001You're the ones we're about to fantastic. Thank you. Uh hello everybody. Welcome to the April 29th, 2025 uh board of education meeting. We will call the meeting to order and we will entertain motions. I move that we enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the following employment history of particular individuals ongoing negotiations possible litigation and superintendent evaluation. Second move by Jill, second by Adam. discussion, debate hearing. None, we'll call the question. All in favor? The motion passes unanimously. We will be back be 7 at the latest, hopefully before 7. We'll see what happens. Be official. Turning to public session. Thank you very much. We'll continue on with our agenda. Uh any modification to the agendas? Modification to the agenda? No. Uh we'll keep going and that will bring us to public comments and
002I believe we have someone who has signed. We have one person signed up. Wes pan. All right. Wherever you can find a microphone. There's one. would you like? Yeah. I'm sorry. How does this work? Hello. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to address the board. I'm a taxpayer and I have two children in the school district. My name's Wes and uh I'm struggling with the idea of voting yes on this budget and I want my fellow taxpayers and budget voters to know and understand why. I follow the ITA negotiations and I hear the superintendent say he's not authorized to increase the teacher salaries above 4%. Insinuating this board is responsible and then I hear the board say it's not their role. This goes round and round in the fingerpointing seems to be a bad
003faith negotiation in my opinion. I was a union contractor for 10 years and I've never seen anything like it before. Who is responsible for this district? The job of the board is to hire and to review the superintendent and I'm asking board members to hire to hold your hire accountable. I want to see transparency in how the superintendent is evaluated and I'm calling on you to search for an acting replacement. It's my general understanding that the board previously approved a buyout and uh if it's too expensive to move forward at this very moment. On this board's watch, he negotiated one of the highest salaries for this individual and the salary of five district members negotiating with the teachers making over a million dollars. Five making a combined million dollars. five people when 600 teachers are
004asking for a share of that 1 million to begin to make them comparable to surrounding districts and be equitable and equal. I'm holding you all directly responsible for underpaying these teachers and losing staff. Past negotiations mentioned speak volumes. If the budget fails, it's not on the teachers, it's on the board members. The district-wide teacher tenure rate is just 53% and the state average is 83. tells me you're not doing enough to retain great educators. The educator showed you the problems and the solutions and I care about these teachers and the difference they can make. I'm lucky my kids are in Caroline and I'm sad to see uh Karen Earl go. They're stable, experienced, and dedicated staff and the kind of foundation that matters especially with the new principal coming in. The teachers are constant, the
005ones doing the daily work that shape the children's lives. And every school in the district should have that kind of stability. And we have five schools that are on the watch list. It's just not right. I don't hear this board say anything about how we're going to get these underwater schools back to where they're supposed to be. I hear self- congratulatory backs slapping and this whole like uh we are retaining educators, but really it's a sinking ship. We lost all stars. They're gone. and some of them less for left for lower paying jobs. We lost key administrators at the district level continue to bleed ESP and teachers at BGM, Kauga Heights, DIT buthka high school. There's no retention. It's a crisis. These schools are labeled in need of an improvement and unsurprising these have the
006highest staff turnover. There's no coincidence and that's on the board and I hear no solutions and no one addressing the situation publicly. Taxes are a burden. I'm feeling it. Everyone's feeling it. But the decline in quality schools hurts us all. Our property values, our families, our community, our children's futures. The district has eroded trust. You need to revisit how money is used and find funds for studentf facing staff. This is an inclusive district, an equitable district, and I believe many in the community are proud of that. And the inclusive education should help all. But it will not succeed without wellsupported teachers. they have adequate time to plan and meet the needs of all of our diverse students. You don't need to raise tax I'm almost done. You don't need to raise taxes or the tax
007cap. I need to rework the budget. Prioritize these teachers and the never- ending construction projects. Prioritize our children and our teachers. You have three years to fix this before my child enters middle school. Right now, we have LACS that doesn't need improvement and that's totally unacceptable. I'm a parent trying to do the right thing and by the kids of this district, the public is watching and so are the children. Please do your job. Hold your hire accountable and use your power to rework this budget. Show the public you prioritize the teachers, the time through pay. You're failing our students and they deserve better than this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh that is all people who are signed up to speak. Any board responses? Don't walk away. Can't respond. Can't respond if you walk
008away. I guess my response, Sean, would be that there were numerous mischaracterizations and false data presented in that public comment. But there's no point in reviewing it since the person who made them has left. But uh to the one response I would say I would ask folks to pay attention to the curriculum meetings which are focused and talking exactly about how to get our schools off of various lists and more importantly the work that our educators are doing. So for the community please go back and take that look at the curriculum meetings. Um and there are other things uh similar to my colleague Dr. Trip that I'd love to have a conversation. I'll follow up directly. Uh that will bring us to student reps. Okay. All right. Um, hi everybody. So, as you all know,
009our principal of seven years, Deb, is retiring at the end of this year. Uh the process of finding a new principal has begun and as a school we've been working in collaboration with the executive team to involve student voice. Um last Wednesday Zach Lind and Mary Grover joined us for a student conversation around hopes, values, and qualities we'd like to see in the new building leader. This conversation was centered on the philosophies of the school as a reflection on what makes our school unique and what leadership in general means within our school. um and how our school's beauty can be reflected in the hiring process. Um fifth grade shadow days began shortly before the break. Students come into LACS and are given a middle school mentor for the day. This is a great way for
