001Turn [Music] Come on. Yes. Okay. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I'll definitely do that. Do you want to do it now or you want to do it? Okay. Or do speak in public. Is there anyone else? Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Um, can I please get a motion to return from executive session? Thank you. Um, all those in favor? Opposed? Abstension. Motion passes. Um, okay. Here we go. We all please rise for the pledge of allegiance. The flag is behind you. 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. Mrs. Can you please call the role? Jennifer Boy here. Linda G here. Jeff Page here. Sophia Bonet Hollis here. Donna Logan here.
002Maryanne Mina here. Eileen Snook here. Marian Quinn here. Mark Tonor here. Um the reading of the district commission. Our mission is to empower all students to be self-directed, lifelong learners who willingly contribute to their community and lead passionate, purposeful lives. Can I please get a a motion for the approval of the agenda? So move. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Uh correspondence. Does anybody have any correspondence they like to share? Seeing none, moving on to board president remarks. Well, this is lovely. We have such a crowd today at the very end of the school year. Last week of school. Nice to see you all. Thank you for coming. Um it's a very celebratory time of the year. The board has been um at
003a couple of the eighth grade moving ups. I know that the middle school is preparing for all the fifth graders who are excited to go into middle school. There's a lot going on. We're excited to see that the weather is supposed to break before our Friday graduation. So, our first night graduation, we're very excited about that. Um and and as just, you know, as we speak of transitions, as as Mark alluded to, um this is his last board meeting with us. He's decided to retire from from board service. And um it's just with very deep gratitude and a heavy heart that we have this last meeting with you. Um, I've served with you for almost eight years now and I made a couple of of brief remarks at the at the high school, but you
004know, honestly, probably more than any other board member, we all really care about kids, but you vocalize that all the time when we're in meetings about how does this work come back to the kids? How is this for the kids? And, you know, and and of course, it was your work at our district. And for those of you that don't know, combined 49 years given to our district between being a teacher in our schools and being a member of our board of education. So, um, thank you so much for for all you've done. Thank you. And most I was going to say most of you have heard me say I've been in this district for 49 years. 40 as a teacher, nine on the board. I'm not bragging. I'm just proud to be here to
005work with all of you. Unless you're Wingers, then I will be uh we we have a couple little things for you. Um things agility here. Here's a little something from all of us and Margie and everybody and awesome. Yeah. Thank you very much. Little fun. Yeah, Margie does an awesome job with things like that. She really Thank you, Margie. Always from all of us. And then um here's a little something from where you started it off. Is this this my paycheck for 90? Yeah. Right. Right. That's the bottle of water. Now, Mark, this needs to be put together. So, go ahead, unwrap it. And while you're unwrapping it, I'll just speak for the audience members who don't know that uh Mr. Tornado was a long-erving and uh highly regarded uh technology teacher uh and and
006our students at the high school uh fabricated something for him. So, that's the first part. This needs to be put together. This is our Arlington tree and it has Arlington at the bottom. And then this is the stand in which it will sit. And Mark, I think you know what to do there. You can just go ahead and set it. Yeah. Now, if you don't mind, I don't want Mark to read it. There you go, Mark. That's how Yep. Um, do you want me to read? Marian, would you mind reading the inscription there just so folks know what it says? Here we go. presented to Mark Tornator for his distinguished service to the Arlington Central School District community as a teacher and board of education member. Congratulations. Our kids worked really hard on that. They
007needed a little extra time. Flanigan's work. I think a few uh folks were involved with that. Yeah, I'm sure. Uh again, thank you very very much. I really Thank you, Mark. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, and we will um that concludes my remarks for right now. Okay. And so moving on to you, Dr. BL. A few for me and then we have uh I think public comment and then a student recognition. So I uh just as the board's aware, we shifted to uh half days for students this week in light of the heat. I think everybody understands why at this point. Uh we chose to do that last week uh or announced that last week. Uh as Maryann shared, we've had many uh uh student recognitions over the course of the last few
008days. It's been a pleasure to uh share those with you and attend those. And and I did want to mention uh we had the the CTI graduation or recognition a few weeks ago, which I'm going to bridge to to to our friend Dylan in a few minutes here. But I I had the pleasure of attending. It's my first time attending and they have this area cordoning off for uh uh for attendees from school districts. So, I was there and I expected to see a couple other superintendents and I did. Uh but I also saw Mr. Carol uh and I saw Miss Nixon uh representing our high school and I also saw Miss Dunn who is our our secretary at at the high school. And I say I kind of expected to see Rich there and
009I kind of expected to see Katie. Uh certainly they're no under no obligation to attend. Uh but they have commencement this Friday, but it was really nice to see them there. Uh but to see one of our our house secretary there, I think it just reinforces uh the importance of the house system at the high school. Uh and and when I tell you it was evident just how well uh Rich, Katie, and Miss Dunn know our kids uh because they're attached to them for the four years they go through the high school. I I you know, if I could bottle that up and capture that uh uh and and how appreciative our students were to have seen them there, you know, I I I I'm not doing justice to the importance uh uh that it
010was, but I think it was a a great uh showing not just by Arlington High School, but by Arlington uh there at the event that evening. And I'll bridge that because I was at the Art May uh moving up ceremony. focus on Miss Dunn a little bit, but also uh and the students had the opportunity at the moving up uh they the kid gets a you know gets the certificate, they go across the stage, they stand there in front of the audience for a picture. Uh but as they're getting their picture taken with their certificate, the big screen in the auditorium has their school photo up and the kids have the opportunity to share um a quote that they found inspirational, a hope or dream they have for their future or someone they want to
011thank uh you know that helped them uh along their journey. And a lot of kids thank their mom and their dad or family member which is great. A lot of the kids thank their classroom teacher again which is great uh or their principal. So many of the kids thanked their greeter, uh, Mr. Marcus, Mr. Green, uh, you know, as you entered the building there. A number of kids thanked, uh, a food service worker, uh, who provided them with a meal every day and was a consistent source of, uh, support for them over multiple years. And, you know, at the beginning of the school year, I shared with the staff the, you know, the metaphor of, you know, we're all piece of the puzzle. And that means all 1500 of us. Not, you know, sometimes, you
012know, I I think reasonably so we we emphasize the what's happening in the classroom as we should, but there's a lot of people who work in support of that. And between the CTI recognition and also uh at least the Art May moving up ceremony, I it was so wonderful to see our support staff show up for our kids or for our kids to acknowledge the members of our support staff who have showed up for them. Uh so I just wanted to to mention that I say that's what we're talking about uh when we say everybody's a piece of the puzzle here. Um also just uh briefly wanted to thank uh Mr. Kring for the sports awards and one stat because it's athletics that I wanted to share. Mr. Cring mentioned we had 1300 students at
013Arlington High School who were engaged in intercolastic athletics at some point over the fall. That's half of our students body at the high school. And I think again we talk about the importance of kids becoming engaged outside of the classroom and music. We we have a robust music program and services hundreds of kids. Uh we have a very robust athletics program that services uh half of the students at at Arlington High School and in some way shape or form between freshman and uh senior year which I think is uh fantastic. So uh just wanted to share that. And obviously we're looking forward to cooler weather on Friday evening at Duchess Stadium for commencement. That concludes my remarks. Thank you, Dr. Bernante. That moves us on at the moment to public comment. Mrs. Flynn, do we
014have anyone for public comment? Not for the first section. Okay. Um, all righty. What? Do you want to move up the second? We can. Sure. Okay. All right. So, then I'll do my little my little spiel. Um, so what do we have? Mrs. person agenda item. Sometimes we get an awful lot of public comments. You know, we're sort of feast or famine with public comments. So, um we've divided it into sections usually that are related to the agenda and not related to the agenda. But um an instance when there's less people, it's just more expedient for us and for you, whoever speaking to um to do that. So, let me just read my little spiel. This is the first of two opportunities for people to address the board. When your name is called from the
015speakers list for agenda items, you may speak for up to three minutes. And this is we're going to say for non-aggenda items only. Your remarks must be addressed to the board. All speakers must conduct themselves in a civil manner. And although we do not engage in dialogue, we are listening. Comments about individual district personnel or students is not permitted. And if you leave your contact information with Mrs. Flynn, our district clerk, the superintendent or one of the staff will contact you as soon as possible. Mrs. Flynn, who do we have? Mr. Edward I appreciate Hi. We have a you know we have friends at home that like to hear. So thank you. How you doing? I appreciate everybody's time and making it easier for me to go early. Um and I'm sorry it's at more
