001so in my county um i think we've got six right so um no math is always strong so uh i will it is 604 uh we are uh zoomed tonight because of the weather uh we do have folks in the administration building they're going to hang out there uh i'm downtown but i'm up um above flooded stage here i hope you know it's best to drive when nobody else is driving so we'll drive a little later but we appreciate everybody staying home not coming down the hills or because that's problematic for some streets so we're uh we're gonna go ahead we are um we are in session and um this is a public meeting uh on this day it's uh october 26th but we will go into exact session shortly and um and chris sean
002we just need a motion to do that and we can um you know hop to the other room curriculum is is finishing up and we should be able to see everybody an exact session i move that home forward i move that we enter into exact executive session to discuss um school district business matters of specific individuals employment contract negotiations second thanks thanks uh thanks chris thanks maura and trisha i'm sure you're out there and uh we'll just go ahead and call the roll and we'll go into exactly rob ainsley aaron croyle kelly evans here sean eversley bradwell eldridge harris yes nicola fave yes moira lang yes chris malcolm yes i don't see patricia on there yeah she is there oh yeah i i can't i can't get my video to work but i'm supposed to
003be heard so yes okay thank you yeah we got japan and so now we have to hop and do this all over again to go into a sex station um but we'll uh we'll do that we'll see everybody in there so and then we'll be back for our public meeting thanks everyone um well uh we are back we are in uh open session i believe right and um are we um church or are we good are we um we are recording again we are we are good rob thank you trisha and so we are back and so we'll uh we'll go ahead and get started we are back from exec session with this is a a 100 zoom meeting today because of travel advisory and some folks are in town and others are doing the
004smart thing and they're staying home where it's totally dry and the basement is not flooding but there is that happening throughout the district depending on where you live but um so let's uh let's go to uh any modifications to the agenda that i am unaware of um i think we're okay sean i think right so we're all good so uh if so then it's on to public comment and so uh i trisha i'm not sure that i heard that anyone had signed up ahead of time or if anyone is with us now there may be a raised hand out there etc so i haven't received any emails for um public comment but we we will check the um chat and participants appreciate it churchill we'll just give it a minute and um then we can
005see if we have any students with us we are a bit early back from exec session that is not seven o'clock yet but uh in an effort to get everyone home who's not home um you know we won't um actually you know all those who are fairly loquacious and uh an exact session of you know it's an opportunity to interact and talk uh i think we ran out of things to talk about is that a uh sat word too sean is that along with alacrity list of the words that you're using rob that is fantastic but we can tell folks if our board reps are not ready or public comment we can always come back to it at the end of the meeting or somewhere else in the meeting as well so um people will
006still have an opportunity but we can keep the agenda moving rob until that time absolutely always flexible and i try to use big words for moira's sake because just trying to say yeah football players can learn words if you go to class once in a while but anyway um how about we just move on to the consent agenda that's always something we can get out of the way um and there are some uh interesting items there and um and uh typically this is where chris and amanda weigh in on anything that uh needs to be spoken to well i should probably move it first correct that would be great i'll move the consent agenda as presented second it's like my pad any any questions regarding the items there comments i'll just make a comment to
007thank all of the district uh employees and retirees who have signed on to come and help us with district-wide cove testing support is much appreciated to that point pat uh i did it was on the personnel report for those who were wondering what we're talking about but um it was a list of uh list of all all-stars there um list of um you know um thank you to i shouldn't just highlight one but uh a list of some of our outstanding administrators and other other personnel that are stepping up and we appreciate that uh it's going to help the kids uh obviously help the district help the community just be able to uh test and monitor as we go forward so um if i'm not here any other questions uh electrician let's see and my
008apologies part of the consent i also want to thank the park foundation for helping to fund the farm to food program um it's an amazing program that helps our students continued thanks to ipei who continues to be a amazing partner for the city school district um helping to fund a number of initiatives so thank you for that um and for folks in the community who are listening um a significant recommendation to attend our finance committee meetings in which you will hear much more about what takes place in much more depth so thank you to our finance committee and thank you to our partners and community organizations greatly appreciated sean i'd also like to add that last year we added to all of the numbered agenda items descriptors so someone can't make a meeting but also
009unfortunately due to covet all of our meetings are also recorded so you can get the full understanding as we go through the details well uh will said sean and chris anyone else and appreciate the comments oh could i just um make a note of item six on the consent agenda which is uh a donation of two thousand dollars to our ithaca high school latin program in recognition of the excellence of that program i'm very well familiar with this and with the the excellence of the teaching and what has done for a number of our students and it may not be the biggest program in the state of the country but it ranks among the very very top because of the excellence of our faculty so thank you pat um what's interesting rob made a note
010to point that out during finance and um you know really was by student demand that drove that as well so it's um it's encouraging that you shared that it's it's one of those really exceptional jewels that we just happen to have in ithaca because of the people we have who want to teach it and want to learn it and it's one of those many many thing qualities that that makes it a pleasure to be a part of the school board and to move that work forward thank you chris and i will only add to that that as an example this is a way that folks can use ipi as a conduit to use to make gifts directly to a certain program you know it is it is dedicated is not going to general fund and
011then somehow parceled out it is a gift through ipei and using that um again ipi is a non-profit venue to make a gift to the district and so um again that great partnership with ipi that we appreciate on so many levels and um we've killed almost enough time to make it to seven o'clock but uh perhaps we can go ahead and anything else and we'll go ahead and uh vote on this it's been moved in second not hear anything that's uh i'll just add that we there we go we'll go ahead go ahead uh i'll just add that we had a really really great um finance committee meeting um our last go round i've learned a tremendous amount about how our retiree insurance plan works and when insurance companies are acting as physicians we had
012great participation from one of rob's old teachers well the spouse of one of rob's old teachers so that was it's all great to see community come around more was incredibly insightful as always um having uh gone through or currently in the system so i just think that was that was one of the best meetings i can remember in a long time thanks chris you're a great leader well thank you e i can't take any credit it's uh definitely our team with led by amanda and all the other folks well if we're done with all the compliments um which are well deserved but uh uh trisha i think we can go ahead and do the uh perform the consent agenda and then we can kind of hop hop back to some of our other items rob
013ainsley yes kelly evans yes sean eversley bradwell eldrid harris yes nicola fave yes moira lange yes chris malcolm yes patricia wazilow yes thanks everyone a consent agenda has passed uh i'm just going to hop back up uh trisha do we have any uh public comments that you're aware of at this point checking right now let's see uh no comments rob thanks trisha um i do see that uh ander and zara our last board reps are um on my screen and i assume at lacs perhaps and uh it would be great uh great opportunity we've heard from ihs quite a bit over the last year or so um and uh be great to hear from you too and um and this is an opportunity for you to introduce yourselves and uh and tell us uh anything
014that you well share with anything with us that you would want to uh share so please do hi we're andren zarr i'm andrew mccracken i'm a senior at lacs um hi i'm sarah jere i'm a freshman alex yes and i mean we're the ics board reps um so do you want us to just like get right into it with our our our stuff it's awesome um well so we have we have two major um things that we like to report back on uh the first being that we have uh over this the course of this specific school year we have had some some very alarming and very unusual cases of significant transphobia and vandalism in bathrooms at the school so last year we as a as a student and staff body we decided to put
015um tampon and pad dispensers in all of the bathrooms uh not just the women's room as it had been um so that was a that was something that passed with the majority you know a very strong majority of the of these students and staff so we we enacted that this year um so this year there have been fully stocked you know tampon pad dispensers in all of that school which has been very good um one issue we've had is a lot of the newer sixth graders have um have not really understood why this isn't we've had cases of of severe vandalism actually uh in a notable case one of the tampon dispensers was like physically ripped off the wall from the men's room which was really quite alarming and they've been other cases of harassment
016and transphobia and vandalism stuff the bathroom so two weeks ago on wednesday um it would be three weeks ago tomorrow actually three two two weeks ago tomorrow um we brought this issue to the whole school and so we discussed transphobia and harassment and why the tampon sponsors were there in the first place um and the meeting which was originally meant to go for just one period was extended to be two periods long um by by you know a uh popular demand from the students so it was a very i think it was a very productive meeting where we talked a lot a lot of you know frustrations were aired and it was a very powerful meeting where a lot of students you know a lot of transgender students a lot of you know cisgender allies
