June 17, 2021 KLSD Board of Education Meeting

001so once all the names start to populate i'll find terence and bring them over are we ready i think i just got terence in so i think we're all here okay terrific thank you so much good evening everybody so nice to see everyone it's thursday june 17th and i will make a motion for the board to return to public session if i could please have a second thank you liz all in favor please say aye aye terrific and welcome to members of our community who are in the process of joining us uh when everybody is ready please rise and join us in the pledge of allegiance thank you so much i pledge allegiance allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god

002indivisible with great thank you so much everyone as i mentioned it's thursday june 17th this is our last board of education meeting of this school year and we are so happy to be joined by so many members of the community thank you for joining us we're really looking forward to a few presentations this evening we're looking forward to hearing from our equity and racial justice committee from our sustainability board subcommittee and an update related to the america cares act um i will pause before we turn our attention to our presentations for any board announcements if board members have them this evening please fail you're muted for the moment so over the weekend i uh saw the play on sunday rumors at the high school and not only was it wonderful particularly hard play to do

003because so much depends on character characters behaving differently from each other and there's a lot of yelling and screaming that they have to do so those must have been interesting practices they had but it was very well done with the added complication of doing it with masks on so not only was the good it was done under duress and i just wanted to mention that on a similar vein i took the time to watch the high school um play called changes which was absolutely fascinating if folks haven't watched it yet i highly recommend it it was essentially our high school students conducting interviews with themselves as actors but representing real people in our community who have gone through change in multiple different aspects of their lives and i i found it to be not only

004creative and super interesting but really sort of inspiring as as it shared the stories and the paths that many people in our community had taken and and entertaining as well i really enjoyed it the acting was phenomenal i think it was the brainchild of amanda urban and william friedman along with robert peter paul and a number of others and it really was well worth the hour um to watch and i know a lot of people in the community were involved in it and i highly recommend it i really enjoyed it terrific thank you thank you bill marjorie may i please so um since we're talking about student performances i would be remiss if i did not mention uh pump boys and dinettes that was performed uh i think about a week ago and um you

005know my daughter was in it and i went it was our first live performance that we had seen in so long and i just i was blown away by the set i was blown away by the fact that someone taught my daughter to tap dance i was blown away by just the just kind of like real pure emotion of it all and the faculty did such an incredible job with it um and so i was i i can't be more grateful for that kind of investment in our students to to give them that opportunity and that's a lot so you know i know we have a lot to get to but i guess my announcement is that this is my last board meeting as a board member and last week you all surprised me with

006that um little kind of resolution or whatever it was and i didn't really feel prepared to say anything i didn't want to take away from the teachers um let me just try to take a couple minutes i'm going to try to be pretty quick okay so it's been three years uh one term and done i'm totally okay with that and i'll tell you that um it's been a real honor and i've learned a lot from just working with andrew and his team and the administration um you do an amazing job you give in ways that i think redefine giving to the community and and performing at a high level and i don't think we could ask for a stronger team of administrators and teachers and staffers i mean you you all have proven yourselves over

007and over again especially through these last 15 months so uh i'm very thankful and grateful for you and i'm proud of the work that you've done um and that includes everybody administrators all the way you know through the whole team every single building so thank you for that um my colleagues on the board you all are great you're a wonderful group um and and again i've learned from you all as well and and i just appreciate that you know we take this work seriously we're all volunteers but we invest and we work and we give our time and we give our energy our passion i think for all the right reasons we don't always agree we know how to talk and listen and disagree and i think that's a real model for how to do

008things um you know and we don't always see that with volunteer groups right you just don't see that sometimes and and so i'm really proud to be a part of that you know um so a few reasons why i'm not running for the board number one uh i made the decision before this happened but i've been appointed as the next president of the connecticut state colleges and university system it's a 17 campus system there are over 70 000 students it's a budget of like 1.2 billion dollars it's an enormous job and i'm just not going to have time to do this that's all there is to it um and and i'll be a frank i made the decision to not run before i was appointed because i think the time when you realize you're a

009part of something and you've done good work you've been a part of good work i think it's okay to recognize that good work and to be able to just kind of say it's someone else's turn so it is someone else's turn i think alana schneier is going to do a great job but i do think the fact that in my first year the district the district changed start times right it feels like a million years ago but the district changed start times and that was a big deal and then in my second year we retired the mascot and again that was a really big deal and now these past 15 months we've been on a board that supported the district through um 15 months of the covid crisis and that too is something that i

010think when we look back eventually it's breathtaking and it's incredible and i think it's something that we'll all be really proud of i hope we'll be really proud of it and so i'm proud to have been uh a part of a group that supported that kind of work and to support those kinds of initiatives you know my only hesitancy in stepping down to be quite honest with you and to be very frank as you all know me to be is that i'm the only person of color on the board and i'm the only person of color in the senior administration where that interacts with the senior senior administration right um and i fear i genuinely feared losing that lens you know that because i can bring a lens that none of you can bring because

011you are not a person of color and that's all there is to it and that's not a knock that's just an observation and where we are these days with the work that we're doing i think that's important so two quick points you know if there are people of color in our community who feel that they want to be seen and they want to be heard and they want to be represented well then they need to step up and they need to come up to the stage and run for the board or run for a board and be present and do the work you can't sit back you have to do it so that's number one and number two you know to the administration and all the teachers and all the staff and to my colleagues

012on the board who will continue to serve and to alana who's going to be stepping on you know that responsibility falls on you now you know and you you already carry it i know you do but i have to say it out loud and in public and being recorded that is your responsibility now to have that lens to develop it to sharpen it and to ultimately wield that for the good of all of the students and i know you carry it but i have to say it out loud because things will pop up and it is not something that you are born with inherently and it's not something we see every day in our community and something that has to be worked at it has to be consciously cognizantly worked at um you know there

013was a situation recently with one of my daughters where some some things that were perceived as racists were said and it had a significantly uh you know negative impact on them i'll just leave it at that and the building administrators one in particular i'm not naming the names because i don't want to put anyone on the spot but the building administrator that stepped up really did an incredible job to manage the situation to help my daughter to do what i felt was everything that an administration and a leader should do in that case and that person knows exactly who they are and i'm very grateful to them and i think that's an example of where we want to go and who we are and what we can be as a district so i'm really proud

014of that but ultimately you know all this work is encapsulated in the erj it's encapsulated in the ethos of the administration and the teachers and i just think we need to keep pushing be strong it's going to get hard it's going to and they're going to be times where folks will think gosh you know we could walk away from this the hardest thing to do is going to be the easiest thing you could walk away from you know so don't walk away i know you won't but don't and i'm really proud again to have been a part of this board i look forward to the presentations tonight and i look forward to getting my thursday nights back so thanks everybody see you thank you terence thank you is anybody else waiting for an announcement or

015to say something it feels a little anticlimactic after terence and you will be missed i just wanted to mention that i went to the senior recognition night and um it was a lovely evening we got to see our friend sawyer um take home a scholarship and it was just lovely and delightful and congrats to everybody who was involved because there was a massive downpour right before and everybody just held steady and we made it work and it was delightful wonderful thank you liz is anybody else waiting to make an announcement if not then i just wanted to briefly add and i hope this won't seem preemptory but because it is our very last board of education meeting of the school year the board did just want to take a moment to thank everybody here at

016the table our district administration our building leaders faculty and staff many of whom are with us tonight we feel very grateful for that for your dedication to katona lewisborough students during this extraordinarily challenging year we wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude for your creativity and fortitude in prioritizing the educational needs of our students and in safeguarding their health safety and well-being even as public health conditions continue to evolve throughout the year we also wish to thank our community for your patience and partnership in piloting various learning models and new platforms and safety protocols throughout the year and for providing valuable feedback along the way and finally we wish to congratulate all of our students as they prepare to cross the finish line of the 2020 2021 school year and especially our graduating

017seniors the class of 2021. we're very much looking forward to celebrating with you and your families next week and we wish everyone a peaceful restorative summer recess and again i apologize if that seems preemptory but i know we're going to want to let people go throughout the meeting as the presentations evolve so especially with some community members president thank you for allowing us to just take a moment to reiterate our gratitude during an extraordinarily challenging academic school year and with that we are looking forward to hearing from you andrew thank you thanks marjorie um and on behalf of everybody who works in the district let me express my gratitude to the board for your support and also uh to the community uh it has been a remarkably challenging year but it couldn't have happened with

018our partnership um the stresses and the strains for our students and our staff have been very real throughout the year and it's taken an enormous collective effort to get us to this point so i really want to thank all of my colleagues for helping us to get here and appreciate enormously all that you've undertaken and again thanks to the community and great congratulations to our students we know that we look forward to high school graduation on monday and eighth grade moving up on tuesday and then in fifth grade moving up ceremonies on thursday it's a busy week next week we even had a few restrictions further loosened this week so the high school sent out some additional notices just this evening as the rules continue to change up to the very last minute so we

019look forward to a celebratory week uh and really for everybody not just for those who are reaching those milestones but this year everybody has reached a milestone in getting to this point and thank you to the board members who already acknowledged uh the performances that we that we saw recently they were wonderful uh i won't repeat on that i do want to also call out one other uh we had remarkable sports seasons this year and just a particular note this past weekend i think it was that our our girls varsity lacrosse team won the sectional championship for the third year in a row which is pretty amazing um and so congratulations to all a couple other just very very brief announcements but important ones this this saturday marks juneteenth which just today we learned in

020the news has become a federal holiday i believe so in fact for federal employees i believe tomorrow friday will be a holiday school districts uh are not able to act quite that quickly so we will our students will be in school tomorrow but our schools have also figured out ways to mark the date and to help our students understand something about the meeting of juneteenth tomorrow and actually next year when the date falls on a sunday uh june 20th the monday that follows will be a school holiday uh which was declared earlier this year in here in new york state so we were able to do that in time for next year's calendar so an important date uh that we should all mark as it marks the emancipation of enslaved people in this country all

021the way back in 1865 a very important date to be noting and a nice note on which to end sunday is father's day so happy father's day to all the dads out there i hope it's a happy healthy and restful day but i'm going to keep my remarks brief tonight because we have a couple of lengthy and important presentations to be in are we ready to move forward yes thank you so much for the announcements and we are ready and looking forward to beginning great thank you so much so tonight we are going to hear two significant presentations from two groups that are both very important to our district's work our equity and racial justice committee which has been meeting monthly since the beginning of this school year and our board of education's sustainability subcommittee

022which as you'll hear in the presentation has been in existence for many years and has helped our district be a leader when it comes to managing the carbon footprint of our facilities and setting sustainability goals that push us forward more broadly i feel the need to say quickly as we begin that no matter how much good work both groups have done already and as proud as we should be of that work both groups would quickly recognize that there's a great deal of work ahead i'm glad that both groups are presenting tonight because although they've done their work separately we know that the nature of the work they are doing is very much intertwined and i'm going to pull up here if you just bear with me for a moment on the screen i'm going to

023share an image that i hope uh visually represents the nature of the work and the and the importance of this work uh to us so this is an image that we've been using and has been evolving a little bit over time and at the center of the image you see our learning commitment the katana lowsper learning commitment and our pledge to create learning spaces for all students that are engaging relevant and active the commitment's been in place for a number of years and we work continually to get closer to its ideals knowing that students learn most effectively and most deeply when they understand why the content of lessons is important why they have relevance to their lives and when the learning environment engages them intellectually and allows them to be active participants the age-old student

024question why do i have to learn this stuff should be answerable and the answer should be a meaningful one and then you see immediately surrounding the learning commitment working the areas of diversity equity and inclusion sustainability and social emotional learning and tonight we're going to hear about two of the three areas and our board has heard before and we'll hear again about work in the area of social emotional learning and then surrounding on the outer ring you see that all of this work is supported by ongoing professional learning by our pedagogical practices and by thoughtful use of technology so tonight the focus is on work in the areas of diversity equity and inclusion and sustainability and it's evident that equity and climate change are both major challenges now and will be for the foreseeable future

025for our students as well as for the rest of us it's widely recognized that these issues overlap and that climate change has disproportionate impact due to existing inequities in our society and around the world and it's also widely recognized that potential solutions to climate change must embrace more equitable opportunities for all we're going to need all the brilliant minds that we're nurturing here in our district as well as all those throughout the country and throughout the world to find all the necessary solutions as soon as possible and that means that all students must have equitable access to the highest quality education and equitable access opportunities to seek solutions so dei work and sustainability serve as lenses through which we look at our work in school and we want to be sure that every single student

026in our district has equitable opportunity to learn to learn in ways that are evidently meaningful and relevant for them and we want to be sure that as a district we're modeling practices that are both equitable and sustainable so that our students are learning from and inspired by what they see in their learning environment just as much as they are learning from the lessons we offer them i'll stop sharing this image here as we now move towards our presentation bring up this one and now we'll move into our presentation for the erjc our equity and racial justice committee following an open call last year we had about 70 members of our community join us for the initial erjc meetings they represented students parents alumni board of education members and members of our staff so it was

027clear from the outset that there was significant interest in this topic the vast majority of those 70 folks stayed with us through the year and tonight you'll hear from 14 different members of our committee students parents and staff members i want to thank deeply everyone who's participated in the work throughout the year work that's been both challenging and rewarding and as i mentioned earlier we know that this year's work is just a precursor to a great deal of work still to come you're going to be hearing about the context in which this work falls for our district our board knows that we've been working in the areas of diversity and equity for a number of years already and this year's work has continued in advance the work had already begun you're going to hear some

028description and reflection on the work that we did together this year and then you're going to hear our their committee's recommendations and finally we're going to speak about so uh some immediate next steps that we'll be recommending and with that i'm now going to turn over to my colleague our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and ergrjc member mary ford thank you andrew and good evening everyone so on this slide we just wanted to show some of the context for this work and as you can see there's been quite a lot that's been going on over the last few years this is not brand new work although it is work that we've had a much more intense focus on over the past two years so we started with some work in glsen i think about five

029years ago that's the gay lesbian straight education network um last spring or two springs ago in 2019 rather we had a learning cafe focused on diversity in our community there's been ongoing work on updating our classroom and school libraries focusing on what we've called windows and mirrors so students see themselves represented and can also see into the lives and perspectives of others we've also focused on work with organizations like facing history and ourselves the anti-defamation league we've had board engagement and staff engagement around the culturally responsive and sustaining education framework and that's from the new york state department of education that's really been a really helpful document for us for the last few years to help us frame this work and then most recently we've begun this partnership with new york university and the metro

