ICSD Board of Education Voting Meeting - Tuesday, September 30, 2025

001call the order. >> I'm going to call to order the September 30th, 2025 meeting of the ethnicity school board of education. Our first item is item two. Does anyone have a motion? I I move to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussions regarding current litigation collective negotiations pursuant to article 14 of the civil service law employment history of a particular person or matters leading to the appointment employment promotion demotion discipline suspension dismissal or removal of particular person. >> All right. Any discussion? >> All those in we return uh probably before 7. I think it might be a shorter executive session. We'll try to get back by seven. Welcome back everyone. Who has a >> any to the agenda that need be item three turns up session approval or modification of tenative agenda there

002anything to know? Nope. Okay. Then we go straight to public comments and uh Dr. Frantwise says finally agreed to read names asking you to give him grace. He doesn't know how to know everyone's pronunciation. >> I don't but I'll do my best. Um okay. Uh, the first person who signed up to speak tonight is Jeffrey Ames. >> Yeah. >> Or 15. >> Good to go. >> All right. Hello. My name is Jeff Ames and my wife is a teacher in the ICSD. Uh, from what I understand, there's a reason that we are here today in this room as opposed to the high school. I would like to start saying that the cowardly actions of certain board members a couple weeks ago should be addressed in this setting, not through further cowardice in the form of

003faceless threats. Speaking of threats, last Friday morning, several area schools received emails containing threats of violence. Despite the threats being deemed noncredible, Tomkins County law enforcement stepped up their presence around these schools throughout the day. While some of these districts acted out of an abundance of caution, such as Dryen implementing a lockout, ICSD chose to only communicate information to members of their administration. Employees and parents received nothing. Instead, learning of the threats through word of mouth or the press. At least one of ICSD schools even had two fire drills that day. The entire staff and student population all grouped together outside the school on a day violent threats were made. credible or noncredible. ICSD's failure to communicate with its staff and parents is unacceptable. While other districts took swift action, ICSD did not, choosing to

004stay silent until Sunday when they sent an email defending their actions or lack thereof. I'm 33, which means I have grown up alongside some of the worst school shootings in history. A small part of me fears the worst every single time my wife leaves for work in the morning, knowing that if my biggest nightmare comes through, she would do anything in her power to protect her students, which means she might not come home. Once again, the absence of timely communication from the is from the ICSD to its educators and parents as this situation unfolded is unacceptable and shows what I feel to be yet another example of a lack of care. ICSD administrators have for its staff and its students. As fear as infuriating as this is, this lack of care is not surprising as

005district administrators continue to fail its teachers and students by denying existing issues put forth by the ITA throughout their negotiations. When schools can't retain their staff, students suffer. When schools fail, which students are affected the most? The answer is those from marginalized communities. ICS's inauthentic culture of love is on full display for the community to see. Both through this situation this past Friday and through its refusal to provide teachers with what they fairly deserve. You are no champions of an equitable and inclusive education for all students in this district. You are assisting in propping up the system that you're claiming to fight against. Today, my message is clear. ICSD and the board of education must prove their commitment to the safety and prosperity of its students and staff by ensuring clear and honest communication in

006the future and by supporting the ITA's objectives to fix the teacher retention crisis which will lead to greater student success in all of our schools. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dena Maxwell. came here tonight to read part of a board's policy. However, not enough people signed up. So, with my less than three minutes, I will address the board, district leadership, and the community members about what I think about what transpired last month. We're going to go back a little bit. I am one of several unhappy members of the community that disagree with your hasty and, in my opinion, illinformed vote to extend Dr. Brown's contract. since he first came to the district. I think my son was in kindergarten or first grade. Five schools are now below average or on warning. Our teachers started

007this this school year plus several other years without contract. Special education is not fully funded and non special educ special education teachers and aids are doing the work without equal compensation. We don't have qualified substitutes. We don't have enough bus drivers. We don't have enough janitorial staff. I'm unclear how spending almost $300,000 on extending a contract that wasn't even up for renewal when our teachers do not have a contract was the most urgent priority of this board. Maybe 24 hours was given, but it was like 23 hours and 59 minutes. So many people responded, "You don't care about the community and what they have to say and you voted to extend it." I want to know why, and I also understand I'm not going to get it. And it's really, really frustrating. To his credit,

008Sean Bradwell, who is not here tonight, offered to meet me after he responded to my email, and I hope that others that I will be contacting will consider that same. So, a lot of people have told me I'm lucky not to be in the district anymore. My son has graduated. I think that's really shortsighted and asine. I have very good friends who are teachers in this district. My neighbors have kids in this district. I am I am a community member in this district. I have people who have specifically left this district because of the overwhelming teacher failure on the part of the district. The district is hemorrhaging teachers and I just had one of my friends say tell them that a 21-year teacher like is is is like at her wit's end. I thought that

009board members met with teachers and staff in assigned schools. That's the way it used to work. But clearly I don't know what the board does. Jacob Shiffren and Emily Workman both admitted that in the earlier session that you don't know what's going on in the schools. So now I'm going to step back and I'm going to try to not be aggressive and have a open mind. I'd like the board members to consider having open discussion with interested parties outside of this environment with community members to start healing the huge rift that is between the community, the teachers, the students and the board. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Should we just remind the group that specifically? >> Yes, that's good. Uh, normally Sean does that. So, uh, forgive me. It's hard hard to fill

010Sean's shoes, but if he were here, he would ask community not to name two individuals in the public. >> Um, our next speaker tonight is Victor Gayrock. Good evening everybody. Um my name is Victor. I'm a community member and the husband of an Itha uh high school teacher. Um it's my first time speaking at one of these things. Um I'm pretty frustrated I have to come here and speak on one of these things. Usually my Tuesday nights uh I'm watching TV while my wife's grading. Um I'm laying in bed scrolling TikTok while she's responding to emails. I'm hanging around while she's working. Um, and tonight I've got to come here and talk to y'all about how I'm increasingly frustrated with the degree of loyalty that she has towards this school board. Um, I don't share

011in that loyalty. I'm pretty utilitarian about my family, our household finances. I know that she loves her job. She loves being a teacher. She's a pretty good teacher all things considered. Uh, teachers, her students are doing great. And I know that no matter where she goes, she will be a good teacher. She will bond with the students that she meets there. She will form good relationships with her co-workers. She will have tense relationships with administrators but ultimately respect their decisions. That's the kind of woman that she is. And yet she's loyal to this school district. Even though it is not aately rewarding of that loyalty, it pays her less than any of the school districts that might border this region. If she was working and driving, she'd be making $6,000 a year more than she

012is right now. That's the median salary. This past summer, there was a job application that would pay her 7,000 more than she currently makes. I urged her to take that job, to apply for it. I told her, "Babe, with $7,000 a year, we're looking at an extra 500 bucks a month. I could take you on a nice dates or you could take me on nice dates, right? Uh, we could visit your parents once a year rather than once every four years. We could afford better health insurance. We might even get access to better health benefits." This district doesn't give its teachers the degree of loyalty that they give it. And that's an unfortunate reality that we're in right now. And that's something spouses of teachers are probably having conversations with their spouses on every day,

013every summer. We're telling them take the career advancement elsewhere. And they're telling us, "No, I love my students. I love my te my co-workers." And it's not fair. It's not fair that they could commute an extra 10 minutes and get paid more. It's not fair that they could have better benefits. It's not fair that they could have better salary transparency that this board does not offer them. So ultimately, I'd ask you to honor the respect and the loyalty that they show you even when they come here to critique the decisions you make because ultimately they could leave. They could get a better job somewhere else with admin that care about them more and they choose not to because they love their kids and their jobs and their co-workers and even this board. Thank you. >>

014Thank you. Um, our next speaker is Andrew Vike. Andrew. Okay. Uh, no. Andrew. >> Andrew. No. >> Oh, >> is that I just heard a sound. I don't know if that was Andrew. >> Okay. No. Um, okay. If Andrew comes back, we'll we'll try it again. Uh, Beverly Tan. >> Hi, my name is Beverly Tan. I'm a social studies teacher at Ithaca High School. At the last board meeting, I witnessed an emotionally draining disenfranchisement of our community going into ITA contract negotiations. Please know this. Teachers from New York City want to move and teach in Ithaca, but the reputation and data from ICSC stop them. When the ITA says teacher working conditions are student learning conditions, it's true. Ithaca High School started the year missing three science teachers. A qualified substitute last year tried to

015get a job here, but was quickly approached by a Truman principal who used to be an admin in this district. LACS does not offer chemistry or physics at all. A science teacher lives in Ithaca but works in Auburn because ICSD did not post their openings on platforms where most teachers look. The teachers are out there and they're not coming. Teachers know this. Principals know this and students are feeling this. Impact is more important than intent. And I understand you have good intentions, but your impact is the breakdown of trust and morale in this community. It hurts when the board takes no accountability for the issues in the district yet claims credit for the positives. Board members talk about students at Wegman saying the cell phone pouches are working but ignore when we say there's strong

016opposition against your choices and dismiss our data and experiences. Students at IHS are not using their pouches. How are your anecdotes more valid than ours? Brian Goodman has the numbers to prove that we have the money for ITA. Why are your numbers more valid than ours? Why invite us to speak at all? Um, when we ask for equitable salaries, family leave that respects recovery and bonding time, and inclusive health insurance for domestic partners, we're not doing so out of greediness. We are pleading to feel respected in the only way a capitalistic society acknowledges salary, time, and inclusiveness. We want a contract and a life that tells us we are valued, which all humans deserve. Yet, at the last meeting, board manage board members repeatedly referred to teachers as expenses. >> Expenses. And what everyone needs

017to know is what student teacher relationships really sound like in this district. The following is a fraction of yearbook messages I've received over the years. Student number one, your unfailing ability to maintain a cheery disposition at the end of a tiring day in a hot classroom makes global contact that much more interesting. Student number two, your class is the light at the end of my tunnel of my days. Student number three, thank you for making me a better student and a person that can now believe that I can do anything. board. I implore you to do as good teachers do, which is backwards design. Acknowledge where we have to end up fiscally and then work with teachers and the community to get there instead of starting the conversation with there are no funds. If you

018use your response time to pick apart our data and stories, you're gravely missing the point. You're in public office to serve a community and that community is telling you the impact of your choices. You said last meeting that the 17 people who uh who spoke don't repres represent the whole community. Honestly, that makes me want to cry because who will you listen to if not the people telling you what they need? Your intent does not matter. Your impact does. So, please give teachers a respectable contract. This is your legacy. And I will end with student number four. Where do I begin? You're an absolute legend. I don't know where I'd be without you. You stand up for me when others don't. You got me through some tough stuff. In short, you're one of the best

