001I'd like to cold to water the July 31st, 2025 meeting on the Conflict Board of Education All. Please rise to the P Of Leaders Hand, heart to the flag of the United States of America, and to Republic for which it stands with our nation, our God, us all Liberty Strong, which remain standing. Heavenly Father, we invoke that blessing on all attendance here and on those we serve. Help us to bring wisdom and humanity to our deliberations and I spirit to our work. Please be seat President Cole. Good evening everybody. The Board of Education lacks time at the conclusion of its regular meetings in the s residents and attendance. Please note that any person who wished to speak during this time shall comply with both positions of board policy. Although a total of 30 minutes is
002allowed for comments, board president has discretion to, uh, adjust 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 personal matters or individual students. Such concerns should be discussed privately with the superintendent or administrator at an appropriate time. The Board is here to listen and cannot who, excuse me, providing immediate feedback or engaged in open any necessary follow up will be noted and providing at a later date. Welcome to the July 31st meeting of a car police Board of Education. Trustee Z cannot attend tonight's meeting due to a personal matter. We'll start with comments from the board and I'll take the lead. So, welcome everyone. Um, I hope everyone's staying cool. We
003have a few guests today, so I would like to welcome. We have Haw who is our assistant Super will be our assistant superintendent for curriculum construction and innovation. We have Andrew Bennett, who is the Executive Director of HR and Leadership Development. We also have our ex officio student, VOA, who is Luca Pina who'll be sworn in later today. And I'd also like to welcome Anthony Thees, Annmarie Ada, Jessica Winter Annmarie Savage. And we will, we will welcome you even more as the meeting goes on. Okay. Um, well, this is all new for me, so I hope everybody has a little patience. I am looking forward to serve as the Board of Education President. Um, we have been working together for over a year, and we are looking forward to continuing with the superintendent's projection of
004moving forward and up. We have a lot of great visions and goals this year, and with all the newbies for new employees welcoming to the district, we are, we feel like we're gonna be a powerful district this year. So thank you. I'll hand it over to Vice President. Good evening again, everybody. Thank you for tonight. Um, I hope everybody is enjoying their summer. Know I'm, uh, just a friendly reminder, all parents whose child will be joining our pre-K program this September. The district is hosting a meeting greet on Monday, August 19th at 9:30 AM from nine seven. It's a great opportunity to meet your child's teacher and connect with representatives from Scope Education Services. You should have received a flyer with the QR code to R SV for the next meeting. And, and answer questions
005to help scope create a student roster. We vote to see you there. Pass on. Good meeting everyone. Uh, thanks for being with us tonight. Congrats to, and welcome to our new, new staff, new leadership. Very exciting, um, time of the, the year. You know, sometimes you be educated. Refer to, you know, July as like Saturday of summer and August becomes the Sunday of the summer. Um, so, you know, with that comes some excitements, some anxieties, but I can tell you that, um, yeah, you new staff coming on board, definitely, you know, for me lowers the blood pressure a bit. Um, I'm excited to see what we they bring to the new team here. Um, I hope, um, you know, we're, we're all behind him in that. Um, sorry, I losing my voice a little bit.