017of students um you know just genderqueer students in general really you know said why this hurt them and why this was not okay um and so we've had two main follow-ups that being with our our gsma committee so that's gender and sexual minorities and allies they have been working on preparing some information and resources for family groups to present to their students during sixth period on either monday or friday um at some point and so that's gonna be coming soon hopefully and then the other the other piece of follow-up was that these specific cases of harassment and transphobia were um are being brought to our kind of our our student conflict resolution group acc so alternative community court um and those cases are being processed and handled you know during sixth period on wednesdays and
018on thursdays so that is something that's moving along so there are some follow-ups that are happening yeah in our as a student body uh many students have called upon making more of the bathrooms gender-neutral so it doesn't feel like there's one space for students to use the restroom and that's becoming unsafe it's becoming more that there would be two gendered not genuinely neutral like gendered bathrooms and then the recipe turned gender-neutral uh students are making a major call upon this so more of the bathrooms will be seen as fair and equal not that there's just one space for students to vandalize it's more of a spread out situation of where more students can actually feel safe in bathrooms which is a number one concern for a school yeah as it had been in previous years
019there were there were three men's rooms two women's rooms and one gender neutral bathroom um this year due to a 504 plan the orange international bathroom which is a one stall bathroom it was made to a private restroom for a specific student with a 504 um one of the downstairs women's rooms was made into a gender neutral bathroom so it was you know one gender neutral bathroom one woman's room and then three um men's rooms which was not really i mean it's not a very that's not balanced i mean it already was unbalanced and it's kind of unbounced more and so from this there has as long as i've been at lacs you know full seven year run people have really been pushing and calling for um making all the bathrooms in the school or
020most or all the bathrooms it kind of depends on what you ask completely gender-neutral which um is something that we have not done yet as i understand it because of state guidelines um and that's something that students really really want to happen in our capital campaign in our capital campaign for the summer of 2022 there's going to be renovations to the upstairs bathrooms to make them gender neutral which will be very good um and something that is you know long overdue um but anything that you know could make all of the bathrooms in the school generation would be something that yeah yeah general neutral and safe um yes that would be something that would be very you know that's something that there's a lot of of of desire for and a lot of push forward
021in the students absolutely and staff this is a step uh student staff body issue that we both definitely want to address uh sure uh and then our second our most recent uh asm was discussing a proposal by a student to change our guidelines for graduation the gve yeah so so so we have you know so as you may know you know we don't have grades we have narrative evaluations yes um and so you know gbe pbe we instead of you know instead of getting a gpa at the end of your four year run you get you have to do a promotion by exhibition to get out of eighth grade into high school and then a graduation by exhibition so that's just kind of looking through it's it's a kind of holistic thing with all of
022your all of your evaluations and a kind of culminating project or multiple culminating projects if you're a senior um and so it's it's kind of showing off that you are ready to go off into the world instead of just having a number say that yeah and this proposal talked about adding a requirement to do eco action and having a part of school school either doing public art or a science project which is probably going to be a common take um doing that before you graduate and this was passed by staff and students to now part of our requirements is to do one act of climate justice before you graduate or promote and this was a proposal that was actually very positive by students and has taken a lot of motivation and inspiration for students to
023now help clean up downtown and do more public art regarding climate justice and it's made a already quite a spark in ecoaction and this will only continue forward with 300 students every year doing good for the environment it's really quite a excellent thing for our school to be a part of yeah so that so moving forward that's going to be part of our you know science um requirements to to to promote or graduate um so it's it has it passed the student body it passed the staff body um because so because it is a graduation requirement it has to go through students and staff so it went through both and past both it's now going to the science department um and it's kind of and it's very much in their hands to do what they
024want with it um there's a lot of i spoke with some of the science teachers there's a lot of very interesting and exciting ideas about that so um we'll we can keep you all updated on what that turns out to be once uh this will most likely start taking place next year uh this year is really just finalizing that idea and making permanent action for yeah yeah i think that is it for lacs yeah that's that's kind of that's what we've been up to in in asm's um in all school meetings uh lately so that's that's our bid so it's great to great to meet and see and hear from you today and uh there will be board responses shortly um you give a report and that from we hear from all students and the
025board has a chance to respond to anything that or ask questions uh and indeed as we go through the meeting uh as you join the meeting uh you are a part of this meeting you are sitting at well tonight it's a virtual uh table uh in the board but um you know feel free to you know raise a hand and join in the discussion of any items that we go through in the district uh in our agenda and uh work sessions are open to you as well right so it's not just coming and doing a report a couple of times a month it can be for you but it doesn't have to be certainly look forward for to you to be as involved as you wish to be i do see grace from ithaca high
026i believe is on um on the screen here if she wants to give an updated ethical high and then we can have board responses or anyone else remember the guy that i don't see hi uh thanks for having the board meeting online um sporting events at ihs are back in full spring after being initially delayed uh the ihs football team delivered a roaring victory at our homecoming game last friday the collage concert is also happening tomorrow though it's unfortunately not open to the general public because of code policy's attendance is student only but it will be recorded so be sure to watch that club so be sure to watch that uh club events are also going smoothly with the mall un club helmed by autonomy preparing for its annual statewide conference competition in rochester in
027addition to existing clubs the culture at ihs has continued to foster new extracurricular activities just last tuesday the asian american and allies club which grace is the president of uh met for the first time to learn and raise awareness about anti-race anti-asian racism filling a much needed hole in ihs's collage of extracurriculars and while singular clubs are meeting many of the extracurriculars at ihs work in unison in partnership just to give an example of this the international club whose advisor is miss bergman is hoping to is hoping to provide the lunch for brain teams competition on november 20th i would like to talk about the kobe testing program um we thought that the kobe testing would start last week at ihs but this never happened um we are wondering uh where ihs is with um
028this and when we can expect testing to start um we have also heard other schools have started um weekly testing and we were wondering how this was going another question we have is if more students have signed up for this weekly testing again this would be beneficial to students who are feeling sick but aren't sure if it would be safe to attend class we've heard from many students that they have missed um like multiple days of school because they didn't have the necessary testing to confirm their like illness um and then lastly at the high school many students are a part of and take pride in not only athletic teams but also in extracurricular clubs whether they be academic cultural or recreational other student represent the other student reps and i have noticed that it
029seems athletics receive greater funding and support from the wider icsd community in comparison to many clubs just like our sports teams just like how our sports teams have the resources to compete at the highest level um our club should as well many clubs take part in competitions across new york state um and even across the country um an example this is brain team they have um competitions uh as far as ohio um due to the large expenses associated with these trips and a lack of adequate fundraising um due to there being like no club booster program um like there is with athletics many clubs have to ask their members to pay individual fees um in order in order to attend this in turn makes clubs less equitable for the entire student body additionally clubs that
030don't necessarily attend competitions should still be able to organize events and trips without the burden of cost we recognize that clubs can often receive funding from the student council but it is not is usually not enough to cover the entire cost of events or competitions um we would like to know the current process through which uh from icsd through which clubs receive funding and how uh it could possibly be changed um to be a system that is more equitable um between both clubs and athletics thank you much hi thanks alicia um the guy i think that's everyone right and uh so thanks um yes absolutely uh congratulations to the football team for winning on friday night at homecoming that's that's great um obviously all the other uh events uh athletic and and uh and arts