019teachers I've ever had. And frankly, you deserve a heat race. Uh, next we have Suzanne Van. >> Well, um, I'm Suzanne Vanhart and I'm a special education teacher at High School. Um, I'm also a parent of two ICSD graduates. Thank you for your time tonight and thank you for all that you all do for our students. As you enter um a new season of negotiations, I want to share my perspective as a special education student. This is my 10th year co-eing economics and my seventh year co-eing global history. when we when I started this co-eing we had what's called PLC which is professional learning community time built into our day and I believe we have Dr. Brown to thank for that because when he came to this district um I think he's the one that

020initiated that. I wasn't here at the time but during this time we were able to uh plan together and create accessible materials um problem solve so that all learners could could succeed. Um unfortunately the that time in the day has been switched over to supervision time. So now teachers um are supervising study halls, monitoring bathrooms or obser um monitoring lunch lunches. Um we still have PLC every other Wednesday after school, but those meetings are usually taken up with department business. But um I'm fortunate though because um I'm still able to work with my co-teers. Um but retention is a concern. Both of my co-teers are at that 15-year mark and I just I'm concerned that um they would leave and if they leave all the work that I have put into building our curriculums would

021leave too. So, I'm asking you, and I know you've been asked this before, but please make retention a priority. Um, teachers are stretched thin and it often feels like we're just holding things together kind of like a house of cards. And I don't know who the high school's board member representative is, but I whoever is the lucky member on this board, I encourage you to come shadow me for a day. I know it's not that exciting. doesn't seem very exciting, but um I invite you to do that just so you can see what it how we're just trying to hold it together so you can understand the thought of either one of my co-teers leaving or one of my special ed teachers retiring is a I don't want to think about it because it will

022just kind of fall apart. I just want to close with this. Before I came tonight, I called my two sons who graduated from this district um and I said, "Can you just tell me um the names of teachers that made an impact on you?" And it was a hard question for them because there were many. Can I just finish? So my older son said he majored in music production production. He said Miss Risky because she um she always encouraged my creative side. And my younger son who's now studying accounting and finance at the University of Alabama world tie said Mr. Carver because of his real world experience and he is a realist. These teachers are invaluable um please do everything that you're you're capable of to retain them. Thank you for this. The last um

023speaker tonight is Jordan Clemens. >> Hello, my name is Jordan Clemens. I'm the founder of a grassroots revitalization nonprofit called Unbroken Promise Initiative. I'm coming to bring you uh you know I share a lot of the sentiments. Um I agree with people getting paid. Uh I do want to just give some context. The last meeting I was here I gave some historical context. My family's been here since the 1820s um escaping a plantation from um uh Baltimore, Maryland area. And so uh what I really want to just touch with is is a worldview. I understand that right now we're not discussing morale. It's about power. Um, I'm a representative of a of a a population that come from the lowincome, marginalized, disenfranchised community, which is often discussed in this area. Um, but was fortunate out

024of one of the ones in my peer group to overcome a lot of the systemic and oppressive barriers. And so um now what I spent my life doing is is creating holistic and comprehensive solutions to kind of you know uh overcome the existing barriers that we currently face. And so you know when we talk about what times we're in you know this is about you know democracies and and free democratic system and and freedoms are going to be challenged. um that's going to lead to, you know, people not feeling like they're a part of the democracy and, you know, people essentially uh not wanting to work and because they don't feel like they're connected. And so you're seeing that with our teachers and you know what is that going to lead to? That's going to

025lead to decay within. And so we're feeling that more so than ever in our community because prior to COVID, this was already, like I said, like I've said in the last meeting, this was already historically an issue within our community as far as lowincome people in this county not getting their needs met. So now when you put in the pandemic that exacerbated we were on the front lines to already kind of hold up the deck of cards that had fell during the pandemic when everything was strained. Now you put in the the the shift in the landscape at the federal level and now financials budgets everything's constrained labor unions you know from transportation to education all across all of the points that coincide with with qualities of life as far as all people but I'm

026speaking with lowincome people now the work in which I'm doing the the issues that we have been facing for generations but obviously now talking about the present is now exacerbated. And so what I'm looking to do is I'm looking to really discuss with all stakeholders, teachers. I've been an adviser to the mayor, you know, in 2020. So I was really focusing on the city aspect, but now I'm in the education aspect. So looking to connect with, you know, Dr. Brown the superintendent because when you look at the three pillars of the way in which our society is organized around fiscal you're looking at the city you're looking at the county and you're looking at education and so I wanted to just bring that to your attention that Unbroken Promise initiative is really looking to bring

027a cohesive and holistic and comprehensive approach to being able to mitigate the environment we found ourselves all in so that we to weather this storm that we currently all have to be a part of and be be together. So, thank you. >> Is there anyone else? >> I don't know if Andrew is Andrew back. Okay. Well, seeing no one else, I'm going to invite any response to my colleagues. Um yeah, appreciate everyone coming and speaking. Um Jordan always um all all the teachers, the husbands, the partners, whoever. Um yeah, my my mom worked at South for 20 years, you know, and and she didn't get a lot of money. She was kind of, you know, the only income that we had in our house. So I know I know it's like grow with not having

028a lot of money. And um you know so I I I don't speak for the board but the member of the board does value and appreciate and I'm sorry that right now the committee is feeling like you're not respected. Um I I don't think there's anyone on the board that that that teaches that way. So without without you guys um we don't have a district. So um I just want to say thank you. Um that's all I can really say this moment. But I appreciate you guys coming out. I appreciate you guys letting us know how you're feeling, giving us perspective. So, thank you. >> Yeah. Uh I'll just echo that what Todd said. I think we, you know, we are a board that value and appreciate teachers. Um and I think we are a

029board that wants to try to pay teachers as much as we can. Um we kind of looking forward to continuing the conversations that should be coming up I think in October. Um also just um a response to one person's comment about board reps in uh in the schools we have now assigned board members. So all schools have a board representative. I think I'm not sure where's that posted. U I know it's posted on our on our website. >> On our website. >> Yeah, it's on our website. Um, so everybody can see and individual board members are probably reaching out to schools and PTAs to try to connect with that. So, um, everybody could look up and see who their, uh, respective representative is. Um, and if you're not sure, you could also email the board.

030Um, yeah, thank you. >> Thank you all. And I guess for those who had the document you were reading from physical or electronic, you could always send it to our board clerk will be distributed to all board members since there are not. >> Uh also just want to jump in and say thank you to uh everyone for coming and for sharing your perspectives and thoughts. Um want to reiterate the board liazison role. I think um we've given it a lot of thought. We took a pause last year. That's why it feels like folks have not been um the board has not been as engaged or present perhaps in schools. Um I think that we're excited about uh kicking it off again this year and hopefully as Adam said, you've already heard from some of us

031in order to do that. Um uh and and we really hope that that becomes I know that when I have reached out to the principles of the schools that I'm going to be representing, I I asked them to please um forward that on to community members and to PTAs and others to really encourage um deeper engagement and communication. Um so it definitely is going to be a new opportunity to have that. Uh Dina, you specifically said something about asking board members to connect more with the community. Um, I talk about this all the time. I don't know where you There you are. Um, about wanting to be able to do that and trying to identify ways. I know that over the years um board members have set up uh, you know, coffee hours. They, you

032know, often say when we're here, please reach out to us. Now, of course, we talk about let's talk and things on the website, which I know are less personal. Um, but we really are checking our emails every day and responding to folks who request who engage and it's hard to know who and if anybody wants to do that. I wish that I was getting way more of those and have the opportunity to do much more of it. So I I I hate to put it back on you and we will continue to think about ways that we can engage better in the community, but I also we are just a email phone call away and I think I can speak for myself in saying that I I always welcome those opportunities and find that those

033conversations are much more fruitful than what we're able to do here and responding very briefly. Um, and Suzanne just wanted to mention that the the uh the loss of PLC time is really concerning and disappointing, but also not something that we are unaware of. And we had an opportunity last year, the curriculum committee, to be able to speak to a number of teachers um about that loss and about the impact of not being able to engage in um co-eing strategic planning and engagement. Um, and I know that Mary has been working on that a lot and we continue to have those conversations. So, I appreciate you kind of raising it again and making sure that we talk about any kind of strategies and ways that we can increase that time that teachers have with one

034another. Um, and Beverly, I want to connect with you about what you were saying about uh uh where we where the district is posting jobs. Um, I'm chairing the HR committee and one of the things that we're going to be focusing on this year is is retention and from that aspect and um, I would venture to say that the district thinks that they're posting. So, we I think we would all and I'm sure the district as well would love to learn about where we're missing the mark there and how we can do better and at least reaching candidates uh, so that they know about other things. And I'd like to add too that um the board lison are listed on the line. Also look at the description of the board lazons. There are certain things

035you cannot get involved with and we're not there to um oversee specific work that people are doing. So to look at because that that's what we met during the summer to talk about. Um we had to be very cautious what our involvement was. And just to throw out, it is very helpful when when folks come and seek for public comment. It's very helpful when we get emails sent to the board and messages. And like Emily said, I also just love conversations with people. And so regardless of like board leazison or anything just like just know that it is helpful to hear from people and to talk to that I have okay uh we'll move on. Let's make two two comments. One about the board and one about some of the comments made. I just want

036to acknowledge and thank my colleagues. Uh it is sometimes difficult to sit here in the public eye and hear deeply held views from the public as it's appropriate to do so but it's sometimes difficult to to hear views that differ very much from one's own and just have to agree to respectfully disagree and I just want to thank my colleagues for their fortitude in doing that role. Secondly, uh I do invite folks to just speaking only for myself to uh go back and look at the last meeting. Um you know the folks who came up who were teachers or who were married teachers I can relate to that and I laid out in our last meeting the desire I was only speaking for myself but I don't think it's a belief that only I hold

037of this board at least me wanting to do as best we can for teachers. That process is continuing. We have laid out a strategy to make the most resources available to teachers possible. That was said in the meeting last month and you'll hear more about it moving forward. Uh we care about teachers and the negotiations ongoing. So please do not prejudge process that has not concluded. Okay. Moving on. We have set agenda. >> Student reps. I'm sorry. I Yeah, student reps. Right. >> Um, good evening guys. Um, I'd like to get the first quick update on our false portions. Before I start, I want to mention that one of our Jing couldn't be here because she's at a tennis match right now and other our other Lily couldn't be here due for personal matters. This

