January 28, 2021 Board of Education Meeting

001she ugh i think we're all here great okay thank you so much kim good evening everybody it's so nice to see everyone welcome it's my pleasure to make a motion to return to public session if i could ask for a second please thank you rory all in favor please say aye aye terrific everybody please join us uh by rising for the pledge of allegiance thank you i pledge allegiance thank you so much it's thursday january 28th and tonight we are really looking forward to an update on the work of our equity and racial justice team and our all-in group um it's terrific that we're able to have this update tonight i wanted to just take a moment to remind the board and our community that it was just really one year ago to the week

002that we first had an opportunity to bring our minds to bear on the new york state culturally responsive framework for education we were engaged just a year ago even though it feels like so much has changed in a two-part conversation related to social emotional learning at the time and we had an opportunity even to look at an sel vision statement that was in the making where we talked about the need for our students to experience school in a welcoming affirming environment in which they can work on skills and dispositions that will equip them for a complex ever-changing world we talked about the reality that their varied cultures identities and perspectives should be celebrated and viewed as assets to a robust learning environment and i think it's just terrific to look back a year ago and

003to know that we had just started and that tonight a year later we have this opportunity to hear from so many members of our administration and faculty and to know that members of the community are also engaged in this work so thank you in advance for bringing this evening together i can imagine that it entails a lot of careful coordination and we're really looking forward to hearing from everybody um i'll just pause briefly if there are any board announcements this evening i don't know whether board members have announcements at this time um i wanted to just make two quick announcements one is just to let our community know that on february 5th yes february 5th a week from tomorrow kim will be emailing an announcement to the community to let everybody know that packets for

004board of education seats will be available in the district office on february 8th monday february 8th so thank you very much kim for letting us know that and then i just also briefly wanted to thank our administrators and instructional leaders for making themselves available for a q a over at the high school so to speak for parents and community members last night who are thinking ahead to next year and to course selection that also seemed like it took a lot of careful coordination and planning and we really appreciate it so thank you and then with that if other board members aren't waiting for announcements we would love to hear from you andrew if you have some announcements please i do have a few thank you marjorie thank you um i'd like to start tonight by

005uh congratulating the students and the staff at the high school who this last weekend put on a production of the laramie project which is uh if anyone who doesn't know the library project is a play and it is the story it's a story of the tragic death murder of matthew shepard it's a powerful work an important work and we should feel very proud of our students and our staff for putting on that production working hard through this pandemic to bring it together and present it for the community uh via um by a stream uh so that people could view it and i want to thank everybody for being for their involvement and congratulate them on that work with that i want to move a little bit uh to the world around us for a few

006minutes and then i'll come back to our schools again after that it has been an interesting weak to say the least last week the cdc published in the journal of american medical association a study that had been working on for some time and i'm going to read here a quote that actually comes from the atlantic magazine that said that quotes that study saying that the preponderance of available evidence from the fall semester has reassured the agency the cdc that with adequate masking distancing and ventilation the benefits of opening schools outweigh the risks of keeping kids at home for months and of course this is something that we've all been um paying very close attention to and wondering about and thinking about you know which is the balance between the safety of all and the importance

007which we all recognize of bringing students back into school so there's been a lot of media attention on this topic in the last week including our own governor's comments uh as recently as yesterday before i think in the media um referencing perhaps a full return to in-person learning uh in the in the in the future he didn't he wasn't specific but he did reference it and suggested that it would be up to local districts at some point to make those decisions at the while that's happening he also yesterday lifted the yellow and orange zones in westchester county uh and of course while that's all happening we're aware that the case numbers around us continue to be very very high in manchester county uh so i'm sure for many um there's a lot of wondering about

008the timing of these uh announcements uh and wondering where we are to go next uh i think well and and then let me bring us back to our own schools we know uh particularly in our high school uh of late the numbers have been a little bit higher even in the numbers of positive cases have been a little bit higher than even in some of our neighboring district high schools i think it's important to point out for communities sake everyone's sake that the vast majority of those cases that we learn about are not people who are at school at the moment you can see that reflected in the daily evening emails that i send out whenever i reference that there is no contact tracing necessary that tells you that the people in most cases have

009not been at school for some time we do however have to register those cases with the state and we list them as being on site if the people are connected to our hybrid model even if they're not currently attending so i just wanted to clarify that for the community so they do continue to be a lot of in some ways seemingly conflicting messages as the numbers around us still are very high and yet we hear talk about uh reopenings of schools and other things so i want to reassure the community that we will certainly be watching very closely to see where this goes next there has not to date been any change specifically any of the guidance under which we operate schools so we're still under the six foot distancing guidelines and i think many

010would would want to argue that it's those kinds of guidelines the mask wearing of course that have allowed the data that the cdc reports on to be positive so we shall see where this goes and again i do want to reiterate that we know because there have been also been reports in the last week emphasizing the the very great importance for students to be in their schools and be connected so we continue to watch that balance while all that's happening our administrators do continue to look at the space available in schools particularly in our secondary schools where we do have some space and based on what's available we do continue to invite students based on need to come back and be with us four days a week so those invitations continue to go out another

011big announcement that came very recently was around winter sports so i want to just reference that quickly this came just this last friday we have been waiting for quite some time for the governor to comment uh specifically in the area of what are called the high risk winter sports for us those include basketball and ice hockey and wrestling and so late last friday governor made an announcement that he would give a kind of green light to those sports to move forward but he would put it in the hands of the county departments of health to give final guidance to schools as to whether they should move forward so then we waited until this week and and when the governor mentioned this he also said with a potential start date of february 2nd which of course

012is just the beginning of next week so this all happens very quickly uh this week our own county executive has indicated that he's inclined to support the forward movement of these sports but still we have not heard final guidance section one has also indicated support for these sports but again we're still waiting uh for final guidance on how these sports are to operate um and again now it's thursday and uh february 2nd comes up the beginning of next week so i want to reassure the community you'll see on the agenda tonight we're appointing coaches in a number of these sports our athletic director is working very hard to try to put together plans uh so that if we are going to be moving forward we do it in ways that are as safe and as

013sensible as possible and i think um i guess i want to recognize that for some some of these movements may seem contradictory you know to be moving uh forward with indoor activities of this nature again when cases are high or perhaps why move forward with these activities if we're not moving forward full steam with every student at school and i think we have to acknowledge that there is some level of contradiction as we continue to as everybody tries to work out what makes the most sense in this continuingly challenging environment so um you know i think there's hope on the horizon for things improving with the vaccines coming we're going to keep moving as thoughtfully forward as we can to balance safety along with the really important need for students to be involved in activities

014not just sports but all kinds of activities that they are very passionate about that mean a great deal to them and that they care deeply about so we will be again watching all these things sharing information with the community as it comes to us and keeping you up to date with announcements and i think marjorie that's that's all my announcements for tonight thank you thank you thanks very much andrew for the comprehensive overview i'll just pause briefly in case anybody has a comment or question yes please though you didn't think you'd get away with it without me saying something right um for this high-risk sports was there guidance on i mean i don't know how you do basketball and not because wrestling i don't i i it's probably at some point just silly to during

