001Terrence will be called and do mean so look for his phone number MSN 9 507 boom Oh Terrance yes I we're all here right we're all here right I'm not missing anybody Terrence is on the phone okay all right so start off the meeting by welcoming everybody to the July ninth three organizational meeting of the Katonah Lewis Perot school district may have a motion to return to public session Marjorie may I have a second thank you now let's start the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance thank you now I'd like to start the meeting by administering the oath seriously we elected on board trustee bill Rifkin bill if you could repeat raise your right hand and repeat after me I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the
002United States but I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of New York and the Constitution of the state of New York and now I will faithfully discharge I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of board trustee the duties of the office of four trustee according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability thank you Bill and when I see you I'll have you sign the oath of office book okay thank you now I'd like to administer the oath to our newly elected trustee Katherine Ostreicher Katherine if I could have you unmute your screen that's it and raise your right hand and repeat after me I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the
003constitution of the state of New York and the constitution of the state of New York and that I will faithfully discharge and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of board trustee trustee according to the best of my ability thank you and again I will have you sign the book when we see each other in person okay and now I'd like to administer the oath to our student trustee Sawyer Reed Sawyer if you could raise your right hand and repeat after me all right I I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of New York and the Constitution of the state of New York and that
004I will faithfully discharge and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of student trustee the duties of the office of student trustee according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability Thank You Sawyer now I'd like to administer the oath to our superintendent and Rousseau Lesnick assistant superintendent for HR and instruction miss Cronin the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Miss Mary Ford and our assistant superintendent for business miss de Nile Acela now if you guys can all raise your right hand Mary just unmute yourself and repeat after me I do solemnly swear I do so these are my Square and I will support the Constitution of the United States and I was that I will support the conduct of United States and the constitution of the
005state of New York and then I will faithfully discharge faithfully the duties of the office of Superintendent of Schools the duties of the office of Superintendent of Schools the duties of the office of assistant superintendent for human resources and instruction ladies of the office assistant superintendent for human resources and instruction the duties of the office of curriculum and instruction of the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction the duties of the office of assistant superintendent for business the duties of the office for the assistant superintendent for business according to the best of my ability according to the best ability thank you so much now the next order of business is nominations for the president and vice president for the Board of Ed may I have a nomination for the board president for the 2021 school year
006yes bill I nominate Margery chef thank you are there any other nominations may I have a second for Margery shift as board president Laurie all in favor of Margery chef as board president for the 2021 school year all right all right all right thank you now next order of business is the nomination for vice president of the board for the 2021 school year may I have a nomination for vice president I nominate a headlock thank you are there any other nominations may I have a second for Julia headlock as president Liz all in favor of Miz headlock for the vice president for the board for the 2021 school year alright thank you now I'll administer the oath for the president and vice president for the 2021 school year Marjorie and Julia raise your right hand
007repeat after me I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and then I and the Constitution of the state of New York and the Constitution of the state of New York and then I will faithfully discharge and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of board president that did sorry office of board president and the duties of board vice president we can't hear you Julia all right the duties of the office of vice president according to the best of my ability according to the rest of my ability thank you and again I will have each of you sign the oath book when we meet in person and at the time I'd like
008to turn the meeting over to board president Marjorie chef's thank you oh thank you Kim so much for facilitating our meeting it's so good to see everybody thank you to all of our assistant superintendents and our superintendent for accepting the oath and for being here we know it's been very challenging welcome back to bill welcome to Catherine welcome to Sawyer happy birthday to Sawyer and thank you so much for being here it's really good to see everybody I know in just a minute we're gonna take a moment for board announcements but because I can see bit we also have several members of our community in attendance I'll just mention that we don't have presentations scheduled for tonight so we will then quickly turn our attention to public forum and if you want to take the
009opportunity to share a comment with us in the Q&A at the bottom of your zoom window we appreciate that and we will turn our to to your remarks and thoughts as soon as we can just with regard to board announcements I know we all just want to take the opportunity to thank our entire administrative team for everything that has been organized and coordinated in recent weeks to open our schools for students who are eligible for our esy program and we're delighted it's so nice to have students on campus and we thank our faculty and staff for their creativity and thoughtfulness and I just briefly wanted to look back also to congratulate our graduating seniors and to thank our administrators and the terrific committee that put together such a moving unprecedented graduation ceremony at the Jefferson
