Monroe-Woodbury Board of Education Regular Meeting - August 25, 2021

001okay good evening call to order the regular meeting of the board of education for august 25th 2021 we are motioning to adjourn the public portion of the meeting and convene into executive session for the purposes of discussion of contracts may i have a motion emotion second okay all those in favor aye aye meeting adjourned into executive session good evening we are going to reconvene into regular session calling back to order the august 25th 2021 regular meeting of the board of education will everyone please rise for the pledge to the flag 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 just one housekeeping note mr jamal evans is unable to join us this evening

002so he is not in attendance and our student board representative uh omar mosker is enjoying his last bit of summer prior to senior year and he will join us at our september meeting our mission statement we are committed to academic achievement and success for all students in a safe environment in partnership with families and our community our mission is to promote confidence inspire a passion for learning and to prepare our students to become responsible global citizens may i have a motion to approve the revised agenda emotion second all those in favor questions and comments from interested citizens we have a handful here this evening i just like to remind everybody i know that miss vitucci sent the speakers an email this evening we do have policy our policy is 30 minutes total so we will

003hope to try to get to everybody but i don't think that we will based on the number of speakers that we have you are restricted to three minutes of speaking i do ask that you be respectful of that so that we can move on to the next speaker you will hear miss vitucci with um the dinging of a bell and at that point i do ask that you wrap up and excuse yourselves that we can move on to the next speaker we will start this evening with michael egan who is speaking on the 2021-2022 back to school plan regarding vaccination requirements and i just should note that you can step over here to the podium please oh excuse me it's over there to my left and they are going to spray and they're going to

004spray and yes um i'm sorry we're back doing what we had done previous with covet protocols so when you're finished mr egan prior to the next speaker coming up just give us one moment because the custodial staff will go ahead and clean the podium thank you okay so am i on yes go ahead yeah my name is michael egan i live in monroe thanks for the opportunity to speak i will come in under my time limit easily i want to speak about um back to school policy and a common sense policy regarding vaccination of our children under 12 are unvaccinated a very significant percentage probably majority of our children who are 12 to 18 are unvaccinated allowing unvaccinated adults into a school district building will bring the virus into the building it is exactly akin

005to bringing a fox into a hen house we don't have to do that in fact a solution of common sense solution is obvious and in fact has been become the policy of hundreds if not thousands of private industry companies public institutions in fact now the city of new york's department of education the solution is to just prohibit unvaccinated adults from coming in a building it's very simple importantly the solution does not permit unvaccinated uh adults to come in if they test negative on some covet test regimen if you really think about that it doesn't work a unless they get tested every day before they come in and get the result which is not going to happen but also it really if you really think about it what it's doing is it's enabling and encouraging people

006to not get vaccinated but don't want to get vaccinated why would we do that so i cannot imagine an employee of the school district or any organization representing the employees of the school district who would not 100 percent wholeheartedly endorse that policy because i'm sure that in all cases for all those people their primary objective their fundamental most basic objective is the safety of the children as is the school board and i hope you'll consider it and adopt it thank you thank you i'll take the time now to thank the high school for hosting us again and for the custodial staff for setting everything up and cleaning everything for us it's good to be back at the high school where it's ac so thank you for hosting us this evening our next speaker this evening

007is eileen collopy who will be speaking on the mask mandate and children's health and social needs good evening i just want to start with something that i read last night and honestly i don't pick up my bible enough i don't open it enough but i felt called to just open and this is the page that i opened to and this is what i read if i speak without love i am a noisy gong or a clang symbol and i thought what has been going on in our world what's been going on in our schools what's been going on in our lives is noise protests hatred mandates control fear it's not from god it's not from love it's from evil and i think we have to stand up for these kids these kids aren't having a

008childhood i heard love i heard love in my street the other day because i have three new neighbors they moved in and within minutes they were friends they were playing they were smiling they weren't masks they are different religions different cultures nobody cares it's the way we grew up you went to school you got an education plain old reading writing and arithmetic no agendas you made friends you were friends with the people who you got along with the best no one looked at anyone's color no one looked at anything they were just friends and these kids should come back in person and they should get an education a neutral one but one without a mask because what's missing is the child's face they need to see their friends they can't read eyes they can't read

009these social cues we have a hard time as adults i mean you can't expect them to go in and be social and make friends when they can't see people it's not right and i investigated a little more on the masks because i need lc as our superintendent to speak up to the governor and say monroe woodbury parents want a choice some people might want their child in a mask i don't i looked at the research and the contaminants in the mask are disgusting i try to raise my kids healthy i give them vitamins i feed them good food i try to do everything and the filth that's in those masks the bacteria the parasites the e coli the strep it's disgusting and then i thought let me go back a little farther before covet existed

010before the lies and the he said she said stuff was on the internet and prior to this in the journal of orthopedics they studied the mask of a surgeon because he was the only one up until now that's been in a mask for seven or eight hours a day and there was bacteria back before covid and they recommended that the surgeon change his mask every 90 to 120 minutes preferably 90. wasn't mandated it was recommended but that was to protect that patient from the surgeon's germs in his mask all the bacteria i don't want my kid breathing that in i want him to have friends i want him to have an education i don't want him in this mask and all these poor children we need a choice and like i said there's probably parents

011that want it we ask you to speak up on behalf and say my child doesn't belong to new york state unfortunately the truth is they don't belong to you either they belong to us and we need to be able to speak up for our own children thank you [Applause] the next speaker will be cynthia walsh and she will be speaking on mask mandates hi my name is cynthia walsh i'm a resident of the monroe-woodbury school district and a mother of two i'm here today to tell you why i'm opposing the mass mandates on children there's many studies that show wearing a mask for long periods of time can cause negative effects some of the negative effects are shortness of breath headaches and negatively affect the work performance feeling lightheaded it lowers the oxygen levels on

012the blood it can raise carbon dioxide levels to the blood it weakens the immune system it can cause development in chronic respiratory conditions the use of cloth mat can increase the risk of getting other types of respiratory infections moisture is captured in the mass from sweat naturally a person's mouth has bacteria that can be trapped in the mass which then can travel to the mask and to the children's lungs i don't want that i don't want my children bring that all day acne and rash i know you will say that you want to follow the science so i also point out some facts according to the cdc kids between the ages of 0 and 18 during the flu season there was 477 fatalities in 2018 for the flu in the u.s 434 fatalities in 2019

013and in 2020 won now let's go to covet according to the cdc in 2020 till today has it has been 434 cover fatalities for kids between the ages of zero and 18. my question is where did the flu go according to the cdc the survival rate for covert for kids between the ages of zero and 18 is 99.997 percent the flu affects the kids wars in the covet yet we never had to put our kids through this do you think kids like wearing masks all day while they play indoors or outdoors or have to do gym class during music class my daughter doesn't she hates wearing a mask it's very uncomfortable to her she even has to wear a mask during her after school activities when she has to go to dance is insanity obligating

014my child to wear a mask that she doesn't want to get an education is cruel and child abuse our jobs as parents is to make sure our kids are happy and safe we know kobe doesn't affect the children as much so we know they are safe but now we have to work together so we can they can grow happy wearing a mask gives kids a sense of file security because even with a mask on they can catch the cold the flu or other bacteria or germs i am asking all of you to work with the parents and try to make this mandate optional i should have the right to make the decision for my child i am speaking on behalf of heart today the science shows that wearing a mask can be ineffective and it

015has negative impact for my children whether it's physically emotionally or psychological here's an important thought as well we go to our restaurant and we sit down with friends and family members and take our mask what can the kids do that when they're on their desk in their learning maybe that could be an option thank you thank you our next speaker is bernie vega who she will be speaking about masks and she is speaking on behalf of septa no she's not oh i'm sorry it says here i know no okay sorry acceptable she's not speaking on behalf of scepter i i'm not speaking on behalf of it okay got it thank you but just for yourself go ahead thank you all right good evening board of education and cabinet my name is bernie vega and i'm

016a parent of two monroe woodbury students as a parent when i seek to make decisions on their education path i can't i consult with various specialists in the field when seeking medical advice i seek experts in the medical profession as well this evening i will be reading an email from two monroe woodbury proud graduates of the class of 2006. we are um we are writing this letter to you as former students of the monroe woodbury school district and current physicians who have been on the front line during the coven 19 pandemic while we all value civil civil liberties and freedom the pandemic has posed grave and dire challenges that must be met with appropriate precautions we have both seen the unfortunate reality of young patients passing away from kovid an even larger number are still

017suffering with some of the long lasting effect effects today still their numbers are dwarfed by the number of middle and advanced age adults that have either passed away or been permanently disabled from covid19 infections throughout the entire pandemic one thing has never been clear but has been one thing has been clear masks work they work to protect everyone whether they be the kids in school or the parents and grandparents at home studies have shown that in schools that have remained open during the pandemic those that participate in mitigation efforts like mass use have significantly low rates of outbreak there is no disputing the health care resources are scarce icu's across the country are filling up this is not this not only possesses a risk for those severely ill with covid but also those patients severely

018ill with other conditions that require icu level of care can you imagine going to the hospital with appendicitis and not being able to be admitted because the medical unit has been turned into a covidward or a parent requiring admission to the trauma icu after a near fatal car accident that can't be admitted because we've lost so many health care workers that we don't have enough nurses to take care of them this is a sad reality across much of the country with the rise of the delta variant and the coming school year we risk having the same things happen again in new york state we value individual liberties and freedom we don't want people to live in fear by definition every pandemic has an end and this one will be no different wearing a mask can

