001I'd like to call to water September 4th, meeting in the Board of Education All. Please rise for the P of Allegiance. The p allegiance flag, the United States of America, for which stands? Our nation, under God, indivisible, liberty, Please remain standing. Heavenly father, we invo by blessing on all and attendance here and on those we serve. Help us to bring wisdom and humanity to our deliberations and I spirit to our work. I all seated Welcome Board of Education President, not be here to attend tonight's personal business. We go to, into comments on the board. I'd like to recognize our security guard Chris Kozinski, who has the status of detective of the Nassau County Police Department. So now we're gonna start comments to the board that will take lead. Good evening and thank you for joining
002us for the September 4th Board of Education meeting. This new school year is full of possibilities and I look forward to working side by side with my fellow board members, the administration, teachers, and community to support student success, our district even more. I also want to give thanks, especially thanks to our administration support staff and buildings and grants over preparing our district new school here. Your hard work makes all the difference for our students and staff. And kudos to our incredible field hockey team for an amazing car wash fundraiser at the high school. I had my car washed and it looks fantastic. Uh, your hard work and teamwork off the field, you surely carried into a successful season. Good luck in your upcoming, excuse me, in your upcoming days. I'm not gonna hand it off
003to, To the trustee. Thank you. Vice president. Uh, I would just like to thank, uh, the director of facilities p Vania and his custodial staff, his building ground crews for making this place look, look great as, as he's done every year. And most importantly, you get it done on time. So it gives me, I would like you to tell the audience, what did you do? Because they don't, people don't understand how you tear this place across and put it back together. Nice. Yeah, sure. So, um, this summer we had a really great year. Um, we did a lot of projects in house, was very cost effective for the district, save a lot of money. Um, our custodial staff continues, um, using the 3M triac floor polishing system to shine ale, um, flooring throughout the high
004school. Uh, this process hold the floor to a high shine and only needs lead for stripper and wax, which is also a big plus savings over over the years. Um, we also added additional, an additional toilet, uh, to the, and partition for the pre-K bathroom to accommodate, uh, the room, the new pre-K room, which was also updated, uh, this summer. We also added a new administrative, uh, office that was formerly a, uh, a store room, uh, for the assistant superintendent superintendent we had. We painted added lighting, installed new fire door in house, um, uh, renovated the bus driveway, which was the, the prior driveway and installed him speed bump. So that's, uh, safe, right? Um, at Chevy Lane, I'll make a staff, uh, renovate the back to the cafeteria by installing new cabinets, LED, lighting
005ceiling tiles, spackling painting, new coat base. We also hung, uh, new classroom signs from the hallways, which signed by Mor and beautiful looking signs place the boys' bathroom. Over there we installed the new Oxy floor. The, uh, previous floor was ly popping up constantly, patches all over the place. Now it's brand new EP floor, which is a three part system. Four system is durable, sanitary, cost effective, and in many ways better than surround. Now Rushmore, our facilities department added, built in custom petitions, uh, in classrooms one, two, which, um, Kathy, you know, felt it was needed because they had petition for the kids and she request to have a petition. We also had the gym four, uh, standard stained and finished creating rush gyms department coming school. I don't, improving the aesthetics to the outside,
006but also improving the safety, um, safety by providing a clear line site to the buildings, uh, of all the front shrubs, you know, because other issues. Um, we also came to the parking spaces, wide speed bumps, um, directional arrows, which clearly delineate both traffic that, uh, not work on with us. And, um, our buildings and grounds staff much of this work while not only, uh, being extremely cost effective, staying on schedule. Back to the, and then just some of the upcoming projects we have. Joanna was able to some grant money in the girls gym. We're gonna be getting to that fence with the, uh, be wall, bring a solid fence up there, which get hurt the wall. And, uh, and gonna install solar light in the parking lot on the Rushmore Avenue side. Uh, RO
007Avenue side staircase. Got new solar light, some of the project. Thank you. Please extend the thanks and appreciation from here. Thank you, Mr. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, glad be back. It's, uh, a whirlwind of activity to, you know, begin any new school year. Um, and just you echo that, that sentiment. Yes, truly, thank you so much to our central office. Uh, all of our, our teachers, uh, our facility staff, um, our PTAs too. I mean, um, I know my wife was back and forth from baseball practice with one guy at the ice cream social military lane from my analyst. Um, and it's really just do a wonderful job in organizing those activities. And I knows our, I know our kids really look forward to those things. So, uh, we really appreciate that work, uh,
008that everyone does. Our building leaders, of course, uh, transportation is so much that has to be coordinated and, and worked through, especially in the first few days, you know, weeks of, of school. So we really appreciate all that hard work. Um, looking forward to, um, mom Leah's weekend alumni, uh, in, in the, uh, performance. Uh, so we hope to see you there. And, um, thank you. Evening. Evening everyone. Thank you so much for coming tonight. New school year for all of our students and also for me and, and Mr. Dumpy over here. Um, on Tuesday when the kids came, when my kids came home, my son turned around to me and said, mom, I had the best day of my life at school. And I was like, really? What would happen? What'd you do? I'm
009a hugger now. And I, I emailed Miss Moriarty about this 'cause it's a big thing. Like he never hugged anybody at school. He's very like business. So when he came home and he said that to me, um, I was so happy. 'cause I know that the teachers there, regardless if they teach him or not, are providing such a loving, caring environment for all of our students. And that goes for Rushmore as well. Adriana, first year in Rushmore, the night before she was crying. Literally, I'm so scared. And when she came home, she's like, mom, I don't know why I was scared. It was great. You know, my teacher's great, you know, I went to lunch, I played the whole, you know, the hallways are nice, they're bigger. They had, they had such a great time.
