athletics our students need the arts and we are not going to be canceling high-risk sports nor will we be canceling the arts they are such an invaluable portion and an invaluable component of the overall learning experience for our children so i have not seen a requirement on that at this point i've seen recommendations i understand the recommendations i appreciate the recommendations are helpful um but i believe that as we did last year i believe that we can implement sports safely
026for our students and it's about so much more than sports it's about so much more than band and orchestra and dance and theater this is a an important venue and an important outlet for our students and i'm pleased that we will be able to provide this for our students thus far we began the season a couple weeks back things are going well on the athletic fields and in the gymnasiums and we continue to employ some very stringent health and safety protocols and we'll continue to do so back to school nights are going to be virtual they'll be live but they'll be virtual having 750 to 1000 people in our schools sitting in close quarters is probably not the best step to advance our longer term goal which is to keep our faculty and staff in
027school to keep your children in school and also we have a pretty substantial group of of our community who are not comfortable coming back into our buildings so just keeping our focus on the bigger picture of keeping our children in school we're going to continue with a back to school night being virtual for this year most districts in the region are going that route as well so i share that with you i've consulted with my colleagues across the region and that's been the approach that the best overwhelming majority are taking next slide yvette there will be temporary quarantines i'm hoping to minimize that during classroom time i'm hoping to eliminate quarantines however there will be quarantines that result i shared with you four examples on one of the earlier slides for temporary quarantines we will
028provide virtual instruction for students that is only in the event of a department of health ordered quarantine or if the student contracts covid which is possible it's absolutely possible so we will have a platform in place where 612 students can participate and k5 will have a small portion of the day being synchronous and then the rest of the day being asynchronous we have some immunocompromised students we're required to provide a remote option and we will if there is a concern for an immunocompromised child please send the physician's paperwork over to your school nurse school nurse again will review that with our medical director and the doctor will make a determination after reviewing the paperwork we have we've made some investments and what i want to share with our school community is we know this is
029a difficult time that's not lost on us we know that there are some students who are nervous to come back into our schools that's not lost on us we know that there are some students who have burdens that they're carrying that we we wouldn't wish on them ever that's not lost on us either we have taken a lot of steps lots of steps to support the social emotional and mental health of our students that includes looking at existing programs that we offer and techniques and strategies that we offer to hiring additional staff and clinicians and that's really important to us is to support your children while they're in our schools our social workers and psychologists and i have been in close communication over the past couple weeks and we have heard that the number one
030thing for our kids is to be back in school that's what we've heard every day we'll be here for them we have people who are trained to have those conversations and to support our students our children some have not come into a school building in 18 months they were remote during the spring of elected to be remote for the 2020 2021 school year and now here we are no remote option and they're back into our schools we understand that we understand that there are some other concerns that students have whether it's anxiety whatever the concern is from whatever the source is we're sensitive to that in terms of some of the steps that we're going to take it starts with staff and it starts with people so we have made and there are some additions
031that we've made we've also invested in reading support and having additional reading support on staff to assist in any learning gaps that we're able to identify although the data are showing promising with regard to just a more comprehensive update on the next slide i'll be posting a reopening plan to our website tomorrow it outlines much of what i've discussed here in great detail it adds a little more detail to some of the topics that i haven't necessarily discussed this evening it's brief i tried to keep it at at an executive summary level so i also included a frequently asked questions component to the reopening plan because there are some questions that are coming up one big question is will there be snow days the answer is yes there will be snow days children need snow
032days that's important now if we have a very severe winter and snow days threaten to take away scheduled school recesses then recess periods then we'll absolutely look at converting some snow days into instructional days because we recognize that some families have plans faculty and staff have plans and if we have a virtual platform available to us once we've exhausted our snow days it's certainly a conversation that we will have and then there are 15 or 16 other questions in that document that have come up more than once with regard to key dates opening day we have our superintendents conference day and that superintendent's conference day is september 1st on september you need a man ma'am you need to wear a mask in our building no we have one so we have our dates our dates