019help students and their loved ones at home safe until that ends the school district has a responsibility to keep students safe we are asking that you maintain your current plan to have students mask in school do it for the children and do it for the health care workers across america who are now entering a third year of fighting this deadly virus we are not invincible and have already lost so many by dr desmond sutton md medical director labor and delivery assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology in mount sinai west hospital and darien sutton medical analyst for abc news and attending emergency medicine at kaiser thank you [Applause] our next speaker is casey capen supporting universal masking and she is speaking on behalf of mwta good evening superintendent board of education and cabinet members my name

020is casey capen and i'm the executive vice president of the monroe-woodbury teachers association on behalf of the mwta i am here tonight to speak in support of universal indoor masking for students faculty and staff recognizing that there are strong opinions on both sides of the issue we fully understand that there may a strong be there may be a strong disagreement with this position and we respect those that have a difference of opinion on this issue it is our hope that monitor woodbury can be a model for how people can disagree yet still come together for the common good the members of the mwta want nothing more than to have uninterrupted in-person learning for our students five days a week we believe that in-person learning is best for both students and teachers we are very much

021looking forward to being with full classrooms of students just one week from today it is for that reason we strongly support universal indoor masking the american academy of pediatrics cdc and nyset have all concurred that this approach is the best way to maintain in-person learning especially for those students who are not old enough to be vaccinated the best defense for this virus for those who are eligible is to get vaccinated and we urge those who are eligible to do so in the absence of full vaccination and in light of the more contagious delta variant universal masking is a critical component of the layered mitigation that is needed to mitigate the spread of covid19 in our schools fundamentally we want our students their families and members of our community to be as safe as possible based

022upon the data we believe that universal masking was effective in our buildings last year and should continue to be a part of our strategy to keep in-person learning in place the last thing we want is to have large numbers of students and staff quarantined or long periods of remote instruction as we are seeing in schools that have masks optional we would like to thank the superintendent and the district for taking this necessary action that continues to prioritize in-person learning and the health and safety of everyone in the community during this difficult time thank you [Applause] our next speaker it is ethan strawinski i apologize if i'm not pronouncing your name correctly um and he is speaking on eye-opening and critical race theory on behalf of himself all right members of the board of education the

023cabinet superintendent rodriguez and members of the public some of you are already familiar with me but for those of you who are not i am ethan cherwinski i'm a monroe woodbury graduate from the class of 2019 and truth be told i did not see myself attending another one of these school board meetings however i feel compelled to address some of the remarks made by members of our community during the public comment at the previous meeting on july 28th particularly i would like to address several of the comments made about critical race theory eye-opening enterprises and efforts to improve equity in our schools and in our community as a whole i first want to state that i believe those who came to speak out on these topics at the prior meeting were making a well-intentioned effort

024to better the district which i can commend however many of the comments made about critical race theory were extraordinarily misinformed and loaded with inflammatory rhetoric as such i believe this is a good opportunity to discuss what critical race theory is and perhaps more importantly what it is not critical race theory is an approach to studying american history with a focus on the intersection of the construct of race and american institutions as you may tell from its definition this is not a simple task which requires those who are engaged in its practice to think critically about about complex topics i believe that students should be learning how to take nuanced information process it and come to defensible conclusions based on that information this is not just a history class skill but a life skill several of

025the speakers at the previous meeting voiced concerns that critical race theory would only teach children to hate each other and to hate themselves this is simply not true one of the core principles of critical race theory as a method is to take individuals out of racism and examine how racism is built into american institutions and governments policies of slavery jim crow and housing discrimination were not the results of individuals and their actions and especially not the results of the children and teens in our schools these practices were enacted by institutions and the motivating factors are more complicated than just a few villains from history many distinct social and economic factors contributed to the historically racist practices of american institutions one of the overarching goals of critical race theory is to try and figure out what

026those factors may have been in the past and hopefully to prevent those factors from creating an environment that fosters racism in american institutions going forward the alternative approach which some speakers at the prior meeting advocated for is a colorblind education which preaches american exceptional exceptionalism and fails to confront the complex history of race and american institutions a colorblind teaching of history ignores the historical impact that the construct of race has had and continues to have on american society one example of this difference in the classroom can be seen in the teaching of the declaration of independence and the u.s constitution sorry i'm sorry i'm going to keep going those documents were inspired by enlightenment principles of liberty and equality and secured for all american in americans their quote unquote god given rights as one speaker

027at the prior meeting put it i'm going to keep going i'm sorry but i'm going to stop you for the sake of time because we do have several other speakers but as i've stated in previous meetings if you do have anything else that you'd wish for us to hear our email addresses are posted on the district website and you are more than welcome to go ahead and send us an email with the rest of your thoughts including the documents that you have i will be doing that i would like to just uh state on the record that is on the record that you have let people spew misinformation at prior meetings well beyond their deadline well we're working on getting that under control and keeping to the three-minute time so i appreciate you honoring that

028thank you very much [Applause] our next speaker is lorraine loaning she will be speaking on eye-opening and systemic racism and she is speaking on behalf of herself hello my name is lorraine loning and i am a district resident there's a lot to unpack from the july 28 public comment portion of the board of ed meeting but tonight i want to specifically respond to a speaker who asked the board to tell one example of systemic racism in the district spoken like someone who has no idea what systemic racism is not an individual event it is not something that is done by an individual or perhaps not even a district it's bigger than that it is something that is baked into the cake and just cooks in the background and it is also ubiquitous it is so

029ubiquitous that you might not even know it is happening unless you are experiencing it or looking for it let's do a little exercise ask your child ask yourself what grade were you in when your first teacher was a person of color do you have that answer now ask your children and ask yourself out of all your teachers in your school career what percentage of teachers were people of color if you're like me or my kids those numbers are alarmingly small and because of that we missed out on having a richer education research suggests that having educators of color as professional role models in schools benefits all children all students and society in several ways including reducing the likelihood that any student will grow up to harbor implicit bias against individuals from other racial backgrounds using

030the freedom of information act i requested data that this district reports to the state ed detailing detailing the race of staff members mr kravitz the assistant superintendent of hr was nice enough to reach out to me and let me know that current data wouldn't be available for another few weeks and i agreed to wait for that data rather than getting old information but since i don't have current information specific to this district i'll use state data and figure that this district is not too dissimilar from other suburban districts in the state according to the new york state education department educated diversity report from december 2019 new york state's student population has become increasingly diverse with the population of students of color topping 50 percent while the racial and ethnic composition of the teacher work for

031our force has remained constant only 20 percent of teachers statewide are people of color i look forward to receiving that data from mr kravitz that i requested regarding the race of teachers but based on a quick survey of my monroe woodbury kids and their friends i think 20 teachers of colors might be an optimistic number this low number of people of color in teaching is self-perpetuating representation matters when a child sees someone who looks like them doing important jobs it means that career is attainable if you are a little boy or a little girl and you do not see any teachers that look like you these careers can seem unattainable and not an available option to you that means fewer students of color going into education fewer students of color graduating with degrees in education

032and ultimately fewer people of color getting hired a terrible cycle so to the speaker from the last meeting that is how systemic racism works not one instance in time when a racist act takes place that some might even recognize as racism thank you [Applause] our next speaker is janet steltz she will be speaking on monroe-woodbury culture curriculum and eye-opening enterprises [Music] okay i brought my timer too so i don't go over all right thank you very much um so overall uh the the main topic obviously is critical race ethereal critical theory having to do with all three topics you just read off a slight shift here and the fact that one just a quick comment i heard earlier about the history of critical race theory really is rooted in critical theory which is originates from

033a man named herbert marcus who was a german communist back in the 1930s critical theory is basically like and it's an ideological master key like a locksmith would have and it allows to penetrate into any system you could put critical race critical gender critical political theory you could put anything in the middle of it the point is division dividing people into group after group after group and keep dividing people so they pitied it against each other opposing one group against the other and that makes things almost impossible to unify and heal just want to put that out there as far as it being a history the uh author of the 1619 project which is the the peanut butter to the jelly of crt nicole hannah jones smith herself said this is not a history and

034i quote her from her own twitter feed 1619 project is not a history and again this goes hand in hand with critical race theory they're one in the same they are preaching the same thing here it is a work of journalism that expects explicitly seeks to challenge the national narrative and therefore the national memory the project has always been as much about the present as it is about the past okay so let's talk about all of history there's a great misconception out there where people think that more conservative minded people are not interested in talking about slavery in the classroom or teaching the full history of the us that could not be further from the truth we do want the fullness of history taught the whole picture not just cherry-pick things that vilify white people

035or especially to white males or where oppressors the other kids are oppressed it's the constant labeling that leads to this constant division within our children within our workplaces and within our country so leading things down you have a vocabulary you hear the same word you hear all the time you hear critical race theory or culturally responsive training anything that has to do with teaching people that you're different you're oppressed you're an oppressor you have white privilege look at the color of your skin kids were never so obsessed with the color of their skin until this all started to re-emerge okay teaching good character teaching love and acceptance based on what again we've all heard thank you martin luther king said it best and i'm sorry if it's being said too much but the content of

036one's character okay colorblindness is not a problem that's the solution that is now being dismantled by re-conjuring up this problem again so that it doesn't get healed it's a way to keep people divided let's talk about those differences let's talk about the but then move toward a solution okay we don't want to okay okay last sentence is as i leave sorry is that there will be an open forum oh my gosh i'm so sorry sorry about that okay um we will be doing an open forum to have an open conversation with everybody and we would like to have this conversation with both sides so that we can finally start communicating with each other and stop hating on each other thank you thank you [Applause] our last speaker of the evening will be crystal bradley she

