001uh i think i don't see anybody else in the attendees i don't see catherine oh now i see her kim yeah you just come in oh there she is okay thank you i just did a lot of talk it's terrific wonderful think we're all set great okay good evening everybody welcome so nice to see everyone uh it's thursday february 11th it's my pleasure to make a motion for us to go back into public session if i could please have a second thank you catherine um and would everybody please oh let's vote all in favor please say aye aye terrific thank you so much six and if everybody would please join us by rising for the pledge of allegiance thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united justice terrific thank you everybody welcome
002to members of our community who've joined us this evening we're looking forward to some brief updates on uh our hybrid learning model and how school is going we don't have any official presentations scheduled for tonight it's wonderful to see you sawyer welcome back and if you're ready we would love to start with your student board report all right so far snowy weather hasn't held back to tona lewisborough's productive students modified versions of covid's safe school traditions and academic prognos progress signify that the school community continues on despite the challenges that this year has presented spirits have been high in the snow and looking forward let's hope these high spirits continue on last month campus congress meetings meeting was canceled because of a snow day however we are set to meet next week where a larger
003project for the year will be further developed and explored recently at the high school there were several community-centered community service centered activities the sustainability club collected over 1 100 pounds of seasonal clothing shoes and home goods to be donated to the community center of northern westchester and also a school-wide competition dubbed the super bowl with a with spelled s-o-u-p-e-r took place last month during which grades competed to see which grade could donate the most canned goods and non-perishables for the community center as well keep up the great work congratulations also to john jay high school seniors who placed at the westchester rocklin junior science and humanities symposium i think i speak for the whole community when i say that i am impressed with the work you've done it's quite impressive and it's beyond my understanding
004of science at the middle school students are cooking up fantastic culinary creations in the culinary lab where they explore nutrition and flavors and students are also exploring equity and social justice in their social studies classes examining the racial inequities that have existed in the united states from the colonial era to today at increase miller fourth graders have begun to examine how they perceive themselves and what makes them them with identity webs these hand-drawn graphics give students an idea of what matters to them as they connect character traits and and what they find valuable back to their name at the center of their web um and to celebrate the upcoming holiday valley students celebrated valentine's day with a virtual dance celebrating safely and enjoying upbeat music and music and dance from home at kes students from
005the high school gave an engaging presentation to the elementary schoolers on inclusion and diversity they stressed the value of accepting others for who they are and working to make a kinder safer environment for all and then at meadowpond kindergarteners celebrated the annual q u wedding a ceremony commemorating the permanent partnership of the letters q and u students at meadow pond also prepared for valentine's day by creating valentine's day cards for local veterans and their cards will be distributed by representative sean patrick maloney that is all i have for this past month that is fabulous sawyer thank you so much we really appreciate your update and your celebration of all of the great work and um creative energy at every level of the school district we really appreciate your representativeness and your updates so thank you
006very much for that celebration um and for keeping us surprised i'll pause just briefly if any board members had questions or comments sorry i have to say you're kind of the highlight of the meeting you really are thank you thank you downhill from now on thank you thanks again sawyer that was great if there aren't any other comments at this time i think our next agenda item tonight is an opportunity for board subcommittees to report out i will just pause briefly and ask those board liaisons from committees who have a report to just let us know that you're waiting to say something i'm not sure whether audit or finance not this evening anything from parent council tonight no policy committee i know we have a couple of policies on the agenda i'm not sure if
007you want to say anything about them at this time don't feel that you have to the one that there's there's one new read uh first read which is let's see which one is the first reach there's only two policies i should go to keep it straight i think the first read is the drug free work yeah so that one is largely um cripped from state and other law some of it was just updating some of the language around it and then the that's the first reader then for the third read and adoption is um again more language modifications uh and not many at that to the conditional and emergency conditional appointments of staff uh you know what what are the processes they go through and it's been stable the same sort of thing for years
008and it's even easier now because the fingerprint system is even better than it used to be so that's that's the third read great thank you bill and i'll just briefly mention the sustainability committee did meet since our last meeting and i really appreciated hearing your updates lawyer regarding the efforts of the sustainability club which i think i'd seen a little bit about that on our school website but it's great to hear the project having come to fruition and all that they were able to accomplish one of the things we'd like to do a better job of actually with our sustainability subcommittee is to better integrate some of the great work that's happening across the district so we appreciate you keeping us surprised at our last meeting actually nora beltran our director of transportation joined us
