001would everybody please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much tonight we are very much looking forward to a presentation regarding supporting student wellness and we're joined by members of our Administration and staff and we look forward to turning our attention to the presentation in just a few moments but beforehand tonight we have a very exciting opening to our meeting we are joined out in the gallery by about 30 students and by Mr Henderson our band conductor and it's my pleasure to turn it over to the administration just to sort of tell us procedurally how we're going to go yeah sure all right we're all going to wait here for a moment and but we have Jared Henderson our wonderful band teacher
002here and also our senior Ian Rhodes who's going to give us a little bit of context of what we're about to hear and there are many people involved to thank including o m the parents that are here Kim monzen I.T just a lot of people to make tonight really special and make it happen so appreciate that thank you so much for being here and take it away welcome hi thank you everyone um I'm lucky to be the band teacher here at John J and also teach in the guitar School District it's such a supportive community and most importantly I work with such remarkable students which you'll hear in a moment I just wanted to say thank you to everyone on the board for all that you do every day to make um what our students
003do and what we do in the classroom every day possible so thank you all of you um I lost my voice clearly and I've asked one of my students to fill in for me so thank you so much for having us tonight thank you so much hello my name is Ian Rhodes I'm a senior uh this group that's outside is called the John Jay High School Wind Ensemble and the first piece we're performing tonight is one that we are performing in our upcoming concert next week uh it's called The Wilderness by Rosano galente the Wilderness is a dark musical Journey that captures the beauty and harshness of cold snow-covered forests in the mountains you will hear is a bit more familiar it's a medley of Coldplay it's we're playing just an excerpt from that so
004hopefully you recognize the song Thank you so much for inviting us to perform tonight thank you thank you Mr Henderson we look forward to seeing you out in the gallery thank you yeah we can stand and yeah go outside thank you all right [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] amazing [Applause] [Music] right behind you oh I'm sorry yeah [Music] wonderful thank you so much everybody thank you Neil and thank you Mr Henderson and the members of our Wind Ensemble what a wonderful way to start the new year we so appreciate the effort to bring so many students here so many performers that
005was uplifting and what a sound it's really really delightful and a great advertisement for the upcoming concert which did I hear is next week the Winter band concert terrific thank you so much Thursday wonderful um okay well while we're on our students if I can turn our attention to Jake and we would love to hear your student board report thank you I don't know how I followed that up but um before I begin just want to wish everyone a Happy New Years I hope you all had a safe joyous and lovely holidays as we now enter January many people may begin to feel the winter Blues but the plethora of incredible things going on across our district is sure to bring happiness and spirit all throughout our community campus Congress has yet to reconvene following
006the winter recess with our next meeting scheduled for next Wednesday the 11th prior to the recess campus Congress passed initiatives including the creation of a pop-up school store in which the prophets will go to campus Congress and then be in turn be able to use to help all throughout the school different clubs events Etc and speaking of events campus Congress has passed a resolution to create a winter formal which has now been delegated to the Junior and senior classes to plan and organize at the high school prior to the break on the 22nd of December we celebrated the Beloved Winter Wonderland which included performances from our acapella groups the trebs and notes as well as performances by our house band route 121 and vocal Jazz as well as surprise performances throughout the building by the
007Latin classes seeing classic holiday Tunes but in Latin um during the event nearly 750 Donuts were consumed and 250 gingerbread houses were made by students which were then packaged and donated to the community center of Northern Westchester to be distributed to various food pantries just want to give a huge thank you to the PTO and all the parent volunteers who were able to make this beloved tradition happen also open the lead up to break where the performances of the Freshman play Murder on the Orient Express and just as a personal shout out to the entire casting crew of the production even when the lights would not turn on on the stage as the performance went down um they all had to Pivot last minute to a never rehearsed version of the performance they all lit
008up the stage with their courage problem-solving abilities and drive it was such a pleasure to be one of the directors and to welcome them into theater at John Jay High School speaking of theater upcoming our auditions for the spring musical 9-5 by Dolly Parton audition package will come out next week with auditions being held the week of the 17th also in the Arts coming up this weekend is the Encore Cabaret on Saturday the 7th presented by klsd Arts alive this event celebrates jjhs students both current and alumni as they come together to perform in a cabaret singing a range of musical theater songs um jjhs class of 2007 alumni Andre catrini will be returning as this year's musical director tickets are available to purchase online from the John Jay High School website as well as
009through Arts alive um John Jay's four robotic teams competed in the first John Jay robot Rumble as a friendly warm-up to the Peak Skill qualifier on January the 14th I would like to wish all of our robotics team good luck during this event and we are rooting for you to advance to the New York Excelsior mvcc championship in Utica in March Bridges to community will be hosting a silent auction in the John Jay High School cafeteria at 6 pm on Friday the 20th of January all of the proceeds will be used to fund a trip to the Dominican Republic to help build homes over spring break at the middle school the theater Club is already hard at work at getting ready for the spring musical honk starting towards the latter weeks this month 8th grade
010students will begin receiving recommendations for their classes at the high school and the John Jay High School curriculum night and parent orientation scheduled for the 24th at 7 pm in the high school at the end of the month the parent portal will open for incoming high school students to begin to select elective classes the job we just heard from the John Jay High School that wasn't the orchestra but the band um the John Jay Middle School orchestra concert is scheduled for next Monday the 9th as well as the second trimester ending on Wednesday the 25th thanks to The KES community over 85 toys and books were provided for over 20 kids in the community as well as many more being donated including blankets pajamas hats and gloves to the Northwestern community center upcoming at KES
011is the science fair finally returning in person this year The KES science fair invites all future scientists to participate and showcase their Amazing Discoveries participation is greatly encouraged and raised in registration is free more details about how to register will be coming soon and on January the 28th the kspto will host the pancake breakfast at Meadow ponds in September teachers and other staff have been handing out musumula to reinforce school-wide expectations the Moose Moolah was redeemed for pond pins as well as other prizes so much that the paper cash filled an entire bin this moose Moolah was used to pay for a celebration in which students competed to see who can transform a teacher into a snow person fastest with students running across the gym carrying all the fittings racing to be the first this
012Saturday is the Meadow Pond Elementary School pancake breakfast and on the 27th there will be a community meeting and tie-dye Spirit day at increased Miller to celebrate the holidays second grade students learn to dance inspired by The Nutcrackers tree pack dance in which they learned what to do by watching their music teacher point to a listening map or a graphic representation of the famous ballet Imes students were incredibly engaged in watching the FIFA World Cup recently with phys Ed team turning the world competition into an engaging all school activity each class was assigned to Country playing in the World Cup and were encouraged every Friday to dress up in the colors of that country to earn points students in the fourth grade took it a step further by studying different countries to enrich their knowledge
013of different cultures and places worldwide on Monday January 16th schools across the district will be closed in honor of Martin Luther King Day Martin Luther King Jr Day excuse me so we talked about the history and the lasting impact he has had on our country and why we recognize the day by having schools closed this January is a very exciting time for our district and there's so much to look forward to for the rest of the school year once again just a Happy New Year I can't wait to see what's rest for 2023. that was fantastic we so appreciate both the look back and the look ahead to upcoming events and thank you for apprising us of what's happening in campus congress with a couple of new and exciting opportunities we really appreciate that thanks
