001good evening call to order the regular meeting of the board of education for october 6 2021 will everyone please rise for the pledge to the flag foreign i'm just going to make a note this evening that um some of us will take our masks off especially while we're speaking but we do have plexiglas that's up around us as a barrier so just so i know sometimes the public can't see that on the um live stream a reading of 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 motion all
002those in favor questions and comments from interested citizens before we move on to this portion of the meeting i'm just going to update a few things um miss tauber miss vitucci and myself attended a nismo webinar back in the month of september that was put on by nisba which is the new york state school board association and their attorney jay wirona and what they are recommending for school districts to do is to adopt a pre-public comment script that we then met and went over with our attorneys most of the districts in new york state have now started to do this i will read it this evening for one time so that if we put it on the public record and then from that point forward mr tucci will make sure that it's available at the
003podium for speakers and then we will also make sure that it's on the district website we are about to convene into the public comment period of our board of education meeting although state law does not require school districts to hold a public comment period we chose to do so because the board believes it is crucial for us to hear directly from our community members about their concerns questions and issues the board of education encourages public participation on school related matters at board meetings as outlined in policies number 3220 and 2350 to allow for public participation a period not to exceed 30 minutes shall be set aside during the first part of each board meeting for public comment with priority given to comments on items on the meeting's agenda this period may be extended by a
004majority vote of the board presentations should be as brief as possible no speaker will be permitted to speak for longer than three minutes individuals may not defer any time remaining to other speakers speakers may comment on any matter related to district business please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed to be back and forth discussion please do not expect the board to respond to you tonight we take your concerns and questions seriously and that requires sufficient time to process and in some circumstances to research issues we will however respond to you at a future meeting or have the proper staff member contact you at the appropriate time please note the board will not respond as individual members rather the response will be from the collective whole i
005also want to point out that under state and federal privacy laws we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school personnel the board will not permit a public session discussion involving individual district personnel or students persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual district personnel or students should present their comments and or concerns to the superintendent during regular business hours this board remains committed to allowing community members the opportunity to publicly share insights and opinions their voices are important however all speakers must conduct themselves in a civil manner obscene language libelous statements threats of violence statements advocating racial religious or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated persons making presentations at a board meeting will address remarks to the president and may direct questions or comments to board members or other district officials
006only upon the approval of the president board members and the superintendent shall have the privilege of asking questions of anyone who addresses the board questions and comments from the public concerning matters which are not on the agenda will be taken under consideration and referred to the superintendent for appropriate action this board will serve as an example to our students that we can have productive respectful discussions though members of our school community may have differing views on relevant topics in the end we all want what is best for our students and the community as a whole we are stronger together thank you so as i stated this will make sure that we have this on the website for everybody to reference in the future i'll read it from time to time but i'm not going to
007read it before every meeting okay so moving on to that we have questions and comments from interested citizens and this evening we have um miss christina mizelli who is a parent speaking about district involvement so go ahead and you can come up to the podium good evening everyone it's christina mazzella excuse marin of the middle east okay parent of the middle school i'm here to address tonight some concerns that the community has particularly the parents of the school district it takes a village it also takes vigilance love discipline and an unwavering commitment to identify discern and resist influences that have the potential to be destructive this sometimes includes what children are exposed to at school often overstepping parental rights with government overreach this could be coming to a school near you the washington dc minor
008consent for vaccinations amendment act of 2020 a recently enacted law allows children 11 and older to receive vaccinations at school without the knowledge or consent of a parent washington state lawmakers seek school-based medical treatment where children ages 13 and up can obtain treatment for mental health conditions and gender dysphoria using their parents insurance plan without the parents awareness or consent oregon passed a law allowing minors ages 15 and up to obtain taxpayer-funded dangerous and irreversible medical treatments like puberty blockers cross-sex hormones and sex change surgeries with the school being the hub for the planning of these services without parental awareness or consent leon county middle school officials in tallahassee florida interviewed and developed a gender transition plan for a minor without notifying the parents their plan included a strategy to hide their plan from the
009parents they were not required to notify the parents of the intervention based on state law and leon county school guidance almost weekly i'm confronted with reports of outraged parents from all over the county addressing their school boards with concerns around content and doctrine concealed within headings of diversity inclusion and equality supplied by schools what they're quoting from these materials has been sexually explicit pedophilia neutralizing morally perversive and divisive politician and board of ed approved here in new york state there is a bill in committee to mandate comprehensive sexuality education otherwise known as cse which is a graphic and age inappropriate k-12 sex ed program embedded in year-round curriculum with no opt out provisions concerning thank you the next speaker is sash silvera apparent in regards to district involvement good evening everyone it's sash silva sorry
010okay and a continuation of christina's message and today despite diverse data depicting no benefit of preventing viruses by excessive mask wearing monroe woodbury students and staff are still being forced to wear masks eight hours or more a day we know that oxygen is essential and that the brain is sensitive to oxygen deprivation we also know that rebreathing carbon dioxide and restricting oxygen can reduce cognitive function cause elevated heart rates along with a host of psychological burdens the weight of the harm being done may have a longer-term impact that parents alone will be responsible for not the school not the government children spend most of their day seated at desks similar to being seated at dining tables at any restaurant usa but at restaurants they'd be permitted to breathe freely unmasked districts around new york and