010Valley Mall and thank you to the Jefferson Valley Mall for donating the venue there were so many wonderful moments and things that I think we can take away from the celebration and even apply in future years to perhaps enrich future graduation ceremonies it was so well done many of us were there we feel very grateful and very proud that our seniors were celebrated so beautifully so thank you so much for all that went into that and also to the middle school administration for the moving up ceremony and all of the administrative teams who helped students at the 5th grade feel celebrated as they moved up to the middle school so we're very grateful and I don't know whether other board members had other comments or announcements tonight I'll pause largely this is parents just real
011quickly so my phone is on and I'm in the meeting I think I might need to be moved from participant to panel so I just want to really know thanks thank you that everything I was going to say about both while all three of the both moving up ceremonies on the graduation I was also there in attendance and it was just a wonderful day and clearly a lot of thought and effort and energy on the day but a lot of energy probably before the day also went into making them really really special in the current environment and my second year thought that there may be some things that we could learn from that it was really a net net positive experience for everybody at the Jefferson Valley mall that day and my daughter also moved
012up into the high school this year and the moving up ceremony was just fantastic we had a video conference in the morning where they recognized and acknowledged all of the students in the 8th grade and then later on we had the opportunity to go by and be greeted by all of the teachers and administrators there at the mini school and it was really just a wonderful event and those things don't happen easily so a lot of gratitude to the committee's on the administration the faculty staff everybody at the school is really great thank you thank you welcome Katherine it's nice to see you thank you I just wanted also if I could to say welcome to Katherine my former neighbor who I've known since I arrived in Katonah and also welcome to Sawyer and happy
013birthday known Sawyer a long time too and I think we're gonna have a great year with him as our student representative thank you thank you so much everybody and if there aren't any other board comments at this time I'd love to turn it over to Andrew for some announcements please door thank you very much Marjorie and thanks for everybody for those nice words about the end of last year and I think actually the swearing in tonight was one of the first things that actually made it feel like the start of a new school year in the same in the same way that the days have tended to blend in to one another in the current environment the one school year sort of blended into the next a little bit until tonight that's just the nature
014of the work at the moment but I do want to say welcome to everybody to the 2021 school year that we are now in so I do I do have a few announcements on a few different topics that I hope will be of interest to people starting with a little bit of looking to the fall in light of yesterday's announcements from Governor Cuomo which I imagine some people if not many are familiar with there was just yesterday that he did confirm there were schools are supposed to receive guidance from the state we've talked quite a bit in the past about the guidance that we're waiting for and yesterday the governor said that that guidance will arrive this coming Monday so we certainly hope that that's is what happens because we are very much looking forward
015to receiving that and then he went on to say that the plan from every school district for the opening of school is due on July 31st and we had heard rumors previously that there would be a plan due sometime in July but yesterday was actually the first time we heard an actual date a date and so we have been as people know very busy since sometime in May late May with quite a large number of our staff working on committees to think about the fall now that we have well hopefully we'll have the guidance on Monday the thinking will become a lot more concrete in order to submit those plans by July 31st the governor went on to say that following the submission of those plans sometime in the first week of August he will
016make a decision about whether schools will open I think on the slide it actually said he'll make a decision if schools will open in September so I just I do want to clarify for everyone because I don't think everyone always realizes we don't have the Liberty to make a decision other different than the governor's decision so when he issues an executive order we are bound to follow that executive order so we will certainly make all the plans that we can in line with the guidance and then we'll wait to hear what the governor says and I have mentioned in the past I think I'll say it again here we've so we've had a lot of staff working on the more abstract thinking about the planning for the fall up to this point in addition those
017those committees will continue working through the summer because they will be plenty for them to do we're also putting together a smaller group now a working group to put the actual plan together with all of that feedback in mind and we will be reaching out to parents and community members to give us feedback on that plan in the coming weeks before we submit it so we'll be in touch with some folks to be sure we get input from people on that I think I think the other only other things I want to say about the fall and again this might well be things that people know that we've we've talked in the with the board in the past about some of the tensions that exist in education we've used that as a kind of phrase
018to to talk about how there are sometimes competing interests and I think this whole reopening process it's very much falls in line with idea of tensions you know we know in the country from lots of organizations and in lots of places and for lots of good reasons there's a great desire to bring all students physically back into school as quickly as possible and we know this there's a lot of good to be gained from that and at the same time there's a desire to maintain health and safety and to a word that's being used now is this idea of cohorting keeping students together in small groups throughout the school day in order to avoid the cross-pollination of one group with another and regarding the virus so I would I would say those there there are