033are set september 9th first day of class and we're excited to have our students back september 13th we have a board of education work session and september 27th we have a board of education meeting so in terms of just one other thing on the reopening plan that will be posted to the website i did a live community update last week i believe it was tuesday of last week and i shared much of the reopening i added a little bit more this evening but i shared much of the reopening plans and there were about 149 questions and comments that came up that evening i've tried to address as many as i can i've tried to address as many as i can in the faq document that will be posted it was hard to follow up with
034everyone so for those who are viewing there would they were not identifiable names in every circumstance uh some were generic with names some were just initials so it was difficult to follow up with every person who asked a question but i hope that your questions are reflected in the faq document that will be posted to our website tomorrow morning that concludes my report so i turn it back over to you madam president thank you does anybody have any questions we're good okay we're gonna move on to uh board action items can i have a motion except the board minutes from the july 12 2021 meeting tomorrow policies we have a first read a motion to approve the first read and adopted the following policies it's 8505 charging school meals so all those in favor all
035right i opposed um we have a first read on the following policies 12 30 public participation at board meetings and 1235 civility and decorum did anybody have any questions or concerns with any of them okay so we can move them on personnel be it resolved that the board of education does hereby approve the payout of unused vacation days for employee 3452 upon retirement to a maximum of 20 days and also be it resolve that the board of education authorizes its board president to sign and approve the terms an agreement between the district and the employee number 4724 dated july 22nd 2021 which shall be incorporated by reference within the minutes of this meeting so moved second all those in favor aye opposed personnel upon recommendation of the superintendent of following the approved we have certified
036personnel and we have we'll get down to the bottom of it classified appointments that's it second all those in favor aye opposed um business office resolved upon recommendation of the superintendent the board of education approves a service renewal agreement with converge one to provide remote managed service support for voice services in the amount of twenty four thousand five hundred dollars for the twenty one twenty two school year somewhere second half all those in favor aye aye opposed a motion to accept the following allowance disbursements and change orders from jennings company inc and from acs systems associates for the summer 21 district-wide improvements projects they're listed below [Music] all those in favor aye all right opposed nav systems emotional approved the master services agreement and addendum number one with nav systems llc to install 12 single
037strand mode fiber optic cable between yorktown high school and services building which replaces the existing broken cable somewhere second all those in favor opposed um we have a motion to um i wouldn't just read the first paragraph whereas the board of education desires to piggyback off a contract with the delaware chenango madison oswego board of cooperative educational services in accordance with general municipal law for the purchase and services in the nature of computer electronic waste and disposal and recycling services and it goes on okay all those in favor aye opposed be it resolved that the board of education hereby ratifies the action of the superintendent of schools in executing executing a service agreement and a property access agreement with cablevision lightpath prior to board approval in order that lightpath can commence performing services to enable
038them to provide the district telecommunications services on or about september 1st 2021. so move second all those in favor aye opposed a motion to approve the qbe student accident insurance plan went nicer for the 21 22 school year the premium premium in the amount of twenty nine thousand one hundred and sixty one dollars so the second all those in favor aye opposed resolve the board of education hereby appoints dr eric small as a school physician for the 21 22 school year second all those in favor aye opposed a motion to adopt the policy statement for free and reduced meal prices for the 21 22 school year to participate in the national school lunch program operating under the seamless summer option all those in favor aye opposed whereas the board of education has previously established a
039tax cert reserve fund for the payment of tax refunds pursuant to orders and judgments in tax circuitry proceedings known as the tax tertiary reserve fund be resolved at the border hereby appropriates and makes transfers from the tax cert reserve fund to the general fund in the amount of fifteen thousand seven hundred forty three dollars and fifty eighty eight cents for payment of the twenty one twenty two tax refunds so move second all those in favor a motion to approve the following tax cert resolution by order of the supreme court of the state of new york held in and for the county of westchester on the 20th day of july 21 a school tax refund in the amount of fifteen thousand seven hundred forty three dollars and eighty eight cents is due to acme realty for