006Um, one thing, plug for a camp convention in the district, uh, hosting camp convention again this summer. Um, my younger son attends and I think a lot of, a lot of community members, you guys spoken, spoken to this, uh, he's really a great thing. He's, you know, very excited about it. And for a kid who's pretty shy, shy side of to say too much, um, he is bringing home some pretty cool stories about the things he's doing here. So here. Um, so I much appreciated, uh, shout out to to the, uh, you know, friends of pre-K I'm a friend of pre-K, uh, loud and proud. Uh, and the work they're doing is to make sure that um, you know, our pre-K kids on youngest frogs, youngest learners have, uh, all that they can to maximize
007their experience of what is, uh, really a great uh, you know, urging program. So, uh, we wanted to give that a shout out and say thank you for that. Good evening everybody. Thank you so much for coming. Um, I wanted to like give a shout out to the custodial staff. I've been coming here every day like Pat to drop my kids at Camp Invention, which is an amazing, um, event that we have here for program. And the custodians are hard at work. Everything looks so wheezing, clean and up to par. The groundsmen are also working very hard. We just rep paved the middle school bus area, um, which looks great. So thank you. Um, camp convention, as Pat had mentioned, my kids are coming home learning some new things about penguins and habitat and all
008that stuff. So it's really good. Um, I wanna talk about pre-K as well. pre-K is actually having a fundraiser next Thursday at Chena. If you are available, please come down. Um, they are make having a, um, I'm sorry, lost my train of thought. They're having a fundraiser to, um, purchase items for the pre-K for outside play. Um, since it's housed in the high school, we don't necessarily have, um, a lot of stuff for them to do when they're outside of recess. This will really help. Um, and I hope everybody is having a wonderful summer. It's going by way too fast. I am dreading going back and forth. I love teaching. I still want a couple more days where I can relax a little bit. And congratulations all the new hires. I can't wait, um, to
009work with you. Thanks so Much. We'll now hear comments? Uh oh. Okay. Sorry. We'll now have the morning, um, with our council and Raise your right hand or aina. I hereby solemnly swear Hereby That I'll support Constitution of Unanim Will support the constitution, The United States of America, United States of America, and the constitution of the State of New York, constitution of the state of New York. And I will make believe, discharge the duties of ID Charge the duties of New ex officio student, court member, officio board member of the court of education, of The board of Education Education, the car place, senior pre school district car place District Outta North Steads County, New York. Best my ability On behalf of the board. Congratulations and welcome. You'll now have the opportunity to provide your comments.
010Good evening everyone. My name is Luki Daro. I'm honored to serve as one of the ex-official board members for this upcoming school year. As we prepare for the upcoming school year, students have engaged in academic and extracurricular activities throughout the summer. Many have been completing summer assignments, especially those enrolled in advanced ment courses. On Tuesday, a group of class officers and student organization officers attended an informative meeting about the newly mandated cell phone panel. They gained insight into how the policy will affect the school environment moving forward and had the opportunity to ask questions. Student organization has also been actively planning the events. The game is set for September 27th at 7:15 PM where the frogs Are based perform. Additionally, student athletes have Been getting ready for the Start of their preseason, Which begins in
011Thank you. You will now hear comments from Dr. Duck. Thank you madam President. So the summertime is a very, very busy time of year. Our athletic camps have been in high year. Um, we had our summer program in Rushmore that's just winding down, but extended school year is still going. As our trustees said, there has been a tremendous amount of Georgia construction, blacktop, refurbishment around the buildings. Lovely, lovely, um, greenery and shrubs that are getting put in. It was fantastic. I want to also welcome Ms. Shaw and Mr. Bennett. We are very, very happy to have you here with us now. And also to our teachers who are joining us. It's a long search. It's an important surgeon to, for such important additions to what we're doing. Um, and to our facilities crew as well.
012It's really, really great thing because as Dr. Ducky said, sometimes August can seem like a month on Sundays, as my mom used to say. But that's what gets us to the most important part. That's when our students come back and we sort of spring back to life as schools. It's really great to have all of you here. Couple more quick plugs. Um, our student director play is well underway in staging in preparation. That's going to be Mama Mia. I think it's a little bit different about it this year, is that there are also going to be some alumni playing roles and that's a new feature for us. It's really exciting thing. And, um, I'll echo the board too in saying very good work today, this summer to help give our second year and even stronger
013launch than what was a really great first year. So thank you for the opportunity. That is my professional. And now we'll have the internet enabled device band presentation by, Need a moment to put my device on. And off we go. This is a district issued device and thus subject, not subject to The, So this is a important but also fairly brief presentation. There are conversations happening like this all over the state of New York right now. Some of us have had a cell phone band in place for some time, um, where device band in place some time for a lot of the districts say tomorrow is the deadline. So here we go. I want to say thank you very much for the board, board of education to give us the opportunity to talk about this