031etc um are it's great when uh for all those uh wins and participation as well uh open it up to board comments and um some uh i'm sure are coming so feel free to weigh in i'll i'll start um by acknowledging um that i've heard great things about the the coaching staff for the icsd football team and if i've heard it it must really be out there and there are just for the ihs on on equitability there are a lot of funding sources there are different stipend schedules for the advisors to and coaches to different clubs which are actually a union negotiated issue um so that is something that cannot be changed unilaterally by the board um but i welcome your interest in this topic and um many of our clubs such as brain team
032and uh code red robotics which my daughter was part of have actually competed on a national level and been funded to travel way much further than any athletic team in this uh district ever has so it's um with a lot of community support meaning tens of thousands of dollars of community support that that ordinarily funnels through ipei so another great shout out to ipei that's not a systematic answer that's a very that's a granular answer but it's just something now i do have a question for the lacs members uh on this question of transphobia and vandalism in bathrooms and you seem to correct me if i'm wrong be directing um responsibility towards some of the younger members of lacs and i i'm very curious uh whether this is a specific issue to lacs and transphobia
033or whether it is a broader issue that was connected with this the whole devious licks thing that was going on in social media at the beginning of the semester and also uh negatively affected our other uh middle schools and especially the bathrooms there i mean this is i'm just wondering whether it's really um [Music] focused on lacs or whether this is part of a a larger issue that that we're seeing a very negative issue in its own way in in a lot of ways and whether you've had have any thoughts on that absolutely this issue isn't our alternative court especially with issues like these these are definitely taken on mainly by upperclassmen of the high school um a lot of the younger students oversee these issues to help learn and grow from them but they're
034definitely not handled by like these are very serious cases that are also being dealt with by staff it's definitely a combination of the two to come up with a viable and like concrete solution so this issue doesn't continue in our school um so no younger students are not being like this is not in their hands this is definitely an upperclassman in staff issue so um i i would say the so we did say that it was it was largely you know kind of younger students and sixth graders one of the reasons why we said this is i mean we have we have you know some evidence and proof of who did it um on on some cases than it is largely you know younger students um it's also lacs we consider ourselves by far to
035be um a kind of a a a not a haven so much just like a very very safe space for all you know kinds of lgbtq identities you know period no matter what this kind of an issue of people being extremely openly transphobic in our school in our community is completely unprecedented and completely unheard of at our school um and the only common denominator that i can find with it and then we can all find is the newer students so i would say i think it's partially that um one observation i mean a lot of these students haven't been in school since they were in fourth grade you know they haven't been in school since fourth grade and they you know and i don't want to you know be like oh social media is the
036root of all evil but they're learning a lot of these things and they're you know they don't have the social emotional learning they don't have the development to really understand them and understand why they're back so i would actually say i am i'm very worried that this that this actually happens at other middle schools where they don't have um as much kind of lgbt protection and this kind of stuff just happens and and i would say my heart aches for the you know transgender seventh grader at boynton who has to deal with all of this awful awful stuff on a daily basis and they do not have a supporting and loving community to kind of fall back on they don't have you know we have this we had this big meeting and it was a
037very you know it was very like kind of bearing of hearts and people were were really they were strong emotions there but it also showed that our community cares about this and this is not something that we're going to just let's lie and i've i fear i worry that that's the kind of impression that maybe other schools who don't have the resources of the client or the organization to dedicate to this kind of an issue and approaching it in a very you know caring kind of student-focused way i worry that that might them the the impression that they might be sending is that it's not something that they care about so oh sorry go ahead no i'm just going to say to clarify i'm not talking about any kind of transphobic behavior at the other
038middle schools i'm talking about a more generic bathroom vandalism and our our teachers and community at the middle schools do equally care about these issues so um but but but we don't have that kind of specific uh targeted vandalism but we do have a vandalism which was something that was called for naturally on social media which we all love of course yeah um i'd like to speak to that uh there is not lacs does not have an issue with vandalism in bathrooms and never really has uh these issues are very basically exclusively trans like transphobic issues um i know it's us at lacs at least it's like a lot of it is with menstrual products pretty much exclusively it's where the vandalism is coming from otherwise there's like barely like there's no stuff on the
039walls like it's very actually a really nice bathrooms come like they're clean like students don't have the urge people aren't you know stealing soap dispensers and stuff it's not they haven't had that issue whatsoever um this isn't a call from social media i don't think i think this is just direct this is yeah so i would say uh no i don't think it is that you know that devious licks trend or whatever yeah i would say that it's probably in this case you know the the cases of analysis and that we have had almost entirely have been very direct trans soviet so that's that's a very that was something that was very worrying to us and so that was kind of why we came down like that um andrew and zara is that how you
040pronounce it um great to meet you both welcome uh looking forward to continued conversations uh andrew i need a t-shirt i'll be talking to your principal uh i definitely need more of the ox in my my where um and i'll be interested in both of your perspective not for this evening um but to talk to student populations and my job as a faculty member for prospective teachers we've had a lot of conversations about bathrooms in particular whether we use the phrase gender neutral is it reminiscent of colorblind or do we use gender inclusive or all gender or simply name them bathrooms and so i'd be intrigued to see how we have those conversations about what is the most affirming for our students and so again not a conversation for this evening and maybe we'll try
041to find a way to connect some time outside of this but thank you welcome and appreciate the perspective in the work that you're doing for our ihs um reps great questions about organizations and funding i'm intrigued by this part of it is dictated by the new york state public school athletics association of what we must do um but it doesn't mean it doesn't equate to something being unequal and so i'll be intrigued about what happens and what looks there um and grace i know i've said this before but i continue to be appreciative of your um work and your activism uh my dissertation talks about this idea of time loop so how time folds back on itself specifically in the ithaca city school district and what i'm hearing from you in particular is um the
042same conversations that our black and latino students were saying 30 years ago and that there was no representation and no acknowledgement and no uh inclusion in the curriculum and so um it's both jarring in some regards right that we're having the same conversation but also um heartening and warming to know that we have people that are there that are saying enough is enough you will see me you will hear me you will include me in whatever ways as a board that we can support that work um please reach out to us and we'll make that happen so so thank you um we'll come back i think as a board to have a conversation next board meeting about funding and how we make that happen i don't want to answer this evening without us having information
043and so i'll ask my fellow board members to hold off on that until we get some actual details and we can provide you with a more um informative response if that makes sense but but thank you to our student reps greatly appreciate you all hey student reps oh just to grace uh part of the consent agenda tonight was approving funding for um uh retired uh faculty and administrators to be on-site administrators for cova testing throughout the district so we we are moving forward on that um well thanks pat that's what i was going to add in addition to saying hello grace i agree with everything sean said about you keep coming for us andrew and zara uh nice to meet you all i don't think i've spoken to either one of you before i have
044a very specific question because i'm just trying to be clear it sounds like you're saying the vandalism that has taken place in lacs is directed exclusively at the feminine products that were placed in all the bathrooms is that a fair assumption of what you were saying so yeah in the in the bathroom issue the most huge spaces yeah it's it's almost all been just blue ex excuse me exclusively directed at the you know tampon and pad dispensers i mean and and there was you know there was a case i talked about you know physically ripping off the wall but also just you know taking them out and throwing them around all right so my follow-up question is there clearly was a decision to put those products into all the bathrooms and i'm wondering how that
045decision was communicated and discussed with all of the students at lacs including the little guys in elementary since they seem to be the ones who are having the most difficulty with the with this change were they involved in this conversation about moving in that direction uh no students that are now here in sixth grade were not including the discussion but these students last year there was a online asm with the entire school or split into groups but the school we had multiple conversations about menstrual products and transphobia and why this issue is so important for trans students that need menstrual products um and when it was voted upon by the students it passed with a 97 of students i think it was almost yeah it was 95 yeah 97 of students fully backed this idea
