001so Rob we are recording and I believe we can call the meeting to order okay everyone we are back from a sex session a public session and that's started but we'll just move right on to the business and we do have a modification of the agenda that we just need to touch base on before you move forward yeah I'd like to add a resolution to the personnel reports for the appointment of two individuals Thank You Sean and I just need us I need a second do I need a second you might as well just to ensure yeah I kind of forget what I used to do second by Aaron I believe and so without objection we'll add the modification to the agenda and now Sean we can just roll into public comment period yes the
002way in which we've been trying to do public comments is by folks indicating in some form or fashion via the zoomed techniques primarily if you click on the participants that allows you to raise your hand if you would raise your hand and use that feature we will unmute you and give you a chance to speak so if anyone is interested in speaking at this point in time please give us some indication and we'll unmute your microphone I don't know if anybody else is saying I'm not seeing anybody I'm gonna go with your determination I'd also like to remind the folks who were oh there are a couple folks who have their hands raised and so I will unmute in the order they are first is Dan young if you have your hand raised you'd prefer
003that you identify yourself as first and last name before you speak and so as trisha remind us there will be three folks three minutes per person to speak so dan young you will be unmuted right now all righty thank you today where you hear me we can yes okay so I attended a meeting a couple months ago regarding my daughter listening to an announcement from her school she's in fourth grade Northeast Elementary I'm sure some of you remember me being at this meeting regarding the transgender announcements that morning and I thought that was very very wrong to say the least to be making those announcements the end result was we were supposed to get together I was supposed to get together a lot of people and we only have three minutes I don't want to
004tell my whole life story but I'm a cancer patient I believe within a week after that meeting I was very sick when I went to that meeting but that's how important it was so I sense went and had my treatment in Buffalo New York I'm in 50 days of recovery and I'm back so one of the things discussed that there is good and this is what I need to know about I have contacted the principal we're supposed to get together but has there been any kind of a panel or anything that was discussed at the last meeting that has been opened where people can be invited in and discussed this issue rather than just having a three-minute time on it thank you Dan the board has an opportunity in the agenda for board responses and
005we will give a response at that time next up is Steve manly Steve I am on meeting you at this time hi everybody this is actually auburn sidle Steve's wife can you hear me we can yes great thank you so much for hearing me today and thanks so much for all of the work that everybody has done to put in place distance-learning 2.0 I have no doubt it has not been an easy lift I did want to share those some concerns that we are having about how that is rolling out we are the parents of first graders at be a first grader at BJM and I think one of our concerns stems mainly from what we see as the differential way distance learning 2.0 is rolling out across the district so we know from speaking
006to parents at most of the other elementary schools that first graders are just having wildly different experiences in terms of how this plan is being implemented both in terms of the balance of synchronous versus asynchronous instructional plans and also in how much or whether or not new content is being delivered I also think this is part of a larger problem that stems from our first graders and kindergartners not necessarily having access to technology in their homes I understand the district has limited access to tech to begin with and I also understand why that tech has not been mandatory for first grade and kindergarten however I do think that this is exacerbating existing inequities particularly in our school where many of our students do not have regular access to technology in their home and that has
007really impacted the kind of the kind of access to instruction that our students can have so that's my overarching point and I and I wanted to share that in part because I am bracing for the fact I hope it's not true but certainly think it's possible that we might need to continue distance learning well into the next school year so I would just urge all of us to think about how how we can consider equity and the implementation of distance learning 2.0 for all grades moving forward thank you thank you very much over next is butch Westlake butch your three minutes begin now you my fault you can you hear me we can yes yes we can hear you hello butch we can hear you hello go ahead butch technical hello we can hear you
008butch okay I never can you hear me yes yes okay I just have if you can hear me I just have I'm sorry I'm having some difficulties I just have one concern and I'm just going to be quiet and the concern is I I heard Dan's comments I'm coming at this one's a little bit different perspective I taught for 50 years recently retired as a college professor and I spent some time with education law and I have concerns of whether or not parents are notified of what might be considered controversial information being put over a PA system or putting up posters in elementary schools with kids between the ages of 4 and 11 years old in elementary school and the age appropriateness of those discussions and with that thank you so much for allowing me
009to say something and if there's meetings coming up when we can have more discussion I'd love to be invited I am a school I'm a taxpayer and I would enjoy having that discussion thank you thank you butch we have another person who's asked to speak and that is Karen young Karen I am unmuting you now go ahead okay Thank You Sean can you hear me yes great well these and I'm very concerned about the is anti marginalization curriculum going on in ICS D I have several examples of that Belle Sherman they had posters of the 13 blacklivesmatter at school principals posted throughout the hallways about like for example by the transgender affirming and students were writing their notes and their thoughts underneath each poster Beverly Martin on Valentine's Day I was there I was present
010I'm substitute teacher I was present at a in the auditorium when Nene Anan gave a speech about black lives matter and had kids holding signs of gay lesbian LGBTQ etc and chanting LGBTQ around the auditorium which I found pretty disgusting in a public school system then North East elementary school has something called why do I think this way where students examine advertisements that are gender neutral and ones that affirm society's gender bias and they create or redesign an ad to be gender neutral at Boyton middle pronouns blacks and feeling safe it was a project-based unit that aims to explore the struggles and successes of the LGBTQ community now this is as a parent as well this is something that parents should talk to their kids at home if they want to but this should not