037will be speaking on i enterprise excuse me eye-opening enterprises she's speaking on behalf of herself good evening thank you um thank you to the board and to the community i'm a mother of two children in the monroe-woodbury school district and i won't get into it because of time but we've had a wonderful experience thus far and we are so grateful to all of the staff and the community that's made it such a great learning experience the reason i wanted to share tonight is in response to the july school board meeting eye-opening enterprises and concern expressed about critical race theory i want to share that i am in support of the efforts the district is making with eye-opening enterprises it appears to me that the purpose of the program is to both support the health mental

038health and overall health of teachers staff and students and to help both really see and hear and validate each other and i think that this includes discussing and valuing culture race ethnicity gender identity ability class and all the other isms it also seeks to consider the effect of trauma and to teach resilience and stress management i know that dr pickens is here tonight with us and we'll be presenting so i don't want to you know speak for him but there's been a lot of talk about conflating his program with critical race theory as far as what i can see and i couldn't see anywhere in anywhere that i looked as far as the website um introduction in the the school board that his program is explicitly critical race theory program however if we're using that

039term to generalize as a blanket term teaching any american history society institutions from a race-based perspective then i believe our children should be taught this i'm not an expert i'm coming from a place of someone that's also continuing my journey of learning and growing and that is my intention but i want my children to be provided with an honest multicultural and not whitewashed version of american history and this includes exploring and critiquing systems of racism white supremacy oppression and inequality and it also i believe should include the efforts that have been made and are currently happening as far as current movements to teach us about improving this and to work to improve our society i believe that having integrating this into our children's education will help our kids to better be equipped to have these

040conversations moving forward they are our hope for a better more just equal inclusive future for our society i think we should trust that our teachers and our children can navigate these conversations in a way that will not create division but rather potentially create an increased sense of inclusion safety healing and a reduction in the harm that can often be done often unintentionally but still can be done based on a lack of understanding and truly seeing the humanity in another and they're going to make mistakes we're going to make mistakes it's difficult it's challenging but i think that when you make mistakes and trying to grapple with all of these issues that are happening and that have happened for centuries that will learn and grow i think that that's my time thank you [Applause] thank you

041i'm sorry but we have policy that we stick to the 30 minutes we can look we can take a vote [Applause] can i have a motion to allow for one more speaker motion second second second all those in favor aye the last speaker of the evening is samantha robertson who will be speaking on behalf of education and she's speaking on behalf of herself [Applause] thank you good evening my name is glenn robertson this is my wife samantha we've lived here for nine years and we have four children in our school district over the last few months we've developed several concerns regarding what's being taught in the classrooms here as an educator myself i am concerned about our children and what they're being exposed to in the classroom and whether they are being educated or indoctrinated

042and as you can see by the evidence of the testimony tonight there are definitely issues that are going on that are seem to be outside the purview of education in the traditional regard to reading writing science and social studies and we have a few questions just back to the basics i'm a mom i just want some simple answers to just clarify and make sure we're on the same page here i'd like the answers to be provided in clear unambiguous language what is the board's definition of education what is the board's definition of indoctrination does the entire board support these two definitions what is the school district's policy regarding indoctrination in the classroom and i'd like to know what are the names and descriptions of the mandatory training monroe woodbury teachers have received in the last

043five years it is our hope that these answers will clarify to us that you remain a board of education and not a board of indoctrination thank you thank you [Applause] we have updates on questions and comments from our previous meeting by mrs rodriguez thank you good evening as it is i'm sorry i didn't hear what he said okay it says good evening as is the district's practice when anyone raises a question to the board of ed or the superintendent we will respond accordingly at our next meeting first i want to let every let you know that the school district values the opinions and insights of all their stakeholder groups underlying important work we do are the connections and eventual discussions that come when people feel comfortable sharing at the july 28 board meeting several community

044members expressed their concerns about curriculum and the work that we are doing with eye-opening enterprises board of education meetings are not conducive to these types of discussions this conversation deserves a more thoughtful approach where all parties can engage in a genuine dialogue i will be reaching out to representatives to schedule a meeting a forum to give this the time that it deserves on july 28 we had a total of seven speakers there were several questions that had to do with critical race theory crt is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old it emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 70s and 80s critical race theory is not synonymous with eye-opening enterprise bridge ticker program which stands for building trauma informed and culturally responsive connections in the classroom this

045is not a curriculum it is professional development for our staff dr hassell will speak about the district's book selection and the process for curriculum later on we will have dr pickens present on the program its mission and the work he is doing with the teachers and staff i would like to share some background regarding student programs such as oveas and safe school ambassadors that we have implemented over the past 17 years and the impact that these programs have had on our students these programs never stated that they would eradicate bullying however their goal was to reduce existing bullying problems among students help prevent the development of new bullying problems and achieve better peer relations at school safe school ambassadors started in the early 2000 in grades six through twelve it is a program for student

046that focuses on improving school climate and safety by changing social norms this program selects socially influential students from diverse backgrounds they are equipped and empowered to safely intervene when their witness bullying cyber bullying or other other forms of mistreatment or harmful behaviors both programs have helped to shape a culture and school where our students are willing to report more bullying and harassment behaviors and and not remain as bystanders it gives students the tools on how to handle conflicts with their peers these students have taken a proactive approach in building relationships and have helped diffuse potentially volatile situations within our middle school and high school the cost associated with safe school ambassadors is approximately four thousand dollars for training of 60 students additionally both the middle school and the high school have a safe school ambassador

047advisor and that is a yearly stipend of anywhere between two and six thousand dollars for each advisor our latest program for students in grades pre-k through five which we implemented in 2018 choose love was founded by scarlett lewis she began the choose love movement after her son jesse was murdered during the sandy hook elementary school tragedy in december of 2012. choosing love means choosing to live a life with courage and gratitude practicing forgiveness and being compassionate this curriculum includes a multicultural literature component that teaches diversity social justice and inclusion through literature students learn to appreciate their own cultures as well as those of others engaging in children's literature provides them opportunities to gain perspectives and develop empathy increase social emotional development establish a growth mindset and foster creativities these lessons for students are designed for

048teachers and this program is free the bridge ticker program was introduced to our staff in 2020 it was vetted by members of the reopening committee who strongly believed we needed to respond to these challenging times and provide a social emotional component to the reopening plan the objective of our partnership is to provide support and coping mechanisms through a series of events and workshops which with a focus on resilience the cost of the partnership with eye-opening for the 2020-20 school year was 198 000 and we had a coaster with boces that reduces the cost of these types of professional development programs for example we will receive approximately 78 thousand dollars for the cost of the bridge ticker program programs are chosen through a committee that include various stakeholder holders programs are evaluated for their appropriateness and

049their alignment with the district's mission the district mission is everybody's mission i firmly believe that we all want the same thing for our children it's just a matter of developing a respectful dialogue where everyone's perspectives are heard and valued thank you i'm now going to turn it over to dr hassler mrs rodriguez had to ask that i speak regarding curriculum selection and the creation of curriculum within the school district we follow the new york state education learning standards for each course in each content area as a framework for the curriculum that we develop within the school district this is due in part to many of our classes and courses culminate in some form of standardized assessment that our students are required to participate in even if there is no standardized assessment content areas such as

050music visual arts family and consumer science also follow the new york state learning standards regarding textbook selection a committee is developed to gather various options for textbooks that are going to be considered these options are reviewed by the team and in some cases if there is a large-scale implementation for the textbook we pilot some of those materials once a final selection is made that recommendation then goes to administration in the form of a proposal which includes how that textbook aligns with the new york state learning standards what other books were reviewed in the process and how that textbook will be used it also explores various other resources including online and digital accessibility of those materials once that process is complete the administration then makes a recommendation to the board of education regarding the literature selection

051which is different than textbook we use the american library association school library selection criteria for literature choices and this includes both books for circulation within our school libraries as well as materials that are used with excuse me within our classrooms they outline the general criteria as well as review resources for literature we most commonly use their recommendation of the school library journal to review any literature that we select if you're questioning any material such as a piece of literature i recommend that you start by looking at the american library association selection criteria and using their review sources that they provide other questions regarding literature or any issues regarding instructional material can certainly be directed to either myself or any building administrator and we will review it further regarding the review of curriculum overall i did

052a presentation to the board of education and the community on october 14 2020 last year because of some summer curriculum work that we conducted during the summer of 2020. in that presentation i referred to the cultural responsive sustaining framework published by the state education department in the fall of 2019. the document outlines four overarching areas for districts to focus on in becoming more culturally responsive and the four areas are to create a welcoming and affirming environment to establish high expectations and rigorous instruction to develop inclusive curriculum and assessments and finally to promote ongoing professional learning and support i absolutely encourage everyone to please review this document as it outlines the rationale that's being given to the school district from the state education department as well as it outlines the rationale behind much of the work

053that the district is participating in thank you thank you moving on we are pleased to have dr pickens in the audience this evening so he will be giving us a presentation on the overview of the bridge ticker program and eye-opening enterprises welcome dr pickens thank you so much thank you so much it's so good to see all of you all here um and i was originally slated to come here tomorrow to do some professional development and um superintendent rodriguez and the team said there's a board meeting i said i have to be here i have to get to meet everyone in person so it's so great to meet you so great to meet everyone in the audience one of the things i realized very quickly working with monroe woodbury is that we had something in

