001welcome everyone um our esteemed president uh Dr Sean everley Bradwell cannot be with us this evening so I will endeavor to do my best to fill his very large shs so uh the first item that we have which are going to come before public comment and student comment is the presentation by the people from the Layman alternative school regarding the Spanish trip proposed for this may so come on we can't I really wish hi um we're a group of Lacs students here uh to represent the Lacs Spanish trip um from May 27th to May 25th um we're going to be going to Granada Spain um we chose Granada because it's safe walkable and historic while we're in Granada we want to to stay in home stays visit historical sites and take Spanish [Music] lessons Okay
002uh for our budget um what we have projected right now is$ 2,200 to $2,400 per person in our trip uh 12 um 1,250 of those dollars will be airfare uh lessons meals and our tours will be $729 and ground transportation will be $70 um right now our fundraising has been a school dance which made about $11,000 a gimme coffee sale which made about $11,000 child care at Fall Creek which we've done one so far and we're doing another one later this month uh we have a silent auction coming up Citrus sale um and our projected earnings will be1 to $15,000 all right so just to make sure um this is a school function and we are going to stick to all district guidelines um nobody is going anywhere alone at any point all the families
003are vetted and known as it says up here um it's all on the on the slide I guess for those of you who can't see it I'll I'll say um' got a a contact person Claudia bar um inas onsite to assist um we're going to be staying in pairs and Triads um phones have international plans to call locally and internationally as needed and trip insurance is available for $40 per person thank you oh it's not working yeah that's most of it yeah do we have any questions or comments uh about this how many people will be able to go total uh I think it's 24 students two staff 24 two and the fundraising piece is super super vital because we have to make sure that this trip is accessible for all people who want to
004join so the home stay uh are they will you be staying with students uh who go to a particular school that you've connected with or the HS are [Music] Inu H State families that they familiar with and that most of the um everybody will do this in walk distance nice and so well they be staying students be staying with uh doing home stays for the entire time yeah I have a question so although um the school goes from 9: to 2:00 pm and there's what are you going to do during your Siesta time because that's a cultural norm so the students will go back to they have have board uh so far that we know we agreed and they might go to their their hom stays to have lunch and then to sleep because you
005know it's kind of long day and it may be hot even if it's May and uh so this is a time where people really don't do anything in in on the southern spade and then four days of that week we will have already and is budgeted four different visits uh tours one is included La lamra is one of the most famous places uh and is a UNESCO you know the whole city is a UNESCO her world heritage so it's pretty plann you know it really is so it is a school trip any other question sounds really good sure you don't need another sh oh we have a list we have a list Verana in uh October uh late September uh but I was only there one night and I really wished I was staying longer
006because it was fabulous and we didn't get to go to alhamra because we didn't put tickets in it there oh that we know we are they already telling us and this is since last since October that uh we need to buy in this in the now yes to have the tickets because we're such a large group so it's the thing is good that we're doing it so early is that any accommodation we're doing is for a lot of people like the the airplane we're kind of taking the whole airplane we're taking the whole you know school so the lca's name is going to be you know known in Granada so yeah would somebody like me uh would anyone like to make motion I oh wait sorry look it up all right yeah I move to
007approve the international field trip to Spain for May 17 2024 to May 25th 2024 as recommended by the superintendent second thank you any discussion any discussion okay let's call the question all in favor that's everybody thank you very moving on uh we I don't believe we have anybody signed up the public but was um is there anybody who here for here or so I guess there will be no response to that s and now we have our student reps and uh I see we have a couple new people at the table so why don't and I believe they're from Lacs and so why don't you introduce yourself and um speak to us okay my name is Leo Scott and I am a 12th grader at LS uh hello I am Odin and I'm a junior
008at Lacs and go ahead intr something hello I'm Stella I'm a junior at Lacs as well all right so you have been duly elected to represent and uh what do you want to tell us about going on okay so I will be talking about a driver's head program at La s our students have the theoretical ability to get into IHS driver's ed class however even IHS students have found it difficult to get into that class it's full almost all the time and there's usually not room for any Lacs students uh and we want our own driver ed program at LCS or throughout the whole District that's more accessible to our students important all right okay um well a couple things very happy to have them here I was very happy with how the election process
009went of course not without its flaws but very successful for its first time um so welcome Leo and Odin um I just want to also Express how excited I am to be a part of the Spanish trip this year with all these amazing folks um and and we also have another very exciting day trip coming up for our high school art classes to go see the Jay-Z exhibit in New York City which is very exciting um the Jay-Z exhibit um yeah um we're starting our unit on hip-hop culture in honor of the 50th year um and personally I'm very excited to start that um something else I wanted to speak on is our um murals on our doors being painted it over um because of fire code um I would love to see the specific
010law um that's something that we haven't been presented with or been able to find um so we'd really appreciate anyone who could Supply that resource um yeah I don't think anything else I'll give it to you gotta um I just wanted to talk about how at Lacs we have a very wide range of Ages being a middle school and a high school so we have students who are can be as young as 10 and in sixth grade and students who are as old as 18 or older who are in 12th grade and just something that came up was that we have this wide range of Ages but we're all served the same Foods at lunch for the school lunch and we were wondering if there's anything that can be done about that that to make
011it so people who are not getting enough food can not be spending their day at school hungry okay R HS hi I'm Lucin I'm a senior um so some updates that we have is that we are currently going forward discussing policies and ways that teachers and students can discuss grades more for example if a teacher grades an assignment like the last day of the quarter it can be very difficult for student to like get feedback and improve upon their work so we're searching for ways to improve that um quarter one just ended as of last Thursday and final grades will be going in tomorrow so one quar of the way through the Year yay or I don't know if that's a year for everybody um PSAT scores will be released on Thursday and that affects
012Juniors and some sophomores uh this is the first year that we have really Doney digitally as well as on paper so shout out to Mr Barnes for making all that happen he's awesome and the last thing is that we are discussing the curbs in the IHS parking lot and the traffic flow so the curbs in the parking lot is they're very kind of janky at times they're especially for new drivers that's the way I've heard it described um very easy to hit and in the mornings when there's like cars going by left and right they can be a little tight to turn on so we are discussing ways to kind of improve the traffic flow in The District in the IHS parking lot in the morning because having driven there it is very stressful thank
013you hi everybody as you know my name is Cadman on Monday the IHS reps to the board met with Dr Dan briman Miss Beth Krauss Jamie zervos and Jennifer dittle to discuss nutrition at the high school as I'm pretty sure most of you guys know we meet on a generally bi-weekly basis with Mr Trumble on Mondays but this Monday Universal lunch meeting was uh they gave us some of their reasoning behind why the new lunch programs have been initiated uh many thanks to Dr Bradwell for sending us the video presentation regarding the chefan foundation and nutritional changes but it was nice to get some of the experts to talk to us uh in a smaller group setting uh we understand a lot of the reasons behind the new new nutritional changes you know Rising rates
014of childhood obesity and lots of other related health concerns are definitely an issue facing the country right now and itha and uh we did suggest and we're talking and engaging in dialogue about this possible uh sending more clear communication out to the student body students might never completely accept the idea because you know students will always find something to complain about but uh I think it's important and we believe it's important to uh have clear communication so there is a parent FAQ uh on the website and we were thinking about possibly reframing that maybe altering some of questions and answers in ways that could answer some of students dilemas or questions about why they can't eat their cookies at the uh lunch wine anymore or Etc uh also uh on a different note uh I
015emailed Mr Scott Taylor several days ago regarding recycling at the high school we talked about this last board meeting if you remember um and I did I've done a little bit of digging in that since I have not received a response yet but yesterday today talking with Dr briman we discussed the idea of holding an informal meeting to talk about instituting a labeling campaign maybe setting up more bins providing lids for the bins that already exist so that people don't jump uh dump food or other waste products in there and I hope that can be accomplished in the coming days or weeks I think that would be a great step forward uh a lot of it at this point a lot of it just has to do with the implementation and figuring out a way
016to actually go through the theoretical processes we've come up with uh finally I haven't had a chance to talk with this about Mr Trumble yet but today we had a student council meeting uh I'm also on the student council and I was telling them about some of the nutritional changes and one thing the student council members at least are particularly annoyed about are the vending machines now I understand why they're closed for most hours of the day but one suggestion that was brought for the that I will bring up in our next meeting with Mr Trumble and hopefully Advance uh is the idea of maybe filling the vending machines with healthier snack options so that students can still use them but maybe use them in a more responsible way uh thank you okay I'm just
017gonna okay it's on um I just had like a a couple questions or really just one question about the accelerated math program um at the middle schools so I know that this is something that used to be present um at least when I was in Middle School I was uh at least a part of the accelerated math program um and I know that at least uh for sixth and seventh graders um I think it's just one math class now and for uh eighth graders there's the algebra 1 course alongside the companion course um so I was wondering what exactly the um the reasoning Behind these changes was um in particular because I think uh if somebody is planning on taking Algebra 1 in an eighth grade course uh it would make more sense for them
018to already have a foundation in sixth and seventh grade of maybe um some of those topics uh rather than a companion course at the same timer over this summer for responses questions for respon I mean I have a lot and I don't want to take up too much time doing it so I'll try to rush through since no one spoke up um I'm sure there's more um one I want to know where this Jay-Z exhibit is York City it's in New York City yeah okay Brooklyn awesome um that's exciting um I'm curious too more about the mural that was painted over was there reasoning given due to the fire code or um so from what I've heard the reasoning is fire code it's all the murals that are on any door um throughout our school
019um I believe for reasons of that not right up sorry correct me please yeah it's just certain do certain do that has full mural that entrance to the boiler room and so the signage that says boiler room and purpose of that door is we get DED on fire Cod for having that exp there's also a door that um you open to get to a for entary students that have challenges to get from the floor up into our music room and that also is expor and NE and we've gotten violation for quite a few years so from facilities has been working with us about how we can preserve those in different way before they get painted it's one solid col and again I've been trying to find thank you okay um the parking lot um Lucine
020you mentioned that and I you know something that's come up in some of our facility meeting facilities meetings and in other spaces are um most of our parking lots have issues with accessibility so you know people just I noticed at the high school people just park Park in those spaces as if it's like a drop and ride and so students with difficulty who need them can't use them and so I hope that's also something that you look at um when you're reviewing wait did you mention you mentioned the paron okay um the nutrition discussion I I think is interesting and it's not so much a question but I wanted to comment I think it's important to you know we talk about the Obesity epidemic but it body size has nothing to do with health and