010And I, and I attribute that to the administrators who instilled this into the teachers and, you know, provide this kind of, um, environment that is welcoming to all. So thank you for that and thank you, um, to the teachers as well. Um, back to school night is the 10th for Cherry Lane, the 11th for Rushmore. Um, there's a lot of great raffles. Please come support, uh, the PTA 'cause once you, um, buy these raffles, all that money is used in the school and for the kids, um, for events like, uh, ice cream, UL and whatnot. Um, that, um, congratulations Chris. Now it's a big achievement. Um, thank you to our groundsman. Um, everything's beautiful and also our security, you know, we're update with that safety and you guys are always there to take care of
011us. Morning, good night. Um, have a wonderful, uh, school year and bye. It's up to you. Good evening everyone. The school year is now officially underway with the students and staff returning to school after the summer break. The classrooms were once again put energy and activity as students settle into their routines that they get engaging in their outside the classroom. Fall sports and extracurr extracurricular activities are as well. Student s already practicing and competing, bringing schools community, engaging back to clubs, using programs, student government and other organizations are also beginning to meet, offer our students opportunities to connect and explore their interest beyond. Now we have comments from You. So welcome back everyone. Here we are in the 20 25, 20 26 school year. We're officially underway. Um, I had the opportunity to visit our
012schools and see our students in action, our teachers in action. It feels really good to see everybody back. It's not the same without them work all summer, but it's really meant to open school and to have kids here with us doing the things that enrich their lives. So it's a great thing. Um, I want to say also congratulations to Chris. It's an important, it's important work that you do and it's a lot of work to obtain that status. I'll say also, you know, the events of this week remind us how important, more important is in our lives, how important our security staff is here for us in the district. And um, you know, it's a sobering reminder and I want to say thank you to all of our administrators and teachers for helping to make
013a difficult day a little bit easier. And I will say this much as well. Oh, the feedback that I got from a number of people, one of the most important things was the compassion that folks expressed for neighbors, right? Because there are neighbors here in this district who are going part time right now and it's great to see that people have that in their minds, in their heart. An important thing. Um, we are in I guess day two, day three of the cell phone device van. So far so good. Um, you've picked up a couple of devices here and there, but really just a little handful. I have spoken to a few students who I talked to before this happened and they were telling me about their anxiety about it and they felt like, I
014dunno what I'm gonna do without my phone. How could I possibly live? And I'm sure there are kids who are still feeling strange about it, but these kids who I followed up, I said, Kim, I got through the first day and the second day and I'm still here. I'm okay, not so good one. One pair of girls even said to me, actually had a better day without it, which was nice to hear and I'm sure there'll still be bumps up and down along the way, but so far so good. It's a wonderful thing and I think, you know, it's good to see that we're supporting that and you'll lead to be consistency with that throughout the year. Um, it's exciting to see our athletics teams getting back in action in hockey, one sport or the
015other in sports. Exciting to get out there actually into games now, which feels really good. Um, I'm Amia Friday night and Saturday night. I'm looking forward to Friday night. My kind of favorite night to go. It should be really good. We've seen some previews of that. It's gonna be an exciting event. Um, and we're just really happy to be here. And Ms. DiMartino supervises our security staff. I want to give her an opportunity to say something quickly about that as well. Yeah, I just wanna officially congratulate also, Chris, we are all really proud you and we're happy that we get, continue to have. Thank you very much. That's it. Any, I have question further. Okay. So then, um, any comments from the public on agenda items only? So now we're gonna do the approval of
016the consent agenda and have a motion to approve the consent agenda. All in favor? Aye. Alright, so if anyone has any questions or concerns about any items that are not on the agenda, please to the podium, give your name and address. Second. Alright. Um, board of Education allows time to conclusion of this regular meetings or comments from residents in attendance. Please note that any person wishing to speak during this time shall comply with all provisions of court policy. Although a total of 30 minutes is allowed comments, the court president has discretion to adjust that. Uh, the total time. We remind you to keep your comments to three minutes and to conduct yourself in a respectful manner. Please address school matters only and refrain from addressing topics related to personnel matters with individual students. Such concern