014tonight. And also a thank you to the many, many people in the district who responded to our calls for input and help with this. Um, you know, this is a fact of life in schools in New York state. This presentation is really meant to be nonpolitical and non-partisan. We are complying with a fair directive from the governor and it's an important thing for us to do. We're going to take it seriously. We're going to be responsible and compassionate with our students about it. And we're also going to give it the respect that it deserves. So as always, we start with looking at our mission. Indigenous actually matters a lot to us. And as I look at it this time, I think about the compassion that we're going to need to show even as we enforce
015these rules that we have really, really worked collaboratively with educators, with community members, with students, um, with all of our bargaining units. It's been a real collaborative effort and, um, active learning and agency. I think with fewer devices in our lives at school, we're going to learn differently and learn better. And I think it's gonna also require a lot of responsibility on the parts of our students, which gives them agency on their lives. I always like to start with a quote when we do one of our presentations. And this, these words from Maslow are, or because think being well means that we have to be available for learning and having fewer distractions will make us more available. And that's fundamentally a good thing. So look at some intended outcomes, right? We want to ensure that
016we all understand what's going on here with the governor and what we're doing. We wanted to share our desired outcomes. We want to understand that there are genuine concerns and anxieties from kids, from parents, even from educators. And then look at how we're going to comply with this and publicize, right? The more and more and more we get this out, the more it just becomes a fact. Like us. I think that this is a pretty AP graphic for this because it's a simple thing. It's not necessarily an easy thing. There are going to be some moments when we go around and around. There are going to be some moments when there are setbacks and adjustments that will have to be made. But we're gonna succeed with it because we're working on this together. And if
017success requires learning and learning requires patience, this is going to require learning plantations at the same time all around. Okay, so what did Governor Ko actually do? This is a really good summary for it. When we post this up to our website, he will also be able to click right here where it says Dan and read an article about what the governor did. Um, but really what it means is if you have a personal device, a phone, a smart watch, a Kindle, any personal device that a student might have that is internet enabled is now off limits. Bell to belt on the beginning of the school day to the end of the school day, all school districts had to make their own plans on this. Um, and we developed ours very carefully, talking to a
018lot of stakeholders. We were very conscientious about this. And the state giving sounds like a huge amount of money. $13.5 million. Our piece of it is going to be $6,638. Just enough to get very few things that we'll need for this. So it's not quite as dramatic as those millions of dollars thing. Um, rather sound. It requires us to give families a way to contact their students. We always have and we always will. The main office has always been there for people to call home. Just like you know, those of us who are older in the room. That's how our folks got in touch when they needed to. That's always gonna be there. And we have some other ways to do it as well. And it requires all of us to work together to make
019this plan come alive. And there's a piece about inequitable discipline, right? People will say, oh my goodness, if I just simply have my device on me and I bring it to school, am I going to incur some sort of mass punishment? No, you won't. A person could do a few things to get themselves in the hot water, but the mere presence of the device does not mean that you are in some sort of massive trouble. So I wanna make sure that we clear that up right from the start. So how do we plan on complying? It is clear that the devices have to be shut off, out of sight all day. That's a non-negotiable from New York state. And it has always been true that if a student is using a device or any other
020thing in a way that causes a disruption to education, the school has always got the ability to say, Hey, please put that away. Or Hey, you need to please give that to me and you'll get it back. That was true 10 years ago. It's true now. It's going to be true tomorrow. And anything that's important to know, and I have to say for Carl, please and don't worry a ton about this because of the tone of our schools and 'cause of the nature of our kids, most of the time people are super cooperative and super willing to go along with like, one of the most wonderful things about our students is how much they buy into school. And if we say to someone, you have to put that away or you have to turn it