016of a celebratory thing. Um, we had there's a situation um that had happened at LMS that I just thought it was important to bring to the board's attention um involving something that happened with one with my daughter and they uh it was a substitute teacher and something was whispered to her ear in an inappropriate manner about you know there's no other way to confuse it besides inappropriate. Um my daughter went directly to the principal with it and that gentleman was removed from the site. That was on Friday the 13th and um we' been talking to HR very little because they won't give us very much information. I do know the gentleman's name. I'm not going to say that. Um the HR made it clear that you know he has a lot of rights. He didn't
017talk too much about my daughter, how she was doing or anything like that. But um so to be clear and to honor my word and what I said to her, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to mention his name, but we were told that the gentleman is no longer going to be staffed at any or used in any of the Arlington schools, which is good. Um my question is about your policy and when it comes to not sending out a notification, whether it be on Parent Square or one of the other apps, informing other parents that a situation like this may have happened. Um, in my opinion, I think that's how you would maybe find out if it had happened before and maybe nobody else wanted to say anything, was embarrassed or
018didn't know what to do. Um, and it comes across whether it's intentional or not as the protection of the staff over the student. And I hear here a lot about the students and there is a lot of programs and there is a lot of things for the students. But what happened to my daughter? Um, you know, as a father, and I'm sure a lot of you are parents here, I feel it's my responsibility to protect the innocence of my children for as long as I possibly can in a world that is trying to steal it from them earlier and earlier. I never thought that it would happen at school in a situation like that. Um, my daughter's kind she's not going to go out of her way to tell somebody something like this unless it
019made her that uncomfortable. and I'm proud of her for doing it. But, um, for the future, I think that's something that you guys should really look into as far as the policy. Um, I feel like if it wasn't my daughter, I would still want to know. So, I could ask my daughter, "Hey, has anything ever happened? Was anything do you know if you heard anything?" Cuz in my opinion, it's a it's a word against word thing. the gentleman called her over and whispered it into her ear um what was said and without sending it out to other people. You may never know. And it in just that situation, they'll call it a one person's word against another person's word where it should be the student that was taken care of. And without sending it out
020for further information from other people in in a fact gathering process, you're not going to get all the facts. And part of the reason was because it was a substitute teacher and not a full-time teacher was the first reason they told us why they didn't send it out for parent square or something. Um, and the last one was that it's an internal staffing matter. It has nothing to it's not criminal. We did file a police report ourselves. Um, which is how we got the name, but um, yeah, it's something that you guys should really look into. You know, for not only the students, but for families. You know, I'm sure a lot of parents of students in the district would be very interested to hear about something like that if they have a student that
021goes there. Um, and based on it being a substitute, somebody who's not there as often, this was the first day he met my daughter. If he's been there other days, who's to say it hadn't happened to somebody else? That's all I have to say. Thank you for your time. Sorry to do it on this night for you, sir, and for you, young man. Congratulations on whatever you got going on. But, um, I thank you guys again for giving me your time. And um I hope that you take the suggestions that I'm giving very seriously because a lot of the parents in the community feel very similar to how I feel. Thank you very much. Have a blessed day. Thank you. Mrs. Flynn, do we have anybody else? Okay. Um do we want to move on
022to the student of distinction? Yeah. Okay. Is that okay? That's perfect. I would love Yeah. So at this point, uh Miss Millis, I think you're here. It's good to see you again. I'll invite you up to the podium. Uh, and I know you have some you may have staff members with you as well. If you wouldn't mind introducing us uh to any staff that you have with us and we look forward to hearing about uh Dylan. Go ahead. Sure. So, I'm Nick Millis. I'm the principal of current technical education at CTI Duchess Boseies. I brought with uh who's joining us is uh Tom Sche. He's our construction trades teacher, Dylan's teacher. Um and we would just like to recognize him as our student of distinction. And um I want to start by thanking those of
023you who showed up for our uh recognition ceremony. Um I understand yours is going to be outdoors. The weather is the reason why we moved ours indoors. And um I wish you the best of luck with that. I know it's a huge undertaking and a lot of planning goes into it. So I wish you all the best. Dylan, why don't you come on up? Uh Dylan here, Dylan Suns is our student of distinction. He is a phenomenal student. He is a remarkable leader. When I walked into the classroom to announce that he was also our validictorian for CTI, the students were proud, happy, but not surprised. Um, it was like, "Yep, that sounds about right. That makes total sense." Um, and one of his classmates was our saludiatoran. Um, his leadership skills are are tremendous.
024Um, the respect he garns from his classmates um is one that, you know, I think helps them get through the day. Um, he's quick to help out. I see him in the hallway doing projects. Um when he's not in the hallway doing projects, he's out he was out on his internship at WFL Construction, which he signed with it, our career signing day. So, he's on his he's he's in a pathway. Um by being validictorian, he also um qualifies for uh free tuition at DCC. So, we'll be making sure he gets that all connected together should he choose to go that route. Um at this time, I'd like to invite Mr. Sche to say a few words about Dylan. Thank you. Um, just going to repeat a lot of what uh Mr. Millis just said, but
025I still want to actually say it. Um, and maybe in a little bit of a different way. Uh, and I apologize. I said this to you already in the hallway, Dylan's parents. Um, student of distinction means a lot, but that word student does not cover it. Um, as Mr. Mr. Millis was kind of saying uh a person that can be a leader but also follow uh a person that you know I've done Dylan for two years two and a half hours a day other than elementary school maybe the teacher that spent the most time with him in his whole academic career thus far made my job easier made other students experience in my class better. uh in and just just an all-around good person um with no discernable ego, which is amazing, especially when when
026a student is in my class and they have skills and they know what they're doing. A lot of times the ego is the problem. Never with Dylan. Um and just always always rock solid in helping me other students. Just a a good good person. Good person. So, thank you for listening. So, we just like to present Dylan with this uh certificate as our student of distinction. Congratulations. Thank you. And thank you very much for all the support you've given Duchess's career in tech. Um we're very grateful and thanks for the opportunity this evening. Good luck with the rest of your school year. Appreciate it. Dylan, if you wouldn't mind, we're gonna take a picture of it, but can you come up to the microphone for a second? I don't mean to put you on the
027spot. All right. But you gave you gave a great speech uh at CTI and I'm not going to ask you to give the speech again. Uh but you did something that we when we're working with other leaders, we tell them to do when you're public speaking. You told a great story and I don't know if you remember but you told a story about taking risks and you shared a little bit about uh I think a member of your family if I don't mean taking a risk. Yeah. Do you remember that? Yes. Can you share that with us again cuz I I just thought that was outstanding. Do you mind? Well, I I was talking about my dad who used to work as a car mechanic for 31 years, right? Something around that. Um, but like
028every day he would come home, I I said these words like he would come home beat, upset, and tired and wishing he did something else. And one day he took the risk of doing what he loves. And that's why I was saying take the risk. Absolutely. Awesome. Great job. And see, I remember the story. I was a couple Yeah, that that was that was people remember the stories that you tell them. I mean, you told a great story about your dad. I know your parents are very proud of you as we are as well. So, congratulations to you. And if it's okay if I we can get a picture with I get a picture with you. Okay. We'll take like a brief recess because I'm not letting you out of here without taking a picture.
029Wait, Mark wants to say something for you. I'm not going to let you go. What's your specialty? What do What do you plan to do moving forward? Um, well, right now I'm working at WFL Builders, but I also plan to go to college and trying to construction management. Make me have a little piece of paper saying I'm good enough to do this. That sounds congratulations. Thank you. You follow through on that. We pay our construction managers quite the uh I mean, you can hire me right after. Yeah. I'm sure we can arrange for Dylan to have some of the cake that we have back there. Are there any other questions for Dylan before we we we take a briefing? Go Mary. Y not a not a question, just a comment to say that I first
030crossed paths with Dylan at Traver Road Primary School and worked with him several times during his time there and his lovely family. And you were topnotch when you were that size. And look at you. Congratulations. This is Thank you. It's magnificent. And with lots of support from your family. I mean, I didn't think I was going to be like where I got to today. Like, it was all just hard work and Yeah. You know, and you put the time in. So, congratulations. Thank you. So glad to see you as a grown young man now. It's great. Dill, we'll see you again Friday night, right? All right. Yeah, we'll do. Oh, we don't I just want to take a picture for it. No. [Music] Hey, you. Hello. How are you? I'm good. You staying cool? Okay.