011be part of the public school system all the public school curriculum sorry and again from what booth just mentioned were parents notified right about all these projects going on in all these fools thank you thank you very much Karen thank you I believe that's it I see Steve Hanley's mainly hand raised again and I don't know if that is Auburn again so I'm going to ask that their follow up via email in case that is and we can continue with the rest of the agenda thanks Sean thanks everyone for speaking up and we'll have more responses in a bit we do have student reps if we have students reps that wish to speak now now is the time Sean I'm not sure whether we do or not we don't we do have a couple of
012the folks who have raised their hand since we stopped and it includes folks that we know so I'm going to if it's okay with the will of the board to continue hearing from folks in the community yeah fantastic take the student rep portion yeah Alice we're gonna unmute you right now um hi I'm a student rep yes Alice okay so after the closure of school was announced I and many other students felt pretty mixed emotions the closing of school is both expected and disheartening and since there is news about Kovan 19 continuing on into the fall there are some rumors and questions regarding how school will function over the summer with possibility of summer school and during the fall many students especially seniors feel negatively about missing out on sports seasons club seasons among other
013things Thank You Alice so um hi I'm a student rep and I was asked to talk about two pros and two cards of distant learning well one of the caught well one of the pros to me is how we could work at our own pace because when we were in class kids in my class felt like they had to beat each other and finish right before each other so now we can break out our own pace cuz we don't know when kids and class finish their work and another pro to me is um now that we work at home we can have less distractions you get it work done more efficiently and to cons of mine or when is I miss interacting with my peers we may have googling like zoomies but it's not really
014the same because most of the time not everybody attends them because of their own reasons and another con is because of distant learning when I was in class when I didn't get the lesson problem my teacher would come to me right away and help me through it but now because of the corona price and we got to do it over the screen I have to wait to his office hours tax him thank you thank you very much for sharing so Rob just to make sure anybody else that we odd thanks Alice thanks Allah that word responses if we could and I'm sure there must be some but I'll let you go all go ahead we good anything from anyone hey Rob this is Eldred I just want to where I add yeah just one comment
015- I'm I'm almost sure I have the right name Dan it sounds like you're on the bend or maybe in remission that's good news and I like your question about whether not we had formed an official panel I remember that coming up in the conversation we made it clear we wanted to get the voices of all parents involved and I'll make sure to follow up with that it's not tonight at some future Chloe so we can get your answer Thanks that's it rough thanks see anyone else right now I'll offer respond as well Dan wishing you health and recovery the questions we have been working on and my apologies for putting Chris Malcolm on the spot but I know Chris Malcolm has met with a number of folks including the administration at Northeast and so
016Chris we can definitely have a follow-up conversation to the folks who spoke here this evening but I don't know if you wanted to add anything to your follow up with this particular issue No thank you I was I couldn't on mute for a second there so no then we did reach out and speak to each parent that presented that evening and as you sure previously you had to go and deal with some medical issues we would be more than happy to set up a time to meet with you virtually with the building leader and have this conversation moving forward and also to the other folks I don't want to speak for every single building leader but I know there was communication out there and probably gonna sound like a build a broken record while we
017disagree with perspectives I often want to share also language is important and sharing things as disgusting or inappropriate is you know sensitive language and we want to remember we're speaking about children so Dan we'd be more than happy to reach out to you I will definitely reach out to Northeast principle tomorrow and we'll be in communication with you soon thanks Chris anyone else right now thanks everyone Alice aw great to hear from you share your disappointments from the senior class and certainly the students we're not sure at this point what's going to happen next fall so we're going to be we're going to remain positive what's what we're able to do over the summer and roll into next fall we'll know more over time but there's a lot of planning going on but we you
018know that there's a 90 people on this board and every administrator and every teacher really really wants the students back in classroom and but still obviously you were learning more and more about this education 2.0 you know this distance learning so but I think that will evolve over time as well but but I we said we all certainly look forward to a more normal school day I can guarantee that so Rob do not make one other one other comment to Oberon hi Oberon just want to say to you the questions that you raised were many and they were very specific we're not avoiding them but I would suggest that you and I communicate so we can get you involved in the curriculum committee that's where we will get into that very detailed work we just
019had a session on the right for this meeting and we touched on some of that and you are you deserve those answers I understand you're asking for other people who may not be able to ask themselves so lets you and I connect so we can get you involved in the in the in the need to see how the sausage is made there's a lot of work being gone gone on behind the scenes that's it I think I just thank you for that response as well and as people may imagine this is a conversation that we've been engaged in both as a board as well as our district leadership and so looking forward to that conversation element I'd like to when it happens and to the students who spoke I know we have some more students
020on our agenda this evening I also appreciate the what we shared we definitely feel significant forms of empathy as a college faculty member who had my last day of class yesterday with seniors who I may not see on campus again I can appreciate that this has a different feel to it and a different change and we're well aware that there's great loss in not being able to have the last season or the spring musical or any number of events that we would normally typically have and so let's continue to try to find ways as a community to be creative and find some form of celebration and I know dr. Brown and his team are trying to find additional ways to make that happen there may be some more updates but please know to the students