021a lot of the conversations that we had when discussing um the changes to the menu is equity and making sure students could think clearly and with high sugar diets it's really not great for our bodies or our brains and it doesn't have to do with body size um I'm really excited about the recycling uh and I hope we can get more updates um and the parking I that I I'm or not the park sorry the driver's ad that's I don't know if someone here can address that but I'm I'm curious to hear how that can change jumping jumping on a couple of those comments too um I don't have any answers but um The Lacs um situation where people aren't getting are you saying that people aren't getting enough food because some people require more
022food or want to have more food at lunch and what what what is the um protocol now like if you get your meal and you want to eat more can you go back and get more no you can't go back okay um you just get one okay so I guess the question would be how how are portion size determin in whether or not age which is what you specifically spoke to is part of that determination right something we would need to explore or or are there extra helpings like does the food run out like when all when everybody's had one lunch if there's more food can one go back and get more lunch or I don't know how it works exactly so I'd like to know um we had a nutrition meeting this week um
023with uh Jamie Dervis Miss Beth Krauss and uh Jennifer dle so what they explain to us is that there is a USDA approved um caloric input and input for different nutrients that is um generally like recommended by the state and that they have to account for when they are providing lunches and that this year the amount of approved sodium and sugar has also gone down which kind of does limit options in a way so what they have to do is yes obviously there's a caloric difference between you know what someone like my age eats and what a 10-year-old would eat but they it's not incredibly large so they don't have a large margin to work with so that's kind of what what we were told and also shout out to them because they are awesome
024okay um thanks I just wonder um on either the uh the lunch menu options or the driver's ad have any of you made connections with anybody in administration about those issues to set up a meeting and get your questions answered um so as far as I am informed about the driver's ed um as far as that has gone is um having staff members who have gotten a local driving school to agree to work with us um the funding aspect is where we're at a standstill right now I don't know um what action has been taken if any um towards advocating for that other than us bringing it up right now well could um is there something that I don't know which Administration it may fall under to um look into the schedu in of drivers
025and because I know my children had that issue where there wasn't enough space so what do we need to do to accommodate more students into driver's ed as well as open it up to Lac students which don't have the opportunity at this point yeah so it's it's tag team now who's going to look into it is is there a sense of how much demand there is like how many students would want to join you know who aren't able to join right now because that might help guide the conversation if it goes to the next level of yes absolutely has those um yeah so we had we had a school meeting about um the issue and we did a straw a straw poll asking people if they'd be interested in this and it was like all
026three of us were in different rooms so there was It was kind of three meetings going on at the time but we had in my room that I was in we had 45 people say that they would like a driver's ed program and zero people say that they wouldn't like one yeah um I believe my room numbers are somewhat irrelevant given that it was almost entirely middle schoolers in my room but they said eventually they would be interested if that holds any weight uh to jump in there my room we didn't count numbers but my estimate from looking at it was around 90% of the room said they would be interested and the other people just did not uh they abstained thank anybody else I'll I have a oh go ahead I have a question
027about the uh about the algebraic math can you say can you explain that a little bit more to us what you were trying to relay yeah of course so um so when I was in Middle School um going into Middle School there or at least in sixth and seventh grade there are kind of two options of math you can do there's an accelerated course and there's like uh the standard course um and basically if you are put into the accelerated course um then if you're in the accelerated course then eventually that will lead up to taking Algebra 1 in eth grade um and if you continue taking a math class every year eventually that would culminate with um alge uh sorry calculus yeah AP Calculus BC in senior year um or just a calculus course
028in senior year um so I believe that the change that has been made and I could be wrong on this I don't uh I was in Middle School a while ago um is that The Accelerated courses are no longer present and um there is now still the algebra 1 course in eth grade so that students can eventually take Calculus BC or a calculus course in senior year um but uh it's now there's no longer The Accelerated courses in sixth and seventh grade it's accompanied by a companion course in eth grade um and I think some of the reasoning behind this uh at least I think I've I believe I've like talked to a few people about this in the past is that um teachers were making the decisions about uh who is going to go
029into an accelerated course going into sixth grade which um I think there were numerous issues present with that so I was wondering if there's a way um to bring back the accelerated courses for sixth and seventh grade but maybe Implement them in a way that's more fair to students just so that if a student does want to go into more advanced math classes they can build foundations in sixth and seventh grade because obviously you know math is not for everyone um but for students who do want to go into Algebra 1 and then eventually into Calculus BC which is or Calculus AB which a lot of students do do uh I think having that solid foundation in sixth and seventh grade is actually really important for uh excelling later in high school and in Middle
030School um another thing that I would like to add is that being able to take AP Calculus AB or BC is generally considered very important for colleges it's considered very important in preparing us or um for some cases if you take one of these courses you can not take a cal course in college which I think can be very beneficial because it can be part of distribution requirements and if you would like to kind of Branch out and not do that and I just think that calc is really really important because stuff like derivatives it's very um prevalent in just financial decisions and those yeah stem fields and all of that thanks um I'm just going to speak to this just briefly uh because this uh the change to Middle School the change to middle
031school math was definitely led by Math teachers at both the high school and the middle school and it was a lengthy process research based uh it undergoes regular review um so there's a lot of information about what led to the change that I'm sure there are people who uh in admin would be happy to share with you and that you could share with other students who might be raising the same issue yes what I say is of course not meant to infer to in um insinuate that I know more about how to run a math class than Math teachers so that I know how more about how to run a school district or a school than administrators I'm not trying to say that but what I will say and I suppose this is a conversation
032we could engage other administrators on I have siblings in the middle schools so this is not just a me issue I escaped with my tail singed is how I think I like to put it this isn't a conversation or a topic that I think uh to be quite Frank people often want to discuss because they View High Achievers in many ways as elitists and they think that by establishing uh a kind of hierarchical system that we're separating students in unfair ways now I'm not insinuating that Equity is not important but what I am saying is that one thing I have seen throughout my middle and high school career is that very often uh Administration will do things that will seem to promote equity for students but in reality might not actually help a a very
033a large proportion of us and I'm not trying to tell you that your policies are bad or something like that I'm really not but what I'm just trying to say is that when I watch my sixth seventh grade brother and my ninth grade sister have to struggle through this process of taking extra math courses during summer or doubling up on math in their eighth grade year just just so they can take algebra so they can end up taking AP Calculus because they are high achieving intelligence students who want to succeed in this world it makes me uh a little bit uncomfortable thank you um you know this is the kind of conversation we we've had in depth uh in various forums for years and the conversation continues and so it may be time for uh
034there to be a presentation maybe at the curriculum committee um to you know get an update on how what has been happening over these years and uh what assessments and evaluation tools are in place and what they're showing us okay uh anything else yeah I just had a uh just a quick question so um in terms of Administrators who should I reach out to kind of to learn more about this I believe Deputy superintendent talot would be the appropriate person to reach out to me and I'll just say one thing about the recycling you know keep working on it I did a tour of several of the buildings where uh our um construction manager for our Capital project uh took us around to show us some of the things that were happening in various buildings
035and I noticed in the Boon cafeteria they had very extensive signage very detailed about and they had multiple bins and the signs were very clear about what went where I don't know whether it's working but those who are working actively on trying to improve recycling in the High School uh might reach out to Folks at Boon and find out what's what's happening now or Lacs or Lacs yeah can I just say real quick you guys just to elay some maybe discomfort just know that this this conversation about about um middle school math is ongoing and if we keep these conversations open and keep learning from each other there's a lot of um documentation as to why the changes were made that I think you could explore I mean I mean like personally I have a
036sixth grader and an eighth grader right right now and I've been really encouraged by the documentation of why the decisions were made and also this willingness to like keep talking about it and see how things are going and tweak and then help these students who do maybe have to take summer companion courses concurrent companion courses in eth grade feel and and actually achieve success in them so I have been encouraged by you know a lot of conscientious minds are trying to lean into this and believe me like I'm an advocate for Calculus BC it's cool it's great I was there so I I I hear you yeah think I just to add I think that we're going to you know plan on having some conversations like this at at the curriculum committee meeting Lily and
037I were just talking today um sort of about that and and coming up with ways um you know talking talking about making sure that we're supporting an anti-racist curriculum you know that that has diversity equity and inclusion at the heart of it um and at the same time and not in competition with also figuring out how to have you know the highest um ACC academic achievement and and course rigor and we're sort of talking about those not being on two ends of of a Continuum and it could be 100% of each um so I think I think we're going to try to have more of those conversations um in in curriculum and and as a board maybe absolutely thank you uh okay next item is we are on to the consent agenda I will motions
038I move to for approval all consent agenda items listed in consent agenda consideration of accounts Personnel reports students and minutes of previous meeting as presented second thank you questions or comments is there anything on the consent to agenda that uh anybody needs to speak to I don't really see much that's unusual I just had one quick question just in reference to the contract the contract referenced in oh just one second never mind I don't have a question about cons good all right uh all in favor okay and that leads us to Dr Brown uh thank you for your leadership this evening Miss Lan and this opportunity to share and uh in honor Professor Bradwell who's not here I wish to share how I feel like I'm a part of a Time Loop this evening and
039I do hope to get to some of the questions that were raised tonight because we've been here before so I'll share some some information um but also open to ongoing dialogue related to some things you shared and asked about and most importantly just to highlight and underscore it's been in the media today as of December 1st all of our young people will have access to free healthy lunches and breakfast meals um that is pretty cool and that's unprecedented for this school Community while we've had individual schools who've had that opportunity to access those federal funds in the past now we have an entire District um and that is noteworthy so this is a special shout out to the folks who are listening one what am I talking about for young people no more lunch accounts