015practices or something do all types of protections and protocols and masks and all this and then play the game with people from another district and do whatever you want but um is is the athletic director working on protocols akin to those for the fall sports where there was more distancing um maybe rules around the fan attendance and that sort of thing yes the the section has actually continued to bright on the last piece at least the fan attendance i think is one of the clearest things and i think people recognize the importance of minimizing that so there's definitely guidance on limiting fan attendance um and then quite honestly it does get very challenging and you named wrestling wrestling i think is the one that gives everybody the most pause and um so you know we

016we are looking very closely at that most closely at that one um and and talking with other districts about how they plan to move forward i think i think to some degree though we also have to um put some degree of faith that there is um data based on sports that have taken place you know we were we were very concerned about fall sports appropriately so we went through fall sports um we did reasonably well with fall sports and so i think it is this balance of of knowing that these activities are really important for students for their mental health and well-being um and so it's you know can we do it safely um you know so so certainly basketball and wrestling wrestling most of all present challenges to how we might do that but

017if we can even if we can find ways to bring students in and have them be together even if the activity then doesn't happen in all of its traditional ways you know we would want to try to find ways to do that because we know that it's important for them so absolutely we haven't we haven't had a lot of time to think through all these things but we are thinking as fast as we can right now thank you if there aren't any other comments or questions then please hold on to the floor and we are eager to hear from our presenters and enter into some discussion so super thank you so i'm going to do a little bit of introducing and then i think i think kim is going to be welcoming some of our

018guests so here into the screen we're going to have um two groups tonight tonight we're going to hear from two groups that are both doing very very important work in our district and work that is very much intertwined but also distinct in some ways and this is all work related to equity and racial justice and inclusion in our school district as we work to strengthen the experience for students in our district as we aspire to provide every single student the education they deserve and need in ways that are not only equitable for all students but that nurture and bring joy to every student each day tonight will be an update on the work so far it's not intended to be a comprehensive review of where we are and all that we've learned and done but

019more simply tonight we wanted to help the board of education have a feel for the nature of the work that we're engaged in and we expect that you'll hear from one if not perhaps both of these groups again later in the year as the work continues to progress when i do want to be very candid and say that when we began this work we didn't necessarily anticipate having two distinct groups working in parallel but i have grown to be very glad that we do because the more i learn about the work and the more i learn about the scope of work necessary and the complexity of the work and maybe most importantly the fact that this work must happen both in ways that are very personal as well as in ways that are systemic and

020organizational those things all make it clear to me that we are not only fortunate to have two groups but we should feel proud that we have two groups doing this important work we can also anticipate that in future years we expect to have more than two groups as the work grows and spreads throughout our schools as you listen tonight i think you'll hear some of the differences in the work and some of the ways in which the work of each group also complements the other i should also note that the facilitators of both groups meet together on a monthly basis so that we can stay in touch with and we can coordinate with each other we're going to start tonight with our equity and racial justice committee and it's always a little bit tricky to

021decide when you have two groups who will go first but in this case because we have a student with us we are having the erj committee go first to the student caitlyn can still get back to work or get to bed at a reasonable hour so now i am going uh very happily to introduce the erj committee which is a group of about 60 to 70 parents students teachers administrators and alumni who have been meeting monthly since the fall how meetings are facilitated by both natalie mccabe's werger and luis alejandro tapia who are both with us this evening from nyu's center for strategic solutions at the metropolitan center for research on equity and the transformation of schools natalie and luis have facilitated our journey this past fall which has taken us through personal reflection and

022learning and study that you will hear more about in a moment we're also going to be joined tonight by two members of the committee siobhani patel who is a parent in our district as well as caitlyn varial who i just mentioned who is a junior right here at john jay high school so with that i am going to share my screen which will have some slides on it and i will gladly turn over to natalie and to louise so that they can talk us through this work thank you natalie thank you so much good evening everyone it's great to be here um and andrew i know you're kind of controlling the slides but luis and i are alternating so it should make it easy when when i pause for a breath it means that we're

023moving to the next one but it's great to be here y'all and um great to see the board again i've had the opportunity to engage with y'all i don't even remember how long ago it was because time has taken on new meaning but it's great to be back in discussing this vitally important work a little bit of context for the community my name is natalie mccabe's worker i am the director of the center for strategic solutions down at the nyu metro center we are a national equity and racial justice center that has the privilege of doing this work around the country with schools and districts and organizations that are really hoping to take their systems change out of the theoretical and discussional realm into uh actionable um infrastructure work and and what i describe as

024infrastructure is really the opportunity for us to be architects of a system that doesn't currently exist a system that is founded on principles of equity and racial justice that centers black and latin next children that is responsive to the current socio-political climate that is making this work ever more challenging than it's been in the past particularly under the conditions of a pandemic and so you know i i welcome and applaud the district's commitment and i say to the community that this is our work right this work is going to take all stakeholders at the table uh we'll talk a little bit about the foundation that we have laid we'll talk about where we're going but this idea of crafting uh curating a space for stakeholders to come together is really intentional and we've researched this

025work and we've seen you know practices that sustain over time the hope frankly is that what we are building now will be an infrastructure that will outlast all of the current board that will outlast all of the current district leadership but really change the way we do things here in cantona lewis borough and so that is the hope that's how we're centering this work and it's my sincere pleasure to be here today with my colleague luis alejandro who i'll introduce in just a second um but just so you all know in terms of the perspective that i bring i identify as a white puerto rican cis hetero woman my pronouns are she her hers we are talking here today about intersectional equity and and supportive of racial justice in a number of ways and so

026you'll hear in the language that lou and i use one that is intersectional with some intentionality and so we'll talk a little bit more about what that means i've been an educator for 20 years and i'm also an attorney so i do think that naming from a civil rights perspective the work that we're describing the erjc is doing is taking us far beyond what you are legally required to do this is not about compliance this is not about just thinking of how to foster an anti-bias anti-discriminatory environment when we talk about racial justice we're talking about getting to a much greater level of depth and so hopefully tonight we'll be able to give you a sense of what that means and what it looks like but at this point i'll turn it over to you

027lou to start to center how the the committee has really been working together as a community yes thank you navi uh thanks for andrew uh thanks the board and thanks caitlyn for being here um and so my name is luisa i identify as a black bilingual caribbean gap-toothed cisgender man um i also identify as aries scorpio gemini if you're into uh horoscopes and so an essential question that we ask ourselves in all of the framing that we do around this work uh this is a slide that the committee knows we're gonna have every single time that we meet together uh is the basis of the work that we do right and so we are constantly asking ourselves how can i disrupt and dismantle the existence of inequity within mystery of influence right and so we

028understand that systemic change is deeply personal systemic change is deeply personal right but this simple paradoxical idea is why a lot of systems change efforts flunk right it creates this thing that makes us believe that the change is out there some magic that we're kind of searching for uh and it separates us from the work that we have to do here right in here right now with ourselves in our families in our communities in the relations that we have with each other as educators as students as parents etc right and so this basis uh which we adapted from gorsky uh some of the material that we use in our sessions also allows folks to really be intentional about the way that they engage in their spheres of influence right and so this names the type

029of power that we do have to create impactful transformation even if it feels like it's small and so we thought we would walk you through a little bit of the foundation so here we are doing this work in new york state and in 2019 the new york state department of education adopted a framework for culturally responsive and sustaining ed our office and lou and i were co-authors of this framework it's a hefty document if you're looking for some light reading this weekend it's 74 pages we designed it by stakeholders so you can flip to the section that asks what students need to do teachers leaders community members to really create and foster those welcoming and affirming spaces but also spaces that are ready to confront issues of race and gender and sexuality and inequity and