009i wanted to take a minute just to thank her and to thank danelle they provided a very helpful overview on really the state of play with regard to electric buses and electric vehicles on public school district campuses in the region and we don't have to spend too much time on this right now because the sustainability committee will have an opportunity to provide a more comprehensive update later in the spring but we really did appreciate the opportunity to become better educated about that landscape we also talked about some professional learning opportunities that are happening on wednesdays opportunities for our staff members to get additional professional learning related to climate and sustainable initiatives specifically the sdgs that you know part of the united nations efforts to better organize and educate around these important matters and then finally
010several of us are registered to attend a teachers college climate change institute in may and we're really looking forward to what we can learn there we were supposed to attend last year but of course with the pandemic it was cancelled and now it's been reimagined i guess via zoom i think that's it for sustainability and i didn't have anything from westchester putnam county association at this time although i will just mention in advance we're very grateful we have an opportunity for a conversation with our local elected representatives tomorrow and we really appreciate their time we'll be meeting with other school districts who share our local representatives and having an opportunity to share our perspective about some key issues facing our schools right now um i think with that we're ready for just some generic board
011announcements i don't know if anybody was waiting to make any additional announcements at this time i just wanted to briefly mention one other thing which is that it's that time of year thank you to the katona art museum for hosting the young artists exhibition and just in that same spirit that catherine mentioned that sawyer is such a highlight i want to encourage everybody here at our board table and in the community audience and just in general to please go to the katona art museum to support our student artists we had either seven or eight students with work exhibited and thank you to amy stockfield and our entire art faculty for supporting these students throughout their education at catona lewisboro i think you have to be a senior to exhibit so i think these students are
012all current seniors in high school and the exhibit taken in its entirety is just um really uplifting and also provocative and really interesting and so i encourage you if you have a few minutes to head over to the katona art museum and that was it for me tonight if there are no other announcements then i know andrew we are very much looking forward to hearing from you tonight thank you thanks marjorie thank you and i i do want to just start by i know sawyer mentioned this already thank you sawyer you did a great job um i just want to give another shout out to the event that happened i think it was right after our last board meeting the westchester rocklin junior science humanities symposium it's such an enormous event uh when we're not
013in covert times this building is filled with students from around the region presenting their papers and this year thanks to a really dedicated staff from the high school led by anne marie lipinski the whole thing transitioned onto zoom and still had i think almost 400 papers and abstracts be presented many of our students but also students from all over the region and it's a great experience for them and i want to thank the staff and congratulate all the students who were involved it's a really great event and undertaking having said that i do i just have one topic i want to talk about a little bit tonight i've had a few more questions in the last couple days about from community members about the possibilities for the reopening of schools and i think it's understandable
014that these questions are coming at this time certainly it's true that we all would love to see all of our students back in school safely as soon as possible we know how important it is we know what an incredibly long year this has been and so i think the sense of urgency and the great desire for things to get back to something like a kind of normal uh is increasing uh of late um maybe it's because there is beginning to be a a positive and a more optimistic feeling about the envy in sight and i think that when that happens one wants the end to come as quickly as possible and then there are other reasons that it's understandable our governor has made remarks uh lately about school reopenings and the importance of that president
015biden has made clear his commitment to the reopening of schools uh the good news about the vaccine is another piece of it uh and then other rules keep changing around us as we hear about um indoor dining returning and actually just in the last couple days we heard about stadiums and other sports arenas uh reopening for professional fan fans of professional teams to re-enter in a couple weeks so uh it's really understandable that um parents would be asking with all those things happening when would our children be back in school and then even more recently there's word in some of our neighboring districts about some of these conversations beginning to take place uh and uh with administrations engaging their own communities about what plans might look like so again it does it starts to feel
016like change is on the horizon just today in fact we heard of a change from the cdc and some guidance related to the quarantine periods as it relates to the vaccine there's now a 90-day window that starts two weeks after one has completed the vaccine dosage and which one doesn't have to quarantine if you're a close contact so that guidance just comes out today and again when it starts to feel as if things may be changing in some ways they may be changing quickly but but we are still waiting and watching closely for other things to change because there are some things and this is important that that haven't changed and the and the pieces that are particularly important for us uh are the distancing requirements and so while some things do change it continues