040all right y'all feel me you won't be worrying about the your your account being in the areas as of December 1st if there's additional monies on your accounts if I'm not mistaken we will get those monies back to you this is big time all right particularly for parents who were struggling to keep up with putting money on those accounts and this will help us to expand our approaches to healthy meals now also must because the question that's come to me most often it came to me uh from a radio host this morning this program is not extended to the adults all right this is right now just for young people like Dr Brian we're talking yeah we're talking about young people right now and we can talk about what we'll do for adults at another
041time but any I want to make sure folks heard that from me this evening that's a special announcement and if I could uh maybe a lightning round to get to some of these uh questions that were raised and again open it up for future conversations um and give us some time to bring folks together um my understanding that young people can go back into the lunch line and get additional food the salaar is open with a lot of fruits and vegetables there as well so we will be going we will have some addition conversation with our folks to make sure that our policy is being implemented to Fidelity in the ways which we hope but you should be able to go back and get more food all right if anyone is asking for that question
042if if not send Dr bryman Miss verbo and myself a note and we can follow up with some folks um dv's education now I know I'm getting old because I've been a part of this conversation uh on three different occasions and it was one of the first board meetings I was interesting coming from Virginia there was driver ed programs and they were well funded and everyone expected to have the privilege of taking driver ed in a school that was not always the case here in central New York in I City School District and we spent a significant amount of early early portion of my tenure trying to convince our community to have a program like driver's ed as part of our Academic Program why do we have to convince folks because it will be an
043elective or will take away from other academic offerings I mean it is a class period so folks you know now at the time of eight period day when would I fit it in and if it's offered well if my kid takes it what would they not be taking and then it came to resources and Staffing and we had to work hard at this table to get the resources in place to provide a staff member to provide driver's education and all we can't forget about the car remember Mr RPP remember we had to buy a car and how hard it was to buy a car to do driver's there oh my gosh oh anyway um so to expand this program I am open to it because I think every young person should have access to driver's
044education I do believe that but let's have an a conversation here about the Staffing that it would take and the other resources including a car um and the insurance and all that stuff so it's a complex conversation that I'm open to and to hear that you want it thank you because that is a culture shift uh question about that um and Karen brought up uh the idea of scheduling and back many decades ago now when I was in high school there was a driver's education program during the school day but many many many of us took it during summer and it was an extensive summer offering that's a possibility for us as well again Staffing is going to be key right and then the certification um as someone who was a certified driver their teacher
045there's a certification when you put that little break on the passenger side and a young person there all can break loose if y'all feel me so we got to make sure we're ready for that liability and the certific and having someone be volunt told to do so anyway I'm open to the conversation a quick question response I guess somebody mentioned perhaps partnering with one of the existing businesses that do what is your like just as part just reminds me of my Head Start conversations uh we would be a competitor to local businesses I'll stop there so typically when you're competitors knocking on your door particularly one as big as us with $150 million budget people don't always open the door maybe I said too much this m uh fire code I wish de oh Deb
046is still here blame me for fire code stuff all right I'm the one who gets the nasty call from the district superintendent or the folks in stay at I've been looking for fire code uh language and law since I was a first year first day kindergarten teacher when I hung up the cool stuff from the ceiling and it was hanging there y'all feel me and I was told that's a fire cold valy I asked where is it show me because I'm G keep it up there and I didn't care what the administrator said and frankly I challenged them I'm here to tell y'all what happens people call me when they're fire cour there are people who come down and do fire inspections it's a third party fire inspector for our region and they going to
047schools not just here but across our region they have a little secret book somewhere I have not asked to look for it I just trust them because what I do know is that the folks in state a will call me and will threaten to take away our building occupany certificate and we've come close on several occasions because we like to push we like to delay so please hear me if you're feeling the Heat and the pressure yes there are rules and there is language someplace I can find it for you if you really want to but I pushed the fire inspectors and I pushed our administrators we need to comply here or we will lose our building occupy certificates and no one will be able to come and I do know of other superintendents who've
048had to deal with this issue and there are weeks before young people and adults can get back into the building because for some reason all of a sudden the requests go into a queue y'all feel me let's not play this game when the fire code violations come and they ask us to do these things we got to do it un or we can be facing other significant problems and now that you asked I will now try to find those that private little secret book that I've wondered about for the last 30 years and put it in front of you all right uh and finally algebra math or another time Loop conversation I'm looking for forward to our review and ongoing conversations here it's been one that we've all spent a lot of time discussing but
049I I want to clarify because I heard something that I want to make sure I um push against what we do with our mathematics program is as much for the elite students and the best mathematics students in our school district in the country as for anyone else so let's be clear about not saying that what we did with mathematics a few years ago was to promote Equity or for those who have modulized by program having looked at the research talked to the folks at the National Council for mathematics teachers and our own Educators what we've done with mathematics to increase the understanding conceptual understanding of mathematics and the ways in which we've done it benefits the the elite and exceptional students as much as anybody else so let as we talk about this let's talk
050about how we're doing it for everyone and it's not an equity initiative it supports our Equity approaches but it's for mathematics instruction and achievement and deep understanding of mathematical Concepts that's why we did it and frankly that's the only way we were able to survive such a significant shift here because it benefits everybody time Loops I love them thank you all for this opportunity to share thank you okay now I believe we're gonna have some discussion about our efforts continuing efforts to Electrify our bus got a presentate he's coming back press anybody else thank you for the microphone thank you Trisha I'm gonna I'm going to wander around if that's okay thank you for the opportunity to talk about capital projects electric buses um and capital project referendum so I'll be going through uh kind
051of three main topics in this conversation one is a very brief overview of the capital improvement process for those of you who may have not been through it before uh then we'll talk about electrification of the bus fleet and that will lead us to a decision Point around an upcoming referendum vote everybody want introduce yourself oh yes thank you my name is Christopher Glitz I'm a senior project manager at tetratech Architects and Engineers we have been uh delighted to have been helping the district since I think 2018 um and helping the district prepare for the 2019 referendum um and doing the um $120 Million worth or so of capital projects since then so we are very excited to continue that conversation okay I'm going to go through this and I think it doesn't Advance on
052your slide so I'm gonna be kind of looking up here and and I'll try to describe so if you want to follow along uh so this um so ICD uh has a portfolio of buildings uh you own and operate a little more than 1.1 million square feet and about 260 some acres worth of property right so as we think about Capital project improvements we survey all that stuff and um we have a process I'm not going to get into in too much detail here but generally uh we plan a project um and then it goes into the design process sometimes those overlap when there's comfort that um the public vote that you see in that green bar um that there's a lot of confidence in that and so sometimes we uh we start design before
053that so that we can get things done in a as quick a time frame as as we can uh we do design we do have to submit to the New York State education department for approval they are the folks that give you those building permits and those certificates of occupancy that Dr Brown was talking about earlier so do have to to get their approval um and then we go into construction so for um generally for projects that public school districts in New York state need to um need to complete they have to bid them publicly so there there are some rules uh around how that needs to happen okay the and feel free if you have questions or comments feel free I'll be trying to look around and see if anybody U wants to jump
054in with anything um this graphic on the right talks about some of the ways that information is gathered um and uh processed basically uh there there Google forms there's let's talk there are meetings like this one where we get input from the community uh that typically is vetted through executive team members and um and administrative group we have the oacm meeting that's owner architect construction manager those are the three uh entities that really make capital projects happen uh those happen on a monthly basis a lot of decisions are made in those meetings um at a at a kind of nitty-gritty level um but also you know we take some direction from the folks that are at those meetings um as to what you know what direction we're going to move in and what studies we
055want to do and what uh what additional work we want to look into um obviously we have facility committee meetings meetings like the Board of Education here um and obviously the voters do input on on some of the things and we've seen some uh recent input from the voters on on some ebus items um so what what is not on this um you you can see on the left hand side many of the groups that we talk to as we're planning projects and designing them uh you don't see here is the state of New York which does have some requirements as well among them EV buses so this is a little bit of a background around the efforts that Ithaca City School District has been been undertaking uh over the last you know couple years
056to prepare for and start to implement the conversion to uh electric buses that has been Mand by the state of New York uh started back in 2020 when uh you know the picture on the right uh was part of that that uh last project referendum and in one of the in the first phase of that um added Paving and did some improvements to to your bus lot one of the things we did at the time um couple of the previous board members said you know there's than hearing this thing about like electric buses I don't I don't know if it's going to happen I don't know what's going on with it but while we're digging this place up let's just put some conduits in and maybe that'll help us in the future well it it
057is helping us right now um and we'll talk a little bit about why that's that that's helping that spare conduit um in 2022 the Mandate came out we started uh planning some uh Capital project efforts to support the procurement of electric buses uh November there was a um an electric bus that came and and maybe some of you saw it uh they had the frunk open and was took a little drive around um to understand you know a little bit more about about the buses and how they work uh this calendar year uh we did the the district solicited and received uh Fleet analysis which is one of the very first really important steps in assessing uh your current bus routes current bus technology um and modeling out um on a really detailed level um
058what that means uh for implementing buses that was done by um another party uh Paul Hera um then of course there was the budget the budget vote proposition 2 which was uh overwhelmingly supported by the community uh to procure electric buses um then we you know we continued it on with capital Project work submitting to NYSEG for um for the service request that's your electrical utility um four Chargers were installed this past summer so um down out at the bus garage then you've had EB buses delivered uh you have five currently um in your Fleet in um last month we open bids for the next group of four Chargers so uh pretty soon you'll have eight chargers at your central bus uh Depot there is also a charger at Caroline Elementary School and at Enfield