040the tax years of 2017 18 19 and 20. all those in favor aye opposed a motion to adopt the district safety plan for the 21-22 school year so all those in favor opposed uh a motion to approve the budget transfers that are listed below some all those in favor aye opposed a motion to approve the lease agreement between yorktown central school district and 1010 recreation llc for space at french hill school for the 21-22 school year all those in favor opposed and mostly approved the 21 22 orange ulster boces letter of agreement for archival inactive storage for the climate-controlled storage of yorktown central school district in active files at a rate not to exceed 549 dollars per month so all those in favor aye opposed a motion to approve the following this is special education
041most will prove the following placements as of august 30th 2021. all those in favor aye opposed gifts grants and donations emotional accept with gratitude the following gifts grants and donations at the yorktown high school 455 dollars and 53 cents from new york to yorktown septa for the purchase of special education materials that moved second all those in favor aye opposed we're up to board comments uh cheryl i i just wanted to comment on the reopening plan i i think we've done a you've done a wonderful job dr hatter and your team um and really um ensuring that everyone comes back safely and prepared for you know different issues that may come up as far as sensitivity towards children who haven't been here in almost 18 months so i commend that and really looking forward to
042getting going again it's exciting that we're at this point and we'll be opening up to everyone so welcome back to all of our students and our staff freshmen yeah welcome back to our staff our students i hope everyone had a great summer and as we look towards the fall stay healthy and welcome back mike i can't add anything to that welcome back yeah welcome back um one of the things i'm really excited about is when our high school students come back they're going to come back to new bleachers on the athletic field and a new concession stand area as well as a fully renovated gym which we're squeaking by to get close to opening day we may be a little bit late but um it's going to be beautiful and i'm so excited for our
043students they so deserve this opportunity so i'm very excited um ron i thought your plan was extremely comprehensive um i'm excited that everybody's going to be back i hope the staff is excited to be back i know there was a you know you can hear it in the air that people are happy to come back so it's grateful uh ron lisa tom anything no okay so we're going to start with our second public comment i do want to read this before i start it um our policy 12 1230 public participation at board meetings 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 their right to speak speakers are expected to conduct themselves in a civil manner anyone using abusive
044or inflammatory language using offensive language or in any way causing a disruption will give up their right to speak our public comment session is 30 minutes in length each person has the opportunities for to speak for up to three minutes at the end of the 30 minute period the board if it wishes may make a motion to extend public comment 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 conclude but if you fail to abide by our three-minute warning we will turn off the micro microphone and lastly please know the board does not engage in dialogue with the community during public comment session somebody has something on in the audience i can hear some music or something if they
045could turn that off it's quite disturbing um kelly griffis yes and also you're commenting to the board not to the audience i didn't mean that to you kelly sorry hello i'm kelly griffiths a rising freshman at yhs and i've come i've been to a bunch of these meetings and there are always discussions of diversity and educate in education and i'm speaking here today because i really do believe in the in the potential of yorktown schools i've listened to countless pbis assemblies during my time here and i've heard east theme this and empathy that since elementary school i've seen some truly inclusive and accepting communities form amongst staff and students here but i've also seen a kid get called f slur in an mesms hallway i've heard the r word thrown around in casual conversation so
046many times by yorktown students that it's hard to believe that anybody taught them how harmful of a word it is and not to mention the little girl in our community that was called the n-word this year as a school which which boasts being the home of esteem and a place where empathy is held above all else the fact that inclusion is taught in our curriculum should be a given because contentious phrases like dei or the crs framework are all just fancy words for making empathy a part of how we are taught if empathy is the foundation on which we are taught about troubling parts of our world worlds past and present then we'll begin to learn about these topics in a way that uplifts groups of people that were previously ignored i've gone through yorktown
047schools for nine years and the vast majority of the perspectives i've been presented by the curriculum have been white neurotypical cisgender and heterosexual and all we want is to do is to change that so that the kids who aren't any of those things also feel included and represented by our education it's not meant to make your kid feel bad for being any of those things if having any perspectives in your history books that aren't why neurotypical cisgender and heterosexual makes you feel threatened then maybe you have to look and ask why because how are we supposed to have empathy towards these types of people if you never learn a thing about them empathy always have to begin with a rich understanding of somebody's experiences history and hardships that way if you never ever have to