019your first two tensions when it comes to thinking about reopening right we want to bring all students back and we want to keep everyone as safe all students and staff as safe as possible and those two things are somewhat opposed to want to know this but we have to think through where's the place in the middle that we can land and then there there are other tensions I once spent too much time on them here but we know from the recent survey data that there are many families who are looking for a more structured experience should we have to continue with distance learning for example but even if we're in school we know that structure is very good for children we know the benefits it provides and now we have a much more first-hand experience
020with the need that that families have for their children to be busy and occupied during the day if they are home on the other hand the other tension there are families that still need a great deal of flexibility and they recognize the benefits of autonomy for their children so there's another tension there and there are many others and those are just some of the things that we will be thinking about as we continue planning for the fall and end and I anything I say tonight by the way I'm gonna provide an update to the community in writing tomorrow that's something we want to do throughout the summer to keep people posted on where we are in our planning so that's we'll start tomorrow I already mentioned tonight but I want to echo it again the
021our extended school year program opened on Monday it was really terrific to see students coming back into school at increased Miller we have about 35 children on a daily basis that increased Miller at the moment a lot of thank yous go out to Kali and staff who did a lot of planning with not very much notice from the state when we learned that we would in fact be allowed to have in school learning this summer and in addition to the about 35 children who are at increased military day that's about another 30 or so who are at home and we're providing both distance learning for them as well as the in-school instruction for the students so I really want to give a big shout out and a thank you to everybody who worked so hard
022and so well to make that program a possibility to begin with and now to be making it happen every day and of course there are many new protocols in place that people are following it is a somewhat different experience than most of us I used to during the school day but it's the safest experience we can provide so that's that's obviously very important for all so so glad that that is happening next I just want to touch briefly last week we had a three-day retreat with our administrators that went was very very productive three days of course a lot of the time was spent on thinking about the fall and what school could look like when we hope to reopen this fall but I also want to mention that a full day of the of
023the retreat was spent on topics related to equity and racial justice in light of all that's been unfolding in the country and as I've mentioned before we've retained a consultant who was with us on one of those days nataly's worker comes to us from the director as she's the director of the Center for Strategic Studies at NYU's metropolitan center for research on equity and the transformation of schools natalie is very much in demand in Westchester schools at the moment in fact around the country so her time is precious and we felt very fortunate to have her with us she was very well received by our administrators it was a very productive day with her last week and at least one of the next steps there will be many but I mean one of them and
024one of the more immediate ones will be the formation of a district-wide equity team that she will help us not to put together and then help us think about the work together with that group so certainly communicate community members can look out for some kind of notification about the pulling together of that team which will be happening sometime during the summer and we're looking forward to that professional learning also continues for the staff through the summer in this area and we will be looking at our reopening plans through an equity lens too and finally just a little while earlier today we announced our new mascot for this for John J mill school and John Jay high school the wolves so we're very excited to make that announcement I think I think it's worth mentioning we
025know well that not everybody you know it's not have been possible to find a mascot that would thrill everybody to the same degree we know that's not the case but I do want to say that a big THANK YOU to the mascot selection committee the students the teachers the administrators the parents who sat on that committee they ended up working over quite a number more months than they thought they would do to the pandemic that process became a bit more stretched out and like any process in the world today it didn't unfold in all of the ways that we thought it would initially and we had some we got feedback along the way sometimes expected sometimes unexpected that helped us to revise our thinking and in the end we we do know the mascot we
026selected is one that many people in the community had suggested and we're excited about so while we know for sure that there are some out there who would rather it would be something else that would have been true with any mascot but we know that there are many who are very happy with it and we've I'm confident that in time what we now have is a mascot that at least has the opportunity to bring the entire community together which was what we were looking for and wanted so we're excited about that and happy to know that we'll begin next school school year with our new mascot in place and I think that's the end of my announcements for tonight thank you Andrew I have to admit that as you were speaking I reached for my
027phone to confirm that it was just three short weeks ago that we last met because that's an extraordinary amount of work and an extraordinarily accomplished update so congratulations on all that you've managed to pull together in three weeks on such short notice on a number of fronts and we just express our gratitude and thank you I think if there are no further announcements then we are ready to turn our attention to public forum and I see that in the Q&A we do have some comments I believe maybe one comment would up was also submitted prior to the meeting so I'm going to request that Kim bonds and please help us out and she has graciously offered to read the Q&A comments so that we can just be in listening mode and reflect and then after
