ICSD Board of Education Voting Meeting - Tuesday, April 27, 2021

001i'll preface it a bit that um we are not going into exec session tonight we do not have a reason to do so and therefore we will not be going into the next session we only go into exec when we have an explicit reason to do so allowed by the open meetings law and uh we have a good sort amount of business to get through nuts and bolts basically for uh voting items for the alarm consent agenda that will address various items there and a few voting items for boces and we're going to adopt our budget bulletin we'll get to that but uh we'll get to all that then we'll do our public comment period and receiving from delegations etc uh students and get into our uh high point of the night which is hearing

002from folks at fall creek about learning forward and so we'll we're going to get through the consent agenda and various other voting items and then move on but we do need to uh modify the agenda and john and i have been discussing this this afternoon but um but i'll take a motion from anyone at this point to uh to modify the agenda bless you eldritt and for folks who heard again um we only go into executive session when there's an explicit reason uh so i propose a modifica a modification to the agenda which is to remove item 2.1 and 2.2 which is to move the receiving and hearing of delegates to section 9. [Music] i apologize y'all for the driveway alarm uh and to move the superintendent report announcements before the school drink business to

003the receiving of hearing of delegates and move item 11.13 learning forward icsd and other business to 11.1 other business all board members have received an updated version of this proposed change um and i'm hoping that we can uh post somewhere and i maybe i can post it in the chat for other folks to understand um the change that we're trying to make as well al second thanks chris so uh questions are we set on you know do you have the agenda in front of you and it should flow but we're gonna get some work done for a period of time and then uh do some more work so um if there are no questions uh trisha go ahead and we'll call the roll rob ainsley yes erin croyle yes sean eversley bradwell yes eldridge harris

004yes nicola fave moyra lange sorry yes chris malcolm yes ann reichlen yes patricia rosalin yes very good thanks everyone we'll go right into the consent agenda and chris malcolm there is so much here i i brought my glasses so to get through all this and um there are a few items on the consent agenda that were fast-tracked uh to finance and facilities last week and i'll have amanda speak to those once we get to them but um why don't we move uh if we move and second the consent agenda then we can talk about any questions anyone might have i'll move the consent agenda as presented second thank you chris thank you moira so um chris you want to speak to page after page of consent agenda there is a ton of information on the

005consent agenda um i'll give a quick overview you know if you look at 6.1 through 6.4 a lot of resolutions for generic cooperative purchasing with boces which we do every year and basically as a group as a partner with boces uh most of those are with the delaware shenango madison otsego boces for purchases for food and cooperative purchasing cafeteria supplies um and then if you go down to 6.6 we've got the resolution for light fiber for high speed communication services not to keep on moving down um then we have uh agreement with campus construction for their management services of phase two of operations of sorry of construction operations we've got a ton there not to um exclude interpersonal inter transfer of funds and if you go down to the bottom the two that i really

006want to point out is um the air control for lacs and also for the arts room and then the beverly j martin um elevator modernization there is a ton of information there um amanda if you i know i really went over those quickly there's also the resolution to designate the disposal of surplus property and what else that i think that's really discussion worthy ipi grants but it's a a lot of things that are you know that we do this time of year as far as solidifying um different purchasing agreements also transferring of funds between different accounts uh nothing extremely out of the ordinary until you look at the different construction projects hey chris would you be able to speak to uh what it means when we say designate and dispose of surplus property yes um

007and you'll see a lot we've we've been doing this throughout the year but when we have excess property um we either can try to sell it which we did if the last meeting um actually we were able to put it on the facebook marketplace and sell it in order to recoup some funds um if it doesn't have any value we dispose of it um a lot of times it's old technology that is obsolete it's wiped clean and we have to dispose of it sometimes it's office furniture um so um this we've been doing this throughout the year as you can expect especially with technology it gets outdated pretty quickly um i believe there were trucks involved in this and i'm just trying to open it up chris not to speak out of turn but the

008most recent disposal of funds were a couple of vans a pickup truck with a lift um and a box truck as well all of which um or publicly able to bid and if i'm not mistaken received uh higher bids than what the anticipation was for each of those this one uh nicole clearly states it's simply a drive on a lift for the transportation department that's the only we're doing but as chris indicated usually it's technology sometimes it's desks and chairs chris i'm probably missing things as well right um it's any type of equipment that we have that we no longer have use for this just happened to be that type of equipment especially we don't often get the items like the lift from transportation thanks chris and uh amanda there are from some outliers here

009that you didn't want to want us to address were hvac and two rooms at lacs was fast tracked through facilities and finance plus um we've been in facilities we've been talking about the elevator and beverly j martin for quite a while if you just give us an update and uh what we're going to vote on absolutely so um you really don't need me chris just took it away and so um i will just just from the perspective of um you know the business office the number of capital project related items on this consideration of accounts really is so that we can get this work in process as soon as possible number one especially with the hvac at lacs this will give us a few more spaces to welcome young people back to the building um

010that will this will be you know occurring in in the next couple of weeks so we want to have that prepared and ready to go um the elevator this work will be done over the summer because you could imagine it's pretty loud and disruptive um we've had some issues with the elevator uh functionality in the sense of um you know the board and the wiring so it's not so much the the actual um box the elevator box itself but but the the equipment around it and so this modernization this will be this is a state contract situation right where we put that out there's a number of companies that are on state contract that are already approved this is the one that came in with the lowest sort of bid and that's where we're going

011there so then that way this work can get done this summer for those of you that don't know um the elevator it works most of the time which is not enough and so that's why this is really one of those situations where we're going to put this under the capital project work that's already been occurring at beverly j martin and we'll just like pull this in as sort of a change order right so that it falls under the current capital project work that we have and also um just so you know and i don't think it came to the board agenda in any way or consideration of accounts but to ensure that um adults and young people had access to all three floors and beverly j martin through the special education department funds we purchased

012um these very state-of-the-art wheelchairs that actually can go up and also go downstairs it's motorized and so you actually rather easily can be able to transport young people and adults upward and downward so everyone still has access to the building plus bjm has just done an exceptional job of rethinking environment and bringing support services portable libraries to young people as needed right and using classroom space on the on the bottom floor as well so those are just a couple of things rob one other point you're gonna see um it looks as if there is a redundancy in terms of the agreement for construction management services and chris spoke to that with campus construction that is our current um construction management firm that that manages uh the scheduling the you know supports the design development the

013construction development and then the construction itself there are two separate contracts there and that is on purpose one is for the entirety of phase two and the other one is remember we pulled out the middle school hvac work at both boynton and dewitt and so that is a very unique separate project from the phase two and that aligns with what we're submitting to state ed so that's why you're going to see those two different contracts for the same contractor but that's that's why that's pieced out but otherwise chris thank you you made my job really easily that's chris's goal i'm sure that's actually as we as all of us we want to make your job as easy as possible man um and certainly the middle school hvac project was certainly more than a pull-out it

014was an add-on it was incorrect um really just conditions on the ground dictated that we really dig into a solution for the middle schools so that's right part of the process that's right and it really that project specifically remember we tackled a lot of the um air filtration and circulation issues to reopen our schools this one tackles the comfort issues as well and humidity control and things like that right so this expands what we've already done to create a permanent fix for a lot of the comfort issues we've been seeing we certainly um anticipate and hope that it does address all those issues and we'll find out and that we look forward to that any other questions regarding the consents any anything rob i have a question um and two comments um one i want

015to remind um our voting public that the consent agenda normally does not include 20 plus items uh but as chris said that we find ourselves at that time of year preparing and planning for next year um anytime that we have a bid for services our bids are dictated by new york state education law and so i want folks to make sure they understand that as well it also seems like a good time to remind folks that all school meals are free for any student regardless of eligibility in icsd this year so if you take a look and look at our food service program statement of income and expense report that is reflected there and chris as the chair of the finance committee and i had a brief conversation about this um and uh discussing our