038past weekend both boys and girls cross country team compete at the McQue innovation which hosted near seven southern runners. It's one of the largest cross country meets and one of the one of the biggest school sponsored meet in the countries. Boys soccer team, boys JB soccer team on the street 7 and0 and girls varsity soccer team went up had a big win against Johnson City last night. Varsity B tennis also had a strong season with a 911 streak. Varsity football pick got their first win, first home game win and also want to keep this going on. Finally, finally varsity volleyball is dominating this year with a 70 record including six shout out. Barcel of athlete senior had their um government chair last yesterday and many of our school clubs are under are now getting underway

039and our co-ad robotic pattern already bought a competition land look ahead we're exciting to announce our fall assembly on Fridays of October 10th at Morocco Stadium the assembly begins at 9 300 p.m. sorry um and we all feature student performance clubs and teams. Overall it's been exciting seasons and we are proud of our energies and achievement that happening at the high school. Lastly I just want to mention that future learning future learning condition our student working condition. Thank you. Okay. Um you should all have these papers in front of you. So this is from a survey that Arthle did on um cell the cell phone ban. So I just want to go over a few points through this so the public knows and so you guys are aware um what the board reps think is

040most important. Um so first of all I just want to say overall it was pretty neutral the survey. Students didn't have a lot of strong opinions but there are some and I'll mention those. Um, but there's a lot of interesting and useful data that I think you guys could um use to if you you're going to change policy useful. So, starting off um students overall rated their general experience with the phone band as a 3.14 out of five on average. Um, notably only 8.8% rated as a five out of five, but only 9.4% rated as a one out of five. And um there's charts in the back where you can see um the score distribution um in their general experiences. Teachers rated it higher on their surveys with an average rating of 4.26 out of

041five and zero teachers rated their experience below three out of five stars. So pretty good ratings there. Uh about 52% of students rated their stress levels as a three out of five with 28% of students rating it as a four or five out of five. Um, but a super majority of students feel the stress levels have stayed the same or decreased as a result of the phone ban. And teachers agree with about 93% of them saying that students seem um as or less stressed than they did last year. Uh about 45% of students say that the hallway atmosphere feels the same as last year. Um but 36.4% rate it as worse or significantly worse than last year. So, that might be something to look into. About 60% of students reported that they use their phones

042less or significantly less in school. Um, but overall the the rest of that there's not much um there weren't many responses saying they use their phones more in school. So, majority of them use their phones less. Some of them use their phones the same amount. Uh 75% of survey respondents reported that the hardest place to use their phone was at lunch which is expected. Um it we should note though that since the survey was collected um games like spikeball and cornhole have been provided at lunch and cards have been provided indoors. So that should be going down. Uh 12th graders are 25% more likely to use their phones at lunch when compared to the average. But I do want to note that's still very low. The average phone usage at lunch is still at about

043a 2.5 out of five self-reported. Um uh next a few stats about phone usage across different locations. Um about 83% um 83.7% say they use their phones rarely or never in class now which I think is a lot more than last year. Um just a little bit ahead. Um so I think a a a very important statistic was that about um well majority of students said they are similarly distracted as compared to last year. So not a huge change in distraction um self-reported from the students and as a student I think I can say pretty surely why I think that people are off their phones less in class but students are still talking um talking more which is a good thing in in some circumstances but not a good thing in others. Uh so students

044are still distracted in that manner. Uh there's a few charts in the back that I think be useful to you guys. I do want to say that although phone usage has decreased, I don't think that students are using pouches. I don't honestly I don't think I know a single person that actually uses those cyber pouches. Um I know there are people that use them, but I don't think majority of students are actually putting their phones in the pouches. I think they're in their pockets or they're in their bags still not out in class. Um, lastly, I just I have to say it again. Negotiations were postponed. They were supposed to happen a couple weeks ago and they didn't happen. Students want their teachers paid. It's it's simple. And there there's people in the district that

045have done the math. It's possible to pay them. It's possible to give them step in lane. My teachers are less motivated to put in extra work in their teaching and rightfully so. I mean, no matter how much you love a job, you're not going to work for no money or little money at least. I also want to say like Miss Tan said, both high schools are missing teachers and that's putting extra workload on the teachers. I have a chemistry teacher right now. Our class at the start of the year was over um over the maximum and he had two classes and my class was still over the maximum. It's a chemistry classroom. That can't happen because what am I going to do in a lab bench when there's 10 people crowded around one lab bench?

046It's harming education to have low teacher attention. And the reason we have low teacher retention is because we're not paying the teachers. Pretty simple. >> Okay. I'm actually going to start with something a little bit sillier than what might normally be brought, but LACS has a really vibrant fundraising culture and we're running one of our largest fundraising events right now, which is yard work. We do pretty much any yard work you want by 12 hour 12 to 20 an hour. Uh we'll continue. That's just an example of one of the those. We're going to keep updating you guys on our major fundraisers. Again, we have a really longstanding vibrant fundraising culture that we really like. But if your artwork sounds appealing, you can reach out to me. I believe >> a little shameless right now.

047Please see us. >> I mean, well, some of you have hired us in the past. Thank you for that. But just wanted to get that out there if that sounds good. Reach out to me. I believe Spir has has my uh email or JG17 blah blah blah. So, now for a bit more of the serious stuff. Uh on on behalf of the board, uh we also did a little survey. It's not written up as well as Judah. shout out. But I I thought it'd be good to bring forward some data on how the phone man is going. So I interviewed and asked students to anonymously give some thoughts on the phone man and they believe how it's going. The following responses are all anonymous. They're all given under the condition that they would be anonymous.

048And so want to practice that. Uh we I'm also going to give some anecdotes at the very end, but the following is just data that that was collected. So a slight majority of students about 53% said they do not use their phone. uh sorry said that they do not use their phone during school hours at all. That's that's defined as more like any more than like looking at the time like legitimately even just to go open the calculator. Just do not use it. Uh that's down from about 40 about 30% from from 84% of students who said that they did use their phone la last year. Make of that. uh a large majority of students uh 78% said they do not use their phone pouch at all. But that is however 76 76% of students

049sorry uh said they believe that students are using their phones less compared to last year or just not at all. Anecdotally we have a bit we've seen a bit of the opposite effect uh between age ranges at school. We are middle school high school. So anecdotally, students have said they see middle schoolers on their phones more than high schoolers or that high schoolers need more disciplines about putting their phone in their bag. Make up for that. So we've all uh but a real thing is that kids don't use the patches like really at all a lot pretty much all students communicated the fact that they're kind of a joke. That that that's what some of the students said, but again that is anecdotal. So, last meeting and as you can see, I'm wearing my ITA

050blue today. I It's It's a nice shirt, but I'm not just I'm wearing it for no reason. Uh, we as a student body want to reiterate our support for the ITA and their contract negotiations. Want to reiterate that really we support the request for Steph and Wayne. We support requests for for paid family leave and for supplemental medical Medicare. Like, I spoke to this last week, but I think it's another very important point to make. We we really do love the people that work in our building. I really really truly mean that. Like teachers at LCS go above and beyond every day from making working in a pro like they work in a progressive education environment which can be more demanding leading like leading different kinds of classes to having to to just being friends

051and knowing students on a deeper level with family groups and projects and committees and so many more ways to engage but yet also more work for the same teacher. And I believe Emily, Bo, and I can we can all attest to these experiences with teachers who have gone above and beyond on behalf of the student body. We want to see teachers have a new contract. We want to see teacher be retained. We want to we want to have students who enter at LS in sixth grade have the same teachers all the way until their senior year. I've been lucky enough to have that and it is I'm so grateful. I've had teachers who've known me from the time I'm I was 11 when I'm 18 years old. That is really astounding. So I look forward

052to hearing the update from the agenda later on on where the contract negotiations are at negotiations are at. But as a student body, we want to affirm our supports really really deeply. But thank you. >> Oh, we're not finished. Sorry, >> you're not done yet. There's a bonus there. >> Um, right. Last last week, the three of us attended a training at Boseies talking about the uh exeicio student board members role under the new state law that got passed last year. Um, I don't know if any of you have a chance to like read over that the wording of that new law, but it does have some changes to what we currently practice. um including being like a a more active part of agenda item discussions as well. Um so we'd love to like work

053with you on how we can be more sort of uh have a louder role in this in this sort of meeting process in accordance with that new law. Um let's see. Uh again like reiterating what other other folks were saying like all of my teachers go above and beyond every single one of them. Um you know emotionally and um academically and financially uh you know like providing snacks sometimes paying out of pocket for field trips relying on grant money from other places rather than the district to reimburse them for certain things. like this is the the relationships that our teachers build with the students over time as Julian was saying um is is so important and is so much work. Uh and it means it it it is it is sad to see my teachers

054struggling in all of these steps of the process. um uh sad for me as as as someone who really really cares about my teachers. Um and yeah, moving on to the next piece. Um today was Orange Shirt Day. It was way too hot for me to keep this up all day. But um for those who don't know, orange shirt day is practiced across the continent in recognition of the victims and survivors of US and Canadian government's cruel Native American boarding school policies of forced assimilation. The last boarding school closed in I think it was 1973. Um, so you know, this was a a fairly recent and horrific thing that has led to generational product. Um, and this the the LCS effort of of education in that regard was headed up by one of our fantastic

055teachers, John Raymond. Um, and his this year's cohort of the community service class. Uh, so they were handing out pins and orange things and little uh uh educational zenes and all of that today. So that was really cool to see. Um, projects projects are a really cool thing that LCS does. We have gotten them up and running. Uh, we do all sorts of things. All three of us actually signed up and got into this awesome project headed up by a new math teacher, swing dancing. Um, so we were doing that today and it was so much fun. Um yeah. Yeah, lots of lots of really cool stuff is being offered this year. So yeah, looking forward to updating you guys on that. Um yeah, and and and lastly, I had a little piece like I

056was just realizing sort of looking at the agenda of this meeting uh and figuring it all out. It would be so much hard so so sorry. It was so difficult to figure out how to come and speak and be a part of this meeting if I did not have people like who knew better than me sort of teaching me at that at that initial stage. Um it feels like like with the with the current sort of transparency and communication um and accessibility of the website, it is really difficult to figure out what is going on at these meetings. Like the the agenda is published literally like the day before the meeting happens. Um so it's hard to sort of garner up any kind of like sort of reaction to that. Um the it is never