010pro sorry prospective students to get a feel for the school and its many customs and traditions. The lottery poll for the UN incoming class of sixth graders will be soon on May 1st. Um, and last Friday, most juniors and some seniors presented their science pebbats. Another round will happen a week from this Friday. Students conduct an experiment for their science pebbat, then write a paper and present it to a group of inside and outside raiders. So, at the last board meeting, I talked about how our mock trial team advanced to the regional. Um, they went up against Corning. I believe Corning uh dropped out so we automatically won and we are counting as a victory. Um so I believe it's this Saturday the ACS mock trial team heads to the federal courthouse in Bingmpington where
011there will be multiple rounds. Um we're all very excited. This is they haven't made it this far in many years. Um so we're pretty happy about it and we're hoping for all the best. um you can hear the weather. And on that note, um this morning some people from grounds came and you know did a lot of landscaping at on campus. Um it they did a fantastic job. It looks better than it has in a really long time. Um on that note, we want to give a shout out to the green thumb committee at ACS. They've done a really good job at, you know, preserving trees and planting new species of trees and keeping up with the flowers, all stuff. really making our campus shine after a very uh irregular winter. Um and it's a
012great to see on a warm day like today, I guess. Also, sort of on the weather note, um it's been super super warm out, which has been lovely. Um but not in hot classrooms. Um we have a new AC unit in the Blackbox Theater, which has been working great. Um, just in time for the one act plays this weekend, which I'm really excited about. Um, we're in our third week of Thursday trip days. Um, all is going well. We're gearing up to leave for our trips in around 3 weeks now, which is crazy. Um, me personally, I'm really excited to go to Asheville with a really great group of staff and students. Um, yeah, and I guess I'll just second how wonderful our conver conversation with Zach Lind and Mary Grober was. Um, I helped
013Emily facilitate and it was just a really great conversation, not only to see like and hear from our students what's important to them, but also just to feel um so heard by them. And I'm really excited to see how this process goes. Even though it won't directly affect me, um, you know, I'm really hoping for an outcome that meets everyone's needs. Hi, last week was super vis busy for IHS students. So, first the IHS wind ensemble and chamber orchestra hosted 700 second grade students from across the region. So, we played parts of our concert repertoire and held like instrument demos um just in time for them to choose their own instruments. And the next day after that um 180 of us went on an overnight trip to New York City. So, we watched Quinton Marsales
014uh with the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra and we watched a Broadway show Gypsy with Audrey McDonald. Um 10 out of experience and the New York City seal of biiteracy presentations were completed in the weeks leading up to break. And so 58 seniors received the seal across 19 different languages um by presenting on a prepared topic and then having an interpersonal conversation afterwards. and Georgina got one in Greek and I got one in Korean and German. And I think the German one was especially very rewarding because I only learned German through the school curriculum. So it was like very, you know, it was like the peak of my German experience at the school. Um, and yeah, we'll have an event in June to celebrate our accomplishments. And then last week our cafeteria transitioned to collecting
015student IDs for lunch. And so previously they would just walk in and nothing was tracked, but now we have to enter a number into a pin pad. Um, and reusable plates and utensils are often utilized, which is great. And we're getting constant reminders that go on about handling those properly. Hi everybody. Good night in this wind and rain tunnel. I wanted to first start out by saying finally the recycling video has been finished. sent to my account, forwarded to Miss Hardesty's account and being prepped for to be shown to the whole school. So, that's going to happen. As soon as that does happen, I can bring in the video. It's very short and show everybody if they'd like. It was made by the media production students. So, many thanks to them and to their teacher,
016Mr. Shine. And ideally, we'll get this running for the last month to two months of the school year and then get continued for the next school year, although I will not be here to see that. Earlier this week, students from Boon Middle School, Dwit Middle School, and Ithaca High School. This is actually last week, uh, performed for our annual guest artist jazz concert. And, you know, as a member of the jazz band, I can say that was really fulfilling, but it's also always great to see the younger musicians coming up. Uh, it's, uh, it's a remarkable experience to be able to watch, you know, young people grow and frankly perform better than I ever did at that age. So, it's a testament to our teachers in that respect. Senior nights for sports teams are coming
017up. People are wrapping up their seasons. And for tennis, it's May 1st for it's one of the earlier ones. For some of the other sports coming down in the next couple weeks after that, so spring sports will be wrapping up in the next couple weeks. And then students will be moving on to states if they qualified. We have a couple students who are going to try to defend their states titles, namely in the long jump, the 3200 meter run, and I think maybe one or two others. So, we're looking forward to seeing if our athletes can replicate that again this year. Senior prom is currently being planned and junior prom has been set for Friday, May 9th. So, tickets have been sold for that and I think are continuing to be sold, although the deadline's
018fairly coming up on that. And you know, I think they're going to be doing it at uh the celebrations venue as they have in past years, which is a fantastic and gorgeous place. And we're appreciative of all the fundraising that our student classes have done to create that space. And yeah, it's about all I have today. I will also very soon be putting up on the board the video for scheduling for eighth graders. I'm getting in touch with Bosey's students to interview them right now to get another student perspective so I can add that to the video along with the more quote unquote um traditional academic track and then you know so we can get a full sphere of student life at IHS. Um today after school we had our annual poetry slam where students
019had the opportunity to perform their original poetry uh in the blackbox theater. Um, AP exams begin next week and will take place at this high school. They go from May 5th to May 16th. And following the end of AP week, uh, IHS seniors are going to have an amazing opportunity. Uh, we're going to go to the Pocono Mountains on May 20th. Um, and we're all very, very excited for that. Thank you. Student reps, board responses. just say thank you as always for uh for coming and sharing so much about what's happening in your schools. Um I really wish I had known about that poetry slam. That's definitely my style. I would have loved to have been there. Um if anyone wants to come to the board meetings, public comment, share their poetry. It's fine. Um,