030injustice in furtherance of giving students like caitlyn and all the students that we serve here in ketone lewisburg the opportunity to be agents of change to see themselves as as critically aware of a changing world and apply that criticality and so lou and i thought we'd show you a couple of the definitions that are in that document to give you a sense of what do we mean when we say equity and racial justice and so and we've highlighted of course the particularly sage language in this definition but equity is the state quality or ideal of being just impartial and fair the concept of equity is synonymous with fairness and justice and here's where it gets particularly sage to be achieved and sustained equity needs to be thought of as a structural and systemic concept and

031not as idealistic and so to lose point this work cannot exist in a theoretical realm which means that when the erjc gathers much of what happens is a space to build capacity but it's also a space to hold testimony to hear from students to hear from alumni to hear from family members a couple of whom you'll hear from this evening who can share experiences that have provided them a sense of what's missing in our curriculum what opportunities are missed in terms of relationship building and then offer their ideas for how kotona lewis braille can be more responsive can be more relevant can be more equitable part of what the erjc will do over time and we'll take a look at their mission statement that they crafted as a group as a community is to really

032look in a number of areas that are starting to emerge so that they can offer the board of education before the end of june a set of recommendations and there's a couple of areas that are really emerging that are taking that system-wide view and we'll share what some of those are but it's really to have a sense of ultimately how will our students know that we have put in all of this time and energy and investment and effort into this work that's the measure right we won't be able to declare ourselves that we're more equitable we'll have to hear that from young people and so part of what this definition tells us to do and how the erjc has been working through this process has been to take a look at all aspects of our

033district and really start to ask critical questions about what it means to live here what it means to learn here and what it might you know what kind of a place we might imagine where everyone could really be their full and whole selves what would it take uh to get there another one of the definitions um that we base our work on is this definition on racial justice and so racial justice is the systemic fair treatment of people of all races that result in equitable opportunities and outcomes for everyone all people are able to achieve their full potential in life regardless of race ethnicity or the community in which they live racial equity or racial i'm sorry racial justice or racial equity goes beyond anti-racism so it's not just about what we are against but

034also what we are for a culturally responsive sustaining education framework should move us from a reactive posture to a more powerful proactive and even preventative approach right and so key words in that definition of racial justice is equitable which is different than equal right something that's also important uh to name in the work that we're doing is the aim is for it to be forward moving right it is for us to have a powerful intentional um proactive and professive approach so we're uh less focusing on what it is that we don't want and really giving our attention to what it is that we do want so this you know really just offers a visual representation of how we're taking a look at our community we're asking questions about the responsibility the accountability of each of

035the stakeholders represented here so our partnership began and continues with some work with the board with a district administrator so all the leaders across the district engaging in the same type of critical reflection and critical dialogue that we are asking other stakeholders to engage in and so part of what that means is taking a look at the decisions i make as a gatekeeper and asking questions about how you know who i am is impacting the way make decisions uh how are the biases that i have influencing how i think about and privileged some experiences over others and so the idea being that over time uh with the work of the erjc and their recommendations we will have a plan for how to engage all the folks on this slide in really answering you know the

036um essential question that we put up at the beginning right how can i disrupt and dismantle inequity what is my role in promoting racial justice what can i do on a daily basis how can i think differently work differently operate differently whatever my role is and the intentionality with this structure is you know we've seen a lot of districts that will come in at the level of mandating professional development for all teachers and staff right off the bat if we do that and we haven't put in the infrastructure in place then what happens is when the pushback comes and administrators on the board don't fully understand the importance of the work haven't done some of the critical reflection themselves we won't actually be able to get to a place of transforming the system um it

037becomes a great development for the people who access it but it doesn't make that meaningful change across the system what's particularly unique about katona lewisboro that you'll be able to hear about tonight is that you have this huge invested group of teachers and alumni who've been working together for months it's a voluntary space these are folks that want to be there on all in that is really going to complement and strengthen this infrastructure in ways that we don't see in other school districts because these things are happening simultaneously so when we do start to implement some of the recommendations and get to a wider swath of the community that might not have signed up for erjc or might not have signed up for all in we will have that strong architecture to support welcoming them

038into this work right and that's really the hope because we know that our community is entering in wildly different ways and any time we're talking about race when you're talking about white folks and you're talking about bypoc folks black indigenous folks of color you're talking about coming in in wildly different ways to talk about race and racism and identity but we have to create a space where we can all dialogue or we can all reflect and we can do this centering young people so we believe that this type of a model in the long term will serve our children with the strength that we really hope for yeah um and so as we're doing this work um we also are are doing it inside the context of intersectionality um a term i think pointed by

039kimberly crenshaw uh some time ago right and so what that means that is that we are promoting equity um in an intersectional way right and so we are conscious of the impact of race of gender of sexuality of language ethnicity of ability of disability of national origin of socio-economic status etc right and so although we are aiming to be explicit about race we're not being exclusive about race we understand that all parts of these identities take part and shape your experience and also uh shape your oppressions as you experience the life that you're in right and so although we do hold the basis of racial justice right and racial equity we're also doing this work from an intersectional approach so that's the structure now we wanted to make sure that you heard directly from the

040erjc so we'll do that in two ways we came with the mission statement that the group drafted as a community and so we'll read that out loud and it's so beautiful it's two slides long and then we'll hear from caitlyn and shivani a little bit about their experience in the space and and what their thinking is um at this point we're about halfway through our work as an erjc so we just had our day five and so we're about halfway the midpoint right now so the committee came up with this mission statement the mission of the katona-lewis borough school district equity and racial justice committee is to unveil inequity experienced in all parts of our school system begin a chain reaction of dismantling inequity through intergenerational communication and solidarity and develop an equity lens for

041the future of our district we aim to take actionable measures to implement a heightened level of inclusion and awareness through recruiting more diverse hires educating members of our community parents educators students and promoting anti-racism among the klsd community the erjc is committed to ensuring that diversity and equity are embodied in the fabric of klsd we are leaders and learners who reflect upon and adapt to the dynamic opportunities for impact that we can each make in the community we are committed to raising and graduating open-minded critical thinkers and social change agents and future advocates and encouraging students to participate in activism just gonna give some time to breathe into that as we move into the second part the mission and so i'll begin the erjc seeks to ensure that every member of our committee receives an

042equitable education and feels empowered included affirmed welcomed safe successful and accomplished and is challenged to widen their own perspectives with a focus on empowering the voices of school community members who may typically feel unseen unheard and under-appreciated while bringing people in and not further factionalizing the community i'm proud of it our imperative is to use our voices all of our voices to ensure that all children experience joy in learning foster equity in the services provided by our schools and embrace multiculturalism we are committed to providing actionable recommendations to the board of education and community in a number of areas including but not limited to one staff hiring and onboarding two professional development ensuring curriculum is effective reflective of our values and the lens of equity social justice anti-racism and ways to create maintain and perpetuate

043community conversations around race equity social justice in all forms shifting our focus from intention to impact impact on students parents families relationships and future community members so with that mission statement in mind we are really privileged to have two members of the erjc joining us tonight to talk a little bit about the experience there and so we'll just go in the order that y'all are listed on the slide if that works for you we like predictability so shivani do you want to start us off and talk to us a little bit about what it's been like for you thank you so much um first i want to say thank you i'm very privileged and honored to be part of this meeting um thank you superintendent cells nick natalie liu and all of my colleagues on