017to be emphasized by health officials that distancing is one of the things that have kept schools the relatively safe places that they have been throughout the pandemic and up to this point for us that means the six foot distancing and again we know that this is now being discussed in other districts we know it's some cases being discussed in other states uh in some cases there have been changes it's i think it's hard understandably hard for people to sort of square the fact that different departments of health may have slightly varying guidance on this again i think we're in a particularly fluid period right now as as the vaccines proceed and as the science is investigated further and and different experts make slightly different conclusions and perhaps give slightly differing advice so where that leaves
018us is in we are we are certainly watching very closely uh we have some reason to think there may be new guidance soon currently as i said a minute ago the guidance has not changed the recommendation is still in westchester county quite clearly that the ideal is for students to be seated at six feet and that recommendation alone uh does make it uh near impossible for us to have all students back at the same time so we watch for that guidance to change and if and when it does we are certainly thinking about the impact that would have um and the very positive impact that it could have in terms of us being able to bring more students back so um i hope you know i want i certainly want our community to be helpful
019i think we should all be helpful and optimistic and i think um appropriately our community we will engage with our community when the time is right as we have throughout this process our community meeting our school community our staff we'll get input from students we'll get input from our parent uh and other community members in order to think about what's best i think another thing we keep in mind is that we do still have quite a large number of students who are not coming to school at the moment even with the current guidance we've seen concerns be expressed at each point of change over these last few months concerns in all directions so we will continue to uh keep the community apprised we'll be watching closely for any developments you know again the the the
020word i'm hearing is that could be changed soon and if there is we will certainly share that with the community just as soon as we become aware of it uh we are already thinking about the possible impact of any new guidance should it come and we'll be sharing it and engaging in conversation hopefully soon uh and in the meantime we will continue to prioritize health and safety uh in all respects meaning not just the physical health and safety but the mental health and well-being of our students and we'll continue to provide the best experience that we possibly can so that really is the focus of my update for tonight um and i imagine there may be more to come soon and if there's any questions at all i would certainly be happy to entertain them
021thanks very much sure we appreciate that are there any questions clarifying questions or concerns i will mention just while board members are gathering their thoughts in case you do have questions please for members of our community who are waiting to ask a question in just a short moment or two we're going to turn our attention to public forum i think that's next on our agenda so please feel free to use the q a function at the bottom of the zoom screen just please identify yourself so we know who you are um and we'll be happy to hear your comments and questions in just a moment i have a quick question um so andrew as we anticipate that there may be a change in guidance um maybe there will maybe there won't um are there any
022preemptive actions that we can take such as preparing for i don't know perspex screens between desks or revised code of conducts or other types of waivers or forms that we may need families to fill out and so forth are the things that we can anticipate at this point and be prepared in the event that the guidance does change sure yes uh the short answer is yes and we are we we continually think about those kinds of things um you know there are we've we have looked into um we call them the barriers that you refer to the perspective screens um you know we've done some some research on that there are there are complicated like everything uh there are complications around them also but we are doing the research necessary knowing that some districts are
023looking at those but it brings other factors into play like fire codes and other things that one has to consider and then you know we we are looking at spaces again and looking at what smaller distances would mean and things uh like how lunch would be handled becomes a new consideration if the environment changes because currently students are eating in their classrooms for the most part they're six feet apart so they can take the masks off to eat lunch and we're still within the guidelines we don't know what those guidelines might be whether those would change uh if there's a change in the distancing requirements at the same time so we're doing our best to anticipate where we can and some things you know we're really curious to find out what the guides will be
024thank you sure catherine i think you're muted but i think you're waiting to say something just as we're sitting here and i'm listening to andrew my phone popped up with the news break that says the cdc to issue new covid19 guidelines for schools on friday just you know you just don't know right right yeah julia i just have two questions one in terms of privacy law are we able to know like what percentage of our teachers have been vaccinated is that are they can we ask them and are they in any way required to share that information with us uh i believe then we can we can certainly ask and they're not required right okay uh we've done you know we at some at some points in time the county has been curious to get