021who are here that we are we were all so deeply impacted by what's taking place and send you our strengthen positivity thanks Alan thanks everybody and let's move on if consent agenda on your on your agenda and in front of you and not likelihood move the consent agenda as presented with modifications Thank You second Chris I second that second by elder any Chris I mean they're just some fairly pro forma resolutions regarding purchasing and and competant well you know cooperative bidding through through the school year so any anything that we need to really address Chris no they're like you said there's a few items in there we've got the Treasury report we've got the report for the Food Program expenses we do have also an interesting one with revenue for American Chemical Society but also
022there is and have two swimming screen so bear with me folks purchasing for some some things through our co-op but there it's pretty much boilerplate items that come up every year and thanks Chris so any questions if not we'll just go ahead and vote and Tricia if you can do the call the roll please Rob Ainsley yes Aaron krile yes Sean every sleep Brad well I vote yes Eldred Harris I vote yes Nicole LaFave I vote yes more belaying I vote yes and riesling vote yes and Patricia wasallam I vote yes very good thanks Trisha thanks everyone and dr. Brown it is on you thank you for the opportunity mr. Anthony and there's a truly an honor and a pleasure to be with the board in others this evening we have someone fun a couple
023of items I wish to share this evening and beginning with some young people that I've invited to share their perspectives and their experiences about distance learning and when I call on you I'm gonna ask you all to turn on your camera so we can see those beautiful faces and we'll start with Salah who you've already heard from you won't have her a speaker again but I want y'all to see falah and in her fashion you know she wanted to get in before we started my section so Salah is here and we also have Trey treyvion Brooks is here Trey turn on that video that button that you know how do ya get it turn that thing on Trey is here Mary Mary is here DBA is here and Connor is here we're gonna ask them
024to share some what they're getting from the experiences and perspectives when it comes to distance learning 2.0 and maybe we start with the senior in the graduating senior in BK ambassador Trey share with us some of your thinking this evening please Trey you did we're gonna come back to you Trey you're gonna come back to you while you move around in that house of yours and get to the best part for the walk five let's move over to Connor Connor how about you Robert we're gonna mute tray and go to Connor bereavement if we can Connor you there some we have we're gonna we're gonna come back to you to Connor we're gonna get you to move around a little bit in your house we have some lag issues how about Mary Mary I'm gonna
025come back to you into the second Mary are you there yeah please share with us share what do you think about distance learning two things they don't you can't make it up what I like about it is like you couldn't decide okay I'm gonna do this this thing I'm gonna do this that day and like it's not too or not too overwhelming what I dislike about it is you're learning from home and you're not actually in a classroom with your friends so it's not it's fun it's also harder since you're doing it all on a computer and yeah it's more fun when you do it in class then on a computer thank you for sharing Mary Dda would you please share with that from your thinking the two things that I like about distance learning
026are when teachers their weekly plans and spread it out by days I've mmm a slide for day one a slide for day two aside for day three and so on and I also like on what is it called the slide show with all of the information on it there's a Google Doc with all the information about distance learning on and on there there's a weekly overview of all the Google meets and that's been quite helpful for me finding out I have to go to there's a thing that I don't like those nor even Stan Gregg would bake for Aaron we're gonna come back to you Kanha okay how you feeling can you can you hear us Connor you did how about Trey are you there Trey [Music] it's still a little rocky from yeah you
027too oh yeah Connor let's go to Connor I think we have a better feed from you Connor right now create and share common all right looks like we're still having some issues this how about Salah can you say something else to us like if you want to see you speak into the camera how you do it a lot yeah I can hear you anything else you wish to share with with the board in the community this evening I don't like it I do like about thank you for joining us this evening we appreciate you all right one more try with Connor and Trey and if it doesn't work tonight we're gonna set you up next time so that you can hear you clearly one more time Connor you there yeah no man that's not becoming
028a tray I know so we're gonna give you another shot in two weeks and we will be working in the interim then make sure this internet access is good to go and I yeah I'm gonna talk to your daddy about this too so thank y'all for all coming out this evening we we appreciate your perspectives we learned so much from you and we look forward to learning with you in future meetings as well thank you all also you know transition to talk about dis is learning yeah it's we've been growing we've been getting better at it another plug for our webinar 2.0 webinar series where we talk about a CFD learning 2.0 we had our first session this past Monday we'll have another session this upcoming Monday at 4:00 p.m. last week we had our
029educators talk about closely responsive teaching practices this week we'll have educators talk about innovations things they've been trying new in the digital space it's been well-received and I look forward to learning with folks we're also going to be putting out some information about the end-of-year and how will be transitioning in this digital environment typically this time of year we're preparing for trips to cast park interviewer field trips field days all those cool interviewer celebrations projects conversations that's gonna be a little different this year but I will say beginning on June 8th we're gonna start the transition into end-of-year mode where we're engaging in those interviewer projects those interviewer conversations you're gonna probably have an even more personalized approach to that this year to do that at a school I get to high school and that