016contract with ocm boces and for technology services which we've been doing for the past couple years and this is both to the finance committee who i did not uh was not able to attend and to dr brown and amanda that we've had a number of folks asking questions about the work that we do to support students with devices and um is this particular contract um related to that or there do we have an opportunity to have a conversation about the contra the contractual services we have to make sure we are thinking about technology and services for next year thanks john anything else before we vote it is a long list appreciated the time and opportunity to go through it you good dr brown uh trisha if you could call the roll that'd be great [Music]

017rob ainsley yes erin croyle yes sean eversley bradwell yes and looking forward to the discussion eldred harris yes thanks for the clarification nicole lafave yes maura lange yes chris malcolm yes ann reichland yes patricia wiseman yes very good thanks everyone and we'll move on to some other uh annual uh business that we do have to get to and moving on to school district business and a resolution to accept the tst boces administrative budget and um this is the administrative budget that um um jeff and the folks at boces came and presented to the finance committee i believe that did not present to the full board but indeed on an annual basis we as one of the component districts we do vote on their administrative budget not the total budget for boces because that's dependent on

018a variety of items that we don't have a say in or not our business but for the administrative budget yes we uh we have to approve that and then we'll also follow up with approval of the new uh new folks being voted on to the boces board i'll move the resolution to approve the tst boces administrative budget second second by pat and you can see there's a variety of warehouses and to be resolved and it's there for everyone to see but i don't think that will be a part of the public record any questions regarding the bosses budget administrator rob for those of us who are unable to attend the finance committee anything in particular stands out federal funding state funding anything we should know chris amanda anyone um so we approved this we're in

019april now so back in february and there was some standard increases uh i was actually shocked at how the contr um some of the expenses were kept down especially due to covid but the factor nothing that stands out um the biggest thing to me is you know we're such a large portion of boces that we are impacted more than other other school districts that participate so that's one thing that we need to keep in mind and uh and sean there certainly the the standout uh information that i received from that meeting was when i asked you know how many what percentage of students are you know on campus compared to remote and basically uh with the programming they have and the space they are essentially all students are on campus and they really do not

020do a hybrid uh learning model and certainly it's to do a remote model with a variety of their programs doesn't work but they've really made a tremendous effort to make it work for in person five days a week and so they're uh they've done an outstanding job uh this past year and uh well and continuing into 20 spring of 21 here so that was the outstanding uh info that i received from that that mean aside from numbers right amanda anything you'd like to add no i i think um i think you covered everything and uh you know just just for folks that are going to be looking at the budget document this number that the the board of education is voting on is part of the total boces budget as rob discussed so you will

021see a boces cost of services that includes this amount but it is you know upwards of 16 or 17 million dollars right so because that this does not include the cost of the programs and the services to young people thank you man correct anything else he was moved was he was moved right seconded by pat right yeah yes yeah there you go my mind is sort of working so uh so if there's no other questions we'll go ahead uh trisha with the with a roll call rob ainsley yes erin croyle yes sean eversley bradwell yes eldridge harris yes nicola lafave yes maura lange yes chris malcolm yes ann reichland yes patricia wazilow yes thanks pat thanks everyone and moving on to tsd boces election of members to the board of cooperative educational services so this

022is uh electing three three folks from uh one from rotten and lansing and newfield um it's not competitive but they obviously they we do need to vote for these folks that are stepping up to serve and um and typically we support them and glad to let someone step up and right you know it's uh actually boces is a very interesting uh uh organization and uh typically folks don't always have to be a school board member but sometimes they are sometimes you're not but uh if we could have a motion that would be great i'll move the tst boces election of members to the board of cooperative educational services second second by pat uh any other questions we're good i apologize rob i'm gonna i'm i need to be in person i'm talking too much just

023to let folks know in the community that the tst boces has nine component districts and what we're voting on is that each individual district gets to put forward a candidate icsd did not select these candidates but we are asked to support our component districts and who they put forward to serve on their board and so that's we're voting on here thank you sean appreciate the background and information as always so um anything else are we good uh we're glad to uh help support these folks uh trisha again if you please rob ainsley yes aaron croyle yes sean eversley bradwell yes eldridge harris yes and we thanked him for stepping up nicole lafave yes moira lange yes chris malcolm yes ann reichlen yes patricia wisely yes thanks everyone and uh and now to a resolution that

024we have to do every year we did adopt a budget last meeting last meeting right yes last meeting right so once you do that amanda there's other things you have to do you know and public information and notices and uh there's a talent there's dates that we need to do things and one of the things we need to do is uh adopt the 2122 school district budget notice and if you want to just give a rundown if we we do have a copy of it in our agenda but that's right but folks know what are we going to vote on now sure so this is just this is essentially adopting this budget notice so this is another requirement by new york state education department right in terms of transparency to the community so the last

025time we spoke about the budget you adopted the property tax report card which essentially is a transparency report regarding the budget itself and then all of our fund balance and reserves that we have if you look at this document there are similarities to that document this is in addition to that property tax report card the difference here is that it doesn't talk about transparency in terms of fundamental reserves it talks about transparency if the budget votes were to fail twice and we needed to go to a contingency budget this is the calculation and the transparency report to show what that contingency budget would mean for the school district and so essentially the way you get here is there's a formula that the state puts out to us that we populate you have to freeze your

026tax levy amount to the prior year and then you have a calculation that tells you what percentage based on the numbers you had in the prior year you're allowed to spend on administrative component of the budget right so administration if you imagine the kids at the center right the sort of the leadership components of the district that are a little bit further out of the circle from the closest to the young people right the program component is closest to the young people and then the capital component is the infrastructure and so you've got you sort of do this formula you figure out what that percentage is that you're allowed to have for the administrative component you also determine what would be things that would be contingent expenses things that are not required to run the

027district so things that are like in our bargained agreements that's required right you have to have a certain amount of money to keep the lights on and the doors open and the you know the lawns mode this incorporates all that but anything that might be a contingent fund that we really can't justify that would be an absolute necessity a health and safety matter right um those things would have to be backed out so for example sort of like a great example of that is like travel to professional development that has to all be backed up and it's very prescribed by the law so we actually have a spreadsheet that we use and we populate that what you're seeing here is that this calculation in and of itself shown on a form that will now go

028in the mailer to all voting public in ithaca city school district thanks man sure and we can uh we appreciate that we we do have to do this once a year and we're going to do it right now if um it's really move and seconded and then if there's any questions we can uh address them i moved the resolution to adapt the 2120 21 20 22 ithaca city school district budget second second by eldred thanks pat for stepping up we appreciate that um any questions regarding that document uh eldridge looking at it as i speak uh yeah one question um amanda can you explain to us and the public as you always do so well what all is included in the administrative component because if you look at that line right now it looks like

029we spend more money on things than people still by roughly two million dollars but if i understand it correctly the administrative component is not all about you all at the executive no so so the administrative component essentially if you were to look at the budget document right that expenditure document that we have that's about six pages long it really is the the first um the first i i don't know probably i'd say like six to ten budget items prior to the facilities budget lines right so it's things that are in the board building that that so the district clerk right elections costs uh attorney's fees insurances the mail room um [Music] uh you know any sort of executive leadership that's in there um it would be the entire human resources department including the boces work

030and all of our payroll and employee benefits and all that it would be the entire business services right so it's really like the business side the administrative side of the operations thank you any other questions you good morning all right with more uh ready to go that's all i need okay so uh um sean you good back there i believe so i have some other questions but there'll be time to engage these at a budget hearing very good um trisha i think we can go ahead bob ainsley yes erin corro yes sean eversley bradwell yes eldridge harris yes thank everyone for their hard work on this this year in particular nicola fave yes moira lange yes chris malcolm yes ann reichlen yes patricia wassel yes um thanks everyone and uh so that's it for really