030center and natalie zwerger and luis dapia who will meet later this evening so that's been very helpful for our administrators and for erjc and as the board knows we've also been fortunate enough to have a smaller group called all in and sometimes smaller actually sometimes larger it really depends but that group started with a professional learning that was happening during our closing starting last spring group of teachers that would come together to discuss what was happening in the world and then we were joined by several of our alumni at one meeting and then that continued throughout last summer and it still continues i believe all in is even meeting this evening every thursday evening um since they've met weekly throughout that time so since last may um through this time so about 13 months and

031now this year we've had erjc and so that's the committee you'll hear from this evening and as andrew mentioned it consists of administrators teachers parents and we even have some of our students who you'll get to meet later this evening thank you mary in the next few slides we're going to speak to some of the many motivating factors for our work and voices of our own community have of course been a very important motivator for us in recent years we've had events in our schools and we've heard from students recent graduates parents and staff members about personal experiences in our schools that do not always reflect the level of tolerance inclusion equity or justice to which we aspire for all students some events have been public such as the deeply troubling experiences with small stickers

032that we had a number of years ago and some have been much more private a comment in a hallway or a classroom that may become known to us at the time or may only be reported well after the fact with a large and public or quieter and more private we know that these events can have profound impact and we're grateful to those who have been speaking up and sharing concerns with us and as i said that does motivate our work in recent years our state education department and mary mentioned some of this our state education leaders have become increasingly proactive and vocal in the areas of equity providing frameworks to school districts to help us know how to move forward and this spring chancellor young and the new york state board of regents issued a

033call to action and a policy related to diversity equity and inclusion and you see here on the slide just a short excerpt from the state's newly published policy all of this information available on the state's website but just to share what's on the screen here growing body of research finds that all students benefit when their schools implement strong diversity equity and inclusion policies and practices including academic cognitive civic social emotional and economic benefits strong dei policies in partnership with parents and families empower students from all backgrounds to visualize successful futures for themselves and provide them with a sense of belonging and self-worth these benefits can lead to improved student achievement which in turn can lead to better outcomes in other areas of their lives including work and civic engagement this is true regardless of a

034school's geographic location or the demographic composition of its students and its faculty and now to continue with some of the other moding motivating factors i'm very happy to introduce and turn over to natalie mccabe's worker the director of the center for strategic solutions from nyu's metropolitan center who's been helping to facilitate our learning and our work together this year thank you natalie thank you so much andrew and good evening to everyone to the board and to the community on behalf of the metro center and my partner in this work and co-facilitator luis alejandro tapia we want to just express gratitude uh for the depth at which you all are embarking on this work and tonight is an important evening to declare the commitments that our equity and racial justice committee are asking the board to

035take on in furtherance of advancing this commitment to equity inclusivity and racial justice and we think that the context is important so we are situated in a state but also in a region where a number of our school district colleagues and communities are taking on uh this call to action from the new york state board of regents and the state department of education this culturally responsive and sustaining framework actually came out in 2019 and has been recently uplifted and reinforced by chancellor young and commissioner rosa we thought it was important just to situate ourselves in the definition of culturally responsive and sustaining education that is within that framework this is the definition that the erjc grappled with over this past year to really understand practices in our district that are upholding and advancing this definition

036and then identify those opportunities for growth that we could focus on to generate their recommendations so when the state talks about crse that's the acronym that you'll probably hear a few times tonight we're talking about you know educators creating spaces that afford students a couple of opportunities first to be affirmed in terms of their racial linguistic and cultural identities second to prepare them for rigor and independent learning so when we talk about culturally responsive education we're not separating that from academic achievement and academic outcomes it's it's really important to note that we also want to make sure that students develop abilities to connect across lines of difference which feels like a goal that gets more and more important every day given how challenging it is for us as adults to often connect across lines of

037difference also elevating historically marginalized voices and then probably most importantly empowering our students as agents of social change and i can assure you after hearing from just a small sample of students this evening you will be anxious to live in the world that they lead because they have just had a profound impact on the work of this committee and will assuredly have a profound impact on this work moving forward the the next slide actually just honors all of our members of the erjc and this committee included students alumni teachers and staff administrators parents and community members board members who came once a month for a couple of hours after long days given all we were navigating throughout this year that was a huge ask i think also given the number of socio-political events that occurred

038we found ourselves often processing what we were seeing and witnessing happening in the world and then trying to make sense of how it was all connected to the goals that we have here for racial equity and inclusivity and katona lewisborough and i just want to pause and applaud each of these folks for showing up intentionally for engaging authentically and for really just bringing their full and whole selves to the space i'll give you a brief window into what they did but this this next slide can't possibly fully capture the depth of engagement the end community that was built in this space during these monthly meetings we had a number of tasks first and foremost to build some shared language so we spent a lot of time with the definitions that were pulled directly from the

039new york state framework for equity racial justice inclusivity and of course culturally responsive and sustaining education and spent time talking a little bit about how those were in alignment with or even challenged some of our long-held beliefs and why that mattered as a part of engaging as a community in this work the group assuredly shared pieces of their own stories their lived experiences we took a look at some district data points to try to capture what a narrative was behind some of our data in our district and that will be an ongoing important practice that the committee will continue to engage in we also took a deep look at some of the research-based best practices that are found not just in our region in our state but across the country for school districts that have

040similarly embarked on this journey to really intentionally advance equity inclusivity and racial justice and all of those efforts led the committee to coming to consensus around the really key areas that they believe our district needs to focus on and lean into over the coming years and so this presentation is an opportunity for you to hear from their uh their brilliance and i can't possibly imagine passing it to anyone to start us off more brilliant than miss eva blanco one of our students who will share a little bit about the mission statement of the erjc thank you so much so the mission of the katona lewisboro school district equity and racial justice committee is to ensure that every member of our community receives an equitable education and feels empowered included affirmed welcomed safe successful and accomplished

041so we have focused on empowering the voices of the school community members who may typically feel unseen unheard under appreciated while bringing people in and not factionalizing our community all should be challenged to widen their own perspectives by considering the experiences and perspectives of others our curriculum instructional practices and all activities must promote justice anti-racism and the joint learning for all students we are committed to ensuring that diversity and equity are valued embodied in the institutional fabric of klsd thank you and i'll now be passing on to miss ford thank you ava so during the next portion of the presentation you'll hear from members of erjc who represent different subgroups and each of these subgroups made some areas of recommendation but what you'll see in here tonight is just a sampling of their work and

042of their thinking there are also some extensive notes that each group produced and we'll be synthesizing them and getting those to the board at a later date and now i will pass this on to allison porcelli one of our staff developers and member of erjc who will speak to us about the professional learning subgroup and some of the recommendations that were made there sorry about that so our vision for the professional learning subgroup um one thing we talked a lot about is that in order to make our schools and classrooms welcoming and infirming environments for students we need to provide a variety of professional learning opportunities about what natalie was talking about about culturally responsive and sustaining teaching practices and we need to do that at a variety of entry points as well so we

043know and we discussed a lot that this is not going to be quick work it's not going to be a one-and-done training um so this is going to be a long-term commitment so over the next two slides we'll talk about some of our ideas and recommendations for that and so some of our short-term recommendations is the first thing we want to do is we want to seek input we think it's really important to seek input from our faculty about the types of learning opportunities that they they need and would like around the areas of culturally responsive and sustaining teaching practices and also we want to seek input from students as well and make that part of our recommendation so some things we have already planned this summer so it's very short term this summer we

044already have some book clubs around racism equity and inclusion we have courses planned we have people attending institutes in klsd and outside of klsd at the end of the summer we already have some planning underway for our new teacher retreats and instructional leader retreats where we're going to embed this work and conversations around culture responsive and sustaining practices um and then some ideas that we had for during this school year um is that uh we're going to recommend that this topic continues to be embedded in grade level and department meetings faculty meetings layer it in possibly to conversations with administrators during classroom observations continue to offer a variety of workshops on superintendent conference days and then in addition to surveying our faculty we also had an idea to create some student advisory groups at each

045at each school so that they could also inform us about what would be topics that should inform our professional learning needs and then we had uh some long-term goals or recommendations as well um and this slide is really talking about how how do we go beyond that initial learning for everybody and how do we make this work systemic so some ideas we had around that is continue to include students in professional learning continue to dedicate time and department and grade level and continue to create more even more k-12 spaces for equity-focused professional learning and then down the road um we had some ideas as well for um one thing we thought about was uh recommending to have equity ambassadors at each school um so you know some teachers who are really passionate about this work

046who teach other other colleagues can go to and then perhaps even encouraging teachers to set individual equity goals as well that they could reflect upon in their work and so now i'm going to pass this on to andrew celesnick who's going to talk with us about leadership development thank you alison and i was fortunate enough to be as alison just mentioned in the leadership development subgroup with a terrific team of others and as with the other groups we have a kind of overview slide here that points out that research suggests that the most leverageable power in promoting or hinder or hindering equity is driven by leadership so we want to call out here the importance that all of us in leadership positions play in this work at all levels board of education administrator teacher and

047staff leaders that we all have to continually give voice and motivate and support the mission of equity inclusion racial justice and justice for all students and the next slides go on to speak about some of the specific ways in which we hope to continue developing our leadership capacity throughout the district beginning again right away this summer with our administrative learning dei will continue to be a focus the school leaders will continue engaging in their own learning about what it means to lead an equity focused school and or district district leadership will take responsibility for unpacking and prioritizing the many different recommendations that you're going to hear tonight from the other erj subcommittee so that we can begin to think about action planning and implementation of those recommendations in the coming year and years we hope

048in in the near future to conduct a baseline equity audit one that's inclusive of school climate and one that pays attention to intersectionality one that makes inequities visible identifies the sources of those inequities and connects the inequities to appropriate reforms and goals and also to initiate a review of policy with a focus on equity some and some of that work has already begun and finally on this slide you see consideration from school leadership for the needs and the potential benefit of a district-wide equity leader and at some point in the near future to make an appropriate recommendation regarding a position such as that moving on to the longer term goals we want to we see a need to continue equity audits refining them and evaluating them as they respond to the ones that took place

049in the prior years we want to ensure that learning through an equity lens is a regular and continual opportunity for all students and staff we want to be sure that school leaders continue engaging about how to engage in challenging conversations which we know are inevitable and how to respond to questions and challenges to equity work that will embrace and include those who are asking the questions and or challenging the work that goes back to the mission that that ava articulated so well for us earlier uh we don't want to factionalize we always want to be bringing voices in and working with our entire community and finally here you see that school leaders will establish a culture of equity accountability finding ways continually to promote equity work so that others are invited into the work at

050their own place of readiness and now i'm very proud to turn over to john jay's assistant principal dr samir biswas who's going to take us through some of the recommendations regarding hiring and retention practices thank you andrew and uh good evening to everyone the subcommittee on hiring and retention look to make recommendations on how the district could balance the creation of the active learning environment as envisioned by the district's learning commitment with practices that can ensure that such learning such a learning environment can be guided by teachers and staff that are represented involved and supportive of the diverse experiences identities and perspectives of that we will find we find in the world around us the last line right here young learners can only engage fully fully in construction and curriculum if they see themselves reflected

051by the staff and administration around them so towards that we have just like everyone else some short-term goals and some long-term goals that i'll go over within the next two slides thank you um so short term goals uh the first is to just examine how and reflect on how we can attract more uh staff on and teachers and administration of different diverse backgrounds including bipac including lgbtqia plus disabled staff a representative of disabled and multilingual staff so that we can provide opportunities and leadership uh with a great diversity um we want to look at the hiring and the retention framework and make sure that it's sensitive and highlights the district's efforts towards diversity representation and equity and we wanted to start reviewing and updating and the interview questions and the scenarios that we use uh

052in our hiring process and to make sure that we have stakeholders in our in our hiring process that can speak to or can ask questions of incoming personnel incoming hirees in regards to diversity equity and inclusion and even if some of the stakeholders can't be present such as families uh who are working during the day when we have our interviews to even start pulling together um a test a bank of questions and that we can draw from when we are doing our hiring questioning um during our committees and during our interviews um towards that end we also were recommending that those who are involved in these hiring committees have some form of bias training and that we start collecting feedback from those people that we have recently hired to discuss the experiences that they've had

053with the hiring process the onboarding process and their first few years in the district and towards the long-term goal goals we just want to we want to start thinking about how we can develop um support programs that are that can support our staff of colors that are diverse staff um through even from the new teaching program that we start and all the way through their entire career at catona lewisboro just to make sure that they are supported and that we retain our our excelling staff who are of diverse backgrounds and to also continue to find ways where we can seek out um applicants or to to advertise to applicants so that we do have a pool of applicants that come to us with by bypoc lgbtqia plus multilingual and disabled backgrounds as well thank you

054um i want to reintroduce ava blanco thank you so much so i was able to actually collaborate with um some other brilliant minds as we uh came up with suggestions for our curriculum so our vision is um that we believe that it's important to create a more culturally responsive and sustaining community through our curriculum instruction and other resources to that end we recommend the development of a more inclusive and diverse curriculum that ensures students develop a critical lens through which they can understand and challenge inequitable systems of access power and privilege i will now be passing it over to mrs lynch hi thank you ava i was um honored and humbled to serve on the curriculum committee with ava she was the brilliant mind along with our other student on the committee so i'm talking

055about the short-term curriculum goals that we have we want to identify gaps where the current curriculum does not address multiple perspectives cultures and backgrounds we plan to survey students and families about their perspectives on the existing curriculum we aim to build a diverse and representative student committee of curriculum advisors we'll work toward a more complete history curriculum in our school district that incorporates black latinx indigenous aapi which is asian american and pacific islanders lgptqi qia plus and women's history as well as the history of disability justice we will build the capacity of educators to discuss multiple perspectives on and have meaningful conversations about current events we will be inclusive in communication about potential curriculum changes including different groups in our community such as parent council and now i am passing it back to the brilliant

056ava thank you so much okay so in terms of our long-term curriculum goals we want um to make curriculum reviews become like a regular and ongoing process that includes analysis revision and a redevelopment of curriculum while reconsidering resources and materials we also want to include input from our teachers and our students so another thing we wanted to do was compare the klsd curriculum analysis to other districts or schools who have already done like equity and racial justice work and those schools will be within the state we also want to communicate and prioritize findings and consider accountability mechanisms and finally we want to require civics and social justice courses now i will be passing over to caitlin varially hello everyone as just mentioned i'm caitlin i'm a junior at the high school and i'm transitioning over

057to the student equity leadership portion of the erjc and our vision is the development of diversity equity and inclusion student leaders in the culture of dei student leadership which is critical students should have a voice at the table and be role models and have role models klsd will work to ensure the availability and development of brave spaces and courageous conversations for students through intentional programs and platforms and we believe that in this manner the klsd community can transform its culture from within to ensure a more equitable experience for all and next i will transition over to gabe a sophomore who will present some of our short-term plans to achieve our goal uh thank you very very much uh caitlyn that was brilliant so um the student equity leadership program in the short term will uh