044the erg for allowing me to speak um in september klsd sent out this email inviting people to be part of the board um to part of the erj and in that material that was sent out there were some listed goals as part of the erj and when i went when i was asked to speak here today i went back to those goals to look at what those were to try to reflect on what work we're doing so i just wanted to list three of the goals that i pulled from that email build staff capacity to understand and share language around promoting equity in school review and analyze complexified data points to understand the equity narrative at the school and support professional learning to foster culturally responsive sustaining practices in the school and beyond thus far

045in the five sessions that we've had we've actually been able to touch on each of these goals now i can't say we have solved the world's problems we certainly haven't even scratched the surface however we're having discussions around all of these things that natalie mentioned all of the things in the mission statement and you know the conversations are so like deep and robust that we're really kind of kind of scratching the surface realizing the can of worms that's underneath each of these words and we're really learning about them a little bit more so we can have meaningful conversations so um all of the participants in the committee i've noticed are generally engaged in the goals that were i just talked about and then the mission statement ideals and grappled with providing authentic and meaningful experiences

046for their children or for from the parents's perspective and strive to figure out how to truly support educators in providing balanced experiences for those who interact with klsd we want to use tried and true teaching methodologies in curriculum but we which have been historically successful but we recognize that the curriculum must include material which will speak to more reflective experiences of those who are part of the school community so these things really are part of our discussions and as natalie moves us forward through the various things that she's teaching us we kind of you know have the dialectical dialogue that she's teaching us but then we're touching on all these things at the same time so it's a very robust discussion and you know we have very real conversations about the words used in the

047classroom colloquial slang used in everyday speak and the experiences and the contents contained in the teaching material we question these materials and discuss how to critically think about them so and you know how it may be perceived by those who are on the fringes of equity or racial justice so with that you can see that we're really touching on all the things that i you know natalie talked about and really that idea of how we as individuals can you know kind of affect our sphere of influence at the same time so the committee has provided a safe safe safe space for these kind of conversations and more importantly to show vulnerability and just the idea of i don't know and how do we solve this and kind of going through that work together which is

048really important as well to not know the answers and to struggle with the discomfort of not knowing as well so um from the engaging in the committee just to end my little part here i have learned the power of the student voice and how committed the students are and how deeply our kids are struggling with these issues and really the amount of work that has to be done we really have really just scratched the surface on it and um you know frankly i've learned what i don't know and you know just learn how to be a learner again as well so it's been a very positive experience um so i find that the committee is fulfilling these purported goals that i identified earlier and you know really working towards that mission statement and you know

049hopefully the work will expand as we continue to go delve deeper into it thank you so much giovanni and what a great segue to hear from one of those amazing students of which there are many on the erjc caitlin take us away hi i'm i'm katelyn z barry alley i'm a as everyone said i'm a junior at the high school and everyone has already really well described erj and what we do um to my little part is that we really focus on in-depth education on a variety of complex issues that before this i had not really spoken with my community especially those pertaining race and ethnicity and we've also looked at real events and data from our district and used problem solving skills to produce viable and equitable solutions and going forward i'm really hopeful

050for our discussions and how we're going to act on how to facilitate the positive holistic and equitable change and lastly one thing from the student perspective is that i have already seen change in our curriculum and our community as fellow members of both students and teachers have integrated social justice into our socratic seminars and other discussions so the entire class is truly engaged in these crucial conversations and i really feel the more people talk about it and the more educated we can move forward as a community for a greater equity for all thank you so much caitlyn i lou and i don't like to speak for the group but i know that i speak for the group and saying that i can't wait to live in the world that you and the other students are

051leading um so thank you for bringing your brilliance to us every time we come together but also for tonight um you're appreciated in ways that you don't fully know um so to wrap we just i think we have one more slide that was just the the definition of crse uh culturally responsive sustaining education again from that framework that you can luxuriate with later on in your time but this is the this is what we're hoping for right and and it gives great context to the hard work that all in has been engaged in um when we talk about cre this isn't an easy list of five things this is a complex list of five things that are not intuitive they're not necessarily in the handbook when you become an educator and they're certainly not supported

052by the system that frankly wasn't set up to foster each of these things for all of our children so affirming racial linguistic and cultural identities preparing students for rigor and independent learning developing students abilities to connect across lines of difference elevating historically marginalized voices and probably most importantly empowering students as agents of social change and so this is the why right this is why we're here this is why we do the work and we're very excited in the coming months to continue to share with you a glimpse into what the stakeholder committee views as the pathway to get to these practices across the district so thank you so much thank you so much please i know we're still just in the middle of our discussion and presentation but just to briefly pause and say thank

053you that was an incredibly insightful overview we really appreciate not only hearing from natalie and luis but also that we had a parent and a student representative and uh just honestly hearing about your positive experiences as committee members is terrific and just envisioning that this conversation is happening across stakeholder groups if you will bringing students and parents and faculty and facilitators together to really um take a deeper dive into this culturally sustaining framework and to help develop a plan of action uh it's it's really inspiring and encouraging so i know again we're just midstream but thank you that was a terrific overview and we really appreciate your voices and now we're delighted to hear from our representatives from all in i'm sorry andrew please go ahead let me give a little bit of segue and

054then maybe we'll take questions at the end in a way caitlin there just helped a little bit with some of our segway i think in terms of some contrast between the two groups you heard natalie speak to a system-wide view that the erjc is taking and i would say that so far the learning and there's been a lot of it has been within that large group of 60 to 70 people on the ergc when caitlyn speaks to some changes that she's seeing in classrooms already i would see that's more reflective of some of the very amazing work that's going on with the all in group so let me introduce two of our district staff developers candy wilma and catherine grabosh who in addition to all of the other work they have been doing to support

055our teachers and administrators throughout the district and even through a global pandemic have been facilitating the all-in group since last march and as you'll hear in a moment this is a group of enormously dedicated teachers alumni and some administrators who have worked tirelessly since the spring to challenge themselves and one another to learn together in order to make change in classrooms and for students throughout the district and i can't say how impressed and proud i am of their level of commitment to work that can be both personally and professionally daunting at times and that is of course so vitally important to our students and with that i will gladly turn over to candy and natalie and i will also find the slides for their presentation give me one moment all right okay okay thank you

056andrew sure uh good evening everyone uh again i am candy wilmot and i am one of the staff developers housed in the high school but district district-wide um katherine and i just want to talk to you a little bit about the work that we've been doing thank you natalie for your presentation uh so that we're not uh some of the work overlaps as andrew just indicated but we wanted to kind of talk about the essence of who we are and how we got started all in started as a conversation after george fort floyd was killed and we didn't know what would come of that conversation but we were delighted to figure out that several other people wanted to have the conversation as well and so what started as one conversation became 40 plus conversations and

057that is we have been meeting every thursday at seven well the time has changed but we've met once a week since then and what has become of this group is it's become a brave space for teachers clinicians tas uh alumni to get together and discuss what our own work is and with respect to what needs to happen for us to move forward with curricula and how it is that we might create spaces for children to learn about themselves in the context of the world at large we've been very delighted with the work that we've done and a lot of our our teachers are here tonight and i want to just say that i'm always humbled to be in their company because their dedication and diligence is just humbling and absolutely fabulous um catherine would you