031nuts and bolts and all those things we have to do on the business side uh now we can get into some other items um and we are expecting a very nice person from the new york state school boards association to uh be here tonight um not sure whether i thought perhaps and so uh before we go on to uh the rest of the meeting um i would uh invite that nice person from new york state school boards association to come on up and uh something about a champions for change presentations and jay true jay true got all these good evening i'm sandra ruffo and i'm a member of the board of directors of the new york state school boards association i'm also your area director the last time i visited your board meeting i had

032a plan that i was going to visit all 68 of my districts and i hit two deer and one of them was on my way home from ithaca so i'm hoping that doesn't happen again this evening dr brown members of the board i believe mr chernikov was going to be here virtually i'm not sure if he is uh community members and students first i'd like to congratulate you for recently being named to the 2021 best communities in music education which you've done i believe for the last nine years but i think i do know of districts that do get this award yearly and they were not able to participate this year because of the pandemic but obviously you were still able to do that so i think you deserve a big congratulations for that i

033appreciate the opportunity to join you tonight to present you with a special recognition on behalf of the new york state school boards association is president fred lang's staff and our executive director bob schneider for your third grade voting book initiative this is the second time that ithaca city school district is receiving the champion of change recognition previously in september of 2019 you were recognized for aspiring educators award program for future educators and leaders nisba knew that there were many projects happening within the 700 public schools that positively impact students as a result a couple of years ago the association initiated the champions of change recognition to highlight some of these exceptional programs the purpose of the recognition is to give a shout out to districts and boards of education like yourselves for cutting edge endeavors

034or exceptional accomplishments that promote strong academic support for all students promote equity who've been involved in a project excuse me that may be future oriented and who has the potential to impact others now and in the future when the nisba recognition committee heard of your endeavor they overwhelmingly felt it was exactly what this recognition was intended for as part of ithaca's anti-marginalization curriculum teachers were challenged to inspire their students to generate enthusiasm and change related to voting south hill elementary third grade teacher mr jerk jake chernikov had a difficult time finding third grade level stories about leaders who played crucial roles in ensuring people's rights to vote in our country so he decided his class would create its own resource in spite of the pandemic shutdown the class made the most of their online learning

035and worked for two months exploring individuals such as the late u.s representative john lewis and other historical figures such as idawels and ithaca's own dorothy cotton in addition to writing sections for each voting rights activist students also wrote a section on modern voting disenfranchisement with the help of new orleans author alex mcconduit and brooklyn illustrator irwin awalidon they finished their book our vote is our voice through google meetings the class got together to learn about the project and do their work learning about voting right activists the importance of civic engagement and the electric positions people vote for all while building teamwork research and typing skills this project is a prime example that although learning the past year may have looked different it has been happening nonetheless it gives me great pleasure to present you with

036this nisba recognition banner an acknowledgment of this outstanding project and applaud all involved in creating the book our vote is our voice all right thank you it should be a photo op dr brown right there we'll get it afterwards you do all right i'll go get it thank you thank you and but we certainly thank you on behalf of the third graders at south hill um they're the smart ones that were able to well to do this and um in a great teacher and uh well frankly a great elementary school so um so dr brown we um we have about 15 minutes till seven o'clock um i am going to call for an opportunity if i may to um stretch our legs for a few minutes and then we'll get on with our regular meeting

037at uh public comment at seven o'clock and move on yeah we'll have uh jake and some other folks who are connected to this project come around seven o'clock as well yeah okay right so we can um i would suggest that um take a little break um i should point out that uh our school board business uh for some of our school board members uh this evening started at five o'clock not six o'clock uh curriculum uh well the long the long title for a curriculum curriculum and other stuff yeah okay but uh curriculum has already been going so we're gonna just take a quick break and then um we'll be sitting back here at seven o'clock and welcome more more folks into the conversation [Music] thanks [Music] back from a uh from a short but much

038needed break by a few of our uh board members here uh it is a little bit after seven and uh we just had a very nice presentation uh from new york state school board's associate association regarding the champions of change presentation and the award that third graders from south hill um well the award is really based on the work that uh third graders from south hill did um in a book that they wrote which dr brown has and we just wanted to do a quick talk about that for just a few more minutes and then we'll move on yes sir we have some special guests and i believe they are joining us virtually mr jake jake is going to be here and uh perry gorgon the principal i believe are going to be saying a

039few words um and again we thank you for your amazing achievements and your efforts and we are now going to yield the floor to you to share anything that's on your heart outstanding yeah go forward jay perry do you want to go first your baby's awake mine's already asleep wants to greet everybody and uh and i want to say uh thank you to jake for spearheading this project bringing it to me making it one of the easiest things to say yes to ever and i'm so proud of the work that you did and the students did and and take it away sure uh so last spring my class along with some help wrote a book called our vote is our voice stories of heroic americans who fought for our rights so i guess first i

040definitely want to say it's the kids who deserve the credit for this it was their research writing hard work that made this book possible so the biggest shout out goes to hendrix phoebe ellis colin john ryan matea grace max karina nora addie mayan eli alex henry jasara landon and eda down there at the bottom um and also i definitely have to say thank you to our collaborating author alex mcconduit who lives in new orleans louisiana our illustrator erwan awaluden who came to work with us virtually all the way from brooklyn new york um a parent and our all-around kind of like design superman pete carlson jen ebel and michelle tagliavento who worked with our class as well uh the book wouldn't have been possible without a grant from ipi so thank you to steve and

041ipi and also a big shout out to jeff furman who i think i saw is on here who kind of initiated the challenge for this book uh he through his organization in his initiative called rejoice the vote he came uh in the summer of 2019 feels like a very long time ago and issued a challenge to a bunch of teachers who were working on anti-marginalization curriculum uh to do some work around activism voting rights democracy civic engagement um and so his initiative their kind of part of their tagline was to honor the past celebrate the present and challenge the future um and so in line with that i was kind of inspired by these profiles they had created on people they called voting vanguards uh so people from the iconic to the unsung who had

042fought for voting rights for themselves and others um unfortunately we got a little bit stuck i was trying to think how can we do some work around this teach these third graders about these important people in history when it was pretty clear early on that there weren't really any resources at a third grade level uh around most of these people's stories so we figured if there weren't resources we would go ahead and just create our own um so i wrote a grant to ipi i coordinated with alex in new orleans and juan in new york um and ipi was able to give us some money they were going to basically use their stipends their their payment to buy a plane ticket or a bus ticket and come sleep on my couch for a week and

043let me cook them dinner uh in exchange for doing this project um both of whom who lucky i was lucky they were friends of mine i could call in a favor juan's day job is working for jay-z so you know we got called called him down from the big leagues to help us out um and so that was the plan and then the spring of 2020 happened and everyone knows what that means uh and so you know everyone was home school was cancelled reinvented everything in between and we kind of i ended up sort of frustrated confused but determined and hopeful and i decided that uh we would just kind of lead by example with our learning we doubled down in the midst of this brand new pandemic that we didn't really know what to

044do anything about and we had no idea what was going on with school and um so while the landscape of education was kind of falling apart around us uh we began our most rigorous academic work of the year um once i made sure that everyone had their internet situated i came up with plan b c d q r s everything uh to make sure everyone was connected and kind of hit the ground running and um we had basically 100 attendance every single day uh which was no small feat you know some of that was me uh haggling siblings through their email or calling kids cell phones to make sure that they were staying connected and getting what they needed um but they showed up and they mostly showed up because they were excited they were