058cultivate and foster student leaders committed to advancing work and setting tone so we have uh we're revamping the peer group program um and so one of the things we'll implement is student equity ratio uh student equity uh and racial justice leadership training into that um so existing programs can um can provide students who already want to lead with the chance to do so in um an expanded manner student representation on all building level and district-wide equity committees um and now i shall be um and passing it on to uh ella rust uh hello i'm ella rust i'm a junior at john jay high school and so furthermore on our short-term recommendations is that we would develop inventory of existing student programs and platforms and review them with the lens of diversity equity and inclusion with

059that we had to adjust and evolve as appropriate some examples of these programs and platforms that could adjust are the lunch bunch in elementary schools the teams at john jay middle school and varsity clubs and sports at the high school additionally like gabe mentioned we are as i'm aware we are revamping the peer group program at the high school and lastly for our short term recommendations is to develop a katonah lewisburg school district pledge and upstander commitment for all students to abide by and support diversity equity and inclusion and i would like to introduce madison barry alley who's another student who's speaking on the long term long term goals for student leadership hi i'm madison and i'm an 8th grader at the middle school the long-term goals of the student equity leadership group are to

060develop leadership culture throughout klsd for all students some examples include but are not limited to the adoptions of student leaders throughout all schools the development of student advocates such as the expansion of the buddies programs held at the elementary schools and the requirement that all future students take the dei pledge the student leaders program should display a diverse group of influential advocates who inspire to aid others and reach out to more than just the high school now to close things off i will pass it over to danielle a junior thing so in order for us to accomplish what madison just described we first have to identify the gaps in our student programs and platforms we then have to provide recommendations for filling these gaps which may include the creation of new programs and platforms we

061also want to develop active goals that support our work in order to prove how our words are backed by our actions this will demonstrate how we are able to bring our pledge to life this may include action items created by students classrooms or teams overall our goal is to develop a community of student leaders that paves the way for active change and creates an equitable culture and now i would like to introduce samantha holtzman who will be talking about parent and community engagement thanks danielle i am proud to represent our parent and community engagement vision this um is a very critical time and we are excited uh to face this need and responsibility for the klsd and community stakeholders by stakeholders tonight we're talking about parents guardians caretakers faculty administration and alumni to work together

062towards promoting a shared commitment to equity and diversity across the lines of race ethnicity language country of origin gender and gender expression sexuality ability religion socio-economics physical and mental ability community members must have an opportunity to participate and build an inclusive learning environment in all schools equity and diversity should be reflected in communications through our district we value the building of structures within the district for community members to advance equity and inclusivity within the school's experience and to foster an environment where parents and educators could share knowledge and resources and support one another and the students while building a more equitable school community i'm going to pass it over to judith franz who also served on the parent and community engagement subcommittee thank you samantha i am proud to be here tonight with all of

063you here are the primary short-term recommendations for parent and community engagement we aim to support a collaborative framework among the building level equity and racial justice committees in order to collaborate and coordinate communications within the community and with the board of education we also hope to encourage our school leaders to hold spaces such as community forums and social events at least bi-monthly in order to foster collaboration among the teachers and families and community members we would also like to facilitate opportunities for learning outreach speakers and other educational opportunities throughout the school community with the goal of helping the community and the students develop a sense of belonging that respects individual identity and now i will turn back to samantha to conclude continuing on with our recommendations these are long term we would like to ask

064each pto parent teacher organization to include in their planning and outreach efforts the district's commitment to diversity and inclusion while providing them with resources to do so including formal training opportunities we are recommending to insert language into the annual student conduct code that includes and reflects the district's erj principles including materials to help families talk and think about these issues anonymous anecdotes that depict bias exclusion discussion questions for families to use together just materials that can start conversation at home and during each curriculum night we're hoping that our school administrators and teachers can include information about our erj commitment tone accountability and lens for the year i am now going to pass it back to madison who is going to speak on her reflections as a member of the erjc this year erjc aims to

065provide a free and safe space for all people regardless of their identities throughout the community and it allows for a diverse group of people to speak their voices and share personal experiences and stories to work towards this goal of equality through this work we have developed frameworks for solutions to inequities in our community and have begun to make the change for equity now to continue with the reflection of the erjc i will pass this on to ava blanco thank you madison now a major enabler of our success in establishing the erjt goals was our commitment to creating a high quality and immersive education that was inclusive of all identity groups represented in our community as they say talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not therefore success should not be reserved for people who have

066enough privilege to access it with the work that we did in the erjt i believe that this is the beginning of breaking down these barriers my ask of you distinguished members of the board of ed and guests is what my mom demands of me every morning as i leave for school and that is to be brave because learning leaning into conversations that might spark discomfort is vital to um is vital to making progress in being equitable and inclusive district thank you and i will now be passing it over to miss holtzman thank you ava you know i just threw my notes aside because i know we've been sitting through this amazing um but sometimes long presentation to sort of digest and reflect is hard and i just really wanted to put a personal voice um

067and you know share my experiences as a member of this committee has been nothing short of just privilege um and an honor as cliche as that sounds but to be in this critical moment of our selves and our community in our history as a country and to be able to come together and do this work each month this presentation really is just the tip of the iceberg um on everything that we've put into it and all the hard-working members that are are reflected in this committee and then in the community at large we've listened to each other we've heard accounts uh klsd when we didn't have maybe a voice heard we've heard um you know case studies we've digested with this lens of equity and inclusion and diversion across the country and really have taken

068um as you know in depth and and care in coming up with these reflections and it really is just the beginning like tonight feels like the end of of a year's worth of work but i feel like we're just at the starting line and and we're passionate and we're here to do the work and i i really hope that you see that in these recommendations and are excited with us so thank you and i'm gonna pass it back to mr slesnik thank you samantha and thank you to everybody who's presented tonight this is our final slide to just show some of the next steps that we look forward to taking and i'm i'm happy to say that the first build a point up there we've already begun some work as a as a board policy

069committee looking at an equity policy for the district looking towards next year the erjc will form subcommittees based on the areas of recommendation that you heard about tonight we expect that each school next year will establish a building level erjac that includes community stakeholders we're going to move forward with some of the professional learning that you heard from staff about tonight and we're going to initiate work with those student equity leaders that you heard so wonderfully about tonight so uh i'm going to echo samantha's phrase from a moment ago and say that in every way this was the tip of the iceberg tonight you've heard from 14 members of the erjc there were there were others who wanted to present and many many others who worked with us throughout the year so i want to

070thank all of them for their dedication and devotion i want to particularly thank natalie and elise for your help and support throughout this journey this year and again as so many have said it's really just the beginning of a great deal of work ahead as as you see on the slides tonight uh erjc will in fact be meeting again uh next week to wrap up our year of work together and to think about our own next steps and what we do with all the thinking that you did not see represented here tonight so i just want to close with thank you again to everybody who devoted themselves to this work and now to turn to our board and ask if you have any questions for us or any thoughts that you would like to share

071well first if you would please allow us to express our thanks to the entire committee and thank you so much to our students and community members staff members to natalie talis who i know is with us also tonight to our administrators the enthusiasm and sense of connectedness that you all have not only to the work but also to one another is really inspirational and it's um very powerful to hear the refrain throughout the presentation around the sense of space having been created even if in a preliminary manner because i understand that we're at the beginning of the work but just having created that space and the aspiration to continue to create additional spaces at the building levels for example for students to come together with staff with parents as a community to have what i

072think was referred to as brave conversations to be brave um that's inspirational and aspirational and we thank you for this invitation to the conversation i'm sure my board colleagues also have comments and questions and so i will turn the floor over to them audrey can i just say real quick i i again as board members i think you know we either have or or have had our students in the district but it was a real luxury for me to be able to work with and get to know and listen to and learn from our students in the district from the middle school and the high school and they just blew me away and again i don't i can't think of a group uh from our town and in our community that could make us prouder

073they're amazing they're really amazing and uh again just awesome stuff i'm so grateful for them thank you terence oh the risk of sounding like an echo chamber i i'm really overwhelmed by first of all the commitment of all the community members it's wonderful to see such a diverse slate of presenters um whether it's senior administrators staff in the district parents students from every grade in the high school uh diverse in many many ways and it really was a pleasure to hear the fruits of all of the hard work and really difficult and complicated thinking that's gone on during the course of the past year and i know it runs much much deeper than that and mary i'm looking forward to seeing maybe some of the uh deeper thoughts that have come out of this but

074but even just to begin to contemplate the high level topics that have been discussed by each of the subcommittees is really uplifting and heartening that we actually are taking steps in the right direction and we're not there yet we've got still a lot of heavy lifting to do in our community but it really is heartwarming to see that there are so many people both interested and deeply committed to making change um i i i think i'd be remiss if we didn't call out ava i think i got everybody uh caitlyn gabe ella madison danielle i hope i didn't miss anybody what a great job and what a great um role model each of you is uh to other students and and parents and everybody in our district well done guys really really it's um sincerely

075from from a board of ed member it's really heartwarming to see just how well educated and articulate and thoughtful each of you are and really really wonderful presentation to all thank you very much thanks please bill go ahead so again also very impressed very excited about where we're going i hope none of what i'm going to say is going to be interpreted as criticism it's more to help focus future discussions and where we might want to go so some of the things i noted mentioned that at some point it might be interesting to hear more about would be baseline equity audits what those are um in terms of i saw somewhere that they were talking about a requirement for certain civic and social justice classes you know like any curricular change we probably want to

076flesh that out with a little detail about what's in that course um likewise um more detail around some the pledge that was mentioned about everybody should take a certain pledge and what at least at some point i'd like to better understand would be some examples of things as they are now that you would like to see different through this work you know what are the incidents issues curricular issues opportunities what you know whatever whatever is on the plate what are those that you'd like to see different i think it would help frame the discussion for me a little bit more concrete about what we're talking about and also might serve as a way to measure progress but again these are just you know some like detail notes overall very exciting thank you all of our

077presenters are exhausted bill so they don't they're not rushing to respond but i'm not but i i'm not on any of the subcommittees there's just more you know notes like a director watches a play he gives notes uh this is just some notes hi i'm a student and i just want to offer um some some of what i think because i think that what you pointed out was you know very very important and i think that understanding diversity and including it into our schools provides a sort of how do i say like fluency in a way and just a sense of accepting and i am free to like um further discussing what you suggest and what you want to learn more about because i too am interested in that so i just feel like what

078you pointed out was very interesting and i also want to talk about it thank you bill since you're i'm not going to be able to regale you every two weeks with my verbal onslaught i i'll just add real quick a couple of examples to me and i was on the committee um you know i think in terms of curriculum and we did bring this up in the committee so i'll just use it as an example right in middle school um the outsiders uh is a book that's you know published in the 50s and is still taught today right and and i asked a question um like i understand why we use a book like that uh it's a great book it's a classic but for the lessons we're trying to teach in the 21st century

079is there not a text that is more contemporary that is more reflective of today's populations and and still be able to teach those lessons right and then i think in terms of um policy practice you know uh you know basically establishing in terms of it was mentioned you know having diversity advocates on hiring committees being able to check ourselves internally through processes because you know it's not if you don't have like i mentioned in my earlier remarks if you don't have the lens you have to work to develop the lens to create the lens and so i think you know this is where uh we're at the beginning of the beginning i would say to really kind of figure out what tools we need and then to learn how to use them and then learn

080how to master them and so forth so those are just two quick examples off the top of my head great thank you i think gabriel is waiting to say something gabe please do feel free to unmute yourself and speak to the question or the comment we welcome your feedback and your thoughts um thank you but in terms of student equity and leadership development um basically what's occurring is we're asking students who are already in leadership positions to kind of step up and then we're giving new students or students who are aren't already in a leadership position to you know maybe attain one and this will and for students who want to volunteer to become an erj leader uh that's important because it means they're committed to the work um whereas uh we also need to

081foster um good leaders who are already in positions of power just as the board is doing uh with its audits and kind of correct um adjusting it's it's it's like that um so you know peer group leaders perhaps sports team captains so that they can take charge and set good examples so kind of integrating it both ways that's very helpful thank you for providing those examples we appreciate that please judy i wanted to address some of the questions that mr rifkin raised i think one thing i learned by being on this committee is um that even well-intentioned people can get it wrong and it's a very humbling experience to be on a very broad and diverse committee listening to the frustrations of people who have had experiences that are not what we would have wanted

082for our children or our families and you would think that it wouldn't happen in our community but it does and i was awestruck to hear the bravery of people who came forward to express what has happened and it became very clear i think to many of us if not all of us that we need to really broaden our lens to see the world a little differently than just than perhaps the way we have in the past to have what we've used the term equity lens to really value individuals who come as they are and we need to see them as they are so thank you thank you i just want to make sure that i say thank you to everyone and it's always a pleasure to see our students and also our community members be

083so engaged i do want to just um kind of encourage us to think about things that are i think it would be really wonderful to be able to show progress in some kind of quantitative and qualitative ways and so you know i know bill is our measurement guy and so he's always gonna you know push us to think about that and i do think it's important that you know whether we look at classroom outcomes or you know retention whatever those measurements are i do think it would be wonderful to have those so that we can really reflect on and recognize the progress that i really feel very optimistic that we're going to make and i feel very hopeful about it and i think it would be terrific to be able to you know not just

084anecdotally hopefully there will be a clear anecdotal evidence of the change but i think you'll actually measure it would be really important um and valuable for everyone to feel proud of that accomplishment so i do encourage us to think about what those measurements might be even if it's just a few things as we start this work thank you just hearing you reference measurement i guess i would also be interested in thinking about some of the processes that would be developed to support changes so just thinking even about the replacement of a customary novel or i'll say a you know a traditional novel a novel that's been utilized for years in the district you know what is the conversation that has to happen and who who should be included in the conversation and thinking about how

085best to make those changes so that the greatest number of people can understand and accept and appreciate the changes um you know just sort of transparency of process i was really so happy to hear about this idea that students and parents might be invited into a conversation around changes um to the curriculum even which is sort of novel to consider and interesting to consider in other contexts too so i would you know i would be curious i think you know the point about what what are we measuring and how and then what are some of the processes that we would need to develop to move forward with the work or questions that come to mind for me and just just to maybe expand that a tiny bit margery i think we should and we're getting