057entirely clear like I think the language with this one was executive session usually happens at 6 from from 6:00 to 7:00 and the public meeting starts at 7 and that's really sort of an asterisk below everything else. Um, so that's confusing for some folks. And then also with the location change, all I'm saying is it could be easier and it could be more sort of welcoming of people coming to share their voices and to just listen in and be a part of this really important space. >> Sorry. Okay. So, all right. Last one, promise. Um, >> maybe not >> at least for us. Um, so, uh, firstly, I want to talk about the LACS advisory council. So, the advisory council is one of our decision-making bodies at LACS composed of students, staff, alumni, caregivers, other

058community members, pretty much everybody. Advisory Council serves to provide advice, insight, and community perspective on all of our schools happenings. is one would say it makes and it's important to note it makes decision by consensus and not majority. That kind of a big deal. Um in fact all three of us just came from the advisory council's first meeting of the year. Like we pretty much were there an hour. So, uh, and we just really want to say that we would actually like if one or more of the board members could be could attend, uh, next month's meeting, and that's October 28th at LACS, uh, in the LACS library from 4:00 to 5:30. Uh, we'll probably contact you guys through email just just as like a we Yeah. Uh, so next on my list here, I

059want to shout out the LACS Spanish trip. uh and the board will see them later in the year just for approval at their for their location for kicking off our first school dance of the year. It truly was like a sm a smashing success with so many students being present and they all really had an incredible time and it's just like a good way to kick off our spirit for the year. All right. All right. For the final part, I want to preface the next statement with recognition that deciding and publishing an agenda is difficult time consuming work. With that being said, I would like the board to consider publishing the agenda at an earlier date. As an ex as exeicio student board members, it is our responsibility to represent the school's student body in

060board matters, including agenda items. It is hard for us to do so when we lack the time to seek out student opinions. >> And then one more thing, um, back to cell phone. I realized I forgot to mention possibly the most important part. Um there were a few struggles that came up um like a lot on the survey. There was an open response um question where students could list their greatest struggles. So a few really important ones that I think um could have easy solutions. A lot of students reported struggles with contacting parents. So, I know me personally, I have a very busy schedule and that busy schedule changes a lot and there are times throughout the school day where it might be uh nice and I know I did this last year to be

061able to contact my parents and last year would have been me sending a quick text. This year I can't do that and so it's hard for me to communicate with my parents and I know it's the same way for a lot of students. Uh students also reported that they had trouble finding and meeting up with friends during lunch or after school. Again, this is something that I've had trouble with. IHS is weird at lunch because we have a universal lunch where students can go anywhere on campus. Not anywhere, but a lot of places on campus. And so sometimes my friends will be eating in the quad and sometimes they'll be eating in a random room in K building. And so it's hard to find them during lunch and it's hard to have that connection with

062them. Uh and then if I want to go somewhere after school with them, I find them after school and that's a whole thing. Um students also complain that they miss having access to music uh during independent work and study halls. Last year I put my headphones in. I would listen to my music while I was doing my work. This year I have no way to do that. Headphones are generally not allowed. um especially not if they're connected to phones and there's no way to listen to music on computers because uh music streaming platforms are blocked. Um both students and teachers complained that the cell phone ban had hindered students learning in some way. So a few specifics were uploading lab reports. I know for me in a lot of my science classes, what I would

063do when I was uploading a lab report, I would take a picture with my phone and I would send it to my teacher or I would be taking a picture of the actual lab setup and I would send that to my picture or send that to my teacher. Um, another thing was tuners in band and orchestra class. A lot of students would use their phones for that and now they're having to use analog tuners and those cost money and we don't have that much money and so we don't have that many tuners. Um and so students are not able to use their phones for that anymore and that's causing problems too but those are the struggles that we found and that's all >> and I I promise anecdotally as well students at LCS lunch is

064the worst time for bones. We also have universal lunch play. Again, it's easier to find just the building is simply smaller and people have more dedicated lunch spots as well as kind of wondering why we're in this room for that. I mean, >> it's like a like >> it's cozy. >> I mean, it's like just >> Yeah. >> But extra long pause. >> Yeah, we're good. All right. come in and jump in. >> All right, cool. >> Great. >> Okay. Thank you guys all for sharing so much. We have a very lively and um engaged group of board members. So, I appreciate you all. Um and with that, uh Emily, the exeicio board member policy is something that we have drafted a made a first draft of and the policy committee is is working on

065on uh working through together so that we can uh have a policy put together that we can bring to the rest of the board. Um so that is a priority. Um I will say that you are right. It is uh the the new policy guidelines give you an opportunity for um students to engage much more in conversations throughout the board um meeting which we are really really excited about and certainly value um all of the contributions that you all bring. Um I will also say though that this um this policy was developed thinking about the vast majority of school districts that have and have never had a student board rep. um we have been lucky enough to have them for quite a long time and to have many of you which we are really grateful

066for. Um but I think that when it was drafted it was definitely in mind of viewer since there would be so much more opportunity to engage throughout. um we have not come to any decisions, but I do think that I I I am grateful that you are willing to um engage with us about how the policy might look because we need to be able to balance adding, you know, I think it would be seven, you know, new board members that would be engaging in all of the conversations or if there might be an opportunity for us to think about like one or two board members a year who have like the formal exeicial role and then we have our board perhaps kind of playing the role that you all have been playing so far. So,

067I think there's opportunities to try to figure that out um together and explore the best and most inclusive way to do that. Um so, I'm really glad to be beds went to the training. Was it at all household? >> Yeah, >> it was. Yeah, we met all uh the surrounding district board reps as well, which was really informative to hear about how other districts are doing as well. >> That is very cool. I figured it'd be possible as well as to like discuss and privately about how we like how the policy can work. >> Absolutely. Yeah, we we certainly welcome that and Marilyn and myself and Sean are um on the policy committee. So, we're going to be taking over the first more appropriate word. So, thank you for bringing that up. Um I did

068not know uh candidly about the orange sweater orange color thing. So, thank you for educating me on that. I'm assuming that's what your socks are going forward. >> Yes, it is my soft. >> Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing. Um, in terms of the board meetings, I think that the the feedback about the agenda and when it's shared, I would say that even some of us board members would love to be able to see those agendas earlier as well. Um, and so that's certainly a topic of conversation that we can have internally at the board. Um and uh and certainly would love to include all of you in that as well to make sure that everyone is more informed and prepared as as early on as they can be. Um uh I will though put

069my like Sean hat on since he's not here though to just say that we there is a board meetings are also like not set up for two-way engagement. It's unfortunate and I think that that's why we are constantly looking for more ways to be able to engage with the community. So, it's not to say that we can't make any changes and I hope that we will, but I also welcome feedback from folks on like other ways that we could do it. Like in the past, boards have like we've had meetings in other places and visited in other schools and gone out to Brookenddale and other places to try to get closer to different communities. We've tried to have like listening sessions. So just welcome out the box thinking that we could do to engage outside

070of this meeting specifically as well. Um I'm speaking very much as one board member right here. I hope that I don't say anything that I shouldn't, but I just want to be clear that like I do not care about the pouches at all. I do not care if anybody is using the pouches. It doesn't surprise me that nobody's using the pouches. My son is finally in middle school and, you know, at least has his little watch and he certainly never loses the patch as well, but he always keeps it away and nobody sees it. And I can only speak for myself and saying that like that's all I care about. Like hearing all of this data, I think that there is room for growth and opportunity to do things differently and to make sure, Judah,

071that we're thinking about the negative impact um uh to students and and to the school community in general. Um, but if kids are keeping them out of the way, I would assume that even, you know, school leaders, even if they may not say so, like that's the goal. And it the pouch is supposed to help students do that. And if it's not helping and they're doing it some other way, then great. Um, I I'm I'm a little like when I hear you, Judah, say like uh you know, now we're not able to like upload like it's it's hindering like student learning and progression in some ways. I want to like stay in the know about that and hope that you can like continue to share with us. I also will just say that like there's

072going to be some adjustments. I would like to think that like of course we're all like have been using our phones to do those things quickly. Maybe a year from now there will be other ways that we will be able to do those things. I'm still hopeful that the benefits will outweigh the costs of of of students not having phones. Um, and I also will celebrate like if students are talking more in class, even though perhaps some of the st teachers in the room might find that very annoying. I think that's really really exciting and part of the reason that I was hopeful about getting rid of phones in the first place was so that students were learning and connecting with one another even informally. Um, so thank you. Thank you all for all of

073the research that you did. Um, we love data and I'm so excited about seeing all of these little charts. Very very fun. Um, you're obviously going to be fully employed in so many places already just by having it go. Um, so thank you for all that you shared continuing to >> Yeah, my pouch has been a lovely expensive new pencil case. I know. >> Yeah. >> Effective policy implementation is all about understanding the goal and tracking data towards that and making decisions. So just due to Julian in particular, thank you so much for sharing that information. Really, really helpful. And just for my own clarity, when you say the hardest place to use their phone is lunch, >> what do they use their phones? >> Thank you for clarifying. >> Um, I just want to

074say I I want to pat myself on the back. [Music] >> If you talk to anyone of my exes, they'll always tell you that I'm always wrong. So, every now and again, I'm right about something. And I was right about this. So, I just want to bring a little levity into the room and it made me feel good to hear that. So, um no, but in all seriousness, I I I want to thank you guys for um advocating for the teachers and, you know, advocating for change. Um because it's not easy to do. It's not easy to do to come into a room of, you know, full of adults and to do that. And I just I respect it and it takes courage and I try to raise my kids to always speak their truth

075and to stand up for what they believe even if it's difficult most especially when it's cyclical. So I just wanted to like acknowledge the courage it takes for you guys to come in here and advocate for these things. So um yeah and I I want to um I I I come from a different world. like private world and I'm not used to bureaucracy and it's like the negotiations do drag on and you know and I think for everyone's sake I mean I'm not I'm not blame anyone like I'm responsible for it because I'm on the board um I wish I could just sit in a room and have like open dialogue and there's like laws and there's rules in place that as a board member is there's union negotiations that like can't have certain conversations

076and to me that's like frustrating because like there's there's things that there's perspects that I want to share there's things I want to hear and we're not able to do that because of laws that are in place and I'm not used to that. It doesn't feel good for me. It's frustrating for me. Um to me the process is dehumanizing because you can't speak to each other, right? It's like well we have to follow this protocol and we have to like take these bridges and we can't actually cross the bridge onto each other's island and understand like what we need and how we can you know come together. So it the process is hard. Um, and you know it's difficult because there's only so much money and you know we the money comes from a vote

