001opac community this is the thursday june 17 2021 regular uh meeting for our school board welcome one at all could i motion to open this meeting please trustee savino vice president ii tanner mccracken all in favor aye please join me and stand for the pride i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all again thank you uh the whole pack community we have a really wonderful agenda for you this evening um i'd like to thank everybody that's uh that's gotten us here it was a very unprecedented uh school year uh by by every stretch of the imagination and i'm just happy that we're that we made it here to the uh to the
002final you know to the final uh to the final month of school so what i'd like to do right now is congratulate everybody and turn the program over to our superintendent of schools mr anthony department thank you president manga we'll be back i'll get used to the mic it's a great pleasure that i introduce our athletic director mr steven luciano who will come up and talk a little bit about introducing our section one championship softball team mr luciano thank you very much [Applause] [Music] [Applause] year for all of um [Applause] [Music] all the regulations we had to follow um it was a crazy year and the support of the board of ed uh mr sold all the token protocols that you know he helped us with um with all his support um it took all
003of us to make this a successful year and with coven and everything we had to do our athletes were extremely successful this year um in the fall season our girls soccer team won the regional title in the winter season our gymnastics team our girls basketball our girls bowling all won regional titles our girls volleyball team made the regional final our boys basketball team made the regional final spring track we broke numerous school records finished second in the county fifth intersection um we had a golfer making make the all section team if there was a state tournament this year he would have traveled um he would have traveled with the section one team to defeat the state championship so all this craziness we were extremely successful extremely successful and our most successful team this year standing
004behind me they won the very first section one double a softball title in school history this year they had a fantastic season led by coach asante this was a true team they had one goal they stayed together they played together they've been together for a long time it was a very special group to watch there was no distractions they knew what they wanted they worked together and they achieved their goal the only disappointment was the fact that you had to stop the processionals this is the team that would have won a state championship and you know it said that they had to stop at the sectional level but these girls the commitment they showed throughout was i mean the day before the sectional final was prominent they went to prom had fun were responsible came
005back and performed very well in a classic one-nothing 10-inning championship performance to win the sectional title so there's not enough good things i could say about this team i'd love to bring up our coach now who it was absolutely for her leaving section coach christina [Applause] all right thank you to mr luciano and mr dicarlo on the board for having us here tonight saturday was an experience that i will never forget um our demo our wind demonstrated the characteristics that these student athletes encompass which is drive commitment accountability dedication and hard work countless hours at the gym at our open gyms and even staying after practice to work to become the best possible players that they possibly could have been have paid off as a coach you hope to find just one athlete who is
006committed and willing to go the extra mile but i was blessed with 12. these ladies held each other and themselves accountable every single day there wasn't a day that went by without a handful of them staying after to work well after the three hours that we practiced or asking to take equipment home to continue to work dedication and commitment were our core foundation and on saturday we walked off the field reaping the benefits of our hard work and our refusal to settle for anything less than our possible best my seniors you have been here since the start and have tirelessly worked to build this program with me i'm so proud and happy that you get to leave mayor pack high school with that title thank you to our athletic department steve lynn paula brenna our
007grounds crew tim and kevin our board mr dicarlo our administration our teachers our community and our parents for everything that they have done along the way to get us to this point it truly takes a village the support has been amazing thank you all truly from the bottom of our hearts we really appreciate everybody and this has definitely been a whole team win um senior captain michelle donaire senior teresa [Applause] is [Applause] senior dominican senior senior ashley junior junior yeah [Music] sophomore our freshman eva our second freshman [Applause] senior captain lauren [Applause] and our senior captain and patricia [Applause] and then last but not least the person behind the scenes who makes this happen and her passion and dedication to softball um and the constant pressure that this team has been under this entire year
008people don't realize every time you go out on that field everybody's looking to beat you there's a lot of pressure that comes with that and the the class the dignity the respect the resilience that this team showed under the direction of their coach is a true tribute to her so coach de asante thank you from the butt of my heart and thank you [Applause] so okay that's uh something special that i think a community as a superintendent of schools and a board of education is able to do is to acknowledge section one championships especially for the first time softball team and again ladies congratulations on a outstanding job so as we move into the next part of our program you could look at the screens over here we're going to have a presentation by um