086there obviously and as we've all been saying it's the start of something wonderful but it is just the start we need to articulate really clear goals right so it's one thing to say we're going to measure it's something to say what's the process but i think we need to both long and short term and i know that's kind of where the presentation was heading but we really need to establish for the district these are the goals over the next two years five years and in that way um make sure that we are measuring something and measuring our achievement towards towards those goals so i know it's it's um implied in everything that we looked at today but i think we really need to take away that it would be wonderful to get clearly defined goals

087and that's probably easier said than done but but it should be aspirational at least and then i just had one other thought as mr biswas spoke to us about hiring and retention practices i think it's a really good idea to always ensure that when we are interviewing for open positions that we ensure that there's at least a diverse slate of candidates and again i think some of the topics uh samir that you touched on sort of went to that but you didn't explicitly say that when we're hiring individuals that we should at least look to have a diverse slate of candidates and i wonder if the committee had considered that or your subcommittee had considered that and maybe didn't quite go that far or if that is something that you would consider so mr burke

088yeah um that is something that we were thinking about and what we were looking at and i think it was mentioned in this slide was when we pool for candidates basically we look for olafs and people who know how to go to olas go to go to the places where we hire from are are there but how do we expand that pool that slate like you're saying so that we're including new avenues whether it's new other schools that we haven't gone to whether it's even um uh support groups like there there are support groups for black science teachers in westchester there are support groups for asian science teachers in new york state and we can start going to those places when we are posting for a job and say hey we are hiring um and

089you have to go through olas and to maybe even help people through that process understand what the process for our hiring is so that our hiring doesn't just keep going to the same slate of people we always have but can broaden to get channels from other places does that help exactly exactly the type of thing i had in mind so that's super helpful thank you so much you're welcome other comments or questions uh yes i have a comment um i'm so sorry my wi-fi is very unstable so i've been switching from my phone to my computer over and over again but um i just kind of wanted to just take a moment to appreciate and acknowledge kind of the bravery and um vast knowledge that many of my fellow students seem to have on the

090topics that they're discussing tonight um i really appreciate that and i just want to kind of commemorate your bravery um because obviously it really does take a lot to um kind of disrupt that what has kind of just become the normals or the norms in our district and um to have to possess and to have kind of a field of now like a a real understanding of a certain field at such a young age is quite um honorable and so i just really appreciated that and um i i wasn't doing anything like you were doing when i was in eighth grade or ninth grade or tenth grade or 11th grade and to see people who are doing it better than i was is really inspiring so thank you for doing what you do thank you

091sawyer if there are no further comments or questions then please again allow us to express our gratitude and hopefulness around this work and i'm not sure whether any uh other committee members are waiting to say any last words so i'll pause briefly if there's something that feels left unsaid and if not we really thank you for a year's worth of dedication we look forward to what comes next and thank you for joining us this evening and for your participation in the presentation it was terrific thank you audrey and i'll just quickly say thank you to all the members that joined us tonight and thank you to the board for listening to the presentation and giving us thoughtful feedback and questions to move forward with thank you to all of our students i hope you can

092go home and be home and get to sleep thanks everybody thank you again natalie and luis for being with us and all the staff who are with us as we're preparing to transition to our next presentation i'll just mention for community members who are perhaps with us for the first time that in a short while after not this presentation but our following presentation we will turn our attention to public forum so if anybody is waiting to ask a question or share a comment or thought please feel free at any point in time to use the q a at the bottom of the screen and then in just a short while we'll be happy to turn our attention to public forum where we welcome comments and questions from members of the community we ask that you

093please identify yourself we're not able to read anonymous comments into the public record and if you would please tell us where in the district you live we would appreciate that so thank you thank you for joining us tonight that i think we are preparing to transition to our next presentation this evening which is our presentation from the board of education subcommittee on sustainability and thank you for sharing your screen andrew i just wanted to start by briefly mentioning that this committee has been convening for over a decade and tonight we are going to be joined by a couple of our community members and i wanted to just take a quick moment if you don't mind going to the next slide andrew to introduce our committee to the community and to the board and to thank

094our committee members tonight we're going to be joined in the presentation by janet harkham and mark thiel king both of whom have served on this committee for many years and we also have joined throughout the year by melissa sultana and stephen wismuller and all of these community members have deep industry expertise and scientific knowledge that they bring to bear on every conversation that we have related to district infrastructure district practices behaviors how we aspire to educate our students with respect to our commitment to better understanding of factors contributing to climate change and so we thank all of our community members for joining us tonight and also for their dedication throughout the year it's an incredibly talented dedicated group of community members i feel very grateful to serve on this committee with them we're also joined

095by rory and liz thank you so much for serving on the committee and by andrew mary paul christensen danielle placella and we also had participation this year from nora beltram with regard to a close look at opportunities for vehicle transportation and we'll hear a little bit about that this evening so again thanks so very much to everybody for their um commitment throughout the year and we're looking forward to updating the board and our community on much of the great work that has been ongoing for well over 10 years and um our look into the future and with that i'll turn it over to you andrew thank you thank you marjorie and so a structure somewhat similar to the to the last presentation we're going to be uh sharing the presentation with several members of our

096committee tonight thank you all for being with us uh and here's a little bit of what we'll be going over we're going to begin uh with some reminders of the very important context of this work we're going to talk about some of the work uh and there's been a great deal of work in the district going back many years but uh inclusive of this year and then towards the end of the presentation we'll talk about the exciting and important work that's still to come so our our district as marjorie mentioned has had this charge of a board level uh subcommittee for quite some time uh klsd recognizes and this is coming directly from our own policy that the quality of the educational enterprise and the health of students and staff are directly affected by the

097quality of the environments maintained in school facilities and on its campus and for this reason we are committed to reducing environmental impacts to promoting awareness of environmental sustainability issues among student staff and within our community and to encouraging consideration of sustainability in our collective and individual decision making from this we have these important imperatives that we work very hard to live up to on a very regular basis so we do establish and we do maintain this district-wide commitment to sustainability and that's why you're hearing this presentation tonight and why all the work has been happening in the past year and the years before we maintain a sustainability committee which is something that not all districts do at the level of a board subcommittee to advise and assist the board of education in implementing and monitoring

098this policy we use data that you're going to see and hear about tonight to measure and inform our decision making we establish goals that include but are not limited to reductions in greenhouse gases energy use emissions particulates and other pollutants water use and waste generated from district activities and again tonight you will see measured progress in these areas we promote the procurement of non-toxic environmentally sound products and consider life cycle analysis when practicable and consistent with sections 103 and 104b of generally municipal law and when addressing district facility needs we consider and utilize when practicable sustainable practices and methodologies and with that i'm going to turn to janet harkim who's going to take us through some of the very important contexts for this work thank you janet thank you so much it's very very fun

099and exciting to be part of this presentation it's been a long time since i've been in front of the board of education but feels like an old shoe um could you please go back to this last slide thank you um so my role tonight is to frame where we are in um from a 36 000 foot view why do i say 36 thousand foot view i say that because as you look up in in the sky you look up and into the vast limitless sky it's actually i miss norm misnomer if you actually understand it's a little known fact that from the top of the earth to the top of the troposphere which is where the majority of our air lives where all our weather lives where the dust lives where a lot all the

100pollution lives it's actually only about seven miles so the entire atmosphere is about 300 miles but where we live the air that we breathe what we need to survive is seven miles it's like you have a basketball and you put a little piece of saran wrap over it the saran wrap that thin thin layer is the only thing we've got to work with in terms of our health and our being productive and prosperous in a healthy world i'm going to go super quickly over a reminder of of the um the science so sunlight comes into the through the atmosphere it reaches the earth it warms the earth a lot of that light bounces out of the earth off the earth it warms the earth creates a habitable environment for us by heating our earth a

101lot of that light bounces back out into space but it's you know it's pro it's it's blocked by the atmosphere which creates this habitable environment as we add carbon dioxide uh um concentration into the atmosphere a lot of that radiation gets blocked and so what is happening is that it's creating a warmer climate it's not really difficult and when you look at this thin band of the atmosphere that's all you've got is you don't even need to understand the science to realize that just doesn't work out very well when there aren't very many limits on what we do with the atmosphere okay the next slide these would be great thank you so this is just another way to look at it so we have emissions and the emissions are are running like a full faucet

102full bore and there's a lot of co2 in the atmosphere already and we have this tiny tiny little drain to absorb the carbon the equivalent of equilibrium is off there's no giant drain the equilibria if we had a big carbon super straight sequestration ability or if we had way less emissions we would have the ability to have an equilibrium in our environment it's off so even during covid which is what i you know i do hear often people say we've done so well because of covet in the united states we probably reduced our emissions by the last thing i read was something like 13 mostly from decreasing transportation but that 13 is now going right back up and it isn't a sustained thing there's still all that atmosphere in all that co2 in the atmosphere

103so it was a reduction but it didn't do much to what's already there globally we only reduced like six percent in terms of the covet so this is an interesting and wonderful demonstration of how the climate has been changing since the industrial revolution around 1880 the global surface temperature you see after you get to about unfortunately like when i was a kid like in the 70s and 80s it starts getting orange and red and then it keeps going and this is obviously through you know the visual the red red and orange being warmer climate and this this is important because the students of today do not know anything about the climate crisis that your students at kotona lives for school district the hottest years on record have been their lifetime their lives are totally intertwined

104with the climate crisis and racial justice and i do believe also just to comment on that last piece is that there can be no environmental justice without social and racial justice so they do really interlock and it's really wonderful that you mentioned that andrew i completely agree um next slide please um and then there are many many sources of pollution global warming here there's um coal mining food systems and agriculture there is the thawing of the permafrost there's um industrial uh issues but the lar by the largest source of global warming pollution is by far the burning of fossil fuels and um our district worked on that piece quite a lot and one of the reasons they did we did that was because it was good for the health of the students the staff and

105the community it saved a whole lot of money and it was good for the planet so it was a it was a there was no reason not to do it because it was so meaningful in many different areas and it continues today to be that meaningful and i will now pass it on to danelle and paul and um thank you for the opportunity to speak with the committee thank you janet so in light of the evidence of our changing environment the district administration and the border education were motivated to form a body focused on these items focused on educating and motivating our students raising awareness in our community and exploring reducing the environmental impact of our facilities on our next slide you'll see that beginning in 2005 the sustainability committee was formed as a subcommittee

106of the board its early tasks were to study grant opportunities and investigate our waste stream and energy use the committee and the district applied for grants and were successful with two one was for transportation which helped us install exhaust filtration systems and another was two solar panel installations on both our middle school and high school um katona also started student participation and composting single stream recycling and use using water bottle filling stations the committee in the district contracted with for a comprehensive audit of our total greenhouse gas and we enrolled in a benchmarking analysis of our buildings in 2010. we established a board adopted goal to reduce the greenhouse gas from 2010 by 20 before 2015. in 2013 the committee assisted the district in selecting a contractor that would reduce our energy by 25 through

107a energy performance contract also known as our epc um there was a second greenhouse gas audit in 2015 that reported uh with the inclusion of that epc we exceeded our goal by over four percent a second benchmarking study was completed which showed significant progress in building efficiencies including qualifi qualifications of an energy star designation for most of our buildings we have commissioned a third greenhouse gas audit that report will help the committee focus on solutions that will reduce emissions district-wide also ongoing projects include off-the-grid lighting electric vehicles and the exploration of electric bus program we have emerging technologies and heating and cooling and energy reduction management techniques with the next slide i'm going to turn this over to paul christensen one of our committee members and he's also our director of facilities paul thank you

108danelle good evening before i get started in the slides i just want to say that from operations point of view the work that we do supporting sustainability we see is some of the highest level most important work in our annual performance and you can hear from the timeline that we've had two greenhouse gas inventory audits to benchmarking audits we've had multiple reports from our epc and what this does is it constantly measures our progress we do this touching with what janet said it helps us improve our health and the health of the environment it helps us reduce energy used and thus district-wide costs gives us a chance to compare ourselves to our peers it helps us raise awareness and very importantly we can record changes and monitor compliance as the regulations change we have the

109next slide please you can see the charge in the top of the slide in october 2011 that the new york state education department issued a call to action all school districts across the state and were encouraged to engage in an energy performance contract or an epc with an eye on the goal of a 20 greenhouse gas reduction by 2015 the district started a search that ended successfully in a seven million dollar comprehensive epc simply stated an ebc is a major building system upgrade that is funded through the reduction in energy energy costs in our case the energy conservation measures or emc's including building and pipe insulation reduced wattage lighting improved building hvac controls and new boilers in the middle school all of this was contracted to be paid for through the reduction in energy use

110including all the soft costs and interest over 18 years at the end of the fourth year our cost avoided savings was over 2.1 million compared to the contract guarantee of 1.8 million this is evidenced in the annual contract audit and have the next slide please this is a page from the greenhouse gas inventory of 2015 and it shows the categories that the professional study and it compares our progress to the base year when they did the first one the table doesn't include the first year of the epc because as this professional group was concluding its 2 2015 audit the epc was just finishing its first year so this report shows a 13.9 achievement from the baseline but when we factor in the epc which concluded just a couple of months later the first year it

111was 25.9 percent easily achieving the 20 percent goal that was set by the sustainability committee in 2010 next slide please on this chart on the left is the epa's website is from the epa's website and shows the top five categories of emissions nationwide making a similar chart for klsd we see that our largest category is our heating buildings versus transportation for the nation for us in the pie chart electricity is now missing because we purchase 100 renewable fossil free energy for electricity looking at this in detail you see that parent student and employee commuting are a big footprint in our greenhouse gas we are encouraging everyone in those categories to begin using zero admission vehicles and we're doing so by studying to introduce electric vehicle charging stations district-wide as soon as we possibly can we're

112also deeply involved in a study to bring electric buses our director of transportation is currently working on options to redesign our maintenance and driving the different buses that are available on the market as you can see each piece of this pie isn't equal and that there are little sections but as we focus on reducing greenhouse gas we have to move everything forward and there's some very interesting stories in that little three percent piece of the pie like slide please on this slide you can see that there are three four things in here that are significant and involve the students and the occupants of the school we started a pilot program with the kindergarten classes at kes the composting program has grown and added a grade each year until it includes all k through 12 lunchrooms

113and the school kitchens the program separates over 11 tons of organic material from the waste stream to be composted and this is mostly a student driven program we support it because we help get the composted compost material to the composting site but the students are directly participating in this from 2008 through 2019 we reduced our total waste by 50 percent while increased the amount that we recycle a program requested by the students to reduce the number of single-use plastic packages in water bottles has increased over the year to nearly 80 000 fillings of personal water bottles as recorded by the devices we installed in the school once we return to full enrollment five days a week with everybody back all of these programs will be engaged again the students and the staff assist substantially in