077and it comes from people paying higher taxes. So like there's there's so many challenges and there's so many nuances to it and we're struggling with federal funding, you know. So, it's like we are looking to how do we make this how can we pay teachers more and how can we be viable, you know, not just for the next two years, but like into the future. And we're trying to have like long-term solutions. Like I know we said before like we've picked the low hanging fruit. Um and at this point like we need to be able to figure out a way to to balance the budget and have more money and that's you know selling um you know district property and you know bringing that stuff on tax so that way we have more revenue and

078eventually you know forward maybe consolidating schools but finding solutions um so that way you know this this can be something that doesn't we can pay people more for two years but then we hit banial flip so like how can we make sure that this is sustainable how do we pay people more for decades and we are trying to do that stuff that hasn't been done on this board. I mean, we've owned Damian Elementary School for 40 years and it's been vacant, right? Like, so these are things that we're looking at as a board that no one's ever wanted to touch or even thought about looking at. Um, so we are trying to get creative and sometimes you guys aren't always seeing that. Um, and again, there's a process that we have to go through like

079we have to go through an RFP and do all this other stuff. And to me, I'm like, let's just sell it. You know what I mean? like we can't like we have we have to follow certed which is really frustrating as a board member and it makes us look bad it makes us look like we're not listening and we are listening and it's important and I encourage everyone to keep coming keep speaking because every time you know one of these meetings happens like sometimes I just I might hear something I didn't know before and I might hear perspective that I didn't have before um so it's it's eye openening for all of us um I'm grateful for all of it and so yeah thank you everyone I gonna say one thing. We're we're completely open

080like if you ever need like a student input like or like we'd love to help out like from the student perspective that like we we're always here. We love to talk as you know. So >> we're completely like we're completely available like I speak for for always all five of us with that. So yes. Well, I'm glad to hear that you we attended this is the Saturday >> training that you >> Wednesday. I'm glad to hear you attend fit into your and um the whole varsity forum for three years and for copies of the cell phone data and if you have a copy just forward it to us. We're going to go into more conversation later during this window where we have administrator talk more about it too. And it would be good to get

081information on um total number of users with the pouch. How many quite a few are not? Any other thoughts? Okay, that concludes uh section four of our agenda. We move on to section five, the consent agenda. We I believe have a motion to approve at the same time the consideration of counts the personnel report student report that include the minutes I don't mean yes in minutes yes it is in there as well so the motion uh the language there includes the minutes as well if anyone would like to do I'll move it. Uh I move to approve all consent agenda items listed in the consent agenda. Consideration of the council personnel report students and minutes of previous meeting as presented. Second >> discussion >> not discussion just acknowledgement to IPI IA public education initiative for

082the um grant dist distribution that they've given to the school district over the years and the two >> thank you always gracious thank Any other? Okay, I will call the question on the consent agenda. All yes. Okay, six yeses, any nos? Any extensions? Okay, that carries. We now move on to section. This is all that puts us all the way. to uh the superintendent report. >> Yeah, >> Dr. Brown, please. >> Thank you for the opportunity, Dr. Greylock. And I'll be brief because we got much to get to, but I just want to begin by acknowledging and recognizing the space we're in. Uh this is called the Board of Education Conference and it's gotten earned that name because we've had decades of board of education meetings in this space. I I'm thinking if you look

083at the long history of board of education meetings, my time in York was a bit of a timeout because this has been the place we've had it. And for folks, I I just want to share there's a lot that goes into public meetings and how you conduct a public meeting, how you provide access to a public meeting. And we've gotten feedback over my opinion, we got a lot of feedback on access, um accessibility, whether or not you're going to be going up or downstairs. Um is there a sign in procedure or not? Some folks have asked for a sign in procedure from the community. Um this was a topic on the agenda for our regional superintendent meeting most recently where we heard about the bre best practices when it comes to public meetings particularly public

084meetings at this time as much has shifted over the decades. I was here when we were all of our school buildings had open access no front doors are locked and we had no one at those doors and we had parents and families including myself who would just walk through buildings throughout the day. Um things have shifted and changes. Um, and I've been here and people were really upset when we had doors locked before coming into the building. Then we made some adjustments. So, the same is true for public meetings. And I learned uh the Itha City School District was the last school district I was able to find that had open access to its board of education meeting without anyone signing in without being buzzed in whatsoever. Um so what you're seeing now is us

085um making some attempts to respond to best practices um and frankly to respond to some of the requests we've had around accessibility and access to our meetings on some of the things you've seen in most recent years um live streaming uh YouTube meetings well the technology is another aspect that goes along with these things and having the right access in any room so I just want to say to folks there's a lot that goes into this and I want to commend the board for being open to the evolution of the best practices and recommendations from folks who adop eyes us on where to host meet meetings because you could not be open to that. But thank you for your inclusiveness. Thank you for your responsiveness. Thank you for your thoughtfulness when it comes to how

086to conduct this public meeting in a way that can engage committee in the best way. I I have a lot of other words I would use to describe you. None of them are cowardice. They're all very positive and thank you. Um and again, thank you for being back in the board of education boardroom meeting space. And I know that this may be temporary because we may look at other spaces. There are other spaces we're looking at right now in our school district and outside of our school district that we may have meetings um to address those same things that I mentioned before. The other item I just wanted to mention briefly, I hope folks can tune in to the curriculum committee meeting that happened before this meeting where it was a great learning conversation from

087my perspective. Thank you for your leadership of that dialogue. Uh one of the topics we talked about was student achievement. uh and student achievement particularly when uh related to our grades three through eight most recent test scores which are now becoming public um and we're able to talk about those things. So again, I could take a lot of time here, but I just want to make sure folks know that I'm going to be talking more and we've talked about it at the curriculum committee meeting. And if I could, you know, um because I hope use my time for the next couple of months to talk about school data and achievement results and tonight I would, you know, I will share ELA data that was shared at the previous meeting, an 8% increase in overall 38

088ELA frequency rates, outperforming the state in all grades. Um double digit increases at five by eight. elementary school increases at all of our elementary schools the highest proficiency rates in 10 years. There's been a lot said tonight about our love for teachers and as a teacher and coming from a family of teachers, I love educators and teachers too. And I love the young people I serve. And when I describe them, I I describe them in ways uh where they're I describe their joys and their genius and their brilliance and at times their performance knowing that we can always be better. But I'm never going to use words like failure or needs improvement and neither has our state. But I just want to remind folks um I have a data portfolio that speaks to how our

089young people and educators are performing in a way that's learning and respectful because you work hard and you've earned these numbers and when folk bring their data to me with their judgment statements I'm going to interrupt you with data that speaks to what our young people and educators are doing and I have my data portfolio and I hope folks can bring theirs too. Thank you for the opportunity to share Dr. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. So we now move to section. >> Can I interrupt? Sorry for just one. Sorry. I just I really just want to reiterate what Dr. Brown just said. We those of us that were in the the curriculum meeting. We have seen really significant very exciting improvements in the test scores that were shared with us um from the

090executive team. Um really exciting when we we have been talking for years several years now about the the drops in test scores and about how concerned we are about how students are performing in this district and uh looking at the data that we were that is readily available to everybody now and seeing the incredible improvements um not just across students in general but in some of these subgroups as well. Um, and some of them like pretty dramatic. And so to also just we need we need help in the way we as I say sometimes like we get so much we there is so much we can talk about that we want to improve upon or that we want to see changed in this district. But that also means that when we see things that are

091really positive like I hope that we can also really elevate and and talk about that. Um, and so I, you know, we talked about using the, uh, the, uh, PTA council or other PTAs or our roles as school liaison to be able to share some of this information. It's really exciting. And when we hear people here talking about how great teachers are, this this is a great example of what happens when we have incredible students in our schools and incredible teachers who are are helping them grow. Um, and so just want to kind of shout that out and make sure that that folks are also recognizing the the really positive things that are coming out. We would be more than happy to help you. She think I I would be more than happy to help

092you find ways to be able to share that data more. So I'm sure that the communications team in the district if there were ideas, I'm always trying to think of like how can we make this prettier and bigger and better so that people can actually see all that's happening. So, um, encourage you all to take a look and and we'll encourage the district also to continue to think about creative ways to elevate, um, elevate that information and the the winds that we're seeing as well. So, thank you. Thank you for teacher and partner with students as well. >> Uh, we move on to section 11, school district business. First up is an update on the cell phone policy. I have a single slide but I I I don't know who that is. Donald >> Good

093evening everyone. We have another share. >> So, thank you for coming with this eagerly awaited information. I can just ask you to introduce yourself for the record and take it away. >> Yeah, it's Mary Grover, assistant superintendent of teacher learning. >> I'm Patrick Kovy. one of the associate principles in the high school >> and Arnell is principal at the high school. >> Great. >> All right. So our hope tonight, we had talked about providing a brief update after one month of implementation, knowing that there are going to be lots of things that we can do better and acknowledge that worked or the unintended needs that surfaced. like I took a note about tuners and talking with the fine um fine arts department about what's needed around tuners and the first week what what we've been

094doing and um Emily was able to join us for some walkthroughs just across schools every Tuesday and Thursday the first couple of weeks just to gather some anecdotal street data and hear things like, "Wow, we need more chargers because the Chromebooks are dying. So, we need to order more chargers for the classroom." Because while students charge their Chromebooks in the evenings, sometimes it doesn't retain loop, right? Um, another another piece was um more library books. The library is being used more. So, a couple of I'll I'm going to turn it over to IPA High School leadership and introduce ourselves and talk more specifically about the high school cell phone. >> Yeah. Um Mr. Havi was really the catalyst behind um all the cell phone work in the high school and rolling it out. So I

095will let him start and um definitely talk about some of the reasons like even thinking about like why the pouches and looking at that and then looking at the policy and explaining to students when we look at the policy the policy clearly said that we needed to have a securing place for those pouches. So that is the why is because we had to look at the policy and like what did the policy what was it asking us to do um along with we didn't have enough lockers at the high school for everybody to secure their phones in. So, um, I just wanted to make sure that we covered that part of the why the pouch. >> And I'd like to kind of go on. We we looked at a number of different pouch systems when

096we looked at it. And I think the pouch that we landed on matched with our philosophy that we wanted the if students were using the pouches, we wanted them to make sure they were accessible to students in case of an emergency. Um, we didn't want to run into the situations if a student left with a locked pouch, they were home and didn't have a way to unlock it. We also found the the locking pouches were easily defeated with $6 magnets. So, while they carried a larger cost, they were more easily defeated. It kind of spoke against the reason why the whole like the whole sales pitch of why having a lock pouch. Um >> we and just to piggy back on that, we also talked about and we heard from students who went out into

097the community about um I will call it anxiety about locking up their phones in a pouch. And this pouch our our why is not to increase anxiety. It was to increase engagement. Um and so this pouch we felt like was not was going to be the least anxietycausing pouch. They still were in control. They are young adults that are responsible and as they said their phones are away. We don't you know I think it was you Todd or um no Emily like for sorry like your phone is away that's our why we want you engaged. We're not looking to see if it was in pouch and there was a friend who I got her stuff for the nurse and I went wow your phone's in the pouch. So there definitely is at least one student.