028we pass some resolutions and turn our attention to the consent agenda we'll have the opportunity to regroup import dialogue so I'm going to turn it over to you Kim thank you so much thank you so the first comment was submitted to the BOE public forum email by Erin Daniels hello my name is Erin I'm a black John J John Jay high school alumnus class of oknot welcome to the new welcome to the new school board members and for those stepping down thank you for your work I am happy to have read that efforts the district has made implementing the learning cafe diversify in the school library and engaging with staff my experience growing up was over well over all very positive the resources counseling and courses available as school were key to setting me up
029for college and I have made some lifelong friends however I still repeatedly faced microaggressions and racist statements growing up contributing to stereotype threat statements such as I did not expect you to be what so well-spoken why don't you talk black you must really love watermelon and Fried Chicken can I say the n-word if we're friends and you're an Oreo black on the outside white on the inside for the sake of time I won't list anymore some of those statements came from other kids growing up others from adults these may seem like just words but repeated race-based fronts can lead to succumbing to stereotype threat affecting academic performance diminishing confidence and creating anxiety and students I invite those on the call to read the book whistling Vivaldi for more on that subject as I've gotten older
030and reflected on the moments I believe many of these statements were born of ignorant instead of malice - how many of these people would I be the only black person they interact with outside of what they consume through media is that the same for other people of color in town it's for this reason I implore the board to implement anti racism and general anti-bias discussions into the school curriculum understanding people of other races cultures religions orientations and identities is an opportunity to stop these statements at ignorant before they become biased perceive fact and facts and hatred thank you for your time now I will go to the Q&A and bear with me as I'm reading them if there's multiple thank you yeah the first comment is from Nina Shaw my name is MIA Shaw and
031I'm a graduate of the John Jay high school class of 2012 I would like to open my statement by thanking the members of the Board of Education for hearing and responding to statements from students and alumni during the last meeting I also want to thank this body for their thoughtful and continuous commitment to changing the high school mascot your hard work and a tentative attentiveness responding to the issue is creately appreciated building off some of what was discussed at the last meeting I'd like to implore you to continue your engagements with topics related to crafting a more inclusive set of curricula for the school district at every grade level this moment of reorganization is the perfect moment to recommit to such an agenda I'd also like to restate the importance to importance to commit to
032the hiring of diverse faculty staff and administration members throughout the district it will also be important in addition to implementing diverse and engage pedagogy's to teach our predominantly white student body about the histories and legacies of whiteness and weaponization I also would like to congratulate you all here on the overwhelmingly passage of this school year's budget in order to support the affirmation initiatives I urge a re-examination of the budget to allocate appropriate resources I would be happy to lend my professional expertise to the end of achieving these goals thank you again for your time and consideration the next is from Brittany banks hello my name is Brittany banks and I am 2008-2012 johnjay graduate I first want to commend you all for your recent decision regarding the John J mascot in light of national response
033to implement and restructure the curriculum to be more inclusive and take a multicultural approach to learning many teachers in our district have begun re-examining and revising their curriculums of their own accord so to mate so as to make sure that is the actively anti-racist and inclusive I would like to know how the Board of Education plans to support and reward these teachers that are actively engaging this work as well as how the board plans to encourage and support other teachers in doing the same our schools both our schools both students and faculty alike must be equally committed to being anti-racist and inclusive research has shown that the best way to accomplish this is through multicultural education empowerment in education and education based responses to racial conflicts this data highlights the important role that our education
034system plays in dismantling racism in this country and I hope we all treat this position with the weight and importance that it deserves the next statement is from Alexander of Ramsey my name is Alexandra Ramsey I am here as a follow up to see if there were any strides with creating in any equity audit teams creating a curriculum that is responsive and more diverse I am sure that you have heard time and time again about the importance of having an anti-racist curriculum district-wide but maybe not have heard about what this looks like but what does this look like well it looks like having guidelines in place that teachers should follow and or curriculum resources to ensure an equitable learning experience having this in place we'll take our already great school district to a next level
035put K LSD mat and make calles tea a national international example to schools on how to implement such practice okay while you're preparing to read the next remark I just want to mention that in order to read a comment into the record we do request that comments not be submitted anonymously so please for any community members who are hoping to have their comments read for the public record we do request that you identify yourself thank you so much okay the next is from John Anthony La Fredo good evening board members I am John Anthony Alfredo I grew up in South Salem and attended K to 12 in Katonah Lewisburg School District graduating from John J in 2013 thank you for making space for us to speak tonight at your willingness and for your willingness to
036allow our statements to influence how you plan to change Katonah Lewis for our schools for the better as a queer person who was closeted for most of my life high school was a difficult experience I felt uncomfortable in my own body and struggled to accept myself largely because I could not imagine what my life would look like if I came out I had no examples of people like me existing honestly in the world I began to believe accepting my queerness and living a happy successful life were not possible in my entire k-12 education in Kayla state not once did I learn about LGBTQ plus history our stories were absent from textbooks course material and curriculum had I been taught about the incredible queer people who came before me perhaps I would have been able to