054common and that was passion passion for what it is that we do and wanting to see our kids and not only our kids succeed but also wanting to see the colleagues that we work with the families that are in our communities be their best self and so i am excited to be here today to talk to you a little bit more about the bridge trauma informed culturally responsive program i know there's been a lot of passionate debate around it but i'm here to both give you a sense of what this program is about but also to really help you understand what the heart of what we're trying to do together with monroe woodbury and our team and that's really to create a compassionate school climate when we talk about a compassionate school climate what we're

055talking about is a school climate where the humanity the whole student is seen in everything that we do in terms of our work with the students in building the relationships but also supporting the staff to have the social emotional skills to be able to not only support the students that they easily connect with but also support the students who they may not have familiar backgrounds with they may not have an understanding of who they are where they come from but they know that they can connect with them and help them reach their potential both academically and socially and emotionally one of the things that i really want to preface everything i'm saying with is that we started at a very tough time two words come to mind for me at the moment that we started

056the the the words of hope and pain pain and hope we started in the middle of a pandemic when so many of us were experiencing such deep pain not knowing how we could connect with people around us and not knowing even if we were going to be able to see people in person but part of what i loved about connecting with monroe woodbury right from the outset is that they saw beyond you all and collectively we saw beyond the pain to the hope the hope of our ability to connect with each other to heal from the pain of the trauma that we've collectively experienced throughout this past year two years the pain of wanting to see our kids have happy and fulfilling lives even though we may disagree on certain aspects of how how to

057get there and the hope of us being able to come together and have conversations that are tough but respect each other and feel that we have the ability to be able to have honest and authentic connections with each other so with that preamble i'll get to the heart of what we're talking about here because i don't want to take up too much time but i want to highlight this compassionate school climate that we're looking to develop part of it is by being able to recognize the pain that our students have experienced in the past whatever pain it may be but also understand the hope of the potential of who they can be and that's what brings us here to this bridge trauma informed culture responsive program to give you a little context about myself i'm

058the former assistant director of a national trauma program at ucla and duke and so i've done work around the country for over a decade and a half focusing on how does trauma-informed practices support students to really heal from things ranging from abuse and neglect to experiencing war in another country to coming to our our own homes and experiencing the loss of a father or grandfather how do you deal with that pain that you've experienced outside the classroom and still feel like you can connect and you can still grow academically and social emotionally and so with that experience i i really felt passionate that we needed a program that that not only address that pain but also allow students to express pain uh about not feeling that their pain has been seen for whatever reason whether

059it's it's because they haven't had the words to express it or because other people have so much pain or experiences in their life that make make it difficult for them to connect in a way that supports that healing and so what this program really focuses on is uh two main foundations that are part of this program and i'm going to share some additions that we actually added based on our conversation with the leadership team right at the outset of our work together so so the foundations of this program are four modules and these modules are about 16 hours of content half of which has already been provided to the staff in the first year of our work together modules one and two the first module focuses on trauma informed practice what is trauma what are

060traumatic stress reactions these are some of the same symptoms we see with ptsd um that when when soldiers go to war or when people lose someone close to them this is also dealing with the stress of just growing up and in a world where you do feel the pressures of what's going on around you and the anxiety of having to achieve in all of these different aspects what we're trying to do is what we want to give teachers are the tools to feel like they can connect with students even when students feel anxious and help them get through that moment and help them continue to achieve academically and help them reach their goals and so that first module really focuses on that the second module is our culturally responsive module and just for clarity sake

061cultural responsive practices is not a critical race theory what we do in culturally responsive practices is we really help our teachers understand the whole student but even beyond that we help our teachers understand their whole selves and and we all bring our life experiences into the classroom right as soon as your students see you as soon as you all see me you know things about me right you see you see a wedding ring i'm married right you see you see how tall i am you know i'm like this is the first time we're meeting i told some people i was six seven on the zoom so sorry to disappoint you but but but all the things about who i am there are things that you just see and and we all have a way of

062making decisions around that and i'll give you a little personal example real quick around why this is so important for us to be aware of i used to live in new york city and um i if you ever have been on a new york city bus there's one question you have to ask yourself as soon as you get on the bus what is that smell right and you're on the bus and you're looking and you're looking and you don't look at every single person you make a quick decision about where you sit and part of what we have to do in our everyday life is we've taken so so much information we have to make important decisions that not only affect us but affect others lives and part of this work is being able to

063understand how do we make decisions to support our kids as much as much and as fully as we possibly can and so this gives teachers and it gives administrators and it gives school staff the skills to recognize how can i support that healing and hope how can i recognize that pain so that these students can be best positioned to be the best um possible version of themselves into the future now here's the thing we know about training training alone does not support change training is great it's amazing it helps people learn new things but it doesn't support change by itself because you need support with implementation and so one of the things that we have done and i'll share what the other two modules are in a second but i want to really speak on

064these implementation uh meetings so we meet monthly with a representative group of teachers administrators parents students in the case of middle school and high school who really come to the table asking how do we take these concepts that we're passionate about and how do we really engage this in our school building in a meaningful way one of the things one of the first things i share with the implementation teams and they can attest to this is i said we need people at the table of this implementation team that have different perspectives i need the people who don't agree with things that you agree with i need people who do agree with what you agree with because part of this journey is for us to be able to create spaces we can actually have conversations where

065we can actually talk with one another in meaningful ways and so i was so so happy that so many of the implementation team members embraced this and actually in our first couple of meetings we had them go look for folks to bring into the meeting who may have different perspectives so so really being able to have that opportunity to do some really important work i'll share what that work is in a moment on the next slide but to let you know what the rest of the modules are module three and module four what we're doing um this year and module three is about how do we bring these concepts around trauma-informed practice and understanding the whole student and understanding ourselves holistically into creating a classroom environment that uses the best practices for motivating students to

066be in class and to remain engaged with the work that they do as we all know with the pandemic and with remote learning there's been so much disengagement among our students and part of what we really have to do is we have to really take the time and energy to be able to re-engage our students in meaningful ways so they can feel connected with each other with the work with everything that they're doing the fourth module is a module that i i really i'm always excited about because it's about the staff it's about staff wellness we know that we can't pour from an empty cup we have to be refueled and refilled ourselves and so a big part of this program isn't just about trauma-informed practices for students it's about helping us our our our

067staff and and even our community as a whole be able to get the type of skills to manage the stress that comes with our current environment where we're at but also be able to recognize what inspires us what motivates us and how do we bring that into the school building and so these are the foundations of this program but like i told you monroe woodbury you all are trailblazers so you all say that wasn't enough we there's there there is there is an important aspect to that we wanted to build on so that this is really sustained and i really appreciated that and so what we uh uh did in this first year i think was was really really great i did my best to to to honor the the mascot so hopefully hopefully that

068hopefully that looks good up there to everyone in the back um so so here's what we did here's what we did in the first year the implementation teams the first thing that we did is we knew that so many students felt disconnected because they were in remote environments and so we developed something called connection sessions these connection sessions were unstructured spaces where students could actually generate questions and ask each other those questions one of the things that we saw pretty early on is that students felt like they were coming into these google me spaces for just doing the work and they didn't have that those intangible moments you know you have when you're in recess and you're able to ask questions and particularly for our elementary school students this was an opportunity for them to

069actually generate questions and then have other people ask them you can't imagine the power a seven-year-old feels when they create a question and then people actually have to answer it and so and so it was a moment for us to really take a lot of these concepts around how do we create connectedness despite a potentially traumatic event with the pandemic happening around us and still create a connected classroom where students felt heard and seen and so there were a number of different ways elementary schools engaged this the implementation team usually tries to pilot some of these and then bring it to the wider school so that we can get feedback from everyone along the way the second area that we really focused on is are these brave conversations part of what our philosophy in our

070work is is relationships first we believe in building healthy and strong relationships and so our idea of brave conversations about anything is how can we have this conversation that's honest and authentic while preserving the relationship and so we started some of these conversations within the implementation team the high school were they they were the brave cheryl blazers and actually had a town hall with their staff around some of the equity issues and some of the data around those equity issues and it really created a a really nice momentum to get us started to think about how do we continue to build on this with really trust of each other as a whole going into year two and then the third area i want to highlight that some of the schools engaged was this wellness buddy

071program for their staff during this past year so many staff felt the stress and the strain of the pandemic and they felt the stress and strain of remote learning and part of what we know is that there's not there's not just one way to handle stress there's lots of different ways but one of the best ways to handle stress is by connecting with people that you trust and being able to have some focused skills around being able to manage that stress we supported that throughout this past year with some of the schools and we're hoping to build that out even further in the second year and so that was the implementation team activities what do we do district-wide well one of the things that we really felt especially since there's so much passion around these

072issues of equity is that we need a district-wide equity task force and so we brought together uh over 20 to 30 folks from the both community and each of the schools each school's implementation team sent a representative to this district-wide task force where we started to talk about the mission of monroe woodbury and how do we make sure that all students feel and connected to that mission and can actually uh build on that mission to both achieve their academic goals but but achieve their life and social emotional goals as well in addition to that some of you hopefully if you didn't have the chance they should still be up had a chance to see some of the parent workshops where we gave more information around what trauma informed is and then i got to do

073a i i like to think a little bit more fun one uh during the holidays where we got to watch a a clip from a little disney pixar movie and talk inside out if you don't know great movie um but but but being able to have this opportunity to really give parents skills or or at least insight into what we're doing with these trainings and just to be clear the the program is for the the staff and the staff take this and we work together to see how does this best support the students long term now we had two times that we were able to connect with students during this year the first time was a student assembly for the high school that gave an opportunity for students to really deal with holiday stress a