025a sense from schools because they they really and i i want to applaud the county they've been trying to be helpful and prioritize teachers so they have asked us for data you know how many teachers have not been able to get an appointment yet so we have asked our staff for that information and they've been forthcoming about letting us know um but but we don't go to individuals and ask have you been vaccinated and then my second question it's more of a comment i guess you know i remember back in august and september when we were thinking about tents and how we might use them and at that point it just became impractical that we would ever have enough tents to be able to keep you know everyone in school and we really felt that
026like going to a two um cohort model was really the most practical but i wonder whether um you know it's something to explore for potentially lunch purposes whether you know that so it wouldn't be for classrooms but it where we would need um students to have their mass off whether we could revisit that and have that be maybe an opportunity to address one of the issues i think and a big issue because you know we we're not seeing transmissions in schools because the kids are distance and they have their masks on and when they don't have their masks on they're even further distance which we're able to accomplish because there are less children in the buildings um but i guess you know i would say from my perspective i think i would want to at
027least know what those costs were if that was something that was i you know i wouldn't i wouldn't necessarily want you to think that it would just be a no because of potential cost prohibitiveness we actually we have we bought tents but it's just been too cold and snowy to erect them but we we do have them i don't know whether you can comment andrew and whether we would have enough tent opportunity to use them for a lunch space at every building but well we certainly have um i think we have two tents for the house each for the high school middle school and one for each elementary school i think that i think i'm remembering to know my health two-tenths for the the john jay campus so one okay one at middle school yeah
028so five all together um to be to be perfectly honest probably not enough to accommodate a lunch period but certainly to provide some overflow space and and we could be looking for more uh through the spring perhaps if uh funding is there and we appreciate the board's support for that i know it's hard to stay focused on the as is because things are so subject to change but can you comment on whether even if everything stayed as is and i know it's unlikely that things will stay as is but if if things did would you anticipate that we might see a higher percentage of secondary students coming to school in our current model you know are there efforts underway to try to change the attendance patterns that we're seeing i know it's not a unique
029problem in catona lewisboro and this is being experienced at high schools and to some extent middle schools in the region very widely so i know it's not just happening here but in your conversations with other superintendents and other districts and just with our staff here at john jay high school in middle school would you anticipate that things are going to change or do you think this is it for from now till the end of the year this is it and then i know you've spoken at previous meetings about the opportunity to identify other cohorts of students and to continue to invite more students into school you know there too can you comment on whether we still have so much room that we can continue to invite more cohorts or have we plateaued in terms of
030identifying groups of students that can come in four days a week sure i'll take the last question first the high school is probably the one remaining place where we really have substantial room to invite more students back so that is continuing to be explored at this point the middle school and this is a good good thing i think we they've invited enough students back that now their classes at current capacity of six foot distancing those classes are really pretty full um and and ella true in the elementary schools also for the for the most part there might be an exception an exception with a chair or two here and there but not not a great deal of space but we do continue still to examine other opportunities to invite groups back uh but as to
031your first question i think that's a much more difficult question and not not one i have an easy answer to but yes it's discussed by superintendents yes it's experienced in other districts um you know it's almost it feels like it's kind of a self-perpetuating issue in a way and that and that the students kind of have decided on their own or with their families that this is you know they're more comfortable they prefer to be home and once a certain mass makes that decision it's harder for others perhaps to come in um and maybe the reverse now needs to start to happen that as students come back others will start to feel like it's comfortable for them you know it's we will continue to invite and encourage um but as long as quarantining is still
032a reality um and as long and i think i think i think another piece of the reality is i think our oldest students feel at least that they have as a more of a comparable experience on zoom as they would in school we might want to debate that a little bit and say we still think you'd be much better off in school but i think they might some of them might say well you know actually i'm getting a pretty good experience here at home so if it's just as easy to be here i'll stay here um so you know now we have a a job to do of figuring out what other things and you know we are seeing it in some of the after school activities we know those are things students really want