031All right. There you go. Right. Yeah. See, you're okay with this, huh? You might be a minority here, but that's okay. It's good to see you, G. And he's a great kid. So, I'm glad he does. He's a Trader Road alum from primary school. Yeah, I think they live right on Traver. I did. I did. And then that little face was the same just on a smaller body, but you know, you would know him anywhere just and just a great family just [Laughter] [Music] Is this Kelly Marshall in the cake? That was my favorite video. walked down. It was fantastic. Fantastic. Fantastic. You remember when his snake got loose? Yes. I don't think it was never found. No, it never was. No, but Adrian's not allowed to snakes anymore. It was in Houdini. I guess
032it was known to get out, but she just didn't put the lid on the cage well enough and it got into a wall and was never big snake, too. That was years ago, though. So, it's I'm right. Just a little bit more. done. I've done enough Her and I were remember when you had to get on the last speaker and tell people not to feed the bear? That was one of my favorite announcements ever made. There was a bear and all of a sudden we hear John in the middle of And like all things cuz it was good. It was [Music] great. Thank you. Is it to Mark's house? [Music] or one of us. That was great. What a year. What a year. [Music] I'm the daily girl. Oh, she I She said that today.
033I I was walking out of the school today where she said she had to drive to Kingston to get a test and one of the security guards said do something to her about don't call 911. I didn't know what they were. Again, every time I'm like, "It's fine. Just go. I did that twice a week. But because I thought somebody was messing, I went to call over and for some reason I pressed nine before I dialed the like 1100 and it just cut it off. And then I hear so just counting dispatch. I was like okay really funny would have exactly but he was the kind of guy who would have done something right he gave way and so I was like all right okay and he was like the guy was like no did
034everybody just hear my And I was so horrified. I'm like, "I'm so sorry I didn't." And then Brendan emailed me. He's like, "Did you like I didn't realize it got picked up here." Yeah. twice a month. And you never used to help with the dial probably. Is that why they I think that's each building has a different building. Yeah, you're right. I think you're right. Okay. Apparently, you want us a large piece of cheese. Thanks, guys. Did you have tacos? What' you have? I had a carne asada. Where'd you go? Oh, okay. This is your dinner, right? Is anyone interested in fruit? There's a lot of food up here. [Music] It's good. Hi, I'm Marian. quite sure that you know why I have horrible. You know what I mean? You can't go like the grocery
035store. Like people figuring out it's like a mental block of I don't know why at that time you wanted to be inact I do that I just especially like last year when I started there was like just thousands of names to learn and I'd be a face like okay I remember that face I can like remember like you were a teacher of this or like I remember that but the name and I just be like I did a lot of the you and then I had a yearbook in office and they would sit half an hour and then go and flipping it. [Music] Shall we? Shall we? Yes. Pop that back up. Um, leave it alone. Why don't we just um Hey, Dr. Carol, what's your assessment of the light above you? Do we think
036that's gonna Are we okay? I just think no one should sit directly under it. [Music] I think it's okay. Please don't. You have a retirement to look at. Yes. Yes. Liam, are we still streaming or do we need to start again? Oh, so the for our friends at home, sorry you couldn't join us for the cake. Yeah. No, it's fine. Okay. Well, that was lovely. Dylan, congratulations again. I'm glad you were here for such a party. It all worked out great. Always like that. That's exactly right. Yes, he is. That's very good. Let me just pull through. Yeah, he's gonna leave. I think once I remember I have John presenting a little bit about the procedures for months. Yeah. Yes. That's a reports and discussion, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's next. Yeah. Yeah. I'm following. Got
037it. [Music] Well, that was lovely. Thank you all very much for participating in that festive moment. Um, moving on. John, I feel like you always have to follow like John. I'll set I'll set John up. But just uh for the board's reference, as you know, next school year uh we are moving towards uh a new policy on internet enabled devices in the school. uh the first read of that policy is on later on in the agenda. Uh that being said, we felt it was helpful, it would be helpful to the board to hear a little bit more about the procedures that we've been reviewing. Uh in John has been leading that effort. So, uh John's going to provide an overview of the different groups he's engaged and just broadly what we're arriving at in terms
038of procedures for next school year, uh with respect to this policy. Thank you. um not as not as fun as everything that we just enjoyed, but uh I I think the so there's a few things that we just have to put on the table. Th this is an issue that across the state, communities are really divided on. We've already received some feedback from um parents that are concerned about this law. uh there was some uh misunderstanding with communication that went out that that we sent out uh explaining that this law with the passage of the budget was was going into effect. Um and that there were members of the community who were thinking that this was just purely coming from us. And so so it's really important to to Dr. Bonante's point. Uh this is
039a New York state law. It is going into effect in September and we as a district have to submit our plan to the state by August 1st for how our what our policy will be. Um we we don't necessarily there is some wiggle room in terms of how your pol they're allowing districts to craft a policy that is appropriate for them. So not every school district in the state is going to respond in the same way. Um, so we're we've really been working with our community um to to develop our procedure and our policy handinand. Challenging for us, it was challenging for us in the sense that we knew this was on the horizon um for a while, but we didn't know we didn't have any specifics beyond internet connected devices. We didn't we didn't
040have any parameters. We didn't know um you know bellto bell if it was if there were going to be there was are they going to allow it in cafeterias are they not so there there was a lot that really wasn't um clear to us until really once the budget passed and even then it was still a few weeks before we had seen any you know draft of the law that was accompanying this. So, I'm sharing all that because we started meeting as a district before we had a draft of the law. So, we we engaged a group of administrators, teachers, parents, um K12, uh there's a couple people here tonight that were were engaged in those conversations to have a sense of what what are we hearing? What is this going to look like? How
041could this look in Arlington? It is a departure from the cell phone practice that's been in place at Arlington High School with the different zones of you can use your phone here. Um, you can't use your phone in a in a red zone. Um, this is a bellto bell from from when the students get off the bus until they get back on the bus or from when they climb out of their parents' cars to when they climb back in. Um, it is a it is no internet connected devices. So that's cell phones, smartwatches, tablets, gaming devices. Um, and there is there is not uh there are exceptions. Students who require a device for their IEP or their 504 are English language learners are allowed to use them for translation. Um the state has included language
042in the law that in the event of an emergency the students can access their cell phones but we as a district have you know to establish the procedure around that and it's and us identifying that it's an emergency. It's not I left my lunch at home. This is an emergency that you know it's actual like sirens and evacuation that type of stuff. Um so we had a committee committee met for a few times. We put together a draft of of our procedures that we would apply. Um and then we received a a version of the policy from the um Erie one Boseies that that is in there. It's been modified a little bit to include a little bit of the Arlington um sentiment in there. It it's different from what I reviewed with the PTSA.
043the the spirit of is is the same, but the the format of it is different. This is much more um aligned with the language of the law, the policy that you're going to read. Um we have had students, we reviewed our plan and policy through our content team cycle. So that allowed more teachers to see it. There were students attached to the content team cycle. So students have seen it. Um I will share that they were less than enthusiastic about it. We're we've been working with our administrative team. They are aware that this is going to be um at definitely at the high school level. This is a big culture shift and culture change. Um and you know, Mr. Murphy and his team are going to start pulling together, teachers and and administrators to really
044start talking about the dayto-day. How do how do we support our students through and our teachers through um these huge shifts. Our middle schools are doing the same thing. It's less of an issue at our elementary schools. The biggest uh challenge for them in the that surfaced through the conversations with the committees were our what we would have called latch key kids back in the day. the kids who, you know, get home, get off the bus and and let themselves into their home. Those are those tend to be the kids with cell phones at the elementary level or who are getting have get dropped off and have to walk to um you know a certain distance to get into their home. They call their parents, let them know they arrived. So there's nothing that would
045prohibit the child from being able to do that because it's a bell-to-bell cell phone plan. So, a challenge that we have still in front of us is communicating out to our community the the value the understanding the position that they feel like they're in. Um the the research behind supporting that uh for example, even though the law says in the event of an emergency, students should still be able to access their cell phones, there's a lot of research right now saying that that's actually you don't want kids on their cell phones in an emergency. you you know you that's you don't want to do that. So that's some of the knife's edge that we have to walk with developing this policy, communicating it out to our communities. Um and and but we're committed to doing
046that through making sure that everybody is well aware of what September should look like and um we're maintaining in the spirit of the law that we don't really have a choice in this questions. Jonathan, if you didn't already, if you could just speak to some schools have chosen the option of pouching all the phones and and we deliberately are not pursuing that. Correct. And I know we had a lot of conversation around that. So, if you just wouldn't mind sharing Sure. not just for the board, but for the public who may be listening in at some point, uh, why we chose that as opposed to pouching for all. Yeah. Um, thank you. Sorry that if I left that out earlier. So we um in our county there are only two school districts right now that
047have committed themselves to pouching all of their students and they're much significantly smaller than us. They are um I Pikipsy implemented that plan this year and I think Dover it could be I I believe it was Dover is also looking at doing a pouch system. um everybody else is approaching this with a tiered level of intervention. So our philosophy is aligned with that that we the the um law basically says off and away not on their person. There's a little bit of discussion about what is on your person is in your backpack and in your you know your backpack's not on you. It's in your backpack. It's off and away. Um, some schools are leaning more towards we mean when we say not on your person, it's in your locker closed off in a way.