045engaged in the challenge and uh they wanted to create something meaningful together so um for anyone who has seen the book i'll tell you a little more about how you can a little bit later uh as you can see from the book we learned a lot learned all about all sorts of really cool and inspiring people even local hero dorothy cotton who passed away a few years ago um and as much as that learning kind of speaks for itself on the pages of the book i think the thing that was most powerful was uh this project kind of has a greater lens for current issues of social justice and particularly in the spring in the wake of the murders of george floyd ahmad arbory brianna taylor uh the resurgence doesn't feel like the right word

046because it never went away but protests happening more and more black lives matter percolating back towards the top of the news cycle and that voice kind of growing in the greater scheme of media and social justice it was really amazing to see this project as as a lens that the kids could look through and that they could understand the world around them you can process racism injustice uh and so you know we got a decent amount of media coverage from this thing it's cool to get these awards i think the thing that has been most gratifying was comments like one from a parent last spring that said that working on the book was a lens that they could view things through talk to their kid about what was going on in the world in a

047way that was relevant it was connected to what they were learning it was developmentally appropriate um and kind of grounded in their developing conceptions of history in our society so um this book even though it was rooted in history uh it was also brought kind of into the present when we had a guest visit from miss phoebe brown who's a local activist and uh and she works with an organization called alliance of families for justice um so she came and met with the students and um she kind of reminded them that the work was far from over and that millions of people in our country are still disenfranchised and that was really important i think because i've often found that when kids are learning about oppression civil rights racism it's often kind of presented as

048a closed door on history something that's kind of frozen in time you know martin marched malcolm protested things are better we can move on now and and i think that that's a narrative that many history books kind of present and it's easy to end up with that impression as a kid sometimes um and so it was really amazing to see the way that particularly with with phoebe brown coming to visit the students kind of took their learning and her challenge as a way to understand the stories and efforts of their voting vanguards as an inspiration to continue the important work around contemporary issues of justice equity anti-racism they even wrote a section of the book about modern disenfranchisement and the ways that people are deprived of their right to vote systemically and how the fight

049is kind of far from over so um that's a little synopsis of our project thanks for the time thank you to the new york state school boards association for the recognition and go check the book out please it's at the top kids county public library it's in every elementary school library in the district at least it should be um it's at buffalo street books it's on amazon don't buy it on amazon amazon's evil go to buffer street books uh and check it out it's pretty awesome so thanks so much that's awesome thank you jay thank you wow um okay now we have to follow that up with uh well i don't it's public comment period so uh do we have anyone that wishes to speak trisha emily and if they are online or in the

050room all right smaller i should say thanks deeper voice but appreciate is this person present or online online okay so we have one person mr neil guerra and he is online so um can you hear me yes okay so hi i'm neil guerra and i'm from the cayuga heights elementary school and i actually moved here from ohio and back then i used to take high ability classes in both math and ela and what surprises me here is that what i covered in my third grade class over in ohio is what i'm learning now in fifth grade here at chess and so because of this curriculum difference i'd like to propose letting sixth graders who want to take algebra 1 be able to take it so why am i qualified to talk about this because i've

051competed as an elementary schooler at the mathcounts chapter competition with the dewitt middle school team last year and with the score that i got i could have been at the state competition and what would help me and other students on this national level team is having algebra one knowledge which is something that should be offered to all middle schoolers who wanted not just those in seventh and eighth grade and also i've competed in mass madness with both the elementary and with teams where we got to the elite eight and sweet 16 out of the 64 teams that completed that sorry pardon me that competed last year in the united states and if you let students take algebra 1 when they get to middle school then we could be we could be the number one middle

052school team in the whole entire united states and just imagine what could happen if you let students take algebra one in elementary school and if you think about it in terms of sports algebra 1 is like learning how to dribble in basketball it's a necessary skill and it's involved in all of the aspects of the game and i want to be an engineer when i grow up so learning algebra 1 is an essential backbone for my education and learning and i want to advance my opportunities in math just like any other kid in this school district so i'm taking this time to take my shot and tell you why you should let all middle schoolers who want to take algebra 1 be able to take it thank you and i'd be happy to answer any

053questions you may have now well thank you um well um um well first uh we'll have board responses shortly are there anyone else nobody else on this list no one online correct okay so perhaps uh we'll just go right to board responses for our uh public comment dr brown and others uh who can talk about algebra one and um and i think uh frankly neil's probably already ready for uh engineering level math now but uh well that's something for another day but go ahead board responses administrative responses um it's good to see neil we've seen his father many times at our board meetings over the years uh miss talk i'm going to invite you up to talk about with without being identifiable our approach to uh sixth graders taking algebra and uh the process for

054a young person wishing to transition to algebra one um prior to seventh or eighth grade it would be great yeah thank you good evening good to see everybody neil great to see you thank you so much for sending the video of you playing the violin a few weeks ago that was amazing you're awesome so good to see ya so we have an accelerated test that we offer to sixth graders when they enter at our middle schools and so that provides an opportunity for young people to advance in mathematics it's both content standards and practice standards right so we're not just talking about hey do you know the stuff of math right we want to know how do you think about math and how do you communicate about mathematics right in order to accelerate so that's

055offered to every sixth grader uh that wants to take it and we're really trying to universally design opportunities for acceleration and i will also say that our efforts to detract mathematics over the past few years have really been centered around providing a really solid foundation for all of our young people in mathematics for later math that's much more complex because some of the things that we had been seeing was essentially akin to i would say a swiss cheese effect right so i might have really strong knowledge in some areas but there might be some holes in some other places right so when i get to pre-calculus or calc i may i may struggle with some of those concepts so we really want to give kids a really solid foundation and also our efforts have really

056been around um ensuring that we're supporting all students of all races right so we were noticing that our our system was grouping kids who were black and brown in lower track classes systemically right and so we wanted to avoid that so that's that's a little bit of context in terms of how we're tracking we're also continuing to provide opportunities for young people to accelerate as well knowing uh neil we hear ya thank you absolutely uh any board responses well um just following up on on what lilly calcutt was saying um you know as a parent with a long involvement with the school district and with one child in particular who um was very interested in the stem side of learning um you know i knew of a small group of students who were accelerated by

057two to three years in the math curriculum um extremely brilliant mathematically uh that opportunity is there i'm glad that the opportunity continues to be there um i will say that the opportunity to take algebra one is there and um i don't think it's something that most of our sixth graders would would do [Music] and that's just because people are very very different and we are a public school we're we're not a magnet school we are a public school that is serving to the best of our ability the the needs of every single student of every talent and ability um and it's a it's a balancing act it is absolutely a balancing act um precocious mathematical ability is a wonderful quality um as is precocious musical ability and artistic ability and athletic ability and verbal ability

058and um we are trying to bring that out for all students and thank you for coming and speaking to us anyone else if i'm available i'd like to speak real quick uh neil thank you so much for that that was very powerful um and it's a conversation that's ongoing in the district and thank you dr brown and miss talcott for talking more about it uh to uh jake and your third grade students into uh to ipei um that's a very powerful presentation of the work that we're trying to do in the district and i say this humbly and i hope jake doesn't mind me saying this it's reminding me of my age that i had jake as a high school student at lacs so our community should know that jake is icsd alum who returned

059back to teach and i also had jake as an ethical college student and so to see the sort of work that's taking place with uh eight and nine-year-olds thinking so deeply about forms of systemic oppression is is powerful so uh thank you to everybody and for mr fuhrman thank you for the work that you do as well um i've had a chance to see this in multiple different venues and again as a owner of buffalo street books please go buy the book everybody buddy um hello neil i just want to add my um my real pleasure that you let us hear your voice finally we've um heard from your dad a lot at the meetings and uh you know he's tried to explain to us how emotionally mature you are and how capable you might