058like to talk about sort of the work that we do within the schools sure so i'm catherine grabosh again i am the staff developer mainly in the middle school but also district-wide um andrew you can go to the next slide i'm just going to briefly talk about um some of the the buy-in that we have in our district what i what i want to add to what candy said is that really after we started our conversations after george floyd's murder um our our continued conversations were really spurred by some stories that we heard from our alumni and our work continues to be pushed by their voices um we did have uh meetings with many of them over the summer um that has changed as of school starting so our our current weekly meetings are teachers

059and admin um clinicians and tas because our our focus really is on action and our focus is on changing our curriculum our focus is on using an equity lens when we are teaching our focus is on looking at our pedagogy and things that we move into our classrooms through that equity lens so that we can make sure that all of our students voices are heard and what perspectives and voices we might be missing so that's really you know what continues and kind of pushes our conversations and our discussions each week so you know just that the fact that we are you know an action group and we have made so many changes throughout the district already one of them caitlyn mentioned um so i think just knowing that it is a district-wide group we have

060elementary representatives we have middle school representatives high school and then alumni periodically and we have some administrators that join us from various levels and so we had started with you know breaking off into smaller groups so that we could make sure we were really working at the levels that we were kind of involved with that has kind of evolved and changed and now we work more together but we always are focused on just taking our curriculum to the next level through this lens of equity some of the things that oh i think we need the next slide this is our mission statement and while it's a little jumbled and there's some overlap between ours and erj um but we have been uh it's very difficult for me to read this because of the way that

061it is but i'm not gonna maybe we could go to the next slide i think a lot of it is sort of we've mentioned already so what do we do well largely we are teachers and teachers write curriculum so we spend a lot of time thinking about what it is that we want to do so that we can reflect in our classrooms what is happening in the world uh some of that has been uh difficult uh some of it has been uncomfortable but what we've looked at is how we swap out books we begin to integrate more of more diverse readings that reflect just what america looks like we have created a collection of resources that is available district-wide on google docs that helps us do our own work that is the work that we

062need to do to deal with our own implicit bias and then how in dealing with that how then do we begin to change what our classroom looks like that google docs is quite extensive and there's a starting point for anyone that wants to jump in so from beginner to intermediate to we don't have any experts so we don't have any expert resources at this time we frame our discussions we try to create uh discussions that are not just about talking out our feelings but that lead us to some action where we can measure the work that we're doing in terms of how we're changing things and i mentioned before that we swap out text but we also think about how we're using text why language is important how we refer to one another how we

063work with each other in the classroom whose voices aren't being heard and why we need to you know thinking about why we need to build on having more of those silenced voices heard in the classroom we can go to the next slide kathy so this is just kind of an overview of what we've been talking about but we do that ongoing curriculum work where you know teachers will bring different ideas that they have or there might be something that happens in our country that teachers want to discuss and are not sure how to bring it to their classrooms we have done some gap analysis by looking at different curriculum and seeing you know what's missing who's missing and from elementary through high school teachers have been looking at where they can fill in these gaps

064in their curriculum regardless of subject area from stem through you know fifth grade curriculum it's it's really all over we've also been working towards trying to help strengthen the enl program that our district currently has so that we really can make sure that those voices that are in our district we're really looking at the whole ell student and making sure that we are supporting them the best that we can so we've been having some conversations around different things that we're we're trying to kind of figure out how to best support our ell students through the program that we have and while this is not a comprehensive sense of what all in does we have uh provided the board of ed through andrew a video that does that that we hope that we'll be able to

065have to come back and have a more extensive conversation with you but here are the ways that you can help us you can support and acknowledge the work being done read discuss and obviously do your own work and if you need help with that we know some people that can help you out and encourage others around you and in your community to do their own rei work as well thank you thank you for the overview um and even just if i can um pick up where you left off for the invitation to partnership uh just i found the last slide to be um a very powerful slide actually just the the reminder that we're in partnership and um we want to support you in this work and the the bullets with you know specific actionable

066things that we can be doing to support you in our own daily lives and um in our roles and in our capacity as a board so we really appreciate you taking the time to provide the overview um thank you for your dedication and for meeting on a weekly basis for such a long period of time i'm not sure that any of us realize just how um frequently and in such a dedicated manner you had been meeting all this time so we really thank you for the ongoing commitment and the inclusivity and for being a resource and a space for multiple stakeholders i'm going to pause here i'm i'm sure board colleagues have questions and comments i i think at this point perhaps if it's okay we'll open it up to all of our guests um

067maybe there are even some synthetic comments or questions um observations would somebody like to begin please rory thanks marjorie oh my god oh my goodness this is awesome i'm really so excited um that both these initiatives are underway and that we have such thoughtful leadership across both groups and it's just it's just great um that we're beginning to see headway it's really wonderful to hear caitlyn report on changes already to the curriculum and i think that really is a testament to in being sort of on the ground and and sort of working uh on immediate impact uh whilst erj is you know engaging the community at large and making this a very um real uh community topic so i'm so excited i really feel like this is long overdue and uh it's really great to

068hear from both groups so thank you um i guess my question sort of being a data analyst by background is you know are there ways or maybe this is not the type of effort we ought to be trying to measure but are there ways that we can begin to measure or even benchmark where we are today or where we were 12 months ago and how we are advancing as we proceed over the next 12 months years five years 10 years so we can look back and say look at all of the progress that we made and obviously i know that we'll report out pretty regularly on the progress we're making but are there any tangible things that mistakes that we can put in the ground to say hey here's where we are it's not so

069great here's where we're striving to go and then actually we're making progress towards that goal um open to whomever wants to take a crack out of thanks i'm happy to pop in for a moment um you know the greatest measure will be having caitlyn and her peers uh come back continuously right and and report back on the shifts that they feel and experience palpably the fact that you already have as erjc calls it this intergenerational space with alumni who've graduated in different years who in many ways have been reflecting the same inequitable experiences years ago that we're still hearing echoed from students today right like that's going to ultimately be your measure but you also want you know quantitative data to support you as well so one thing that erjc is i'm continuing to do

070taking a deep dive into data so we started to take a look at disaggregated data for your graduation rates your ap and college course enrollment data we have compared staff and student demographics and we are going to do that over a number of years that's going to be a great measure to see if you do put in place some changes to your hiring retention and leadership development practices are you having an impact in terms of representation what does that mean for children right over time we'll take a look at discipline and achievement data we started to take a little bit of a look at some of the growth that's happened by different subgroups and where there are disparities by race students with disabilities socioeconomics right all the layers that we want to take a look

071at so we'll continue to do that but you have to pair that quantitative data with the experiential right the anecdotal qualitative lived experiences what does it mean to be here we'll also do dives into curriculum so i think the biggest measure for me is once we start to impact folks who didn't volunteer for all in right the question becomes what does the work look like to support them because you ultimately want to make sure that our district becomes a place where this commitment to equity and racial justice is non-negotiable right you may not get everybody to sign up to meet once a week at the level of debt that all in has been operating and continues to operate but we have to start to make some non-negotiable values of what it means to serve children