114the composting and recycling at the school district and now i'd like to introduce mark thielking he's one of the founding members of the sustainability committee and he'll talk to us about what we may be facing in the future mark thanks paul uh can everyone see me yes good evening good evening so i'm the director of energy and sustainability for the town of bedford and very happy to be here tonight thanks for inviting me to speak a little bit um so what paul just walked through is essentially what the work has been to date of our committee and we've had quite a bit of success but we have a new environment now and and this is really backed up by new york state legislation that was passed in two night 20 2019 called the climate leadership

115and community protection act which now requires lots of action related to greenhouse gas emissions and pollution this law which is indeed going to be enforced is requiring a 40 reduction in emissions by 2030 economy-wide this is throughout new york state and 85 reduction in emissions by 2050 and in a carbon neutral economy by 2050 and to have our renewable energy amount to 70 of our electricity supply right now is 29 interestingly as well they the law spells out that one-third of the delivered carbon emissions reductions must come from building efficiencies so we must see our buildings become more efficient and with that clean electric supply it will also become a lot less carbon intensive so this is the backdrop to essentially how we're moving forward now our committee to date has been really guided and

116pushed by our own commitment to sustainability but we now have another component to think about and frankly a new supportive environment where new york state is going to be helping us probably move the ball much faster and much more further let me go to the next slide so our ongoing sustainability work which we've touched on throughout the last five or six slides this is sort of a summary of essentially our work that we think is important to continue to to persist and and to move forward obviously the epc is going to be continued to be monitored we're going to continue to look at renewable energy opportunities we've done a lot of work on that over the last eight years these are components of what our work will continue to be encompassing but we have new

117areas and paul touched on this already if you go to the next slide one area that we have to focus on and we are already moving forward in is the electrification of our vehicle fleet and supporting the community members that also wish to move forward with electrification of their own transportation options so as paul mentioned number two on the list of emissions is our staff commuting and number three on the list is our own buses and other transportation vehicles that the district owns so danelle and her team have already looked at all the grants that are available to purchase large electric buses and at this time we don't qualify for those grants and those grants are really essential these buses are very expensive at this moment but obviously we're going to continue to pursue those

118as paul mentioned we're already moving forward with installing personal ev charging infrastructure which again will support that commuter the staff commuting as well as student commuting that again those folks that have electric cars will be again be able to to plug in and to participate in again reaching our own emission goals so um at this point i'd like to move uh to the next slide which i think mary ford will be taking from here thank you mark and good evening everyone so i think what's really exciting about everything you've just heard is that it also provides such rich opportunity for our students to learn and research and when you think about the image that andrew showed in the very beginning with the learning center at the or the learning commitment rather at the center there's

119nothing more engaging and relevant than thinking about this kind of work about our planet and it's so relevant in the lives of our students so it provides all of this rich opportunity for our students and for our faculty to learn and grow so here on this slide you'll see some of the past present and future work related to sustainability and climate stewardship so on that top row you see lots of opportunities students have and continue to have through clubs at the elementary middle and high school levels and then courses as well such as the ap environmental science environmental physics there are lots of different courses that provide opportunities for students to research we even saw it in some of our humanities research presentations that took place last week students are thinking about sustainability and climate

120stewardship throughout and then we continue to offer opportunities for our faculty and staff to learn about sustainability and how they might embed it into the curriculum so there are some places in the curriculum where it may seem like a more direct fit and other places where it can be embedded in different ways so for a few summers now we've had some teachers involved and we hope to have more in the coming years in this summer literacy foundation ins the children's environmental literacy foundation runs the summer institute for our teachers that's usually at manhattanville college and that's been a wonderful opportunity for some of our teachers to learn and we hope to continue that recently some members of our faculty along with some members of this committee attended an institute at columbia university and it was

121all around science literacies and activism and the next generation science standards and it was really a wonderful experience to think about how we can embed some of that work into our literacy instruction thinking more broadly about our science instruction and just more of that interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning we've also done some professional learning with dr sherry mclamb also from manhattanville college she's come to our district a few times and presented for us to raise awareness for our faculty and this summer diane cunningham who's a consultant who's worked with us on a few things her expertise is actually in curriculum design she's going to help some of our teachers design units around sustainability so they can embed that into their curriculum and it's all focused around the un sustainable development goals so on the

122next slide we just have a graphic that shows some images for each one of those goals and if you look at them they really again provide such rich opportunity for our students to think about real authentic problems in the world and how they might contribute to their solutions so we're very excited about thinking about all of this work and how it may come together for our students knowing they're the ones who will be having the opportunity to change the world going forward thank you and i think i'm turning back to andrew now thanks mary so this slide now as we come towards the end of our presentation uh calls out some of the things that have already been mentioned but it really highlights what's happening today and what's going to be happening in the near

123foreseeable future so as has been mentioned we have begun this spring to initiate the next greenhouse gas inventory we'll have results from that inventory in the fall and that will allow our sustainability committee to again set goals and i'm sure there'll be ambitious goals in all the areas that you see represented on the slide we've begun already a transition to led lighting that will continue in earnest into next year it's supported by the coming year school budget that will be significantly more energy efficient and resulting cost savings across the district and the expansion of the wind and solar light poles that are currently on the high school middle school campus that not only give us lighting that's entirely off the grid but also serve as a really great educational resource for teachers and students to

124go out and visit and in the coming year those types of lighting will move to all of our elementary schools also mentioned a few times already is the additional uh the addition of personal ev charging infrastructure across the district we're excited to see that happen the continued study of opportunities to move towards electric buses as mary was just mentioning we're going to see enhanced professional learning opportunities for staff and then very importantly this last one is continued and this harkens back to the erj i think committee that we just heard about which is that we see and recognize how important it is for an entire community to be involved in this work we know that our students are becoming increasingly active we've seen the growth of some of our student clubs in the last few

125years we know how vital their voices are and we want to be more connected and involved with their efforts and have them be more aware of the work that this committee has been doing for a number of years as well as our staff and other community members and that leads to this next slide which is our vision a visual of our website which is devoted to sustainability this is easily accessible on the school's homepage it's an up-to-date summary of all the things that we talked about tonight going back many years and it will stay up to date as we move forward so that we can keep our community uh fully aware of all the work that is going on and as you can see on this slide we're also trying to be increasingly active on

126social media and i think that brings us to an opportunity to ask our board if you have thoughts or questions about tonight's presentation i want to offer my thanks to this really fabulous committee it's one that i learned a lot from and obviously it's a really important one to be for all of us to be part of thank you all you andrew danelle paul thank you mark and janet for your presence and participation in the presentation and look forward to thoughts and comments from the board the point of education it sounds like the electric car terminals from our school would be zero emission because that's how our electricity comes but in general the does the benefit of electric vehicles depend a lot on the source of the electricity uh should i answer that this is

127mark yeah hi um so obviously having a source of fossil free electricity is a big plus but the efficiency of electric vehicles and the fact that the power that is lost in a conventional car to braking and heat how that is recaptured in an electric vehicle is really the secret sauce that is where the efficiencies of these cars are um manifest and so important um you know basically the the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline it's 70 percent of its wasted in heat and the vast majority of the energy put into an electric car is recaptured as as battery as the battery recharges when you brake so that's that's the driver here and also just to finish on that is that the um lewisboro school district within lewisboro lewisborough sources renewable energy credits

128with community choice aggregation so they actually provide a fossil free electricity to their residents all green and so does bedford so your ener your electric energy coming into your home unless you opted out of the program which a few people did but if you did not it's an opt-in program you have to opt out if you didn't opt out you're in it so you are getting fossil fuel free um renewable energy credits through lewisboro and through bedford so if you get an electric car you can feel good about yourself that's what i say and just add to that for a moment bill i really appreciate the question because i think it's a question that a lot of people have when they contemplate or read articles in the newspaper about where the industry is headed with

129electric vehicles and in addition to the capsule summary that we just heard here tonight i just wanted to mention as i think has been mentioned previously maybe even earlier in the slides that some of us had the opportunity to attend a next-gen science standards climate change literacy institute offered by teachers college and one of the keynote speakers was a woman named dr ayanna johnson who wrote a book called how to save a planet and who i think founded something called the urban ocean institute and she has a podcast and i mention it here because one of the podcast episodes is directly in an attempt to answer the very question that you've asked so in addition to the capsule summary that you've gotten here tonight if it is something that's of interest to you i really

130would encourage you to check out the podcast because there are some deep dives into i think some very commonly held questions that many of us have about you know what are some of the right ways forward with respect not only to electric vehicle infrastructure but other very practical things that we might contemplate doing you know to feel as if we are furthering improvements or positive changes in behavior to support work to preserve our planet i'm sorry for the shameless plug but it was one of many really great resources that we had access to please julia so i just wanted to say thank you to everyone and our community members around the committee and i just also wanted to really thank you for um not always just thinking about this at this sort of more macro

131level for the district but really at the micro level and how we apply things in our schools and i think what's so great about that is you know when kids are in school and they're composting their and they're splitting their food on their lunch trays those lessons are lessons that they bring home and i i can't imagine that we haven't changed some practices in in people's homes in our district i hope that that's the case that you know there are people who are getting more cognizant about using reusable containers and you know using composting in their own homes and you know recycling etc and so i'm hopeful that there'll be more opportunities for our students to be involved in some of those sort of very practical day-to-day things that they can do um and i

132appreciate very much that you guys have sort of big picture things to think about and help us think about as a board but that we always you know continue to engage the students wherever possible and things that they can do to really contribute to you know preserving our environment so thank you for that and thank you for all your work thank you so much for the comment julia i think it was really inspirational to hear from the erjc tonight for a variety of reasons including the reality that we heard from our students some of for whom the work has deep meaning and a sense of urgency and i think this is one of the future um considerations for our subcommittee is how to um ensure that we have opportunities to create a systematic or a

133systemic um approach to some of this work where we are always creating i guess i'll use the word that was used in the other presentation spaces for students and faculty and administrators to collaborate and be partners in the effort so thank you for sharing your feedback on that and maybe just to to piggyback on that a little bit i mean i saw enormous parallels and i know that andrew highlighted that at the beginning of the erjc presentation but there really truly are enormous parallels between the topics that we covered uh whether it be professional learning related to sustainability we talked about leadership development which also could be applied to sustainability perhaps not quite so much on the hiring retention area but certainly curriculum could be applied student leadership so rather than student equity or in

134addition to student equity leadership we could have student sustainability leadership same thing on the parental side i mean there really are very close parallels between both presentations tonight for me and i do think that we probably have an opportunity to spend a little bit more time in the sustainability space thinking about how we can shape the thoughts and the actions of our students i mean that truly is an opportunity for us we have 3 000 students who are just waiting uh to be guided and helped to to implement some of these sustainable practices that we're already deploying and while i fully appreciate that it is really our buildings our our commutation as as well as our transportation that is the big culprit i think we would be remiss if we didn't take full advantage of

135the opportunity afforded to us uniquely as a school district to shape the minds of our students so a really wonderful presentation again and thank you to all the presenters great thank you any additional thoughts or comments i'd like to actually just draw one more parallel rory help me to think about it for a minute as i've been more immersed thanks to this committee in this work in the last year i've heard i've heard the point made a lot that sometimes when people think about climate change they think there are necessarily trade-offs in that and that somehow the future through all of these trade-offs becomes worse in some way but in fact the people who are most active in this work see a better future in which we live with cleaner air you know we have

136to make changes but those changes lead to a better planet on which to live for all of us to live and i see such parallels in the learning environment you know where the the work that we've talked about tonight some people will see as trade-offs you know we have to get rid of one novel that was loved for a long time in place for another novel where we end up is a much more active and engaging learning environment that's so much more meaningful for our students than frankly the learning environment that many of us grew up in which was one about getting ready to take tests taking those tests for getting the material moving on now there are these really urgent and important topics to be learning about you'll still do really well on the

137test because there's lots of really important things that you'll have to learn along the way but it'll have such meaning i think for our students and we've we actually heard it at that recent institute for students who don't get to experience this kind of work they really miss it you know they they know what's vital in their world and often don't understand why schools aren't raising these issues more often in their learning thank you andrew perhaps that's a good place to close our conversation on this topic if there are no further comments or questions thank you again so very much to our community members to our subcommittee members to everybody who contributed to the presentation itself we really appreciate your dedication to these important matters and your willingness to help katona lewisborough move forward in

138the most appropriate safe climate friendly manner possible so we wish all of you well and happy summer and thank you again for joining us tonight we'll see you soon thank you great okay this brings us to our next discussion for the evening and again as we're preparing to enter into this last presentation for community members who might be waiting to share comments or questions we invite you to please share them in the q a at the bottom of your screen just please remember to identify yourself and let us know where in the district you're from and we'll turn our attention to public forum in just a short while and with that i think i'm going to turn it over to danelle or andrew please for the american rescue plan yes thank you marjorie so um

139in march of 2021 president biden issued the american rescue plan act um katona lewis borrows a portion of that um those funds is anticipated to be six hundred and twenty eight thousand one hundred eighteen dollars uh the board may recall we spoke about this um earlier this spring and the dollar amount has changed since then uh we also got notification late last week that the federal government is looking and the state is looking into those numbers so this number may change again they've indicated we might be receiving slightly more funds than this uh but the 628 thousand dollars is to be used over a three year span of time and it does come with some caveats that at least 20 percent um must be used to address learning loss um due to cobin and then

140the remaining um would would need to be used for continuity of service within this school district um with that as part of the plan another requirement is to have to present this to the community and to the board of education here of how we plan to use those proposed funds um so there's four uh components that we were thinking to use the phone the funds um the first is to increase some academic academic intervention services uh focusing on literacy reading and math we also looked into adding additional support personnel in each classrooms mostly at the elementary school level such as having more interns work with our students in addition to the teachers and then also some after school programming we would like to increase some academic addressing academic and social emotional needs and also work

141on reestablishing peer connections with each student and then finally we're thinking about having additional summer programming in both 2022 and 2023 um summertime we are requesting that the public if they have any input um to email us at arp public input at klschools.org um that link will be on our business office web web page uh for those members who'd like to uh directly email us and we're open to any feedback that the public public may have and also invite on some discussions on the intention of the of the grant [Music] so with that i think that was our shortest presentation of the night um it but i'm hoping to have the board comment or any input is welcome thank you for letting us know uh how it's envisioned that the money would be allocated we

142appreciate that the board members have questions i just had a clarifying question about academic intervention services because i hear that term i think about ais which i thought had been replaced with rtti so can you just tell me to understand is it is it is the term being used in the manner that it had been used previously or is it a more general term for supplemental services and then coupled with that i'm just wondering a little bit about how we identify the population of students who would be eligible for the services i'm just thinking here about how we used to use ela and math tests for example and there were certain cutoff scores below which students would automatically have a trigger that um enabled us to identify them as a candidate for rti so i'm