030scale is gonna take some additional time and thought but our educators are stepping up to do so but again we're planning to spin after June 8th not doing so much new instruction new instructional material but frankly digging a little bit deeper and having conversations about the learning individual conversation about social-emotional help plan for the future projects new experiences so we're excited about that coming up and we'll be sending more information about the transition in June 8th and thank you to the board it's part of the consent agenda you approved firmly some some appointments and recommendation for appointments we will have two outstanding educators to hook to educators who've been with us for a while transition and to new roles next year the first Colin gray who's been with us since 2005 call has done a
031lot for our school district including being a biology teacher science department chair she's been a master educator and most recently she's been an outstanding assistant principal at the high school she's going to transition into a new role next year vacating her old role transitioning to a new role to be the principal at DeWitt middle school you know we're gonna talk much more about Mac in the coming meetings Mac night is going to be retiring we have one vacancy an opening and mixtures the field and Colin gray is going to do that for us congratulations Colin we're excited to see you transition into this new role to be the principal at DeWitt Middle School the other transition the board approved tonight it'll horn right Lauren Wright has been with us since but Long's me with us
032in 2013 she began with us as a social studies teacher I hit the cup I school and she then transitioning to be an instructional technology integration specialist for us and most recently she's been the assistant principal at Point in Middle School I mean done amazing work there Laurens going to be transitioning from her AP role until the principal role at both banking and we're so excited about her transitioning into that new role as well so to transition from ApS to principles these folks are longtime educators in our school who district great community members and we're excited to learn and grow with them and these roles and we will be cheering out a press release and some information about those transitions later this evening or or in the morning thank you again for the opportunity to
033share tonight and I look forward to the rest of the meeting thank you thanks dr. Brown outstanding mornin and Karla are outstanding that's great news for the district great news for appointment with and dr. Brown I think we've gotten a little example of some of the problems with distance learning and challenges with technology etc of just trying to connect and you know really just trying to connect with each other and how do we do that so how best to do that but I thanks dr. Brown I appreciate that and we're gonna go right into School District business and Amanda sure you probably gonna be up we're gonna talk about budget and voting and elections timeline which have been totally changed yes sir since we met last Tuesday at a Finance Committee meeting we've already established
034some you know structured dates and Trish is gonna present for us which is fantastic the updated timeline so this will look familiar to you because it was what we shared at least the basics of it on last Tuesday night so you'll see here instead of going from sort of date ranges that we had initially based on the governor's announcement of sort of the new way that we'll be doing elections the budget vote we've solidified a lot of the dates and some you'll see are already complete so just as a reminder for folks there was an executive order that came out of the governor's office not this past Friday but the Friday prior so just over a week ago where he essentially stated that due to the closures in schools that voting would not occur in
035person prior to June 1 or actually the middle of June our primary elections locally on the 23rd of June will occur on site in buildings but the school district and Board of Education elections will not occur in person so that means that everything will be done via absentee ballot and so this is a really good time for us to sort of go through some of the requirements that we have a school districts by law regardless of the mode of voting those include things like publishing legal notices to let folks know what they'll be voting on there will be two propositions which is the first one is the budget proposition and the second one is the proposition to spend money from our capital reserve as we ask for each year and that is essentially to purchase
036buses for our school district and we have a replacement cycle that we keep those moving on those that read the legal notice that was published today and there will be a second iteration happening sometime between May 13th and June 8th notice that there is not an exact budget amount which is usually in proposition 1 when you receive your ballot that is because we are in process right now of still developing the budget that we're putting forward to the voters we are budget developing at a time where we don't have all of the information so we will be working diligently as soon as that information gets to us at first they would said it was April 30th now they're saying it's May 15th that's going to be key information for us it's decision-makers and collaborators with
037budget developers throughout our district and our community to really build understanding about what state aid means to us and how much you know is a portion of our revenue and if that is impacted what are what our budget number will ultimately end up being so if you notice here on May 21st the school board that is the deadline to adopt a budget so I note dr. Brown you know the executive team myself we've been talking a lot about and with you the board you know giving the alert that we're most likely going to have to have some special meetings obviously next week we do have a preliminary budget that we could move forward with if the numbers come in and we know what they are we can tweak that budget even if we know what
038the numbers are and they don't change but if the numbers do change from the state government in terms of the revenue that will be receiving for state aid we will be working together to propose a different budget that will show even further efficiencies to ensure that we're spending the real revenue that we bring in and and not spending more than we're actually receiving so we'll be working on that so um you'll see there in the red there that you know that that sort of just placeholder for potential special meetings to occur next week is there but ultimately May 21 the budget must be voted on once that number is developed through you know the conversation and analysis of what we have in terms of revenue and then the expenditures to try to preserve our you
039know the school as we know it taking into factors of what does fall and you know next year school year look like there's still a lot of unknowns and preparing for those so once those all come together we'll take those numbers and we place them in a lot of different required documents so one of them is the property tax cap report card that's a report to the community that must be filed at the state level to let folks know that how much we're asking to levy it announces sort of what our reserves and our fund balances are it announces what we think our contingency budget would be and it gives a lot of a sort of a snapshot of information but a lot of information on a one-page document again that's filed at the state