009northern westchester boces announcing a student of distinction she couldn't be here tonight but we wanted to honor her and that's ava sharma and boces will tell you a little bit about ava and what she's done over at our boces program thank you good evening this is for students by our staff for outstanding performance and personal wellness i also want to take a moment to thank you for your continued support we value our relationship with the school district and look forward [Music] and has come so far over the past few [Applause] and has become more independent in many areas even now using [Applause] [Music] and responses throughout the day you will often see her laughing during exciting arts and lessons and volunteering for her attorneys in her voice i am so proud [Applause] now i want
010to thank um dr ryan for his presentation and again congratulations to to ava and especially to all the teachers um and uh staff and paraprofessionals that work with her it's just it's an incredible accomplishment to be able to watch that i think touches all our hearts so now i'm going to pull up and introduce miss tricia johnson our advisor for our rice club rice club has a presentation for us tonight thank you okay no problem thank you sorry one second good evening everyone first i'd like to start by thanking the board for giving us a chance to present our club my name is andrea jenkins and i am president of the racial inclusion and cultural empowerment club and today we're presenting to request final board approval to become an official club at mayoftec high school
011so presenting today is myself i was the president in 2019 through 2020 and 2020 through we have chloe chloe low she's our vice president for this year and she's also our secretary for the 1920 school year alex mcaviary was our treasurer this year but unfortunately he was unable to make it and now we have olivia flanagan she is our elected secretary for next year and ayman tour she is our current secretary also for next year we concluded our elections and our elected president for next year will be alex magliari and our elected vice president is eugene thomas and our treasurer is to be determined so rice's purpose and origins the purpose of the rice club is to help african-american caribbean and other students of color feel proud about their cultures and their backgrounds it's also
012here to celebrate our heritages by sharing our culture history and traditions with all students we are here to celebrate our cultural differences and have a welcoming space for students of color to feel safe and accepted around like-minded students so our origins the club was first introduced as the african-american and caribbean club 10 years ago by my sister tiana penn after she graduated the club faltered and was kind of like an idea that bounced around but was never fully put into play when i came into the high school i was interested in starting it and i spoke to miss johnson our advisor and when i reached my sophomore year i was able to gather a group of six students including including chloe and eamonn and we were able to start meeting unofficially although we were not
013an official club to start moving make moves to become an official club and we met with mr calabro we met with dr lawrence and during my junior year we were finally able to start meetings we started club elections where we elected myself eamon chloe as officers and to honor at first we started as the african-american and caribbean club but to broaden our horizons and to honor the diverse group of students here at mhs our name was changed to the racial inclusion and cultural empowerment club so currently we have 20 members we have seniors five juniors and four freshmen our accomplishments throughout our probationary period we held um several instagram lives where we talked about certain topics that were going on in the media whether that would be george floyd's death as well as coveted vaccinations
014and discrimination and racism as well as updating people on the election slash fighting presidency we held our most popular live stream back in the spring of 2020 and it has it has over two interviews and counting we also attempted to do a showing of the hbo documentary chief justice um which explores topics of systemic racism and discrimination in the justice system and we successfully planned the location and date and time for it but we have to reschedule it due to code okay so this is just some of the live streams that we held the first one being the one that we held back in spring of 2020 one that was held after the capital riot uprising back in january as well as updating people about covet and the president um this is me and andrea
015our club president during our presentation slash live stream back in june of 2012. and this is another um live stream we did um with the club organizer scott gossman and um secretary to myself during the live stream we talked about the capital instruction um discussion there on the livestream and this is an example of our monthly live streams live stream that we used to have um and this one's showing dividends so we have some planned events as you know we have instagram live streams which are once a month and we some things we were able to accomplish we were able to attract a diverse group of new members so we're also able to get involved in the community through the ncaa and we're able to use our social media platform to encourage our classmates and
016also we were able to work with the school to organize their events beneficial this club provides a safe space for students of color and another culture our club helps to educate students about different cultures and races we've also installed a relationship between students and different of differences and articulation and culture to form a sense of unity among our classmates space for diverse groups of students to discuss social justice so i just want to say thank you for your support over the last school year through our probationary period and we look forward to encouraging positive change and continuing our work as an official of mhs thank you thank you ladies very much great great job very very much we look forward to you guys becoming a club at mayor pack high school thank you it's now