020Stella, I just want to thank you for sharing about the uh the new principal search. Um, Emily, you mentioned it as well. Um, I'm really just very grateful and glad to hear that it feels like it's going well and that you've had a good opportunity to be able to engage with the executive team and feel heard. So, I really appreciate that feedback and certainly want to say thank you to Mary and Zach for creating that kind of environment for everyone to share. Um, and Claire and Georgina. Um, huge congratulations to both of you. Uh, that's very, very cool and something to be proud of. So, thanks for sharing. I don't just do this for poet for just my normal. I I echo all the uh all the congratulations. Uh, Cademan, looking forward especially to seeing
021the recycling video. Um, the jazz concert was excellent. Also, special shout out to Malik Clanton and Mike Treat and everybody who performed. It was really a great unbelievable concert. So, thank you. Any other board responses? Thank you greatly. Again, always appreciate the feedback and the information we receive. Thank you. Uh we will then continue on with our agenda and move on to uh the consent agenda and we'll entertain motions. I move to approve all consent agenda items listed in consent agenda personnel report students and minutes of previous meeting as presented. Second. Moved by Adam, second by Jill. Any debate, discussion? Hearing none, we'll call the question. All in favor? The motion passes. Thank you very much. That will bring us to our next agenda item, uh, the superintendent report. Dr. Brown. Oh, thank you for
022the opportunity, professor. Uh, it's great to be here. And I'll be brief, uh, because I'm looking forward to the presentation. And this gentleman is growing every minute he sits next to me. Um, we've grown like three inches in the last year. Uh, a couple of things I want to remind folks about. The uh, community survey is now open and will be open until May 9th. Correct, team? May night. Uh, nobody's looking at me. So, May 9th, I think, is the deadline. So please, in addition to public comment like you heard tonight, you can provide feedback on what we're doing well, what you wish to see us improve by clicking on that link. An email has been sent to you and or you can go to our website also. And this is primarily for the board
023members. Uh we're in the midst of our summer professional development planning and August the 11th and 12th are going to be the dates. Please save the dates for our summer symposium. And that's that one opportunity that we invite and welcome in educators from all over our state and many from other places in the country as we engage in the work. So just two quick items tonight. Thank you for the opportunity. Looking forward to the presentation. Thank you Dr. Brown. Uh then we will continue on. We know we get got to get folks home. So that will bring us to our next agenda item 10.1, the Morocco trip presentation. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having us. Good evening. Um, we have returned a while ago now, uh, in February from our Morocco trip.
024Um, I have Hickory and Matt here to share some of their experiences, students who went on the trip. Uh, and Liz Crawford and I as co-advisors are also here to request permission for the approval for the trip for next year. Um, this year's trip, um, if we could go to the next slide. This year's trip took us on a similar route. Oh, good. Thank you. took us on a similar route as last year. Um, we are working really hard to build this relationship with the Victor Hugo School in Bing. And so, um, we continue to, uh, do home stays with them and we will continue to do that into the future and are actually hoping to bring them here next year. I'll talk about that a little bit more. Um, and so we went to
025Marrakesh, Beny Malal, which is where the Victor Hugo school is, and then on to Rabot. Uh, this is a picture when we stopped in Casablanca to v visit the, uh, Hassanu mosque. Um, I'm going to have the students share some stories from our trip first, and then I'll talk a little bit more about the trip, and we'll go into uh the the plans for next year. So we started off our trip in Marrakesh and despite how jetlagged we all we all were, we um all managed to enjoy it very much. If you want to go to the next slide. Yeah. Um so top left you see there that's like a huge pool that they used to use for training that they established in the 12th century. And the picture really doesn't do it justice because
026in the background there were like these huge mountains that was like an amazing spot for photos or just like relaxing with everybody. Um, and something I found very interesting in Marrakesh were the markets that we all kind of learned how to haggle for prices and like get cool stuff that we wouldn't find here for like cheap prices and like cheaper than like they would per say. Um, and another interesting place we saw was the Madressa, the Corin School, which is in the top center. Um, you can't see in the picture, but in real life you could see how much detail and thought went into the architecture and that was like very interesting to see. Yeah. Um, after we went to Marrakesh, we continued on to Beny Malal. I think I speak for most of the
027members of Morocco Club when I say that this was in general the most impactful part of the trip and probably the most favorite part of the trip. Um, in this city we had home stays. So each a few of the kids from Ithaca were paired up with one Moroccan kid and we spent three days with them and their family and met up as a big group in the days. But we got to spend the nights with the family and just learn a little bit more about their culture. Um, in these pictures you can see just the friends that we made. Um, in the top left you can see we went on a little hike. Next to that we ate some really good food. Um, I think this just what kind of immersed us in the
028culture in a way that just going on a trip couldn't do because we just got to talk to like we um, Matt and I stayed with the same um, kid and like in the night time we would play cards with him and his little brother and talk to their parents and we talked a little bit about politics and the differences between the United States and Morocco and in a lot of ways and also similarities that we didn't know about. So, I think that was just pretty impactful and informative for everyone that went on the trip. Yeah, staying there was definitely very life-changing. Um, next we visited Casablanca. We didn't sleep there, but we visited it during the day and here we saw the Prasan 2 mosque, which at the time it was built was the
029tallest mosque. Now I think it's the second. Um, and it was just like it was amazing to see. It was like gigantic and like beautiful inside. Like again, you really can't see with the pictures, but like you can fit 25,000 people inside of there and I think uh 80,000 outside the mosque and we continued to learn about the culture. We learned about the religion here and like their different practices. It was just amazing to see. Um lastly, we went to Robot, which is the capital city of Morocco. Um here on the bottom left we saw the mausoleum. Um which is super intricate and amazing. Um and I think the most cool part about this part of the trip was just seeing the capital buildings and seeing the buildings that tied um religion with the government