040level and is made public in the budget notice that we have we also have then a deadline for voter registration on May 26th that is another important piece of information if you have not registered to vote you can do so again this is going to be all absentee ballot so we want to make sure that folks that register to vote right we have the proper addresses for them because everything will be mailed to folks homes / the voter registration and we work with the Board of Elections for that so that is a database that's actually given to us from the Board of Elections both in Tompkins County and Tioga County because we have voters in both so so if it is City School District residents that are registered we'll be receiving all the information that's
041listed here in terms of the mailings um if you'll see on that same date that is our deadline to post budget presentation documents so again we'll have a budget number we know about the capital reserve utilization we'll be pulling together a budget presentation document that is quite it's actually the larger document of the two budget documents that we produce it includes things like the school district report card the property tax report card a budget notice it includes information about what we believe our tax rates are going to be it shows revenue overviews it shows the full budget expenditure document and so that's what you know that's that's oftentimes close to you know 30 pages and that is not mailed that will be posted on a number of areas of our website so that whatever is
042intuitive for the community to sort of think oh this must be where the budget presentation documents are to be found we will have it there but we also have an area of the website that is just for budget development and if you visit there you can see all of our past budget information documents our audit reports and and all of this information that has been historic so that if you wanted to do some comparisons and see where we've come from them where we're going you can always they're there at your ready for you and those will be available as you can see starting on me six and like I said we just do not take those down they actually remain as historic documents so they're you know those those remain on for years to come
043but they're there for you to access on the 28th at 5:30 p.m. we'll be hosting a virtual public hearing to present the budget officially to talk through the adopted budget to talk about what it entails what are any areas of growth the areas of efficiency and really sort of answer any questions that the community might have many of you are familiar with this format we've done this actually even prior to when we were in a closure situation where we needed to use virtual tools and already we have done teletón halls so that will be very similar most likely that we'll be doing either a zoom format so that we can control sort of the raising of hands we'll also have twitter feed active at that time and we always have the let's talk portal so
044that at any time if you don't want to wait until the 28th at 5:30 and you have questions or would like to comment or are curious about the budget or on the elections process in any way please use the let's talk portal and you know there's a tie - factor for our responses and that we we sort of we know when they come in and we know and we respond and we have a team that are able to do that so that's a great method for us to be able to communicate with you if you have questions the next important date is May 29th May 29th is when there will be two things that will be mailed to all registered voters and so this is not the homeowners this is not tax payers this is
045all registered voters so if you have four registered voters living in one household you are going to get four copies of a postcard containing details of the election and the budget hearing itself the definition of a qualified voter all those things and then you will also have copies of the absentee ballot and there will be one per every registered voter okay and so that ballad is identical to what you would have received if you would have walked into the doors at your polling location in any given year and that would be that same ballot that would have during the machine where you would have cast your votes and it will have questions for you the same as usual um you know about whether or not you support the budget which is proposition one and giving
046us the permission to levy the tax is there - it will ask you whether or not you support proposition 2 which is the capital reserve utilization to replenish our bus cycle and then it will have the names in alphabetical order of folks that would like to be considered to be candidates of the Board of Education and there are three seats and so those you would pick three candidates or up to three candidates for the board and so that's exactly what you would do if you were on-site you would do this in the comfort of your own home the we will be providing to you an envelope that goes along with that that envelope will have actually an attestation or a certificate on the back of the envelope which you will sign on you know in
047Inc that essentially saying yes this is me that filled out the ballot that's inside this envelope on the front of it it will have your you have to complete information about your name and where your polling location was and the date that you completed your ballot and then you just put that in the mail postage is paid so though all of those ballots that are in those envelopes will be returned to the school district as you know you can fill it out as soon as you get it but it must return to the school district by June 9th no later than 5 p.m. we will be fully staffed we will be heading to the post office I'm getting an email out of our p o-- box we will be fully staffed here at the district
048office if there were in-person drop-offs in your envelopes that you wanted to do as an absentee ballot we will actually have people here to also collect it that way if you don't want to mail it we will be staffed normal business hours on it will all be in secure ballad boxes just like you would if you went to a polling location the one final thing sorted between the mailing of the absentee ballot and the expectation of when you're supposed to get it back to us you will also be getting a budget notice many of you probably remember this it's usually four pages but folded sort of in a long page that's folded in two and then fold it again in half and that is Ana condensed version of the budget presentation documents but it gives