098>> She's >> so I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for Judah to put together the survey putting that out. Um in addition to that our all of our associate principles the four of us uh which a student coined us as the fab four went to every single PE class for two days to provide an opportunity for students to provide us feedback. Um, you know, we build it as an opportunity to, you know, a clarify expectations, talk about some different structures in the building, but also listen to the kids and it was overwhelmingly positive and it was it was incredible. And I I'll tell you that it was maybe the first time in my 11 years of being with the district that we were in a in a presentation style and I

099had between 40 in some sections and upwards over a hundred students with almost 100% attention. and as the kids say, locked in. And it was incredible. Uh to be able to look up into these stands and see a hundred students making eye contact. It was really incredible. And one of the first times I ever had that experience. You go through our our lunch spaces and what do you see? You see kids playing, talking to each other, uh doing all the things that we want to see in school, and you don't see phones. Is it perfect? No. Are we seeing the things that we want to see? You go into our classroom spaces and I I'm in classroom spaces every single day. It's one of my favorite parts of the day. And you see students engaging.

100Students are telling us that their assignments are easier. They're making more friends. They're talking more in class. I'll take that and these are this is huge for us. Um I also want to identify and thank our IT department who is working very diligently in solving some of the issues that we're we're we commonly use cell phones to solve. uh we've been able to distribute 4K document cameras to almost every single science classroom. And when we got there, we thought we had the problem solved and now we're realizing we have to find additional software to help create the PDF required for the lab documentation process. Um we're currently rolling out additional chargers in common spaces. It has done a lot of problem solving with us where they've actually have like a five access charging system kind

101of out of my wheelhouse but again responding to the things that are coming up and that was also kind of the things that we were identifying in our PE presentations to think about all of the things we didn't think about. You know we were able to access 1450 thinkers and identify areas that we didn't identify and we're actively searching for solutions for all of them. Um I also we haven't touched on it but we're really looking at collecting data in three different ways. And we see up here street data which is just anecdotes and observations. We're using referrals for when we do need to um you know work with a student if they are violating the electronics ban. Um and then comparison data which I think really speaks for itself. Uh I know our library

102staff is very excited but to see a 28% increase in checkout books is incredible. um see a 35% decrease in all disciplinary referrals. Um it speaks to what what I feel is one of the the most significant cultural shifts we've made in the building since we've shifted to universal lunch. Um and then I think one of the most important things we're seeing is the single-digit suspensions as compared to last year which was much larger number but we can't put that data into Libbyy's slides. So, >> yeah, I will say on the library book checkout um we were reading articles about other school districts that are further along in their implementation and that's one thing that we saw across the board. So, we automatically went to Mr. Hurrick and said, "Hey, we need that data. Are

103we seeing that at the Ethica High School?" So, we were pretty excited about that. So, um, Patrick's pretty good about following a lot of different schools, thinking about where are the problems, how can we help solve them, working with the student reps and looking at the survey and what are we missing and what do we need and where are the challenges um, as we talked about um, in our group there. We want to know from teachers and students so that we can address them with moving forward. So that's important data >> and and we plan to continue to survey our students and our staff as we move through the year to see exactly how this is progressing and identifying other challenges that we need to solution seek. Right? >> I have a question. There was

104a student who mentioned I can't recall which one mentioned about um needing to contact their caregiver during the day due to schedule change or something like that. So how does that >> Yeah, we told all the students that of course they're going to need to use their phone. Um I can think of a particular case I I was out at Universal lunch and there was a student on their phone and I actually think it was just habitual. They just pulled it out. I mean, they were like, "Oh, wait. What?" And I said, "Oh, no. You have to you need to use your phone. That's okay. You're going to need to. You have um student services, the nurse, you have my office, all the AP offices. Please, would you like Oh, no. I just" and I

105said, "Please, we know you're going to need to use your phone um with that." And then we're working around one um challenge is when clubs are cancelled, we're finding that um a couple students said, "I want to tell my parents to either pick me up earlier or later." So, one thing with um the director of student activities, Jander, were talking about a club needs to maybe start cancelling. They can't cancel with like after 24 hours, that kind of thing. So we have prior notice and putting out note to parents but we also talked about maybe we haven't we when we this summer we went out into the community and talk to the community talk to the families. So as we were talking as an admin team is oh wow we we've surveyed staff we've surveyed

106f um students we haven't yet surveyed families like what is the impact there so that is something that we're looking towards um developing a survey and getting family feedback on that and we we didn't think of that until we were looking at the student and um staff survey and that's an important And I guess um we're enjoying this comfortable weather now, but when we enter into the colder climate and if weather weather issues with cancellation and all and we always put information on our website as well as go out to different list serves. It's going to be the challenge of how students are going to um connect with their families at that time too. Well, it may not be a challenge, right? I'm so glad that things are going well. I love cell phone band.

107They're great. Um, I also think my general belief is that all systems and policies like move towards dysfunction like just naturally evolve that way. So I guess I'm curious about so I think you mentioned is there a staff like there was a staff survey and like like what do we do we know like what percent of people filled it out like what like what were the biggest concerns? >> It's like six is not a very large sample size. I guess for me I'm curious like because I see the street data which I I'm guessing we sort of mean like qualitative data but like like what like wonderings I have are about is a policy being consistently enforced like what's happening with like I've heard things about like high high traffic times like like lunch where

108maybe it's harder and what's being done about that are there discrepancies by like subgroups. Um, and so I guess I have lots of questions about like what is the recurring data that's being tracked and how are we making sure that that data is I guess like valid and telling us what we want to know and also you I think you said you couldn't share last year's suspension numbers. Why is that? Oh that the reason it's not comparison it compared in that is in general it's our practice when the data set gets so low five or less 10 or less we don't we don't share it but because it becomes identifiable like oh the one kid for example was >> so we have a single digit >> so we have so few >> that >> last

109year there were so few that it was in the single digit that um last year and this year. Yes. >> Yeah. >> There was a 35% decrease in suspension. So like that that's substantial. >> I thought it was right. >> I'm sorry. Uh referrals >> in referrals. I'm sorry. I don't we we don't have the comparison data in there. Take that out. So >> so small. >> It was small sample size. >> And so yeah. And so then so I'm also to understand then the disciplinary referrals there were 20 total disciplinary referrals at the high school last year and there have been 13 this is that >> in September. in in September, right? >> Um we did um and the board of ed reps might be able to help me, but one of the things

110one of the questions to staff was how comfortable are you in enforcing the cell phone policy because we know it's it's a collective effort and um another one of the question was about support from admin around enforcing the cell phone um band. And I know Judah's going to share with me the results of the survey so I can pass those along. I can share that now if you want. >> Okay. >> Um so regarding the teachers being comfortable addressing student cell phone use, uh 43% of students and just so you know the scale is um one being strongly disagree I don't feel comfortable and five being strongly agree I feel totally comfortable. Uh 29% of teachers said they feel totally comfortable. Um 43% of teachers said they feel mostly comfortable. Um 16.4% of teachers said

111they feel neutral. 9.1% of teachers said they feel uncomfortable addressing it. And 1.9 1.8% of teachers said they feel very uncomfortable um enforcing it. And then support from administration. 3.6% 6% of uh teachers said they felt unsupported, very unsupported. Um 0% of teachers said they felt somewhat unsupported. 16.4% of teachers said they felt neutral. 40% of teachers said they felt supported. And 40% of teachers said they felt very supported. So overall pretty good data on that. And I'm not connected to the high school, but what's what is the data for deton? >> Great. So, we're getting LACS data I do not have at this time, but there are similar terms of both point and detigit referrals for this year in regards to cell phones. uh very few um school a two two times had to

112take a cell phone to call a parent to come in and have a conversation when we're just looking about what in in our chart of aggressive steps of support. Um school B one time, school C zero times, school D yet to be determined. So we have Ithaca high school here today given the largest number of students but there isn't output uh the data from bluet is similar as far as uh decrease in suspension increase in life usage of the library >> and it's important to know in the student um survey too ninth graders incoming nth graders had the least amount of I will say challenge with a cell phone and I will they um from their middle school experience their cell phones. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Great. On to item

11311.2. two creation of the advisory council on climate action plan. I believe there is a motion on the agenda if anyone would choose to. So move >> I move to approve the creation of the advisory council on climate action. >> That's seconded by so moved by Adam seconded by Jacob. We now have discussion. I'd just like to check again if you could just give an overview of how we came about to say this. >> All right. >> Put you on the spot, Dan. >> That's okay. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thanks for just for the record to introduce yourself for the >> Yeah. Uh my name is Dan Brimman. I'm the assistant superintendent of operations. I've invited two people from the sustainable advocates to quickly join me. >> Ask two ladies who also introduce themselves for

114the record. >> You want to introduce yourself? >> We're being recorded on the record. >> Hi everybody. Dr. John Kramer and I'm sustainability advocate at Boon where I happily teach social studies and been working as a committee. Brought forth the the climate action plan proposal to the board in the spring. Glad to be back today. >> Hi, I'm Sarah Bberg. I'm a science teacher at LACS. also the sustainability advocate um at LAS um and works on bringing the climate action plan proposal last with my colleagues. >> So this uh ad hoc committee will be working on the climate action uh committee or action plan rather excuse me and we'll be looking at goals uh and action plans moving forward for the following year. will be looking at short-term and long-term goals based all around the

115climate action plan. But um if you two want to speak a little bit more about that that'd be great. Um what we heard when we presented in the spring um was an interest uh certainly a lot of positives but uh holding on approval up or down and wanting to have a few meetings where the board some board members with the advocates, students, anyone involved um that would like to have a voice to look more carefully. There was a lot in that proposal. Um we view most of what's in there as goals and intentions. Um thank you for whoever said tonight intentions are great impact is better. We are looking for impact. Uh but we also recognize the importance of we have 25 26 next steps. We understand the importance of looking at uh the board