014for bringing such positive enthusiastic energy really inspiring any questions or comments for Jake before we turn our attention to our own announcements if there are any left if not then thank you again welcome back we hope you had a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year and a great winter break and I'm going to suggest with the board's permission that we postpone board committee reports since we have guests waiting to speak with us um perhaps we'll come back to those after the presentation and um let's just quickly pause for any additional announcements if we have any I will just briefly mention thank you to the high school PTO last night there was an opportunity to meet with some recent John Jay alumni ambassadors who are college students still home for winter break and an
015invitation to all high school parents and students to come and ask questions and get a glimpse of life on the other side of the transition from John Jay High School to college and we had three eloquent very happily transitioned high school students who are really enjoying their freshman year so thank you to Amy bewitt and Paul Kozinski and Steven Siciliano for hosting really lovely and a nice way to come back Andrew would you please share any updates or announcements that you have left thank you thank you to Jake for doing such a fantastic job Happy New Year to all um thank you for Neil and Jared also and I'll just I'll keep my my updates focused on music uh since we've had such a nice start with music Jake already mentioned the uncle Cabaret in
016which I think Jake is a participant this coming Saturday night very busy life you have Jake and uh and then it continues next week with the Middle School orchestra concert on Monday night and we already heard about the band and the jazz concert here at the high school on Thursday night the week after that on the 18th uh the high school orchestra and chorus will also be performing so we're really into music season which is a really terrific thing and yeah the only other update I have I get to sometimes give news that makes people happy and sometimes not and sometimes they go hand in hand this is a calendar update following the Friday before the break surprise closing that we had which maybe also made some people happy and some people not now I
017have to share that as a result of that day May 30th is now a regular school day so a day that had been one of our weather Reserve Days is now a regular school day and we'll have that posted on the website also so that everybody can be aware of that we have one weather Reserve day remaining but if the weather continues as it had been of late we're not anticipating a lot of snow it seems this season but maybe maybe that will change but that's it for my updates for tonight thanks wondering terrific thank you very much with that I think we are all very much looking forward to our presentation this evening I'm happy to turn it over to our Administration to help us know how we're going to proceed thank you and
018I'll turn right over to Alex thank you Alex thank you thank you everyone um I want to thank our presenters and we're here today to talk about supports for students uh well-being amid a mental health pandemic because we know post covid um not you know it wasn't just physical health but mental health was also really impacted so you'll see here on the next slide we have our presenters Barbara Malone who's a social worker at Meadow Pond in my eagerness to start presenting so uh we'll we'll have them come up and they we do have name tags so everyone knows who they are but um I'll start to introduce them so we have Barbara who is a social worker at Meadow Pond and our department liaison for the social work department we have Dr zamplin Who
019is a psychologist at Katona Elementary School and the liaison for the psychology department we have uh Dr Madison Olson who's joining us from the middle school and Dr Sarah freed as well who works at the middle school and is dedicated to our tsp program there wonderful welcome thank you so much for joining us tonight see you all so we begin with our klsd Focus areas um and we know that when we look at at the wheel in terms of our focus and the things that really drive the work here you'll notice that SEL and Dei write social emotional learning Equity inclusiveness right wanting students to feel like they belong are key to our focus and really what drives our instruction and the programs we bring and the offerings that we provide to our staff so
020with that in mind we move to the next slide um and in this slide it you know I really um want everyone to just take a moment um to read the slide and what I want to draw your attention to is this quote which actually comes from the National Education Association in in an article that they had put out um to all Educators early in 2022 um and it really points to the fact that even though for many of us there's a relief in returning to normal life um what the research shows is that many students are still living in a state of of Mental Health crisis even though seemingly the world has returned um you'll see that on the left side the infographic depicts um that 15 of teens have suffered a major depressive
021episode over the last year and that's 60 percent of teens with depression do not get treatment for that and I think that those numbers are important because it just highlights how important the work and the support that we offer to students within a school system really is um you'll see here this infographic really just depicts some facts in terms of the more significant mental health episode suicide those more significant things we think of when we wonder about mental health but the key takeaway here is the fact that in a classroom of 25 students which tends to be a typical size if you're thinking students that are Middle School to high school age five of those 25 students will have experienced some form of mental health illness um and that's you know our students that are
022here every day um this next slide really uh talks a little bit about statistics Nationwide we are fortunate here um in that 96 of public schools us being one of them do have um the luxury being able to provide Mental Health Services and have practitioners within our buildings to serve our students still highlights that four percent of schools in this country don't have on that availability but even then um even with having the luxury of having a department and having providers only 56 percent of schools Nationwide say that they can effectively provide mental health supports and I think when our practitioners talk a little bit about what we're able to offer and how we're able to support students there's always a need so when we think about this slide it really talks about who's able
023to support students at school and I think that the point here is that student well-being is really supported by every adult in the building and by the culture that's created from you know your faculty and staff the monitors the AIDS the teachers the administrators everyone in the building both adults and students really contribute to a sense of the culture um and what that lived experience is every day and through really focusing if you remember the presentation that the principals did on the SEL initiatives I think that that focus of belonging you know K-12 and really being mindful of student well-being is something that all of our our buildings are working toward um so we know that psychologists social workers and guidance counselors their role is really to support initiatives behind student well-being and to provide
024Direct Services so I'm going to turn it over to the team to talk a little bit about um exactly what do they do that is similar but how does the work differ right and you know how fortunate we are to be able to have practitioners from all those different areas hey thank you Alex yes just to piggyback on that we are so fortunate to be able to have both psychologists and social workers in each building who are skilled and experienced in managing student Mental Health social emotional and behavioral needs and when thinking about the role of social workers and psychologists there are a lot of overlapping responsibilities and with guidance counselors a lot of overlapping and intersecting responsibilities I'll speak specifically to social workers and psychologists and my colleague Madison will speak to the role
025of guidance counselors as well we all provide social emotional behavioral supports to students at both the individual and group level community-based provide community-based resources to families work with parents administrators teachers and build the capacity of our teachers to provide that mental health support to students when needed we all consult with private providers as well student doctors to collaborate and really provide the best network of support for our students and when we think about the differentiating roles between psychologists and social workers social workers do have more time built into their schedules to do that direct clinical work with students and psychologists wear a number of other hats within the building such as being a standing member of the committee on special education doing psychological evaluations to help guide student academic needs and academic goals and to
026plan for students academic learning in addition the school psychologists are members of the response to intervention teams where we can review data and again provide and plan for students academic growth both for ELA and math and be a part of that committee as well School psychologists are also at times chair committee on special education meetings as well so a few different roles but also very well involved in the social emotional and behavioral supports for students as well I'll turn it over to Madison to speak to guys I also similar to Jared have lost a little bit of my voice so I will try my best to speak up um so at the middle school and high school level we have guidance counselors and they are really on the front lines of the social emotional support