030because obviously in the United States we have that separation but it's very different in Morocco. tying religion to government is super important and the king sort of provides a uh religious leader and a government leader. So that was definitely a cool part of the trip. Um I think in robot is it sort of was a time of reflection for everyone that went on that trip just thinking about what were the important parts of the trip thinking about the friends that we made eating good food kind of celebrating the journey that we all had together. So that was definitely a good place to wrap up the the journey that we had together. So on the screen are some quotes from students from the feedback. Um I would like to talk a little bit about the continuing
031relationship that we're bu building with the Victor Hugo school in Benny Malal. So this is just the second year that we've gone but already it felt like returning home. Um some of the students uh from last year who were still at the school had not yet graduated and they were like oh a day Lily told me you'd be coming. like so they were talking still to the students from last year and welcoming the students for this year students have continued to stay in contact many of them so um it was uh really lovely um I got invited to do a home stay with one of the teachers was which was really exciting because typically we don't do home stays we we um stay nearby at a hotel so that was really lovely so like building
032these relationships with the teachers with the the head mistress and we are hoping to um continue to build that relationship we have uh We brought with us this time a signed letter from the district inviting them to come visit us in October which is the first step that they needed in order to get um visas and so they are working through that process and we are hoping that that will actually uh occur this October. We'll see um I was going to do challenges I think. So one of the challenges that is um always something to that that we face is sort of preparing students for the relative conservatism of the culture. Uh it's quite different than Ithaca New York. Um, and I think that's really eye openening and we really emphasize that we're there to
033learn about their culture and uh, not change their culture. And I think students do a really lovely job of being respectful of that and learning um, and you know, they of course watch American movies and so have a lot of questions about um, American life and culture. So just I think actually meeting people who are from these two uh, two different countries and cultures uh, is incredibly beneficial and educational. Um we are like I said preparing to host in the fall. Um there are of course um some concerns about people entering and exiting the country right now. So we want to make sure that as we move forward with this that we can do so in a way that keeps everybody safe and that people can do do so safely. Um and of course they
034have a vested interest in that as well. Um, we are continuing to work really hard to fund scholarships and if anyone has any ideas for uh foundations or businesses, uh, this year we did expand our um, business partners uh, who helped fund some of the scholarships and we'd like to continue to do that. Um Liz and I um don't really know how to raise money. So we are doing our very best to do that because we want to make this what like we're really committed to making this a trip that anyone can go on uh and not be like oh there's no way I could my family could afford that so I'm not even going to apply. Um and so um that is something that is a continuous challenge and if anyone has ideas we
035would definitely welcome that. Um, you say you don't know how to raise money, but I will say that we did succeed in raising just shy of $20,000 to support students going on the trip, both through fundraising and through grants. So, it's not like we don't actually raise a lot of money for the trip. That is one of our successes that we have been able to offer scholarships through both sponsorships, through grants that we've received and through our own, you know, like through all of the different ways that we've tried to bring money in to support students. It's an ongoing process and we are, you know, we want to celebrate our successes so far, particularly our ongoing partnerships with Gak um who sponsor scholarships for two students. And we've also expanded. We now have a collaboration
036with Cornell's um Arabic Community School and we're doing language programs with um Mecta Weatherspoon who runs that program and that has been very curricularly um important for our students. Okay. So, we um we did raise for just through fundraising um almost $13,000. Um that's in addition to the grants and the sponsorships that we received. So, just fundraising alone, we raised a significant amount of money. um almost all we had 32% so that's about a third of our students received some type of financial aid including four full scholarships and two scholarships for 75% of the trip cost. So I am proud of our group for its commitment to making the trip accessible for all. Okay. We did hand out $15,000 in um scholarship awards for students with financial need and that's not a small amount of
037money. So even though Ludy says that we don't know how to raise money, I think we're doing an okay job, but we are still open to suggestion. Um bringing students here is a big undertaking. I'm really hoping that we will be able to host students in October. There are a lot of logistical pieces to put into place, not least of all the challenge of obtaining visas and ensuring the safe entry into the United States of students from a predominantly Muslim country. So, I am optimistic that we will be able to follow through with that plan, but we are being very cautious and trying to make sure that we have um safety plans in place. Okay. Um, we have applied for at least one new grant already this spring. So, we're looking to expand our grant
038opportunities. Um, and then we've already done some expansion in terms of curricular study. We added a like a a memoir by a Moroccan author that we've had students read. And so, we've done we've like added some curricular components. And then our partnership with Cornell is um expanding the ways that we can engage students with language. And so that's been really great for um our participants. So next year we um are hoping to receive uh uh approval to go on the trip again and next year we would again partner with Victor Hugo. Um we might travel some to some different cities. The students might even travel with us is one of the conversations that we've had uh that I had with the the head mistress of the school. Um so that's a possibility as well. We
039will continue to partner with Rashid who has been um our partner and our guide in in country um for all of these years um and is really quite phenomenal. Um and so that will be the the plan for next year. Um, next year we will have to go during the spring break um in April or end of March, beginning of April is where it falls next year. Um, because February break will fall during Ramadan and that's just not the best time to visit uh visit Morocco. It would be interesting, but it's not the best time for for that visit. Um, our objectives are to continue to build these relationships between the two schools um and and between our students and I know that students from last year are still in contact with I think some