059Elementary School that have recently been installed and we're getting those online right now we have also just started design on what we're calling stage two you'll see a little bit more detail about that in a moment uh which is uh the project that will bring sort of the full full electrical service in Electrify your whole Fleet and get that infrastructure in there so this is an early um idea about how we were going to Stage this project um in the early days as we were trying basically to figure out uh uh you're you're getting EB buses when are you getting these EBS okay let's get some Chargers going quickly so we had to we had to um get creative with with finding some power on a on a quick basis um recently there was a
060presentation to uh the superintendant across the state of New York at the recent conference our very own Amanda verba was among the uh the the panelists um to talk about experience the districts have had um and also we we had the director of uh facilities planning Sarah Madison in attendance as well present presenting there as well as Vincent rashika from nerta so um some state level folks who are uh tasked with actually implementing this um weighing in on on how that's going uh some of you recognize Liz fox as well um former Transportation director who who really did a lot of great work to get this initiative going and and do the first steps uh that that Mr vuran here is is continuing on so I want to spend just a minute on this graphic
061it's a lot of lines and things but we um we developed this and and my colleague Ed burow here this is the moment to introduce Ed uh he's helping me with this he he helped um get this get this graphic together I want to start in 2026 um there's that that blue bar that is the EPA round two bus procurement timeline and at the right hand side of that there's like a dashy Line St um kind of pointing down so the blue line is how many buses you have electric buses you have um and are anticipated to have so we wanted to to sort of plot that out and say okay you've got you know you've got five right now and assuming you're going to procure a few more at the next uh May budget
062vote okay probably there's going to be two more we'll assume two a year if you are successful in this EPA Grant application you're going to get 15 buses so that's why that blue line goes up really Steep and we said we that's a critical point we need to stay ahead of that and so we work backwards in time to plan projects right so if we know we want to we want to have keep that green line which represents your charging capacity in number of chargers we want to keep that green line above the blue line all right we're we're as Architects and designers we visual people like the green line above the blue line and that helps us keep track of things um so at the top we have some bars of uh project duration
063and so um that pink bar at the top which says nice egg service upgrade so we're dealing with a state agency which is an electrical utility um and yes it takes two years to get a trans former out on the site so that's that's based on uh the review by that state agency they're in control of Designing um you know what pole the power comes off what the Transformer is going to be they own that or will own that U Transformer and then um Downstream from that that the district owns the infrastructure uh so they're in control of that process and contextualize this how many buses total do we have in our Fleet you have 88 buses currently yeah thanks um uh and then if you've had to try to attempt to buy an electrical
064Transformer since Co started you'll know that it takes like a year to order one of these things or more um so again backing up we're we we kind of figured out that we need to start a project we need to do the things um to design and submit to NYSEG uh to stay on a schedule to set you up for Success if you're if you get those 15 buses um through that EPA Grant this project uh all right so let's keep going all right so just to be clear um currently the buses that you have are being charged by your existing electrical infrastructure so on the left there we have the little building the the amount of power that you have um in your building there's a there's a little bit of Excess power and
065basically we've done the analysis and we're kind of Scavenging all that power uh through that conduit that we put in a couple years ago to charge those first eight buses and that sort of bridges you until we can get this larger Capital project done in that two years to get that Transformer on site and and all that infrastructure in so that would be that would be um stage two so to give you a sense of scale of the electrical service uh currently you have a 200 amp you have 200 uh 200 amp service we'll be bringing in a 3,000 amp service so that you know kind of gives you an idea of um what you're building building operates on right now and what we'll be bringing in to charge all your electric buses and that
066would be uh that would be sized for the entire sort of buildout of the electric Fleet so this is a little bit of I think this is an older slide but this is a preview of a decision that we're going to come back to in a few minutes this is kind of a preview and I'll tell you a little bit more about bus garages in a moment so um at um teeing up to a referendum vote in potentially in May um there are a couple options that we'd like to talk about so I'm GNA just kind of go through them very quickly um and we can think about them as I'm talking for a couple more minutes and we're going to come back to this um one is that is basically an infrastructure level project
067which is what we've started designing and keeping it at that point that's that's around a $15 million uh project um a next the next um option that we'd like to to recommend is around that $40 million option and that would be if you want to do your bus garage create a new bus garage as well as part of that um and then um Amanda verba and others have have consulted with the district's fiscal advisers and done an analysis of Debt Service um and what can be supported um and and have determined that sort of not to exceed 125 million is something that would continue to be supported um as Debt Service rolls off I don't know Amanda if you want to talk any more about that at this time but um that's a that's a
068metric that has been vetted minut super okay so that's that's a decision that let's kind of keep in the in the back of our minds for a moment um I want to talk a little bit about the bus garage itself as we're thinking about you know what what sort of capital project improvements um make sense to do at this time so um there's a picture of the bus garage it's no alhamra it's a little bit old not from the 1200s but the 1960s um and it's been it's been serving you very well for many many years um at the top we see that original site plan uh included 26 buses right so 88 buses now gives you a sense of um what your facility was originally designed to support and what it actually is supporting
069today um and you think like wow that's um to to the uh to the credit of the administration and and uh Transportation directors and all the folks that have uh kept this facility um performing at the level that it needs to for the district um we as part of um a cycle required by New York state but also um requested by The District in a little more detail than what the state requires um is a facility evaluation uh so some of you have seen this document we go through every building in your district and we write up observations and put numbers to them and and do the analysis so that when we're planning a capital project we have this library of uh they're sort of more nuts and bolts items typically that we can go
070to and we we can um attempt to anticipate when things are going to wear out so we can replace them uh before they do so um so we do we do have that analysis of course uh there is some of the things that that come up on the existing building is there's some older Roofing there are all these original items that are from again from the 1960s that are still serving you very well but are aging let's just say um and and we're designed in a time when we don't we didn't have to operate under a lot of the uh code requirements that we do right now like accessibility like fire alarms and things like that um obviously you have more staff in that building to operate a much larger Department you don't have bigger
071offices so there's some really inherent um uh features of the building that we'd want to improve if um if we were to attempt to to save that building and improve it which is which is definitely an an option um so this is the scope of what we're what we're currently designing I'm not going to go through it all but just to say that the pink is the electrical infrastructure stuff you got Transformers you got switches you got the all the conduit and and about half of the wiring not going to stick all the wiring in and let it sit for 10 years until you get those those last of your ebes um there are a number of chargers obviously to charge the buses that's part of the capital project uh there are a few other
072facility enhancements um some canopies that would go over the front of the buses uh that will collect some solar energy to be able to charge the buses uh there's if you've been out to the site there's a relatively old storage building that's uh ready for Demolition and a couple other things on on the scope um this is just a graphic representation if you want to kind of understand on the site uh where we're proposing things to to happen we did study in a very uh a very you know kind of quick way in terms of um uh just sort of uh proof of concept could a could a uh slightly expanded bus garage facility fit on that site um and could we do it in a way so you could build it in one area
073the site keep your existing facility online and then you know and switch over so we're just just really high level trying to see would it would it even fit um and we think we could we could do it all on that site um so back to the that decision point so I'm not sure if we want to transition the discussion here um or maybe I can do this slide and then the next slide which talks about uh the schedule uh so here we are in the middle of November um if if you would like to have a vote in May which is the custom at ICD it's not a state requirement but is it is what the community um typically um has experienced from from the district um we you know we have a good
074month to figure out the scope of work um and we could then start our communication cycle to the uh to the community um and prepare for a vote in May another option could be if you want to consider a vote at another time of the year um that would give some more time to uh to vet those options and develop the scope of work um that scope of work if you're considering a larger project I just want to mention that they're over the last year or more um in oacm meetings and other meetings there have come up uh certainly a long list of needs that have been articulated by different departments um your health um and wellness Department right many of your nurses are working in spaces that were designed in the 60s and in
075the 70s and are not accessible and you know don't have space to address mental health uh court for example um there's always Roofing and boilers there is um a lot of communications systems uh from fire alarms to clocks and public address systems which are a safety feature in schools that are uh that are really aging out so we we sort of collected the information that we did in the facility evaluation and came up with uh you know eight or n million dollars worth of that districtwide there's Paving um I'd like to introduce a colloquial construction term um uh dead alligatoring so if you go and you uh it's an evocative term for the pattern that you see in Asphalt when it's starting to fail uh we see um a couple million dollars worth of asphalt
076paving that could happen at um at kuga Heights Elementary School if you've driven there and um trying to avoid those potholes so there are many just practical nuts and bolts uh facility items um that go um that that are documented um so if we're considering a larger capital project I just wanted to speak a little bit to the fact that we're kind of getting ahead of some of those things and organizing thinking around what a capital project would include we recently met with Northeast Elementary School a school that has a wonderful enrollment uh issue which is we have a lot of kids in this building right so how are we going to support them to be able to have all the spaces that they need to deliver the kind of curriculum kind of education that
077uh the Ithaca can deliver uh so I could go on and on there's there's a long long list of things that we've studied U but just want to convey that um $125 million might seem like a lot but we absolutely have a head start on determining what a scope of work would be uh so with that I think I'll open it up or hand them pass the mic to someone else if if you'd like to questions reactions to what you've heard this evening and maybe well while you thinking uh going not going back to the slab because that was not how I would have liked to have seen it represented I'm thinking more like three options a b and c a more like $15 million but we're making some incremental improvements uh B where we
078are looking at only a transportation facility to um accommodate 88 buses when we have a space that was built to accommodate 26 and then C and I want our community to hear this um C is more about a technical and fiscal conversation as it is um about the Deferred maintenance that we are faced with each and every day um at that same conference you mentioned earlier that superintendent conference I had the privilege of sitting there and having been through a strategic approach by the Board of Education to navigating maintenance issues and needs in a way where we've kept our TA tax rate while tax rate's gone down and we've maintained a consistent approach to Debt Service around 7% um I sit on another board in our community with a large budget where we have not