027oftentimes speaking specifically about the Middle School the guidance counselors meet with teams the team teachers at the sixth and seventh grade level at eighth grade there are no teams but they are really the ones that hear about student concerns first most often so whether a student is having trouble um producing work or whether they're seemingly withdrawn in the classroom or if someone's having difficulty taking a test I mean I think those are some of the more simple examples but they're the ones that really are on the front lines and do those initial check-ins and sometimes those check-ins are periodic with students and sometimes they are more regular check-ins um and usually that is kind of the first step and then thereafter if it rises to a higher clinical need or we're seeing that a student
028is no longer coming to school or really can't fit for a test just going back to those two examples um then that's usually when they're turning to the psychologist or the social worker to set up that response intervention meeting to initiate what would be the next steps to provide the best support um in addition to that the guidance counselors do sometimes collaborate with teachers both at the middle school and the high school level to push into classrooms to present on various different topics I know at the middle school our guidance counselors have presented on mindfulness um in the high school they do some orientation to dialectical behavior therapy as that's woven into their curriculum as well as sometimes organizational skills and executive functioning so we do really work collaboratively and I think while each role
029has um different designated parts we all you know have the students in mind and they're really up the Forefront of all the work that we're doing together thank you um so now I'm going to turn it over to the team and we're going to talk a little bit about the individual supports at every level so Barbara and Rebecca are going to speak a little bit to elementary school and and what supports our school-wide initiatives and then what are some of our more designated clinical supports are so I'm going to speak a little bit about some of the school-wide initiatives that all of our students benefit from which has really been quite a fun thing to do I think it's twofold the first part thinking about the clinicians pushing into the classroom which has really been
030a great thing to do we get to see the kids and the kids get to know us as well that way if there is ever a need they have a point person to go to which has really been nice and it's been a nice way to establish relationships with students throughout the buildings and not just the the students who present with the mental health needs specifically so clinicians do push into the classrooms and deliver social emotional learning across grade levels we use a number of evidence-based approaches including the Zone regulation program as well as the second step program which has really been a great way to teach social emotional learning to teach coping skills to teach distress tolerance to teach problem solving skills and social skills to students across the grade levels which has been
031very great the zones of Regulation program is a color-coded program which is very developmentally appropriate for the younger age level where it incorporates it it's an emotion identification program and teach teaches children not just how to identify their emotions but to also be in touch with their physiological needs and how their body is feeling when they may be experiencing a strong emotion or even when they're experiencing a neutral emotion noticing when their body is revved up or maybe when their body's moving a little bit slower and they need to wake themselves up a little bit noticing what zone you might be in and for each Zone there's a different set of skills that you could use and having students identify the zones as well as as the skills is something that was has been pushed
032out to all of the grade levels so that's been really nice and it's something that teachers classroom teachers have been trained in as well so teachers are able to say to students what zone are you in right now and it helps students to identify their emotions both from from a physiological need as well as an emotional need as well so it's been really nice to have that common language in the elementary schools uh we are teaching safety lessons as well in at the elementary level at kindergarten second grade and fourth grade safety lessons really do focus on used to be called the good touches bad touches curriculum it's no longer called that but it's really skills for helping students to be safe in the community to be safe in their homes as well it differentiates
033between what's a safe touch what's an unsafe touch what are some basic safety rules at home such as never go on Wheels without a helmet never touch a dog without asking who are safe adults who are unsafe adults who are adults that you could find if you're lost in a public place what should you do so really specifically breaking down safety lessons across those it skips a grade in the elementary level so kindergarten second and fourth grade so that all students receive that learning three times during their Elementary career um we also do as part of the SEL push-ins the social emotional learning push-ins while we do have a map of lessons to be delivered across the grade levels and that's laid out very nicely aligned with the thematic map for the buildings we understand
034that there are certainly times when a classroom specific needs may be a little bit different from what we had originally planned so we do needs assessments with the teachers just to check in to see if that teacher may want a lesson Revisited or may want something completely different of the experience where a third grade teacher came to me and said I love that you're about to teach my class Fair ways to play but what we really need is this instead right now this is what my class needs right now can you please give us a lesson on this so we certainly want to build that capacity for classrooms to have an individual voice based on their needs there's a lot that happens out on the recess field every day and we want to be able
035to address it with individual classes so we do needs assessments with teachers to understand and Target the needs of that classroom in those classrooms turn it over to Barbara to talk about these specific targeted interventions good evening I um I did want to point out that um there's been a lot written about that schools are the gateway to really identifying mental health issues mental health issues and um and helping families and students to get supports that they need outside in the community and community supports we uh also um are often the only Mental Health Services that some families receive due to you know it could be lack of insurance or resources and and trying to help them to find those resources so that they can you know get the needs that they have um as
036you can imagine Mental Health Services in the community are bursting and it's very stressed so there is more um I you know we see more trauma we see more um you know more students who are struggling uh so um you know because when you look at sort of the list of many of the things that we're offering here tonight you're thinking wow school or mental health clinic you know um and um but that we all are social workers and psychologists are um trained in individual um to provide different types of individual and group counseling we have um at the elementary level we do many different groups also based on need um uh for students at the who are special education students as well as the um what we call building level or um you know
037maybe they are a student who's receiving RTI services and is having Behavioral or emotional difficulties um we all have been trained and use cognitive behavior therapy and dialectical behavior therapy individual and group this happens at every level Elementary and throughout we have had started last year having teachers um you know and coordinating with their parents who could use some executive functioning uh skills groups and so we were providing those as the need comes up we do divorce and bereavement work um social skills groups and Bully prevention and then family support comes in many different forms sometimes we're presenting to families sometimes but I would say in our day-to-day work we are talking with families we are you know supporting their concerns and as well as their um there's their children's and then we all are
038members of our uh safety team formerly known as crisis team uh which meets um every other week and we run drills on you know uh for lockdowns and we have a the mental health role on the crisis team uh so um there's that there there's uh the social workers this year put together a padlet that has is full of Community Resources that um so far is shared amongst the colleagues who use those resources the most but we have been talking with Alex about being able to make that a more public resource um for families too be able to find the mental health services and other community service Services supports that they need so um you know we have that up and we have the ability to keep adding Services as we hear about them um