116commitment the financial implications and all of that. So uh we heard about some good ideas for revision. So, it's going to be a closer look and we would hope in a couple months or so. That was our hope that we could come back to the board with some thoughts and some uh reflections and move it forward. >> I would also add we had some good news. We were all we were on a call with the department with the city uh sustainable advocate and the department of energy grant that we've applied for is is is it looks like it's going to come through. That is really exciting for our work and that has to do with working with Tetrate Tech for building evaluation, but also there's a large educational component that'll be funded too. So, we're

117excited that those funds will be available to um make this work move forward. I guess we're really hoping that the advisory council would be um an efficient way to have conversation to make sure that um there's just really fluid understanding of what we're hoping for in the goals. >> Do you know when the council's going to meet? Had you guys decided yet? We are really we're waiting for a board approval of the committee according to Sean did in touch with him that would would come before you as it is tonight and then I don't know if we or someone else on the board is going to take the leadership we shared with him some proposed members of the committee uh and what we heard in the late spring was it would meet three or four

118times maybe each time looking at a component uh giving some input and feedback so we would hope we're looking at a shorter timeline. Whether or not the committee continues to meet, I guess will come out of that recommendation as well, but we would we do have work that we're already involved in uh and would like to be able to have the board to move us forward. >> We can provide some followup after tonight about dates and more specifics and logistics, keep you all informed. >> Okay. >> And board members can participate. >> Yes. The idea was to be a board committee. So this is not um a committee that we we already meet as a committee, right? This was uh we heard it as uh I'll use the word ad hoc having the opportunity to

119have more conversation with board members >> uh to digest it like people have referenced this is not always a setting that we can get into as much dialogue and so we anticipate that the board is central to the committee. I would say another exciting component is centering student voice in these conversations and making sure that we have students in our community as well. I'm linking suggestions about just add that um the sustainability advocates brought this to bringing this to the facilities committee over the past few years and it's not another committee but an advisory council that includes administration staff and the advocates of teachers and students and board members. I know that I as one board member look forward to participating on that committee. Thank you. >> And so I know that it's open to

120the other board members too. >> I'd like to just reiterate that um in June of 2024, we were very appreciative of the um adoption of the climate action resolution uh short statement of intention and that this climate action plan proposal is to actualize more of what that resolution stated. Okay, further questions, comments. So my understanding at this point is that we are just voting on the motion but that motion would not clear would not include the membership of the council at this point. So just we're creating the council but not populating it. I would put out a call for volunteers. Maybe we could discuss at a future meeting so you could mold that over those interested. So are we ready to move the question? So all those who are yes. Okay, that carries. >> Appcate.

121Um now we move on to the actual field trips. Um I think we have to take these one at a time with resolutions that are written. But uh first is uh resolution for field trip to Morocco. I uh probably my go-to guy. >> Okay. I move to approve the international field trip to Morocco from March 27th, 2026 until April 4th, 2026. >> Second. seconded by Jacob and >> we saw a presentation on this uh I think last spring. >> Yes. >> And uh yeah, it's been going on for a while. >> Going on for a while. >> It's a great opportunity. >> Very exciting trip. Yeah. >> For my own and public knowledge. Is this paid for entirely like via scholarships? Does the district pay for? How does how does how does this plan? >>

122So I don't give a really simple answer to that. They presented a pretty detailed finance plan. Uh I guess I suggest I think that is you can pull it off YouTube. I don't my memory is sweet enough. I don't want to combination of fundraising you know um business but educ. >> Yeah I just underscore like you know without remembering the details they Dr. Brown right they went very good effort to make sure that no one was excluded for financial assistance. Okay. Okay. All questions, all yeses. Okay. So, this is unanimously in favor and we move around uh the globe to the next destination of Vietnam. >> All right. >> Uh students are world travelers. >> So, we have a motion for I'm again go to Adam. >> I move to approve the international field trip

123to Vietnam from March 26th. Nope, I just read this. No, that's right. From March 26, 2026 until April 7, 2026. Uh, back >> moved by Adam, seconded by Jacob. Any discussion? >> Do you all remember where in the world? >> That that is Which class is um the Vietnam trip connected? >> It's a club and it started it originated with Mr. who had a sustainability interest and so did this is a club >> and Mr. now lives in Vietnam. >> Are we all invited to his house? >> I would uh just comment on both of these trips. Uh to teachers in the room, that's a lot of effort, a lot of extra effort that goes into planning these trips. It is not an easy task. And uh I just commend the identification of teachers who

124work to make this happen. So if there's no further discussion, call the question. All in favor? Okay, that is unanimous. Rooms here. >> Okay. And we now move on to a motion to approve athletic mergers. >> I move to approve athletic mergers with Lancync and Trumanburg Central School Districts for girls ice hockey for the 2025 2026 school year. that second I need to be louder. >> So I just think so so folks understand I'm gonna say what I think this does and I'm going to invite uh I think those with more experience to correct me but this is an attempt to uh have some cooperation across school districts to allow young people to participate in sports uh where they would otherwise be un able to because of the size of numbers the size of the

125districts and the number of interested students. So I I think this is an opportunity just to allow more kids to participate in more sports. Am I did I get that approximate right? Thank you. Uh these are mutually beneficial mergers and I can underscore we have been we have been adamant that uh no current ITF student can lose a particular spot or not be allowed to participate because of the burdens. So >> win-win >> and um and families in the other school districts have to provide fastation. for this human sphere and this is what it's like tastes which we're all part of but and we're having these discussions around regionalization this is a prime example of that >> yeah thank for making that time talk about finding efficiencies this is an example of what was good

126plan in my view we call the question okay all those in favor that passes unanimously. So we now have a discussion about capital projects have some slidesh maybe I uh while we're hiding in the hall transition again >> this is a conversation that we're bringing to the board that that uh has already happened a bit in the committee the finance and facilities committee meeting um and at that time I and we we talked about some challenges And some challenges that we noted back last spring that could be potential challenges for us. One was around staffing. It I'm sure most folks know, but it takes a lot to put together an election or any type of vote in this community. But the multiple site we have um as Trisha knows and I again that's why I

127say thank you to everybody. Um it takes multiple people to put together an election or any type of a voting process and when there are staffing challenges or transitions which we've had in the board office and other spaces and superintendent's office also um that makes putting on these elections and these votes very challenging. We've had that. So that's something that um has happened most recently. So it will make it very hard for us to have capital project vote in December. You couple that with the way that we went back and looked at how we communicate and how often we communicate and the meetings we out we host and where we go when we're sharing information and engaging about the capital project. It's a month long months long process. Um we've run out of time to

128start that process and do it well. So at the fin facilities committee meeting um with Miss B was talking about timeline and Dr. Briman and we've talked about this in other committees as well. We were recommending at that time that we postpone this until May to give us some time to tighten up on the staffing pieces and to engage in the kind of community dialogue that we know is needed. So with that, I don't know Chris, maybe you want to share that timeline that we have talked about before and by the board of >> Yeah, thanks to get into just a little bit more detail. Thank you for the summary. >> If you just introduce yourself for the record just so people watching at home, >> my name is Christopher Galbbitz. I am a vice

129president at Tetrate Tech Architects and Engineers. I lead project teams. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two children who are graduates of ICSD as well. >> Uh D and Brian, assistant superintendent operations. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. So yeah, so this is a previous schedule we had talked been talking about um with regard to a vote in December of um 2025. I'll just point out the green bar at the bottom there. uh that Dr. Brown was speaking to in terms of like the number of months of communication to the voters um that could be improved upon when we consider the scope of work which we've had you know many reviews of um and the groups of folks that you like to communicate that. Right. So when we we um helped you with your capital

130project referendum in 2019, there was a lot of reach out. There were um TA meetings. There were open houses. There were various opportunities to um communicate in person, electronically, mailing, various different ways to be sure that people knew the basic facts of what was going to come before them in a vote. The only thing I would add would would be that if we have a December vote, we'd only have two months to message out to the committee, which is a really short time frame for us. So, a revised schedule that um that uh would propose having the capital project referendum vote coincide with the statemandated May 19th budget vote uh which you know currently happens the uh I guess the third Tuesday of May always in New York State. Um, so aligning that gives a

131longer period of time for communications to happen. Again, the green bar there, you can see it's much longer. Um, that that um I think we'll set everyone up for better success in communicating the details of this and making sure everybody's clear on on what's being proposed. This plan would give us seven months. Uh, it would also give us election cost savings as well. We wouldn't have a standalone election. We would we would pair with existing the existing elections we haven't met. That's basically it. Are there questions that clarifications? >> Not a question. just a comment that um when we thought about December before it looked good and then when you come back from summer break and start moving feasible for us to do this time >> it's it's also not just the communication time frame

132it's the training of the uh the people are going to run the elections it's I'm looking to Trisha it's all that work to get ready for a standalone election which is considerable work. So I want to um you know I want to validate that as well. Okay. Uh so we have um recommended action of moving to approve the postponement. I don't actually see a resolution. Uh but I I do we need resolutions. Can we just Yeah, that was my question over here. I was unsure the board would need to vote to delay something that you haven't voted to approve. >> Not vote to approve it. No, the board hasn't voted to >> supposed to on September. >> Oh, we didn't do that. Okay. >> At that time, you were supposed to vote for it to

133go to the SCQR secret. >> Yeah. So we didn't we never voted in the springtime to say let's do it December versus another month. We discussed it. >> Okay. So I think no vote is necessary then. >> All right. All right. Okay. Thank you gentlemen. >> Thank you. So we have two um remaining items. Um Dr. Brown was going to field these or was someone else on your team to field these school? >> Okay. And I think you touched on 118 already 117. >> Yeah, I'll start with 117. >> 117. I see a negotiations update. I'm I would be humbly requesting that this be an item on the board agenda for me and my team to give updates on for the foreseeable future until we get an agreement. Um tonight, not much of an update

134other than I know we have some sessions. We have a session scheduled for next week. >> Next week. Um, and not to defend myself, which I never wish to do, but I do in respect to my colleague Mer who's been the lead negotiator for the ITA, just want to make sure I clarify some things that I've heard, some even I heard tonight. Um, we were we were happy to uh honor the request from the ITA last at the last session to pause I believe the words were Paul the negotiations and we continue. Well, I worked all summer, my team works all summer. Um, I don't think many of the members of the negotiating team are working in the summer. So I'm assuming not that she said this but the pause was so they host the