037see that a life like mine was possible though even if LGBTQ history was part of my education in Kayla's day I am confident that several several pivotal pivotal figures and stories would still have been left out because of LGBTQ history is is black history so much of black history is glazed over in our schools and the part of it that are included are told from a perspective that's comfortable for white people to digest black history is American history an American history is a story of white supremacy well why are we not teaching that our curriculum centers white Western perspectives and favors I come from a comfortable at times revisionist lens through which we learn our history and current culture we are not honest about the history of white supremacy and systemic racism in our country
038and if we are not honest we as students can never learn how to hold ourselves accountable I just wanna we as students cannot understand how we are maybe passively participating in the oppression of others and we cannot learn how to be better the holes in the education I received from careless teen were personally embarrassing but for the black and brown people I met after graduating from John Jay high school my ignorance could have been dangerous I chose to re-educate myself but not every K LSD student will make the same choice and the ignorance they bring into the world after receiving their diploma perpetuates a racist ideology that affects every system in this country the version of history you teach your students matters misinformation champions ignorant and ignorance breeds violence you must commit so hiring more
039teachers of color require that every teacher cave fosters an inclusive learning environment that does not Center Western white perspectives and to reduce up redesign our history and literature courses of course district-wide to be integrated honest and include every American experience of course this is only the beginning but for right now if you do nothing else listen to your black and brown current students and alumni their voices must be heard and celebrated their demands enacted with urgency the next comment is from Elizabeth Perry hi my name is Lizzie Perry I am a 2017 John J graduate first I want to thank the Board of Education for dedicating the appropriate time and sensitivity to changing the K LSD mascot this has been a monumental step in the right direction and I hope we can continue with this
040momentum I felt compelled to write a brief statement because throughout my seven year experience at John J middle school in high school I've watched a district neglect their students of color and students from marginalized groups though some may say this is a debacle or debatable I and many other graduates strongly believe that our district has a lot of work to do towards being an inclusive and welcoming learning environment a solid step in this direction would be to commit to hiring a more diverse faculty which better represents the world we live in I would like to ask that the board tonight make this commitment to strive for inclusive inclusivity and diversity in hiring practice one additional point I would like to make is on the topic of budget at the last board meeting it was noted
041by several board members that the budget reflects our values I ask how does it how does this year's budget reflect our values if seemingly unlimited funds are given to athletics and yet little of anything given to faculty staff diversity diversity training and training the student body to be culturally responsive the responsible all citizens in fact part of the investment in athletics should be towards this type of training with such a focus on developing our athletes let's work on develop developing them as an inclusive leaders and individuals who are equipped to participate in critical conversations regarding race and class in caelis t in the KL SD district and the greater world that they will be entering upon graduation okay then the next comment is submit a pas my name is Simha Paul and I graduated from
042John J in 2017 I would like to start off by thanking the Board of Education and the mascot selection committee who took our community's concerns about the Indians and Wolfpack mascots seriously and committed to taking strives to make our community an inclusive and accepting space I am proud to live in a community that's representative by a positive and uplifting mass uplifting mascot rather than one that's dehumanizing and offensive to marginalized communities thank you for your transparency through this decision process go wolves while this is a remarkable step in the right direction we need to bring that this anti-racist agenda into the classrooms a good place to start here is with our teachers and administration I urge the Board of Education to set a default diversity goal for Kayla see faculty by the end of the
0432021 school year according to New York teacher's diversity on diversity on lopud in 2018 2019 the Katonah Lewisburg School District teacher diversity was reported a 2 out of 240 teachers in Kayla state only 19 teachers were classified to be minorities to give you a better understanding of this this represents only 7.9 percent of teachers in all five schools that got the katana Louisville school district the lack of racial and ethnic diversity and representation among teachers directly impacts our black indigenous and POC parens bi POC students in Cal State as a person of color myself who attended kindergarten through twelfth grade in this district it's extremely difficult growing up and not having a single teacher who looks like you increasing the diversity of the teacher workforce in addition to implementing culturally responsive teaching will not only
044allow teachers to emphasize and understand the traumatic experience of biopic voices but also allow all students to become more culturally aware empathetic and gain a more comprehensive understanding of the material being taught this will work to cultivate passionate and dedicated learners and prepare all students as informed global citizens who go on to which actively influence the wider world I strongly urge the Board of Education to make a commitment tonight into increasing diversity in the teacher and administrative work force in Kayla state so we can accurately represent the wider world we live in this commitment can be made by setting a diversity goal for Kayla's D faculty by the end of the 2021 school year the next comment and I apologize for the pronunciation of your name need to Vann crap two men I apologize good