046and agreed and the staff also agreed that this was necessary um this is a large shock to us because our community is very accepting obviously and also agrees that this is something that we need um i mean 97 of students that is an insane number to have and so it isn't this is a surprise because our there's such a large majority yeah so i i hear what you're saying and um you are you're you're kind of right on the money there because the trick is that the students who are who who we believe are mostly behind doing this the the sixth graders the really young ones they i mean they were not at lacs and we had this discussion so one of the main things that we focused on at the asm where we kind
047of discussed this whole thing um two weeks ago was was why they are there so that we could kind of explain that and i think that that was pretty good all right thanks yeah absolutely um so i'd like to uh make a few comments and uh ask some questions uh uh first of all andrew and zara welcome and i'm really glad you're here uh just a little bright spot um on this issue um that i'm the liaison for bell sherman and i was there recently and the principal was telling me how under the initiative of the fifth graders there those kids wanted to turn the bathrooms on their floor into gender neutral or just just bathrooms and apparently with great glee they uh they finally took down the signs that said boys and girls from
048those bathrooms i'm a little bit fuzzy about how the details of the how it's working but i believe some of those fifth graders are going to come and make a brief presentation or just share with us uh what they did and why they did it um so and you might even want to uh contact the uh the principal to get uh jeff tamasek to get some details about that i certainly found that very very encouraging and these are kids who had been you know a lot of them out of school since they were in third grade um yet this is something they were doing in september under their own initiative um so uh one thing for lacs is that um i i'm aware that i'm sure much to everybody's disappointment that for the second year
049in a row you weren't able to have your traditional fall retreat um and i know you did something because i live across the street and i heard loud music in the middle of the afternoon and went out and uh saw uh my daughter and some of her fellow teachers uh walking around i said what's going on they said it's fall retreat um so i'd be interested to know you know more details about what that was like and then um it makes me wonder you know what are your discussions uh around trip planning i assume you're all hoping that come may trips could happen um but you know how are you uh discussing that um so i'm glad you asked uh we did have fall retreat um it was it was very exciting it was very
050entertaining um and it was so you know usually we have gone to the brooklyn dale retreat camp um but over cobia 19 that camp uh just fully went out of business and shut down um and there's you know there you know district coveted policy we couldn't have gone out of the building anyways so i think most of us consider ourselves lucky that we got anything at all um even if it was very disappointing compared to previous years it was still something um so we we had that it was pretty fun um yeah and so yeah we had um also different projects and people were able to write and do all you know lss types of things um we didn't end up on the first night you wound up having a talent show that was a
051renowning success and open mic um it was uh it was in the later part of the event but i had a large group of students and people really excited to see the talent but for trips um some of it's still very fuzzy on what will actually happen we're hoping for to be able to do field trips again uh students want to be able to you know have biking trip and do the museum trips and all those types of things so we're hoping that'll be a success uh people are starting to think about what the possibilities about if we do have to stay um doing it online bringing people in or you know in this meeting here we'll see if uh field trips get approved again so yeah we the kind of the the the current
052plan um is that we're gonna try to do it as as normally as possible um and that does involve you know trips that you know leave and go canoeing for a whole week um so they leave you know 10 a.m monday and they come back 3 p.m friday um so we're really you know we're really hoping and like praying that we get that approval to do a trip like that um but we also have backup plans and backup experience from what we did for trips last year so we have we have redundancies but we're hoping to to do you know some things that are at least as normal as possible absolutely thanks and if um we're going to move on here shortly but lately if you could just give a quick update regarding testing for
053not only grace but for the community and then we'll move on if we could that's good excellent yeah so we have begun a relatively um slow rollout i would say of screening testing so once we received the materials we quickly developed a schedule to go through all 12 schools over the next 12 days right um so we have this team of folks that are working with the new system um and we're working with a new company um and there are as i said as i've said before there are going to be significant growing pains and there there certainly are although i will say each day gets easier and easier and i'm really really impressed and really grateful for the team and especially kerry burke and our wonderful nurses who have provided some guidance um but
054are also doing their full-time jobs so um but they've certainly been great so um each school has a specific date um that they're starting and ithaca high school state is on november 3rd and all of the administrative teams are communicating out with students and staff and families about when those dates are starting and then we um as i mentioned before we'll have a traditional schedule that's weekly um for every for every school um moving forward from there but there are quite a number of logistics that we have to work out at each school which is why we're taking this or approach um and we have a number of posters that um you know we're trying to put up in buildings so kids know what what it is as well and grace has graciously offered to
055help me hang those up thanks grace we've sent some emails and are happy to send more and to students and to to families as well and i think that's about it you lily and uh any other board members have anything before we let dr brown talk zeke i know that we had originally talked about having the fifth graders at a board meeting can we let folks know when we may try to have this conversation about uh bathrooms and icsd this is amazing dr eversley bradwell right as moira was talking i was letting dr brown know that uh we do have we actually have confirmed uh maybe last week even that um that the fifth graders will be here for our first meeting in december so they'll kick off our our first meeting in december as
056we as discussions around all gender and inclusive bathrooms all right very good and seemingly whenever we discuss facilities and facilities and it's always about bathrooms and it seems to be uh that's building them and building new ones and renovating and now it's it's it always comes down to bathrooms dr brown and uh but let's let you uh talk about a few other things right now that would be great sure thank you for the opportunity miss stansley it's good to see everyone and a special thank you and welcome to andrew and zara uh your energy and excitement for this opportunity has been palpable when i've seen you in the buildings and that's shown tonight too so we're getting we're looking forward to getting to know you uh learning with you and working with you on so
057many things so thank you for being here um and you know the second thing i want to talk about uh just to highlight for the board and the community in board docs under superintendent's update or business item please click there's a document there that uh i've shared and i will not read it for everyone tonight one because i don't want to read the folks but uh most importantly i was this document will be what we use to develop our next icsd insider uh the insider will be returning and we're going to use our icsd insider document and newsletter to update the community on where we are with learning forward icasd um you'll hear some updates this evening in the document you'll see what we're thinking about that's our mind folks we talked about this learning
058ford icsd um initiative and approach and commitment um and we said all along would be a three year commitment um and you know we think it'll take us three years to really see some significant progress some of these things in our mind folks it's going to take some time we we're trying to change culture change our curriculum change our offerings um through these four broad categories uh students as partners and leaders anti racist curriculum for all educated identity work and structures of support so i i love that folks are paying attention and i appreciate your patience and flexibility as we work through these things and again we're going to constantly update our board and the community on where we are for example students would partner as partners and leaders you've heard from young people tonight
059ms talk has met with quite a few young people as we've been working on this issue around uh bathrooms um gender neutral bathrooms just bathrooms i love the conversation we're having right now and the fact that we're having this conversation with our young people young people have been a part of our new teacher or educator orientation processes they're part of our mental health curriculum and mental health committees at individual schools so we're continuing to enhance our partnerships with young people the anti-racism anti-racist curriculum for all anti-marginalization curriculum is fascinating we've come a long way we have about a third of our educators who've been a part of writing and implementing an anti-marginalization case study we've had over 80 educators were part of the summer professional development work when we worked on uh these units there
060as well so a lot of work in including some work that's happening with grading at our secondary schools right now that is pretty exciting um the identity work my goal my vision is to have educator identity work be a part of every formal and informal meeting we have every grade level every plc meeting every department and staff meeting i think it's going to be important for us to really reflect on who we are in our identities and how we show up in the space in the curriculum and all that we do so that identity work is happening right now um it's a part of much of what we're doing and we hope to continue that and i won't keep talking because as part of the structures of support we're going to be hearing from from