048Um, so again, there's it's a little bit up to interpretation, but most of us in the county are approaching the uh you just can't have it on and it cannot be on your physical person in your pocket or anything along those lines. And for students that struggle with that, we are purchasing some form of a pouch. We've I've met with the Yonder rep. Um and I've and we've been communicating and have some samples from and in fact I have both of them in my office. I could run next door and grab a um some other companies that make similar products that uh are a little bit more philosophically aligned to the direction that we're going. For example, Yonder will only sell you a pouch if you buy them for everyone. Um, they that is that
049is their business model. These other companies, we could buy a few thousand, spread them out across the district to the schools, um, and not have and and really kind of respond fairly to the students that are struggling with that. Um then the next level is that our administrators would hold that child's cell phone throughout the day. So so we're going to give every child the opportunity to demonstrate the responsibility that they have. Um if they can't do it, the next step will be they receive a system where they can still have their phone. It's just secured throughout the day and they would have to go to these unlocking stations at the end of the day to unlock their phone. And if if they continue to not be able to do that, if they damage the
050the pouch or the divi, the other one's kind of like a plexiglass box. Um if they destroy that, then the administrators would hold on to their phone throughout the course of the day. And obviously, we're engaging with parents all along the way. So the parents are in communication. We, you know, are with our administrators, with their children. So that's that's our tiered thinking behind this right now. Anyone? Sophia, what type of support are we thinking of providing um for the level of anxiety that this could mean for some kids who are very used to very attached um to their devices. So that has come up a couple times and we in the conversations with our committees and with our PTSA that was a qu similar questions were raised. Um that is that is something that
051we have to work our way through still in term because each building and honestly each student will respond to that a little differently. One of the to that point though um depending on the research that you read around this the cell phones and the social media are compounding the anxiety for students. So when you when you read about schools that implemented this earlier you hear I I feel less distracted during the school day. I feel less anxious during the school day. Um, and so the the net benefit of this is tends to be a reduction in anxiety. I I think there will be an increase in parent anxiety of I used to be able to get in touch with my child 24/7 and now and now I've got to con, you know, I've got to
052contact the main office to or the you know or their house office or their counselor. Um, and that's some of what we're working through, too, where um, all of our students have Chromebooks at at our high school level. Our parents can email their children on their district Chromebooks through their so there is there are opportunities to still have communication um to help like reduce some of that anxiety. But with respect to the student anxiety, that is something that we're talking about. It came up of do you know should a level of the tiered response actually be um a you know a therapeutic circle that the student participates in because it's not it's actually not like insubordination that they're not listening. It's a level of anxiety and but those are case by case types of situations.
053Sure. Mark. Yeah. I' I've been an advocate of this for a couple years and in my research I found uh that many of the schools that have gone this way uh have noticed that students grades tend to go up. They pay attention more in class uh during lunchtime they're and talking to their friends for real without their tapping their fingers on a phone. Um, and some of them bringing in games in one school district that I looked at in Ohio where lunchtime they were playing cards and Uno and different things uh and talking with their friends. So, have you seen any of that kind of uh, you know, information as you look into this process? Yeah. And that so that's exactly the the hope is a number of us have read and certainly I I
054think I would imagine it was in the conversation at the in the governor's level when she was working through this but a number of us in the district have read anxious generation which very much speaks to what what you're talking about. Um we have had schools we've had book studies happening in our schools around that. Um, and it very much is the idea that we're rather than I mean, and I'm sure our high school colleagues here would reflect something back. You'll walk into a high school cafeteria, every kid at the table is sitting around looking at their cell phone. And in some cases, communicating with the kids sitting next to them or across from them or, you know, in the same room as them, just on the other side, and there's not much face-toface interaction.
055And um that is that is the hope that we do start to see a little bit of that uh disconnect and reorming around social interactions and and re re-engaging. Yeah. And I would think to the point about parents getting a hold of their child, if there's something going on in the school, Yeah. Uh having a phone that rings from the parent could put their child in jeopardy. and and and correct. Exactly. Correct. In fact, like we so I'll point to Alteras, for example, who's a security consultant that the district contracts with that really supports things like lockdowns and um you know, our training around those areas and and that is often one of the things that they will point to is that K there unfortunately there are no shortages of tragedy in schools in this
056country that we can point to where students jumped on to live streaming and during the lockdown down and actually um ran the risk of letting people know where students were sheltering in place. Now, that's an extreme example and not certainly not representative of every student, but it's it's probably the one of the most um nerve-wracking things about students being on their phones during an emergency. Plus, you cannot read something and listen at the same time. So if you're staring at your phone, scrolling through trying, and someone is telling you emergency instructions, one of those things has your attention and not the other. So that's really the thinking of of behind that. You're right. Anybody else? I'm glad you're not using the pouches for everyone. Um yeah, I feel like, you know, many of the kids
057are going to cooperate. It's nice to manage to the best instincts of people versus treating everybody like they're going to violate, right? And I went to a show once and half the audience was an hour late because you had to wait for your phone to be pouched. Yeah. So I can't imagine getting those many kids in and out. It just seems like a like So then are we going to instruct them to like so they can bring their watches to school, but they have to keep them also away and off? And so is a thing I think are going to be initially kind of tricky, right? Yeah, we're we have to still work through some of that. I mean, one of the conversations I had with a parent was that they tracking their steps is
058very important. And I said, well, they can have a pedometer and the but they already have a smartwatch and it and so then then we got into like but if their phone is off, then their smartwatch isn't connected to anything and it's just acting like a regular watch. So, we have to work through some of that still. Um, I you know, in this moment, I don't know if I have a yes or no answer to that. I think it's I think again to some extent it'll be somewhat situational. I I think I think there's a lot of fear. Marian and I, maybe some other people were at the Duchess County School Boards hosted a come tell us how you're doing with it type of thing. So, everybody was just sharing. I mean you you're better
059at remembering everything but you know overall it's very positive for the people who have tried it last year you know that there was you know the kind of in the beginning and then um everybody was that it it it went pretty smoothly after that. Yeah. Did you get that impression Marian? Is that what you recall? Yes. I think the majority of the districts had begun some sort of maybe not beltto belt. I think some of the the smaller school districts in particular were still allowing access during yes recess during study hall like during free time. Um so maybe that was the buffer because this was before the law right was the law. So they're going to have to have some adjustments also moving forward. But yeah, basically pleasantly surprised overall that it wasn't more contentious
060or difficult than they had anticipated. So yeah, and that's what we heard too. Simil so Wingers is a great example, similarly sized district. Um they did not do the pouch for all. They're pouching kids that are struggling with it. Um but to your point, they allowed kids to use them in the cafeterias. kids could be on them in study halls k if they and so they they have to now shift off of that. Um but we heard the same thing. There were a couple kids September October that this was really a thing for and there were kids that it continued to be a thing for all year. I think it's really important to point the law we were not allowed to suspend a student because of the cell phone violation. Um however the insubordination or
061the the destruction of school property or the you know disruption of the school environment stuff for students if a student's response is egregiously aggressive and and you know trends into it's actually no longer about the cell phone you know now there's the code of the rest of the code of conduct kicks in to and this would the policy becomes part of our code of conduct. Um, and so there would be language in there to address inappropriate student responses to the cell phone violations. So the student wouldn't be disciplined for the cell phone, they're disciplined for their response to not following the Right. I think Jen then Mark, I just had a question. You had said about the pouches. Can I see them that you're using them as a a punitive way, but if a child
062has a really knows that they're not going to be able to do it, can they voluntarily pouch their device? Absolutely. Sure. And they can drop I mean I I I'm again I keep gesturing to our our high school administration behind us. Um but I actually know that some of them already have that just come in the morning, leave your cell phone with me, go about your day and come back. So, um that is and I do think it's also important to point out that there again to the exception piece here. Um there the law allows for a teacher if there's a lesson that really is going to need the cell phones. The teacher can make the decision as long as it's grounded in a in a reasonable instructional goal uh or practice. The teacher can
063make the decision. And certainly principles and other district officials can give a child the opportunity to use their cell phone if they really needed to. So if a kid comes down to the office and says, "I have to call my mom that something happened." Okay, you can, you know, you don't have to use the clerical staff cell phone. Go ahead, take your cell phone out, turn it on. You can call your parents. Just put it off and put it away. So good question. Thank you, Mark. Oh, you have one, too. Did you see that? uh are teachers, uh TAs or other staff going to be required to um deal with students uh that don't follow this policy that have a phone that that they're you know is not in the proper place. And what about