074lot of students were stressed out around around the time of the holidays and so we we gave them stress reduction skills and really supported that while also thinking about what helps them feel refueled and recharged and then we also had the opportunity to talk to the athletes of the middle school and the high school which is such a great opportunity i i'm a former athlete myself i play college basketball at gw that's probably why i say i'm 6-7 when i'm only 6-1 but it was a great opportunity to be able to connect with the student athletes and bring some of these concepts around stress reduction and managing your well-being into a real world place because a lot of them were really frustrated that they didn't get a chance to have their senior year and they

075were waiting for colleges to scout them because of covin there was a lot of anxiety and so we were able to be there and support them in that and so those are some of the main highlights from year one year two um we we're going into year two with some great momentum i already spoke about modules three and four that we're going to be building on and then we're also going to be doing some booster sessions these booster sessions are really intended for our team to work with the implementation teams so that we can actually have the implementation team the folks who are in the school to be able to continue to build on some of these concepts like connection sessions and brave conversations and wellness buddies all of these um really what what what

076staff have shared at different points tools that have helped them help students stay more focused and more connected to their schoolwork and more connected to themselves in meaningful ways and then the other piece that we're going to continue to build on is the equity task force we really want to continue to grow the work that the equity task force is uh doing we're hoping in this upcoming year that we can uh really model after the high school in many ways and do a town hall so that again we want a very transparent process that allows folks to be engaged and be connected and if you have a different perspective we welcome it um i i the heart of what we're looking to to do with you all together in this partnership is really for all

077of us to see each other's humanity that's what that's what a compassionate school culture is and and when we put bring different voices to the table to hear that humanity we we stop seeing just issues we stop seeing problems we see people and and seeing people allows you to make productive progress towards the kind of school and the kind of culture and uh really the kind of relationships that we all want to have so with that i thank you for your time and uh if there's any you know i'm not sure school board if there's anything i need to do yes no absolutely if there's any questions that anybody has no i have i just i'll just say that um i and i guess part of it is paced off of a question but um

078you know when this was brought to us last year during the start of the pandemic and i was one of the ones that sat on the reopening plan we it was a concern and i have to say that you know under normal circumstances as board members we don't necessarily sit in on some of these programs but because we knew that it was going to be an expense to it and it was a long-term proposition that we'd be working with you for the next two years we were invited to go ahead and do that i do know that you spoke with us albeit virtually at our board retreat last year so we appreciate that um but i will say that i have been able to hop into some of these google meets everything has been virtual

079so i was able to attend a few and really all i can take away from it was it was really moving based off of stuff that was said by staff parents students and it certainly was not what i expected so i know for myself personally i'm appreciative of it i look forward to the work that's going to continue this year with our students and i think part of the question that i had was because you didn't touch upon it and i wanted to make certain that it was known to the public is that we are collecting data and there is feedback that has been given already from this year from both students and from staff and i don't know if there's anything that you can speak to that because i know that it has been

080raised here at our previous meeting as well yeah it's a great question so we did a couple of different surveys with the staff around attitudes and knowledge around trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices that we are still pulling that data together and actually going to provide a report to you all in the next few weeks or so around that so you can and share with everyone to be able to see uh see what has been done in addition to that each implementation team identifies what are the metrics that are important for their school to track over time so is it less you want to see less suspensions or you want to see greater attendance and so we try to pair it with what we think but also this is a very collaborative process and so we

081work with each school to see what is the data that's most important that they track over time thank you yeah anybody else have any feedback or questions okay thank you so much thank you thank you [Applause] next we have a presentation of the 2021-2022 back-to-school plan by mrs rodriguez and dr hassler we i just need a clicker okay thank you i'm sorry i could have gotten up i need the exercise just give us a couple of minutes she has to get the presentation up right do you want to take like a two minute break or five minutes we'll take we'll take a quick five minute break while we get the presentation and everything rolling trust me okay we are back in session there was no board business discussed during the short break i will just

082make mention that unfortunately dr kueffman had an emergency and did have to leave us so he is no longer here um so we're going to go ahead and move on with our presentation from mrs rodriguez and dr hassler on the back to school plan for 2021 2022 good afternoon board of education um back to school plan for the 2021-2022 school year um our goal this year is all students in person five days a week with some priorities and i always talk about the priorities on you know i've had this from last year our reopening priorities it's maintaining the safety and well-being of students and staff ongoing social emotional support for students staffs and family as you've heard and as we've read these have been some really trying time for our children our families and many

083of our students and families have been exposed to trauma by way of the pandemic so it's very important for us to focus on that and the last but not the least but the most important is we're going to have a continuous robust instruction let me go back how do we make decisions first and foremost we consult with our district physician to review new york state of ed health guidance and how it specifically relates to monroe woodbury we met with members of the reopening committee consisting of parents teachers and administrators medical professions and gain insight and then we have of course ongoing communication with the orange county health department recent health guidance yesterday we heard the governor hotel which i had said she would do she has directed the department of health to institute universal masking

084for anyone entering our schools the new york state education department the cdc and the aap strongly urge that students staff visitors to school buildings wear masks while inside school buildings regardless of the vaccinations status one different component that we had from last year is that maths are no longer required for students and staff once they're outside close contact so that was a big conversation because last year close contact was defined by the orange county health department and by the way this presentation will be on our website so if anybody wants to see it it'll be on the website and you you can download it close contact according to the cdc is through the proximity and duration of exposure so someone who's within six feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes

085or more over a 24-hour period must be quarantined here is a big exception and i think it's really important for us to note in k-12 indoor classroom settings the close contact definition excludes students who are within three to six feet of an affected student or a clinically compatible illness if both the infected student and the exposed student are wearing a mask that is really important for us and that was part of the driving factor for for us as a school district because again the goal is to maintain our students in school five days a week so students one really important piece is any student who is vaccinated will not be required to quarantine so if a student is in school and they're wearing a mask and the other student is wearing a mask and that's

086an infected student according to the cdc you do not that student does not need to quarantine unless they begin and they don't feel well then we they recommend that you get tested but other than that you just continue to wear a mask and i'm going to talk a little bit about because i was talking about quarantining and now we're going to talk about so what happens if a student gets quarantined and i should say that the expectation on the district's part according to the new rules is that if we are all wearing a mask and and some students may be vaccinated at the secondary they will we will have less quarantining so dr houser talk about what happens if a student is quarantined so if if we receive confirmation that there's a student who is

087required to quarantine and the quarantine is not isolated exclusively to if if the exposure happens in school this is any student that we're notified has to quarantine whether in district exposure or out of district exposure teachers will be maintaining their google classrooms for every class and or course students will have access to their classwork either through google classroom and or materials that are compiled by the teacher for the parent to pick up for example sometimes it's not exclusively google classroom that is able to provide all the resources for students they may need books workbooks worksheets or other materials in order to be able to accomplish their work so the teacher will put those materials together and they will make them available for the student and the parent will have to come in and pick them

088up in addition students will also be able to access instructional support via a home instruction model that we've used through various circumstances in the school district in the past basically students will be given daily access to synchronous virtual instruction support by certified monterey staff in addition to the google classroom and or physical materials that the teacher puts together at the elementary level students are able to access one hour a day of additional synchronous support and at the secondary level it will be two hours a day of additional synchronous support basically each school is going to maintain a list of staff that will be able to provide that instructional support to the student based upon the grade level and the department of the of the various classes that the student is in that support that's going

089to be provided for students will be in addition to any um weekly extra help sessions that the teachers are typically holding throughout the week that students participate in that instructional support and extra help that the teacher provides will not only be in person for the schools in class but we will be making that accessible to students remotely as well one thing that mrs rodriguez also asked me to speak about is now that there's going to be an emphasis on everybody returning to school in person what about students who have medical conditions that may impact their education first thing that has to happen is the parent or guardian needs to reach out to the building principle of the school that the child is in and they need to notify us as to that medical condition that

090would impact their education and they will provide any medical documentation corresponding to the circumstances of the student we then have established a district-wide team that will review those circumstances and that review will include not only conversations with the parent as well as conversations with the staff it may include consultation with our district physician and it may involve contact with the student's physician and then once the review process is completed the team will then determine any needed accommodations in order to be able to support that student in accessing their education thank you dr housewood can you just speak a little bit about um so i gave you an example of this when we were talking about it as a team and i said what happens to the student who is taking a singleton class let's just

091say an honors class or an ap class and that student is quarantined what supports do we have for that student and how should that student go about accessing that support that we've made available to them sure certainly as i said that the teachers will all be maintaining that extra help session however um again as as i indicated we're going to be following that home instruction model where even though the student will have a home instructor that will be assigned to them and that will be a staff person from within the school district the individual teacher of that particular course that the student is taking will also be given the opportunity to be able to provide that live synchronous support to the student so for example if um and again this model was in place even

092before uh before um you know covid and and the pandemic if there was a student who um was you know had some sort of surgery say and was not able to physically come to school for a period of time that student was entitled to instructional hours as well as to the materials that the teachers were doing on a daily basis the the person who is assigned to that student to work with the student provides live support instructional support to that student but in the event that the home instructor doesn't have the ability to be able to provide the specific support in that content area that student's teacher would then be given the opportunity to be able to connect with that student um you know outside the boundaries of the school day to be able to

093provide that level of support whether it's you know pre-covered it might have been in person but now we have the ability to be able to do some of that work remotely as well so the specific teacher of the student will also be involved in that process and and if i'm a student and i'm a high school student and i want to access more than what we've provided what should i do as a student so each of the buildings is going to have an individual that is going to be responsible for working with the home instructor as well as the student and again i use that term home instructor where it is a staff person of the school district a certified certified staff person of the school district that when that student is is you know