048experience um what they're experiencing for yourself you'll still be you'll still be equipped with the kindness and respect to treat them uh um oh sorry um and so really that's what it's about this is an issue of empathy and as a homo esteem it's our it's time that our schools start evaluating whether we are teaching every day using the same values that they tell us about during pbis assemblies thank you [Applause] we're not we're not going to applaud can i kimberly b hi kimberly yorktown mom dei is all the rage this anti-individual anti-american rebranding of marxism is now in our schools school boards are buckling and afraid to act as in fear of being called racist dei in any form is race under new management this framework will destroy our community from within and using
049our children to execute it should be the first red flag d i is an equal opportunity it is it just destroys martin luther king's dream to not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of their character it wants us to take blame for and responsibility for our ancestors who is going to be held responsible for the cross enslavement of african tribes every human life is sacred and belongs to themselves if america is such a systemically racist country in yorktown a systemically racist town why do we have some of the largest populations of immigrants than any other country in the world there are more than 40 million legal immigrants that grace our country and 25 of our american millionaires are black hispanic and asian just further proving that the american dream
050is alive and well and best of all obtainable to all races america is about equal opportunity but not group equity they are taking away our kids rights as individuals to have separate goals and dreams and assigning grievances from one race to another dei shares that black and whites with equal education cannot have similar outcomes we don't even get the same outcome in our families we're different dei is rejecting merit-based achievement in favor of this it is time to stop this kind of talk we need to go back to teaching our kids that hard work and fortitude fortitude are still important and to have faith in the individual and their endless possibilities our kids need to learn to set their own goals and strive for them not everyone can get a trophy but how can we
051blame someone else for our lack of goals and dreams you can't d.i is teaching resentment and worst of all as you can see right in this room pitting parents one against the other they are we're having our jobs called our we're being called racist out in public is this acceptable it's going exactly against the opposite of what they're saying they're trying to prove at the lakes lakeland board of ed one of your staff members was urging the board of ed to not fall to influence from others that are less relevant than the students herein lays another issue they are students they are our children and we as parents are very relevant we're trying the school has no right to take place and replace these influences over our children trying to dismantle the nuclear family by
052taking power away from the parents is not right we're not going away and you need to stop implementing political beliefs on our kids thank you for your time no clapping please trish sullivan rothberg good evening board members thank you for allowing me to speak i'll be very brief um i do not envy your jobs and your roles i want to say you are doing an incredible job you are tasked with something very difficult we are now in this almost two years there is a diverse range of how people feel about masks curriculum everything and i am awed that you are able to wrap your heads around all of this and still educate our children i just want to say thank you i want to send you strength to continue doing what you do and doing
053it well in a time that there will be books written about and that you are [Music] really in a tough position and i i wish parents would sometimes think about that putting yourself in someone else's shoes it's not easy none of you have easy jobs up there and i i am heartbroken by sometimes what i see you have to face i appreciate what you're doing i appreciate your commitment to education and thank you for letting me speak tonight thank you judas stevens hi i would like to echo what trish just said first of all thank you all so much for the service to our community and to our students and your thoughtful approach to these very very difficult times in many ways i am here to speak uh in favor of diversity equity inclusion the
054crs framework as mandated by the state [Music] i believe in having each child be comfortable and feel safe in their own schools and i believe you i think that's the goal that we all have um what i would like and i know that this is not interactive but i'd like to find out um the best way for the community to keep updated on the crs framework as it is being implemented in the yorktown schools what kind of measures are being taken to help mitigate some of the incidents that we've heard about where children were called names or other various things that we've heard from parents over these meetings just wondering again how we can keep updated on the good work you're doing thank you thank you miss davis [Applause] good evening superintendent dr hatter and
055members of the board i am the chapter chair of westchester county moms for liberty i am here to advocate for our children and parents on many concerning topics let me start with how disappointed i am many parents of the community are with the fiasco our first important meeting was it was completely uncalled for to allow multiple speakers from outside the district to address a very controversial topic including a comedian that was sent by yorktown for justice to mock parents that do not agree with dei i suggest that in the future you allow taxpayer residents to the opportunity to speak first we the parents came up and here to speak i know you're listening but are you truly hearing what i'm saying how can we advocate for our children and bridge the gap between the community