064the kid who cuts a book and puts his phone inside it? Don't give him ideas. I know you're on your way out, but don't don't don't plant those seeds for the two kids watching this board meeting right now. Our students are creative. No, I know. Where there's a will, there's a way. Um, yeah. I mean, look, and it one of the I'm going to share more information than what you asked. So, first to the like wy ways of kids to try and beat this. One of the things we're hearing coming from out of districts that are using something like a yonder pouch, which is not transparent, is that kids are hanging on to the phone. They're up for an upgrade. They upgrade their phone. They keep the phone that's bricked. They put the bricked phone
065in the pouch and they're like, "See, my phone's in the pouch." And then they keep the So, like again, they're creative. They're they're creative. Um they're smarter than we are. So the I think the issue is we're there is an element of all hands on deck so to speak but it we and this was talked through a little bit with we're going to need our adults to model this. The law doesn't require adults to not use their phones, but we certainly aren't going to want situations where the adults are uh you know sitting there scrolling through and the kid and the expectation is I can have mine but you can't have yours, right? So, we're going to need there's a level of modeling that's going to have to come with this. Um I I don't
066think any of our principles are going to have unrealistic expectations for teachers to like be the ones that crusade for this. I think just like any type of student behavior that manifests in the classroom, the teacher is the first person to say, "Please stop." Um whether that's a cell phone or a spitball or, you know, something something silly, it's the teacher that is the first person to address that behavior. And if the student doesn't comply or it's repetitive to the point where now it's a chronic behavior, it continues to get escalated. This is going to be unique in the sense where we will need really like to have some mechanism in place where a teacher is reporting. A teacher would probably not report. I'm going to use this spitball again because that's fun and kids
067don't do that anymore. But the teacher's probably not reporting. A teacher's probably not going to report the first time a kid spits a spitball across the room. With this, we will need them to tell our administrators, I had to tell Mr. Tornitor to put his cell phone away today so that they're aware that if that kid goes to my class next and has their phone out and now I'm the one who says you got to put your phone away, everybody I you know, we're I think we're going to approach this from the everybody is going to have to say from the beginning, look, here's the rules, here's the policies, it's for my class, it's for all classes. you cannot have your cell phone out. All kids have now been warned. Um, and everything after that
068is going to be fair and progressive in terms of responding to student misbehavior. But yes, to some extent, we will need our teachers, TAs, and other adults to engage at least preliminary in in that behavior. Is there um is there some sort of a technical support to make that a very easy thing for a teacher to do? Is there some kind of little you know uh so and some kind of a repository that makes that administration easy? So Mike Keelley and his team are talking with uh school tool to see if there now this is not a quick fix. This certainly wouldn't be, but it's an example of conversations that we're asking for our technology to support us with. Um, basically a little button that a teacher can click on the attendance screen to actually
069as we were talking about it, the conversation also added in. It would be great if they could do that for kids who are late to class too. Just a quick click button that is then something that again our high school administrators could easily generate and and view. um that will not be in place in September um because it school tools very slow in terms of building that type of stuff out. But those types of procedures are the things that the high school and the middle schools are working towards developing. What is we don't want to burden our teachers with. You know, 26 kids pull their cell phones out in class and now I've got to write 26 referrals. That's that's unreasonable. So, how can we how can we respond? How can we keep how can
070we track this? we need to know which kids aren't complying. Um, but how do we also not add more to our teachers in terms of of managing and supporting this? So, it almost feels like you need to develop something, I hate to say it, like sooner than later because the the most most of it's going to come in the beginning as you're sort of training the kids, right? So, most of these continual, you know, put it away. Um, and and I guess I have a note here. Is it our expectation that they will get off the bus with it off and away? That you don't go to first period and someone tells you, you know, Yeah. you you walk into the building with it off and away. Correct. Correct. And just just back to your
071point about the technology. Some of the ideas we floated around were low tech solutions, which is just like preprinted stacks of of pass type things for kids that you can just say you got to go like you got to go talk to your office or you got to you know here's your pass. you got to but then now kids are missing instruction for like a so trying to really balance the response but you're right we need the procedures will be in place by by September what 4th is when school comes back um I think the other piece too though is and and I've expressed this in the conversations that I've had with the stakeholders this is a the procedure piece not the policy but the procedures will live and breathe a little So if we
072find that something isn't working, we're going to make sure we adjust and continue to play. Like it this is the type of shift that's going to require a lot of patience. Um and to some extent resilience because the odds of us getting us this right the first time districtwide, I mean we're going to need to there's going to be a phase two phase three uh through here. John, [Music] will you be tracking the reason for the exemptions whether it be medical or whatever the other exemptions are? Yeah. So the the English language learners have a flag in school tools. So you can see who the teachers would be able to see who um would be eligible for the translation support through that. Um there's also the scenario would require translation, right? So, if we're not
073in a situation where we're translating and a kid has their cell phone out, then that's um with respect to the 504s, the IEPs or other health impaired um or other health plan rather, the that will be in a student's IEP, 504 or um you know, other health plan that that has to be filed. And I think I to just slide back to the anxiety conversation. We're anticipating and I've already seen a couple 504s come through. Um that you know our our district physician has reviewed the draft document that we created. Our our school attorneys have reviewed the the draft procedures that were created. Um, and the position is that we don't need to be approving 504s or IEP requests that don't actually require a cell phone um, within reason. So, if if I'm just going
074to I'm going to share with you a conversation that I had where a parent was uh explaining that they know of kids who they're anticipating submitting a 504 request because the child um needs their phone to go to the bathroom. That's I we that's something we would ask our medical team to review, but I don't anticipate something like that. You know, again, I don't want to be predeterminative with this stuff, but there are those we're anticipating getting in some of those requests that are really just an attempt to get their kid to still have their cell phone. Um so there will be some level of scrutiny with those requests coming through. Sophia Um, my twins are 25 now, so they are graduates of of the district. And I had to tell you, I'm thinking now
075that I'm thinking about it, if they had gone through this, I think they could have be better managers of their time now that they are becoming adults. Sure. Even though now the technology allows you to selfmodderate your time, you can max your time on Instagram, you can max your time on Facebook and it will shut it down. Like now that technology didn't exist by then, but now it is there but even now and they now self-modderate thanks to that. I think it will have been their neural paths will have been modeled differently if they had had this self-disipline by law kind of like yeah when they were in high school. So I am inspired that I think the kids will benefit and eventually themselves also maybe they are not going to see it in the
076same in the first six months but I think it's I think it will my kids will be better adults right now because of that I think yeah certainly the intention knock on wood John you had a followup um just back to the exemption I'm sorry sure yeah sorry I guess my real question is not how you're giving the exemptions but the exemptions that are being given out. Are you guys tracking what types of exemptions are being given out, whether it be for medical 504 or whether it meets any of the other criteria? So, so I mean I I wasn't planning on it. I don't know if we have to for law. I think the only thing we have to track is actually the the cell phone violations. I think that's what we have to track
077and report. Um I could I could double check on that for you. I I think they'll be tracked just through the nature of the 504 and IEP process and we could certainly keep a record of that. It would be interesting to see what comes through. Um, you know, the students who need them to monitor their blood sugar. That's that's certainly an easy thing we can filter and and pull. That's just an example. So, it would be those types of things. We could we could run those reports just like you had. There's a certain number we know of already. There are certain children, primarily kids with independence that we know already have it and we've only received one request so far other than that. So, it's going to be pretty easy to track. It's something that
078Dr. Patient and I are meeting again tomorrow. So, I'll be explaining to her as well. So, we'll be able to give you an idea. I can run a list right now of the students that already have it already using for that and then the newer ones that come in. We don't want to unduly add more to it, you know, just Okay. Okay. Yeah. I guess my question was is I understand the 504s and the IEPs, but there was some other criteria that like the English language learners English language learners, but I there was a couple I don't have the policy in front of me, but there were a couple other littleer ones that I was wondering if we're seeing how many students are applying for those type of exams. Yeah, I So now I understand
079where you're going with that. I No, no, I didn't. I didn't think you were. Um, I I think we just would have to So, to Dr. Castal's point, we um we haven't even really set the process up yet for people to start submitting those. I mean, people can submit 504s and IEPs uh requests whenever, but in terms of an other health plan. Um but I you know we so we could as we work through that process we would be able to again monitor since no one has one now it'd be pretty easy to just monitor how many come in. I feel compelled to just say we would like to encourage parents to give it a try. Yeah of course right before we inundate you know our PPS staff with you know creative 504 plans. It
080would be, I think, give it a little try. Like you said, might end up being I completely agree with you. People of a certain age, like myself, you know, we're prephones, so we at least remember what it was like not to be that distracted. Do you know what I'm saying? So, at least we have a aspirational memory of what it was to have complete control of your own head, right? So, it uh maybe this will give that to them. They'll see, well, you know what? Maybe once a month now that I'm an adult, I need a a phone free day, right? Or whatever I need to do to control. Correct. Correct. So, and part to that point too, part of the communication plan through the summer will be encouraging families to try this at home.