072here and so those will be effective measures as well how does this gradually start to to reach folks who may not necessarily have found their way in yet but will ultimately be asked because this is how we do things here right we change that it's a very informal measure but probably the most important one will change the way we operate and that will take some time but you'll set some some goals and start to measure that way that's really helpful natalie thank you would you guys consider i don't know setting up like an annual survey of students as they leave the high school to ask them about their uh experience as it as it related to erj and racial inequity and other types of intolerance would you consider doing that and seeing if our sort

073of scores improve over time as we begin to implement all of these great ideas we already have our senior survey rory and then we have our survey um after students have graduated about a year after um so that might be a place where we could incorporate maybe natalie can help to advise us on some of the questions we could ask to really get at that that's what i was thinking mary thank you sure we also have the senior interviews which might give more context to the stories because sometimes the question and answer doesn't tell the whole story um so maybe when we think about our senior interviews this year we can try to get some questions crafted that will give that kind of background and information thank you thanks alex yes bill please wonderful presentation

074and uh i guess unfortunately timely um i think food for a future thought not now but down the road i think candy or catherine mentioned impact on curricula and swapping out of text i'd love to hear more detail on that at some point uh in terms of what was in what's out what text or how the curriculum changed i think that would be very interesting for certainly me a non a person who doesn't make curricula and might not understand how change was needed natalie i probably asked this question the last time we spoke which just speaks to my uh learning difficulty and or stubbornness um but it struck me again um one of the slides mentioned um equitable outcomes for everyone and that always strikes me as you know whether it's all men created equal

075or life liberty the pursuit of happiness they both sort of obviously avoid saying well everybody has to end up the same and it's demonstrably true that people said i just i find it is that a promise too high that we're gonna everybody should have what they need everybody you know there's all types of minimal things but everybody's gonna have the same outcomes equitable outcomes um i always i always find that a little challenging because there's so many variables in life it's sort of hard to make all the math work so that people have have equal outcomes so definitively no it's not too high our children haven't they're entitled to an education that not only serves them in ways that we typically think of in terms of finding employment going to college all of those you

076know traditional societal measures but children should leave experiencing joy right feeling brilliant feeling as if they could be their full selves um in in school and i think there's a bit of a conflation with equity inequality in the question equitable outcomes are different than equal outcomes so there are children graduating katona lewisborough and school districts around the country every day who leave feeling prepared for college prepared for the workforce and also feeling their full and whole selves were accepted and feeling joyful and feeling brilliant and then there are children who leave our schools without those feelings and that's how it's different in terms of an equitable perspective so i want every child to leave with that joy with that brilliance feeling that they were centered that they learned the history of their ancestors and that

077that was meaningful that they saw themselves reflected not just in the educators who are serving them but in the content of the curriculum and so for me that's the distinction between equitable and equal outcomes and it is a hundred percent the goal we have to have if we're going to give kids the education to which they're entitled and serve them in all the ways that i think those of us who are educators you know signed up for it sure where's friend that way i fully agree thank you if you don't mind just staying on this um note for a moment i can't help but want to ask and maybe this is a question for caitlyn or for siobhani or for our all in representatives perhaps in the best position to speak to this but it's

078so hard to think about wanting our students to experience joy and graduate feeling their whole selves and pride and accomplishment and joy i mean i really love your use of that word natalie but in this pandemic moment where you know especially at the secondary level i know we're seeing a real decline in the number of students who are coming to school in person even on the days that their cohort can be in school in person even at the q a last night for curriculum overview it was so enlightening to attend and to see all of the cameras turned off now these were parents not um not students but you know how does this work unfold right now in this time in our buildings and and how how can you feel do you feel that you

079are able to reach students i mean it's inspirational and and very hopeful so much of what you're speaking about but can you comment a little bit on the intersection of all that we're talking about and what's happening day in and day out in our buildings in our schools um you know to the extent that there are some learnings that would be important here while i i'll try to answer that and of course anyone else can jump in as well i think that when we think of the pandemic and we think of what teachers students are going through there's this you know enormous sense of isolation and one of the things that we we have to remember as educators is that the work that we do with uh equity and inclusion is not separate it's in

080addition to uh so when we talk about creating brave spaces those spaces are you know we used to say create safe spaces but the idea is that everything stems out of relationship and so if we are in classrooms where kids feel disconnected whether it's because of what's going on with coved or because they don't see themselves reflected in the curriculum or because they don't see themselves in the larger population of our school that becomes part of the same problem so when we think about inclusion and we think about equity then we think about race those are all part of the same story so all of that work needs to be done together so i think that one of the things that happens is that we often separate it and think that if we're doing you

081know we're trying to make kids comfortable and trying to help them learn math that somehow race and equity doesn't you know apply to that in the same way but i think some of the same components in terms of teaching and learning apply so i hope that answers your question if anybody else thinks they can add to that please do thank you um i just have a couple of thoughts on the question if that's okay first i feel like the pandemic creates this sense of um you know the feelings that people have when they were on the fringes of equity before everyone is now feeling and experiencing those feelings so i think that the pandemic actually provides a forum to develop empathy for those feelings that certain people have always felt um and the other thing

082just from a parent perspective you know even though the pandemic has created this different way of learning the one silver lining is that i kind of hear and learn more about how my kids learn so you know um from that perspective i think it's created more opportunities for parents to engage in the kids of learning too thank you i appreciate that thank you julia were you waiting to say something i am and is my microphone okay can you hear me yeah so i i think about um our young people and i think there is a very strong sense of the need for racial justice uh in younger people maybe sometimes more so in our um and making big generalizations here but more so than in our um older generations and i wonder if there's conversation

083in your work or guidance in your work to support young people who may um experience in their own house uh challenges in talking about some of the things that that are very important to talk about in terms of equity and racial justice and and can we support our students so that they feel comfortable to have those conversations in school and maybe even have those difficult conversations in their own homes and i i don't know if our students have expressed that or experienced that but i i have to think it's possible um and i just wonder how we support them through that because that makes it even more challenging i would imagine when um you know when it's not even an environment in your own home that feels like you're receiving the support you need to

084really explore these types of issues i think oh go ahead andrew first i think it's a really important question and one that schools deal with somewhat regularly you know the process of schooling uh as kids particularly as they get older and into adolescence is a process of becoming increasingly mature and independent and so we do you know i think our clinical staff would be quick to say that in these kind of very personal very challenging conversations they are engaged with students about how to navigate um i would imagine in our you know the erj group is a group of 60 to 70 people and and even though i mentioned earlier the work is always kind of shifting back and forth between the personal and the systemic i think the personal tends to be individually reflective

085i don't know that it can it gets into those kinds of conversations that you're referencing but i think schools are engaged in those conversations regularly with students through through clinicians and counselors and other places uh to support those you're right can be very challenging conversations at home but that is a part of the work that we do in schools and an important work for students in this in this area and in other areas too i was just going to offer that you know the brave conversations that candy was speaking about before are a constant negotiation of risks right so the depth of my relationship with you is going to impact how challenging that conversation is for me or how easy i am to sort of stand my ground and hold on to my values and

086share those with you that's why it's easier for us to call out a stranger when we see something happening right because we don't have a relationship with that person it's very simple it's easy but the conversations at home for me with my abuela about her own internalized racism and her privileging white skin were hard and were some of the the hardest and most challenging work that i have done and i do this work every day for a living so the reality is where that depth of relationship exists whether it's our own family whether it's me and my supervisor right me and a colleague who i've worked with for 25 years to call out bias to name racism to name white supremacy that's hard right and i'll constantly each of us as individuals will be negotiating