056educators and our schools in the past year i've watched a beautiful community become divided and our school district becomes submissive to only one side of the community's views how can this happen i would like to think it was done with good intentions however i am a bit skeptical the problem is the lack of transparency within the district and the community the lack of communication has set the tone for division again i asked why the district did not notify the community with such information as a demand petition the equity task force and the consulting firm or the simple fact that dei was going to be taught in our district i can only assume that this was done in the shadows to prevent conflicts between parents and students that would support the dea narrative this demand petition
057that includes systemic racism police brutality and privilege that is to be taught in ela and social studies class is not appropriate ideologies are taught in the home it is not the school's job to teach this if di was so great why is it causing such a great divide why are more families homeschooling moving attending private schools just like the districts pride themselves on teaching kindness empathy and respect for one another when it comes to the children they should practice what they preach i no longer will tolerate any educator to belittle intimidate or bully my child respect is earned and not given especially when actions speak louder than words i would like to announce that by calling out of the many members of this community that do not agree with me where is your tolerance where
058is your respect for other people's opinions when it comes to educators because of their influential platform they should be held to a higher standard as young impressible children look up to them so i ask you if circumstances were on the opposite end will you be so tolerable and accepting of this and attending the last board of veteran meeting in lakeland i heard some alarming statements racism exists in our community it is an issue as one of the staff members can attest to because he was harassed and received death threats from speaking out so i'm trying to figure out what is the reason behind me speaking out and receiving threats and being harassed let's put in perspective if we are holding our students to a higher standard why are we not holding our educators to one
059as well especially when one uses his educational platform to address his personal agenda we teach our children to think because they put our anything out on social media and they do not need to be accountable for what they put out there this is quite simple for the grass why not simply i'm going to ask the board we had a sign up sheet up front we had two names on a list that came and app do you want to allow them to speak yes okay carmella provision i'm going to ask that we make sure that the mask covers our nose and mouth while we're talking please don't you clarify that i just want to clear i'm sorry i'm not going to start your time yet just want to clarify public comment we are not allowed we've
060been told by our attorneys we are not allowed to make a determination of residency or non-residency and we have a public comment the public is allowed to comment regardless thank you okay so we're starting okay let me also address the mask mate mandates i realize that our governor and cdc say that the mass needs to be worn inside however what about the last couple of months panch should have the right to choose whether or not they want their child to be messed up as it is restricted to their breathing and is causing problems socially and emotionally we need leaders that are going to protect our children and advocate for us some districts in new york are doing just this here's a compromise how about letting the children take off their mask at their desk almost
061like when we go to a restaurant and sit at a table we take off our masks we eat we talk the thought of my child wearing a mask and not being able to advocate for them is disheartening masks are a form of abuse the new guidelines came out with reference to sports and that coveted vaccines so if you're vaccinated you could come into contact with someone that has covered you do not have to yet quarantine yet you can still spread and get covered yourself there is absolutely no logic in this however now we seem to be separating children by vaccinating and non-vaccinated wow another tool to divide us so we're pointing each other against each other and it's causing a lot of problems let us remind one another why america is so great home of
062the free because of the brave the american dream is attainable by all through hard work and perseverance between the dei mas maintenance possible covered manda coven mandates and our diminished parents right i stand here to make you aware that until these issues are addressed in transparency accountability and respect our mutual and mutu our mutual parents will continue to advocate for our children moms for liberty was formed on a national level to empower parents and we have started a chapter here in westchester we are strong fierce and motivated and no longer silent according to the yorktown contract between the board of education yorktown school district and the yorktown federation of teachers article 15 says professional behavior the board recognizes that the code of ethics of the education profession is considered by the freed federation and its