060be to um do the things that you think you can do um we still are obligated to listen to our teachers though to the adults in classroom situations so we have to balance um all of the all of the uh energy and the uh and the hope and the gifts that parents have with with what we're hearing from our adult so rest assured we heard from lily we take that responsibility very seriously especially our executives and if i'm not mistaken there have been some measures so that children who possess um that combination that rare combination of emotional iq and intellectual iq and math i can test um into some of the uh levels of what you were speaking but again i mainly wanted to say you know that's a decision that will be made by

061our executive staff including your building superintendent i mean your building uh principal and our superintendent i just wanted to say i just i'm i'm so grateful and happy and smiling that you came to speak to us uh because it really is takes a lot and your um your uh your presentation was very powerful thank you anyone else [Music] very good thanks uh thanks everyone and uh let's move on to student reps if they're out yeah hi um so in terms of school events as we arrive at the last quarter of the school year with a few weeks remaining many clubs and student organizations are starting to reorient themselves for the end of the school year uh many of our academic clubs are doing very well these past few weeks the mock trial made it through

062the semi-finals and placed second in the regional championship this past saturday uh the math team plays 10th in nismo competing against students from all around the state the science olympiad team placed 26th in the state and was first placed in the sound of music event the ihs drama club has started selling tickets for the musical a killer party which will be on may 7th through may 9th and i can put the link to that in the chat the ticket sales and also winter sports have finished with many of these sports already having held their senior nights and with spring sports many athletes have been waiting for their turn and are excited to get back on out on the field court etc class officers are also continue to provide events for fundraising or for bringing the

063class closer together the senior has held a triple a fundraiser and the junior class is having a thrift store pop-up yeah so recently we became aware that on may 3rd many students and teachers are returning to school we are wondering what was the idea behind this decision do we think it's going to improve grades um just in terms of how will this change the rest of the school year um this school year without a doubt has probably been extremely has been extremely trying for students teachers staff and admin alike while in the beginning we were off into a rocky start we are now nearing the end of this very challenging school year um what we've learned along the way as individuals and as a community is extraordinary but we're not really done yet i'm a

064senior at ihs and i'm going to be leaving soon but what can my peers expect for the coming year what do we know so far in terms of distance and in-person learning at school and how will student and teacher input contribute to our final plan for the coming year um yeah so we applaud the board again for their work with the academic calendar but we still feel that there are holidays that are being excluded um lunar new year is one of the most important holidays in asia and many aapi students in our district celebrate this holiday i think it's important to acknowledge this as many other holidays are in the calendar as a day of cultural importance i understand that our district is striving to be an inclusive community so all of our aapi students

065would be thankful if this was included in the academic calendar for next year we also understand that it is impossible to adapt to every holiday but we feel that is important for these holidays to get recognized um thus we were wondering if it would be possible for the uh board or administration to separate the holiday calendar on from the academic calendar to make space for all of the holidays that are significant to students um this would acknowledge that uh existence of many days of cultural importance for all of our students and also help teachers like better adapt to their students needs if agreed upon international club is in the beginning stages of creating a comprehensive calendar of holidays that are important to our students and could be shared for district use so on another topic

066of the town hall there have been many ongoing student-led efforts at ihs to spread awareness and education about anti-asian racism and hate last week on wednesday evelyn kim a senior and i hosted a second town hall virtual meet that was open to everyone of all ethnicities including teachers and the itunes administration i'm happy to report that many people were able to attend and we were able to have really good conversation between the teachers students and administration discussing ways our own district can help spread awareness and support for our aapi community um education is honestly one of the most important things to be anti-racist so i'm thankful that mrs talcott offered to share the resources and information we presented to other administrations in the district i'm hoping that our presentation and recording of the town hall

067can be a resource or a tool for the district to aid awareness and education so um i will put the link to our presentation in the chat and i urge everyone especially the administration and board members to take a look um there are also like personal narratives from aapi students who have experienced racism at ihs and in this district and i think it would be really eye-opening for everyone to see this and just in general thank you to everyone in our district who is supporting at these anti-racist discussions and initiatives in our school district and again please check out the presentation it's it would be really really informative good okay well thank you um thanks student reps thank you and thanks ithaca high and uh board responses i just have just a couple of follow-ups

068one is the um the link that was in the chat since i don't really have access to the chat right now if we could have that sent around that would be really helpful oh yeah and i'd also like to hear a little bit more about the calendar so if i understand what you're saying is you want to do two separate calendars or a calendar where would overlay and and who is working on it sounds like it's already in progress so it's just curious to learn a little bit more um yeah just to clarify um because they're we would i think it's important to acknowledge all of the holidays that our students uh celebrate that are like culturally significant to them and because there are a lot i think it would be uh better if we

069could separate the academic calendar with like the breaks and stuff from the holiday calendar and uh to get all of the holidays the uh the international club at ihs is like beginning to compile all of these holidays and could be used for future use as the holiday calendar i think it's really exciting i'm really happy to hear that you're doing it and i think one thing that i do like is when the calendar was actually with the current one which actually has the regular academic calendar with the holidays there i think it enables us to actually see where there might be conflicts and it draws people's attention to it so i just as a thought would it be possible to do something like in one calendar but with links that would then take with active

070links since a lot of people look at it online anyway that would then take people to those holidays for more information about them so you could still have the kind of um the you know functionality of of seeing the two calendars side by side it's just a thought a good thought yeah no absolutely um yeah i wanted to follow up on that as well to make sure that i was up understanding what you were suggesting and um that something similar to that has been um going on at cornell for over over two decades they have their academic calendar but then their office of united religious works i don't know if they still do because i haven't looked for it in years but they they would send out a list of of major holidays of all

071religions just so that people um would be aware of the and respectful of the cultural diversity and understand you know what their students or colleagues or faculty might be [Music] might be experiencing uh spiritually or religiously i will say that that list always missed my christmas in easter but i'm not bitter but i think being as comprehensive as possible and and and acknowledging that there are too too many days of religious importance to different people that for us to cancel classes for all of them and still meet our 180 day requirement but i think i think uh popularizing and spreading knowledge and and um and acknowledging and recognizing is a wonderful idea and i'd like to see us do that grace i'd like to add that um on our current calendar that is the very

072reason why some holidays are listed um they are uh grade up so it clearly does not indicate um the same level of importance from my perspective that i want to have but we wanted to make sure that when people look at our academic calendar that we are the very least recognizing ramadan the festival of eid um the lunar new year um so when you look at the calendar it does include those things but i think there's great power in um other ways in which we can communicate that information to our community so looking forward to whatever the international club puts forward and we'll do our best on this end as well um in regards to emma's question i'll leave that uh response to uh our administrators to talk about um what i can say as

073one board member is we know uh that we receive a significant number of emails from parents and caregivers and students trying to get back into school in person and so there's a lot to negotiate there there's no question about it but the number of emails that we receive in some regards begging pleading letting us know the significant importance of us opening up our school buildings to more students has been very difficult for us to negotiate when we have not been allowed to do so and so i'll just i'll leave the rest of the conversation for our central administration uh thanks sean i did want to make sure that we touched on vision for uh next year and i think we we will get to that um go ahead um grace i'm not sure if you've

074heard us at the board meeting speak about this distinction between diversity and uh cultural competency and belonging right which is what we really want you all to feel and you know the evidence of this country's history shows that after various waves of immigrants have been accepted like large air quotes including by recognizing their holy days or their culturally significant days that that group experiences less violence right so there's there's a real connection here that should not be missed and it's not just ithaca um including the lunar calendar is going to solve everything but you all get my point it's just that kind of recognition that signals to the to the uh to those behaving badly that they can no longer do that um so i get the significance uh cornell when i was of an

075employee there uh fundraising one of the um highlights of the year was going down to new york and celebrating the lunar calendar with the asian alumni it made them feel included and they uh once they feel included all kinds of wonderful things can happen so i hear you as sean said and rob reiterates all the time dr brown knows there are lots of such events and uh you know we're going to work as hard as we can to uh have them all recognized to accept we can't thank you anyone else i just want to say you know i heard her say things differently with the ask of going down and understanding how we can do recognition um and i think that's that's our story starting point our opportunity we me where we may not be