049you really some key elements of the budget of sort of talking points or elements that we really want to just highlight for you in terms of what we're bringing in in revenue what we're doing in expenditures what are our property tax report card is and so that's key information as well but you can always go to the website if you want more so with that said this is the new practice for this current year this is like I said a new executive order that sort of moved us to all absentee ballot we are working you know as quickly and as efficiently as we can if anybody has any questions Trisha Beresford who is our district clerk is available via phone or email again the let's talk portal is a really a fantastic tool if you
050do have questions or wonderings about this process since it is relatively new if you've never used an absentee ballot format before well Amanda only Albany could have thought this up it's theirs yeah this is a very interesting way to conduct not only the budget vote but certainly the elections for the Board of Education you know this is highly unusual so your Athan at a sprinters pace Rob yep there we go but certainly if I as you said and should be reiterated if I have a concern that my mail is going to be delayed and I'm I'm sure of that and I forgot to do it forgot to vote I can bring my ballot down with my three favorite incumbent board members names marked off and invoked essentially at the court building yes we will have
051staff again we're gonna be really cognizant of social distancing and fact that our buildings are really we're trying to limit the public access so what essentially we're going to be doing here at 400 Lake Street is when you come in the front door where the registrar is or are the administrative offices or where the board meetings are conducted that building there the district office essentially we will be setting up a desk in the front area there where we will have a person that will be collecting the ballot you know writing and we keep track of who drops off that ballot that will go in a secured ballot box and then that will be counted by election officials in our polling sites on campus and our polling site um there is no such thing as walking
052in that day and casting your vote you can either put your ballot in the mail or you can walk into the building and delivery prior to 5:00 p.m. on June 9th right right and right and and it should be noted that it is not you know it's not one your ballot is postmarked it has to be received and if it is comes in on Wednesday morning or the Wednesday that will not be counted correct that is correct that is correct that is the law and unfortunately we have a lot of there are certain things that we have abilities to sort of you know author there are other things that we don't and so paying taxes and the way elections are done and in the voting those are not ours that is that a state level
053that is mandated to us and we must follow those rules and if certainly others can weigh in about Amanda we do need to set a date to adopt the budgets and that will be next week I would think correct that is correct and dr. Brian I don't know if you want to join me here in thinking through maybe some options around meetings potential meetings for next week I know that that we had discussed having a time where we could really talk through and get an overview and then dr. Brown could more of an official presentation that could lead potentially to adoption after a conversation we want to make sure we give enough time yeah we would we would and you know we would enjoy an opportunity to be in front of me at least twice
054next week maybe if you look at Wednesday and Thursday as placeholder for a conversation and well at some point we hope to present to you a finalized budget giving you some time to think through that and then come back maybe a second night and hopefully make some adjustments and/or a vote so two nights next week potentially Wednesday and Thursday or options but again we'll be ready to tell us to be when you tell us to be there but we would love to have two opportunities to be in front of you on the books two quick points one I want to highlight something that Rob said and our voting public who want to make sure they register to vote on the budget that despite the language that's being used around the state that the election will
055be held on June 9th that is for the most part quasi factually incorrect that again that your ballot has to be received by 5:00 p.m. on June 9th and so if you're mailing it you definitely leave a couple of days advance to make sure that it is received to us by that point time and if you're hand delivering it and I would assume Amanda that we're taking some safety precautions and some social distancing precautions for people want to hand-deliver it to the school board building or to the Board of Education building but I think that you know when you hear the talk around the state and what people are saying they're saying the elections on June 9 that may be a little confusing for folks as we proceed that way dr. Brown in terms of
056meeting two days next week I believe we have committee meetings scheduled or some committee meeting scheduled for next Tuesday and so I may recommend if we can try to find a way and I am unsure what committees I know I heard HR will be meeting on Tuesday and I don't know what the other committee if there is another committee meeting next Tuesday policy Sean Moore thank you very much you're probably at policy I think did have that conversation so there may be a way in which to I don't know how long do you anticipate the meeting on Wednesday being but I know for many of us to have meetings on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday may not be able to negotiate between our family and our work and everything that's going on and so I'm wondering
057maybe wanted to consider trying to do Tuesday even if it's a longer evening for us in Thursday and I don't know what my board colleagues feel about that again that may be too long the day for us but i know i for i would prefer Tuesday and Thursday and I would Tuesday Wednesday Thursday I agree Shawn question for dr. Brown and Amanda do you are you going to need that extra day to bring your recommendation to us no sir again the two opportunities to be in front of you know I did not want to co-opt a policy meeting for sure so that's why I didn't offer that up but yeah if we have from the time on Tuesday evening and then coming back on a Thursday that'll be great and dr. Brown I would suggest
058that we do our budget talk at halftime between HR and policy perhaps just not not leaving for the end and not not having in the beginning because some folks might be tied up at work etc however distancing that they are but if we could come up with a time at halftime I'm saying this because I know that our meeting minutes have turned into a verbatim transcript but I would highly recommend folks join us for the excitement that is our policy committee meetings but when we can also make it into an hour-long we can be very efficient with our time as well so we'll work with Tricia to make sure that we have a schedule but I agree that some folks maybe at HR and then stay for the budget and then other folks may join