017with great pleasure that i call up our science department chair miss elizabeth stevens who will present today's super science and tech program awards [Applause] hello everyone thank you for having me here and on behalf of the science department thank you to the board and the community and administration for always supporting us um and specifically to mr de carlo for inviting us here tonight to recognize some scientific achievements achievement if you have ever been to the mayo pack steam fair you may have seen some of the students that we will be presenting tonight it's really a great event this year we were able to do it virtually you know despite the setbacks that we have with the pandemic we are still able to engage many students in the steam car this year which was really an
018awesome experience the past few years we've been able to send mayor pack middle school kids onto the tri-county science fair and so we'll be honoring some of our middle school students tonight as well as some of our high school students who compete in local competitions as part of the science research program and just before i begin thank you to all of the students that have undergone this journey this year i know it's been particularly tough this year and there's been lots of resilience and a lot of dedication that has really surfaced in all of this this year so a real big thank you and round of applause to all of our students that are here tonight and those that are just continuing pursuing their academic pursuits this year it's really been a challenge and they've
019really risen to the uh present to the challenge throughout the building so kudos to all of you [Applause] so first we have casey and phoebe from the middle school who qualified and was able to participate or who was recognized in the tri-county fair this past this past spring [Applause] next up we have alexander gaspar from the high school alexander gaspar from the high school [Applause] and next we have victoria longo from the high school and rebecca muldoon from the high school i need to be able to say your last name and olivia saturn from the high school and from the middle school liam o'brien bergerson and andreas adambrini from the high school and alexa tyberg from the high school thank you again everybody thank you just a couple of important notes that miss stevens and
020the science department does an incredible job in i want to thank the community because this summer we're going to be working on those science labs and actually have our kids in spaces that they should be in to be able to learn the highest quality so i thank you the public that's a part of the bond and to ms stevens the science department and the students thank you for an outstanding job those of you going on to college we wish you the best of luck i'm sure you'll continue in the sciences and do great things thank you very much and have a great night thank you [Applause] boy that was exciting such good is happening in our community and our schools but all right so communication okay so on communications on comments on agenda items we
021didn't have any any comments coming on the agenda items what i'm going to move to some of our housekeeping and we have several motions right here what i'll do right now is can i get a motion to get a motion to accept the treasurer's report for april 2021 motion please adam savino second thank you larry i know tanner was chiming in over there yeah just just no just hit it once okay okay all in favor aye any opposed motion carries second one be the warrants for april 2021 so i moved back in second please second thank you all in favor aye all right closed okay second i heard i heard budget transfers april 2021 there you go there you go thank you mike second please second tana mccracken all in favor aye aye opposed okay
022special meeting minutes of may 5th 2021 a motion to accept please so moved tamp second second larry all in favor all right opposed thank you special meeting minutes of may 11 2021 motion to accept adam savino second tanner all in favor special meeting minutes of may 13 2021 a motion to accept please second a special meeting of may 25th 2021 a motion to accept please so moved tanner mccracken second please thank you ray mcdonough all in favor aye opposed and we have a special meeting minutes of may 26th 2021 a motion to accept please thank you adam savino with a second on lair all in favor aye opposed motion carries i'll turn it over right now to our superintendent of schools anthony de carla for his superintendent report thank you very much president mohangan the
0232021 school year is one we will never forget it's a time to reflect on our resilience as a school district and to thank our students staff families for their adaptability as we navigated through the covit 19 health pandemic the mayor pack central school district and community continued moving forward to support students as we established the new normal during these unprecedented times as we work to serve all with constant health and compassion our teachers and staff adapted to new ways to teach and connect with students our students learn how new methods of connecting with one another and teachers can continue the educational process we all acknowledge that the best teaching is in person and we hope that this fall all students will be back in five days a week with the new guidance surrounding mass usage
024in our buildings we are hoping that governor cuomo will issue an update in early june so we can plan accordingly the students here at mayor pack rose to the occasion at all levels they amazed us with their accomplishments in and outside of the classroom we garnered many regional state and national recognitions in the areas of academics science research athletics arts and music our food service program worked hard providing lunches on a daily basis and weekends to all those in need make no mistake we face many challenges continued state to continue to follow state guidance changes that left us confused and at times perplexed however through these ups and downs we handled it with adaptability and compassion parents continue to be engaged and even more engaged in their child's education this year we hope that this