045evening as a parent of two children in the school district and a person of color I would like to hear more about the diversity in our school district I am interested in learning more and more I'm interested in learning more about how diverse our teaching staff is it is important for our children to see teachers that look like them and learn about all cultures most companies and schools have taken upon themselves upon them to hire more diverse people I would like to see a commitment made by the board to hire a more diverse staff thank you next comment is Liz Bickler hello my name is Liz Becker thank you for the opportunity to address the board with a question about the fall is the board open to a hybrid model where teachers and families can
046self-select into either distance learning or in person in school learning it seems there is a split in terms of people who want schools to open and those that want to continue with distance learning perhaps there is a middle road where families and teachers can self-select into one path or the other which may naturally resolve the issue of limiting the number of students in class as a parent of a rising 2nd grader who generally greatly struggled with distance learning in the first grade I'm very concerned with the young children in our district falling behind in the core basics of how to read and write also as a family with two working parents with young children we found that last few months completely unsustainable and have consistently heard similar concerns from other dual working parent families with
047young children I would like to hear more about what the board is doing to address the k2 cohort and their specific sense of needs thank you and there's one more comment from Alexander Ramsey the equity audit team will help Kahless D keep their budget in line with K LS D core values okay the next comment is Jeremy's it imir he /m hi everyone my name is Jeremy Zimmer pronounced he/him I meet John Jay high school graduate from the class of 2011 in the last month I've been deeply heartened by the district's leadership Folds leadership bold intent to engage faithfully and thoroughly to make our schools anti-racist and make our schools actively supported for black students students of colors and students of all identities I speak here as one of nearly 800 K LSD students alumni
048and community members who have recently come together to brainstorm and promote meaningful initiatives to reform Katonah Lewis prose curriculum and culture in light of urgent calls of to action from the black lives matter movement I want to say how excited and optimistic I am for our community members and leaders to come together this coming year to promote difficult candid conversations to educate each other to take an honest stock of the work we need to do and to create accountability structures for us to accomplish I want to commend the Board of Education on its recent announcement of a new racial equity of new racial equity initiatives in a letter to the school district I also want to highlight however that nearly all of the initiatives in that letter are opt-in and do not compel all students
049or teachers in our district to engage having seen a wealth of diversity equity and inclusion delicious attempted in corporate settings I know that the impact of opt-in programs are very are severely limited and may promote more equitable subcultures in an organization but do not change the culture at large several questions come to mind that I'd like the board to grapple with what power will our new equity consultant from NYU be given to enforce the changes she struck she suggests what quotas will we set for faculty and admin diverse diversity hiring in the next three years to ensure we measure our programs against a concrete goal once our teachers perform gap analysis to identify the ways our curriculums to prioritize non-white students how will we track our teachers progress in implementing necessary fixes I want to
050thank the Board of Education again for their boldness and humility as we figure out what an anti-racist Kahless D would look like together I look forward to seeing the district's boldness and humility carry forward even once the black lives matter protests protests subside even when we return from lockdown even when our social media feeds return to normal this move this moment demands it and our community collectively is ready for it thank you I think that's it thank you thank you so much Kim for your reading the comments aloud so that we could listen we really appreciate that and thank you so much to members of our community for taking the time to attend our meeting tonight and for sharing your comments and suggestions and questions as I mentioned we'll have an opportunity inward dialogue to
051revisit some of the topics that have been addressed or suggested this evening and if you'll just bear with us for a minute here we're just going to turn our attention back to the agenda where we have some annual resolutions and a consent agenda to work our way through first so I think this brings us to item 13 and I'm going to suggest if somebody would like to make a motion to move all of the resolutions in number 14 so 14 point oh one through 14 point 38 did somebody make a motion Thank You Julia I'd like to make a motion to move 14 point Oh 1 through 14 point 38 thank you so much and I think I see bill was at the ready to second the motion thank you bill and is there any
052discussion or are there any questions or comments about the resolutions okay if not then if we could please vote just by saying aye and raising our hands all in favor please say aye okay great thank you and this brings us to the consent agenda so I'm at 15 now and if somebody would like to move the entire consent agenda this will be 16 point oh one all the way through 19 point oh eight moved by Rory thank you so much and seconded by Liz and are there any questions or comments about the consent agenda tonight okay if not then we can all vote by raising your hand to say I please all right all right okay thank you terrific okay great thank you so much and thank you for all that went into preparing the
053consent agenda this is also represents a lot of work and we really appreciate being able to carry out this much business on July 9th so thank you very very much and that brings us to board discussion and board dialogue I'm not sure whether any board members had topics of their own that they had wanted to bring to the floor this evening and if not then just pause for us to gather our thoughts and invite some comments and response perhaps to what we've heard this evening during public forum thank you yeah Phil please I can get started I'm sure everybody's gonna have comment so just like last time I find these these comments very powerful I'd like to convey the message of being heard hopefully understood was certainly heard and I did know there are some