033to engage in that they can engage in at home so it's it's teaching us interesting things about school and where the value is depending on your age and how it varies you know because this is it's a very different experience at the high school than it is at the elementary schools i appreciate that thanks one thing i think is interesting at least i think about um because i don't work from home and so i wear a mask all day every day and quite honestly i think my guess would be for some students it's just nice to not have to wear a mask four days a week it's a it's i mean i'm impressed by people who professionally have done this for years um because it's hard it's it you know it's just so i think
034for some kids it's just like i just want a break from wearing a mask and if i stay home i don't have to wear one so i think that's i think that's a maybe it's not the biggest piece of it but i have to think that plays into it a little bit thank you yeah i guess i would just want to be sure that if there was anything more that we could be doing as a school district or as a building you know that that we would want to know what are those things and i don't know sawyer i see you nodding a little bit with things that are being said i don't mean to put you on the spot but if they're if there were things that are occurring to you whether now or
035at some point in another forum you know i think we really want to know if if there are things we could be doing differently to create an environment where kids who are expected in school on their cohort days um you know are motivated to come in go ahead if you're waiting to speak yeah but not to put you on the phone i was just going to say that i think that a real driving factor for kids choosing to stay home is just that they don't want to be exposed to the virus so it's a sense of discomfort um with putting themselves out there in the open um in a in a in an enclosed space with many other people um and i mean obviously masks and the discomfort of wearing them and um kind of
036having your guard up all day is something that's not really appealing to many students um and i and i see this anecdotally be it in a campus congress meeting um in discussions in smaller committees or um just in conversations with friends or during a class um i i noticed that there are really very few people in classes and i and i don't think that it's because of laziness i don't believe that it's because of um i don't believe that it's because doing school from home is the easier way out i just think that it is not the most comfortable place to be it's a school building um during the middle of a pretty serious health crisis so and i don't know what the answer is to that but i think that um what i've seen
037i think it's telling that kids just don't want to be exposed thank you yeah catherine i also think it's as we've discussed previously it's the quarantine of kids that have you know extracurricular activities you don't want to be quarantined didn't have to miss those activities and i also think that agreeing with sawyer and even moving a little bit beyond that i think it's also you know to go to school right now as a high schooler you still feel like you're in a zoom call even if you're in school even if you're in class the teacher really is teaching to the zoomers so to be in to to go to school and sit in a classroom in an uncomfortable chair when you could be sitting in your own home you know you kind of feel like
038you're still watching your teacher through a zoom call i have no other solutions i'm not putting placing blame anywhere i'm just saying that kind of is that's that's that's how real it is i think it's i think it's also a bit of a circular problem in so far as for for kids at the high school age part of the motivation of going to school is the social aspect of that and being around other students and so if if children are going in and there's only one or two other kids in their class it loses some of the appeal whereas if you reach some sort of critical mass and people felt like students felt like you know some of their friends might be also in class with them then they may be more inclined or motivated
039to go in so i think it's actually quite quite a number of different motivators that are keeping kids at home i know we've discussed this issue of test taking as well and a lot of students are choosing to stay home on days where they have a test because it's easier to take tests and it seems to be more comfortable there's less stress from from the words of my own child there's less stress taking a test at home um i don't i don't know where we're gonna go with that it's uh scary to think about because it's not the way the world is gonna continue i mean they're gonna have to be under pressure at some point not from the comfort of their own home it was an interesting comment that my child made recently to
040me well thank you any other comments or questions about what we've heard tonight okay thank you again for the update and for keeping us apprised keeping the community informed as things evolve maybe even as soon as tomorrow it sounds like thank you and i think with that then um we're ready for public forum and um in just a moment kim i'll ask you for your help with sharing questions or comments that have been entered in the q a or that maybe came into our board of education email previously whenever you're ready thank you thank you marjorie um i'll read the first was an email sent to the public forum email and it's from scott weinstein on behalf of the john jay high school performing arts students good evening katona lewisboro school district board of education
041i am writing on behalf of performing arts students at john jay high school in regards to performance opportunities and necessary preparation first and foremost thank you for your commitment to the student body during these challenging times we appreciate all of the work you have done to create lasting opportunities for students during a year in which many have felt lost we are pl we were pleased to hear that students involved with athletics in the high risk category now have the chance to spend time together and re-engage with their passions this social opportunity is crucial to student development thank you for understanding the importance of this the confidence surrounding safety in the athletics department has inspired confidence in performing art students surrounding a safe and in-person spring musical we understand and respect the current state guidelines which