025will continue and encourage parents to be active in their building ptos not only next year but for many years to come your thoughts ideas are welcome as we plan and develop each building's academic social emotional and a variety of extracurricular programs while things have not been perfect it has been expiring inspiring to me to see the collective effort and i thank you all last but not least to the class of 2021 you have demonstrated a deep-rooted example of your character as individuals and the class as an entire whole to the entire mayor pac community we are proud and we will celebrate you next week as a superintendent of schools i have a deep appreciation for your sacrifices that you have made this year while no words can make up for what had been missed or
026adjusted please know that you will be forever remembered for your resilience and vigor as you navigated through your senior year on behalf of the board of education seated here tonight and i we salute you and we are honored to have had the privilege of educating you over your journey through the mayo pack schools over the last 13 years congratulations as you move on to college and your careers and last but not least to the mayor pac community i appreciate your dedication partnership and look forward to our normal school year coming this fall please have a safe and relaxing summer god bless you and all the best thank you president mountain thank you uh thank you superintendent de carlo we're going to move on to and well said well said sir um moving on to our
027committee reports uh trustee mustafa was not able to join us this evening uh due to a conflict with uh with work um but i do have a uh i do have a brief policy we uh policy committee met on june 7th we reviewed uh for um uh for the five policies that are on this evening's uh consent agenda um to uh to make sure that uh that we were in in uh in line with uh with what the regulations were gonna be required from the state um and then we moved on to our we had hr human resources on june 10th uh where we do a deeper dive into some of this evening's um uh items that are on uh or uh items that are on the consent agenda with regards to human resources the
028retirements the uh um the positions and so on and so forth so uh two good meetings and uh again trustee mustafa was uh uh was uh was not able to make it but did send her regards uh so we'll move on to the other committee reports we have audit uh ben delulo audit sure uh on uh excuse me june 14th of the auto committee met uh sent a president where sandra klohesi assistant superintendent of business myself lucy massafa trustee mike mongan president of the board darren ikobelli partner at noraki smith and richard batulli supervisor at no rocky smith as a quick background new york state law and policy school districts need to conduct two main audits an internal audit and an external audit the internal audit consists of a risk assessment of financial policies and
029business processes as well as testing and evaluating internal controls the external audit is to audit school district financial statements in according with gaap regulations that's generally accepted accounting principles and ensure the financial statements reflect accurate district finances now rocky smith conducted the first part of the internal audit between february and may of 2021 reviewing 21 categories of 92 total business processes including payroll human resources facilities management purchasing information systems pps and transportation among others they have completed and delivered a draft of the internal audit report the second part of the internal audit will be done between june 2021 and extending out to the spring of 2022 and will take a deeper focus on areas such as purchasing payroll and risk assess assessment they will make recommendations for improvements and controls and provide the board with
030estimated time frames the external audit has already begun and is being conducted by benadio group we also had a finance meeting on may 24th which was after the last board of ed meeting the final budget is posted to the district website noted we discussed the federal aid that the district received will be processed it will be processed like a grant such that the initial budget needs to be submitted to new york state and then expenses will be processed against the approved amount and finally uh very good noting moody's rating which is a ratings company that people may have heard of the maya pac central school district has a rating of a uh double double a two which is second to highest so that is generally is very very good it's investment grade and we should
031be congratulated on that high of a rating and it it shows that our credit credit worthiness and credit quality is extremely is extremely good and that's very important when you're looking to go out and borrow borrow funds that's it that concludes the report thank you oh thank you ben i'm sorry sorry ben you want to just jump right into finance then yeah i kind of covered it so the second part of that was just the uh i'll repeat so i'll tell you what i'll just go through the the reports that we just approved it is a very good way of looking at our finances every single transaction of the district makes are in those reports so um in terms of looking at what what we're doing with our money you can actually go through these
032reports and see exactly what's being done uh at the absolute most my new detail so i just want to compliment santa claus has the inner team for those reports that are coming in every month so i appreciate that and the district appreciates that that's it president morgan okay thank you very much uh trustee delulo all right so um all right so we have a consent agenda and what i'd like to do right now is uh we're going to uh in a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda we've got 10. yeah i'd like to make a motion to remove subject b off the consent agenda memorandum of agreement with upsu okay subject b is removed from the uh from the consent agenda um so moved can i get a second on that thank you uh trustee