143just wondering you know what some of that looks like in this environment where we haven't had the opportunity to administer the tests and that sort of thing sure i think mary's going to take that question she's been working very closely with our office on these plans thank you yes so it is a little confusing marjorie so ais is the larger umbrella and response to intervention falls under that response to intervention is actually only mandated for reading in grades k through four but our district has adopted their entire plan is a response to intervention model but it's part of ais so the lines are a little blurry in that regard and we do have a plan that includes you know one of the things we look at when we consider students for additional services there usually

144are the state tests but they're you know last year obviously we didn't have those so we have other assessments that we use for example we use aims web plus which is a norm referenced assessment and we test in literacy and in math in gay grades k through eight we use the teachers college independent reading inventory in our elementary schools and in some classes at our middle school we have some curriculum embedded assessments so we're using those other measures as kind of the first look at students and if students are falling below those benchmarks then our interventionists take a closer look with some other assessments so you know our vision for the way we would enhance some of that work um you know some of the interns that danelle mentioned we think that that would be

145a really helpful way to provide more small group instruction because when you think of what really makes a difference and i know that it's frequently framed in the world as learning loss but there's a lot of discussion in the field about how we have to focus on acceleration right so it's not necessarily loss but we have to accelerate learning and we do also have to acknowledge and look for any gaps that students may have in their learning so right now a lot of our students are engaged in end-of-year assessments and that's just part of what we do every year but that data will help us to really understand where there may be some gaps and then focus some of our resources that way so thinking about interns who could help with academic intervention services who

146in the classroom could provide some small group instruction or allow the teacher to provide more small group instruction so that it could be more targeted and focused on student need and we think that might be a really big help for students and teachers at all levels so in addition to thinking about some outside of the school day opportunities like before or after school potentially and also summer programs and i think you know what danelle and i have discussed is that's some of the feedback that we'd love to hear from the community you know how interested might community members be in having some after school or summertime work um and then you know obviously we have to engage our faculty in that conversation as well um but just kind of thinking outside the box of the

147school day what else can we do to support students and accelerate their learning thank you that was really helpful i appreciate the insight and the clarification thank you i have a question sure catherine i also been discussing the american rescue plan when you talk about peer connections i would love for you to consider in the high school maybe revamping the peer groups um they lost the retreat that they took a couple of years ago which i think was an amazing bonding trip for those peer leaders to engage in and i also know that they lost the room that they were used when the freshmen and the peer group leaders had their lunch session that was taken away from them i would love to see something happen and use some of those funds to be used

148to bring that back thank you i'm sorry just you know thinking about those opportunities outside of the school day to be both academic and social because we know the social emotional learning is part of it so strengthening those connections is another piece we're thinking about and to katherine's point i think peer group has a fairly substantial social component right i mean i think that's really a big part of what the peer group is designed to do is around social and emotional support so i would second katherine's remarks okay there are no further comments or questions thank you again for the update and for making information available to the community for that public comment period if i understood correctly great thank you okay and this brings us to 8.0 which is our opportunity for public forum

149so again i invite community members to please use the q a at the bottom of the screen to type your comments or questions and in a few moments i'm going to ask our district clerk to assist by reading aloud any comments that are entered into the q a and also to let us know about communications that were received to our board of education public forum email address before this evening's meeting again we ask you to please identify yourself we're not able to read anonymous comments into the public record and then just a brief note that a number of comments have been received for tonight's forum that contained information either about an individual staff member or an individual student and so our district clerk will be reading only selected portions of those communications that contain such

150information as the district may not share publicly information that is confidential under state or federal law and with that whenever you're ready kim i'm going to turn it over to you and invite you to please share with us public forum remarks thank you so much thank you marjorie just one second sorry for that i'm going to first read the comments that were submitted to the q a for tonight's meeting thank you um the first comment is from amita sine does the student group that participates in the erjc encourage diversity membership the next comment is from lawrence berg i was a member of the erj state i wanted to add a comment that i appreciate the enthusiasm from the board members for pursuing this work and i wanted to add that i am looking to the

151board members to be prepared to help community members who are uncomfortable with this work or or who have a different understanding of the need for this work to be open to looking at what we are doing and to take some risk the key here is being prepared if you haven't already please explore the issue around having these conversations so as leaders you can facilitate what might become difficult conversations thank you the next comment is from elena schneier as certain green best practices are not yet equal in cost or less short term how are we taking on equity taking an equity lens to the sustainability work and how long a term time frame are our are our cost analysis like the cost of electric buses taking um then the next comment is from lloyd truffleman it

152was good to learn that the klsd is exploring electric buses so how does that impact the pending purchase of several new small school buses just authorized by the recent budget resolution is the klsd planning to purchase any electric buses with those funds or does it plan to purchase more con conventional gasoline vehicles and then we did receive a comment from midge iorio asking if she could make a comment but um the comments need to be submitted through the q a and at this time i don't have a comment thank you kim and as you're preparing perhaps to transition to communications that were sent to the email address i just wanted to clarify that this is the portion of the meeting where the board is in full listening mode and for any community members who are

153joining us for the first time we won't be engaging in a back and forth or attempting to answer questions on the spot right now but after the public forum we will move our way through the consent agenda items and then have an opportunity later at the end of the meeting for some board discussion and dialogue should board members want to revisit any topics that we're hearing about this evening thank you thank you ken thank you marjorie i did receive several emails today from community members so i'm going to do my best to try to organize them in a fashion that makes sense okay so the first email is from jane crimmons dear superintendent zeleznik and members of the board i would like to highlight that this sentence i wrote as part of my previous statement

154read aloud two meetings ago we may not be able to reduce the number of times these emergency intervention measures are utilized and considered necessary is inaccurate and was a harmful thing i apologize to anyone who may have been offended by that phrase we can and should eliminate restraint based practices everywhere including and especially in our schools no one body should have non-consensual agency over another body in any circumstance but is definitely has no place in our public schools especially if guardians don't employ this practice at home in any other location and or don't want it utilized to their child or on their child sorry i can go in such depth on each of the points that will be made tonight but i will leave it at that for now there is an apparent community of

155dedicated parents who have gone beyond what i could have imagined asking for and i am committed to work alongside them it is crucial to center and amplify the voices of those most impacted by these policies and practices and i hope many voices will join ours soon and along the way i've said it before before and i'll say it again how do we treat our most vulnerable and who is who we are as a community thank you for your time thank you for your service and for listening the next comment is from taryn kendall i was disturbed to learn of recent events related to the repeated use of physical restraint in a self-contained class at kls day and that these events were not properly reported to the parents this situation is particularly upsetting as it involves

156our most vulnerable population a population that is mostly if not completely non-verbal and therefore cannot inform caregivers of what is transpiring in the classroom i would like to voice my support for these children their families and for those who have already written letters to the board of ed on this matter i respectfully ask that the district take the following actions amend district policy on restraint and seclusion install cameras in self-contained classrooms restrain staff or retrain staff to understand and respond to the needs of the neurodivergent student population immediately initiate a self-review focusing on the events at the middle school and increase mueller increase the representation of the disabled among staff administration and faculty thank you for making the these items a top priority for our district the next email i received is from sophia shirelli

157i am a former educator whose autistic nephew attends the john jay middle school i would like to address the board on revising their restraint and seclusion policy the katonarsboro school district and its education leaders have a responsibility to ensure that schools foster learning in a safe and healthy environment for all children teachers and staff all children have the right to a safe school environment disabled students particularly the non and minimally verbal are the most vulnerable members of the community parents of children with disabilities want to know their child is safe getting appropriate care the accommodations they need acceptance by others and the education they deserve these children have limited or no speech to share their feelings of anger sadness or fear as an educator i am aware that restraint or seclusion can have a traumatic

158impact on a child manifesting new academic or behavioral difficulties that traumatizing effect could present itself in new behaviors impaired concentration in class or increased absences while the support of parents i am committed to taking action that will provide encouragement and safety for children restore the outstanding reputation of katona lewisbrow and rebuild the community to wholeness i appreciate your attention to this urgent matter the next email is from deborah goglia i am the mom of a child who cannot express himself in words he could not tell me how his day at school was but he is a terrific learner and he shows progress progress when he is surrounded by capable staff that understands his needs my concern is with the lack of staff training and refresher trainings to remind them that they that there are many

159ways to prevent a behavior and identify when a child is stimming in order to approach the child correctly and avoid psychological and emotional stress that can result in undesirable behaviors hearing that other parents have expressed concerns regarding serious incidents in other self-contained class in the district that they feel were not properly reported just increases my concern about my son and others in the community that like him cannot defend themselves that is the reason why i am writing this letter in agreement and support of other parents that are raising their voices searching for more transparency from the school district transparency will require actions like reporting to the parents immediately when a restraint or other incident happens and ensuring that parents of children with verbal limitations receive daily meaningful communication from the teacher regardless of the child's

160age and cameras in the school district i just did some quick research and i know that other states have passed laws allowing or requiring cameras in specific classrooms anywhere that a child does not have a voice should have a camera we need to guarantee their safety the next email is from amy raffle i'm a parent with children in katona-lewis pro schools i was horrified to learn about several incidents involving the repeated use of restraint in our school district this is a parent's nightmare in light of this and other incidents it is it is clear that students in katona lewisborough self-contained classes are in need of additional measures to ensure their safety i support the families involved and who have shared their experiences which have made me appreciate that we must work harder to protect our

161most vulnerable students i respectfully ask that the district implement the following measures amend the district policy on restraint and seclusion install cameras in self-contained classrooms re retrain staff to understand and respond to the needs of the neurodivergent students immediately initiate a review of the events at middle school and increase miller and increase the representation of disabled among staff administration faculty i appreciate your attention to this matter and hope that you will address it with urgency at demand next comment is from carlos ferreira i am distressed to learn that parents have recently expressed concerns regarding serious incidents in self-contained classes in the district including the use of physical restraint and that they feel these events were not properly reported to them as a parent this frightens and shocks me i would like to voice my support

162for the affected families and for those who have already spoken on this i respectfully ask that the district take the following actions amend district policy on restraint and seclusion install cameras in self-contained classrooms we train staff to understand and respond to the needs of neurodivergent student population immediately initiate a self review focusing on the events at the middle school and increase miller and i appreciate your timely attention to this most urgent matter next email is from andrea florian disabled non-verbal students are the most vulnerable members of our community as a parent i place trust in the school district to provide a safe learning environment and effectively communicate on behalf of our vulnerable population who cannot share their feelings about their day i and the special needs community of katona lewis pro school district were anguished

163to learn that protective holds were used physical restraint even when used according to training is associated with mental and physical injury and even with death according to all best practices it is to be employed rarely or never this is a time of great grief and suffering for the families of these children the families of our community we are committed to talent to channeling this grief into action that will aid our children make katona lewisborough school district a better and safer place and restore the community to wholeness to this end we submit that the following measures need to be taken amend policy on restraint and seclusion to prohibit the use of restraint seclusion or time out time out rooms to protect school property or the orderly functioning functioning of the school cameras in self-contained classrooms behavior

164supports and staff training end the practice of suppressing self-stimulatory behaviors stimming seek training in methods that reduce or eliminate the use of restraint notably ukriya accountability transparency notify parents by the end of the day that if an incident occurs in the classroom or school that they that may negatively impact their child's social emotional well-being disability representation at the office of special services level center disabled candidates in any future searches for position in special services seek to increase the representation of the disabled among staff administration and faculty the next comment is from oksana aranov disabled students particularly the non and minimally verbal are the most vulnerable members of our community they have no voice and cannot advocate for themselves they especially depend on the adults in their lives to do that to do that it is

165therefore particularly disturbing that those adults adults specifically educators and staff at the middle school applied protective holds physical restraints may be associated with mental and physical injury and even with death that is why restraint training programs typically begin with the mantra that it is to be employed rarely or never over the last two months we have offered each other support and in the process to our dismay heard other parents expressed concern regarding serious incidents in uh in other self-contained classes in the district that they feel were not properly reported this is a time of great grief for the families of these children the families of our community our friends our neighbors we feel it is important to channel this grief into positive action that will make katona lewisborough a truly inclusive community to regain the

166community's trust we submit the following measures be taken please note that this refers to the keeping all students safe act a bill now being considered by the u.s congress one amend policy on restraining seclusion to adopt the language of federal guidance on the topic particularly the 15 principles restraint and seclusion resource document u.s department of education prohibit and the use of restraint to protect school property or the orderly functioning of the school require immediate parent notification by verbal or electronic means after a hold is used on a child require that parents receive in writing the details of the event no later than 24 hours after the incident these details must include a description of the incident positive interventions used prior to restraint the duration of the restraint a description of the serious physical injury of

167the student or others that occurred or was about to occur that necessitated the restraint this notification will also name the type of holds being used require a meeting in person or virtual between the parents of the student and the prom and the program including the staff involved not later than five school days following the incident require the presentation of data on usage of holds to the board of education monthly two cameras in self-contained classrooms in self-contained classes install video cameras with capability of recording sound and follow the guidelines for their use found in new york state senate bill behaviors three behavior supports and staff training retrain staff to eliminate the practice of suppressing self-stimula stimulatory behaviors stimming serves as serves a self-regulating function and this suppression of it creates psychological and emotional stress for an

168autistic person which may result in malad maladaptive behaviors expose special education personnel to approaches that focus on meeting the needs of autistic and neurodivergent students instead of suppressing them seek training in approaches that reduce or eliminate their use of restraint for example eukura retrain all applicable staff including administrators nurses and aides in their roles as mandated reporters for accountability and transparency initiate a self-review focusing on the events that occurred in the self-contained classroom at the middle school and increased miller with conclusions reported back to the board of education and community report use of holds to the department of education both now and in the case of any future use of restraint notify the community in the case of any known instance of abuse notify parents by the end of the debt of the school day

169if an incident occurs in the classroom or school that may negatively impact their child's social emotional well-being require that parents of children with verbal limitations receive daily meaningful communication from the teacher regardless of the child's age five disability representation at the office of special services level seek out disabled candidates in any future searches for positions in special services increase the representation of the disabled among staff administration faculty and commit to adding a disabled person to a responsible position in the office of special services within 12 months we appreciate your attention next comment sorry it's from matthew goglia for the parents who fear retribution if they speak out i am writing on their behalf for busy community members who do not have the time to sit through 90 minutes of retiree and 10-year announcements i am