017should be discussed properly with the superintendent or administrator at an appropriate time. The board is here to listen and cannot provide immediate feedback or engage in open dialogue. Any necessary follow up will be noted and provided at a later date. State your name and please. Uh, Patrick Leary. Karen 96 Drive. Um, at our last meeting, we were told policy that not for season, I'm sorry, At our last meeting we were told that there was not a policy to season and the fact that's happened in the past, I'm curious as to why. Um, there is an athlete, my son, who's not allowed to play two sports currently. Um, I had sent a letter with my wife and I sent a letter to board members, um, just to, um, really allow you to see it maybe through
018a different lens and un understand the situation a little bit better. I, I'm here tonight to have a discussion which I, I feel has never happened. I think a decision was made without a conversation that, um, I I, I don't wanna fight. My son is distraught and he's, he's a special kid and I don't want to sit and talk about him there. But Title IX says that, uh, cannot deny a male athlete same rights as a female athlete. My federal lawyers requires equitable and non-discriminatory treatment for all student athletes. Performance of sex, which applies to all education programs and activities, including athletes. The regulation, title ix, um, requires ex institution to provide equal athletic opportunities, members of both sexist or effectively true combat suit. We allow it for female and we are not allowing for
019bad. And I don't understand. Um, that's the concern. We swat district can share athletes. I I know that the music department shares chorus band Orchestra. We have to with talented kids, you should, you should celebrate them and share at the music department to rearrange your schedules to make appropriate schedules to accommodate the students doing's best for the entire community and all students. Um, I don't know why that's not happening in, in, in the athletic group. And that's the concern. And, and, and really the concern is that there was never a discussion, which, why are we here to have a discussion? I I I would like to talk about it. I we were told initially it was okay, came to a board meeting, you told there was no policy, there's no policy in your state. There's
020no policy in section eight. So I don't know why called my school district choose to create a more restrictive environment than, than we have. Um, I I really just, I don't understand. Um, I I I always don't like to talk about specifics, but, um, Mr. Rock said in in letter coaches, we will always be flexible and supporting when a student is involved in another complex program like music, theater and the arts. These are all value parts for our school experience and will continue working closely with other departments of support students and balancing their passions. My son has a national multiple sports and then there's a time, but the athletic department, within the athletic department, we're not extending the same courtesy that you would sent people in other things. Left, Um, minutes people to ask questions.
021Um, so you want just finish show now and I can answer I, you know, I can speak to the character if I saw. I just don't know why. It's fine. Yeah. I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's okay. I know rules. Are you asking us a question I send? No, you were asking. Oh, no. Asked question. Got the email. So we hopefully get a response. We send it to all of you. So hopefully as soon I, I have set you can see the whole picture and how our son is handling all this and not have specifics with him. I know we're not allowed, but we hope to get an answer. We'd love to speak to you if we can. I'd love to sit down with you and he as important communication is key. So we'd love
022to sit down and discuss this with you. But our son is distraught right now, so hopefully you can read that email and get back to us at a timely matter. And I'd love to speak to any of you, Paul. I would love to do that if we have a conversation At a time when kids are choosing to do less, my subject wants to work, I don't know why it's not left and he was told yes. And the rollercoaster is very difficult for them and I am worried about a social emotional abuse and he's a happy kid who's not happy and he feels like he, he, he has to make a decision that's like he did something wrong. So we just respectfully ask that the board reconsider, uh, Dr. Miller's decision and allow to participate. We
023are in receipt of your email and thank you for the email. I'll consult with the board on what the next steps will be from there and I appreciate your respect on the time and confidential actually something. So Thank Any other questions? Anybody? Okay, so now we're gonna close the public session. Going back to motion One move I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you.