076able to have that as you know a day off from school how do we recognize that and how do we do that district wide and that's our greatest opportunity um and that's what i'm taking away from you know we all acknowledge it but where do we start the road to recognition and you you were dead on because you know that that inclusion and recognition leads to all sorts of positive opportunities and i just want to speak to that thank you thanks chris uh any other board members right now um dr brown i think well we're going to go roll into your reports and announcements and other good things but if you want to speak to well it's your floor doctor yeah and thank you for the opportunity miss stansley uh much of my thunder has

077been taken um we've it's already been mentioned that for the ninth year in a row we've been recognized as one of the best school communities in the country for performing arts education thank you daphne chalulu and all the folks and i found performing arts program and all of our amazing students over the years who have contributed to that great recognition it's also been recognized already that you know the new york state school bus association is recognizing us yet again if i work around anti-marginalization curriculum development and so i don't have many other awards to talk about so i do want to transition into what we're thinking about it for the remainder of this school year and learning forward ica fcsd so i'm going to invite miss talking with caitlin brom is here tonight and we're

078going to start talking about uh where we are currently right now um at the last war meeting i spoke about us wishing to get more young people back into our spaces and that is going well and we're having more and more comment more and more conversations with our staff members who are working remotely up until now and we're providing the accommodations and getting more of our staff members to come back into our spaces as well with that i'm going to transition over to ms talking and caitlyn to talk about some other thinking and some of the work that's happening for this year and next wonderful thanks dr brown good evening everyone good to see everyone again thanks so much for the chance to to talk this evening and share some of our thinking and some

079of what's already happening in relationship to essentially our our response and i would say much more around planning forward in relationship to the multiple pandemics that were in the midst of right so um you know earlier at curriculum we had a really great conversation about this idea of learning loss and a lot of folks have been asking us um you know what what are you gonna do in response to the learning loss that we're that we're hearing about or this idea of covent slide and something that we've we've said um and we we want to really point out is this idea around language really can really informs the way we both approach and act right and so if we are welcoming young people knowing that they are bringing assets and actually they've learned a lot

080it might not all be in the state standards but they've learned a lot right if we're approaching next year and the fall knowing that our young people are bringing wonderfulness right we can also then talk about the unfinished teaching and learning that's a reality as well right so we want to reframe this idea of learning loss or covet slide in terms of what are our children bringing that's fabulous right and that we're going to affirm in our spaces and what are the realities around unfinished teaching and learning so we have a brief presentation that we'd love to share with you this evening um and we really start with a quote that uh is from dr bettina love that i think frames much of this work i have to give a big shout out to mary

081grover the inclusion officer she and i are leading this work together she's doing an amazing job and she was actually the one who pulled this so to love all children we must struggle together to create the schools we were taught to believe impossible schools built on justice love and anti-racism and that is at the core of what we are trying to do in general in the ethics city school district and certainly as we emerge from the dual pandemics trisha if you wouldn't mind going to the next one thank you so the the crux of learning forward icsd is built on these four big tenants and i'm so excited that caitlin is here because she's actually going to talk about some of the ways in which fall creek is already doing this right so really give

082you an understanding of what what we're talking about to contextualize it further right so students as partners and leaders and one of our partners and leaders is actually in the audience here this evening who's the student over there hi who's amazing and brilliant and is working with our learning forward icsd steering committee in order to support this work and guide it right and when we're talking about students as partners and leaders we're talking about not just in the school community but also in terms of curriculum like what are we actually teaching and learning and in what ways are kids involved in that process and in what ways are we de-centering dominant narratives right you saw jake chernikoff have a fabulous example of of this of this work and anti-racist curriculum for all i would say

083right where he's really talking about de-centering dominant narratives right so we want to systematize that right we don't want to just do that here and there we actually want to do that as part of our process right um educator identity work we know for each of us as a as an educator when i say educator i mean me too right it's all of us right our identities connect to um our our curriculum our own experiences etc etc so we're going to continue that work anti-racist curriculum for all we're really talking about scaling up much of our anti-marginalization curriculum led by the fabulous lisa sahasrara bube and mary grover and the structures of support we're going to get into a little bit more detail about that trisha if you wouldn't mind thank you so there's a

084lot of text on this but we'll make sure that it's posted as well so those of you who are really visual who need to come back to something and see see the print um this should be this should be helpful for you um and so so i'll talk a little bit more about some of those structures of support because it's helpful to see that with the text i mean we're talking about mental health integration right so again when folks talk about learning loss right that's uh that doesn't start with we'd like to start with how our kids and who are our kids right and we and again welcome them as they are and support their emotional well-being it's frankly that supports our emotional well-being too right um and so you know we use the ruler

085approach etc mary's and the and jen and the fabulous psychologists social workers and counselors who i cannot say enough good things about have done a fabulous job of really trying to support all of us as we're as we're supporting people there um and then specifically around professional learning those are some of the big structures of support that we want to talk about so um you know we'll be doing uh we'll be putting out summer professional development working we're starting to work with the equity consulting group right in order to to really support us on on this journey um and then the the last part that i want to make really clear is summer programming um eileen granger and julie humble our principles for project innovation which is a k-8 project-based summer school program that we

086have expanded exponentially in order to support more young people and many more young people in person this summer right so again this will be on the website we'll be talking a lot more about this in upcoming board meetings curriculum etc but i wanted to make sure that folks at home had had access to this print and could kind of get a sense of of where we're going over the next not just year not just two years but really the next three years as we emerge from this time trisha if you wouldn't mind going to the next one you're wonderful thank you um can you go back one i'm sorry so katelyn's going to transition and talk about kind of these highlighted areas around students really being the partners anti-racist curriculum for all and some of

087the key structures of support to kind of give you a picture of what what we're talking about um and what we're talking about scaling up and really systematizing as we move forward thank you so much lilly thank you thank you for having me tonight it's my honor to um have the opportunity to paint a picture and give some examples and then contextualize what's happening at fall creek using this image of the bookends so i'll be talking to you about our youngest learners and i'll be talking to you about our fifth graders which i think thank you on the left you can see a photograph of our pre-k in kindergarten in their outdoor learning space and i'm going to start with with them our our very youngest learners when we began thinking about outdoor learning spaces

088um you know i've done a lot of a lot of learning over the course of the year about how even though the history of american outdoor education is problematic and very much also rooted in white supremacy culture it's easy in many ways to offer all children authentic time in nature for them to flourish they simply come ready it's part of their nature it's part of who they are to run toward those outdoor learning spaces screaming in delight every single morning it's quite quite honestly the best part of my day to watch that happen um as a small aside i'd like to just say that part of this planning and part of what has made this possible is um and here's just a giant shout out to the outdoor gear project for supplying us with whatever

089we said that we needed um and making sure that that no one was um without what they needed to be part of this everyone belongs so back to those kids four-year-olds and five-year-olds arrive to school as activists with complete agency with brilliance with curiosity they are made to interact with everything and everyone around them and it's their job to figure out how it all works what to make of all of it what to do with it all and they come with this incredible energy an energy that quite honestly we as grown-ups we do not have any more they are different than us in this respect here's something beautiful about teaching pre-k in kindergarten and other grades too outdoors the adults have permission so to speak it's simply ingrained in the day that there will be

090much less infringement on where and how young bodies are in space lining up crisscross applesauce hands to yourself inside voice gone they're not fighting human nature they're working with it and they're reveling in it children and grown-ups alike what we're seeing is young people developing at incredible rates as social beings as scientists as artists poets writers historians and makers of history they are active confident joyful and loving i'm going to talk about the other book end of elementary school the fifth grade our oldest students are engaged right now in a case study that is entitled sugar slavery and systemic racism in our modern food systems soon you'll be able to read the whole thing and it's outstanding on the right hand of the slide you'll see just a piece of student work so difficult to