170writing on their behalf for disabled children like my son who cannot yet speak on their own i am writing on their behalf for all of those who cannot speak up for themselves for whatever reason i am writing on their behalf disabled students particularly the non and minimally verbal are the most vulnerable members of our community every parent puts their trust in the school district but none so much as the parent of a non-verbal child who cannot tell their parents about their day and cannot use words to communicate their feelings or fear sadness or shame for this reason the special needs community of katona lewisborough was anguished to learn about the use of restraints over the last two months we have met repeatedly to offer such support and to explore ways to keep our children safe

171at school we have reviewed laws guidance and new legislative bills we have studied best best practices we have consulted the experts to our dismay and these conversations other parents have expressed their experiences regarding serious incidents and other self-contained classes in the district that they feel were not properly reported this is a time of great grief and suffering for the families of these children the families of our community who have retold and relived these traumatic experiences we are committed to channeling this grief into action that will aid our children make katona lewisburg school district a better and safer place and restore the community to wholeness please remember your number one goal is to foster an inclusive welcoming environment at our meetings and the operations of our district so as to inspire collegiality trust and a shared

172sense of purpose to this end we submit that the following measures be taken one end restraint and seclusion while we appreciate the effort of the board of ed revising the outdated and insensitive restraint policy two times recently we need to go further katona lewisborough must make a solid plan to fully prohibit the use of restraints and seclusion within 12 months in illinois legislation was recently passed which requires schools that receive state funding to make a plan to reduce and eventually eliminate restraints and seclusion over the next three years schools that develop plans more quickly can receive priority for new grant funding for staff training you're all also you are also familiar with the keeping all students safe act in u.s congress which would bar school personnel from physically restraining students in potentially life-threatening ways like

173restricting their breathing or using a prone or supine restraint non-life-threatening restraint tactics except prone or supine may be used if the student poses an imminent danger to themselves or those present only it would also prohibit the practice of seclusion again we ask you to adopt adopt the language of federal guidance on this topic particularly the 15 principles restraint and seclusion resource document u.s department of education we ask that you require the presentation of data on usage of holds to the board of education monthly at public session still cameras in self-contained classrooms abuses rampant in places where disabled and minimally verbal people congregate public schools private schools group homes etc abuse has occurred here cameras are needed in self-contained special education classrooms within tonalosboro legislation has been enacted in states all over the country that requires

174the use of cameras in these settings there was a bill as recently as 2020 in the new york state senate bill 7276 to the same end these laws will come to new york eventually and is incumbent upon our district to prepare and implement proactively three autism specific training for staff end the practice of suppressing and self-stimulatory behaviors or stimming stimming serves a self-regulating function and the suppression of it is harmful to an autistic or neurodivergent person it creates psychological and emotional stress which may result in undesirable behaviors retrain special education personnel and methods that focus on meeting the needs of autistic and neurodivergent students instead of suppressing them seek training and methods that reduce or eliminate the use of restraints notably your ukria retrain all applicable staff including administrators nurses and aides in their roles

175as mandated reporters accountability and transparency the katonasburg board of ed must immediately initiate a self-review focusing on the events that occurred in the self-contained classrooms the middle school and increase miller with conclusions reported back to the board of ed and the community reporting should include an honest assessment of what safeguards failed what was learned and what has been changed to guarantee that it will never happen it never happens to another child in the district again please do not hide behind ferpa and privacy concerns report use of holds to the department of of education both now and in the case of any future use of restraint notify the community immediately in the case of of a known instance of abuse notify parents by the end of the school day if an incident or incidents occur in

176the classroom or school that may negatively impact their child's social emotional well-being this includes witnessing restraints or abuse require that parents of children with verbal limitations receive daily meaningful communications from the teacher regardless of the child's age five disability representation on at the office of special services level increase the representation of the disabled among the staff administration faculty and commit to adding a disabled person to a meaningful oversight position in the office of special services within 12 months finally on the district's website you state the board of education encourages you to attend make suggestions and ask questions during the open forum portion of the agenda if you would like to speak during public forum please sign up at the meetings with the district clerk however you have decided to use the webinar format in zoom

177so the public is not allowed to speak or see who else is attending the meeting prior to coven these were public meetings where the community could attend speak and see who else was present i'm not sure why cobot has made this more restrictive and less transparent it is not the format that our town board uses this is what our new neighboring is this what our neighboring districts are doing next email is from gia miller parents gain the courage to come forward and share their concerns regarding maltreatment of their katona lewis viral self-educated self-contained classrooms what seems to be missing is an understanding that behavior both good and bad is a form of communication when a child misbehaves at home or school it's a way of expressing that something is wrong whether other people view this

178situation as troubling isn't the issue it's what the child perceives understanding why a child misbehaves is the first step to correcting the behavior for example a child might not want to sit in a certain spot because the chair is too uncomfortable the heat is blowing directly on them or they cannot hear the teacher well if the child cannot communicate their issues with words they might repeatedly walk away from the spot or sit somewhere else to demonstrate the problem but if the teacher doesn't view this behavior as a form of communication and if they don't attempt to under attempt to understand the issue they might try to force the child into the designated spot this of course is frustrating to the child and it might cause them to behave in an undesirable manner manner restraining that

179child won't actually fix the problem but finding a more comfortable chair or moving into a different location within the classroom will when you're upset or having a bad day do you want someone to hold you hold you down against your will do you want someone to lock you in a bathroom do you want others to watch or do you want someone to show you sympathy and compassion even if they don't quite understand why you're upset if restraint or seclusion isn't something you'd want then why is this okay for our children particularly the most vulnerable children the ones without a voice the district has yet to apologize to anyone as a society we must change our thinking around misbehavior what it means and how it is handled we have to do better you have to do

180better the us congress is currently considering a bill called the keeping all student safe act this bill along with other federal guidance provides an excellent framework for the policies i'd like to see implemented immediately they include staff training on behavior and appropriate responses retrain teachers and special education personnel and methods that focus on meeting the needs of autistic and neurodiverse students instead of suppressing them in the practice of suppressing self-stimulatory behaviors called stimming children stem to calm themselves and suppressing that behavior can create psychological and emotional stress implement methods that reduce or eliminate the use of restraint retrain all applicable staff including administrators nurses and aides in their roles as mandated reporters amend the policy on restraint and seclusion prohibit seclusion mechanical restraints chemical restraints and physical restraint that restricts breathing or is life-threatening including

181prone and supine restraints ensure that any staff conducting physical restraints are certified in proper administration prohibit physical restraint as a planned is an intervention require parents receive verbal or electronic notification within one hour after a hold is used on a child and that the details be provided in writing no later than 24 hours after the incident when a child is restrained hold a meeting with the parents and staff involved no later than five school days following the incident implement monthly reporting to the board of education on all data regarding any restraints used during the month in addition i'd like to see the district initiate a self-review of the events that occurred in the self-contained classroom at the middle school in increased miller with conclusions reported to the board of ed and the community and i'd

182like to see a review occur at any any time there's an instance of student harm or repeated restraint and finally i was surprised to learn there was no representation of the disabled among special education staff administration and faculty i'd like to see the district add a disabled person to a responsible position within the next year i know the board wants to regain the community's trust and amending district policy to protect the most vulnerable students is the first and most essential step next email is from serge moonitz recent events of applying protective holds with no notification to the child's parents have broken your community's trust physical restraints are associated with the possibility of physical injury and even death to regain the community's trust one change the policy related to the use of restraints in our schools

183adopt the language of federal guidance on the topic particularly the 15 principles prohibit use of restraint to protect school property or the orderly functioning of the school require immediate parrot notification by verbal or electronic means after a hold is used on a child two install cameras in self-contained classrooms three retrain staff to eliminate the practice of suppressing self-stimulatory behaviors expose special education personnel to approaches that focus on meeting the needs of autistic and neurodivergent students instead of suppressing them seek training in approaches that reduce or eliminate the use of restraint for example ukraine enhance accountability and transparency notify parents by the end of the day if an incident occurs in the classroom or school that may negatively impact their child's social emotional well-being require that parents of children with verbal limitations receive daily meaningful communication

184from the teacher regardless of the child's age focus on disability representation at the office of special services level seek out disabled candidates in any future searches for positions and special services we appreciate your attention to this matter another email i received is from um george dead george dead i was shocked and sickened to learn that upon information and belief protective holds were used were there visual supports in place for the student was staff trained in de-escalation techniques did they have a relationship with this child or was this the child merely seen as a nuisance who dropped the ball here any administrator who thinks thinks this is okay needs to be in a different line of work sorry um the following measures should be taken by the katona lewis middle school district amend policy on restraint

185and seclusion to adopt the language of federal guidance specifically the 15 principles prohibit use of restraint to protect school property or the orderly functioning of the school end the practice of suppressing self-stimulatory behaviors stimming stimming is a self-regulating function and suppressing it is harmful it creates psychological and emotional stress which may result in undesirable behaviors require immediate within one hour parent notification by verbal or electronic means after a hold is used on the child notify parents by the end of the school day if an incident or incidents occur in the classroom or school that may negatively impact their child's social emotional well-being be accountable and transparent install cameras in self-contained classrooms behavior is a form of communication and children often try to express their needs and wants more through behavior than words those incidents tell

186me that educators and administrators were not listening you can do better than this we can do better than this [Applause] next email is from dr mark abrams i have been a resident within the katona louisville school district since two years during that time period out of district i have raised four children who attended your schools and i am now in a household with more with two more children in the school system i'm a licensed psychologist in the state of new york with a post-doctoral fellowship and child clinical psychology i teach and i'm a lifelong practitioner of traditional martial arts i have worked with the state and federal law enforcement military and private security personnel i am well versed in continuum of force and restraint issues i am writing to you as a very concerned citizen

187in our community regarding conduct by school officials that i simply that is simply beyond my comprehension i will point out areas that need immediately that need to be immediately rectified [Applause] physical restraints should only be used to prevent the harm or harm to self or others the only other acceptable use would be to prevent major damage destruction to indispensable property the overarching guideline when using physical restraint is minimal force necessary for the minimal time necessary to maintain safety i generally wonder if anyone administering restraints have had those same restraints placed on them in order to gain some understanding as to what a person experiences when that is done i wonder as to the nature and frequency of the training used by those administering the restraints i cannot think of one highly qualified trainer who would

188condone the use of physical restraints on a child the first and primary means of communication with children is non is non-verbal most human communication is non-verbal as well this foundation of understanding is even more important to keep in mind when dealing with children who have difficulties articulating thoughts feelings and experiences through verbal means it is unusual for there not to be incident communication prior to behaviors that are deemed necessary necessary to utilize physical restraints how is it that apparently no responsible adult in a contained classroom setting is seemingly aware of communications that indicate a child is getting upset or is under duress how is it that no responsible adult intervened with a with a child in a manner that enabled them the psychological space to regain a sense of composure let us assume for argument's

189sake that a child suddenly engages in out-of-control behavior that necessitates physical restraint you would want a school official school nurse behaviorist or therapist to be on the scene as soon as humanly possible to witness and record the event you would want an incident reported immediately filed out after the child has been deemed safe by the school nurse and a therapist you would want to notify the parents immediately so that they can work with the school to process the events and try and gain some understanding as to why this situation occurred and you would want to help all of the adults present process the event in order to develop a specific plan to assist a child so that the similar so that a similar occurrence can be prevented in the future areas that need immediate change

190one update and public and public policy on the use of physical force and restraint on students school personnel need regular training on well-established pers established procedures for assisting students who need help and regain reining in escalating behaviors before physical interventions or restraint is ever required school personnel need regularly training on well-established means and methods for the use of minimal restraints techniques an established policy should be implemented immediately regarding when physical restraint becomes necessary this should include creating an incident report every time any physical restraint is implemented on a student video recordings of the of events are optimal and video monitoring of a contained classroom would appear to be a prudent measure at a minimum there should be a school official principal or vice principal on site when physical restraint is necessary a school nurse and

191mental health staff member should also be on site to ensure that the intervention is implemented safely and in a manner that helps the child regain composure and control a parent should be notified immediately and given the option to come to the school to assist in helping the child and to help the school staff best learn from that incident there should be regular meetings to help deconstruct recorded incidents in order to develop better ways of managing difficult situations with students so physical restraints can be avoided in the future there should also be an advisory committee comprised of local professionals to work with the school districts to continuously refine policies and procedures in order to best ensure a safe and productive learning environment for all students so accountability there needs to be a written policy regarding how

192the school district handles staff who violate established protocols and policies the emphasis should always be on supporting the staff to improve the delivery of service to students when a staff member significantly deviates from policies and procedures procedures there must be some board oversight as to how to manage recorded problems his policy needs to be in full compliance with all national state and local laws and regulations as a concerned citizen of this in the school district i expect that our schools will provide the best education possible with the available tax dollar tax dollars we pay i do not want to see our tax dollars siphoned off to address legal problems that should never have surfaced in the first place i do not want to see our tax dollars siphoned off to pay for students that we

193place out of district when our school system is capable of effectively or efficiently delivering educational services to a diverse student body i sincerely hope that these problems are swiftly and properly addressed if there's any way that i can assist the school district in these above mentioned areas please do not hesitate to ask so i'm just going to take a little drink thank you kim thank you thank you next email is from melissa roop i am writing with concerns regarding our current policy of seclusion and restraint specifically the policy regarding seclusion my concerns regarding our current policy are as follows one the time out room is used it should be reported in a timely manner to the family and this should be tracked also to see if there are trends in timing or around specific subjects

194to ensure the child isn't engaging in behaviors to avoid certain topics or if a teacher is over using the room as a consequence and not and not as it is intended two in the language it indicates a student can self-select to go into a timeout room given the potential for harm to the child being secluded and if the district chooses to maintain a seclusion policy at all the district should consider rewriting this policy in conjunction with a health care professional who can speak to the ramifications of using a seclusion space for three separate functions one as an emergency only space two as a space for a child to practice coping skills and three a space where a child can self select to go thank you the next email is from jessica klein foglio i am

195the president of a rare childhood disease foundation called star foundation we are working in funding childhood rare disease research at the nih einstein university montefiore yale university of paris stanford and children's hospital of orange county california with that said i want to advocate for the use of cameras in the special needs classrooms on perhaps a different avenue from other parents who have already written i strongly urge you to consider giving the parents notification the same day that any incident happens regarding emotional issues if my child is restrained for any reason i need to know why and how i can best work with the school on how to help remedy these incidents i want to expand my deepest gratitude and thanks as you consider these very important safety measures for the classroom next email is from