033savino all in favor aye aye thank you okay can i have a motion to accept the consent lot agenda minus b i can do that right thank you second all in favor aye all right okay the um i'd like to do right now is the upsu let's go to go to b and this is the memorandum of agreement resolved resolved upon recommendation the superintendent of schools the board of education hereby approves the memorandum of agreement entered into between the mayapac central school district and the united public service employees union administrative unit on june 9 2021 they have a motion to approve and a second second can i do a roll call vote please roll call vote abstain yes thank you very much and congratulations to the uh to the uh upsu clerical unit um if
034you don't mind if you don't mind president mongol i'd like to have uh our assistant superintendent for human resources deborah logato come up and introduce after the board just to prove the consent agenda um one of our new administrators roshan cato botswani if you wouldn't mind ms legato thank you good evening everyone wonderful to be back in person uh it's been a while so anyway this evening i have the uh pleasure to introduce to the mayor pac community our new administrator for secondary special education rashaan rashaan comes to us from the new berks city schools where she serves as a supervisor of exceptional learners in grades five to twelve her prior experiences which are many include serving as a literacy coach for the harlem children's zone and an instructional coach for the bronx writing academy
035michonne has over seven years of experience as a secondary teacher in both english and literacy she's a graduate of pace university where she's earned her master her bachelor's degree and bank street college where she's earned her master's she's currently a doctoral candidate at russell sage college in their educational leadership program rashaan brings a wealth of experiences and we are really excited to welcome her to mayor pack schools rashaan thank you everyone thank you ms legato and rashad welcome okay so it's time for our uh our resident comment portion right now um and again congratulations uh rashaan great uh welcome to the team great to have you here in the hope pack so we'll go resident comments we have our first resident comment up for this evening would be jack mata jack uh i'd like to
036echo what uh legato says good to be here in person uh i didn't prepare anything i just took notes so i'm going to go off the cuff i hope it comes out right i'm going to do a year-end review mr carl and his report he did a year in review so i'd like to give a little your review for us also better can you hear me so i hope this school year really opened the eyes to the district not just to the board not just administration but to the parents also this was a trying time like mr mccarthy didn't say right it was and we had a lot of parents that came together and stuck together and really um we made new friendships but i really hope the district opened their eyes to how we
037need to roll business from now on we all need to work together you can see with the fifth grade uh moving up ceremony we weren't happy we voiced our opinion we're having a moving up ceremony now a legit one it's what we should be doing we need to start thinking out of the box i've said this all right it's no secret i mean i ran for the board of ed i didn't win uh and i said it then we need to start thinking outside of the box you can't always just go with the mold you have sometimes you need to break the mold that's how life is future plans budget whatever it is we need to really move forward and work together um one downfall and i'm speak for a lot of the parents because
038they they're not here and and someone's got to do it a lot of people are not happy that the budget mailing came home after the vote completely unacceptable i'm sorry we all know if it's a mailing issue we all know in this country mailing has been a problem since covert happened we should have been ahead of the game and we weren't and that that's that's not good the school rankings um mr keane i would like to thank you trustee keen for at the meeting the other night mentioning it because i talked about that a lot when i ran and i've had conversations with a few people about the rankings and if they're not being done right or if they're not accurate they're not they're not right let's work together with other districts and let's try
039to change how these ranking rankings go if mayor pack is a lot better than a 423 like i said let's prove it let's let's change things um and one thing that happened all year right i remember uh everyone mr carly said we have to advocate to the politicians we have to advocate to politicians thank you because the other night we all texted each other and when you said that you would try to formulate a letter to send to governor cuomo to try to change things i'm thanking you for all of us because we've been doing it all year and we can't do it alone you have power here also and with you and us together we can do what we need to do and that's the point so thank you finally for you're coming with
040us and and get a fight with us with this one so thank you i do appreciate that we all appreciate that um just trying to look at my notes i apologize i know that plans have not changed yet from governor cuomo but when are we going to start planning for september we all want five days back full in person no mass whatever it is let's not wait till the last week of august to get this figured out it's june let's do it now parents everyone we're engaged you guys are engaged let's do it everyone together let's not wait let's not wait through the summer let's do it now let's plan for any outcome like i told you all i had to do it at my job we were changing things on the fly i have
041no problem i didn't win the election but i'm not going anywhere i'm here i i yeah open the can of worms and i'm not going anywhere now so and i'm i'm going to be here to help you i'm going to be here to help the families that's that's that's my uh that's my plan so i thank you tonight um and i hope we can move forward and work together in the future thank you great chat thank you great jack thank you very much okay chris harrigan chris come on up good evening everyone um i just want to echo what uh christopher harrigan by the way um i just want to echo what jack was saying uh there's a great group of parents that got together throughout this whole thing um and we're just motivated and