079done that so kudos to this board for being strategic to think about how to use state aid and fiscal advisors to maintain a level set when it comes to our Capital project and improvements and being thoughtful because hey as soon as we're finishing project we should have already had another one approved because it's a bit of a 10year cycle and now Having learned how long it takes to get things into the queue get them approved it's about it takes about four or five years so yes we should as a community be thinking about our next Capital project if we want to have your superintendent sit in a meeting with hundreds of others who have not thought that way who are freaking out because not thinking like the way we are would look like a significant
080increase into the tax burden it would look like us not generating re Vue on state aid it would look like us having deferred maintenance where our rules are leaking and our spaces are Antiquated and we have facilities that were built in the 1960s and have not expanded so that's my way of saying I love this board and the way you have been thinking about approaching capital projects and option C would incorporate a new facility and the other maintenance deferred maintenance issues that we have in our organization and would because of great fiscal planning would keep our approach to budgeting consistent and comparable without a significant tax rate increase and this is me trying to explain it as a late person because I've been educated by some of the best in the business and it would
081help us continue to generate Revenue in the ways in which we've been doing to offset other expenses so it's just Smart Financial Planning a b and c not a a CD and a D I think it was a b and c is what I would like to propose and a recommendation for us to think and consider strongly see because I think we're at that place now that also pushes us as Chris said it and I don't know if everybody heard it we have about a month to think about what this will look like before we'll start our road shows which we've done in the past around January to help our community understand why and how and what we're thinking about with hopes that we will put this in front of our community in May hope
082that was I I drove that out as long as I could to give youall a chance to really think about the questions you want to ask okay I'll just say those of us who have been doing this long enough we have seen our neighbors and other school districts in this state have to try to override the task cap significantly to fix deferred maintenance override the task cap significantly to try and catch up with um uh medical and uh benefit costs and yeah I could go on but uh to Dr Brown's point we have tried very hard to Corral the things we can so in those days where we have to override anything it's always going to be about teaching and learning that's the goal to keep as much money in our budget focus on compensation
083and teaches and learning and as we have discussed now in finance for a couple of meetings our margins are thin so we have to be um brugal and wise um given that pretty much all of our buildings are very old have we ever explored I I know that we do not want to consolidate to one building and we love our community schools but I wonder I mean being in some of these schools every day if there's ever a plan to kind of shut a school down to completely rebuild is that I mean thinking about Northeast and there's a new development growing and it's already bursting at the seams I mean is that something that's ever in the plan yes we thought weekly we thought about this all right um the last superintendent who said that
084didn't say we thought about it just said yes we've explored it and it was reported that we were doing it so I would say we we uh we commissioned a steud years ago to look at what different configurations will look like in our school Community to include the closure of self particular buildings um so we have that information and that we even looked at what it would look like to uh build on newer sites um or other sites I.E BOS flash um and do something with bjm like so we looked at explored all those we can dust off the previous study can commission a new study um at this time in no way are we recommending doing anything like that because that would be I don't know the last you every day you look at
085what it would cost to build new elementary and middle and high school buildings there's significant cost particularly at this current in in this current state so we could explore that the cost savings we found before were minimal um but that's me quoting a study that was done probably about eight were you here when happen it was before you so that would have been eight man I am in time Loops today um it would have been almost a decade ago when we did that study and we found at the time um that there were minimal savings if looking to closed buildings and open buildings and we also know the community um resistance there would be because that had happened with the previous administration we even Explore this opportunity to follow up on that I because I
086don't explain myself well sometimes I'm thinking temporarily shut and move a school to say okay say northeast to completely Remodel and build up have students go elsewhere while that happens to to do that and then there was the other question was kind of along with that because it feels like every school has is so old that we're going to forever be in this Capital project Loop forever because there's no way to just like catch up with with what needs to be done or and I mean that's my yeah yeah I think even with a new building you're still going to be in a loop because you have a brand new roof or mechanical system system and that buys you some time but there's always a cycle of you know re refreshing and bringing things up
087to code and and replacing equipment that wears out um but the option of shutting a school down temporarily to and relocating to build is that something we've ever considered or would it be worth it we looked at the uh what are the mobile units trailers which we'll be using those in the near future significant cost associated with that um but that is an option we could explore and we've used them in the past I remember touring the ones at do it tning the ones at at at BO we've done that before we had kids out in these beautiful Western looking trailers while we fix something using them in the future yeah is part of the plan um for our existing Capital project to have some don't remember details some to just be a little more
088specific about that the the current uh Capital project that is happening at Etha High School this building to replace a lot of the mechanical equipment increase the lak source cooling that's coming to this building um will require enough classrooms to be displaced that and we and we talked with with Mr Trumble and Martha Hardesty and other leaders um of itha high school to try to find swing space and so yes we are using temporary classroom facilities as a temporary measure for swing space so that we can get that project done and then get everybody back into the building can I ask Dr Brown so you mentioned can we go back to the slide that has the the ABC d and e so explain to me a little bit help me understand how your you mentioned
089an AB and C how it maps onto this or does not or it expands it or I'm think well looking at this I'm thinking b d and e I'm sorry I may have B and E so I guess my question just because uh Dr Bradwell um mentioned just some initial thoughts about this I'm looking at the differences between c and d and seeing the main differences are kind of one that includes uh larger square footage for maybe projected needs in the future is that a correct understanding speak to thear yeah thanks yeah the um so the the difference is so in in option C we we um it says match existing square footage so we said all right if you were just to build the same square footage that you would just so we could
090sort of compare apples to apples um between sort of ABC um but then option D in this slide would actually provide a facility that we think has an appropriate square footage for the operations that happen out of the that building and also um incorporate your grounds Department into which makes a lot of sense currently um it's situated right next to your Athletic Field um and so within with you know in in a lot of these meetings that I talked about before one of the things that comes up uh relatively frequently is having storage out by your facilities uh by your athletic facilities so in discussion we determined oh it could be a good idea to be able to turn over that existing structure to a use that uh um that it's Lo would rise to
091um and take that department and integrate it back in with transportation and some of the other functions that are happening in a different site already um you're already driving your mowers around you're already M maintaining they got to drive it over the bus garage to do maintenance right so let's just put it there so that was kind of the thinking around those those those two options the expanded square footage so the expanded square footage is for the most part responding to current needs as opposed to forecasting future needs and see kind of both yeah okay um providing a a bus garage for your current needs absolutely adding grounds into that as well to improve your ability to okay you know to have an athletic complex that that's just more um gives you more amenities okay
092okay so follow-up question maybe this is a conversation for another meeting but I'm curious as to how um anticipating future needs is done are we looking at a population projection are we looking at I'm just really I guess what we've learned about how physical facilities use has shifted I mean in the last three or four years just I mean you think of like the entire retail space and and corporate facilities are experiencing less of a need that's not like directly translatable to education but I'm just curious as to how the forecasting process goes like how do you how do you tell the future and what will be building wise good question yeah during the design process we absolutely look at the existing uh and we we interview folks we talk with everybody in the district
093who you know needs to be a part of that and we do try to anticipate oh we see this thing coming down the road we uh we know we're going to need another administrator for that let's let's either build in a space that is flexible maybe like a large meeting room that could be subdivided or let's just throw another office in or or whatever so yeah we definitely have those conversations um as we're designed and yeah it's Crystal Ball you know what's that what's that balance between uh trying to anticipate a future need and you know maintaining a a the right sizing for a building or for a system so those are those are in um you know in contrast sometimes and but in this situation it's New York State mandates somewhat or that um
094by 2035 we have to have electric vehicles replaced so that's one thing that should always pop up in each of these slides to remind us and remind the public what the Mandate is I was quite surprised to see um an option e added because at the facilities committee last time we only had three four but I I'm in agreement with if we could consolidate to three options especially if we're presting to the public in the community to narrow it down absolutely I apologize the slide wasn't updated as as we had discussed um but yeah that is absolutely 40 million is negligible in terms of Debt Service I was just saying the difference between 32 and 40 million is NE negligible in terms of debt service that we would have to pay I have a few
095thoughts I'm going to share at this point um I've been in a lot of these meetings not all of them but a lot of them and I think given the fourth or fifth time around here I'm getting it um and I see a lot of the arguments I understand replacement schedules and things deteriorating out over time I would see the whole big various needs identified or the pig and a poke option as I would call option C as it's currently presented here as something that we would be looking at um perhaps for the next Capital project if we're focused on electric vehicles if we're focused on our Transportation infrastructure I think we should be looking at that I don't think we should be trying to pull in everything else that we might want in the
096district or might need in the district simply because it's a capital project and we have a lot of very generous taxpayers we also have a lot of very upset people who have paid their tax bills recently their school tax bills recently and 125 million as opposed to the 40 million is a huge leap when we're not seeing itemized um itemized Arguments for what we're talking about we're talking about contracts being regot renegotiated next year um there's no way I could support option C at this point frankly option b is a stretch for me but I you know spent enough time looking around the bus garage um that I agree that it that it does need to be replaced um and needs to be brought up to speed but to to go beyond that without a
097whole lot more information about exactly what we'd be getting for that money even though it's Capital project money and it gets funded differently and we want to keep spending so that we don't fall behind I get it but there's no way I could support option C at this point and Jill to be clear you're looking at option C on your computer or on this slide as it up here I'm looking at you know as Eldred said between 32 and 40 it's kind of a but you're not as much comfortable with the 125 million that's unitemized as far as it's allocation yeah okay I I think replacing the bus garage I think obviously the ebus infrastructure um and the bus wash have all been well documented and make a lot of sense yeah I just ask