094found to have to is required to quarantine um they'll assign a a home instructor that's going to be able to hopefully provide the level of support of the student so if the student is a ninth grade student taking english nine global nine you know algebra whatever they may be taking at that grade level they're going to look at the list of available people to provide support and obviously they're going to look to provide support at the level of that specific student but if there are individual needs we'll certainly that in that person who's overseeing that at that building will then make the connection with the additional staff if necessary at the elementary level it's a little bit different because you know the majority of the students are self-contained students and they they have the same

095teacher all day long so you know the model is going to be a little bit different between elementary and secondary right i just think that we um how what if none of that is happening i'm playing devil's advocate here because i think that we this is relatively new and so we're trying to uh provide an accommodation that we normally don't do right so kobit has forced us to create sort of this other home instruction right so i'm and i and i'm speaking specifically of high school students because i know that they take what we call singleton courses so i'm taking one course and it's one teacher what if a student has someone who's helping them but they're still struggling is there someone else in the in the building in the high school or even the

096middle school but more so the high school that they should contact to say i'm still struggling and i've had i'm you know i'm going to be quarantined nine days should they call their guidance counselor i mean they can certainly speak to their guidance counselor but again each of each of the buildings is going to have one person who's going to be responsible for making that you know once they're notified that again if it's a 9th grader or senior or whomever is is is going to be out on quarantine the goal would be to pair them up with you know with a a home instructor that will be able to provide that support but in the event that that level of support is not able to be made based upon you know if if the teacher

097is uh a an english teacher and the student is looking for help in calculus we certainly have the ability to be able to connect with one of the calculus teachers to be able to get them involved in that process right and all that communicated to the student what's that how will that be communicated so all of this is going to be like firmly as sconced in in a plan at each of the buildings that they're going to be connecting with the student when that student is found you know is is identified to quarantine i think we still need to sort of iron that piece out because what happens what we say here and then what our children hear sometimes it's not the same so i think it's i think it's going to be really important

098for our middle school and high school um administrators and to share that information to make sure that that once a student is identified as have needing to be quarantined that they understand the logistics what we don't want to happen is to have a student fall through because you know we quarantined i mean last year we quarantined 1500 students and had no cases of covid so you know i'm hoping i'm hopeful that this year we'll have less because there's different rules but i just want us to be clear that what we talk about here really should be communicated clearly to our students and their families so that this plan that we've put together really really works for our kids understood can i add something also so i'm just hoping that it's not going to be self-regulated

099by the student i mean there's no person that you are speaking about will oversee to kind of look in on correct yep and that's why it really it needs to be one individual who's overseeing the list of available staff to provide that support as well as the students that are coming up for quarantine so that way i think the concern is that it becomes sort of this nebulous thing that's the reason why it really needs to be one individual per building who really oversees that and knows each of the cases individually but i completely understand that would be an administrator yeah in all likelihood yeah it'll be an administrator i had a question on the masks before when it was talking about properly fitted you know they were they were a little specific about the

100mask the the recent uh science scientific studies that have looked at masks um the cloth masks have gotten very very poor ratings yeah so we is the state going to provide us with criteria for the types of mass that can be worn so once we're done with this we are going to have a document a living document on our website and you're going to find in that document we've put a link into the cdc and they have a really good visual of what masks they recommend and what masks they don't recommend and it it's written in in every language so anyone can really access it so are we gonna have a requirement that they meet some specification or is it not i i think what we've done in the past um is if we see

101a student that's wearing a mask that's not well fitted or isn't really conducive to really help mitigate this the spread of covid usually our school nurse meets with that child or young adult because it could be a high school student and then they talk about you know how do we fit a better mask and so that's been done and we're going to continue that practice we are going to share that information with our families we're going to we have i believe patrick um we have masks in school yes we do we so we have maths that we can give students but i think it's really going to be important that we have a partnership with our parents right this is this is in partnership with them to take a look at so so that link

102is going to be embedded in our plan are they going to are there are we going to make statements about mass that shouldn't be used yes okay yeah and just just to follow up the state ed department put out guidance you know two weeks ago or so a week and a half ago or so in absence of um guidance from from new york state from the governor at the time the governor the new governor yesterday announced that she would have a covet you know plan out by the end of this week so i think we're making plans and decisions and we may get even more information regarding those things that you're good yeah can i just ask a couple things about the quarantine so i mean based on the slideshow that you just showed us

103and the fact that we will be masked it seems as if the quarantine should be minimal with that said what is the plan and this has been in the community so these are the three questions that i come up with um the cafeterias because we do know that they are going to still take down their mass to eat um i noticed that you stated officially that they will not have to wear them outside so i'm guessing that similar to last year there were classes not just athletics but classes that sometimes went outside they did english outside for the day or they took physical education outside for a period is it the understanding that then if they are outside and do not have their mask on they must remain at minimum of three feet apart in

104order to not have to get quarantined correct okay so are we going to be consistent to make certain that that's not happening yeah essentially the the model that we used last year was when when staff took students outside and the students were allowed to take their mess off that was considered a mass break so the same would be the case even though they're not requiring mass to be outside in order to be able to avoid any quarantine issues or things like that in the event of an exposure we're still going to have to keep the kids socially what about going back to the cafeteria piece what is the plan i know in the i know k through um five we are able to cohort how and i do know that technically the middle school is

105cohorting because it's by house that they eat lunch but they're eating at cafeteria tables so are we putting the plexi glass back up like we've done here there's there's plexiglas the students are going to be assigned seats in the cafeteria well they're not going to be assigned seats correct you are going to assign their own seat and we're going to ask them we have to track right in the place they choose if they choose to move they can but we want to know where students are sitting in case anything happens we know where they are so it's not an assigned seat students will sit and we will create charts as far as that's concerned but they're sitting at a cafeteria table right right so they're sitting at a cafeteria table um at the high school

106i believe they have enough dust to keep people three feet apart so they don't at this time have plexiglas they don't need it because their cat the high school cafeteria in both the large and the small they are keeping desks they are keeping desks because they have desks and they can do it and keep the students they have enough desks that everybody can eat in those two places no i'm saying enough room to keep them three feet apart where they are eating in the cafeterias only and they're not eating in other rooms in the building the only other building that they are using i believe is the weight room which they only have it for a short period of time they're going to see they've they haven't got the the the the wrestling room the

107wrestling room not the way all right not the weight room sorry apologies yeah the wrestling room right and that's being so and again i'm just like you said playing devil's advocate so our students got their schedules the other day they are assigned a cafeteria so who's assigned to the wrestling room because i don't remember hearing that on anybody's i don't know that that may be an overflow room at this time i think they they have it just in case they need space um they may not they may not need it but i think that they've used that room and when we spoke this morning as a team uh i know mr cassidy spoke about having an overage and having that room and you know we know that miss hawk is going to need that room

108because and the possibility that they may have to come up with a you know that that's something that's going to be put into place for september because wrestling season doesn't start until the winner right so in the event that that spillover space is needed and that has to continue into wrestling season and they need that space then they're we're going to have to find an alternate location somewhere in the building so the expectation is though that they will be separated enough either by plexiglas at the middle school and or at the high school in desks so that if they do have their mask off and they're eating lunch the quarantining should still be minimum minimum correct okay and then going to the athletics component you're going ahead of our presence sorry stacy can i just

109ask something respect to the lunch so then why would there be an overage if somebody's assigned to either the large cafeteria or the small cafeteria what would change to population the population not that much right but i'm just saying you you always want to have i think we i think the thinking is that you ha you err on the side of if i need it there also may be kids who just don't want to go to the cafeteria i mean that's a possibility that's yes and so you you have to think about if i'm a student who doesn't feel comfortable then you have a third option okay so i think that that's the thinking behind um what the high school was doing but they can also use the library like they always do if they

110want to go during lunch i would i would guess i mean i think so and i think that they're also continuing to to talk about bringing the kids outside for lunch every single opportunity that they get so that way you know all of those options combined will hopefully give us the opportunity to be able to keep the kids spread there is one building one school building which is central valley that will have the students uh six feet apart because they have the space right between the population and the spaces that they have they will be able to keep the kids during lunch at six feet apart and partly that's due to furniture because they're able to central valley is able to use desks and have the desks if they had to return to if they

111had to use those desks in the classroom and use tables they may not necessarily be able to do it but because they have enough desks to use them in the cafeterias and the space they can have the kids they can have so they they're at six feet apart so that should be really minimal okay i'm sorry i'll see the one the one thing i also wanted to comment on because i know you know um communicating this correctly so that there's not a misunderstanding is it it is not our choice it's not the school district or the board's ability to choose whether the mandate masks or not it's going to be with the state that's coming down from the top because there's quite a few board members that you know from a civil liberties standpoint are

112against mandates but we don't have a choice because the state is mandating that this happened so okay so i am going to move on to the next one which is your current question right so and i have the word draft written on that because sports is back the fall sports season will begin on schedule outdoor sports athletes and spectators will will not be required to wear a mask indoor sports athletes and spectators will be required to wear a mask and guidance to be approved in the near future so there is discussion at section nine athletes um athletics they're going to vote on this um we are waiting so that's why it says draft guidance and the hope is that we will be able to play sports um if it's indoors you wear a mask if

113it's outdoors you do not wear a mask so the next section is is talking about layered prevention strategies and mr cahill will speak to that right thank you elsie so layered prevention strategy so what we're really talking about here is no single strategy is entirely effective so we intend to employ and combine multiple uh preventive actions to decrease the risk of infection in the spread of the virus students and staff must wear masks at all times while inside school buildings so we've kind of covered that to a large degree this is an established preventive measure when the right type of mask is worn and it's worn in the right way right we've talked about that a little bit over the nose and tight to the face the spread of the virus decreases this is a