081Like, let's try to leave. Let's see how your child responds. encourage them to, you know, obviously we can't require anybody to do that, but it would be good practice to see how they respond in those environments and to start conditioning the child a little bit before they come back to school in September. And school is actually easier because all your friends are here and all their phones are off. You know what I'm saying? So, but in the summer, you know, Susie has her phone on, it's my mom, so you know, you know, then yeah. Um, I did have one thing kind of off a couple things somebody else said was about the cafeteria. I could see that if you were um a a child that that maybe struggled socially a little bit that there's this
082sort of you know you're near somebody but you have your own thing and you're kind of you know that we're using we're trying to avoid I guess but we're using the phone as sort of a a comfort thing more than even an information thing and I guess more to Mark's point is there any thought of I think it'll be a harder place perhaps to police or to police is the wrong word but to you know encourage children to to you know the the games I thought was a great idea, you know, or cards or I mean, I don't know that seems like a lot maybe, but I um it also sounds sounds fun and maybe if it's their time to have a little fun, you know, I don't know if you've thought about how the
083cafeteria piece. So, those are the types of conversations we're encouraging the buildings to engage in. Okay. Um because again, that'll look different for the high school and their team than it would for the two middle schools. And um but but yes, those are certainly topics that need to be discussed through through the process. And I think Mark, you have something uh if it's appropriate. I'm kind of wondering if our student representative has any comment on this if he's here. Uh she's not here. She's not here. No, she's Were there students on this group? So the there were students through the content team cycle that were were engaged in the conversation and we also reviewed it at our um district equity committee meetings and there were students connected to that. Uh and so there have been
084students who provided feedback and was there what was their general um well one of them when we talked about the yonder pouches said oh good they sell the keys for those on Amazon. Yes. So like the that's what we that's what we heard from like brea attack or something. I didn't want to say that but the kids so so you know I mean it it was interesting cuz there were there were there were students who who you know you could almost hear like Charlton H's voice you know from like cold dead hands talking about like taking the cell phone out of out of their hands. Uh but you know at the same time there were also students that there were I remember one of the students in the equity committee was as we were discussing
085it as the equity committee looked over to one of the other participants and said wow this is me like this is my generation they're talking about they're talking about me like we're um and so that it I I think we will see I think we will our experience will be very similar to the districts that rolled this out earlier. We're going to have kids that it's it's rough at first and then it becomes natural and then there will be kids that need a little bit more time to wrap their heads around this. Um, I think just an interesting anecdote, the when I met with the Yonder rep, actually Sam Faulk was with me. When we met with the Yonder rep, um, they encourage school districts to buy 30% more than they have student body. And
086part of that is because of the like about 30% of your student population is probably going to try and break this to get into it. That that's the implied. So, you know, if that's their business model, you would imagine that that's a fairly representative um not before, right? They're they're speaking from their experience. They're also trying to sell you. Yeah. 30% more of their product, but I, you know, I think there's a level of I'm so glad we're appealing to higher angels initially. Like, let's give that a try, right, before we Yeah. Yeah. That sounds great. Um, thank you. Anybody else? All right. Thank you. Thank you. We look forward to speaking to you in like November or something with all the battle wounds. Especially this team out there, the battle wounds, right? You're going
087to want a personized pouch. Stick yourself in. Um, thank you very much. Um, moving on then. Yes. Okay. So, item C, the board retreat agenda. Dr. Bon. So, uh, we don't have to get in too much discussion about this this evening, but I did want the Maryanne, Linda, and I had worked on the retreat agenda for the two days that we have scheduled and wanted to provide you with a basic outline of that agenda. Um, we've already noted a shift that's going to have to be made with David uh Shaw providing a legal update in the morning as opposed to the afternoon. So, I'll work with that. But generally I I think you get the idea for how our time is shaping up for each respective area and department. uh the cabinet obviously will be
088uh very present and I've guided them to be prepared to provide an overview of some of the key issues within their department and then the short I'll say I should say medium and long-term uh strategies that we're seeking to employ and to engage the board in the discussion about that as it relates to curriculum and instruction or human resources. Kevin's uh area is a little bit more niche in that um you're actually taking action tonight on uh distributing some funds to our various areas of reserve. Uh and our reserve funding is very important and it would be a good opportunity for us uh you know fairly soon to have a discussion just about our reserves, their current status, how we manage those and how we also uh put those monies to use at various times
089uh depending on what we may encounter. So Kevin's discussion will be a little bit more uh specific to that area uh of the business um in budget management. Uh but the others I've I've tried to outline for you. So you can provide feedback tonight and I'll certainly listen to that and work with Maryanne and Linda on further shaping the agenda. You also have it. You can give it thought, you know, for the next few days. Uh, and if you have feedback that you'd like to provide, uh, you can email or, uh, uh, call Maryanne or Linda and, uh, we can work with that. Uh, whatever works for you. But, uh, we felt it was important to share it with you ahead of time. Oh, sure, Donna. Based on the discussion we just had about our
090internet enabled cell phone policy, I feel like an hour is just too short for this year in review and district goals. I mean, we go in we just get into it. This board gets into stuff. We're going to go through this data. We're gonna it's it's it's a lot of data like what we've seen through the the year at the different uh buildings. The data is complex and we're going to need to kind of digest it and talk through and understand. I just I just that was my my takeaway was just that I just see that going way over but at one hour budget. I appreciate your feedback and knowing too that we're probably expanding David's time that we have on here which is further going to crunch uh time we have elsewhere. We may
091have to make some decisions. I will say though uh Don I appreciate your feedback and uh in recognition that the some of the data that you have seen throughout the school year and how it's been presented to you and this isn't a criticism but I I did John and I have talked about focusing on some higher level data trends based on our I Ready data that doesn't get as into the weeds but can give you a good overview of how we're doing uh just centered on student growth and student achievement uh because I do see it it it is easy to get into the intricacies of some of the uh analyses that we're doing and I don't know if the I don't know if that really serves the board too well. Um, I imagine as
092a board member, you want just a general idea of how are kids doing at the elementary level or in third grade or at a particular school or uh whatever it may be. And we we're preparing our reports for that just to make it a little bit more manageable for you. But I agree, it's probably not going to be an hour. Board likes to discuss these items and uh we want to make sure we give ample time uh for each. Sophia, for those of us who are data nerds, um, is it possible to share in advance so that we can have like a pre for those of us who want? Yes, John and I talked about that and we're preparing that so you can see it ahead of time like demographic cuts and stuff like that.