021in and a student says, get lost, go jump on a lake. Or maybe something a little more expletive late, that can get you into a lot of trouble, right? That's something that can lead to a person potentially getting suspended for insubordination. That's like the worst case scenario and not a place that we want to start from. Um, like I said, parents have always been able to contact their kids through the main office. That will stay true. We're also making sure that we make the most out of our Google classrooms to communicate things to students. Like is there a change in practice time change in game time? Has the coach come out with something that we need to know? We can do it through that. We are going to have monitors just like you see here
022up around the building. So if we want to post things during the day in the cafeteria, in army lobby places where it gets congregated, they'll be able to see information, right? So that that information sharing shouldn't be in. And at the end of the day, the final bell rings, they can turn their devices back on. If you use your device to monitor your blood glucose or some other medical need, there's an exemption for that. You can see if it is written into a student's IEP, if there's a stipulation in there, there's an exemption for that. But it has to be written in just because I have an IEP that's not made the exempt and we can authorize it for legitimate purposes such as translation. Maybe I need to translate for my parents and this is
023a convenient way to do it. Or if there's some sort of caregiving or medical emergency, we can authorize it on a temporary basis, right? They gave us flexibility, which is good. So let's talk about some specifics. All internet enabled devices, all of them have to be shut off and out of sight at the start of the day. Theater. That's I think a given that everybody comes for grades K through five, we're really asking people, please leave them at home. There's really no practical use for them in the school. For six to 12, the devices are going to be stored primarily in students' lockers. There are enough lockers for all of our students here in the middle school, high school. We will have a lock for everyone. Everyone will be issued a locker. That's where we
024want you to keep your devices off in turn away, please make sure that your kids know that we're going to have assemblies for the students when they come back to school. We go out on parents square to parents. We're gonna do a whole lot of communication on that. Um, if someone won't comply or they can't comply, because I know sometimes it feels like I'm giving up my kidney to give my phone over. There's a thing called a yonder pouch. And there are are some other devices that do the same thing. Storage device. We're gonna have a limited number of storage devices for people who for whatever reason, can't comply the first time. A student will get it back at the end of the day the second time. And every time after that, a parent is
025going to have to come to school to retrieve inconvenient. But that is the point, right? That we are trying to comply with this thing. We need folks to be partners with us. Um, let's look at some expanded view on this. So again, on that case, five level, there's really no reason to bring it to school. Leave them. People forget. Sometimes we make a mistake and we bring it with us. It's okay, first time that happens, we're gonna say to the child, okay, here's how we shut this off. Put it away. Goes into the cubby or into the locker. The child takes it home. If they keep bringing it back while their father guardian, someone's going to have to come to retreatment, right? Um, second in infraction and every time thereafter, but moms and dads, guardians,
026grandparents, you are our best partners, right? Children listen to their folks at home. And as you set the tone at home, it it'll be either easier or more difficult when we do what we have to do here, six through 12 devices become a bigger part of your life. When you're an adolescent, it becomes a really serious thing. Um, still shut off upon entering the building, stays off all day, kept in the locker. That is our expectation. And we trust our students. We know that our students are basically good trustworthy people. We're looking for partnership on that. Um, I met with a group of students just this week, Ms. Cantor and I and Mr. And one of our other teachers, um, Ms. Patino. And we had a really good conversation with a group of kids who
027are leaders in the district. They are so leaders and student government leaders and they were really helpful with that. And I know that they're gonna help get the word out to their peers and we'll do that through, like I said, through assemblies and all of the other needs that are disposed. Um, passing time is really brief. There is no unexcused absence or even excused absence for, gee, I just had to go to my locker, right? Be organized, take care of your stuff, carry what you need to carry. You go see your phone at the end of the day, right? It will be there waiting for you. It won't be long without you. Um, we always monitor the hallway, right? There are folks on full duty all over the building, just like every school in New
028York. And we're gonna keep an eye on people that are not sort of wandering or sneaking out to get into their lockers. We ask kids not to say, oh my goodness, I have to go to the bathroom. It's an emergency so I can go check my phone. Right? That's not how this works. We're going on the honor system, but we're also watching what's going on and we will, you know, be serious about it. Alright, so who have we consulted with on this? Oh, I would say this too. Parents, please, please remind your kids not to share their locker accommodations with their friends because we don't want someone to get in trouble because you know, Tommy has my locker accommodation and he went into my locker and he took out my phone and there became a