042requires health 12 feet distance while engaging in musical activity and we are confident that all guidelines can be adequately maintained during rehearsals and performances as you all know our students passions and dedication in the performing arts department is incredible and this means that we will work tirelessly to organize and plan the logistics of a musical from choreography set building and prop creating to music direction directing and producing we are happy to do the necessary work to make this happen and having support from the board of education would make it all more possible providing this opportunity to create a musical will also give students equitable priority throughout the high school which has long been an important facet of our katona lewis bro education the last in-person production which included a final performance ended on november 23rd
0432019 nearly 15 months ago our students stood on the stage with each other enjoying each other's company community and sharing passion while this spring musical would be different it is certainly possible and it would certainly bring joy to the many performing arts students that our school hosts we would also like to recognize that regardless of the coronavirus pandemic our janjai high school performing arts department has faced a decline in participation class sizes have decreased throughout the performance-based classes and interest has dismant has diminished we are confident that this production would revive the feeling of warmth and community that our performing arts department has recently lost felt lost without we've also begun to collect ideas that can make this production unique and safe plexiglas barriers on stage alongside a small cast size a pre-recorded performance broadcasted
044to families to imitate the feeling of a live production clear face shields or masks made specifically for theater performances and outdoor staging and rehearsing to increase safety these ideas give us a good starting point however we need the board of education support and we need staff to oversee budget purchasing and advising during rehearsals thank you for taking the time to listen to our hopes and ideas we appreciate the efforts made to keep the athletics department at john jay strong and would be very grateful if the performing arts department could also maintain the community and passion for which it is praised best regards the students of the john jay high school performing arts department okay and the next comments i'll read are from the q a and they are from jeremy zitimer hi there this is
045jeremy zinimer glass class of 2011. last time we received wonderful presentations from the equity and racial justice committee and all in i would like to ask the board what support empowerment and decision-making power these two groups are receiving throughout the district when decisions around diversity equity and inclusion are made in the district or incidents arise how are these two groups particularly all in consulted before action is taken are they typically consulted i appreciate the value of grassroots work but for all inn's work to truly permeate district leaders must demonstrate consistent consistent active top-down support is all in as a teacher group being given a platform to expand its reach to the other teachers and administrators who are not currently involved i asked to make sure that both groups and all in in particular are not
046merely small task forces or support groups but rather are elevated to positions of leadership in the district where they can decide on new practices and programming for all of our classrooms not just their own i would also like to follow up on my question about the well-being of katona lewisborough's enl students during the pandemic which i asked at a recent board meeting i am usually heartened by the substantive responses the board offers to questions and comments and generally heartened by the district's genuine commitment and equity demonstrated over the past year however superintendent celeznick's response about enl support felt like an exception in his answer he he reiterated the problem discussed adding translations for district-wide communications and didn't say much else besides there's always more we can do i asked this question again because superintendent celesnek
047is right there is much more katona lewis brow can do and needs to do urgently our enl students are facing exceptional especially difficult challenges during remote learning and without rigorous attention to investigating and tackling those challenges the gaps between enl students and the wider student population will widen quickly hurting the long-term outcomes of these for these students i would like the board to make enl gaps during remote learning a future agenda item and devote a full conversation to the top this topic in the next several weeks leading to a commitment to concrete action items to eliminate these inequities please understand that the community will be listening to whether district leaders merely speak eloquently about enl or actually commit to substantive substantiative and prompt action to help these students thank you for your time and for
048the chance to speak with you all and that is the only comments that i have thank you so much kevin i apologize i should have mentioned at the outset of public forum that we would be in um active listening mode and that we aren't engaging in a back and forth at this moment we're going to turn our attention in just a moment to the consent agenda and then in a few moments we'll have an opportunity for some board dialogue and discussion so thank you again kim for sharing those comments with us and thank you for members to members of the community for joining us tonight and sharing your thoughts and comments and also for having submitted comments previously um so i think at this point i am going to suggest that we move on to
049the consent agenda i'm not aware of any items that are going to be pulled out for separate voting but i'll just pause to make sure nobody's waiting for that and if not then can i ask a board member to please move the consent agenda thank you liz moved by liz and seconded by bill and if there's no further question or discussion you can vote all in favor please say hi bye hi hi i think that's 6-0 thank you very much and this brings us to 16.01 which is our opportunity to recognize a very generous donation um can i ask somebody to please move this resolution 16.01 thank you rory and seconded by catherine thank you and this is um be it resolve that the board hereby acknowledge with thanks a generous donation from richard talmadge