098because there are different versions of the slides and yeah sometimes different numbers areally thanks for that clarification Katie yeah I'll if I could just point out that um in the 2019 referendum the strategy was to uh flesh out the first couple phases in more detail and allow the rest of that to be responsive to the needs that that come up during the district um cycle the educational um advancements because if we were to try to figure out what's going to happen uh to K's Point earlier um 10 years down the road do we know what pedagogical improvements we want to make in our district so um I think there was a there was a lot of discussion last time around it and um I think intention around defining what we can in the next few
099Cycles um and then allowing uh the rest of that referendum amount to to be responsive I don't know if anybody else who went through that has an opinion about it as a strategy yes and I do have something that we would have been thinking about uh what phase are we in now four five four five when we're looking at um building entrances and we're looking at some things that our community has expected we would have been going out for approval in the midst of a pandemic had we not done that approval in 2018 so no one can predict the future um um what we can speak to is how we are managing finances and keeping the a consistent approach to what we're asking our taxpayers for um again and we can have this conversation each
100and every year and go back to our taxpayers with very detailed proposals and we could be doing that in the midst of something we can't foresee so I get the risk but Al there is a strategy associated with them that's why I was asking just I'm going to guess that you've looked at this but just in due diligence I want to ask if if we're thinking about constructing the new building have we looked at and dismiss the possibility that it' be somewhere else I mean because we're doubling down on a location that was chosen in 1967 things have changed and I also just wondering it's a very big District so I understand the benefits of centralization but also having buses distributed throughout the district so they're closer to where they need to go I just
101have we looked at it um yes we have um I'll say the dword which is Danby at this point which is always something that comes up as a as a site which has um unlike many of your sites that are centrally located within your District does have some acreage that one could conceive of of building a new facility but it's way out there right so um one of the things that we're going to start studying that we've talked about at oacm meetings and other other items is um is studying your District um looking one at your electrical infrastructure building by building and looking at your sites uh from like a site planning perspective to look at um whether it does make sense to do like satellite charging facilities for example that was the context that
102we that we thought it might be um more relevant to study and see does it make sense to you know charge a certain number of buses somewhere um more far flung from the center and bring them back to the depot for servicing and that sort of thing uh which is why we um we do have a charger at Caroline and one at Enfield because those are um those are kind of out there and we can use that that charging in that location to help uh the electric buses get around and do what they need to do so to Garrick's Point actually one last question with the FEMA flood planes um updated and much more substantial around itha is that do we know how that might impact icsd properties and anything we need to do to
103prevent damage um we are required when we submit capital projects to look at those uh FEMA flood maps um and we've done that for for this campus um and there are actually different zones just across this campus um I'm not aware that the bus garage facility is in a zone that is impacted um or frankly any of your other buildings um yeah so that is something that we do have to look at next tonight no votes tonight all right tonight was informational yeah so uh Thursday we have facilities committee at 5:00 and then that immediately is followed by um finance committee and what um both committees have agreed to is doing an overlap starting at 6:15 we will actually have fiscal advisors um come and present to us um and so that's Ben mesona will
104be the representative and he's the person who really is kind of the studier of our debt service of um interest rates right um what we can afford for premium interest the way state aid rolls in um as a revenue source and he's that out and he's going to explain um much better than I ever could right how that Debt Service financing Works regardless of the threshold of millions of dollars that you choose right because the reality is whenever we get voter approval that's not when sort of the the timing starts it's when we first secure our debt and debt can um be secured um even for a very large project in portions we would never go out for the full hundred million we're not doing that now right you only are allowed to secure debt
105for what the construction is that is approved at the state aid office um in New York State education department and so um the the reason why we want to give you those three options and again my apologies for that slide being the wrong slide there was a three option slide that um that we that we were hoping to utilize um any one of the options that you choose it's really about the timing not about the total amount right it's about the timing that we would um design submit to State Ed get approval from State Ed go and bid that work whether we accept that bid for that work or not right because if it's off budget we go back out um and then we secure um the financing that could be through um government entities
106like dasne which is what we're using right now the D dormatory Authority or through more traditional um where Banks would bid on on those um bands or bonds right bands are shorter term they're five years bonds are long term we've utilized both depending on on the market factors so so that'll be the next step first and foremost because we have to build an understanding of confidence of what we would all then go to the voters for right and then we also have to build the language and um the definitions of the terms to be able to explain it when people are asking us questions and also at facilities we'll be constantly looking at this one thing that I don't know if it was mentioned I do really want to be very clear that electrical load
107that you're talking about we cannot do that without also thinking about solar because it is not that is not a good um pathway for us to just put everything onto the grid we actually have to think about mechanisms to support that grid by utilizing solar and the plan right now is um every one of those at the bus garage is thinking about our spaces that are parking lots asphalt spaces where we have those canopies of solar that would feed into that grid so then that way we can also support the energy in that in that as well so I think that was one thing that I really just wanted to also um support because it sounds like we're taking a lot from the system but we actually really are also trying to think about ways
108um for environmental sustainability I'll just add uh Amanda in the very low interest interest world that we have been living for living in for a while we uh took some calculat risks right in those bans and bonds and and did well by our taxpayers and and saved uh close to $10 million on that first1 million Bond of which we then invested in thank God we invested that in uh in uh internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure was served us well when the sugar honey IC te hit the fan um in this new interest environment I will say I'm out of my depth and trying to figure out you know how to roll so very interested in what they're going to tell us this is a whole new [Music] world thank You' all thank you thank you appreciate
109it and I just want to say this is our a discussion of the hard sh flag resolution or the proposed action regarding theing and we had a uh presentation at our last board meeting we had some time for our response but we really didn't have time for uh generating a lot of questions and there are questions and also the fact that Sean has very much taken the lead on this and he's not here um so the notion is that we will have some discussion of what we understand is being proposed and what questions we have about what is being proposed and then we will go from there to try to answer questions uh nailed down a proposal that we would eventually vote so I'm opening the floor for discussion so as I am quickly fading
110here still recovering from a very bad flu let me just say this and I'm going to step away and get some rest I had a chance to in the past um I have mentioned or other people have mentioned that although we want to do right by the Six Nations there is some conflict within one of those Nations the kuga nation and the conflict is between those who support the traditional leadership who has uh uh been in relationship with the Bureau of IND Indian Affairs for decades and a more traditional style of leadership I spoke to the leader the consent leader of the more traditional side and he deres his power from a group of Elder women and based on the conversations that we had today and I took the uh responsibility because Johan was unavailable
111we need to slow down just a bit until we hear from him there's some very specific things about the height of the flag apparently they supposed to be equal about the need for it to be in its own own poll and there were some things I just was not clear on that he was telling me that maybe Shawn has had discussions with Kate about but as I suspected they want to talk to us to make sure we are doing this in the most appropriate way that satisfies the young people but also doesn't disturb uh their expectations for their tradition they who in this case they want to talk to us they is the the the individual who's representing the more traditional elements of that tribe as opposed to the the side who gets the publicity
112is a side again under the offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs apparently for the cugas that is not the only player as we've seen some of the um some of the incidents take place up in the senica area there's conten between groups and the group who repres claims to be representing the queen mothers as they're called their representative wants to have more communication with us about how we um represent that flag and I I told him I'm not against it Sean's not against it they've apparently been discussing in discussions before so I invited him to come talk to all of us so we're all on the same page well I mean one thing that that was mentioned that uh during the presentation I think what lay out but it certainly is something that I've
113read about with my understanding that that it seemed like the proposal was because if our high school has flag polls we would fly the proposal would be to fly the um B sh flag on a second flag pole and um there are I believe they're Federal Regulations about the position of any other flag a different flag poll in relation to the US flag from its flag po yes so we would have to be clear about that um and then if uh if we are If part of and idea is that we would add flag polls at all of our buildings to be able to flag the flag flag on a separate flag poll we need to have some understanding of of the cost of that and the logistics look that if there space how would
114it happen how soon could it all yeah we're waiting into some details here that we need to learn more about apparently uh from the nation's perspective all indigenous Nations they they really blanch at the idea of having their flag underneath an American flag whether or not it's on a separate poll because the treaties say they're Sovereign Nation so these are the kind of things that I don't want to set Dr Brown up I want to set us up to be in the middle of uh of us things here so the more we learn the better off we'll be would there be any interest in Sid stepping the flag issue for now and moving forward quickly on some sort of large plaque or explanatory thing obelis whatever that would say you know we're on the land
115that was traditionally used by K whoever else been so Confederacy I I I just think there's there's information that's good information our educational facility that maybe we you know look at putting up something that explains the the history and and why it's important to acknowledge previous inhabitants like a long form permanent Landing knowledge that that's what I'm wondering just one of my reactions to that is that that I found the presentation very educational um and what really fit me was the way that the presenter explain the significance of a flag and particularly this flag the meaning it has um it represents sovereignty over the L that's what FL um and this particular Flag represents peace and and how five actually Six Nations eventually came together and pledged peace and the the the flag which wein
116to represent their PL so um you just something that the presentation really uh hit that home but I think you know there more discussion to yes because I I want us to be careful not to insult individuals who came here with a request and not to um we're not trying to Sid step in any which way so we just have to get more information about the flag the position and as Eldred had just educated us on too so just you know somebody some of the paid staff could get us some information about what school um how many flags yeah we and what other flags are we any yeah we've captured the questions that were raised uh we will gather some additional information we most likely will be connecting with the young people who present to