196joseph garafallo sorry disabled students particularly in the non and minimally verbal are the most vulnerable members of our community every parent puts their trust in the school district but none so much as the parent of a non or memory minimally verbal child who cannot tell their parents about their day and cannot use words to share their feelings of fear sadness or shame for this reason the special needs community of katona lewisborough was anguished to learn that protective holds were used physical restraint even when used according to training is associated with mental and physical injury and even with death according to all best practices it is best to be employed rarely or never over the last two months we have met repeatedly to offer each other support and to explore ways to keep our children safe

197at school we have reviewed laws guidance and new legislative bills we have studied best practices we have consulted experts to our dismay we have learned in these conversations that there have been numerous other instances of harm or mistreatment of children committed by staff in the self-contained classes these events have gone unreported to parents or were reported as singular events some after a great delay a year or more this is a time of great grief and suffering for the families of these children the families of our community we are committed to channeling this grief into action and we will that will aid our children make a tonal roseborough better and safer place and restore the community to wholeness [Applause] to this end we submit the following measures need to be taken amend policy on restraint and

198seclusion to adopt to adopt the language of federal guidance on the principles particularly the 15 principles prohibit the use of any physical restraint or physical escort that restricts breathing or that restricts blood flow to the brain including prone or supine restraint prohibit the use of mechanical restraint drugs medication to control behavior or restrict freedom of movement prohibit the use of restraint to protect school property or the orderly functioning of the school require immediate within one hour parent notification by verbal or electronic means after a hold is used on a child require that parents receive in writing the details of the of the event no later than 24 hours after the incident these details must include a description of the incident positive interventions used to restrain the duration of the restraint a description of the serious

199physical injury of the student or others that occurred or was about to occur that necessitated the restraint this notification will also name the type of holds used example basket hold team control position hold etc requires a meeting in person or virtual between the parents of the students and the and the program including the staff involved no later than five school days following the incident prohibit the practice of seclusion require the presentation of data on usage of holds to the board of education monthly two cameras in self-contained classrooms in self-contained classes install one or more video camera with the capability of recording sound and follow the guidelines for their use found in new york state senate bill 7276 three behavior supports and staff training and the practice of suppressing self-stimulatory behaviors stemming stimming serves as a

200self-regulating function and the suppression of it is harmful to an autistic or neurodivergent person it creates psychological and emotional stress which may result in undesirable behaviors we train staff or retrain special education personnel in methods that focus on meeting the needs of autistic and neurodivergent students instead of suppressing them seek training in methods that reduce or eliminate the use of restraint notably your korea retrain all applicable staff including administrators nurses and aides in their roles as mandated reporters for accountability and transparency immediately initiate a self-review focusing on the events that occurred in the self-contained classrooms at the middle school in increased miller with conclusions reported back to the board of ed and the community conduct such a review after any future repeated use of restraint or seclusion report the use use of holds to the

201department of education both now and in the case of any future use of restraint notify the community in the case of a known instance of abuse notify parents by the end of the school day if an incident or incidents occur in the classroom or school that may negatively impact their child's social emotional well-being require that parents of children with verbal limitations receive daily meaningful communication from their teacher regardless of the child's age five disability representation at the office of special services level centered disabled candidates in any future searches for positions and special services seek to increase the representation of the district among staff administration faculty and commit to adding a disabled person to a responsible position in the office of special services within 12 months the next email is from kim cameron i apologize for

202interrupting you but i actually uh whether on your behalf or board members behalf i'd like to suggest a brief recess i think probably other board members feel the way i feel which is that it's very important that we be present and be able to listen whether it's one additional community comment or multiple additional community comments so um i think we're at 10 42 and if i could have a second for a motion for a brief recess i see a few thank you bill all in favor please say aye bye 7-0 so it's 10 42 and i'm going to suggest the board reconvene at 10 50. is that too many minutes 10 50. thank you very much do you need anything else for us kim to return briefly no we're okay just make sure you turn

203off your cameras and thank you so much thank you okay thank you so much everyone i'll make a motion for us to return to public session if i could ask for a second thank you rory all in favor please say aye bye bye great thank you and kim whenever you're ready please um continue with public forum comments we really appreciate your help thank you okay the next email is from alexandria ferrero disabled students particularly the non and minimally verbal are the most vulnerable members of our community every parent puts their trust in the school district but none so much as the parent of a non or member minimally verbal child who cannot tell their parent about their day and cannot use words to share their feelings or of fear sadness or shame for this reason

204the special needs community of katona lewisborough was anguished to learn that upon information and belief protective holds were used a physical restraint even when used according to training is associated with mental and physical injury and even with death according to best practices it is is it it is to be employed rarely or never over the last two months we have met repeatedly to offer each other support and to explore ways to keep our children safe at school we have reviewed laws guidance and new legislative bills we have studied best practices we have consulted experts to our dismay in these conversations other parents have expressed concern regarding serious incidents in other self-contained classes in the district that they feel were not properly reported this is this is a time of great grief and suffering for the

205for the families of these children the families of our community we are committed to channeling this greed into action that will aid our children make katana lewisbury a better and safer place and restore the community to wholeness to this end submit the following measures that need to be taken ms ferreira stated the same measures that needed to be taken as mr in mr garafallo's comments the next comment email is from liz mailman i am the parent of two children and chris miller like all parents i worry when my kids aren't with me worry if they are making friends drinking enough water or paying attention in class but unlike most parents i have added worries that others don't i worry if my daughter is being spoken to by an adult in a disrespectful way i worry

206that she is busy being physically restrained or locked in a room i worry that my daughter may have witnessed a friend being abused in these ways i worry for her safety over the past few months i have been involved in many informal meetings with other parents who have also have these worries most of our children are limited verbally and cannot tell us what happens at school during these meetings more than a few parents have expressed concerns regarding serious incidents in self-contained classes in the district that they feel were not properly reported while you may not agree that all of these incidents were abused i hope we can all agree that there needs to be addressed it needs to be drastic changes especially when it occurs to our re restraint timeout policy and staff training additionally

207it is my opinion that cameras are needed in the self-contained classes cameras protect the children of course but also any teacher or aid that reports abuse or mistreatment when i hear stories of abuse of disabled children on the news and now in our own community i wonder how a group of adults could witness a child being abused and not say anything we all know there are there are always many adults in these classes maybe they didn't like it maybe they didn't like it didn't think it was that bad or they assumed it was one a one-time thing i have i have come to realize abuse and mistreatment often goes unreported because of the people who would report or afraid to lose their jobs or to be subject to an uncomfortable work environment after they come

208forward cameras could empower these these would-be reporters just like on our school buses a camera could be used if there's an issue or complaint while our state and federal government slowly work towards making this law i urge you our trusted school board members to do better than the law do better do better for our most vulnerable kids and this is mailman's um email also submitted the measures that need to be taken um as did mr garrow follows in miss ferrara's comments next email is from desiree mayneck i am deeply disturbed by the re re revelation that katona lewis borough school district allows use of physical restraints of disabled and special ed students this is deeply personal as i have a nephew who is disabled and would be beyond distraught if i found out he had

209to be subjected to this i am also concerned about what this says about the culture of the schools that would allow for this to occur and let there be such a delay in notifying the parents not even considering the long-term effects of the child and other child that witnessed these events and not think about the need to confront and process those experiences in general i am also concerned about an increased lack of empathy and intolerance from some teachers and staff that i have witnessed as a parent on several occasions with my own kids and who are not part of the special ed program but attend both the middle school and high schools but to hear of it on this level has motivated me to speak up and be a part of a growing collection of

210parents who will fight hard to see some changes our kids come first and we trust them in your hands this trust has been broken and i urge you to do what you can to help repair their trust i support all the measures listed below that have been carefully draft crafted by very informed parents and i suggest the entire staff go through some training in empathy ms may checks also submitted the same measures as noted in the prior three emails the last email that i received was from elena schneier i want to thank terrence chang for his service on the board terence was the first board member that i met in my experience he was open to community input and always considered it to be considered it with openness and honest inquiry i am grateful for

211his service and all the issues that he shined a light on and the lasting changes he made in the district i want to sincerely thank him for serving on the board his voice will be missed and i see i think one okay and i have two more comments at the q a mackenzie o'brien am i able to opt my child out of this program or other any other form of crt klsd has implemented and then the next the last comment is from midge iorio on behalf of bedford 2030 i want to thank the katona louisville district for being a leader in our community and a model for other school districts in taking concrete actions to reduce polluting greenhouse gas emissions that threaten our student and community health our our air quality and our natural resources

212the district has already taken impactful steps with its buildings thank you in advance for continuing to do so and especially for taking actions to get our school buildings off of fossil fuel heat it is also essential to get the district fleet and most importantly the polluting school buses our students ride in off of fossil fuel power clearly there are challenges to challenges to making this transition but there is a growing set of resources to help make it happen please stay on top of these opportunities making this transition is critical for the health of our students our drivers and our community and that are that is all of the comments that i currently have great thank you so very much for your help tonight kim we really appreciate it and thank you to members of our

213community for joining us and for sharing thoughts and concerns and questions and suggestions uh either prior to tonight's meeting or tonight during the meeting as i mentioned um we're going to now turn our attention to consent agenda and then in just a few moments we will have an opportunity for some board discussion and dialogue so i think now we are at 9.01 which is our consent agenda i'm not aware of any items that board members had wished to vote on separately but i'll just pause to be sure that's the case and if not then i will ask for a motion to move the consent agenda please wait aren't we pulling out 1008 well i thought we would have some discussion but i didn't think we needed to vote separately on the item so if if

214you don't mind would you would you move the consent agenda for us great would somebody please second it thank you liz and then i was bill gonna suggest that we would at least pause for some brief discussion of any items board members wish to discuss and starting with 10.08 if you would please share some comments with us thank you so um i'm chairman of the policy committee and we've been working on the policy in question uh dealing with emergency protective holds and i wanted to bring up some highlights and also indicate where the guideline can be seen that we've going to be approving later tonight i guess it can enumerate some of the key provisions uh would be a good place to start so to be clear when harm to a person appears imminent emergency

215intervention may be necessary only when all other intervention strategies have been exhausted that has been in the policy it will continue to be in the policy this is not a new provision and was in previous versions of this policy but it's important to reiterate it the students or parents of guardians will be notified of each incident the necessitated use of an emergency protective hold as soon as possible and not later than the end of the same calendar day that's a new provision full documentation will be provided to the parent or guardian no later than the end of the next school day this documentation will include the setting the staff involved the description of the incident what intervention was used and the duration of the incident another item that's been brought up is with is with

216respect to the protection of property this policy and the use of holds is is in no way designed or intended to protect property primarily but the line between protection of private property and the safety of an individual can be very narrow and the policy airs on the side of caution it could be a split-second decision uh and we and we want to err on the side of safety the emphasis here being on the protection of people from harm harm to property is only relevant to the degree that such harm can very quickly lead to harm to another student or staff member the use of emergency protective holds will fully adhere to governing statutes and regulations this is this too is not new and has been the policy and practice of the district timeout rooms are

217not used and mechanical restraints are not used and have not been used these are some of the highlights um any community member who wishes to review the policy in its entirety because it might be some other changes of interest to you um you can see it on the board docs site under consent agenda item 10.08 that's all i have thank you bill did any board members have questions comments either pertaining to 10.08 and the changes bill just apprised us of or any other consent agenda items okay if not then i think we can go ahead and vote on the consent agenda all in favor please say aye terrific 7-0 thanks very much and this brings us to board dialogue and discussion i think first on behalf of the board we'd like to thank our community

218members parents for your advocacy for our students for our most vulnerable students we take very seriously that the health safety and well-being of all students is our absolute number one priority and we appreciate you sharing your concerns and perspectives with us this evening i will pause to ask whether anybody had a comment or topic that they wish to address i will clarify for the community's information and also just for ensuring that the board is also aware of the evolution of our meetings this is again the last meeting of this school year and as we know we're still operating under the governor's executive order with regard to our virtual meetings we are staying tuned for how that evolves in the coming weeks and i anticipate that as soon as our reorganization meeting uh at the very

219beginning of july there will be an update regarding the next phase for use of technology and opportunities to convene in person and to resume some in-person public forum commentary so please stay tuned for an update and a timeline as soon as our next meeting um yes please julie i just wanna i know that there are many people that made comments tonight and and some of them may be um in the meeting and i just want to be clear that this we've been discussing this policy for several meetings um and i i think the fact that there's sort of some silence i don't want that to be for people who are new perceive that we haven't heard what people have said and that we're disregarding it it's just we have had conversations about similar letters that

220we've received in previous meetings and i think i'm comfortable with what you said in terms of our focus on health and safety of our students and ensuring that that is our top priority and always is our top priority so again i just think i don't want anyone who has not been in previous meetings to interpret our sort of lack of discussion of the topic of disinterest thank you i think that's julia thank you for saying that i'd want to echo the same you know i think it's very important for people to know and to hear that we take comments such as these very seriously health and safety is and will always be our highest priority and allegations we take very seriously also um our duties there was there were several references to our duties as

221mandated reporters people who work in schools we take those responsibilities very seriously and have acted appropriately when necessary under those obligations and we always encourage folks to come forward and we appreciate the comments that were made this evening and on friday nights and right i do think it might be helpful if you could please clarify because in a couple of the comments we did hear specific allegations of child abuse and i would like clarification on whether um just having had the names and that assertion in a public forum comment is um the first step in that mandatory reporting process or if not if you could please uh inform those community members who made those assertions this evening and their public comments on you know what what would need to happen next thanks marjorie yeah so

222we we would follow up with anybody who makes an allegation of abuse and ask them to come forward with further information we would conduct interviews and those interviews would lead lead us to whatever next steps were necessary but we we're obligated not to ignore any accusations of abuse so with regard to any accusations that were made however abstractly they might have been made tonight publicly you and the appropriate administrators will follow up with the transcript of the meeting and take whatever steps are necessary correct thank you any further comments or topics okay thank you i think this brings us to our opportunity to look ahead and at the moment i think the only meeting on the board of education calendar is the reorganization meeting which is scheduled for thursday july 1st at 7 30 pm

223is there anything else that board members were waiting to add to the future meetings okay and if not this brings us to 16.01 which is our opportunity to adjourn and in just a moment i'll make a motion to adjourn but first please allow me to again thank everybody present here today for this last school board meeting of our year and for the presentations and all that went into supporting those presentations and all of the work that was reflected in those presentations and for moving our school district forward even during a year when pandemic conditions could have eclipsed and impeded our opportunity to move forward so we're very grateful to you and we wish you a peaceful restorative summer and with that i'm going to make a motion to adjourn to public session i'm sorry pardon

224me two executive session uh to discuss the employment history of an individual if i could please have a second thank you liz all in favor please say aye aye good night everybody thank you very much you