087those risks that are associated every time we decide to intervene or not we decide to speak up or not and i i think this is what i heard on that last slide of all ins presentation the call out to you all as board members right the invitation that's offered to be vocal particularly in a community where everyone's coming in at wildly different points of view that will be your negotiation of risks too what i know from a research perspective is that the stronger our infrastructure is right the stronger that architecture is the more of us who stand together the easier your job will be the easier our job will be in classrooms and the better chance that caitlin and her peers have of leaving katonah lewisborough having had an experience where they not only see

088themselves as agents of change but they believe change is possible right on their watch i just want to add to that and i i know that this is suggested in throughout the presentation but i have not ever heard experienced a conversation about race equity inclusion that was or been a part of a conversation that was comfortable whether it was uh with you know someone calling out a friend or a family or even dealing with it in in in the classroom that's one of the things that we try to teach students is how to have civil discourse how to challenge our understandings of truth so that in ways that are both intellectual but personally not you know nobody feels like you know everybody feels bad but nobody feels like they're not heard and i think that's

089an important thing to say these are never easy conversations ever and they don't really get easier i just thought i would mention that thank you candy i think caitlyn might have been waiting to add to that were you trying to say something caitlyn yeah i was going to say um i've been fortunate to be able to have an immediate family where i have been able to have those discussions growing up but definitely as i've been i'm in my junior year now but starting my sophomore year taking certain courses where those discussions really do happen frequently has not only helped me extend expand my education also in erj but also having the conversations frequently really empowers you know myself but also i've talked to other um students who really empowers us to be able to have

090those conversations more so whether it is with you know extended family or with friends or really in any situation we feel more comfortable calling things out when we hear it and i know that um i've personally witnessed conversations like that so i feel like having that constant education and constant discussion is really beneficial that's terrific thanks everybody thank you yeah terence please hey thanks um i just want to say that first you know natalie and i'm really just like fortunate to be able to be on the erj and it's been awesome and i think natalie and lou have done a really um spectacular job of kind of leading the group and just creating uh a wonderful environment for the work to take place i i can't i you know genuinely i can't say enough about

091the students in particular they've just been incredible you know and i think caitlyn represents that and what impresses me so much is that the same students are there every single time they show up for that two hour meeting and they're engaged and they're you know really just kind of um you know helping to kind of shape and form and lead the the dialogue and it's so um just really kind of blows me away um and again the teachers parents community members and the administration too right like there are a lot of i think districts around the country that um they don't they don't do this right they choose not to or they're afraid of um you know kind of reactions to it and our administration has not done that they've really kind of just embraced

092it and they've embraced the challenge and they're there for the discomfort and i think that's really just wonderful modeling like everybody is just like doing it at a high level and i'm just you know i just got to give kudos and props to everyone for that so um i just have one question for the all-in folks and again thank you for as as educators and staff and alum who are invested you know like so when you look at the curriculum you know what's our what would you say is the biggest kind of like weakness or blind spot right now that you know that worries you right like where where do you think the biggest lift would be right now that you would uh kind of focus on but again thank you so much what we're

093focusing on um and catherine please jump in i feel like i'm talking a lot um is we're we're looking at who is not represented and so that's across units across grades so in all our schools and that is uh uh you would imagine a huge job um you know we've we've taken some steps i we wouldn't say that there are huge steps there are steps that we're proud of but we have a lot of work to do uh you know we want to make sure that how we're representing history is accurate and so that when we think about all students that they are represented in the curriculum so um i would say that that was probably the biggest steps that we've taken and whether we work you know one unit at it we're working one

094unit at a time um you know we could say you know it's hard to measure at this point or how long it's going to take we're making mistakes we're not necessarily doing it all right but um we're all in yeah and i think to add to that you know going back to what natalie and lou's presentation when you talked about intersectionality i think it's also recognizing you know our own students and what barriers are we taking down so that they can feel that they can learn the curriculum that you know resembles them and shows them in different ways and once we fill in those gaps of those voices and the people that are missing you know how do they have access to it so that they can take what they learn with the accurate history

095and the facts brought in and really use it to the best of their advantage i just i i want to point out and i guess this is a little um braggy for the high school but this year we have for the first time a facing history course on the table is a a african-american history course and um we're you know revamping our titles and thinking about you know that work consistently so you know i there there's so much going on with that and you know we're working our way doing the same thing in the middle school we just had a discussion before we came here we had a short all-in meeting before the board meeting to talk about um uh raising in the sun and thinking about the conversation that teachers want to have with

096parents about the expectations around studying that text those are great examples thank you yes sawyer please hi um thank you so much for this wonderful presentation um i was wondering um primarily first how um and i guess this is more for all in but how do you plan on teaching american racism to elementary schoolers um just because i know my i've been taught in this district um since kindergarten and my first real exposure to any education and racism was in second grade and it was from a paperback book that kind of glorified abraham lincoln's role in the emancipation of slaves rather than focusing on the experiences of slaves or the institution itself um and so i was wondering how do you effectively kind of teach that to an audience that is pretty impressive questionable and

097sensitive um well while doing justice to um too that's a really great question that's a great question did you have a did you have another question would you want me to take that one first i mean you can take that one first i guess right okay well i really wish that um our elementary school teachers from all in were here because they would answer this a lot better than i will but i want you to know that this year for just before the election they they studied voter suppression and obviously a big issue and very tied to racism and so what teachers are trying to do is contextualize it so that it's not just this idea that racism is bad but this idea of how systemic racism plays out into the lives of how it

098is that people's lives are affected by racism whether it's socioeconomically politically and otherwise so that's one example but as i said i would love it if you our elementary school teachers were here to talk to you because they've done so much with the election and what happened at the capitol and this is an elementary school so there's some powerful work going on go ahead catherine i would like to also add that i think it you know the teachers in all in are really starting with themselves and i think that's key and so they're doing their own work and some of the even kindergarten first grade young young kids just having the conversation and you know getting rid of the idea of color blindness is is huge while they may not go into explicit talk about

099racism and systemic racism just opening up the doors to have conversations that help normalize race in our country is is a great first start and sawyer i think your question is great and i'm really hoping that as we continue this work more teachers will see you know that this is this is what they need to do and and how we kind of move forward um also i was wondering um and this is more for the equity and racial justice team um how do you plan to impact or educate people who choose like assume a position of ignorance when it comes to discussions of race and oppression um i know that we all kind of come in contact with people in our lives who either turn a blind eye or just don't like to talk about

100uncomfortable things but how will the education that you seek to provide to students and community members bring them in without necessarily catering to ignorance or people who are unwilling to discuss so i can't speak for the the committee and how they'll come up with a recommendation specifically for that but what i can tell you is that your two questions are very much related for me so um issues of fairness and justice come up with young people all the time and i mean young young children right i'm the mommy of a two-year-old and she already has real impressions of what fairness and justice are she's also internalizing a lot about the world at age two and i jokingly say this right but i could do a racial analysis of bubble guppies which for those of you

101who don't know is a nickelodeon show that my daughter and many other children are really uh obsessed with and and part of what i'm saying is that every day that we don't typify conversations about skin color and identity every day that i don't say to my daughter that black skin is beautiful she is automatically being you know internalizing the opposite of that idea so when we talk about classroom conversations it means typifying conversations about skin color so that it's not just a day when it's thursday we're going to talk about race and equity right that it's a part of everything that we do here and and that takes time right but what the hope would be for a school district is that you make those dialogues unavoidable which makes being ignorant really hard because you