059for the budget and then stay for policy I think that's a good approach private and Shawn in no way I would want to infer that policy was not worth waiting around for in a long time and to wait around for anyway it's a Sean your policies great it's a key and and very important so but I Sean I like your idea we can do the carry over on both and not the first time I think that sounds like a plan in Amanda what's uh what else thank you and we'll look at numbers next week and Sean well some of us do students raised to hand do we do we need to do that under normal protocols we do not interject in the following of the agenda so it's up to the wants and wishes of
060the board we always like to hear from students if they had something to add or had a question glad to address it it's all about them eventually right hi sorry we're not trying to misrepresent my kids so this is not a student this is the mom um I find me you said one comment sure go ahead okay it's about it's about the the comments earlier on about the black lives matter and trans and so on I was just gonna say that I believe that if we believe that the LGBTQ community members of the LGBTQ community are full members of our community and are not exists within their community with that respected data sir or do we consider that this is adult material and has no place in school I cannot be spoken about and discussed
061by students so I firmly believe that the reset value of LGBTQ people is this mist when we can see their concern when we consider their existence and out of topic that parents have to speak to their children about our children interact with people from the LGBTQ community every day they are out in the community they are in the supermarket's into schools in universities in church it is not a different and distant culture that only adults know counter there are the students who are DBT killed in in the school right now and many are identifying as such in middle school and some probably earlier than that and they deserve respect one of the things they appreciate the most about the district appreciation for all types of being for different races and cultures and disabled people and
062community my children are former students from northeast and they are now into it and they truly truly enjoying living in a thriving and accepting community please that way thank you for sharing with us and well thank you for that we appreciate it we'll move on to we're gonna do a quick update from legislative advocacy yeah and please go ahead okay well thank you we have actually kind of a lot on the plate of legislative advocacy so I'm just going to give a very brief rundown and then we can come back to the things to discuss more one thing we've been talking about is process how best to determine which issues the board would like to take on as advocacy issues we discuss them in committee but ultimately when we take them out and write letters
063they become representations of the board so we'd like to kind of think about what that process should look like what will be the best practice for that another thing that we just want to update you on is the letters that we voted on last time did go out to Senators Schumer senator Gillibrand and representative Reid um nothing has been figured out yet in Washington in terms of whether or not they'll fund a bill that would provide funding for states that funding would be really really helpful for us right about now because about that funding um then we are not getting money that comes down to the you know idiot school um last week we discussed on the Medicaid wave / or that we would like to or Adam more detail and attack wants another thing
064that I just want to bring up is the issue um um the exchange is executive ordered divine thing how you vote um widget and a booting received by date of that as supposed to postmarked and get some direction if you want us to advocate to come you know is there any possibility that could change is that worth our time to try to make that happen I think it would be a lot more fair that was borrowed market and then last thing I did Lester bag which he is beginning discussed is on and we'll discuss a bit more and another time our changes that Kari Burke proposed to us prior to the pandemic and if we'd like to take up again but has to do with the system by which they have to register all whether
065or not students have had already inefficient so she has proposed some changes that were required legislative changes and those legislative changes could make could take a whole lot of busy work could be a whole lot less busy work and it could mean a more direct time for the nurses to be with kids so those are the main topics so from that a metro with tonight sir do you have any questions on any of those do you want it one of the questions would be the issue that we discussed last week in terms of the Medicaid Waiver I don't know Aaron if you want to say anything about that we're don't have a letter for tonight but there is a letter in progress so I don't know if you have any comments you want to make
066on that we did address it at the last meeting I mean if if folks would like me to explain it again I'm happy to just let me know Shonda do you want to just touch on the process I mean no it's one of the items in mentioned yeah maybe we can do a couple of items one in terms of process Aaron it would probably be helpful to just give a quick rundown of the letter that's in the works that we'll be putting on the agenda for next week and the issue that the legislative advocacy committee is advocating for with and then we'll get to the process that's okay absolutely so um we I guess it was several weeks now we brought up an issue at legislative Adam's new committee meeting which is basically every parent
067knows right now how difficult distance learning is and so if you take into account a parent who has a child with a disability or a child with an IEP not only are they working and teaching their child but they're also serving as a behavior specialist as a speech therapist as an occupational therapist physical therapist you name it you add into it all of the regressions all of the behaviors it is extraordinarily difficult what every family's going through but a family who has a child with a disability it is more than tenfold and so sorry they got just heard something and so what is out there for all states is something under Medicaid called appendix K in some states are utilizing this in New York State is utilizing this some states have offered to pay parents
068to provide care for their children during this time what New York State has done is allow for parents to bring in someone into their home during this time to care for their child during the school day so they've relaxed the rule on the school day care hours but it has to be an outsider and the issue with that is that these are our most vulnerable children medically speaking and then also educationally speaking in many ways and they cannot bring in an outsider so parents are completely taxed to try to do everything and so this letter is meant to send to legislators and our governor to say listen under appendix K can we do what some other states are doing which is to pay these parents so they can either take time off work or do