042we want to be involved and i'm to just read from my prepared thing this year in particular may pack students and parents are excited about the end of the school year i know my son is excited he's been in mayo pack schools for the past six years and we've truly loved all of his teachers and the school years ago he even received some learning interventions prior to kindergarten which came as a welcome surprise to my wife and i i was a big proponent of mayo pack schools i say was because this pandemic and the school district's response to it has soured my opinion of the mayo pac central school district i'm sure i'm not alone in feeling this way and also being upset with how the school district handled a few issues this year as
043we all know in the fall of 2020 students want a hybrid schedule going to school two three times a week uh this forced parents to become part-time teachers um i don't think i need to reiterate the strain that i put on a lot of families both financially and emotionally and i i i could speak for an hour on that we could probably have you know 100 people come up and talk about how tough it was um and it's let's not rehash that but a group of parents got together because of this right kid they wanted their children in school children were falling behind in their studies and their social and mental health was deteriorating this group of parents asked to be involved to perhaps form a parents committee or something similar they were denied and
044we were getting and maybe the district was getting conflicting information but fingers were being pointed in every direction all right putnam county department of health no it's the new york state board of education it's the cdc it seemed whatever governing body was in favor of keeping our kids on a hybrid schedule was the one that was being favored not just by the district but by the state in general because i am well aware that we can't go against state guidelines i'm well aware of that um for those parents that aren't aren't aware we those group of parents push for a greater transparency in the may impact school board's decision and i'm sure that most residents here aren't aware but there was an attempt by the school board to have the community comment section this section
045right here dropped from the meetings and this would silence parents and community members and keep from keeping them from having a voice in their children's education all the money and taxes that is paid into the school district the money that for the teachers and administration and for the education of our children and the board sought to silence us this is truly appalling behavior from an elected body in february 2021 parents learned that the mayor pac central school district did not have a plan to return to full-time in-person instruction or if there was a plan it was not well known to the to the parents in the district it was only when a group of parents got together we started questioning and demanding that their children return to school and then a a plan was hastily
046put into place this is the most disheartening part of this whole year parents had to organize do research email different county and state departments hang out on the steps of putnam county courthouse in 20 degree weather just to fight to get their children back into school when i moved here i heard so many wonderful things about the manipeck schools and how that blue ribbon schools if that is the case why did we have to fight so hard to get an education for our children education is essential not optional i like most parents i assumed up until february that the district was doing everything they could do to get our children back full-time and sadly this was not the case another topic of concern or the it was is the mayor pac teachers association well i
047know that individual teachers are not to blame most parents are wondering what the influence of the mayor pack teachers association is in this whole past year around the country in cities like los angeles and chicago we saw the teachers unions there actively fighting the return to the classroom and across the country there are still some districts that have not returned so i i will commend the mayor pack school district four for getting us back on track and that's you know to see other schools that aren't even back is is a whole other issue but we see these places like los angeles chicago teachers union fighting add to this the cozy relationship that the american federation of teachers has with the cdc where if i don't know if people are aware of this the cd cdc
048guidelines some of them were adopted verbatim from the american federation of teacher emails parents see this occurring around the country and they have to ask is this union mayor pack teachers union acting this way in our town as well another area of disappointment we touched on it before is the mask issue i understand mayor pack schools need to follow certain health guidelines in this area but we find a lack of advocacy advocacy from the district disconcerting at this point we know to require mask i mean this is this is like the last place in new york state where we have to wear a mask kids can go mask list they're going to go mask this all summer in the summer camps we need to have some kind of plan for the fall we have other
049school districts in new york and i know we talked about the letter that's being written we're up to 30 at this point in new york state that have written letters to governor cuomo again we're not asking mayor pack school to go against state guidelines but we just want all that parents are looking for some support and representation from the district parents and students have been very patient in this whole process we understand there was much uncertainty in the beginning of the pandemic it's been 15 months and our students are at least six months behind in their education they're forced to wear mass and think of their fellow classmates as possible disease vectors parents are standing up for their children when will our district and our teachers join us in this fight what else needs to