054themes that I think would be good for us to chew on down the road seems like there were some themes about what's going on and I was just particularly upset to hear about what some of the students were either clear or people of color what they've experienced I guess I shouldn't be surprised that even in our district that sort of thing happens I much appreciate the issue before us of teaching diversity and in a setting that is not diverse I think that's gonna take some special work we're not alone in that regard of course but I think that's going to take some special work and I think we're moving in the right direction but I main message is I am taking notes here is that message received thank you yes thanks so I want to
055echo those sentiments I'm just really thankful that we have so many engaged alums and community members especially on this topic of racial and social justice and I appreciate them being here to hold us accountable as a district as a board I think that's important to have that kind of that engagement dialogue so I'm really looking forward to seeing what the district's detailed plan will be based on this kind of input but also knowing that you know the superintendent and his team are they're not just a whale but they are emotional intellectually engaged and and you know are their values are in line I think with the spirit of what this conversation is bringing about no since I've been on the board a couple years individuals had reached out to me and have expressed you know
056told me their stories of what it was like to be a student of color at that time and you know not some not great stuff let's just say and I'll tell you it's particularly painful and I think our breaking to me it's the same exact stuff that I dealt with when I was in junior high and junior high back then it wasn't mostly to the mold but you know it's the same stuff it's the same stuff from 30 years ago still happens and it hurts me because it reminds me that I as a person of color didn't do anything to try to make it better for the students that came after me I have been completely doing this and you know I bought into as my family did this illusion of the model minority which
057simply no subscribes to the same system that is problematic today so you know being on this board volunteering in this way and another way it gives me a chance to make up for lost time there's a lot to make up for you know I think our work here will make an impact this is how we change societies through education and so I am a deep believer in that so I would just say that I really hope that our districts plan is ambitious I hope that we are going to really go for something big you know this Confederate statues across the country can be brought down just the state flag and Mississippi can be changed and you know think of what we can do so again it's thankful work with this group and be a part
058of it and to have such a great community and great alumni base Thanks Thank You Terrance yeah Rory please thanks Parker yeah I mean I you know once again I'm moved by the volume of people who have turned out and I'll say spoken so eloquently and have made a point of praising the administration for some of the choices and some of the things that have already been done and and yet highlighted some work that still needs to be done and I I for one couldn't agree more that we do have work to do I also identified some themes bail clarity where the group is asking and I think in general our community would feel that it is appropriate to have diversity among our staff to review our curriculum to make sure that we're treating racial
059justice appropriately that we do have the right resource allocation when we're considering our budgets that we have a mechanism for for some governance model in place that we can that we can track how we're achieving towards our goals somebody mentioned an opportunity to potentially motivate teachers who are striving towards their goals I think these are all great ideas I mean obviously this will all need to be developed and incorporated as we go through the school year but I really applaud the group for being so eloquent and articulate and for bringing such wonderful thoughts to us many of which we've considered already and many of which are already in the works but it's very nice to have community involvement and to feel like we're on the right track when we're thinking about these issues but there's
060one other topic I'd like to touch on so Liz Bickler talked a little bit about this self-select option when we go back to school I haven't thought about that at all but there does seem to be some value there where people might be able to choose and I recognize that the state will really may or may dictate to us what wasn't going back to school in September would look like but I just wanted to acknowledge what Liz said that you know I agree that the youngest of our students in K through 2 are particularly vulnerable in terms of their reading and writing and the fact that they could potentially fall behind and I did like the idea of providing some self choice if that's an option but obviously it's gonna be really complicated to figure
061out what back to school in September looks like but I just want to acknowledge Liz's thoughts I thought they were well formulated so that's it I mean it's it's just the whole anti-racist topic I'm learning more and more about it I've I've spent quite a bit of time educating myself I myself was very uneducated as I said in the last call I feel I'm getting marginally more educated as I think this through and it is a very very important topic and I just applaud everybody for showing up and being so passionate about it thank you Laurie I can just pick up where you left off for a moment I you know I really appreciate I know we all appreciate that alumni are taking the time to come back to speak with us and to share
062their experiences and observations about education in our school district and I think the the word that I heard just a moment ago from one of my fellow board members was you know we should be ambitious and I just want to connect these two thoughts this notion of alumni coming back and this notion of being ambitious just to share my own perspective that everyone here at the table is committed to continuous improvement of the Katonah Lewis for a school district and whether we're turning our attention to some of the issues that are urgent around the need to think more critically about how we include people of color or underrepresented minority students or faculty how we achieve greater diversity or whether we're thinking about how we're we opening in the fall I just I want to provide