050in the amount of 2500. for the arthur and dorothy tallmadge memorial scholarship so thank you so very much for this generous donation and if the board is ready we can vote all in favor please say hi 6-0 thank you okay and this brings us to board dialogue and discussion um and while board colleagues are just gathering your thoughts or thinking about items that you might have brought or comments that you wish to make in response to public forum i just did want to start briefly by thanking our performing arts students for engaging in advocacy and for reaching out to us um i think we really appreciate hearing from our students and having a better understanding of um of what's motivating them and what they're interested in and of course wanting to create company community and
051the sharing of passion and i know i speak for the board when we wholeheartedly support our students in pursuing these interests and impulses but i also just want to clarify that even though i think it's become a little confusing lately because at just our very last meeting we had a resolution before us to green light uh high-risk sports in this environment if you will typically we really don't have the authority or the ability to solve an issue of this nature at a board meeting so i i am so grateful that our students brought this issue to our attention and are um able to advocate for themselves in this environment and um i was able to have a quick conversation with andrew earlier so i do know that our high school administrators are working with our
052students to identify options and i think there are different models in place at different school districts in the region and andrew i'm sure you can tell us more about that but i don't think we're going to be able to solve this one here tonight as much as i know we all very much want to support our performing arts students and create equitable opportunities for them so i did just want to thank them for sharing this concern with us but also i think set the expectation that we probably can't solve this here tonight we can certainly approve stipends for staff members who are involved in spring productions but i don't think we have the ability to administratively figure this one out andrew i'll just pause for a minute if you wanted to add anything to that
053you've said that very well margie i don't have much to add i'm like you were very very supportive of the performing arts and very glad that our administration at the high school is in communication with our students there and trying to solve this at that level thank you um so i thought i would just briefly start with that i don't know if other board members were waiting to touch on that topic i would like to yeah please it's great to hear from faculty and students supporting this i love to to get letters like that where they have even brought on constructive potential solutions and it was so positive and i am 100 in support of it and um you know i hope that we can get this all worked out thank you liz um if
054there aren't any other comments on that topic i know we heard also about i think a few questions related to the work of our equity and racial justice team and then maybe more specifically with regard to the work of all in i think we heard a comment a concern about ensuring that the needs of our enl students are being met among other populations who are experiencing a need that might be different in the pandemic i don't know whether anybody from the administration wanted to say a word or two or whether board members have comments or questions um clarifying questions or or other topics i don't i don't know if this will satisfy the questioner or not but i'm certainly happy to speak a little bit to the role of erjc which is i think quite
055clearly laid out in its mission uh which is to achieve some recommendations uh to the board of education by the end of this school year that's been the work that we've all been collectively working towards um it's a serious charge there aren't so many groups that come before the board with recommendations to make for the to the board that's what this group is empowered to do um it's a large group 60 to 70 people that meets uh monthly throughout the year uh and i think the work is important and is working its way through the process to get to those recommendations i know the board will listen very seriously to those recommendations when the time comes we're not there yet but we are methodically working in that direction i think it's it's not work to
056be rushed uh i'm very very glad uh for the board the board's support of the worked at this point uh in the form of welcoming a consultant into our district and uh welcoming the presentations that we had at our last meeting uh all in as as was mentioned it's a very different group of teachers that have come together around a variety of different issues uh they uh take it upon themselves on their own time we really applaud them for that and we found ways to uh to to connect the work of the two so that now we actually have uh regular meetings in between the meetings of those two groups where the facilitators of both groups come together to talk about the work that the other one is doing so that we make sure that
057we're not overlapping too much but also integrated with the work that one another is doing it's you know as we said at the last presentation this is really important work for the district what's really important to us is that this work becomes integrated over time into the systems and structures of our district so that it isn't a passing fad or something that we just rush and check off but something that we do well and thoroughly and thoughtfully so that it's something that stays in the district for a long time thank you marjorie can i just say one thing too i just wanted to echo andrew's thoughts i think the board is very supportive of this task and it is a lot of work and we want to be thoughtful about the work that we're doing