061some folks in a little bit but our approach to literacy development uh uh hopefully we'll do a plus have a plug for our new website that was launched as of a couple of hours ago by our social workers and school psychologists so a lot of good work happening i hope you're getting a sense of that i hope you'll take a look at the document and follow the newsletter as we'll continue to update the board and the community on the work that we're doing and with that i will turn it back over to you because i'm excited about this next presentation mistakes well dr brown i'll i'll i'll leave it to you to introduce the the next subject and it's essentially an update on ictsd literacy and the efforts to uh improve and yeah well reach
062our goals and uh and let's uh let's talk about it sure miss grover and your team of talented educators are here to talk about it go forward thank you so much for the opportunity to join you tonight and i want to begin by expressing sincere gratitude to the teachers in our district the aides the tas as well as caregivers students and you the board of education for your support and looking at what we're doing in literacy instruction in our district and and what we need to do better so the goal of tonight is to give a brief overview of some systems and structures we have in place this year with the hope to return to you with more specifics in the in the winter and when you'll get to hear directly from teachers and students
063who are doing this work in the classroom as they're focusing on building their communities and implementing some new structures i'm here tonight to share out what we've seen in our literacy walks so trisha if you don't mind presenting thank you so right now we're as we are embarking on the implementation of a high quality first instruction phonics program called really great reading across our whole district it's one component of how we aim to support all students having access to high quality literacy instruction so lynn klankowski and i i want to give thanks to her for touring buildings the last two weeks and going into classrooms to especially kindergarten through second grade classrooms who are implementing really great reading this first instruction and then the upper grade levels to see how their literacy blocks are functioning
064next side tricia so here are some things we're hearing from students so it's with great delight that i get to go into some classrooms now and see some younger students of students i had at carolina elementary school so in approaching one of one student i said tell me about what you're learning and why and she said miss grover you're distracting me i'm trying to listen so i appreciated her advocacy and then she said and i really like this because i can change the tiles so part of high quality first instruction and phonics is is having a system and as well as teaching phonemic awareness and having students be able to interact with some manipulatives so before you you'll see every student has these letter kit tiles that accompany the lessons that all students are giving
065next slide please another student said when i asked uh tell me tell me about what you're learning he said i like it when people ask me about my learning and then he jumped right into asking me if i knew what i was looking at and that this five-year-old could say with such pride do you see the pattern do you know what's what all the red letters have in common in common it's because it's a vowel and so these are our students talking about this program the next slide tricia in the older grades um and rubrics are one tool that are used in reading conferences and writing conferences throughout our district this particular artifact is from a third grade classroom where the student was explaining to me the importance of the rubric and helping them stop
066and take a look closer look at what they just accomplished and so with as we're looking at our approach to literacy first if we know throughout the whole district everyone every classroom in every elementary school kindergarten through second grade it is having systematic exposure to phonics instruction as well and that is one part of their literacy experience and we're still talking with them and engaging with them and getting to know themselves as readers and writers and self-assessment that's important that's that criticality piece uh next slide trisha so a little bit more about this at the base we want everyone to have have access to that direct instruction in reading and then we also want to look at the other parts of dr goldie muhammad's framework so how is criticality playing now how is identity how
067are students getting to know themselves better how are they questioning the world around them how are they getting smarter and that is where the anti-marginalization case studies the anti-racist case studies are coming in and and so that really great reading [Music] adaptation that we're doing is just part of that and within that that gives us the flexibility to have more personalized learning experiences whether it's a small group of students using really great reading which is rgr or a leveled person intervention which is lli or to some other models that we piloted in our summer programming with individualized personalized sessions that take place virtually after school or maybe during school for a half an hour in the summer we had educators using these materials during the summer to support students who weren't attending project innovation and
068those three components and that multifaceted approaches is important when we're looking at our literacy framework next slide trisha so i i want to share that i'm really grateful for the embedded support in schools through educators of inclusion best nighters on tonight who's been assigning the online asynchronous learning modules for really great reading jennifer gondeck and bessnader were two thought partners as well as lynn kleinkowski as we were looking at the summer and fall professional development offerings and their participation was specifically sharing what caregivers what is surfacing in csc meetings what are we hearing from students what are some common themes and then you know asking students and acquiring some of their feedback and categorizing it through the student-led cse meetings and the student-led conferences another piece is a pilot program with this summer that we
069did which was multi-age where we asked invited and they accepted thankfully uh some high school students to serve as partners and project innovation and offer additional support in the kindergarten first grade classrooms and second grade classrooms there and i want to give a huge shout out to brooke burnett who helped support that program along with best snyder and the village of ithaca for being a community partner there next slide please so this this sorry dr brown this font is small i know there's a lot of words on this slide but my hope tonight is to just give an overview and then get your feedback the feedback that we're receiving from caregivers and students and you and questions we rely on it to make us better and what we learned is we really needed to implement
070universally kindergarten through second grade a program in our schools and we needed to make sure in doing that that we didn't approach it within either or thinking that bumped our anti-racist curriculum writing and then how do we know it's working so what kind of assessments are we using we have the state assessments what local assessments are we also going to be looking at what are the literacy walks going to be telling us what are how are we going to capture student voice that that component of icsd learning forward where students as our partners and then [Music] the very very last column is talking about literacy leadership across our district in all of our buildings you know just very short term when people ask and say what they need we get it to them and then
071how it's being used and what they're learning about those materials so that we can do better is an important component so i'm going to pause there and invite your questions comments feedback waiting for board members to jump in but i'll marry you uh i know you have staff with you tonight correct correct um i believe um be great to hear from them and what their impressions or what their anything they'd like to share as the board as we probably move back to the the gallery view so we can kind of see some views here absolutely don't everyone talk at once okay but um well i'll um i'll go back um mary would you mind sharing that last stream thank you well i'll go back to uh i will channel judy maxwell years ago passport member
072long time teacher in the district and uh it's no secret we have 100 graduation rate is our goal uh but you know as judy often said that um we have not at this point have not figured out how to uh get all students to uh grade level reading at grade level by third grade and certainly that is that is a huge challenge and that is uh much what we're addressing tonight again is efforts to get there and so really just uh you know how are how are we getting there and how is this different than we did what we did before or are doing or just to give us a little more flavor that'd be great i just want to say as somebody who was deeply involved in work on literacy um and working on
073literacy across uh grade levels when i was teaching uh in ithaca that this really impresses me um the whole uh the thoughtfulness and the um the detailed approach and systems that you have uh put um into words and are putting into practice um really really is um quite amazing to me and uh i think one of the things that's really really great is the way that we've provided uh for funding for our educators for inclusion um to be part of a team that's leading this work so um i'm just very impressed i guess um i guess the only thing go ahead nicole i was just going to piggyback off of rob's question and ask mary if she would be able to speak to the differences between this reading platform and platforms use previously yeah absolutely
074so i think one of the biggest differences is that all teachers are using the same platform that it accompanies it has manipulatives and that it's intended the pacing of it is intended to engage all students for 15 minutes a day so that it's not some of the other programs that we've piloted in the past have required children are segregated and sorted in ways that with a limited amount of time in the day they don't have access to other components of the literacy block such as conferencing independent reading and that for me is the biggest difference um i would also welcome you know jennifer gondeck who's on and best night or if you have additional components that strike you from really great reading and make it different than words their way or some of the other
075programs we've used yeah i would just add in mary i think um at least when we're talking specifically about the really great reading direct explicit phonics instruction um and that other programs might use more of an like an analytic approach but this is really a scope and sequence and so the skills build upon each other but then another piece of that is also if mary said all students in cage who are getting access to that tier one instruction and uh but we're also providing intervention so students might have the class uh the tier one class instruction phonics but then need to work on other skills um maybe they have some gaps in the skill the sound letter knowledge that they have so they get some targeted instruction with that as well and it's built so