114cdc recommendation and now purportedly a new york state requirement and mandate for schools uh it's beneficial additionally uh because as we mentioned earlier it should reduce the um the number of uh quarantine students uh as uh superintendent rodriguez mentioned those that are wearing masks and within you know less than or greater than three feet but not necessarily six feet uh if someone is infected they wouldn't necessarily uh be quarantined or be the the not infected student wouldn't necessarily have to be quarantined because of the masks so it's uh it has multiple benefits remain socially distant as much as possible we sort of covered that that's a basic preventative measure and when combined with math scoring should provide good protection from virus transmission hand washing respiratory etiquette reinforced so that's something we've you know we've been

115doing since the start of the pandemic we'll continue to do that we have signage at all our buildings you know around the buildings talking about washing hands the in terms of the respiratory etiquette we're going to reinforce with students that they should cover their their mouths when they cough or sneeze they should use tissues and dispose of the tissues when they're done with those and and then you know if there is an issue where they coughed into their hand or sneezed to wash their hands if possible and when it's not possible use hand sanitizer and we're going to have hand sanitizer and the disinfecting wipes in every classroom and throughout the building as well so ongoing cleaning and disinfecting so i sort of touched on that to some degree we're going to continue our protocol

116with custodial staff cleaning high touch areas in every building frequently throughout the day as much as possible uh including bathrooms railings that kind of thing uh the the nightly cleaning of all the buildings including disinfecting will occur we've talked about cleaning the desks and disinfecting desks at night that will continue to occur and i mentioned the hand sanitizer and and the wipes the disinfecting wipes that will be around the building and in classrooms updated air ventilation systems so this is one that we've gotten a lot of feedback on you know because as we learn more about kovid we realize that it's it's really it's in the air that's you know to some degree uh the way it's transmitted uh new filters have been installed in all the buildings our custodial staff has gone around and

117done that we've checked on all the exhaust fans and air handling systems to make sure everything's functioning properly and functioning up to specifications we're going to open air dampers so we have these air dampers on our unit ventilators in classrooms and in the air handling systems they typically run maybe 10 to 20 open we've been and we did this last year we're going to continue to do this open those at 40 to 60 percent and when it gets colder you actually can't do that because it can the cold air can damage the the unit uh but you know we know that introducing outside fresh air is is one of the best ways to sort of uh you know disperse anything that's in the air aerosols and prevent the spread of uh of the virus um

118one other thing i just wanted to touch on with this we've gotten feedback about new hvac systems or air conditioning systems we've talked about that with a capital program uh people have asked about are we doing anything with the american rescue plan act fund funding for that and the reality is we're going to look at that but but the application for that is actually due at the end of this month so it's a little premature to ask the question what did you do over the summer because we've gotten some of those questions related to that you know the application will go in it'll be reviewed by the new york state ed department uh it'll be presumably approved and then we could start a plan you know there'd be plans and specifications uh that would be

119submitted to the new york state ed department to be a whole process to actually make hvac improvements related to covid and and you know building the health of the building in general so use of barriers um we've touched on that a bit we we've invested in a lot of barriers last year we used those we're going to continue to use those uh in the new year open windows in classrooms so that's a real direct and obvious way to introduce fresh air it's really the easiest way to do that we're going to continue to encourage that when we can and we've touched on the use of outdoor space so that's another tactic you know or action that we can take and we're going to continue to uh promote that the one thing i would mention is

120we had tents those were rented tents and and there's almost like a shelf life on those based on the new york state ed department you have like 180 days and then you have to take them down and reapply so we'll see if you know that sort of thing is needed again but but we're certainly going to encourage students to go out into common areas or courtyards and things and and utilize those spaces thank you all right so i'm going to be talking about if i'm allowed right am i good to go yeah you can okay great i don't want to just jump ahead um without permission so i wanted to one thing that we just want to focus on as well or just remember that what we did last year we really felt as if

121it worked because there was we didn't have cases of transmission um and the goal for this year continues to be to try to reduce the numbers of quarantined uh students and staff so i'm going to talk about the buses basically we're going to be doing a lot of the same that we did last year passengers and drivers on district transportation need to be masked at all times the drivers will continue to disinfect the high touch areas on their buses in between runs as they did last year and we'll continue with our regular seating assignments and arrangements i know that there was a communication that had gone out to some students regarding lockers we had a conversation today and students will have the option of utilizing lockers in the district and there'll be more information to

122follow about about the lockers okay thank you so this document is a living document and it's going to be updated as we receive updates uh mr kravitz spoke about our new governor uh she stated that she's going to provide us with more guidance on friday so as we get guidance we will update this document there's going to be ongoing communication with our health departments i meet regularly with our orange county commissioner of health multiple times throughout the month we're going to monitor confirm covet cases in the region and within our community and maintain an open line of communication with local medical professionals to adhere to of course the cdc the aap and the local guidelines again it's i want to focus on that this is a living document that can change and sometimes we've learned

123that it can change overnight and sometimes it is not you know on our behalf it is what the you know the state department mandates us to do and so um this is what we have planned for our back to school back to school in september we we're going to call it reopening but we're not because we have been open so we're not using that phrase so um with that do we have any questions elsie with um are we going to do anything to offer um 12 and older vaccinations at this time we don't we don't have any coordination but there has been apparently some funding that came to orange county and we're supposed to get some more updates about that about offering vaccines or how that's going to work but that came from our boces

124there was a meeting a week ago and they talked about funding but the funding can be used in multiple ways so it's not just vaccine it could be you know something else so we're just waiting to to hear more guidance regarding that can you touch upon um the covet screening that we had to do last night no more covet screening hallelujah no more temper checks okay thank you okay those are my questions doctor dr kueffman had made a comment before he had to leave what one thing that i think is important to communicate is the difference in the delta variant versus the original covid there's a new study it just got published i read it the other day with the original covid they do this test where an infected person comes in contact with someone

125else and then they come in contact with someone else and they they um the model involves 10 contacts right with the original uh covet variant um once it hit 10 people it infected roughly 9 500 people right that was the the probability of infection with the delta that same model it's 60 million people 60 million versus 9 500. you know as i i said earlier i'm i i don't like mandates right just from but but from a pure science standpoint and i appreciated the document that was sent to us by the the concerned citizens americans front line doctors i i went through that that document as well and i didn't go through all of it it was it referenced like 27 scientific studies it was it was pretty intense but i got i got through

126the first seven and all seven of those studies that were referenced in that document that said don't wear a mask the first seven or five i think two of them weren't downloadable said a mask is beneficial and you should wear it and again i i don't like mandates but from a pure science standpoint i think we have in my mind i separate the two out right i don't like telling people they have to do it but frankly it's just amazing the infection rate of this new delta variant is just completely off the charts thank you any other comments questions okay we'll move on to committee reports i just looked up that we don't we have not met for policy but i do know that we have a meeting coming up on september 21st and we

127do have a couple of policies that are coming down that we will be taking a look at anything for audit uh yeah a couple things so the field portion of the annual external audit is complete we had we had five auditors from nugent hauser in the district for about five days uh the entire week it started on august 2nd and we have a few loose ends that we need to provide but we should have the audit report in you know good shape and ready you know for our october meetings typically when we do that we have that ready for board acceptance um we have a new lead audit partner so that's can be a good thing sort of a fresh perspective a new set of eyes on our processes and you know maybe find some

128areas to improve things um i would say everything went pretty well very well i'd like to thank all the staff in the business office you know we do this every year and we'll we'll thank them again uh you know when we actually have the presentation of the audit report uh but it's you know it's an intense time you know uh leading up to that and then the week it's a sort of invasive evasive invasive process where you're being audited they're reviewing all your work for the entire year so it can be stressful as well you know i think we're getting better we're making improvements on that and um and i just want to thank them they rose to the occasion again and did a great job so that's that's it for audit i think one

129of the one of the things patrick mentioned with audit which is very important for the organization um it's very common to purposely switch audit every so often to make sure you get a clean set of eyes and we had mentioned to the auditors previously that switching partners that gives you a different perspective a different set of eyes so i think from a compliance standpoint an audit standpoint this was a very positive move for the organization and the board to know that we have a brand new set of eyes on it so that it you know it just ends up having better outcome our next scheduled meeting for audit is october 14th um don do you want to say anything for facilities i mean i know we haven't really met and i know it says on

130here our next our meeting in september is on the 28th but is there anything that the only the only thing patrick brought up before is the hvac stuff and i think uh in general i i mean if anyone's tried to buy a car they already know this but trying to get anything um when every school is trying to to look at putting in hvac even if they come up with a plan even if it gets approved and everything else the probability that we're going to be able to purchase any material is slim and none at this point but it may change but you know putting it in perspective with this stuff on it i i don't see us being able to get anything okay dawn for visitation we haven't had a meeting yet i believe

131our first meeting is uh mid-september where we'll start our rotation for the buildings okay very good i'm going to pass it over to mr kravitz for personnel uh good evening um just a couple of things first of all you'll notice there are a number of new hires on tonight's agenda and i just want to say thank you very much for allowing us to add items kind of late in the game it will enable us as a district to be fully staffed and ready to go next week two other things i just want to mention that are highlights i i don't even know if you can count hr items as highlights but um there are substitute pay rates and i think it's important because our district like many districts across across the land have struggled to