135summer break. Um these again Mr. Fa said these are complex negotiations they take some time while we've been very public there's a lot we can't say but we knew this would take some time. So the pause was something that we were happy to um and we knew then that we will pick up when returning from our summer recess and breaks. Now again with my perspective my colleague M scenario I was on the email thread when we were negotiating or talking about with to have our first session um and I heard tonight there has been open postponement the first session when talking about calendars was scheduled to be in October so for anyone who think that there's been a session that's been cancelled or postponed we scheduled the first session to take place in the beginning

136of October and that will take place next week so I'm looking forward to that conversation next I look forward to the negotiations. We plan for them to be public as they've been and hopefully I can get some more updates the next time the board comes together. Um and hopefully we have an agreement fairly very soon so I question. Um I know the board has the ability to go see negotiations. Um I I'm just wondering like if again I'm learning all the rules, the regulations while it's like Is it possible for the course to receive a presentation or something or like is there way to I don't know have better dialogue? I mean I I I love to be involved with more dialogue. I know I don't think I'm also I think it would be good

137if like I heard you know people say that you know they have different numbers that we have. I know that I try to follow all the meetings and sometimes I can follow them sometimes I can't. Um, so I I just Yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly what I'm asking. I'm just wondering if there's a way to to um for me to be more involved or for more involved if that's possible. I think that goes to my first request to have this on the agenda for the upcoming board meeting and as we get into the negotiations and as we're prepping as we're sharing information with receiving information on IPA I think it's um possible for us the way would be set the ground we will stay consistent with the ground rules and I think

138you can have conversations about where we are um at that time going forward >> so so we're limited by the ground rules that were set by both sides >> that's one limitation and we is just liberal dialogue about what Korean endeavor to do and what they're asking. Um so that's that's a conversation that has been happening in public think can continue and I'll consult with our attorneys about what we can and I say I'll look at the ground there. Now I see on our website that we have um dates of future negotiation sessions and I do recall seeing even up to a month ago that it said that there is a pause due to celebrate and will resume in October. Now we've added dates that because both sides have now what the dates are for

139the next two months. So I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly. So um both parties of this negotiation agreed to pause for the reason you just said we're going to continue where we left off. Uh the negotiation has not failed. It's just continuing. Does that characterize >> I'm not sure how we're uh I'm just not sure I guess parliamentary or Robert style. I'm just noticing that like there's like folks in the craft seem to be actively disagreeing with the notion that there weren't negotiations scheduled a few weeks ago. I'm just not sure how like I I just don't know what because I know we don't like invite people to I don't I know >> I I know that we did have publicly on our website that there was a pause for the

140summer and that negotiations will resume. We didn't we didn't have all the dates and the schedule that we have back >> please. >> In order to >> So we did pause our negoti on June 12th. We did pause our negotiations. We've penciled in a September 18th date to resume in August. I reached out to the team and said, "Hey, here are possible dates, including starting with that September 18th date." We were then told that September is very busy. There are many challenges. We can agree to all of these other dates, but we cannot agree to September 18th. So, we were tentatively scheduled for September 18th. We will begin next week. We are still in pause and we will resume negotiations in the same my understanding is in the same style. I just got a Zoom

141link today. But September we when we left on June 12th, we left believing that we would begin that we would resume negotiations on September 18th. And it was not our choice to not resume on September 18th. So that's three weeks and uh we started when was it? February. >> January. >> Yeah. Right. So we're 9 months in. We're in our nine month process. We're we're three weeks behind where we might want ideally want to be at the beginning of the summer. >> Yeah. Start next week. >> Okay. Is that clear to everyone where we are? >> Uh so do you want to say wait just one I agree with the notion that we should make this a recurring part of the agenda. Is there anything we need to do collectively or that's okay >> noted?

142Maybe we'll do so. >> Dr. Brian, do you have anything further to say on 118 communication? >> Yeah. >> Yes. Uh because I think this is opportunity to clarify for our community. Um because in our community and others, there's a lot of conversation about threats, credible versus noncredible. So, as I could just maybe talk about that and then when we communicate and when we do not communicate. >> Um, and I it's hard to say and probably be hard for people to hear. I mean, Dr. Briman knows as well. Uh, we do daily threat assessments. Every day there is some type of with a school district of thousands of young people and thousands of employees in a city as large as ours. Um, there are things that are said, there are things that are emailed, there

143are things that are done that pro that reveals a threat. And we have very tight protocols about how to look at set threats. And we take every single one of them seriously. Everyone. And that's why he up most of the night. Uh, a 5-year-old saying, "I'm going to get you or I'm going to blow the school up is considered a threat. We must then investigate." And we collaborate with law enforcement. We've talked to families. We visit homes. We do all those things. An email to me saying, "I know where you live." It's considered a threat. And it's turned over to the local authorities. An email to one of my team members and me saying, "I won't I won't forget this. I'm going to get you." It's considered a threat. We have to go through a

144process. and having bidded in homes, law enforcement getting involved. Every single one, most of them fortunately are deemed to be not credible. Whether it's a 5-year-old or community member or someone from outside of our state or country, that's a noncredible threat. We as part of our existing protocol, while everyone is on a case-by case basis, as part of our existing protocol, current protocols becomes the advancement of law enforcement and other authorities. we don't communicate to the entire community about noncredible threats. That can create an environment where it makes people feel unsafe. It can feed rumors and misinformation. And frankly, as I've seen over the last week, um communication about a noncredible threat can look like some families not sending their babies to school. So that's why. However, there have been times when we communicated about

145nonclinical particularly when it's been reported in media and social media is a frenzy and people want to hear about something and we as we did this past weekend it was nonclinical threat. It was received by not only police across our community but across our state from what I know and across the country and it had we know the address it came from and we're getting close to determining the source. Now there are credible threats as one who's perceived them and we have communicated with our community stakeholders when those are credible threats and we work with law enforcement to provide additional support and at times as folks in this community over my time I've seen sometimes there are arrests that's a credible threat and we have been working with law enforcement like we do all the

146time and we communicate but I just want to make sure folks know yes there are case by case basis and we will always communicate when there's a credible threat after going through an assessment that includes many more people than just me and Dr. Brian. And when they're noncredible, we are not communicating to folks because of the reasons I've said. However, there are cases when we do communicate about noncredible scratch for various reasons. Um, but this is tough y'all. I get it and there's no perfect science to it, but I've been asked a number of times over the last few days about protocol when it comes to communication about this thing. And Frank, I carry that weight and each one of them is serious for me. And I've heard people saying, "We don't take it serious.

147back. We take them all serious, every single one of them. And it keeps us up at night. Thank you, Dr. Briers. Thank you to the law enforcement, those who work with us every day. Thanks to our building principles who answer that cell phone call when we call when it is daily anyway. Questions, thoughts, reactions to our protocols when it comes to communication on this particular time. We talk about communication protocol in other areas, but this is what I want to make sure. So the goal is to of of sometimes not saying is to not amplify a voice when a careful review by law enforcement has deemed it to be non credible is that the idea combination I've been um amplifying the voice it can lead to more of it happening um it can create misinformation

148and rumors in the community it can create fears for folks who may have fears already or daddy and we've seen that. So there are a number of reasons why you would communicate every nonredit threat that um and then when there is one it so we've been involved and that's why we have not but I understand what people want to be clear why we don't amplify every voice. >> Dr. I think that one of the complicating factors in the sky was that you that there was coordination with other districts around here and everybody makes different decisions and that makes it really difficult even if their decisions are no less right or maybe more wrong than any decision that we make. Can you talk a little bit? >> That was a unique one this time. um brought

149up um and there was a conversation and we're a follow-up conversation then we're thinking through how we'll be better the next time with the regional superintendent about how to do that and be tighter about it but yeah that complicated thing and there was a joint communication that was sent out from our district superintendent and we are talking to the communication schemit next time you may send that one out to folks like there are some things we're learning but that was a unique one for us as a as a region u because one district did it handled it very differently than the rest of the region was in that particular and you got to also remember there are different law enforcement agencies that we're working with. In some cases, they're working with the sheriff department. We're

150working with the police department. Sometimes often times we work with FBI. So there's so many folks involved with this and at times people using different protocol. >> But I think I think also in this case, you know, this was publicized in an online publication and there was an article that was written about it and the article wasn't totally clear about whether there was or was not a threat. So I think in this particular case it was good that the district decided to put out some communication because I think there were a lot of questions in the community because it got publicized. I think if it was a a quiet noncredible threat would have to be discussed. >> Just to inquire I I forget if it was during the public comment or at some other point

151I think it was raised the idea that administrators got notice but not teachers. Is that accurate or >> we did speak to administer um about the communication that were going out from TFB just to be aware if there were questions that came to them they would have some information to point to once again this was Friday afternoon as well um that we were in communication with about the communication coming out from here in case someone did ask >> so the community >> so no communication all for the community at for at the time. >> Okay. And so is that I guess like moving forward would that still be the practice and if so just your rational >> we'll learn we'll debrief that. Um I do wish to share there other times when the district and

152other school districts are reporting or sharing information that I tend to send a text or an email to administrators. Just as of an FYI, um this is not the only situation that so should be shared that same communication heads up to everyone. um is something we all have >> and for what it's worth I um having served as a principal I'm sure it's a totally different level at the superintendency but I do definitely recognize it is real when you describe that there are a ton of threats that the vast majority of them are uncredit and they can sometimes be a it can sometimes be a damn if you do and damned if you don't um communication so I'm glad that our response is like here's what happened we're learning from it and the context is

153helpful. >> And this is getting close to snow day call and making decisions about that. >> Thank you for so further questions. That brings us to completion of section 11 and move on section 12. future other discussion items and future discussion items that members wish to bring forth. Seeing none, uh we can move on to item 13. Are we ready to go there? >> Do you want to do you want to just announce the three things in 12.1 the upcoming dates of importance? >> 12.1 upcoming days of importance. You got all my materials. Okay. >> Uh the upcoming dates of importance I'll just do then uh on Tuesday October 7th at 5:00 pm we have a policy work session. >> Oh. >> Um and then on Tuesday October 7th at 6 PM we have an

154HR work session. And also upcoming Wednesday 108 we have a 5:00 pm audit work session. >> And we have a next week next Thursday is our >> Oh yes. And the location will be in the boardroom in this one right >> the negotiations we have it set up for this well I don't I'm not sure let me see uh that what do you think it is >> I think it's in work but >> and that's different because that >> but that >> yeah let us get that I think it's in your lower York as well but what >> those sess >> I want to think about have discussion about that but it is going to Maybe next Thursday. Next Thursday somewhere. >> All right. Thank everyone. I have some fine. You know what?