076that it can be done in the classroom and the students don't necessarily have to leave the class to go get something different it can be weaved into centers or stations teaching which is is embedded in what their literacy block that literacy block design might look like beth or lynn are you going to add anything before i ask my question now go right ahead sean how do i know you're going to say that that is great um one that we hear pretty regularly about our literacy program uh and as a board member for the past 14 years as a person who's had brothers graduate from ithaca our own child graduate from ithaca our current granddaughter in the ithaca city school district is that we constantly change literacy programs right that there's uh we stay with something
077for a couple years and then we're onto something new and so what i hear from teachers is a lack of professional development or a lack of ability to be comfortable with what's expected what are we doing now or what are we going to do to make sure that our teachers are supported in making this program or any program work for that matter so i'll start with the structure that we have in place for teams to get support in their building from the educator for inclusion and their administrator and also that this implementation has a commitment to five years of ongoing professional development and that professional development is open and we've invited aides teaching assistants and educators we have a group for example of speech teachers who are also adopting this program and taking the trainings
078because of the connection it has with their roles in working with students and some of the speech goals that it's really important we sustain that pd um and due to covid this particular program pivoted to asynchronous online modules and the flexibility that that's providing educators in accessing them has been important so that's um you know this is the start uh my first thinking um on on the professional development and commitment to this over a sustained period of time lynn bethan and jen yeah um to add to that little too as you can see on this slide thinking about how how we're gonna really know if this is working i think you can see in like the short midterm um outcomes that are these are just a sampling of outcomes but a real focus on educators
079both in their skill knowledge and confidence and implementation of the program and the strategies we're asking them to use and and doing intentional data collection through non-evaluative walkthroughs through um you know teacher self reports about what what they are doing where barriers are to implementation what's working what's not is really going to help us better support educators in sustaining energy and implementation of this and making sure that we they have what they need to feel confident in what they're being asked to do for students i was just going to ask um how soon will it be before the curriculum committee can get on the road either virtually or in person and see this in action see how teachers are implementing this and see how kids are receiving yeah so eldrid we have brooke brunette who's
080going to come present to the curriculum committee soon or would like to to talk about the reading buddies program over the summer and feel free to join me at cube heights or caroline uh whatever works for you i'd love to take you through either of those buildings that's where i'm at and and let you see what's happening in classrooms eldridge just stole my question so it sounds like a road trip is necessary so we'll be reaching out to get that started that'd be wonderful and i also want to echo gratitude again that moira what you said about this being a team approach and that the feedback that caregivers have given us in the collaboration with septa and parents who are reaching out to their educators of inclusion saying uh we need more for our students
081again that this is this is a heavy lift and it's going to require all of us and i'm really grateful for their feedback we're at this place right now thanks to that thanks for watching i'm good rob thanks i thank you for that great presentation okay thank you all uh well there you go now i can see everyone uh but thanks mary thanks uh thanks beth flynn uh jennifer um i um uh well we're all blessed uh in many ways i was blessed my mother loved to read and my son likes to read and uh i can't imagine a word a world without without a book that i can um in my hand and computers are nice but there's nothing like a book and uh and the ability to enjoy that book and the ability
082to read and understand um at an early age uh huge it's a huge task but uh you know it sounds like uh we're taking uh we're taking great steps and uh when we do do that uh that road trip um it's not just for the curriculum committee i would encourage any and all board members to uh to be a part of that and um so uh we'll look for look for updates on that um appreciate the great work um and i know that great work goes on tomorrow because it's just tuesday so uh you know we appreciate the work that you all do every day and and we'll let you go and but we're going to continue and appreciate it and we are going to hop on to the next item and for uh for
083lacps and well students the high school already knows that questions that they um they brought up at our last board meeting i think about recruitment recruitment retention and frankly who do we hire and how can we hire and uh what does our workforce look like um that's a bit of a longer uh answer and so uh recruitment and retention update is next and so um so uh so students that are a part of the board when you ask questions the best way to get an uh item on the agenda is asked to ask questions that we need to uh go and get answers for and so uh so let's go into that and uh and i'm not sure who's gonna lead that off but but let's get to it thanks rob i'm just going to
084do a quick introduction because really uh the person who leads this is the person who's going to present it and that's what dear velazquez who's done remarkable work and thank you to the board of education this board for funding the position prior boards for creating it and funding it it is an essential component of recruitment and retention and has done you know the best work i've seen in this position so thank you bladera the floor is yours thank you bob um and thank you everyone uh for the the support and trust to carry on this work um i am very excited today to be here and provide you all with an update on recruitment and retention um thank you trisha all right so recruitment and retention update um and trisha you can go on to
085the to the next slide um so here you'll see some photos of our new educator orientation so the new educator orientation we had two days which was august 31st and september first we were able to collaborate with discover cuyuga lake formerly known as cayuga lake floating classroom and so they provide hands-on learning opportunities in the interest of sustaining the finger lakes waterways they offer the floating classroom which some of our class some of our teachers have participated in um so doing science on the lake for grades five and eight and child in the classroom programs um so we wanted to give our new educators a firsthand experience of cayuga lake and an opportunity for new educators to become acquainted with the resources available to them as well as learn how to bring their students on
086the floating classroom so as you can see in the photos our new educators also got to be students for the afternoon on the on the boat and so they had a great time conducting and i also learned while watching them um uh how to use a secchi disc to to conduct water clarity analysis and also collect plankton samples you'll see in the middle there there's um one of our new educators is collecting a plankton sample and they were able to look at that under the microscope so this is just an example of really connecting our new educators to the resources ithaca is really a gem when it comes to that so i thought it was it would be great to start with that with those images um and trisha you can go to the next
087slide uh so here um uh there are so as of today we have hired educators who identify as black or african american asian hispanic or latino and there are two or more races um and also you know um can be referred to as bipod but um so 13 um we have hired 49 um educators who identify as white um and so 20 21 of our educators that we have hired this year are educators of color thank you trisha so here these are recruitment fairs that sorry that i attended last year um and as we all know last year was uh a weird year um and definitely not ideal to have in-person connections but i was able to connect and recruit some of our new educators from these recruitment fairs many of them were virtual and
088the tioga county job fair was was in person so that's just to give you an idea of some of the the recruitment fairs there [Music] and then also i uh intuition you can go on to the next slide this right now which is in development um so this is part of the recruitment schedule uh for this year um one of our first events will be december 2nd so we'll actually be holding an event here and hope our hopes for that event is to connect with either december graduates um some regret you know mid-year graduates talk to them about the district and hopefully identify with educators of color and then i have some some other job fairs i am aiming to go a little bit outside of new york um there has been some challenges that
089come with recruiting out of state applicants and that has to do with the new york state certification so that's something that i have um in part of my recruitment and retention role also provided information um for candidates who are seeking to get new york state um certification and so there there are sometimes um a lot of uh hooves that need to be that need to um that a candidate may have to jump if let's say they attended a teacher prep program outside of new york and trisha you can go to the next slide um so here i just um just briefly talking about new york state certification and again contrary to what many of our candidates may think who have been teaching outside of new york they may hear reciprocity and think that it's an
090automatic and actually with with the process of reciprocity in new york state they still have to apply take exams they're they they go through an individual evaluation so depending on whether or not their program is comparable to the new york state teacher program so we may have highly qualified teachers from other states but when they're comparing transcripts of transcript um they may be telling a very high highly qualified teacher no you got to go back to school and so those are um some of the roadblocks that that we've come to face um and uh yeah and so you know china trying to really um build some um collaboration with new york state um in this bureaucracy uh so i want to um really give acknowledgement to uh dr brown mentioned earlier you know a mind