063the reassurance and the gratitude to everybody at the table here tonight that I know we're committed to continuous improvement and so even if we don't have answers to many of the very important questions that are being asked tonight we are actively seeking feedback from our community I think that's really important I think that's appropriate and so thank you to the administration for facilitating those mechanisms of collecting feedback in recent days and weeks and over the past few months and I know we're going to continue to do that and we're going to respond to that feedback and so I just wanted to pick up on a couple of thoughts that have been shared already and try to synthesize in that regard rather other comments Julia please yeah if I could just um add a little bit
064to what you've said and I am very excited to be part of this board and I'm so proud of our administration I think it can't be unnoted that we changed our mascot today and that's been an issue in this district for probably forty years and I think that took a lot of courage from our administration to be willing to have that conversation to have it in a very transparent and honest way to have a diversity conversation with our community and I just want to say I'm really grateful to everyone on the administration for how open and honest and transparent they are in the way that they conduct business and how fortunate we are to have an administration that's doing that especially when we're talking about issues that are so challenging a lot of people shy
065away from challenging issues and difficult discussions and I think our administration welcomes those and has created the entire purpose for creating the learning cafe every time Andrew introduces the learning cafe he'll say we have a learning cafe when there's something that people don't share views on or where there's not a clear path and and we're here to have difficult conversations and that's a culture he's created and I think it will serve us well as we continue to think about how do we teach through a lens that is respectful of all peoples in our country and their histories and not only through a land of white Western culture and I just want to say thank you to them for leading us in a way that I feel so confident that the voices that we're hearing will
066be heard because we've been hearing in different ways from those voices through our admitted for years and things that that andrew has done have brought us to a place where I can feel very very confident that commitment to diversity and we've already seen that in you know our last vice-principal hires in our special services hires you know where we've seen diversity candidates selected that doesn't go unnoticed and I'm really happy to be on the board of education during a time when we can have these discussions and everyone can respectfully hear them and feel confident that our district will do something to move forward so that we really can be proud and I loved the comment and thank you for someone who I can't I'm sorry I don't have them open right now but said like
067let's be a leader in this and I'm really proud that even the mascot changed we were not the first but there are still organizations that haven't made that change and so I feel like in a small way we're a leader in that and I hope that we will continue to be leaders in other ways when we talk about creating a curriculum and a culture that respects and embraces the diversity and beauty of our country as well as the challenges and the hardships of our country so thank you to the administration and to the rest of my fellow board members for really I feel really good about where we are and I'm confident we will move in the right direction Thank You Julia thank you does anybody else waiting to say a few words I just
068wanted to quickly say that I think it is just such a great sign that so many people in the community and graduates are involved and engaged and and will want to come and share their perspectives and their experiences with us knowing that education is always a process of both learning and that's kind of this in action on getting new perspectives and maybe changing our opinions and things like that so I think this is very encouraging and I think that we've got we've got a lot of good community members who are giving some really interesting and helpful feedback so thank you thank you this may I say something please so er we invite you all right all right so just from the perspective of a student I think it is actually very interesting to learn about
069issues of race so I would hope that you guys in the district is able to somehow make some form of curriculum centered around race and identity especially a white identity in America because I think that that's kind of something that so many students have in this district so I would hope that you're able to do it because I think that's something really interesting to learn about and learn about the ramifications of my identity and the identity of other people around me and how we should kind of hold ourselves in this society but I also just from campus Congress which is kind of where I'm from we do plan next year on trying to Commission a mural of the new mascot just kind of to make a swift transition from the Indians to this next one
070and kind of be able to unite the school community in some way and this would be if the school is open and if students are able to come to school so that would be one of our main priorities for next year thank you Sawyer thank you if there aren't any further comments during board dialogue I just I'll close our board discussion but also leave the door open for further involvement and feedback from members of our community you're always welcome to write to us boe @ KL schools org we welcome your thoughts we will respond and so although our board dialogue has come to an end tonight please don't view this as the end of this conversation and we look forward to hearing from you in the future thank you I think with that we are
071ready to move forward to future meetings this is item 20 1.01 and the board is next scheduled to meet on there July 28th B of zoom and logistics will be sent around a week prior to the meeting and that brings us to item 22 which is our opportunity to adjourn if somebody would like to make a motion to adjourn please moved by Julia thank you seconded by Rory thank you very much again a huge thank you to everyone at this table and especially to our administrators for the tremendous amount of thoughtful leadership and work that you're engaged in right now we really are very grateful and we want everybody to continue to be well be safe and thank you hope everybody has a good evening happy birthday to Sawyer go enjoy and we'll see you
072next time thank you to members of our community for joining us all in favor of a journey and please say Aye great good night thank you thank you you