029whole, you know, issue over that. It's really not a great idea to share that. So who have we consulted with? A lot of people. We did a thought exchange. 274 people responded to that. They made almost 4,000 comments on the topic. The overwhelming majority of folks in the district who responded said, this is a good thing. There were a few people who said, I don't like it. Just be aware of that. There were probably maybe of those 274, about 16 people who said, I don't like this. I'm not in favor and that's fair. They're entitled. Um, we did a Google survey for those who said they wanted to participate in a further in-person session. We had people actually come on July 9th and we had a knowledge cafe meeting. Trustee Den was there with us
030at that. We made some good progress. We had teachers at that. We have engaged with our teachers association on this and the leadership of every association in the district. And that's what the state demanded of us. Like I said, we had some really good conversation with a number of our students on this and we'll have more of it ongoing. And we got very good feedback from the people that we've talked to digitally and first. So what are concerns? People want us to be consistent. Don't play favorites. Don't go hard on one person and easy on the other. 'cause they're nice and they're popular and everybody knows them. No, we are all equal under the wall. That's how we should, right? Make sure that everyone knows the rules and the consequences. We've been doing that all
031summer. We're doing it tonight. We're not done yet. We keep reminding and reminding announcements, messages, home for a long time until it sinks in. It becomes normal. Um, you will always have the ability to get in contact with your kids no matter what. We always want to make that happen. We parents do. So many of us, we know how that works. Student safety or emergencies. If your child has something important going on that you really have an extra need to get in touch with them, let us know. What we don't want is, Hey, would you like chicken cups tonight? That's not a great reus to get in touch with your child in the middle of the day. But one parent said to me, Hey, you know, my kid's dad, my husband, he had open heart
032surgery. I need to get in touch with him during the day. You sure do. Absolutely. We'll make that happen in cases like that. Um, and is it gonna be a distraction from teaching or cause this to the problem? That's the thing that I keep talking with the teachers association with a lot about. And it might a little bit at first. I think that'll quiet down pretty quickly. We support our people in the classroom, right? Which means that our students have to be good partners in that. And our te our parents have to be good partners in that. Our administrators are really going to take the lead role in helping to enforce this. But it's a partnership. All of us together. And I think again, 'cause we have such good relations that will be huge with
033our students, right? Both with the group that we met with and other kids that we talked to. They say this is a huge part of our life. Don't address me. And we'd love to be able to get in contact with our family whether it's something serious or whether we're talking about what's for dinner tonight. And they said to us, look, some of our friends are going to have a really hard time with this. Be kind and we will. And we still have to enforce it that we'll be kind. And I said too to them, if you are having anxiety, if you are really feeling stressed out about this, talk to your teacher. Talk to your guidance counselor, talk to the nurse, talk to the school psychologist. We are here to help you. Come see me.
034My office is right down the hall. Right? We don't want anyone to go through torture on this and yet we have to get divorce. So we will. So what happens when people say no, you know, a police officer pulls me over for speeding. I can't say, huh? I drive how I want to drive, right? I have to acknowledge yes sir, or yes ma'am, and take the consequence of it. It's the same thing with this. And we know people are gonna be uneasy, especially at first. And we talked about this the other day, trying to get around rules is part of growing up. That's what you do when you're growing up. How much can I test this? Well, I guess we'll see. Um, and it might even be the case at home that someone says, don't
035worry about that. You'll bring your phone, it'll be okay. We ask that you please don't do that. Because ultimately all that winds up creating is tension between the school and the student. And that's never a good thing. Um, but people challenge authority. It happens. We will be firm and we'll be fair, but we'll be serious at the same time. Consequences could start as simple as, hey, put that away. Or sometimes even just the look right? We all know what the look is like. Sometimes that's enough Device compensation. Student gets it back at the end of the day. Device conation, the parent comes to get it back. At the end of the day, like we said, inconvenient but necessary. Detention. ISS maybe even after school suspension. But again, in the most serious cases, if somebody says
036something awful to a teacher or another employee in the district, we've never tolerated something like that. So we're not gonna start now. Um, but again, compassion but firm. So what comes next? Run the whole stretch here one more time. All districts have to comply with this by August 1st, we're posting our policy tonight, emailing to the state. Tomorrow we'll be done on that. We're gonna continue to notify the folks at home. We have a variety of means by which we're going to do that. We have FAQ that we're going to put out and then briefing for faculty and staff up on conference day. We are going to have assemblies for students. It's gonna be something that you hear about in your teachers back to school. And I conversations with parents. We begin enforcement on the