039we also are you know very um very big part of our character education and all of the things going on in the building um you know when uh participate and um are very vocal about um activities and things that we also feel that students need and um you know it's great to hear the list of everything that's going on because those activities and those and sports and all of those things are really helped to balance the stress and the rigor of maybe what's going on at home what um you know academic pressures students might be feeling and so um that was really great too here now if we're going to turn it over to Madison and Sarah to talk a little bit about Middle School sure thank you um so similarly to the elementary school
040I think you'll see some overlap really between all the levels um in terms of what we're doing for social emotional supports and some of the interventions that we use um so earlier this year at the middle school we had a red Red Ribbon Week which is a drug use Prevention Week where the students through home-based activities and through home-based presentations and videos were made aware about drug use prevention and received just different ribbons and bracelets and actually engaged in a um door like a door making contest to promote drug use prevention awareness um every March um I think someone here had mentioned about um kind of coming back and things to look forward to and March is usually a very hard month for students because there is no Break um and so we put together
041a wellness week every march to support social emotional wellness and to really point out the alignment between emotional and physical well-being um so we have activities that are done every day this past year we had extended lunch periods to really focus on giving everyone kind of that time to pause both the teachers and the students and I think we got a lot of positive feedback at least from the students about that um you know for giving them that extra break uh during what has been reported to be a very challenging month um with regard to social emotional lessons um for the last two years we have come up with social emotional lessons that align with the New York state standards and the castle standards um New York state has grade level standards and then Castle
042is the kind of the gold standard Hallmark for SEL and uh we we have created lessons that um the teachers are trained in uh particularly this year for sixth grade um and are pushing or rather delivering during their team time so similar to the elementary school where it's an important intervention to create that common language um the teachers then have access to it so that way they can utilize that with their students um following that we have virtual and in school uh rather a virtual and in-school Wellness room um the virtual one was created as I'm sure many of you could imagine during covid um and that has um just a mindfulness exercises mental Vacations or mini uh visualization exercises and various coping skill tools on there um we're actually just about to roll out
043our in-school Wellness room uh where students will be able to access um different coping tools as opposed to it being virtual it being in person um where they can spend some time either using a mindfulness tool visualization distraction tools if you know the need arises throughout the school day um we also the clinicians and administration meet every week to review uh student needs or students that may be at risk and to set up plans for delivering social emotional interventions and knowing just kind of what next steps are so whether that might be Consulting with an outside clinician a guidance counselor doing a check-in um or you know communicating with parents whatever that we determine the student needs we discuss and collaborate with our Administration in that matter the health classes at every grade level also
044utilize DBT steps a so that's dialectical behavior therapy which Sarah will touch upon in just a minute they are exposed to that in health so everyone is getting different parts of this curriculum throughout their time at jjms we also have a video library on our website um for organization and wellness and really social emotional tools that parents can even utilize at home this again was another resource that came out of the pandemic um as a tool that was accessible to everyone um to help students because there was definitely a rising a rising need for that at the middle school we're also just very focused this year and I think in the coming years um as as inclusion has been a focus previously I think it's a rising Focus but just developing a more inclusive School
045climate utilizing our team activities for inclusion home-based United arts classes to bring neurodivergent and neurotypical students together in ways that I think you know may have not been done before um we participate in grade level and RTI meetings which you've which you've heard um we also all of our clinicians uh consult with cognitive behavioral Consultants once a month um so that's a place where we can do didactics and or supervision if needed and then lastly at the middle school specifically we have begun to consult with a PBIS consultant which is in the very early stages um that is another way that we will develop that common language across the school and have a um we would call just like a universal intervention for the entire building that's PBIS positive behavior intervention supports the most mola
046that was mentioned that's part of our PBIS and that meadowcon which just started this year okay so at the middle school we have several of the same support says at the elementary school and I'm sure at the high school as well but we also provide both individual and group counseling using a number of different approaches these cognitive behavioral therapy dialectical behavioral therapy we use a skill stream and curriculum which is more geared towards social skills development as well as some more relational techniques identity work etc uh we also do crisis intervention so for students who both have ongoing counseling or for those who don't who are undergoing a specific crisis whether it's anxiety depression School refusal it could be a number of things um our clinicians kind of intervene get involved with the student again
047even if they don't necessarily have counseling on an ongoing basis or haven't been identified before where they are to help them through whatever they're going through um in addition to our direct work with students we do a lot of consultation with teachers some of our teachers have specific classes that are very difficult so we might provide some classroom behavioral strategies we also definitely work with teachers with individual students for our students who we have counseling with we're going to be teaching the teachers the same coping skills that we're working with with the students so that the teachers can try and provide that same support in the moment and then the kids don't have to leave class to come to us and there is that common language like Madison was talking about we also consult with
048outside providers if our students do have them to make sure that we're providing that um unified approach and making sure we're all on the same page we also provide parent counseling and training so again teaching the parents the same skills that we're teaching the students so that they're getting that throughout their lives and we see the most growth when our parents know what we're working on in school as well so they can use that same language and you know we're there to provide support if there are things they're seeing at home that we don't see at school we're still going to help them out and give them tools to use at home um we have a therapeutic Support Program which is now district-wide we have elementary middle and high school the program has a dedicated
049psychologist and a dedicated staff who are all trained in DBT to provide coaching to students with our most um most emotional dysregulation impulsivity difficulties interpersonal difficulties that are impacting their school performance the staff has that common language and can provide the coaching in the moment to the students so so they're better able to be integrated into the building and remain in their classes um and then for students we also provide Behavior plans like I mentioned we have safety plans for students who might be engaging in self-injury or students who excuse me who have medical concerns um we provide safety plans for teachers nurses Etc and school re-entry plans for students either who have been out for a medical reason or who are having difficulty coming to school due to anxiety or depression we come up
050with three entry plans to help them get into school the best they can and sometimes that's a gradual approach but it's different for every student foreign so now we're going to talk a little bit about our high school initiatives and and Dr Michael Casa was originally um helped to put this presentation together unfortunately he couldn't join us tonight so Rebecca and I will work to to fill in um the high school component so Rebecca do you want to talk about them white structures sure I'll speak a little bit about some of the supports at the high school I I was able to connect with my colleague Jen lavallo who's also one of the physical psychologists at the high school and she was able to inform me a bit about some of the high school initiatives
051some of the school-wide approaches that are being used including the infusion of DBT skills into the health curriculum for all of the 10th grade students some of the clinicians work to orient in the beginning of the year Orient the students to DBT and then the health teachers are following that curriculum throughout the year and teaching students skills related to DBT they there are presentations in the social studies classes on Mental Health there's a teacher who does specifically reach out to the clinicians and really does work hard to improve that mental health and social emotional learning into the curriculum in his classes and collaborates really nicely with the clinicians and they present in the classroom on a number of topics including anxiety depression coping skills and emotion assessment so it's really nice that that's really part