091read but hopefully you can read it later and the student is responding to having read two primary source documents and a lot of conversation it's a 12-week experience for children and what it has taught us is that students need literacies that include identity criticality intellectualism and joy as well as skills they need it it's also taught us that they can absolutely handle hard subjects and what i mean by handle is that they can hold space for others and they want to center marginalized voices they are social justice activists they come with a built-in desire to seek what is joyful and to work to expand it so that everyone can experience it some of the lessons that we've learned as educators watching these young people do this learning is that doing our own identity work is

092imperative these children need us to name how identities our identities and theirs and those of others and throughout history shape human thought and interaction both in the past and in the present they are in the moments of experiencing how their own identities are doing this and they need us to be in it and in the moment with them so all of that leads to a reframing of what our purpose is we're no longer the knowers but we are seekers of more inclusive ways of knowing right alongside our students i want to end with my own thinking about what it takes to do this it definitely takes reflection it takes the work of our colleagues and doing and and thinking through and processing together it takes immense courage it takes deep listening and by that i

093mean ascent a quietude in each of us to allow what's around us to emerge it takes a love of yourself and a love of others and finally i believe that it takes a glowing hot unwavering fierce commitment to kindness which as dr brown says love doesn't mean a love fest and kindness that kind of kindness the ferocity of that kind of kindness doesn't mean being nice all the time it means doing this hard work for the right reason thank you thanks thanks lily questions from the board chris and sean others in the room well i'll say start i mean it's just so much to take in and just what both of you are talking about i i was want to say one thing about the outdoor gear project i'm so enthusiastic about that approach and

094i feel like it's one of the things to come out of this pandemic that is really meaningful and i so i have one question i have about how come it's only pre-k and kindergarten and how do you you know broaden that to you know does it you know you know how does it go to the older grades you know why does it stop there and um the other thing i would just say about the other uh issues of bringing students back into the classroom and thinking about not about what they've lost but you know maybe you know mixing missing pieces or whatever you know how to how do you do that and are there any thoughts on not you know right now we always have you know you have first grade second grade third grade

095you know today's very kind of almost arbitrary um grading is there any thought of mixing grades so that so that one could kind of slide up and down um in in kind of less regimented ways so this couple sucks is it okay if i start yeah um [Music] so i wanna just address the first part first about um as you know i believe that we all have much to learn from our youngest learners um and and why i chose that approach of the bookends is because our pre-k kindergartners and there are some first graders actually in that cohort in those two cohorts um but just a couple um have been outside all day every day so because that is such a remarkable thing and because it just became so natural for them i wanted to

096highlight that but i also will say that the other grades are also outside a lot so they look for those opportunities um when it makes sense to be in there everyone has a designated outdoor learning space so they're free to go to it at any time there's no scheduling conflicts because there's enough to go around everyone has the cutoffs in the circle and um you know it's it's theirs so so although everyone um and i think this this goes for all of the elementary schools is outside a great deal it was really something to see these little tiny ones doing it in february every single day it's been great and then ann your your other question about multi-age grades is actually something we're already doing uh we've you know in some in some regard it's

097been a necessity of the pandemic and uh it's certainly something that some folks are looking to continue right and i think you know i'd you know one of the one of the things that i think our american education is really founded on unfortunately that we're trying to actually uh disrupt is is this idea of of fixed ability right and so so what you're talking about is great in terms of kids moving from different places because we're not just talking about skills like caitlin was saying and like we're talking about in learning forward icsd we're talking about identity we're talking about criticality intellectualism joy right so those aren't those are we're not just we're not just saying okay you need to you need to be over here in this homogeneous group in regard to skills all

098day right because you missed or you lost learning right um and and we you know so we're we're trying not to sort and select in that way right and create something that's much more flexible and and allows allows all of us to be whole beings right to be here to to it almost we're trying to create something that is much more humanizing than i think the standard response to the academic needs of the pandemic is right does that make sense yeah it does i just want to say one other comment is one of the things that i'm hearing is the kind of is that it's the word joy and that gives me joy and and i and i would say that i think that on the relationship between learning and play is like really really

099important absolutely and so i'm happy to hear it as prioritized because i think sometimes people get to school and it and and it kind of sucks the life out of that kind of natural investigation and so that the idea that you would be doing that kind of authentic experience where you kind of combine with your innate curiosity and harness innate curiosity i think it's just really valuable so i really appreciate that in the direction and mary and dr brown have been great about really holding space and and having us learn as an administrative team and many of our school communities around the work of dr goldie muhammad because those are her five pursuits in cultivating genius that that she's talking about right identity skills intellect criticality enjoy it's not in her original book but now

100she you know she's always talking about another five pursuits and those are really those are just modeled after um the black literary societies of the 1800s and so she went back and she did this research as part of her phd and now she's created this this fabulous book this fabulous approach that again is much more about humanizing young people and adults in the educational system [Music] um what i enjoyed most about this presentation is it focused on the responsibilities of the adult if i'm hearing this right what you're saying is you know maybe this is too grass or too simplistic but this is what i'm taking away it is the adult's responsibility to put teachers in a position where they can communicate with these children meaningfully regarding their identities and what they're seeing in society

101aligned with obviously a rigorous curriculum and it is the adult responsibility to negotiate the policies it's that we rewrite them in a way that advances this cause it allows nobody to hide and it is the adult responsibility to accept the emotional challenge that comes when we free these kids to use that voice and choice to come at us as an adult in you as a principal and him as a superhero we do that adult thing right we have the chance of making these kids more confident joyful and prepared to be citizens that can handle the present the past and what the future holds so this is the framing i'm taking away from this and you know this is the way we all need to start talking this is a this is a sea change nobody

102here nobody in the audience nobody in the in the in the virtual audience should be confused about what's happening we're saying something profound that how we assess our kids it's not just going to be based on the past or the limited ways we have used to assess still i'm not sure how we assess the things i just mentioned but we'll know it when we see our kids showing up right not just literally showing up and then showing up emotionally and representing their best self so thanks this is a this is really educational for me and um you know it it it uh it's a sea change you all should be prepared to advocate and fight for let's see so yeah i have a i'm gonna say just just kind of a pragmatic question i i'm

103really intrigued by both parts of your um your presentation today and the new approaches to learning and the fluidity of the grades and my mind was kind of flying off with that and then um what pulled it back down was a little something called like the new york state standards which are which are grades based and so if you could talk a little way about how you know the fluid classes and and i'm very much in favor of a more holistic assessment um but how how you're going to meld those so that you know we are going to have to be accountable to the state to show that proper amounts of learning are taking place and i'd just like to hear your thoughts on that yeah absolutely and i'm sorry pat i did i um

104i likely was not clear enough we're not talking about every grade every school having multi-age classes and everybody's in multi-age classes um i don't you know i don't want to give that impression that that is that is totally our approach so um there are a few things that we we know we've done a done a great deal of research on um and uh in terms of in terms of the asset based academic approach or the skills and intellectual approach um to to um you know interruptions and potential formal education that unfinished teaching and learning so in response to katrina like we were talking about earlier in curriculum um we saw a an approach that looks a little bit more like spiraling or uh what folks are now calling a just-in-time approach so over the next

105few months and into the summer we're spending and we're going to be putting a lot of professional development and information out about this but we're working with equity consulting group in order to help us create year-to-year learning maps that take a look at our grade level standards right just want them again that's one aspect right that's just skills and some in intellect right and take a look at them across three years as opposed to just saying all right we need to cram everything we missed into next year catch everybody up in a year and just assume that it's all going to be fine because kids won't show up to each point if we just do that right so this idea of creating meaningful learning experiences again really focusing on anti-racist curriculum for all right that