117hear their perspectives and thank you Jill for that recommendation um there may be an opportunity for both and or an either or an either or but again that's something I had not previously thought about um which could be something that they would want us to do in addition to um or instead of we'll see but we have the questions we will uh bring more information back to you as I'm understanding this this item is table correct do you have to vote to table it no I mean it's listed as an action I mean as a discussion got it so um we discuss so I don't think we need uh further discussion and then uh item 11.3 the social media class action lawsuit and so you're gonna give us a little information about that somebody the
118memo was in board dos correct we provided a memo with back information and uh Miss tal and I are looking at each other because we neither one of us like to speak for attorneys that was carefully crafted by our attorneys as far as the the background information um I am open to engaging in discussion and thoughts about it but I want to make sure folks understand technically what's happening do we want to uh do people have questions that we want to take note of and then we can come back to our attorney that and yeah and if there discussion um folks's initial reactions to a class action lawsuit against a social media company by a school district I have strong feelings about it but I would love to hear others thoughts around that topic as
119well I think this is just the beginning I I think this is going to be like big tobacco and we're going to see that they have information about how dangerous this is and we're we're just at the tip of the iceberg I don't I mean I don't I would like to actually I I don't know what to make of this particular document and US joining it I'd like to hear my colleagues opinions but I I think there's going to be more of this a lot more where is it's in um du under the 11 because I I for anyone that's viewing or will View later can someone summarize what the lawyer said I I don't I am not that person but um um maybe it's in front of me I have some professional experience summarizing
120basically uh um that uh hundreds of law law that recently be filed on behalf of school districts across the country against various um social media entities and the the in short the lawsuits claimed that uh they have sought to maximize propess by targeting Youth and that in effect they have become what's called uh yes a public nuisance yes um the lawsuit seek injuncted relief request in that current practices of companies we called that are modified and lastly lawsuits test financial compensation to each affective School District so each School District that signs on our the law firm that represents us was approached by another law firm and they are joining with with other the friends group on a contingency fee basis which means of the uh School District parties would be fronting any money if they
121join this lawsuit that the attorneys would only be paid if they're Suess successful in obtaining um a judgment a financial judgment um and uh so it's similar to what was recently settled with Jewel lab regarding vaping product um so our law from has entered into Co com agreement with this California firm and they are asking us who we want to get on board I think that's some that's good yeah thank you have a student question oh yeah hi um first of all is somebody who admittedly does get a little too consumed by Tik Tok I think that this is a pretty good idea so let me just start with that um I do have some questions in terms of the financial compensation and just policies in general so obviously well obviously or not obviously there
122like the financial compensation to me seems like the smaller issue I'm a little more concerned about what we as a district like if we win the lawsuit or just moving forward what are our um social media policies and regulations in envisioning to be and just how well you Dr Brown and the board feels that this lawsuit would impact or not impact our policies moving forward and what are those plans thank you great question always depend on young people to ask me the toughest questions and the ones that I don't want to answer publicly because as Professor Bradwell said as we plan for this agenda what I share now is probably going to get picked up nationally and I will be trolled um as I read this uh memo and I think about this lawsuit if
123we remove the word social and just leave the word media I think we are at the tip of what it's going to be big um and when I think about what was written here about excessive use um causing anxiety depression and other mental health issues there are a number of media Outlets that are contributing to that Heck if you if my children Google my name because of the media they will see things that will cause all of those things so I would suggest in Li of going after $8,000 which is probably what we would get or a little bit more as a result of such a suit along with hundreds of others um is to double down on our efforts to educate young people about critical thinking and empathy and Humanity because that is what
124we in the business of doing and I would much rather have our efforts focused on how do you consume misinformation and media in a way where you're thoughtful empathetic and uh using it to further humanity and not go after what is something that we don't even know how deep it would go we don't know the research associated with it and hey if we're going to sue Tik Tok and Twitter let's think about some other media sources that have put out misinformation that folks are looking at all day using to harm using to dehumanize using to hurt children so that's my thinking on it and hope that's printed because I'm not against I'm I'm not in favor of this distraction I'm in favor of us educating about critical thinking and how to use information to construct
125um love and loving environments not to destroy yeah um I I agree that definitely uh education about misinformation is like really important um especially considering the environment in which we live in which misinformation is really prevalent um and I also agree with Luc uh as somebody who has spent time on social media platforms um there are really Insidious um tricks I would say uh to to pull kids in especially younger kids um and or even teenagers uh and they're they're quite I would say quite effective um and some of them you may not even realize what's happening uh especially things like endless scrolling or um uh kind of of features within platforms that encourage you to log on multiple times a day or at certain times in the day um I think these are things
126that are very difficult to avoid uh especially at a teenage age um and I do just want to say I think it is important um to to play some kind of role maybe in in combating these things on a broader scale um considering that uh a lot of these tricks you know they put so much research into these things um and putting them together to kind of hook young people in and it's really difficult as a young person to recognize these things and avoid them where they're where they're totally engineered to pull you in if I could um what you just shared you looking at our communication leader up there and a communication team we were in a meeting just yesterday around our efforts as a school district and yes we are trying to pull
127you into our messaging every platform every website out there is looking to maximize and increase the number of clicks so let's again um while this lawsuit is about social media I can't think of an entity that is in attempting to use their platforms their media platforms to draw people in young people and adults do we um do we have a social media policy specifically and I don't even know what it would be but I mean have we explored I wonder if that's something we need to start looking at speaking of what you referenced I mean the district should consider how to address this within our policies we have a acceptable use policies we have uh instructional usage policies um what we're talking about right now is is an out a band potentially of social media
128platforms that's one policy I've seen from school districts all over the country and frankly that's a proxy because young people are finding ways to go past your meting but anyway so we could talk about banning certain things we block other things right now currently that we have deemed harmful to young people if our school district were to decide that media social media was harmful we could block it but then we would have to make decisions about do we block CNN do we block Facebook do we block Fox News local media sources and Twitter which ones do we block I think we have yes where's Zach yeah we blocked Facebook what's the C please Zach help me out up here brother somebody else needs to be quoted on this topic [Music] hi everyone uh Zack Lyn
129Chief Information officer so there's a a couple distinctions here um uh in terms when it comes to social media uh we're we have federal guidelines about uh how and what information students can have access to and so we have to set up uh filtering and filtering Services you know we we meet probably once a year in chat with students about why and how these are structured um and to your point about time Loops it's the same you know it's the same as our students um sort of go through our school system we have those conversations um sort of in educate new groups uh over and over so as it pertains to social media we don't have policies about student social media use other than um we can not um we would we're not allowed to
130dictate that a student use a thirdparty tool um and sort of give away their data so we have data guidelines and regulations New York State edlaw 2D speaks to that um so it could never be a required part of a course or anything like that we cannot limit the use of a students social media on their own time and in their own energy the uh document that we started out discussing here is really talking about uh the sort of the negative impact on sort of the the emotional state of folks who use it so that's not something we have the ability to block but within our our filtering system all the many of these social media tools are blocked particularly if they have uh the ability to access inappropriate content material so um in summation
131uh there's there's guidelines about how we share data and and what our students can use that's Ed law 2D um and then there's like the something called sipa which is the children's internet protection act uh which is a federal guidelines um and it limits how we access some of our federal monies um and that that's what requires filtering in our in our school system so those are sort of like the structural guidelines but to be very specific there's no guidelines about social media usage um for students in terms of like are they allowed to use it on their own time because that's not under our jurisdiction um but what we often come come back to in these discussions is the idea that what we do and how we act on social media is often a
132manifestation of uh things that go on in our real world and uh our counselors and all of our teams spent a lot of time trying to connect our students um and talk to our students and our teachers talk to our students about sort of connecting that uh virtual world with the real world and you know messaging someone repeatedly in a harmful way is much like bullying in real life right and often those are the same things so um it always comes back to sort of those conversations with our students and the sort of social emotional support that we provide which gets back to sort of where Dr Brown's headed on this I think that covered it questions I have another one thinking about professional development I don't expect our teachers to be extremely media Savvy
133in the way that like you and I are because it's our job do we have professional development offered for our teachers to like really dig into the nuances of how tough this is for for our students and Discerning fact from fiction but also you know the baiting and and how they're targeted I mean there's some things that I think if our teachers could learn more about they could then educate our students but I'm not sure they know everything so I think uh broadly speaking yes I know we've had some of our teacher Librarians lead groups um looking at sort of misinformation and how how that's spread a lot of it some of that learning actually comes as they go work with students um you know I know myself I've went into classrooms and talked about
134the different nuances of social media but then in even another sense a lot of our curriculum work is about looking at sort of content and media information from multiple lenses which is going to get you to a similar outcome but it may not be as specific well in our um policy 0115 R student harassment and bullying prevention and intervention regulation it does talk about training for um staff so that can be training against like the results of the impact of social media but I'm I'm not really in agreement with this statement because I'd like to know like who who is who is initiating it since it says school districts are getting involved not as school district initiated and and they said about the educational communities but yet what's the um date of behind when students
135actually go on social media is it during class time or more at home time or weekend time and all so so they they don't provide any of that information but yet they this document to me seems like it's trying to lure us to the side of going with it and the same social media impact that they're talking about yeah I agree um one thing that I have found particularly harmful in social media especially when I have seen it like harmful to me and to my friends is something that I know that other countries and other states are also exploring lawsuits against but it's kind of the use of filters the use of um not just appearance enhancement but the way that it's being used to kind of promote a I'm not entirely sure how to