052of the general education curriculum number of PTO presentations have been offered over the years um including presentations for adolescent anxiety the difference between Stress and Anxiety where to draw the line one to get support um what's the difference between good anxiety bad anxiety and one to get help and what those skills look like when we're managing anxiety similar to what Sarah Madison mentioned about the awareness and prevention team that does exist across the grade levels a through 12 where clinicians meet with administrators and really keep a close watch on our most acute population and our students with the highest level of social emotional needs are able to communicate administrators informed and gain information from administrators as well and collaborate to support student needs there is partnership with local agencies that provide Mental Health Services and
053mental health presentations to our students and communities including Northern Westchester Hospital and Friends of recovery which is a substance abuse committee that supports recovery and prevention of relapse as well and they work and prevent and provide resources as well as presentations for the and there's also the clinicians have also provided presentations to guidance counselors and administrators on Mental Health topics including School refusal executive functioning and when I spoke with my colleagues she really explained this as again another opportunity to build the capacity of our colleagues to provide that front line mental health support to our students so that as many people that can be able to support students from a faculty and staff perspective are able to so that includes guidance counselors and the guidance Department having that awareness of how to support students from
054a mental health perspective of course when the needs rise beyond what they're able to provide the clinicians do get involved but there is that first line of defense and and that initial coaching from the clinical team at the high school you'll see here these are the our high school supports and many of them are very similar to the supports that are offered at the middle school level and the elementary level in terms of how counseling is structured um the types of therapies and approaches to counseling both for individuals and groups there are DBT skills groups there is a mindfulness room at the high school um and and you'll see I'm not going to read the whole list but again many of the same supports that have already been described are offered um you know K-12
055to ensure that our students are well supported I think one thing that that we missed um that I wanted you guys to touch on was just wonder if you want to talk a little bit about that Network that you're a part of and then maybe how we support sure in crisis I'm sorry all of a sudden now I'm coughing so Northern Westchester um has a Consortium of um mental health providers that meets once a month and um thank you School and all of the local schools are a part of it um they bring in presentations for um different Community resources that are out there that are presented and then when I get that information what seems to pertain goes on the padlet or it goes out to my colleagues um and it's shared the um
056they have a lot of respite support for families who are really struggling um and other types of therapeutic supports um for Northern Westchester and throughout the county um we had a situation in which a student was really struggling in someone from the County Mental Health came up to um and met with us all with the family and were able to get the family some other supports that we were not able to get through on our own so that was um that's been a really great um addition to my role the um the second part I was choking sorry no I just wanted you guys to also share how our Mental Health Providers can also support staff you know it doesn't happen often but you know if needed if there's a crisis whether you know it's
057it's a death in a family or a staff member right I mean we're available to everyone we're available um if um us you know to help our faculty and staff if they need um support and um an ear or whether they need to have resources as well we um uh we're able to share those resources and support them within their classrooms support them with particular students who they may be struggling with um and um you know work together as a team and support them and and there's no doubt that that when there is a student crisis or a student emergency it's extremely taxing everybody involved of course for the student and their family as well as everybody involved and and that's on top of all the responsibilities that we know our classroom teachers and our
058faculty and staff are already involved in so we're absolutely there to support all of the faculty and staff I could say I'm approached by recess monitors classroom workers sometimes just to be a listening ear and to provide some support for them as well as Community Resources also sometimes to help with their own needs so we're really happy to support the entire community and it's the entire School Community including the teachers administrators parents really all of the staff around the building recess monitors cafeteria staff all of them um so if anyone has any questions or you know wants and to clarify anything uh that team is happy to to add anything that we may not have touched on thank you so much thank you for taking the time to provide this overview of services at every
059level of the district and um we're very fortunate to have such caring dedicated knowledgeable professionals supporting our students and our staff so we really appreciate this opportunity to get a little bit of further insight into how that works and you know how the services have evolved frankly over time even just hearing about the expansion of the or being reminded of the expansion of the therapeutic Support Program now being at every level of the district um it's just really helpful to hear the spectrum of services available targeted interventions group therapy DBT electrical therapy it's you know really a very um Rich set of resources that clearly are needed more than ever I am happy to turn the conversation to my board colleagues for questions and comments and you know the only thing I would ask us
060to also just be thinking about if it's possible would be whether there's any manner in which you can characterized for us with even a broad brush stroke you know sort of how how students have changed you know hearing so much quantitatively about the extensiveness of a mental health crisis but if you're able to um you know perhaps illuminate certain factors that come up over and over again you know the the stressors if you will I I noted you know academic pressure pressure at home things that you know we can sort of call to mind fairly readily but if there are other more specific stressors that are different now or that can help us to understand the pressures that some of our families and students are under now more than ever you know I think that
061would be helpful to us also please don't don't feel like you have to lead off with that but it was just a thought that occurred to me and thinking about you know sort of the quantity as compared to maybe qualitatively what's changing and please um other comments thoughts okay thank you first of all for for joining us tonight it was really interesting um very impressive array of services available um but I do Wonder um how do we ensure that students and parents and teachers and staff and faculty know what is available to them if it's somebody who may be struggling but is pretty good at hiding it um or if a parent has a concern and they want to you know see if they can help their child with some services in school it just
062occurs to me that I didn't know about all of these things and so how do we make sure that that's communicated speak to the elementary level right and that's one of the parts that I've really liked about being able to get into classrooms so that students do know us we are sending work home with the students and carry over activities and home links home with the students so that parents could see what we're working on with students in the classrooms at the elementary level we all introduce ourselves at the curriculum night as well so we hope that parents remember who we are and students know who we are as well pushing into classrooms and oftentimes at the elementary level they don't remember us from curriculum night and the kids aren't talking about us at home
063which I don't know why they wouldn't be but if they aren't often times the classroom teacher is the first point of contact and a parent would reach out to a classroom teacher Express their concerns ask what resources would be available and then either the parent or the classroom teacher would be in touch with clinicians ask about the students and sometimes directly sometimes getting the contact information from the classroom teach and sometimes it's the classroom teacher forwarding along the concern of the parent in terms of the high school that your guidance counselor is that point person that would direct you as a parent or your student individually if they had concerns guidance counselors will usually approach the clinicians and discuss a student who maybe you know they're working with and they feel that it you know