091mind shift and i feel like uh part of that is really shifting our hiring process um how are we screening candidates um and and what's that what's that focus when we do this and so one of the key things is really to center student voices in our hiring process and i have two short clips of a video that i show um during the hiring process workshop that i give once or twice a month so we can listen to those clips i like a teacher that's funny what i like a teacher that's generous i like the teacher to blatant kitty who plays kitty thank you trisha and yes i feel like uh gives you a wide variety of different i can say teaching styles and experiences each teacher will have their own background their own ideals
092their own elite beliefs singles or staff members they have their experience to get to students they have their own less to give to them and they can kind of teach the students and give them a lot of great experiences alone here we actually did uh an exercise in my government class recently where we named all the teachers like we didn't even just go through like a list of staff we just named the teachers who weren't right i say this the nicest way possible there's like two african-american teachers like maybe three others i don't remember exactly it was a while back but like there was like five or seven maybe total and this was just the teachers this wasn't the whole staff but it was really few and that isn't the same certainly not the same
093as the demographic of the actual students at the high school so while i love most the teachers that i've ever had i've been here this is my senior year and i've had one teacher who wasn't what and i do think that is kind of an issue i think it definitely affects students when they aren't represented by people they're supposed to look up to and who are their role models i know if i had all male teachers for a whole day it just wouldn't feel right i think it would make me uncomfortable a lot of times i've been in a class where i was the only one of my race and that happened to me at least once in all of high school i'm a senior in high school now and seeing a teacher or um
094any staff member of my race like at any time i could be passing by the hallway and i could see someone it just makes me feel that i belong um and sometimes it's not really real thank you trisha um so those are just some some of the voices um of our our students and and really that's what should be at the forefront and um so when i hold the hiring process workshops um really just reiterating and putting that at the uh in focus that the work that we do um who we're we're looking to hire is for our students and for what our students need [Music] that's fine questions for bob and or glitter great job and uh go ahead and yeah and i had to add a couple more things on the slide sorry
095oh thank you trisha if you go to the next next slide thank you all right so um yeah so as i was mentioning um hiring committees um so i encourage people to serve on our hiring committees and um the way to do that is to attend the hiring process workshop uh as i mentioned i hold those either once or twice a month um the upcoming workshops are november 10th november 24th if you're an icsd employee and you haven't attended a workshop but would like to sit in on the screening committee of the stakeholder and screening committee or interview committee you can go on frontline professional growth formerly known as my learning plan um and then if you're a non-icsd employee you can send me an email and say you're interested in attending and then i
096will send you i've been holding them virtual everyone has been okay with that so far um but if anyone wants you know to meet in person i am um happy to do that as well uh and then next yeah so um i also want to talk about the retention effort um so um we you know part of making sure that we can retain um educators of color is to also build community and um part of that i've had the great opportunity to collaborate with cornell this year on their planning committee for first fridays and have our educators attend that and that's a great networking opportunity for professionals of color in the area um and then also i've held staff of color book discussion series so last year we read cast 400 souls heads of the
097color people and so those discussions um were not only supportive but um uh we could reflect and really dissect a lot of things um so that's uh yeah just to give you some retention efforts and then on the next slide um uh this is also an event that we had um as part of the affinity group um and so we were able to hold a panel um dr shawn eversley bradwell dr brown ben ortiz from the cornell hip-hop collection [Music] so we held a panel and invited educators of color around new york state so that was a great way as well to be able to talk to other educators and also bring awareness to the work that we're doing in ithaca city school district uh and as you saw on my recruitment schedule so as
098i mentioned uh we will have an event december 2nd at cope uh we're sending out invitations to all of the new york schools and also hopefully get some people from new york city educators to come and have an opportunity to meet with dr brown also meet with me ask any questions and be able to recruit people early questions comments thank you even better now that you're able to finish thank you so uh no outstanding and uh andrew did have his hand up first i believe and uh but outstanding thank you great work thank you um yeah thank you uh really i mean really cool i didn't know that the district was doing this so this is really good to hear that it's a big you know priority um i was also wondering i this might
099not be the the right place to ask this but i was wondering are you taking the same kind of steps to hire bus drivers or you know other other staff like that because i know um personally the district is i know the district is out of bus drivers and the way that i know this is because i have not been on time to my first period class once this entire year um so i would you know i i would say are we you know are we taking the same kind of the same kind of drive to hire you know people that aren't just you know aren't aren't educators exclusively you know because it's not just teachers that this district runs on you know it's bus drivers janitors uh lunchroom staff you know all kinds of
100people so i would say are we are we doing that um yes that's a that's a great question and yes we are um so recently i actually attended a job fair with the director of transportation and so we are doing all we can to hire bus drivers there are some some challenges that we come up against um and um but we are recruiting i've also been um have put different radio ads out i recently recorded one in spanish in hopes of also being able to to reach spanish speakers um and we're looking we're looking at different avenues of of recruiting and connecting with community members we recently for instance one of the barriers is having a certain group go and apply on on apple track which is our application system we use and so we
101just set up um a chromebook and had people just come and apply here and we were able to actually recruit um i know there were two bus drivers out of that or bus trainees who will be training to um so we'll train them to get their cdl and then they'll become bus drivers um so yeah so we have been putting efforts as well towards that thank you uh hey gledira hey bob thanks for this wonderful presentation you said something towards the end that sparked my interest that we're going out to try and meet prospective candidates early so we can get uh jump on the hiring process in the past there's been a technical issue with that bob you i know you recall this and everybody who's been associated hr can represent them with a contract
102is that was was that the specific issue that was holding us back sometimes can we present them with a contract as we try and get out in front of the crowd and hire them earlier are we there yet thanks yeah elder that is the that was and remains a point that slows us down a little bit uh in comparison to our competition out there so ithka has built over a long period of time primarily to rebuild trust with the community that this in fact is an important and forefront issue for us and we're in in hiring a process that has the engagement that gledira went into uh during her presentation tonight and um there is the ability for the superintendent to do what's called early contracts and offer them on the spot but it has
103i think met with a little bit of resistance based on the history of where we were 10 12 15 years ago prior to this board prior to other boards and dr brown coming on board so we have offered early contracts on the spot to folks but we don't do it nearly as often as perhaps the competition would require us to it's something that we'll continue to work on but i think being out there early having having someone on the ground uh gledira and often other folks go with her that's really really helpful to make that connection with folks and you know this position that gledira took over just prior to covid and is starting to pay real dividends to have out of the opportunities we had to hire teachers in the past year or 21
104of those opportunities were filled with the teacher of color is remarkable and a great return on the investment and a real step forward i think oh high school students um thank you for asking this question part of the reason why we wanted to wait for a future board agenda is to make sure we could have the experts answer it and not board members sort of pontificate of you know what they know or what they remember i have the pleasure of being um involved in watching gladia's work um and her team's work as well um because of my involvement in the ithaca college and their hiring practices and realizing how difficult it is and so i'm greatly appreciative of the amount of time energy expertise innovation that has been going on and i recall um i
105also appreciate our lacs reps asking about reminding us that our district doesn't just run on bus drivers and so if you look at our data historically in terms of race and ethnicity we have always been much more diverse in terms of our cafeteria workers our custodians our bus drivers then we have our school administrators or our teachers but we still can always do better in multiple arenas so great question with that being said i do recall something that one of my good friends elder harris said at one point in time we were having a conversation about why we were having such difficulty hiring teachers in ithaca um one is to acknowledge that we live in a transient community and what that means is according to most census data 40 of people have not lived here