058i did want the community to know that both terence and i both are serving on erj as board members uh so we are very involved in the work as well um i have i have learned so much in the last few months and feel like there's a lot of positive change coming our way so uh thank you so much to the community members and educators and administrators who are participating in this endeavor with us um i think we're we're we're working hard to make positive change thank you catherine audrey if i may um just like to say a few words about the english language learners and the concern about those students which of course we share um just you know to kind of remind everyone we have a small number in our district relatively small
059of english language learners i think currently it's about 40 students and those students span different grades speak different languages and they're all different stages of english language acquisition but i think that what jeremy is referring to is you know we in particular worry about students who come into our system later like late middle school or high school um and it's their first time speaking english or being immersed in english and the courses that they take it can feel very difficult um so we do have you know i want to reassure everyone we do have a strong enl program we have you know teachers um who are very committed to this work and in addition we know that that particular circumstance can be very difficult for our students so we've been meeting in addition to our
060regular meetings um the middle school administration and i have been meeting high school administration the enl teachers um just yesterday as a matter of fact and and two weeks before we're continuing to have those conversations to think about other ways that we might support those students both thinking about pathways to graduation some of our students do attend boces programs we're very fortunate in this area to have both these programs that are high quality but to give some options for our students and for our families and also for more professional learning not just for our enl teachers which of course is ongoing and very important but for all teachers who may have enl students in their classrooms to make sure that the strategies that they're aware of the different strategies which are typically strategies that are
061great for many many students um and to think about that more uh in a more targeted way um so we are thinking about it a lot and certainly share jeremy's concerns and look forward to future conversations about it um but it is ongoing work and we'll be thinking about it as we plan for next year going into the summer going into you know thinking about what we can structure for the fall as well and supporting students now of course that's great to hear thank you for clarifying that mary for explaining where and how those conversations are taking place and maybe at some point you know um in the future not not not in the immediate future but as this war comes into focus and just thinking back to a comment that andrew made at our
062last meeting where i think he said you know at some point it's easy to imagine there aren't just going to be two groups focused on the work around equity um inclusion racial justice um that there may even be other groups and and maybe what would be helpful in the future is even a diagram of concentric circles you know here are the various entities that are charged with ensuring that the needs of these certain populations are being met and so i think what i'm hearing in your comments is that in fact you know this might be a conversation that's happening at all in but it's also a conversation that's happening in other places and levels of the district um and maybe it would just be illuminating at some point as this work evolves to just understand
063how there are touch points between and among the groups or overlapping concentric circles or that sort of thing that's the image that kind of came to mind as you were speaking i really appreciate you clarifying that um any other comments any other topics tonight okay thank you please julia yes i'm sorry go ahead that's okay um andrew i'm just wondering what is your um evaluation of the first week of the sports and with the addition of the you know we have obviously had skiing and other things happening but i know because of space that there was a lot of logistics that needed to happen with gym space and everything are things running relatively smoothly with gym time and moving kids in and out and trying to keep them separated etc from what i hear julia
064they are i did see one group of students waiting outside the gym today i was a little bit worried about the cold that they were standing in perhaps they were waiting for another group to come out um but from what i've heard things so far are running well yes thank you for asking okay great thank you i think we're ready then to look ahead to future meetings um okay so the board is going to meet again toward the end of the month both on thursday february 25th at 7 30 p.m that'll be our annual uh budget overview hearing about the superintendent's proposed budget and then on saturday we'll come back at 8 30 a.m for a more in-depth budget review meeting where we will proceed through the budget and do a line by line item
065analysis and hear from departmental administrators building administrators about their budgets so in between now and those meetings it looks like finance committee is going to meet on tuesday february 16th at 7 pm and policy committee on friday february 19th at did i miss anything okay if not i think we're up to 19.01 and i'm going to make a motion to adjourn back into executive session to discuss the employment history of an individual if i could please have a second thank you julia and if there's no further discussion then thank you so very much again to everybody here at the table and to members of the community who joined us this evening be safe and we look forward to seeing you the next time and we can vote all in favor please say aye to adjourn
066all right thank you six zero thanks very much good night everybody great good night