136say it I'm sorry my vocabulary is not that large but um it's uh kind of promoting a singular quote unquote I don't believe this at all so but good or right body type or certain aspects of diet culture throughout recipes and you know again quote unquote I don't believe in this at all healthy alternative like I don't know Snickers and I think that that is also a an incredibly big issue that I'm not sure if it is addressed in this lawsuit but I definitely think that it should be included because it really is one of the most damaging things to student well not I want to say I don't I don't mean to generalize or sound unilateral but in my opinion is one of the most damaging things to student mental health thanks yeah sorry
137not to put um too fine of a point on it but I do think that there is somewhat of like a really a really important distinction between social media and um other forms of media uh just like recently um the Attorneys General of 33 States they're they're filing suit against um Instagram for many of the similar things and um there's uh claims like meta is knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook to addict children to platforms and um you you know they're citing substantial research that links Instagram and these other social media platforms to depression anxiety insomnia and kids so I think that um there's like a really important distinction to be made in between uh these social media platforms that are deliberately designing these uh features to keep pulling back kids um
138in contrast to maybe other social media platforms that are uh taking advantage of like the modern day of the internet but maybe not praying on uh vulnerable younger people if if I could just piggyback really quickly sorry I think it's also that when you get groups like this for social media that will try to manipulate children sometimes preventative measures are not enough obviously the idea would be that we could educate every student about how to avoid being prayed upon on the internet but I think the reality is that because strategies evolve so fast by the these corporations it's very difficult to keep up with that pace and so there is an argument to be made for more systemic intervention I think the difference that you got you all are pointing out is that General Media
139companies aren't trying to get people addicted to using them you know we don't like go and like I gotta I got to scroll CNN but we do feel that way about well I mean news junkies do do but no I mean the the the whole there's there's research that shows that the likes and the loves and the comments and engagement I mean it's all there to trigger your brain to want more more more and and and Facebook has made an initiative to try to get younger kids and have Facebook kids so there's there's a very specific danger to our youth when it comes to this that we we cannot ignore um I don't know if the lawsuit's the answer though yeah I want to say gra because I don't know that the lawsuit is the
140answer and I certainly don't think block is the answer and I'll just speak from having lived four years in Turkey where not just in schools but through the entire country much was blocked that you much me all kind good bad and indifferent uh as a teacher in a school and as an advisor to a student newspaper in that school where we could write about AB absolutely nothing controversial uh uh it was it was alarming um and just the story about blocking so country by YouTube was blocked when I official but when I would say to my students oh I I saw this YouTube video that I'd like to show you but I can't access it and they be like oh miss Lang don't you know the work around and three kids were would hop up
141and take over my computer and they would in seconds have what I was looking for that Disturbed me because it was this kind of General Countrywide acceptance of of people who wanted to access information that yeah but you know the government tries to keep us from doing it but it's not a big deal because we got the worker me um so this is obviously a really complex uh issue and I mean the lawsuits this one pager this is a one pager from our Law Firm just trying to summarize what is going on they've signed on to represent school districts in this class action suit um that what they're saying is they want to change the way some of these social media uh companies operate that would be the preventive piece and then they want to
142hit them in the pocket book uh by getting a financial judgment these companies have very very deep FS um and anything that we might benefit as an individual school district is a Pitt and I think that the the totality of what any of these companies would end up paying which is the same as as I believe is the case with the jewel suit is it doesn't hurt them at all and what teeth are there where does the teeth come from to get them to change what they did I believe in education anyone else I'm off my box yeah okay moving on uh so item 11.4 the ocm poy service contract is someone going to speak to us about it I can speak real quick that um that should probably just be moved to the consent
143agenda but I can speak to it real quick that's uh just a business item where we it's how we purchase Chromebooks uh much of the technology infrastructure those come through a couple times a year yeah and so but it will need to be an item that we vote on yeah but the way it is now we need a motion a second and a vote can vote on it now yeah okay yeah um then I move to enter five year service contracts with the onanda Portland Madison Board of Cooperative Educational Services fies in order to furnish certain services to the district pursu to education law 1950 for J a second any [Music] questions all in favor that's everybody who's still here we have another items 11.5 which involves legal notice of public hearing for district safety
144plan there are requirements for us to do this and uh um so I will entertain the motion Dan will come down um do you want to say anything let's get the motion on the table and then I motion to I move to direct the district clerk to prepare and publish legal notice of public hearing for district safety plan at 5: pm on December 14th 2023 at York lecture hall itha City School District barer Lake Street itha New York I no I was just going to say the timeline that we're going to post it uh today we're going to notify the eate journal tomorrow that starts the 30-day timeline and then we'll have a hearing on December 14th uh it'll be here in York lecture hall it'll be at five o'clock and it'll it will run
145for about 30 minutes that's all I really wanted to say all right all in favors that's everybody thank you everyone else moving right along 11.6 and 11.7 we'll vote on them separately but uh our athletic mergers both of them are for our AFA girls like ice hockey to merge with girls from uh first we'll look at the one for vest and I believe the the details are in board lot um and uh so let's do the motion and then we there any question Mo do you want it to be a double motion with em sure the of time I'm gonna I'm gonna try it okay a motion to approve athletic merger with Vestal School District and horsee heads school district for girls ice hockey for the 2023 2024 school year second a question or comment
146my only question is will this help us field a full team yes yes which has been something we want to do um we have expressed that when circumstances uh prevented us last year from uh filling a team and having a team and I'll just emphasize for public benefit in the attachment it says no scholar athletes will be displaced from the district that is already have a go that it's always about to goalie we're good it's uniform with all of our mergers that um if athletes will not be displaced by those from how does that work um people from Vestal they go back and forth or how do people get here or yeah they provide their transportation so they make their yeah they get here to participate they provide correct we don't we don't yeah we
147provide from here to games yeah from here to games and back here got get any other questions or comments all in favor that's everybody thank you okay and then we have uh item 11.8 which is policy 5500 um protection of privacy of student records for a second reading and adoption and we're gonna have a couple people come down and speak to this hi Katie Hart Public Information Specialist um we are looking at policy 5500 and so the main um addition to this policy would be um to change our um media clearance from an optin to an opt out um we've gone through and made um edits to all of the grammar um and fix all the capitalization issues within the policy um and separated uh some of the um sections to make them a little
148bit more clear um and I think last time I apologize I missed policy committee meeting last time but um there were some questions around um military recruiters so Dan is joining me um to answer some of those thanks thanks Katie uh yeah so I think you all have we did a little research um and in your folder you should have the a memo from NED November 2022 and in it it talks about how all e leas that's us uh that receive funding through Essa and Esa are required by law to provide military recruiters with um student names addresses telephone numbers um and there is an opt out there is an opt out from this which I'll get to in just a second too um this Authority uh supersedes uh privacy under furpa um as well
149as um and then there is an opt out um process so at the high school I checked in with the high school on the beginning of the year they sent out a packet and in the packet you can opt out from this um now the information that we're talking about because I also um checked in with the high school and we have a a letter from the local military recruiter the information that they're looking for is um student names first names last names middle names raid level home address home telephone and they what they do is this information is set to them electronically in an electronic format and it's it's used for training employment and scholarship opportunities through the military so that's some of the information that I found uh by talking to the high
150school um and um just wanted to open up open it up to some questions if you have any the big thing I see reading this is that it you cannot opt in you're they the leas may not withhold access to students information by implementing an opt-in process so the opt out conversation we keep having this just kind of reinforces doing it is what which makes your job way easier well for military recruitments but I mean just in general it seems like a process that is in place in other places which has been a question in our policy meetings yeah bet you officially have to opt out right uh we need a motion uh motion to approve policy uh 5500 protection of privacy of student records for second reading and adoption second any other questions just
151a comment that you helped address Dr bradwell's questions from two meetings ago and then came back he been a good long convers all in favor that's everybody okay now we have a very lengthy policy policy 91103 the second sexual harassment policy for first reading good evening I'm Lily talut I get to serve as the deputy superintendent and also the title N9 coordinator for our school district this is a policy that we've been discussing at policy committee uh we took it from the boilerplate version that nispa suggested and made a number of edits to make it more gender inclusive and to make it match some of the I would say more detailed approaches that we take as a school district would you like more information question comment we currently have a policy we're just you know
152updating it the law changed last year and this is just for first reading first just first reading and it's already been looked at at the policy committee a couple of times it's been worked on a lot um but it will again go back to the policy committee um and then it will come back to us for a second reading of adoption interesting today because I've been doing some contract works with Cornell and even though my work is entirely remote I had to go through a whole training online about this very subject um and it had much of the same uh information one thing that I thought was useful um and maybe we could do something with this with uh with staff um and maybe you know with modifications for students too is that there were
153a bunch of videos at part of the training where they had people talking about different scenarios um and the questions that arose about how to handle them and then answers to how to handle them um and it really you know it was very user friendly um and made a lot of things that when you're just reading all of this it made it a lot clearer and and accessible and Moira remind me it's delivered as a canvas course right yes yeah yeah is that similar to our so we use a platform called a vector Solutions through ncer a New York State Insurance reciprocal um and nicer populates um and can adjust them for us now are are are staff required to go through this yes every year because that's a New York state law correct that
154was passed in 2018 the end yes so the law actually states that it has to be interactive via multiple choice best form of interaction but but I thought the videos were helpful so imagine whenever policies go through a person reading if any board members I mean not on the policy committee or anything send questions in the interim right we can bring it up the next house we have it address great idea yeah I also and just in aside before I move read this motion um do I just I just like bulb and maybe this is silly but I almost what if social media was one of those trainings for students to understand the nuances of how dangerous it could be I don't know if students ever do the trainings or or trainings for staff or
155something I don't know not that we want to add more to our plates but anyway uh motion to approve policy 911 0.3 oh sorry sexual harassment policy for first reading second oh I think Adam H any other questions or comments all in favor that's everybody and come back to a board meeting near you some days