064the students either very anxious or that they're in need of more support than the guidance counselor can offer through just conversation that's you know at the high school that's who would introduce you to the supports that would be available and I think at the at the middle school I think it's very similar to what Rebecca shared um most particularly with the curriculum night um but I'm actually hearing more and more students are talking about it amongst themselves and I wonder if that happens at the high school level as well um where we're getting emails from parents um saying you know my child came home and said that their friend said going to guidance was really helpful um you know is there someone that my child can check in with for X reason and then that's
065oh once we get that information um you know then we are certainly making it a point of contact to reach out to the parent um so I think you know I think the students are especially at the you know at the older levels the secondary level um are really speaking to that more and more um and of course does that touch every student no right so um you know I think our Main Avenue are those beginning nights at the beginning of this school year um and and I'm sure some students are not going home and saying you know of course this is what I need and this is what I would like to to do and pursue I think also the um you know educating the staff more um there is some mandatory sort of
066Mental Health Training in the beginning and we talk about and just even signs of you know a student behaving a little differently or something that they're concerned about I I mean I I feel like the teachers are often on it you know um they they really notice those differences and they parents become more comfortable with the classroom teacher at least at elementary and so they um you know will reach out to them and teachers will bring us in to say listen this is what I've been noticing do you think maybe we should meet with the parents together um so and I just ask logistically from our school district website are you a department is is there would a parent or a Community member go to a department or through the school's web page to you
067know find you individually as practitioners through the directory perhaps or or would it be through something else right we're all listed under our individual schools as well we have a few district-wide members of our department uh but for the people who are providing that technical support we are listed under our individual schools so a parent could go on the school's website and search Us by name or by title I believe is on there on the on there for each provider as well and through special services you can find us because they're kind of our overarching department thank you comment so yeah I mean thank you guys and and it's really uh enlightening for me to see the the wealth of services that we can provide across the district it really is wonderful and thank you
068guys and to all your colleagues so much for that and you caught my eye with like the very first slide around the the wake of the pandemic and the impact that that's having on our students and I just wonder if you could speak briefly to what we're seeing at klsd and then I have a question around what where do you guys go for help so really to professional development so you're out there helping everybody else but are we are we finding ways to provide you with the resources that you need to step into this challenge in the in the wake of the pandemic the district's been very supportive to us through um you know CBC that was mentioned as consultants and um we we help each other all of us um you know and look
069out in ways like that and um yeah I professional development is always that's been very helpful to us um so you know that's worked and I guess in piggybacking on what are what do we see you know I always go back um because I'm the oldest one here um to 911. when anxiety shot through the roof and every all of a sudden anxiety was just a rampant and um and uh so you know we continue to still see anxiety I think there's been a difference in you know how you would Define trauma and who you know how one person has experienced the pandemic and what they went through and you know some students in some ways thrived on with zoom and the whole virtual learning and for others it was devastating this you know there
070was no social life there was no so we see you know um anxiety depression um you know there are students who have more severe diagnoses um you know we see students with attention difficulties we see um you know real emotion regulation difficulties um just don't know how to cope with minor things and I think for me at the elementary level and I'm sure Rebecca would probably agree we see a lot more social skills issues and kids don't know how to relate to each other or handle something and um and so that has been there's been a huge increase in the work that's needed with that and I think you know us rolling out zones and helping them be more aware and have that emotional language and know what they're feeling like when you're you know
071some adults don't know what they're feeling right so you know young children who are just not aware of what's going on and how to express that and so maybe they're acting out they're flipping a desk they're you know don't want to come to school they're you know it could be a numerous things and um so you know and I think that families were you know kind of pushed to the limit so you know you're doing the best you can right every day it's sort of where we're at and so um you know they're their need for attention their need for um you know consoling themselves on screens which you know I could do a whole night on that but I think um we'll say that for another time um but the um I think those
072at least in the elementary level are the things we're seeing and I I just want to add for for the secondary level that the increase in school avoidance and you know anxiety related to school and participation in school is something that um you know we've really seen a rise and not just in Katona but but overall yeah I I when Barbara when you were speaking to um just the even at the social front you know a lot of what I see also at the middle school in addition to the school the school avoidance and whether it's um anxiety coming to school or it's a behavioral difficulty um the the need to just withdraw in situations um so whether it's you have a difficulty with a friend and instead of talking about it or knowing how
073to address it it's like nope I'm just not going to join that group anymore at a first try um so I think the the problem solving um as well and I think it turns to also just the anxiety piece right we're just seeing a lot of kids I think withdraw more um than at least I've seen in the past and I think um it's it's a lot of factors I think it's you know just resources emotional resources of the child's emotional resources of the family um and just because of the environment we're all we're living in right it's like I think Alex you had said in the beginning you know um you know we're back to normal but we're all still kind of in this crisis State and it's it's real is it it hasn't
074peaked yet do you think I mean are we asked the worst of it and are things improving now or are we in the thick of it or hard to say yeah yeah I I'm not out of hopeful that we are on the rebound now that we're all in school full-time that was such a big deal when we all came home from time and most people were so happy about that I know first significant distress over that but there are students who just did not get that exposure to those foundational social interactive skills and that they're learning now and they're learning the impact of not having those social skills which does create depression and anxiety in some students the impact of of course social interactions or social interactions that didn't go in the way they expected
075and how to rebound from that and the emotion regulation skills to rebound and problem solving skills Madison meant to deal with that negative emotion so we're working hard to teach them too because if it's important and a lot of it's taught early on and a lot of students just didn't get it as you say it's foundational I mean so it's a lot of it's a lot of layers like when you add that in and then also learning to be a student right at the elementary level so then we have kids coming up to the middle school we didn't learn how to be a student or learn those students skills necessarily in the classroom that was a lot of missed time so add that onto some of the Social Challenges too um it's a lot of
076layers and a lot to ask of a sixth seventh or eighth grader you know to unpack on their on their own I think I think it's interesting to think about we know a lot about sort of um things that occur in infancy related to attachment and relations that affect behaviors later and I think there's just not a lot of study on what happens when you have periods of isolation at other stages of childhood we most of that research is really on young very young children and so I imagine that some of this is just uh there's biological factors and brain development that occurs with interactions over time and the kids really were isolated for probably about 15 months 18 months starting from March in 2020 all the way through till September of 21 and [Music]
077um you know and that's a big gap with limited developmental activities and so I would imagine that we probably will see the effects of that and not really understand them for quite a while interesting yeah right and to go from the virtual to six seven hours a day in school and the demands that are placed on you in school that are not and if you're struggling socially or you're you know it's impacting you know how you're able to manage in the day um so it's I do want to say there is a little light in the in the tunnel it's not all Luma Doom you know it's still elementary school and it's still a happy place but it's you know you know we handle the other side for such a long time whenever we talked