063membership to define acceptable criteria of professional behavior and that the federation may deal with ethical problems in accordance to the terms of such code of ethics it also states academic freedom article 6 a the parties seek to educate young people in the democratic tradition to foster a recognition of individual freedom and social responsibility to inspire meaningful awareness and respect for the constitution the bill of rights and the laws of the land to instill appreciation of the values of individual personality it is recognized that these democratic values can be best be transmitted in the atmosphere which is free from censorship and artificial restraints upon free inquiry and learning and in which academic freedom from teachers and students are encouraged ten seconds academic freedom shall govern be guaranteed to teachers and no special limitations should be placed
064upon study and investigate presenting and interpreting facts and ideas concerning man human society mike capalbo hello thank you for letting me speak i i came in late my first question is why are kids wearing masks what are we protecting them from we know that they don't need vaccines and they don't need masks children have a 99.9999 chance of surviving and doing just well so i'm presuming it's to protect the teachers so what onus do we put on the teachers teachers also have a very high survival rate if they're not obese if they're not old if they don't have comorbilities so do we going to remove fat teachers old teachers and diabetic teachers from class which we should because we know that the students are psychologically damaged and their iqs are going down now this is
065the second meeting i went to the first meeting i went to you opened it dr hatter and i found your opening comments to be rather intellectually dishonest and disingenuous and i personally found them as an insult to my intelligence we know that critical race theory and diversity inclusion are just two heads of the same hydra that we know what this is about it's a marxist indoctrination by sort on display here now you are allowing a violent hate group to get a foothold into our school and we know it we see it and you're in charge the buck stops with you and we're gonna hold you responsible the fish rots from the head thank you that that's everybody who signed up to speak this this will be the only person or two people then that's it
066because if you looked at our agenda it said okay it said 6 55 we stopped signups [Music] no no we'll allow you to speak but please keep your mask on say your name please i apologize i was late my name is tom maron i'm a parent in this district okay i'm a volunteer youth leader in our town and i've been an educator for about 30 years now i want to tell you i'm in favor of our district's efforts to include the concepts of diversity equity and inclusion in the education of our students i want to applaud the good work of our teachers our administration i'm sorry our teachers our administration and our school board for promoting and insisting upon the education that includes all the history of our great nation if we aren't going to
067teach all of the history especially the parts that hurt why teach any of it secondly let me take a moment to address masks we all know that wearing a mask is an effort to slow or even stop the spread of a deadly plague i thank you as our elected board for mandating the wearing of masks throughout our districts as a measure of safety we all recognize the need for seat belts and other safety measures this is no different vaccination is key and in lieu of that we can all accept the wearing of mask as a useful preventative measure to keep our children safe in closing thank you board for stepping up and doing all that you do especially now in these trying times thank you for sticking with it and putting up with a ridiculous
068vitriol from a small loud and anti-intellectual faction that would seek to bully you away from promoting the best education of which we are capable thank you very much thank you [Music] please just state your name also hi my name is katie schmidt fader i'm a parent here in the district um i also wanted to say thank you all so much for everything that you're doing up here we've been very impressed with the way everyone has handled the pandemic and very grateful i know it hasn't been easy i just have a son who graduated last year and has had his first day of college today and it was hard but we've been very very our family's been very grateful for all you've done um i do apologize for being late and missing the sign up but
069i did feel like it was important for me to speak because i was away during the last meeting [Music] and say how important it is for my family and how grateful we are that you are pursuing dei initiatives um you know i've learned so much so much history over the last 10 years that i never knew that i never had been educated about and it has had me has helped me have greater empathy greater understanding and i feel for my children when they learn that history it empowers them it doesn't shame them it doesn't denigrate them in fact it empowers them to make strong choices that will hopefully make our future better i hate the thought of any child being in this district and not feeling accepted not feeling comfortable and not being given the
070opportunities to succeed so i'm grateful that you are pursuing these initiatives uh i do believe the majority of those of us in this district very much do support it and we're grateful and i'm also grateful for the masked mandate because well it's very simple children under 12 cannot be vaccinated thank you thank you all right you good can i have a motion to adjourn all those in favor all right i oppose thank you all for coming out tonight