040students who went to college last year actually even met up uh and traveled together in Spain I believe. Um so to continue to learn about Moroccan history um to build the language component is a real goal for next year and we um we had two usa students uh come and who are from Morocco and so they were able to share stuff about Moroccan culture as well as the language and that was a lot of fun um and it's really fun to hear from from the from college students um and then to just continue to work on combating stereotypes about Muslims in in popular American media. um is is always one of the goals of this trip and has been from its founding. Um we will continue to do home stays with the students providing students
041with that unique uh connection and cultural experience. Um it really is the highlight of the trip for all of us is these relationships that we build and these friendships that we build. Um, so the estimated cost, we've worked really hard to keep the cost at $2,500 per student despite inflation and all of the ways that travel has become a little bit more expensive, but we're trying to keep the trip as affordable as possible. Um, fundraising and grants help with that. So, we talked rather extensively about our fundraising efforts, and I won't bore you with that. Um, but that is also going forward one of the ways that we hope to keep the trip as inclusive as possible for all potential applicants, okay? Not only applicants who are from families that can afford that type of
042travel. Um, we partner with a professional trip coordinator in Morocco. His name is Rasheed. He has over 25 years of experience leading student groups not only from our community but from um accredited colleges and universities around the country and throughout Europe. So he is incredibly knowledgeable and is able to ensure that we are always treated really respectfully and well and that we at no point have any concern for students safety or well-being. Okay. Um tourism is and um is one of Morocco's largest industries. So generally speaking, Moroccan people are very welcoming of Western tourists and um have some experience with Western tourists. So it makes it safer for our students to travel there. Um, students are supervised at all times and we will continue to monitor the current political situation here at home and abroad
043to ensure that our students and the visiting students we hope to bring here can leave and re-enter and travel within both countries safely. As always, we follow the travel recommendations um posted and if there's ever any concern at all, we will take the travel recommendations posted by the That's the end of our presentation. Thank you guys for coming um to do that. Um and at this point, we would request that the board grant us permission to go on the trip and continue to do this uh into the next year. Um and like I said, that would be at the end of March, beginning of April 2026. Uh we're also happy to answer any questions you might have about the My apologies. Give me one second. Um, at this point, just uh procedurally, we would not
044be in a position this evening to vote on adoption. I think that's more of a procedure thing. Um, one, it's the application that comes along the board gets to see. Um and so once we have that and I don't it wasn't included in this um week's uh the presentation was but I don't I don't see the uh the application but once we have that then by all means uh I want to continue to give a question for me. No I just I thought we had submitted the application but maybe there's a it's definitely possible and again this is more of a procedure but I would presume that board is going to continue to support the amazing work. Tell me both your names again please. I'm Hickory. I'm Matt. Thank you very much for sharing your
045experience. Uh very helpful and enlightening to hear how folks are experiencing the trip as well. Um and uh I uh how do we have to say I think we have to get you a teacher that says I'm a great fundraiser is what I think we have to say. Um genuinely again as someone who does community work as well, it's a significant lift. um the ability to try to be so specific about trying to make sure that the trip is open to a um a wide number of students is um extremely impressive. Um and just extending my heartfelt gratitude for the two of you for the all the additional labor that comes along with this trip as well. So make sure who do we need to make sure that that gets to either Trisha or myself
046and we'll make sure we get it on the agenda. There would be no reason for I mean by all means please come join another board meeting. Uh but we will put it on our agenda for the first meeting in May just to make sure. Thank you. Can I please thank you because I was just speaking to a colleague of mine earlier today stating how I was looking forward to hearing about the Morocco trip not realizing that it was on the agenda until after our conversation. So I was excited because I heard from a few students who attended in February earlier this year. They shared their pictures, their experience at the bath house, the camel ride in the home states and the connection that they had. So thank you for continuing this. And I have a
047question um when this how many seniors were part of the trip because how many juniors will remain to greet the Moroccan students? So this year's group was all seniors. Yeah. Last year was a more of a mix. This year was all seniors. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's good to see the connection between their school and they heard about our school and was looking forward to some students. And thank you also for your due diligence and making sure that it's safe on both ends. Thank you. And I know that for the students, this is a great experience that you had. Yeah. All set. Board members, thank you again. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um we will continue on with our agenda which brings us to agenda item 10.2. A resol Well, I'll enter we'll entertain motions
048and then we can have discussion. Okay. Uh, I move to approve the resolution authorizing a one-time opportunity for eligible retired employees to revert to the Medicare supplemental F plan underwritten by uh, the Hartford as outlined in the proposed resolution. I'm I'm guessing I don't have to read this whole resolution. Or do I? Correct. Okay, it's been moved. Second. Seconded by Emily. um discussion, debate, conversation. I have a question, please. Um let's see, Bob. I think this would be for I thought in 2019, let's see, or in 2017, the move was to the Medicare supplemental F plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, not from Hartford. Is it okay? Who am I to question a third party okay? Okay. Yeah. Okay. But Joe, that is something that we can come back to it. That question, which I
049think is a good question, does not change the intent or the action that exactly the board will be authorizing matter. Yep. If need be, we could always bring it back, but to get things moving, um this is what's presented here. And just so I'm sure not everybody could hear Bob Vancurin, um the conversation was uh that this has been vetted by um multiple attorneys as well as a third party administrator to try to come to an agreement and negotiate something that uh both sides find to be workable. Um it may not be the most ideal. Um but both sides believe that this is um good step in the right direction uh to resolve uh the health insurance uh that our retirees have been bringing to us for some time. Additional questions, comments? the the only