106also infuses those skills as as we go through right and make sure that we're addressing those most important standards there are also if you talk to i you know i talk to teachers all the time right this is uh this is not about doing more there's some stuff we're gonna have to let go of there just is you know in terms of you know in terms of the the time and the depth in terms of some of our standards that we've that we know that we need to take for young people in order to do do that allow that learning to really blossom and to do those standards justice we're not going to be able to get to every single last detail right so the idea of power standards again another well-researched approach is going

107to help guide us there as well and maybe i can offer a little bit of you know painting that picture for you since we have teachers who are doing this type of work right now so we have several cohorts that are mixed and they're contiguous so like in a second third grade class so for example they may be working on a case study where there are so many entry points everyone is together right and then later in the day they may be doing um really targeted math work and so they will separate into groups and that could be along grade lines or it could be you know based on the latest formative assessment you know it's still mixed but there are um smaller groups going on where they're getting exactly what they need so um

108in a way it's not different from what we've always been doing in terms of that differentiation um there's more of it it's a it's more dis it has more of more disparate flavor this year certainly and the teachers have absolutely written risen to that challenge in remarkable ways um sort of quickly learning you know usually either the the stuff that came right before what they're more used to or the stuff that comes right after and i mean i have even first year teachers who are doing this with such incredible dedication and skill and attention to student experience that those kids are an absolute community and they recognize each other's assets and um humanity in such a way that it doesn't matter the oldest to the youngest in that in that cohort they're just they're just

109they're them so um if we can do it this year by them we're going to do a great job next year shout out to our amazing teachers amazing teachers yeah and just just along those lines um last week and three weeks ago the board was able to participate in a review of um teachers who are untenured and get a kind of snapshot about of every untenured teacher in this district and we really did read and hear about just amazingly creative and caring and and innovative techniques um that was real really really heartening and i think something that you said lily i don't know how many people are listening on this beautiful you know wonderful warm night but like we we cannot rush back in the fall and just be in a blind panic of look

110how much everybody's missed look how much everybody's missed like it that's counterproductive you know um supporting kids and their strengths recognizing that yeah they learned a lot everybody's learned a lot this year in their own ways and that putting performance stress on them is not going to help anybody and and [Music] it harkens back to a simpler time and perhaps a simpler community that i grew up in um that academic performance through external measures is not the be all in and all of success at every minute of your life other uh other questions anyone online or [Music] i just have one more sure so we're done the other thing that distracting of the return to the school and personal learning as next year will be quite different than what this year that's an adjustment and

111uh just to echo a little bit what i was saying i i feel like the rebuilding of community and with especially with the community being all in one place most likely um that really is so vital and and and that that kids feel part of that place before any other it just seems like that has to be established first almost before anything else can can you know thrive i don't know if what your thoughts are on on the social and emotional community building piece but yeah and and that's always been the case in some ways this year what we've seen is children taking on the the work of doing that for each other and in a very magnified way i agree yeah i was at cuga heights today and in three of the classrooms that

112i stopped in um the kids themselves were rearranging tables they were they were creating supply boxes for their friends because they're welcoming new students tomorrow inside in some of their classes and um i was talking with the teacher who said you know i used to just stay after and get everything ready and set everything up but this year we're really focusing on empowering students um and and it's just been it's been a game changer so instead the community talked about the best way to welcome they redesigned the classroom and they did it right to um i'll just do a quick uh rejoiner but um i will point out that i was at high school today too uh early well uh dr brown and i just uh checked in at uh gig heights and duet uh

113taking up carlin on her invitation for those of you at their uh uh last thursday but um do want to point out that certainly uh for board members we have been reticent to go into buildings for all the reasons that uh we are aware of but certainly um it is it is okay to go check in and obviously go through the proper protocols but you know we're all vaccinated i believe and uh but uh check out take the opportunity before as we work into the end of the year to go in and just see what's uh see what's going on and it's an opportunity frankly for us board members to check in with our liaison schools in person that we frankly have not been able to really do and check in and see what um

114see what those outdoor classrooms at uh fall creek and when it's raining i'm not sure you're out there all day long in the rain but it's you know well bring your splashy suit yes but uh but it's a it's a great opportunity just to check in and or frankly see kids in the classroom certainly elementary level um and see some of the challenges at the middle school with our own eyes um and we talked about standards briefly um you know i've well of course you know i grew up here as others did um you know there were new york state standards and all that um you know that isn't our measure um we have ethica expectations and standards that and um if you're looking for solutions of how to educate during a pandemic you're not

115albany does not have the answers and if we're looking for albany to say well this is how we reopen going into next fall bringing as many kids back as possible uh they don't know how to do that so the work that you all are doing the this um changing uh the way that we as dr brown says do school uh or just evolving it a bit i mean so obviously been pretty successful in ithaca but now we we need to do it yes we need to do it differently but we're going to do it we're going to figure that out here and there's not going to be any uh any smart person in albany telling us okay this is what you're going to do in your classroom in right so this is for for the

116students and for the great team that we have um our outstanding leaders and uh and we as a board get to uh go go along for the ride but uh and certainly appreciate all the work to get us to this point get us to the point where now we can launch and and bring this bring this thing together and uh and eventually instead of sitting here i'm gonna be sitting out there watching a concert all right so that's the dynamic that i would like to see and that will happen and uh and we look forward to that soon but uh sean did i see him on the went weigh in at all sean i was not going to but since you called on me i will briefly it's an opportunity i'm never going to miss

117an opportunity but rob that point that you just made about standards reminded me of last week um or two weeks ago excuse me when we had jason reynolds in ithaca um the noted author of the book stamped and i know a number of our secondary students are reading it and he had a phenomenal line and this is no um this is um of both and to what um our young student neil was telling us today but jason reynolds said um i failed algebra but give me twenty dollars and i can show you how to survive for a week you know something about that notion that our young people are learning various skills that is not always captured by a standardized test and so i look forward to the ways in which we grow how we

118teach young folks about the ways in which we survive in this world and how to negotiate and much more importantly to thrive so um caitlin thank you for uh your presentation today it was heartwarming and uh i'm looking forward to the work we do ahead as a board as a district and as a community thank you sean anyone else right here right now um and this is a lovely way to end up the evening we don't have to do a bunch of votes because we did that already and uh so really a great highlight tonight caitlyn and lily for uh for coming coming in front of us tonight but we're going to let everybody go assuming dr brown there is nothing out no other items we need to address for the school district tonight just

119a quick thank you and a shout out to the folks in the back who made this possible yet again they've been they do they made a job thank you peter team daphne i appreciate y'all but uh in upcoming dates uh it will be may soon and there will be elections soon and uh we have a budget vote may 11 may 18th sorry there will be a public uh public hearing about the budget but more importantly uh we have three outstanding board members that are i think have consented to run again ann reichland maury lang and nicole lafave who are i believe going to um stand up and continue this work assuming the community wants us wants you to do that but uh once again thank you for um standing and voting and running again and

120uh we look forward to the votes coming up there may be i'm sure some uh public yeah there's gonna be a forum sponsored by the village of ithaca on may 13th correct what it's definitely may 13th and i forget the time but i'm sure there it will be a virtual forum and uh i'm sure there will be more information forthcoming excellent lawyer and uh opportunity to uh plug the uh the hearing so there i had a i had a reason i was doing that so dr brown you're good i appreciated the opportunity to tour a little bit we're gonna do a bit more yeah um so i can make my way around the district a little bit uh and i encourage others to do the same uh without anything else without any further ado trisha

121you're if trish is good and ready to go home we're uh we're gonna call it right tricia so thank you everyone thank you new york state school boards association for your uh award tonight and um and everyone else have a great evening and we'll see you all soon