106in the past five years um it's the nature of being in a college town but um eldridge was pretty explicit with someone when they said it's really hard to have someone move to a place like ithaca and elder you can correct me if i'm wrong but your response was you make it seem like i don't want good music or good food or nature or beauty or a good quality of life and so the real question is is the organization inviting me in because the community itself is not the issue it's whether or not we have an organization that supports folks i hope i captured that correctly eldrid i just added we have a pristine lake and everybody has boats and jet skis so i'm playing all that essence to say gudera in your experience and
107your discussions with people across not just the state right but multiple states especially for looking at reciprocity how have folks been receptive to the possibility of coming to our community to make this a home to make this a place where they want to teach and and be a part of our community yeah um well there is a lot of resistance that that comes with you know oh moving to ithaca um and it's something that um yeah i feel like you know a lot of a lot of retention efforts um went into okay make making people feel like oh wow this is a great place um to live because there there is that doubt that comes um when someone accepts a job or even thinking of moving here um yeah it's it's you know one of
108um uh i sometimes have to personally go and and you know invite people to events and say no it's it's okay to come to this event um you know and and then and then convince them of what the vibe is gonna be like because really people um see it as no this is you know for first teachers they say okay well this will be my first teaching job i'll scope it out and then move on you know so so really making people feel like wow you know i'm um i'm making friends um even you know for me a big thing is like the winter and getting out and so trying to convince people no let's go on beautiful hikes if you dress warm and you know um so the things that have worked for me
109to be able to enjoy this environment i moved here from california and even though i grew up in the dc area um and in puerto rico it's like you know um there's certain things that if we make available um to the people of color and um really make it fun and inviting um then there's more reason to stay but it's a work in progress you know so it's uh yeah there there is still resistance so you know things like first fridays and really that picking up um is helping i hope i answer your question thank you appreciate it and uh grace go ahead hey glad here thank you one for uh giving the student peace where that them sharing what's important to them i think leading with that is is so important and it actually
110separates us from the other school districts i'm not saying that they're not student focused but i know we take a lead with that um when we start sharing our district initiatives and focuses you have you know leading with love sitting behind you your picture on the screen what is the response like because we know we are a unique community yeah i think that that draws people in to even listen to to me so you know first talking about um those types of things the the initiative that we've um worked on to focus on identity anti-racism um one of uh new educators that i recruited um i think that's one thing that drew them in because they could have stayed in new york city they could have made um you know the decision to to not
111come to ithaca and so that conversation really the conversation of like the heart and the passion um and centering students was where that person said oh you know i want to go check this out i want to be part of this go ahead chris um i have a question um i'm really glad that we're doing so much to recruit new educators and educators who are people of color and i'm sure that icsd like cultivates a great environment to teach and like they want to teach here but i was wondering if anything changed within like their contracts like a higher starting pay or insurance that would allow like greater retention or interest in like continuing to teach here oh my god i would love that and i hope that's okay to say that but um uh
112no you know it's um it is union um uh what's the word someone said uh you know it's it's it's a contractual with the union and so really i will say that that the union in in terms of that um wants to be um uh you know it's a it's a union process and so um you know that would be a great retention um tool and i don't know if i can speak any further on that yeah yeah maybe if i just jump in a little bit grace it's a great question in terms of the contract and what teachers are paid what all of our unionized employees are paid including their benefits their retirement their health insurance that is all collect what's called collectively bargain so the union has professional representatives in albany with you
113know cpas attorneys etc they also have professional representatives regionally called labor relations specialists who sit at the negotiation table with them and there's it's again a collective process over the years i've been involved even before dr brown came here and those negotiations had been handled somewhat contentiously and often negotiations are across the country we've really tried to turn it and i think have been successful to turn it into a very collaborative process with our union leadership and trying to balance um salaries benefits taxpayer needs that's what it's all about so the district can't just unilaterally say here's what we're going to pay teachers it is something that's collectively uh negotiated and we're always looking for ways to be creative in couple of our contracts we've implemented um the district would help pay for the cost
114of someone going to college for their teaching degree and we're doing things like that it's a great question thank you could i um am i muted could i add something um that i think that uh the work that gladier is doing and um making real personal contact with people um you know as part of the hiring process and where people really get a picture of what uh the the kind of innovation the the kind of values um that go on in in ithaca it's a real draw i um you know i taught for six years in another district before i was hired in in ithaca and it wasn't until i actually started working that i mean i had reasons why i wanted to work in ithaca because i wanted to live in ithaca and so
115uh the you know when i got here i realized what i had been missing in my previous district in terms of the vibrant quality of the uh professional group the innovation um that you know was happening within the schools and i didn't know about that and i think that you know anybody that we're trying to recruit if they really get a a picture of the kind of things that go um on in ithaca it's going to be very attractive in the in the school district and in the community um it's going to be very attractive to them the vibrant quality of the students mauro yes and the students too yes i just thought i'd just thought i'd go there absolutely of the ex students no i won't go there um anything else for glitter thank
116you so much uh but anything else before we merge another athletic team um but uh glitter thanks again appreciate your i appreciate your work appreciate always seeing you uh and it's great to see you tonight bobby well you know about we see a lot of but glitter you know i think we need to change that up bob a little bit right let's see see more of glitter so i appreciate it thank you and uh we are going to slide to really the last school district business as an athletic merger we have sports teams that other school districts wish they had and once again we have another district that has a young student athlete that wishes to wrestle uh at a high school and so that is uh next item and it is southern cuba i
117believe yep um and as far as i know it's one student and i believe um it's been uh approved by our athletic department um wrestling is competitive if you want to wrestle uh you you do have to wrestle at a certain weight and you have to um you know um i guess these might are not going to really come well i guess someone can uh explain to me you will be wrestling for as a southern cuga student and not competing at a weight class with our ithaca high student i think is correct is that not what i read asking an administrator whom you know yes sir you're absolutely correct thank you part of our policy of any athletic merger is that anytime we have an athletic merger it will not replace ithaca city school district
118students who are participating in athletics and so the goal is to make sure that we support our communities around us while making sure that we always support ithaca city school district students and um my apologies for not remembering the actual policy number but if you look at our policy book you will find the athletic merger policy right so uh so basically the student will be using our facilities parents will transport from uh from uh county down here uh while we're wrestling for southern cuba which uh we certainly appreciate that um and he will have an opportunity to compete an opportunity to pursue to participate uh and anytime we can do that in anything clubs or obviously fine performing arts these days and athletics uh anything to get students uh back into the swing back being
119engaged with uh with all that school is and uh is i'm all for it uh if there's no real questions about it um the resolution is there or yes and if we could just uh move it and second it and probably vote up i'll move 11.3 athletic merger with southern cayuga wrestling second thank you mario for that pause and uh and you know we got it we got the second so uh if there's nothing else uh we'll go ahead trisha call the roll bob ainsley yes shawn eversley bradwell okay eldridge harris yes moyra lane yes chris malcolm yes patricia wazilow yes thanks everyone and uh sean did say yes i saw his lips move anyway and i think i heard it so uh all in favor and that passes uh any other discussion items dr
120brown do you have anything else uh before no sir uh wishing everyone a safe travel home if you're down here and uh hopefully we can be in school everyone tomorrow thank you my uh my computer said the rain stopped a little while ago but now it says rain to stop so i wish the computer would get it right dr brown um i might actually have to go outside and see what it's actually doing i do have an umbrella um all right so uh um upcoming dates right i mean next tuesday there will be the usual suspects as far as work sessions and so uh we'll check the schedule for that i don't have it right in front of me right here but um anything else everyone are we good lilly great to see you have
121a good one andrew zara great to see you uh it's a pleasure and we look forward to seeing you next time and uh so thanks everyone have a dry wednesday and thursday you