093Sure. I was also going to say to keep us so, you know, um hopefully we'll do like everybody will feel good about it, but the reality is we have the opportunity to say, you know, and and at the end of that maybe we'd like something else again during this year or we'd like to hear more about this or drill down more after the initial presentation like there's no Yeah. And we also have the option to do an additional retreat, right? You know, we can do a midyear workshops or something and workshop. We'll be developing the workshop schedule. I love those workshops. Got to love those workshops. We're like Santa's little helpers. Okay. Um Oh. Oh, what I was going to say is for those of you looking at your agenda, you know, don't think of
0943:30 as a hard stop. That's just where this thing ended. But just, you know, don't don't plan anything for 3:30. Yes. I would say we were originally thinking four on the first day and three on the second day was how we talked about it. So I would say you know defin I would say not that and then we can maybe look um not 3:30. She's rethinking. No, no, no. It's great. It's just that you know we really can we can we can really chew on something for a while. So, but we but we also want to stay on our agenda because I think most of these things I if we look at the topics I think we're very happy to be covering them. I think what we might be able to do and why don't
095the three of us kind of talk about this we have two sections of of our internal board work which are both important but I was saying to them they're also kind of an accordion. We can we can we can smoosh that together and get the things we really need to do done. we don't need to have, you know, if if we're relatively satisfied with a lot of our, you know, communication metrics and stuff like that, we maybe don't need to spend our retreat time on stuff like that. We could we could maybe smush that in and find a little extra time to add to somebody else's space. So, um, but the but the bounds of the retreat are for the first day, three the second day, I think, is what we were thinking. Mhm. Right.
096Does that sound good? I just wanted to call that 3:30 out I should have called that out ahead. Um, anybody else have comments on the on the board retreat? All right, then. Um, moving on to new business. Our new business section of the agenda list several items for individual resolution approval. Documentation concerning these items have been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review. Uh let's see. We have a first reading. Um so are we waving? No. Okay. So that I don't need a vote here. Nope. Okay. And appreciate the discussion tonight on the uh procedures and uh any further feedback you have on the policy. If you haven't looked at it yet, please do. Uh we'll put this on for a second read. And this may line up
097either for the small business agenda that we're going to have at retreat or we could do it at our August business meeting, but we need to do it before the end of the before the start of next school year. Okay, sounds good. Non-unit salary increases. Can I get a motion, please? So moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Um, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed abstensions. What? I'm sorry. Did you have discussion? No. Oh, I could have sworn you were trying to say something. I'm sorry. Um, so we did the in favor, we did the opposed, we did the abstension. Motion passes. Good. Not sure what was happening there. Okay. Item D, memorandum of understanding. Uh, can I get a motion, please? Thank you. Second. Thank you. Uh, any discussion? Just a
098note to the board that this is our agreement with Duchess uh community college for those students and or I should say those courses in which we offer concurrent enrollment uh which is students receiving high school credit but also receiving college credit. Um and this is an annual uh action uh for the board. So this is for our agreement with Duchess for next school year. Thank you. Any other discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Item E, S O S M O A E SA contract. Say that three times fast. Can I get a motion, please? So move. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Get the next one. It's the cake. It's the cake. We're all a little We're all a little cake nutty here. Um, any discussion? Seeing none,
099all those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Student board member item F. Um, can I get a motion, please? Thank you. And a second. Second. Thank you. Um, any discussion? If I may, sir. Um, I know all of the board is familiar with Mia Newsome. Mia has presented to the board, I think, at least twice this year. She's also everywhere. I feel like I am, and the board is uh with various events that are going on throughout the district. She's a leader through and through. Um, uh, she's also the student body president. So, uh, Mia is, uh, my recommendation to serve as the exeicio student member for next school year. I think she represents, uh, the student body well. Um, uh, but in addition to that, she, uh, is an active voice and an
100active presence in working with other leaders within our community that, uh, certainly when considered the first person to fill this role, I I think will serve as a model, uh, for those who who follow. And I don't want to get too far ahead, but we did also determine to appoint an alternate. Uh so Shantene Wendit is going to serve as the uh alternate for next school year. That's the next item uh on the agenda. Uh we discussed with the board uh having a senior but then also a ride a junior uh that potentially then could serve uh if they would like uh to continue to serve as the student um exeicio member in the following year. So, I think this lines up uh well for that should uh continue to be interested after this year.
101And I think there'll be times over the year where Mia can't make it and Shantine will uh serve uh in that capacity in Mia's absence. So, two great students and I wanted to note uh Linda and Maryanne had joined me uh for the uh interest meeting and we had about eight or nine students who were at the interest meeting. I believe we had six who ended up actually applying. uh uh all of the students who were not selected, so the other four uh had been invited uh and had priority in being part of a superintendent's advisory council next school year uh which was something I was looking to start uh anyway um with a group of high school students just for me to check in with uh periodically throughout the year on their perspectives on
102uh not just what's going on in the high school but what's going on in the school district. So uh and two of whom who have accepted. So the other two I guess are thinking about it. Um but uh hopefully you know they'll be a part of it and there'll be many other students involved in that as well. So I think everybody wins uh in the end and that's nice to hear and we do. That's great. Well then let's take a vote on that. All those in favor I oppose abstension. Motion passes. Um our alternate alternate thank you al alternate the cake. It's the alternate student board member. Um, can I get a motion, please? So moved. Thank you. A second. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I oppose. Abstension. Motion
103passes. This is consent agenda. Our consent section of the agenda. You people are killing me. List several items for approval by a single motion. Documentation concerning these items have been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review. May I please get a motion on the consent agenda? So move. Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? May I? Yes, please. Well, I'll start with, you know, I'm at that phase in my career where I'm interviewing some of these teachers and I get about halfway through the interview and I say, "Did I did I have you as a student?" like, "Yeah, I I wasn't sure if you'd recognize me." Oh, yeah. I, you know, a little older now, but So, there's a couple of those in here. But I did want to
104draw the board's attention, as we discussed uh previously, uh to three of the candidates for the house principal positions, none of whom I taught for Arlington High School. Uh we have with us in attendance, Miss Katie Nixon, Miss Carrie Cos uh Groven, Miss Jennifer Spagnola. Welcome back to Arlington, Jennifer. uh with your approval this evening uh each of whom uh are would be filling house principal roles at the high school and you previously appointed Mr. Murphy as our executive principal who I know is here with us this evening. Uh and uh with your approval, we have two assistant principles uh taking on house principal responsibilities, which is great. And then we'll backfill those two uh assistant principal positions sometime over the course of the summer, but we have six new administrators who by by September
105at Arlington High School. So, a significant change in in leadership. Uh but a wonderful opportunity for uh Mr. Murphy to work alongside uh individuals who clearly have demonstrated to be uh very committed um and have a lot to offer to the Arlington community. So again, with your approval, I welcome them and u look forward to great things to come to the high school. Great. Any other comments on the consent agenda? Marian, just to piggyback on that, bravo that you've all been exposed to the new cell phones and nobody ran like room and said that they changed their mind. So, I say you're in a good place. Good job. All right. Well, let's make it official. Oh, you want to say something? I'm sorry, Mark. And you've only got three years to go. Oh, you're rubbing
106it in now. Okay. Um, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Congratulations to all the other people on this lovely agenda who may be listening. All right. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, Donna. For those of us that are relatively new, could you invite the our new folks that are that are here tonight to introduce themselves? Absolutely. Right at the end of the meeting perhaps if that's okay. Okay. Okay. Let's see. We are Um, okay. That brings us to um item 10, future discussion items. Right. We do have a future discussion item from last time, which was Jeff's um and uh as as you recall, um Jeff was interested in um and tell me if I've got this right or wrong. um would like an update from is is asking if what our level of
107interest is as a group of whether that with an update from administration about the official lunch program charges to lunch changes, excuse me, to lunch for next year based on the new state budget approvals and um any grass and information on our grassroot backpack style programs and other things we do to help feed kids in our district. And um whether or not as a group did I say that pretty good? Yeah. um whether or not as a group we want to um ask the administration to provide this to us, you know, um we take seriously, you know, giving people work to do. So, um you know, anybody have a I think part of it is going to come anyway as we're going to hear about the new state budget piece, right? So, um do you