069whatever they need to do to provide the care and the learning that their children need and so that is the letter that we have crafted with Kate great Thank You Aaron very much in to the board we'll do the same thing we do this letter with most letters is create a Google document so folks will have an ability to read and make comments and ask questions we'll follow up I already posted something back and I presume that it will be on a future our next voting meeting agenda which will then lead us into the process question and you just want to go back to that one issue one of the things we talked about in legislative advocacy was how many parents sure how many families with this impact and we did ask Lily that question
070I wonder if live like you're there you could just pick it up for a minute in terms of the you know how what kind of impact that would have within the school community generally you hi Anne so in terms of precise numbers we're still trying to nail that down I think the the impact could still be great despite large numbers or in spite of large numbers at this time okay thanks great so we'll follow up with that as well again folks should read through it it does lead us into a couple of process questions about our advocacy as a school district and maybe this is something we can discuss that policy as well that we haven't had time to really engage though we probably should have one and has recommended maybe we consider a policy
071for any letter we sends it came up with the last letter as well so for example do letters get signed by the board presidents on behalf of the board or do all members of the board who vote and support sign their name to a letter that was one eye one question another question that arose was there should there be some sort of formal process I'm similar again the policy in which there are two readings before official adoption that may become difficult given some of the time sensitive issues that we're discussing similar to what Aaron is stating and this issue it is time sensitive so but should there be that it has to be voted out of the legislative advocacy committee before it's placed on a board agenda for board review that's another question and I
072thought we had another possible example process but it's it's leaving me at the moment well it was a more question of how what is the best practice in terms of both prioritizing which issues we want to advocate for what also does that represent the board you know because you don't want the Committee of the legislative advocacy advocacy committee which is only three people deciding an issue and then going out on their own right so it's much stronger both if the letter has the board has just is behind that issue but also it's more accurate so I guess I just think it would be a good idea to kind of develop to articulate what that process should be keeping in mind that sometimes things come up very quickly um and so it may not be the
073kind of timeframe with policy is like from you know there's a much their time frame and you might want to work faster than that so some caveats that would allow that that exception to take place you know some other process so that bed just by thinking on that so any quick reaction starts from our board colleagues with the one copy I said I'll do some additional research as well and see what other school districts have put in place thanks Sean but to jo-ann's point it's a you know which issue which you know what were we trying to throw our weight around do we have any way to to move the governor or the legislature or is that the typical School Boards Association is promoting those since the walk a will weigh in or obviously we
074have more well we'll probably have different initiatives than a lot of other school districts that we wish to support so you know we're gonna probably do some of our own obviously so and right and Sean I as long as we have a process and you know I think folks just need to understand you know you can have a letter but it's probably not quite ready to go so we're going to need you know a couple of shots at it and just get because we have to make sure the whichever comment it is it's in the right place so that we're supposed to be using and in the formatting Sean formatting I know is very important to to so thank you so we're good thanks and thanks Aaron and for the work of the legislative advocacy
075group which I can never say and but let's we got an appointment of clerk's Pro Tem as needed [Music] basically it's a motion to appoint Emily Emily Tracy harm and Casey bangs as clerks Pro Tem ethical City School District I think in you mark is needed for the remainder of the 2019-20 school academic year and so it's just a resolution to to make that have and I just says we're going through all that is needed to do an ad-hoc election on June 9th via mail in ballots which is very strange but it's really I think just trying to make sure that Trisha has any and all assistance going through this and so as needed we may call on Emily and Casey to a kitchen and this will appoint them in that role to help out
076now I'll entertain a motion than any questions but I need a motion I move that we approve the resolution to appoint Emily Tracy arm and Casey bangs as clerks Pro Tem for the remainder of the 2019 2020 academic year second so on you know thanks Alvin and Tricia if you could go and call the call the roll John Robb Ainsley I go yes evarin quarrel yes going everybody Brad well yes Eldred Harris yes I may the force be with you to Nicola phase Nicole I vote yes Thank You Moira Lang I vote yes and riesling vote yes and Patricia wasn't [Music] yes we saw pad slip smooth just does that count I haven't I'm having some problems with with my with where I press the mute button tonight it's legal - yes oh there you
077go Chris Thank You Craig acting in such a way that's so that's it for the regular business for tonight any other discussion items dr. Brown Lily anyone anything else the only thing I would add Rob is for folks of our community to be on the lookout there'll be a I'm sure a long list of meetings that we're having next week and so we'll be putting up how folks can join those meetings and information about the time of both the committee meetings in the budget meetings as well exactly Sean and Amanda went through it there's going to be a push from the district the rest of this month it is a 12th and there is going to be a lot of information that has to come out to the public to the community to our our
078special community that is supported this district in all that we do and all the great work that everyone does so you're gonna have an opportunity to take a look at that and we're going to try to figure out how we can continue to do that next year and in the future but anything else for the good of the group its will let everybody go home and do other things and I'll go to the other room in your home and do other things but for some of us were going to hop out of our office if isn't go on home so thanks everybody have a good night everyone thank you for joining goodbye to my husband who signed in a while ago I never had that problem Pat Judy never sign