037first day of school and then we're gonna keep coordinating with our stakeholders. We're gonna make adjustments as needed. 'cause we know this is something that's probably gonna require some adjustment. And what's it gonna look like? September? Mostly the way it has always looked, right? It's not gonna be like a night and day difference. Big difference is we hope to see less of this and more eye contact and more conversation and less distraction. Kids need time to adjust. We don't have time to say we start enforcing it on the 15th where kids need time to adjust. We'll be compassionate about that. Folks at home need time to adjust too. Our admin will support our teachers. Central will support everybody else. We're gonna be patient and respectful. Even as we force, we expect patience and partnership in
038return, right? That's only fair. So with that, I say thank you again and if you have any particular questions on the board or elsewhere, you can answer. I'll just make a comment. Um, it seems like a lot of effort was placed into this change of opportunity for the students. And I use the word opportunity because this will be a nice good change and disruptor for them. And I use disruptor because of the dependency. But it'd be really nice, like you said, to see the students to look at each other in the eye, have a conversation that they can, we don't have unless the dependency or urge of the depend knowing that they cannot have it. So we look forward to see how this all works out. Good luck and thank you. Thank you. I look
039forward to it. All stuff Gonna be learning curve. First couple of weeks are gonna be a little hurting, you know, harmful fault the kids and the parents and students. But then as that third week comes around, it's gonna be like, I don't need my phone. I've done it in my school for the last three years for the mandate and kids really acclimate well and learning starts happening and you guys start having conversations, which normally would just be on your phone. Um, so it's good. It's a good thing you like it. Questions for, Um, well, um, are there any public questions regarding Dr. Ty's, uh, presentation? Come to the podium. Hi, how are you? Um, um, time. The funniest thing is I was looking at the clock. Okay, so the clock in the room. I don't
040think they kids know how to tell time. So we might need a last minute, but, okay. Anyway, um, my question is, you were saying that there might be a way for us to communicate with them through Google classrooms. I'm one having anxiety, not my about this. Just about, you know, I like to know where they are. I like to say, okay, they're here, or, uh, okay, they're on their way home. You know, that type of thing. Or you know, oh, taking another long time on test. He's still at school. So for me, it's my anxiety that I'm, you know, dealing with right now. It should not happen, but, um, so is there a way, you said that you're trying to figure out a way to schedule them to Google Classroom. So let's, let's talk about
041that. That's a great thing. Parents won't be able to get in touch with their students through Google Classroom. But what we want to use that for is, let's say the coach is changing a practice time or a game has been moved or something like that through the, you know, coach being part of the district. We'll have them use it in that way. And I'm glad that you said it the way you said it. If, I mean, during the day, where are they? They're here, they're in school and we have an open campus, right? For high school students, we have an open canvas. If the student, and we talked with the students about this the other day, if a kid wants to go out for lunch, they're entitled to do that. All that means is in
042the course of the period, you have a period's worth of time to get to your locker, get your device, go outside, turn it on, do what you do for your lunch period, go home. I see kids walk home all the time, right? By the time you come back and the bell rings, my device has to keep off and back in my locker. No ifs, ands, or buts. And once it comes to after school, they can turn it right back on. So when after school happens, they've got their device again. So, you know, geez, they're taking a long time of practice or I thought they were going to extra help and they were gonna be home at five and now it's five 20, they'll have their phones on for that. So that's a good thing, right?
043That relieves a little bit of pressure. But the Google class, they will be more us with the teachers have, that's internal, Internal communication. So it's definitely Being able to like if, if, if you ever, if you ever had a concern about your child and needed to know where they were, you could get in touch with us through the main office and we could make that connection happen very quickly. We And things like that. Letting your kids know it's lot of, Lot digest. A hundred percent. Yes. I'm with you. It be great for lunch. I agree. They talk to each other. We sell, when they were younger we didn't have cell phones. Right. I was walking to the, the pizza tolerant back during lunch here, so I mean, no, I know there was just a lot
044less cell. We had payphone too though. Yeah. I would ask if there are any comments on the public agenda online. Okay, now we will continue with our business meeting. May I have a motion to approve two minutes of the board of education meeting of January of July 8th. All second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the Board of Education business meeting of July 18th? I'll motion All in favor. A, the minutes from July 8th and July 18th are approved. Now approval for the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Make a motion. Second. All in favor? They are all approved on the, they are all approved of the consent agenda. Are there any questions for the public? Not regarding the agenda.