102can't use all of those strategies right you can still get defensive and we can have you know ways to navigate that but you can't avoid the dialogue right avoidance is probably the number one technique for folks that like really are feeling you know the tension come up in their body when something is pushing against beliefs that they've held their whole entire life so how do you make this essentially the way we do things here and with talking about racism and systemic inequity you know we want it to be the shark it's not the shark it's the water right so how do we acknowledge that it is in uh all of us whether or not we have it at the forefront are on our agenda how do we make it so that everyone can't avoid acknowledging

103what is right in front of us and by that it's part of what all in is doing with talking about what's happening sociopolitically in this country when things happen in our own community we have to talk about them and we have to do it through that racial equity lens and so the more work that we do to build the infrastructure and add more and more stakeholders who are invested it's going to become increasingly uncomfortable for those folks that you're describing and increasingly hard to sustain practices that they've probably held on to for a long time to avoid confronting the inequity that exists in our community but really in the larger society so for me it's it's how do we make it so incredibly difficult to avoid confronting injustice speaking up and being really honest about

104the differences that we come in with and celebrating those differences and not being afraid to talk about them because these are issues that we want to you know remain blind to so it's it's sort of inviting that as making this the way we do things here and i i presume you know when the committee comes back to you in a couple of months they'll have some great strategies specifically around community engagement starts to start to crack open some of those dialogues with folks who haven't had them before and frankly who probably haven't come to the table before audrey is it okay if i just say a couple of things by the way if other people don't have questions just just to maybe bring closure you know in listening tonight i it's certainly evident to me

105and i hope it's evident to the members of the board how unbelievably fortunate we are to have the people who you've heard from tonight who represent lots of other people and quite a number of whom are in the audience i can see tonight uh but the the insight and the and the wisdom and the commitment and the passion that you hear uh tonight we are just so fortunate to have working uh on behalf of the students in our district and earlier um you know i think terence may have asked a question i made a comment about the work and the and the pride in the work so far and and candy made a comment about the work still to be done there there is an enormous amount of work to be done i think it's

106important to emphasize that both to celebrate you know this the start that's been made here but also to point out that there will always be an enormous amount ahead of us and it's always going to be complicated work and always personal as well as systemic uh and uh classroom based as well as organizational based and so again you know we've got between 60 and 70 people in the erjc i think i think candy and catherine would help us to know that there's 100 or more people at times who've worked with the all in group and that's a lot of people and again reason to feel proud of the district i think at this moment to have that many people engaged and knowing that there's that kind of commitment to all the work that's ahead so

107i really just want to acknowledge all of those people and say thank you to all of them for the amazing work so far and all the work that i know is to come thank you andrew and please allow us to underscore your gratitude and also to acknowledge that this work takes courage and we appreciate your willingness to take risks we appreciate that you andrew have created an environment in which people feel safe taking risks in katona lewisborough and thank you to those of you who are with us at the proverbial table those of you who are with us in attendance and to the many people who are engaged in this work whether on a monthly or a daily or a weekly basis we're all going to be the beneficiaries of it and thank you again

108to caitlin and to siobhani for joining us and to natalie and lou and candy and catherine we really appreciate this opportunity to hear from all of you and um the coordination and creativity and effort that went into just putting slides together and all that is entailed in developing a presentation in these times so thank you very very much i don't mean to preclude any further discussion i'm not sure if anybody else was waiting and if not then thank you we really appreciate this hope you continue to be well and we look forward to hearing from all of you again in the future thank you thank you thank you good night terrific thank you everybody that was really nice i really appreciate the discussion and i should have probably mentioned sooner that i think we're now

109at the point in our meeting where if any members of the community or members of the community who are with us are waiting to ask questions or share comments or thoughts we invite you to please use the q a at the bottom of the zoom we ask you to please identify yourself and um let us know where your children are enrolled in the district and so perhaps i should pause here for a moment not sure whether anybody was waiting to enter a question i don't see any yet um and maybe kim you can validate whether we have any i do not have any comments at this moment okay all right well then for members of our community who are with us thank you for being here and for listening i think that brings us to

110our consent agenda um let's see i'm not aware of any items that need to be pulled out for separate voting i'll just pause to make sure and if not would somebody like to move the consent agenda could i have a motion please thank you bill i'm seconded by julia thank you were there any comments questions nope okay then we can go ahead and vote all in favor please say aye aye seven zero and that brings us to four dialogue and discussion item 14.01 did any board members have topics for this evening or further thoughts or comments okay please i'm sorry did i no no no not at all please go ahead rory um hard to hear you foreign um i believe that if mrs hadlock and miss ship if you mute yourself be able to

111speak clear just because you're very close to each other so i think your computers are all picking up each other how about if i uh that work better okay thanks i just noticed the appointment of a new ice hockey coach and i was wondering i didn't see the agenda late today but did we add other coaches or do we have the intention to add other coaches for other winter sports we added a lot of coaches late in the day rory so there's a there's a lengthy list now anticipated that we hope we'll have some opportunity for students if it all moves forward and if it's safe for our students thank you that's my bad for uh not no as the timeline was changing constantly yeah thank you very much thanks for clarifying lori and thank

112you alice for explaining any other comments or questions uh okay then this brings us sorry we got an email from somebody about the ppe for teachers i was really surprised i think all the board got it i was so surprised to get that because i thought that i mean i remember back in the fall seeing a line item about a lot of money for ppe gear for teachers are teachers feeling unsafe and not having the proper mass that they need i it was it was a surprising email i i can comment on that we we do have the supplies that we need for teachers we have we have ample supplies of the of the uh of all the ppe great i just wasn't sure where it had come from did you get was i the

113only one that got that email or did you guys get the email to about ppe here okay i just i was surprised because i thought that that was something that we had really we do have that right we're not we're not okay thank you i just wanted to clarify and we do have good relationships with both of our associations so andrew and i can reach out and just make sure that if there's something that people need that they know how to ask for it so that thanks and i would i would just add we have a very generous community and sometimes they make offers um not knowing what we have and don't have and we certainly appreciate that and the concern that they have for our staff is wonderful thank you any other questions or

114comments okay then i think we can look ahead to future meetings so a couple of subcommittee meetings coming up the policy committee is going to meet tomorrow morning and then a week from tomorrow sustainability will meet um the board of ed is next going to meet at 7 30 on february 11th and then again on february 25th and february 27th because we'll be entering into our budget season so to speak so on thursday february 25th we'll have an overview of the superintendent's proposed budget and then on saturday we'll come back and go through a more detailed line-by-line budget analysis looks like finance committee is meeting february 16th at 7 pm policy again february 19th at 9 00 a.m and the board has an executive session scheduled for tuesday morning february 9th at 8 30. did

115i miss anything does that sound about right okay i think with that we are ready for a motion to adjourn can i ask for a motion please actually pardon me um i'm going to make the motion because i think the board's going to return back into executive session to discuss um employment history of an individual so i apologize for that would somebody please second the motion rory i think i saw that you were at the ready thank you um all in favor please say aye all right bye perfect 7-0 and i think that brings us to adjournment and thanks again everybody for a great meeting and be safe wonderful to see you all we'll see you next time good night thank you thank you