078about mental health the word stigma would also come up and it was and and we for example support the Mental Health Awareness Month in May as an effort to try to reduce that stigma in recent years it feels like there's been so much conversation in popular press and in you know Madison you mentioned that students will even email about issues and maybe talk about them do you think there's been any reduction in the stigma around talking about mental health issues I think so um even just beyond the school a girl I used to babysit for like wanted to see a therapist and she's her mom was talking to me and was like well yeah all her friends see therapists so that's like the cool thing now so now she wants to see one so I
079do think um there is a reduction in stigma even amongst our kids they're much more comfortable coming to see me more comfortable with me kind of being seen with them throughout the school I wouldn't say it's totally gone but I think so many more kids are being open about it and so many more kids need it now um like we were just saying that I do think the stigma has reduced at our high school Jake do we have a club where students are dedicated to reducing stigma around mental health issues um I don't know the exact name of one but I would assume we do I know we have a lot of support groups like Saga um just like like it's focal like focused interest groups like to help with mental health for that specific
080group I'm not familiar with this specific one but no and I didn't mean to put you on the spot it just occurred to me that could protect opportunity for us to develop at the secondary level entirety middle school and high school you know bringing students together who might be really dedicated to wanting to destigmatize mental health issues if we're not actively involving our students in that work already and even as you were speaking about some of the success stories in your work I was wondering whether it would ever be possible and I know this would be a lot to ask of students but whether students would be able to serve on some kind of panel or either be incorporated into a conversation along the lines of the one we're having here to talk about the
081effectiveness and the benefits of some of the resources that they Avail themselves of during their time in the district you know obviously this would not be every child or student who'd be able to speak to that but I wonder whether we would have some students and again that's just taking a step toward the destigmatizing please Jake and yes I'd looked it up we do have we have bring change to mind Miss Weiss is the um advisor thank you um the club seeks to spread awareness about Mental Health Schools to educate and raise awareness so that stigma is associated with mental health are minimized by raising awareness it is the hope of the members that the club to eliminate discrimination and replace it with empathy and compassion great that's so helpful thank you for reading that
082into the public record too just to increase visibility and raise awareness that's great I can ruin the public record the statistic about 15 percent of teens experience a major depressive episode per year that's like one in six one and seven that's an extraordinarily High number do we see anything close to that in our district I don't yeah well I I think that in terms of the the numbers right like you know our high school number would be 900 so if you extrapolated that no not to that extent but do we see students that um are unable to continue to function you know in their neural manner because they've had an episode whether it's around dating whether it's around friends whether it's about you know an interaction with substance abuse that that leads to that um
083yes I think that the you know the high school counselors or psychologists were here they they would let you know that for for our community that is the most typical is um an episode around some kind of life event that a student just can't work past you know that statistic coupled with the 60 didn't get treatment statistics makes you wonder I'm not sure what anybody's appetite would be for this but it almost begs for a screening program of some sort you know a case finding you know just you know there's three three question questionnaires these for depression and other things just it just seems like you know like for most disorders is when it comes really really symptomatic and it's obvious to somebody else it's probably you know way into the episode it's just it's
084just because there's so many effective therapies it just seems like such a shame yeah I don't know Rebecca if this is something you guys have talked about at your department meeting but all Michael mentioned we've tossed the ideas around before about how to do screenings uh Universal screenings for social emotional development and and there's so many screeners that are out there um and it's definitely an elaborate process to roll out across the grade levels and we did land on that Universal intervention uh but it would be a great topic I think to revisit how do we do Universal screenings for emotional support and for social needs as well and I can imagine just like there is with really any Outreach there's always going to be some families who react negatively or don't appreciate it do
085you run into that so like because I saw that the families get involved I can see sometimes if if that could be hard to get the family to acknowledge and or come in and want to work through this versus you know my kid is fine you know you're just you're just putting ideas on his head we definitely see that absolutely and and across the grade levels I think it looks a little bit differently in terms of acceptance that your child may be struggling and having a difficult time and acceptance that it goes a little bit beyond what parents are able to manage within the home I know our parents are working very hard um it also gets relates back to each family's individual level of their values their pride and some of them are not
086ready to receive support yet and there's a certain point where we need to respect that and there are other points where where we need to push right and there's a limit there for sure and respecting the families it's a very tough balance so you might be providing tools to the teacher and to the family to help the students so they can you know manage and be successful in the classroom they may not be willing to have their student be in counseling right and they're you know there is a wider range like there's a lot of um therapy online kind of things which many therapists after 2020 felt that that was the way they were going to go and unfortunately for elementary age it's it's not good that must be hard yeah yeah it's you really
087want to be in the room with them so you know we've seen a little uptick in how many children we see because of that right it's a very delicate balance in general about the you know the confidentiality issue the mandated reporter if it gets to be a certain severity issue and then you add into it if the if the patient if you will is is a minor and you have to deal with it through a family it must be very complicated and one thing I have to ask because I definitely want to use this phrase at a dinner party or play next because it just seems like it would make me look so smart somebody mentioned one of the slides mentioned humanistic existential Paradigm yes um that was me but I don't know exactly what
088that means to be honestly you're afraid um I think what I was taught that it meant um is essentially relation um centered counseling um and focusing on thoughts feelings and how those relate to personal identity okay I can use that okay thank you I have a wonderful presentation and it sounds like you're doing great work um I really appreciate the focus on the social emotional health and how the sort of intervention model that you're using I mean I really hear I think sort of speaking to what uh Andrew was saying about stigma my children in elementary school they speak very openly about the counselor and who goes and going and coming into the classroom and I think probably creating that culture so early on where students know that they can go and ask for help
089but it's not it's just because they're having problem with a friend or anything you know that's sort of a very basic level is is really amazing um and really building that um and I also sort of saw it yesterday in the transition the focus on the whole District on Transitions and really helping families and students understand the transitions between elementary and middle school middle school and high school high school and college um and I just think like there seems this real focus is there um I I just I really appreciate it and also having the common language across so many things to have students know how to speak about their emotions and talk about that and what and then these tools that they can actually use that are being reinforced in the classrooms and then
090sometimes the parents get it but um I think there could be more I mean I'm sort of curious along what Marjorie was saying of like the idea of an anti-stigma group um and then where do we kind of as adults and leaders in our community speak maybe perhaps about our own mental health experiences and where that is so that students know and you know people sort of tell stories of what it was like whether it's a current thing or a past thing I think that is a very powerful thing um that can be really really especially the older liberals my sister was a teacher and put together a panel uh for her class on anxiety and it was a number of different teachers and outside people coming in and it was a very moving panel