108have anything you'd like to say? Yeah, I I think that there's first of all, it's not a a big lift uh for us. I just want to I want to clarify that and um uh it's information uh on one level that we we we actively are gaining I would say because even with the state budget that's there's still some more more details related to that that are are coming in. Um I don't I don't think we fully have them. So there'll be a right time for that and it was a major agenda item in the state budget. So, I think it's important uh for our board to be aware of the funding that the district's going to receive or how we're going to manage the school lunch program considering that uh next year and that
109Mr. Hicks uh would be the appropriate point of contact and we can invite Mark to a meeting to talk more about that. Um the second piece regarding uh how we deal with food uh and manage food insecurity uh throughout our community that is a little bit of it's a little different in each community as I'm I'm just I have a base level of awareness with um so that will require us just to uh again um work with our building principles to gain that information. I think it can be done fairly efficiently and uh we would provide that information probably as part of the same discussion with the board. Uh unfortunately I don't think it's a retreat item given our current agenda at the retreat. So um you know we should have this uh if it's
110acceptable to the board. Uh I think that's something we can prepare for the fall. Uh just knowing that our meeting schedule is uh we meet less frequently in the summer. So as we get into the early fall I think we'll be happy to provide a report to the board on it. How's everybody feel about that? I'm seeing nods all around. Is that good? Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Okay, following right along. Oh, public coma. We don't have anybody for the second public comment, right? Committee reports, advocacy. Um, we met last last Thursday. The whenever the 17th was. I can't keep track. Last Tuesday. It was a week ago. Never mind. device. Um, so just to review the um resolution kit as it stands right now, it's it's the first um look at the resolutions that if
111you recall um NISBA had sent out a survey, everybody across the state weighed in on some things. Um there are sun setting resolutions every five years things have the opportunity to drop off. Um, we did comment and note that 2020 was five years ago. Um, there were a goodly number of resolutions that dropped off and didn't even make it into the survey um because they were very specifically related to issues that districts were having around the pandemic and things that were were happening um because of that. So, um the bottom line is that we as a group, um the advocacy group, we really had no issue with any of the supporting or opposing thoughts that came out of the um survey. So, at this point in time, we're willing to support that document as it
112stands. Um, moving forward, what will happen now is districts do have an opportunity if they'd like to write their own resolutions about something that wasn't already on the survey, um, or support something in a big way that was on the survey, um, those are due middle of July. Once that's all compiled through NISBA, we will get the um new proposed bylaw amendment and resolution book on September 8th. And those of us who end up on the advocacy committee moving forward into next year um should plan on having a meeting in probably midepptember. So, we'll have to look at the um our calendar for board meetings and get something together prior to one of the September, probably the second September board meeting. Um because the NISSBA business meeting is Thursday, October 16th, and we need to
113give the voting person their marching orders for what to support or not support. So, that's where we are right now. We're kind of on a summer pause unless something big happens and then we'll look to chat again in uh September. Perfect. Thank you. Audit finance. Okay. Audit finance. We met on uh the 17th as well at 3:30. Um and we uh um were we discussed the um the uh reserve funds balance and that we were where we were going to put them in various buckets. Uh these are basically funds to uh as a homeowner might consider to take care of issues that come along as we go forward. Uh and this is based on a hopeful uh anticipated 3 to4 million surplus that would uh come from unanticipated funds from BOS's additional state aid lower
114spending our new superintendent authorizing spending at a lower rate. Way to go and put these in various buckets. Uh that was item Q that you just passed on the consent. Um and the caffeine uh meeting uh was right after that. Uh we were we attended the OACM meeting which is with the architects and the whole group uh and discussed the um the addition to uh LMS and uh that got the two members of my committee familiar with that process hopefully in my as I leave the uh board and uh the we had a discussion about uh the progress of various uh things that are being done around uh the district, mostly roofs and various projects that have uh are slowly coming to completion. We got one I think one of them that was uh going
115to be sent to the state for uh get getting state aid and I think that's about cover everything Kevin. Okay, that's that's it for those two committees. Excellent. Thank you so much. And policy nothing at this time. Okay. Organization reports. Here we go. Education foundation. Nothing at this time. Uh Duchess County School Boards. Uh next meeting is in October, right? Other than that, summer summer. Same with PTA, PGFA, uh district health and safety. Um district equity. Uh we had our last meeting on the 12th and just kind of recaped the year and also talked about next year thinking about family engagement. Okay. All right then. Uh and that moves us on to superintendent's closing remarks. I just wanted to remind the board if I'm not mistaken, Liam, this is your final meeting tonight, correct? Yep.
116So we want to make sure to thank Liam for all of his support over I've only had a year with you Liam, but Also just wanted to acknowledge uh Dr. Castalo. Now Dr. Castalo, we you approved her tonight to still come in from time to time throughout next school year because we want to make sure we bridge this transition with Dr. Kation. Well, but uh it likely is your last board meeting. Um and you've been I'll tell you last summer uh Hillary and I kind of you know looked at each other like what are we going to do? And we met Dr. Castaba we were like overly enthused what is going to which I hope she says yes uh uh but she's provided a wealth of support uh over the course of this school year
117to our PPS department um and which is a dynamic area always um and has done so with grace and we're uh we're happy to kind of hold on to her and I I'll joke Lisa thought she was done in March uh but she kept asking you know like do you want me to show up do you want me to come next week and I kept saying yes so she's actually like 10 weeks longer than what the initial commitment was. Um, and thankfully so. Uh, obviously she's, uh, she's done a lot for us. And so, Lisa, I just wanted to acknowledge I know we'll have a little bit more time together, but for the board, uh, that this is likely Lisa's last meeting. Thank you. It's been absolutely wonderful and I loved every minute of it
118and I wish I was at the beginning of my career and it wasn't as far from my house. I I love working here. It is a wonderful person. Thank you, Lisa. I really love it. At least I had one of the longer commutes. She's coming up from Rockland each day. So, well, thank you very much. Uh, and I think with that I that concludes my remarks. Thank you so much. That brings us to board reflections. Linda, I'd like to thank and congratulate all the students who um came to school this year, who moved up, who are graduating on Friday, um who maybe came to school when they really didn't want to, or they got a C in a class which they thought they fa failed, or if they got an A. Um, all students matter
119in this district whether you get a certificate, an award, whatever it is. Um, we care about you and um, I am thrilled to be part of this district. I have been for over 30 years. Um, but congratulate congratulations to the students. Uh, it's the end of your year. If you didn't do good this year, hey, you got another year. You just start all over. And also congratulations to Mark. Good health to you and uh be well. That was great, Linda. Good good job to talk about the students. I I think that's wonderful because we've been party to some of these end of year celebrations which makes everybody happy and excited to to be part of this group. Um but the students are front and center at this point in the year. So it's it that's
120good. Um, congratulations to the high school team. Now, boy, yeah, you guys got to get like matching jerseys or something and show up. Um, and then my friend Mark, who's been my sidekick, my I don't know, what do you call this? A flyier, an enabler of licorice. Um, but just a a person who's brought a lot to this district in all the years you've been involved. And I've enjoyed immensely the fact that I spent my career with primary age students. You spent yours with the high school and here we meet on the board of education and it's been good. So enjoy enjoy now. Maybe your retirement. What do you think? Thank you. Maybe my second. That's right. Give it a shot. You know what, Mark? Every day really is Saturday now. Well, I have a
121couple reflections. Okay. I'd love to hear it. Yeah. Uh the first one is to a very good friend of mine, Yan Vari. He attended Arlington, graduated from Arlington, uh had some part in the Volkswagen that was on the dome. Uh the following year, I have to tell a quick story. him and a buddy of his were uh coming the following year to do a little more mischief, no damaging, and they were pulling into the parking lot and they had some paint in the car. Well, apparently some security people or police, I forget which, spotted them. So they started heading over there and they had their lights on. Yan was in the passenger seat. He took the can of paint, threw it out the window. One problem, the window was closed. Paint all over the place.
122So the cop pulled up or the security guy said, "What are you boys doing?" Uh, not much. And he was just laughing his butt off, so he let him go. But uh he uh he graduated from Arlington. He was a teacher of health after two tours as a SEAL in Vietnam. Uh he was the crew crew coach. He established the girls crew team back in the day when not many girls had teams. Um and today's his birthday. He's 75 years old. So happy birthday. beyond. Second thing I want to mention is you've heard it before and I ask people consider donating organs. I've met three people that are in this room tonight that had someone who got a kidney but other core organs as well. So I I really ask you to consider making a
123donation upon your death or alive in some cases if you can uh of your organs. And lastly, it's been an honor to serve with all of you. I'll miss you. I won't miss being here till midnight sometimes, but uh I wish you well and I know you're going to do great things. It's one of the reasons I feel comfortable leaving the board because we're in a very very good place. So, thank you all for your service and I wish again good luck. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Then um then I'm going to call for the adjournment. Can I please get a motion to adjurnn? So moved. All right. Excellent. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned. Baby second. Fine.