050concern I would have other than just wondering about the accuracy of that. Um I know in the past when we offered this option and a number of retirees chose to either return or to go to Hartford um there were people who after the deadline said for some reason or another they had not received the notice of that option. So, um, I guess I'd like to be reassured that in some way we'll make an effort to contract to contact every possible retiree this time around, even people who might be in Arizona, for example. Yes. The Sure. Pick another Bob. Two more. Yeah. This uh this resolution is for a group of retirees that have uh retained an attorney to to develop this with our attorney and our third party administrator uh that's been with us since
051we um started our self- insurance fund. Um, so all of the folks that are eligible to take this have already been identified, but we certainly will do a secondary check for retirees that that might not have gotten the notices from the attorneys. They did a really good job trying to vet this and and bring this forward, but I appreciate your sentiment and we'll we'll do it a triple check on it. Yeah. And I think one of the things can we can do as well is uh ask folks to make to ask folks to ask folks or let folks know as well. I know last time that we were in this situation there was um information and contact information that the district had that hadn't been updated um through no fault of anybody just had not
052been updated for a while. So being able to identify everybody became a little bit more of a challenge. I'm hoping this time around because we've already been through it once that folks are a little bit more contact. And I do know there's a pretty active not there's pretty act it's a very active network as well. So I'm hoping that they'll be spreading the word once the um the board votes if the board chooses to adopt us. But thank you for that reminder Joe because I know we heard from some folks afterwards. Right. Any other questions, conversations, debates hearing? None. We'll call the question. All in favor of the resolution that is unanimous for everyone who is here and including um Aaron online voted as well. Thank you Aaron. Uh fantastic. Uh thank you everybody. This
053has been one of those things that I know a number of us have been um working on for quite some time and so this is an important move and so I'm uh appreciative of the amount of work that has gone into to this. Again um it may not solve everything but it moves it forward in in a good direction. So very appreciative. Thank you for that. Um the next couple of agenda items are the uh work of um Emily and myself with some administrators. So bear with us as we go through a couple of policies. We'll try to simplify them as much as possible. The first two are policies that are changes um for adoption. Well, one is for adoption, one is for a first reading, and then the remaining policies are policies that we
054are recommending for deletion. I'll get to those in a minute um as as the time comes. But the first policy, agenda item 10.3, a policy 8134-P, which is a procedure for emergency closing. Uh and we are looking at this tonight for a second reading and adoption. And uh Dr. Briman, come on down just in case there's questions. Um this is a policy that we have been working on. This is not different than what is currently posted on the ICSD website for closings um or uh late um starts. We thought it would be good to take that and put it officially into a policy. We brought it last time. Uh we I don't think we made change too many changes. One or two we did some edits to to make it consistent. We took out some
055redundant language y and we were just consistent with with all our language. Absolutely. So the policy is designed to reflect our practice is where we're at. So entertain motions if it's okay by folks and then we can debate and discuss. Motion to approve policy 8134-P emergency school closings for a second reading and adoption as recommended by the policy committee. Second. Moved by Jill, second by Adam. Further discussion, clarifications, questions, debates. When did we discuss this the first reading? I was trying to see exactly that been a while, right? It it has been a couple three months ago, I would think. three months ago I think was the first time and then um and then we brought it again last month and then we brought it here at and and also I've asked before in the
056format if we're because this is a revision. No, no, this is a new one. This is a new polic this is a new procedure. The policy has been in existence. The procedure is new. It it's a companion policy to uh 8134 emergency school closing. I think this is P. Yes. My apologies, Karen. To answer your question, we talked about it first on January 7th, then we brought it back to the policy committee on February 4th. Uh and then we had it on the agenda again on March 4th, but we did some changes at that point in time. That's it. And then it went back to the policy committee again. I for I forgot it's gone three times. Yes. Yeah. Again, all policies can be changed at any point in time following our practices. So, should
057we find something that we have more questions about, we can bring it back up to the policy committee. But hearing no additional comments or questions at this point in time, we'll call the question. All in favor of uh a second reading and adoption this evening. That is everybody including Aaron. Thank you very much, Dr. Bri. Appreciate it. And thank you. You may just stay right there for a quick second. Yeah. Um policy 5150.1 preK enrollment. This is a policy that was being brought to us. Um it's a for the most part a simple change. Say it again. Oh, that'll be Deb Jordan. My apologies. I just want to Yep. Deb, I saw you and I didn't see you. I got too excited with Dr. Briman being here. So, thank you, Debon. How about you talk
058to us just briefly, you know, while you're here about this policy and what we're recommending and then the board. Sure. These are easy changes. Um, we just wanted to uh add a couple things including um making sure we're stating we have a random lottery. Um, and also we want to remove any time frames um in the policy. So, we're hoping to notify families sooner. Right now it says the end of June. Um but you know we just want to remove any time frames that are solid and clarified some language around weight lists for lack of a better word. Yes. Yeah. And so just to address some of the questions you guys had before um we are going to put in there uh we're going to accept if if I state has not reached capacity we'll
059we'll look at applications on a first come first serve basis and then we can date stamp the application so that we can make sure we see that. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to move for a first reading and then see if there are questions? I'd be honored. Motion to approve policy 5150.1 preK enrollment for a first reading as recommended by the policy committee. Second moved by Jill, second by Adam. Um, additional questions, comments about our prek enrollment policy. One quick one. Are we full for next year? We're getting fuller. Not quite yet. We're not quite uh we don't have enough applications to do a lottery yet, but we're close. Yeah. I think about um one of the changes or updates in the governor's budget is to increase prek throughout New York State and enrollment, right?