091for people to see oh this is something that adults experience too or that you know is an ongoing thing and this is how I've dealt with it and there have been harder moments and you know other moments I think that that's an incredibly powerful and I wonder where there's room for sort of community discussion around this I think because I would imagine there's probably more stigma among the adults in the community than the children and our students in the community and so if that's where it lies how do we kind of address it where it is it's a mental health crisis I think for everybody um and so for us to understand the support what the benefits of these supports then we can help our students use them more and continue to support it but
092I feel like so happy to hear that we are sort of building this groundwork where there will be this generation that is really it's so integrated into the school so thank you any further comments or questions thank you so much we really appreciate the conversation thank you thank you we will thank you thanks foreign making our transition back to the table I'll just mention for any community members who are waiting for public comment we're going to just briefly go through our board subcommittee announcements and then we have a computer in the back if anybody's waiting to speak feel free to sign up and we'll be moving toward public comment in just a few more minutes um if we can go back up to board committee reports briefly this is 8.01 and I'll start with audit
093if there's anything from all the meeting scheduled this month but we have not met okay wonderful thank you how about finance committee we have a meeting schedule this month but we haven't met since our last meeting okay thank you all right Council yeah we we skipped the uh December parent council meeting and they voted to avoid it and so we have one tomorrow morning at nine o'clock 9 15 I think I'm happy report great okay thank you look forward to hearing about that next time LLC committee we've been working on uh we met 10 days ago two weeks ago something like that and we were discussing amongst other policies the public comment Odyssey um and so we'll be discussing this as a board I think at some point it'll be coming up we made some
094changes and it'll be coming up for review you know a couple meetings thank you Bill sustainability um sustainability is also meeting early tomorrow morning and we have a really healthy agenda and I feel like we're making very good progress um we're looking tomorrow to think about ways in which we can engage the community both through awareness campaigns but also actual engagement project campaigns and and we have some ideas around that that we're going to discuss tomorrow we're then going to spend a little bit of time talking about sustainability goals for the community for the district in particular our greenhouse gas goes Marjorie as you well know we've been talking about this for some time we would like to establish a goal we're keen to get to at least the New York State 20 30 and
0952050 goals and maybe try to do better than that so we have some conversations around that tomorrow and then with Mary's help we're also working really hard to establish some goals around sustainability Concepts in the curriculum we know we do a lot of work in that space already but we don't really have a handle on exactly where it is but maybe more importantly where the gaps may be and so we're considering a survey to evaluate the sustainability sustainability topic in the curriculum and where they appear and so on so a lot of good work going on we're kind of I suppose coming up to Midway through these uh these committees tend to run quickly but we've made some really good progress It's it's a good dialogue that's great wonderful wonderful community members engaged with some
096very very knowledgeable people thank you that's very exciting to hear and it's a nice segue actually to some things that are happening with Westchester Putnam um School Board Association there was a forum online in December where multiple presenters spoke on a variety of topics and I think a couple of them and all of the slides are available actually on westput's website if you go into programs past programs one of them was actually a couple of individuals from nyserda who spoke about conversion to electric buses and another one was an administrator from I want to say it was film a school district that's just a little bit ahead of where we are with their bond referendum and that actually just well they opened I think it was a new school to be fair so it was
097a little bit different about than what we're embarking on but it really actually even came to mind like maybe we should tour their facility or talk to them about some of their work because in particular they were really showcasing some of their Energy savings initiative some of them were familiar because we've been engaged in that work for such a long period of time but I think just even glancing at some of those slides the two presentations were really I think relevant to some of our work in sustainability and then there was something related to cyber security improving Community engagement really useful topics where I think even if we weren't all able to be present at the Forum I think just looking at the slides could be helpful to us on a number of fronts and
098then if that just lets your appetite a little bit this Monday you might have seen an email come out for community conversations this is also on zoom and this is westput's next opportunity to bring board members together from districts in the region and this conversation is going to be a focus on Dei diversity equity and inclusion work how it's being implemented at what levels of our districts and just really an opportunity to talk across the region about ongoing work encourage anybody to please register if you're available and interested board members that is it's really what's happening with westpot lately there are no further board subcommittee announcements and I think it is our opportunity to look forward to public comment which is 11.01 white community members to talk with us it hit the refresh button and
099I'm not seeing anybody signed up is anybody waiting to speak pause nope going once you we'll close the public comment period and into the consent agenda when I'm at 12.01 and I'm not aware of any items that are going to be voted on separately I do know that we want to pause briefly for a couple of weeks but if nobody's waiting to pull something out then would somebody like to move the consent agenda thank you Liz and seconded by Rory thank you and Andrew may I invite you to say just a few words sure thank you on the agenda tonight uh is a resignation from our long time a long time staff member and recently our director of special education Dr Catherine McNulty we are both very happy and excited for Catherine who has an
100opportunity that she is going to pursue that's a good timing for her and for her family and of course we're going to miss her enormously Catherine has been in a tremendously dedicated staff member for 16 years in our district as I said most recently as our director of special services but she actually began as a school psychologist in the district a number of the folks that you heard from tonight were folks that Catherine helped bring to our district she's been very dedicated to Bringing very high quality School psychologists to our district you see the results of that work tonight and so it's very Bittersweet for us happy for her I'm glad that she's found a good moment and a great opportunity uh and sad for us but we of course only wish her the best
101as she moves on to new endeavors but we really really appreciate those kind words and please on behalf of the board we want to also take this opportunity to thank Dr McNulty for her dedication to our students for helping to build the team for attracting and recruiting new talents to Katona lewisboro and just on a personal note we will miss her we really do wish her all the very best but it is our loss so thank you thank you for any further questions on the consent agenda or you ask us to vote all in favor please say aye 6-0 thank you very much okay this spring solution for nurse donation I'm happy to move this resolution this is for six Elmer's craft Bond glue guns and six packs of glue sticks valued in the amount
102of 160 109 pardon me dollars and 86 cents earmarked for the John Jay Middle School Makerspace thank you so very much to Patty McRae can I have a second please for this generous gift thank you Liz all in favor please say aye aye aye thank us to an opportunity for board dialogue and discussion a new business tonight and he said it sounds like there are some early meetings tomorrow uh so tomorrow Friday January 6th sustainability is going to meet at 8 15 in the district office Thursday January 19th the board will meet again here in the library 7 30 PM Friday January 20th policy committee at 9 00 a.m in the district office audit committee Monday January 23rd 7 pm and Wednesday January 25th 7 PM in the district office I don't see parent Council
103tomorrow it is so parent council meeting tomorrow at 9 30 A.M did I miss anything okay I'm going to make a suggestion that we emotion rather that we adjourn back into executive session for employment history of an individual if I could please have a second thank you Julie Julie ever please say hi 60 thank you so very much for tonight's music interlude for this wonderful presentation thank you to our community members for joining us best wishes for a Happy New Year to all and I'll see you on the 19th thank you