132get to secure substitute teachers and substitute nurses so we are recommending the increase in pay rates for substitute teachers and nurses to be more in line with other districts in the area so that we can have those positions staffed and then lastly there's one retirement today and you know it's of jim horn and for those of you who've been in the district long enough you've seen jim in some capacity whether it's in this building he was on the custodial team at north main when i first began there years ago it feels like years and years ago but more recently he's been the head custodian at sapphire he did his job really well he's a proud former marine um he's a good person and he will be missed and with that i ask for approval for

133the items listed under personnel i'll make a motion second all those in favor all right aye patrick for business and financial thanks stacy i'd also respectfully request approval of the items under the business financial section the agenda and i'll i'll try to just identify a few highlights business and finance highlights a lot the business always has them right well i'd just like to uh i like to recognize the donations so we've gotten four donations uh this board meeting uh three donations to smith clove from uh orange and rocklin for stem classroom grants so one donation the amount of 960.58 cents another donation from orange and rocklin again for stem classroom grant that's 836.99 and 150 donation to smith clove from the blackbaud giving fund on behalf of gap inc and there's one donation to the

134high school 16 from the blackbaud giving fund on behalf of new york life insurance so we thank everyone for for those donations and their generosity um there are a series of contracts for approval 13 contracts so it's special ed tuition related services a whole bunch of services bundled in there there's four resolutions for the transfer of surplus monies and we had talked about that from last year to district reserves and finally an affirmation about school meal prices we we hadn't really talked about this a lot and mrs tauber had brought this out that next year it's really good news uh we will have free breakfast and lunch for all students irrespective of their eligibility for free and reduced so all be free again based on a federal program called seamless summer option um and so

135the affirmation of the meal prices really has to do with that our participation in that program next year we we also need to and we said this today at a meeting emphasize folks should still um apply for free and reduced applications because those that information and those applications are used in other ways sometimes as a measure of need and state aid formulas and things like that but but it's good news for for next year all students will get a free lunch or breakfast if they want it okay that's it thank you may i have a motion emotion second all those in favor aye may i have a motion to approve the recommendations of the committee on special education motion second all those in favor any questions i reports by the board and central office dawan

136i'd like to thank all the speakers and elsie and cabinet and dr pickens for all of your presentations um a special thanks to dr haster and everybody that helped him with the upk program i'm very excited for that and i know it's going to help a lot of our families in the community a successful summer bridges program i heard as well and summer graduation a few weeks ago congratulations to the summer graduates welcome to our new staff looking forward to our start to school and congratulations to our retiree thank you don yeah i'd like to thank the public i've seen on i think we've all seen on tv these are very emotional discussions especially when they affect our children and i thought the public was um excellent tonight it was a i thought that the

137opinions they expressed were were very valid and on both sides so i i was really impressed that it was it was done in such a professional way and you know when i think we've all seen others more recently done not quite quite as well as this and the one thing that encouraged me the most was especially on crt um on the two opposing positions i heard one side saying they didn't want something and the other side saying they didn't do that so to me that's exciting because if both parties agree on this common thread it gives us an opportunity to address it and come up with a common uh solution that it sounds like everybody is in agreement with that's it for me okay thank you suzanne yeah i'd like to thank everyone who spoke

138and i'd also especially like to thank dr pickens for his presentation i'm looking forward to the school year and thank you so much for your sharing your plan with us um i would like to wish everyone a successful school year and welcome back thank you good night donna i want to echo suzanne and just say welcome back to everyone all the students and staff who haven't been here all summer um i think it's very exciting and you're all loved and supported and of course it wouldn't be complete if i didn't wish a couple people happy birthday coming up suzanne jamal and even stacy before our next meeting have so this summer we had three uh our recent graduates come back and help us along with the two uh incoming juniors at the mcc and and

139this is really the fun time for us because it's it's extremely busy but also it's an opportunity for us to work with the the new folks who have either recently graduated and in the college or or there in our school we were able to configure 1500 new devices also collect thousand devices and and then redistribute them the goal is to develop this program and in conjunction with working with high school administration to see if we can set up a help desk for the students run by the students so we are working with the with the couple of faculty members and and as of now we have two students we'll be expanding through the av and a computer club that program and then we're looking to see if we can have more students get this real-time

140experience working with us at the same time helping us as of now we have about 96 percent of our students have a district assigned devices and we are ready to welcome students and staff next week okay thank you eric i too would like to congratulate our summer school graduates and thank you to the entire summer schools team for their work and supporting the students and continuing their progress towards graduation i i very much apologize for not being able to attend the ceremony i absolutely wish that i could have been there congratulations to the new staff that were appointed this evening i had an opportunity to meet many of them this past week with new teacher orientation so again congratulations i look forward to working with you it's super exciting seeing the fall sports teams back

141on campus and it's certainly a sign that we will be back to school next week so i'm looking forward to welcoming all of our students back and i want to end with something that i don't think that i've ever done in my years of this job which is i'm worried which is thanking the curriculum office uh it's the back to school is a very busy time in the curriculum office in normal circumstances but with the addition of upk and all the various other things that are happening um my my office team has been working very hard i left them i felt bad walking out of the office to come over here for the meeting because they were still there working just a shout out to them and and the work that they've done in getting

142everything up and running um thank you very much thank you patrick yeah i uh echo what everyone has said and uh just look forward to welcoming students and staff back and fingers crossed for a a normal and amazing new school year thanks thank you matt this morning i had one of my favorite meetings that i always have during at the start of the year and i got to meet all of our future student teachers so those who are going to be coming in and learning from our teachers it's just a constant reminder of um you know our job as educators to continuously give back to the next generation of teachers um we've put a lot i feel very confident that we put a lot of new people or who will be in front of our

143kids or are good people so i'm excited to see them grow um and other than that welcome back we'll see everybody gosh in just a couple of days it's going to be awesome thanks thank you uh dan i hope everybody enjoys their last few days of summer it's all coming to an end other than that have a great night thank you anthony ditto enjoy your last few days of freedom if you can good luck in the upcoming new year and have a good evening thank you michael i want to thank all the stakeholders who participated tonight i thought it was a respectful exchange of ideas and opinions i also want to thank elsie and the cabinet for all your hard work on getting us ready for the reopening and i want to welcome the new

144staff thank you thank you thank you i i want to take a moment to thank our administrative team normally the summer is a time to take a break get away rejuvenate and come back for september that didn't happen this year and i want to thank them because they not only managed all the programs that we had and did it very very well but also spent a lot of time preparing for our back to school so so thank you i too want to thank my office donna and and lisa because um we've been going they've been going nonstop and i couldn't do the job that i do without my administrators my staff my teachers but it's donna lisa and carol who really helped me do what i do so thank you i do want to thank

145the speakers i think it was an art that we have lost in this country the ability to stand and disagree and be respectful and i hope that this is a sign of what things can come that we can disagree and walk away and and when we disagree it means that we don't like each other it means that we have different opinions and that's the beauty about living in this country so i was really really appreciative of the fact that everybody got up and spoke what they felt and i'm incredibly proud of our community because i have watched all the the other board meetings and this was very graceful and um i thank the community members i also want to thank dr pickens because his work with us is instrumental as always in making sure that

146our kids feel our kids and our staff members feel that this is a safe environment because it's the only place to grow and lastly i am super excited about bringing everybody back to school and this year is really special because we're going to be bringing back three we're going to be welcoming three and four-year-olds at our sapphire building so it's gonna be a great year um we're gonna make it as traditional as possible if wearing a mask is something that we have to do we'll do that gracefully but we're going to have an awesome year and i'm really excited about it so thank you thank you i too want to thank the speakers as many of the other board members and mrs rodriguez mentioned you know it is a little nerve-wracking that we do have

147a policy that allows for the public comment but we do feel that it is important to allow for that and i also want to thank the community for getting up and being respectful and it's difficult i know that everybody has their opinion but i do value the opinion and i think the entire board does so we appreciate that you were able to get up here tonight and speak and not have us end up on news 12 as some of the other boards have so i am definitely appreciative of that i want to thank the presentation from dr pickens i look forward to the work that he'll do the rest of this year with our students and i look forward to the updates that i know dr hassler will have on the equity teams and what

148has been um happening within those committees so i think that's great i want to take the opportunity to thank the high school again for hosting us i know that it is a lot of work to set everything up and have us here but we are appreciative i want to thank the high school yearbook committee because i know typically on a non-covet environment the students are here they present us every year with our yearbook and unfortunately this year because of the delay in the yearbooks we got them last week without so much circumstance but i do want to say thank you to the committee i was able to look at the book it was phenomenal even given the circumstances of a covet environment i thought they did a really really great job and i just want

149to thank say thank you to the advisors and to the students who worked on that book it is definitely appreciated i want to welcome back our athletes who started this week i think it's great to see them out on the field i don't know how they do it because it of course has been excruciatingly hot but i want to welcome them back and wish them all a great season i want to thank everybody for the summer school graduation it was great to be in attendance of that thank you to mr peterson who had us for the extended school year program it was wonderful to see those students as well i want to wish mr horn a great retirement i've known and been with him at sapphire as a pta member and he's just he's phenomenal

150so i want to wish him the best in his retirement and i want to say welcome back next week i know i've said this countless times up here as a board member it is my favorite part about doing what i do is being able to have the luxury of going to the schools and seeing the students so i can't wait till wednesday when we get to see especially the elementary schools i have two in the high school this year and i know they don't want to see me but i will be waving at all of the elementary school kids even though they have no idea who i am it makes me smile so i will be there i wish all the staff the faculty and all of the students a great first day of school

151and to the parents that are excited to have them back in school so thank you very much and with that i ask for a motion to adjourn emotion a second check it all those in favor meeting adjourned