045Okay, I am now going to close the Honor. We gotta do the review. 5 1, 2 Oh. I just said, okay. So should they just address five point here or do you want me read five? Okay. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the board of education meeting of July 8th. Reorganization meeting minutes second. All in favor? Aye. The minutes. All right. So can I just finish? Finish. Okay. The minutes from the July ization meeting minutes are approved. May I have a motion to approve the use of the internet enabled device during the school policy Motion? All in favor? Aye. Submitted. The, the policy of rezo 4.1 is approved. I am now. Oh, okay. Please come to the podium and state your name and address, Your Honor. Um, my questions are, um,
046regarding, um, uh, governor Hopewell's, uh, conversation around free lunch for public school students. Is there any, um, information being sent out to families or any guidance on, uh, how place participating in free lunch? Um, the summer program that runs at Rushmore, not the extended school year program, however, the other program, um, my question is regarding oversight. Um, is it car place or closes that is the, um, oversight of that program? Um, are there any expectations for the teachers that work the program and, um, exit reviews of student performance for parents and for the perspective of teacher on the following year? Um, I have some parents that are actually watching livestream who students are in this program. And it is, um, understood that students are on devices or tablets doing a worksheet. They go to the
047gym, they play, and, um, parents are confused because the students were recommended for this program based on their academic performance during the year. And when parents, um, address the concerns with the teacher of the, um, program, oh, I don't teach in called plays. Oh, this is what we do in my district. Oh. Um, but have no idea why the children are actually sitting here. So that's a concern. Um, and in February and March, April, when we discussed budget and meetings, it was discussed that, uh, full-time, uh, the FTEs, it would be even washed. However, it's been, I can't keep track of all of the resignations, hirings leave replacements. So is there a definitive number of FTEs newly hired that will be receiving a benefit package this year? Um, I know there were leave replacements and
048things like that, but when I went through all my notes it was very challenging. So is there a number of completely new hires? Thank you very much. So I'm gonna defer to Mr. Martino on the lunch question. Yep. So we'll be sending out, uh, a letter and we'll, we'll publicize it every way we can. Just notifying parents that, uh, all students are entitled to free lunch starting in September. Um, the first year has to operate as much as normal because the state is using the first year data to calculate how much money we're going to get. So with the letter will be the standard, uh, free and reduced application. And we still do need everyone to fill those out as normal just for the first. Thank you. And then mss, could you give us a
049little context on rush warrant and on hire please? Uh, yeah. The Rush Law Program is our summer a IS Academic Intervention Services program. And it is a program that's run by BO Cs. We contract BO Cs. We've been doing it for I'd say over 20 years, uh, with the BO CS um, organization. Um, it runs for, um, four days a week or four weeks. So it's a 16 day program in the summer for three hours a day. Uh, the teachers are hired by BO Cs. Um, we have, um, currently and have in the past some car place teachers. I mean they, they can apply through BO Cs. We, um, advertise the program and they can apply and work for the program. Um, we have a coordinator who is hired by BO Cs, um, and with
050our approval, um, and we get, uh, you know, resumes and we meet with people. Um, and the program, um, the, uh, in and outs of the program is decided by boces. Um, I do know when you said they go to the gym, they do have a break during the day. It's a three hour program. So they, they break it up and it's, um, you know, it's been hot. Um, but, um, had a question about, um, is there, Is there any, um, like an exit report that the, that the summers that the, that the teacher that is seeing the student 16 times will provide for the, you know, the prospective teacher saying, Hey, Maryanne went to summer program. She was there every day. So this is what she, or is it just like a seat filler?
051Like Well it's not a seed filler. Um, there, there is not a report that is not a report card or anything like that, that that's generated at the end of the program. Um, but I mean, I've been there, I've visited the programs. Right. And, uh, I think there's good learning going on. It's summer school, so it's a little more relaxed. But is there a curriculum, like are this, are the teachers or s given something and say, these are prospective fourth graders do this with Them? Yes, Bo provides that to the teachers. Okay. Like they're not making it up as they go along Though, right? There's a, they have to say follow. Okay. Um, as far as the hires, um, yes, there is a definite number. I don't happen to have it in front of me,
052so I will, I will get you that information. Um, okay. But it, it, I we have not hired any additional staff then that what has been proposed in the budget. I mean, you know. So you said it was a wash? It is a wash. Okay. But we have had, uh, like for example, we had hired a, um, special education teacher. She, um, declined the position, you know, after we had appointed her. So then we hired another special education teacher. So it might look like extra, but I would definitely get that information to you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Are there any other public comments of this on I am now going to close a public session. Try a motion to close a public session. The motion to go back to motion A second. I'll
053second. All favor? Aye. Thank you.