050be taken away from these students before the district advocates for them thank you for your time thank you mr harrigan um uh carolyn emerson carolyn come on up good evening i come as a mother of a second grader in your district she's autistic adhd she requires very personal personalized care in the school system this school system this school year i'm sorry has been a complete failure a failure to the parents as well as to her online learning was a disaster for us the frustration anger tears and the letdown of her not being able to see her friends with a nightmare we as a community know you have failed us you have failed to provide us with excellence instead of being leaders you have sadly chosen to be followers we expect the best and our children
051deserve the best if this challenge is too much i ask that you give up your seat to someone who will take the challenge many parents have been forced to seek private schools to educate their children because of their own public schools of its felonies masks have changed our children for the worst it has made children afraid timid anxious this sadly won't let up until you let these muscles lock these shoulders masks are not a rule or a law it is a recommendation i recommend you let the parents decide what they want to do with their children our children will not be forced to vaccinate with a vax that isn't fda approved and causing so many ailments if not death i have spoken to many parents whose children have cried for days over these nets at
052what point in time does this become child abuse we are going to be very vigilant in what goes on with our children we are going to be very vigilant in what our children are being taught crt critical race theory will not be accepted on any level or we will not support it thank you very much for your time thank you carolyn gianna ortega gianna come on up okay do you know okay she's not outside she's not here okay all right okay so with that uh thank everybody for for being here this evening and coming in and sharing yeah sure come on up can you say your name please yep um hi my name is maggie traynor i'm a parent in the district of four children um i'm also a social worker and currently working on
053the fema program new york project hope which some of you might have heard counseling very much so children impacted emotionally by the pandemic it hit home today for me all right i want to back up because i don't want to get upset i also have so i have four children the older two pretty gifted smart kids my oldest is an eighth grader national junior honor society recipient competitive swimmer ticks all the boxes my youngest child has an iep for dyslexia this school year has been particularly challenging and i have been out thousands of dollars in additional funding out of my own pocket for tutoring to pick up the gaps where remote learning has failed her this district could have followed suit with other districts in the state and chosen not to follow certain guidelines we
054could have been like chappaqua and our k-5 children could have been since the fall full in person this district chose not to follow those guidelines similar to many upstate schools so that's one point i wanted to make the true failure for the k-5 education for the kids remote learning sucked it didn't work i i can go on about that what brought me here tonight and what has truly opened my eyes to what's going on this is a systemic problem throughout the state my eighth grader this morning i got a phone call and i'll look at your parents because you guys can relate to this my older two girls got on the school bus the middle school principal called me introduced himself and said is molly and megan on the school bus today and i said
055why yes why wouldn't they be i was told oh they were contact traced you should have been called yesterday oh well i was not called yesterday you need to get to the school now and pick them up no i can't get to the school and pick them up right now because i have two other children that i have to get on the bus to lakeview they can stay there until i can come pick them up what i wish i said is the district should have bus them back to their home then which i didn't was caught off guard went over and this is not default the principal lovely man didn't have an issue with that my two children were held in the office sent out to me the principal and i and the kids talked
056outside the building and were told that was their last day for the rest of the school year i have an eighth grader at home a basket case right now a top student in this district who cannot attend monday's moving up ceremony she cannot take or now the district is working with me take her to advanced regents courses exams next week because she's contact traced i asked can she test out on monday so she can attend she's the only eighth grader who cannot go to this ceremony on monday i am pissed why do we have to follow these guidelines and i know this goes beyond just the district this you want to talk this is what all the district talks about social emotional learning social emotional learning this is who i am counseling day in and
057day out the effects of this pandemic has had on these kids i had four children who didn't have any social emotional issues a year and a half ago now i have a few and specifically one right now whose life has been crushed in the world of a 14 year old i said to her you know what molly maybe i'll have them put a monitor up there on the stage on monday so you're not the only kid who's going to miss out in your class we can see you she ball crying she's not left her bed all afternoon she said to me that's so embarrassing mom please don't do that it is not fair i wanted to speak my piece and i also wanted to bring up the failure for the k-5 program and i feel
058the pain of the woman who was here a minute ago that is so sad it should not have happened and if you're going to follow the science look at the numbers why didn't we make those changes sooner thank you very much for the comment okay all right so with that what i'd like to do right now is entertain a motion to close this meeting please so move thank you tanner second second or ben and adam all in favor