060How is this going to impact us? And as usual with the budget, okay, you're increasing it. Are you giving funding to the school districts to help them? Right. So, um, the universal prek grant is one of our biggest funding sources. So, we're hoping that either remains the same or increases. Um, and I'm actually going to Albany next week, so I'll be, you know, hearing more from people about that. Um, and then Head Start is sort of a waiting game right now. We're waiting to hear if if there's going to be any changes with the Head Start funding. Thank you. Yeah. Additional questions, board members. Hearing none, we'll call the question. All in favor of approval for our first reading. That includes everybody including Aaron. Deb, thank you for being so patient with us. It will
061now go back to the policy committee for okay, one more review and then it'll come back to the board for adoption. At that point in time, okay, thank you. and we may be in contact because if we already agree that it should come back up to the board, we may just go and put it on the next agenda to make sure we can be ahead of that June 1st deadline for for May. That's fantastic. Our families will be happy. Thank you. Thank you so much. Fantastic. Um greatly appreciate the next five policies. Uh board colleagues, we stopped at five. Uh we've gone through not we I should say Emily Tracy Arm has gone through the entire policy book uh has listed policies by year for the last time that either they were created or they
062had been modified. Um Emily and I then met and went through I don't know maybe 15 or 20 of them and um earmarked a couple of them for deletion um deciding that five would probably be the max that we can go through. Um, each of these policies, if I'm not mistaken, every single one is 1973, 1974. 1974 is the last time that they have been modified, let alone adopted. Um, almost all of them are outdated and while they have some really good ideas, it may not match our current practice or some of the language is found elsewhere and policies that we've created. And so that's sort of it. Um, Emily, what would you add? No, that's that's it. I would say the vast majority of things can be found elsewhere. So I don't think when
063there were um when there were policies that we saw that had important components but weren't necessarily elsewhere, I think we have typically flagged them differently and want to kind of do some of that work before bringing it to the board. So, the process for policy deletion is also a quote unquote four-step process. Comes to the policy committee, a recommendation to the board, the board agrees, it goes back to the policy committee for another recommendation to the board, and then a second reading for deletion. Um, I am happy to proceed any way the board would like. If you want to do each one individually, we can make that happen. Um, however the board would like to proceed. We just announce all five of them and remove them at once. I think we can if Yeah. If
064it doesn't pass then we'll go through and different and we're going to have a discussion for each because I have a discussion for each. So we'll entertain motions first or a motion motion. Uh okay. I move to rescend the following policies. Policy 4112, the school day. Policy 4114, dismissal of school. Policy 4115, policy to limit elementary classroom interruptions. Uh policy 43000, which is uh supervision, and policy 453.1, which is community as a classroom. Uh, and I recommend for those all of those policies to be removed. Second. Moved by Adam, second by Jill. Discussion, debate, questions, conversation. Yes, please. I'm sorry, Carol. I was waiting for the acknowledgement. All right. Um, policies um 4112 and 4114. If we're removing it from here, where is it stated what the school days other than searching online? Yeah. Well,
065one, this policy as written is not accurate to what our school day is. And so, we could recreate another policy to make that happen. We just knew that this one needed to go because it's not reflective of what we currently do. The second policy, dismissal of the school day, was in part what we just did for the procedures of both early dismissal and emergency closing. And I should say the same thing around supervision. There's a policy, but it's not I mean 1974 is much different than 2025 in terms of supervision andor a number of of things as well. So that one was outdated as well. So we we're deleting all of these, but we especially those two, but we don't have a replacement as of yet. And if someone were to look at um try
066to locate where on our policies for what are the hours, school operation hours for each area and in case the internet is down, the searches engines are down, where are they going to locate? Do you have a response? That's all you see. Well, right, that was the question we have. Yes, you have something to share. out as part of the communication packet and when students are registered. So the question for us was do we need this to be in policy given that it changes so much and I don't want to you know for whoever is sitting on this board in 2073. Are they going to look back and say what did you all do in 2025 which is literally where we find ourselves. But um it could be a policy could be updated or we
067could just make sure folks know exactly where it's at. I do know most schools put out their schedule to families uh on a regular basis. I just had a quick question. I was wondering what prompted for on the school day. Oh. Oh, no. So, well, I just want to make sure we're done with that conversation. I'm I'm good. I was just curious why 4115 got removed. Uh the policy to uh limit elementary classroom interruptions. Is that the policy you're wondering about? Did you get a chance to take a look at the policy? Uh, one, we have an updated code of conduct. Two, we're having conversations about notions of inclusion and how uh, teaching has changed since then. The goal of this policy also dictates around attendance and what does that look like and when is
068it appropriate to remove a student from class. Uh, and what may have been appropriate in 1974 may not be what we do now. So, we weren't sure that we needed a policy to dictate to our educators about when a young person should be removed from the elementary classroom. Did I capture that? Does that answer your question, Katie? Other questions on the policies and community as a classroom is one that we debated for a while especially given its connection to schools like LACS. The way in which it was written um honestly possibly opened up to liability. It just it it didn't have enough clarity to about what do we mean who is allowed on campus at what point in time when are folks going off campus. So we thought there was an example if we wanted
069to come back to it at some other point in time you would just start from scratch and do it again start if I am reading Dr. current voice's body language. Yes. Oh, can we see the correction? Anybody else? Hearing none. Again, this is for a first reading, so we'll come back for a second reading, but we'll call the question. All in favor of the deletion of these five policies. Aaron, yes. It is everybody. Fantastic. Thank you very much. And that will bring us to committee updates and um I don't know uh I will spare everyone the policy committee. You just got an update from the policy committee. So we'll proceed from there. Maybe we'll just go in line as I see folks. Uh Dr. Trip, how about you do you your two committees? Sure. Um
070facilities committee uh in the April 22nd the the other members of the committee are Karen and Todd. On April 22nd, we had a pre presentation by the um student sustainability group from Ithaca High School. We also had a report from um Dr. Briman and the PTA people at South Hill on a air filtration initiative that will be um happening at South Hill School and a discussion of the December the possible December capital project and its scope. um embedded in that to some extent I'd like to give you a quick report on some of the issues that happen in the monthly OACM meeting which is stands for h I just forgot it again thank you owner architects construction and management u meeting and that is there's been some discussion of an agreement to attempt some quick
071fixes re the BJM smelling smelly bathroom situation And we also discussed some concerns about the age and condition of the bleachers at Ithaca High School. And we're expecting a report from NAERTA, um the NAERTA energy study that we'll be able to present at the May facilities meeting and HR. Ah yes, HR. Um, regular attendees at the HR committee are Emily, Garrick, and Adam. And we've been kind of, well, we've been doing two things mainly. We've been talking about HR hiring practices and questions we have about those. And also, we've been getting a regular update on what the status is of our um, hiring and retention. So, those are our big topics right now in HR. anyone who's been present in either any of those wants to add anything, they'd be welcome. But I think that's
072the gist of what's going on. Fantastic. Thank you. Uh Dr. Bllelock, a finance update. We just passed a budget last week. It's about as much of an update as we can give at this point in time. Fantastic. Uh curriculum. Okay. I have a lot of updates for curriculum uh because it's been a few months since we've since we've updated. So I'll try to be brief. Um okay, first today in curriculum meeting um we talked about a universal literacy screening that we have been using in grades K through 5. It's also being piloted in the middle school. It's called the Dibbles 8. It's an assessment tool that looks at aspects of reading. Um, you know, things like phmic awareness, word reading, reading comprehension, things related to the science of reading. Um, we're very excited about this
073at the meeting today. Um, students are going to be tested three times a year. um and or evaluated or assessed three times a year. And then um basically that data is going to be used to determine where students are falling in terms of meeting academic standards in those areas and then figuring out how best to help students, for example, if they're going to be going to project innovation over the summer. Um so this this would be ways to figure out um you know where students are at. And so um that was that was a very exciting update. Um that sort of uh is related to the other topic we spoke about for the last few months. We were talking about school improvement plans. Um and I'll just kind of go over this briefly and then
074say some of the findings at this point in time. Um so some different schools had been identified as needing some support. at Enfield had been identified as receiving a level one ranking um which is the lowest categorization based on ELA and math New York State test scores and therefore requiring an improvement plan. Um, four other schools, Enfield, Boton, Duit, and BJM were targeted for having one or more students subgroups um who received that ranking based on ELA and math New York State test scores. And each identified school is given funding from New York State uh with the goal of improving uh mastery of state standards in ELA and math. Um that should translate to improved performance on the New York State tests. Last summer, building leaders from each school developed improvement plans. At the February
075meeting, we reviewed those plans for progress. Um, one very exciting finding was that Enfield Elementary um has met the progress target, meaning that they made so much improvement um that it's possible they're going to lose their designation as a school in need of improvement for 2025 2026. So, special shout out to Keith Harrington and Bart Al were the building leaders there. Um the other schools didn't yet make enough pro progress to change their status, but some improvement was made for all schools in metrics such as attendance and also on this uh measure that I just talked about, the dibbles measure. Um and uh hopefully that's going to translate to some gains um in terms of performance. Um March we just had a meeting talking a little more about the plans, talking about MClass data. We
076found that right now about 55% of students are at the benchmark in this assessment measure. The district's goal is going to be 80% and we'll we'll update uh on how that's going. Um and then finally, a couple of last things. At today's meeting, um we had a presentation by the ICSD sustainability advocates. Um they reminded us of the passage of our climate resolution from 2024. They talked about how about 70% of youths in a 10,000 person survey were either very or extremely worried about climate change and a similar number at Boon was also revealed um and basically proposing some curricula that we can have to teach climate uh climate change which is actually going to be required potentially by New York State in the portrait of a graduate um which is going to be some
077new standards for graduating. Um so we kind of started to talk about that today and those are just some of the many exciting topics. Excellent. Thank you board colleagues. Um and a reminder I know I say it repeatedly to uh the community uh that our communication team does an amazing job of creating committee summaries. You can find them online of any of the committees that were being referenced. It also includes hyperlinks to the actual video with which these are being discussed. uh as well as shorthand summaries as well. So, please go take a look at those summaries and they're not only for committee meetings, they're also for board meetings as well. So, I would recommend uh taking a look at those. So, thank you committee chairs for your work. Um is there any other business
078that the board wishes to engage us this evening? Hearing none, we will bring our meeting to a close. Have a good evening, good folks. We'll see you next