011beyond whose whole states even have stood up and rejected this illogical guidance successfully with the option to wear a mask available to those that choose to do so why are we still here will monroe woodbury continue in its blind compliance with an increasingly overreaching government that pushes intrusive initiatives be it medical or ideological while the while undermining parents authority over their child what happens when government coercion is embraced by school districts by either fear of retribution which is real or willful submission what happens to a country when governments take too much power over the people and the systems it's meant to serve the notion that parents and loyal community members must silently pay the taxes that fund public schools and never question or challenge any aspect of the school's priorities is unreasonable a parent has
012a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the exposures education and care of their child if governments can continue to override parental freedoms while leveraging the people's tax dollars as conditional funding to coerce school boards into compliance of unethical and biased agendas what areas of our lives stand to remain free from tyranny there is a growing dissatisfaction with the public school system which is empowering many parents to organize for change to school policies many parents are also responding by pursuing alternatives to public schools and alternatives to new york state altogether this is a call to action what would you do differently right now if the fear of losing funding or if simply the fear of compromising your livelihood were not a deterrent what bold and brave steps can families take together with you thank you for
013your time thank you um update on questions and comments that have been raised in a previous meeting i'll do that yeah we had um we had a speaker who got up at our last meeting and talked about a product that she was recommending and so the process when um any company or any individual wants to recommend a product what they have to do is they have to share it with our business office as well as if it's a cleaning product in this case it was a cleaning product for covid and it goes through our business office as well as our buildings and grounds department that was done with this particular product and at that time we don't feel that it's appropriate or necessary for the school district to purchase it so i just wanted to
014give an update to the board and to the community regarding that okay thank you i am also going to give an update this evening on behalf of the board um i apologize because i wrote it down so that i could make certain that we that we cross everything off here the monroe-woodbury board of education is in receipt of approximately 30 questions asked of individual board members by a group of monroe-woodbury residents at a board meeting held this past summer it is important to note that the board of education serves as a single governing body for the school district as such we do not respond to personal questions addressed to individual board members our positions as trustees of the board of education require that we respond as a collective whole however several members of the board
015of education along with district leadership did meet with representatives of this group to allow them the opportunity to express their opinions and air their concerns and receive answers to several of their questions in a small group setting we recognize the value of open communication and productive dialogue with members of our community these conversations are invaluable in helping us meet the district's goals of serving our students families and communities as effectively as possible so that was in regards to some questions that have been raised back in the months of july and august okay moving on we are going to recognize the 2021 recipients of the mid hudson school study council awards for excellent so mrs rodriguez this is the exciting part the mid hudson study council is comprised of school districts among seven counties in the
016mid hudson region every school year we celebrate the mid hudson study council awards for excellence due to covid they have canceled the award ceremony for the past two years so this year we have decided to honor them at our boe meeting honorees were selected from a long list of nominations this year we are proud to recognize three staff members as the recipients of the 2021 awards for excellence our first honoree recipient is aldous anson who is receiving this award for excellence in administration i would like to share a letter that was written by linda gorman to the nomination committee the purpose of this letter is to recommend aldous anson for the 2021 award for excellence i am fortunate to have been aldis co-worker for 23 of his 27 years at monroe-woodbury central school district and
017i observe on a daily basis how he goes above and beyond the duties of a food service director aldous not only provides nutritious breakfast and lunch meals through the national school lunch program but he consistently puts every child first he often expresses how he wants the ch the last child on the line to have the same options as the first child on the line he enjoys when he gets to serve students on the lunch line and make them laugh as far as his staff i cannot express the depth of support he gives to his employees in addition to being honest and fair in a pinch all this can be found throughout the seven schools accepting deliveries working in the freezer helping school managers with their computers a problem or a new idea to implement during
018the covet 19 pandemic the food service staff were deemed essential and all this pivoted to the pivoted to other programs such as the summer food program and the seamless summer option in order to provide meals to the community members aged 2 to 18. he didn't miss a beat and never took a day off there were long summer meals school recess meals demanding deadlines and he always remained calm when buses weren't available he delivered meal in his own car to students home he provided individuals requests for meals brought water to family who didn't have any and did much more i cannot think of a more dedicated employee who goes the extra mile on a daily basis his loyalty and dedication to the district and the students and community is second to none congratulations all this laughs
019[Laughter] elsie if i just may add also because i know the public probably doesn't realize this but i'll speak on behalf of the board that there are times that we have many of late meetings here and at various buildings throughout the school and i just want to thank all this and his staff for always feeding us as well because the food is as if we catered it from a local restaurant so it's always delicious and we appreciate that so thank you so much thank you and then we're going to take a picture with all three of them together right carol thank you awesome i can't hear actually it's cool yes he's a really good man [Applause] i'm going to say the next one our next uh honoree recipient is denise guerrero who is receiving this
020award for excellence in pupil personnel services speaking on her behalf of denise is christine ricker good evening everyone denise was nominated to the mid hudson schools school study council by mike masano in recognition of the tremendous tremendous work that denise guerrero does for all our district for all our district buildings for all our families no matter the grade denise is always there to provide support i'd like to to highlight the altruistic acts that denise does every year from the beginning of time when she started with us until today i had the honor of working alongside denise for many years at central valley our offices were right next door we were partners in crime and we did a lot of good work those are precious memories i'll always have as our students family and staff can
021tell you having a social worker like denise guerrero at your side during a time of crisis is like having a life preserver within your grasp no matter how dire the situation denise is there in a moment's notice to lend support provide a calming presence offer encouraging words and provide multiple solutions she has helped countless families and staff members during their most difficult times and she provides her assistance with grace respect and compassion simultaneously she will be your strongest advocate and the protective force that you need in your corner when you are struggling last year in particular in miss coven 19 denise put her incredible social work skills into overdrive she was on the forefront of making sure that students were attending school had necessary technology to access their learning and made numerous home visits to
022ensure that our students and families were safe and secure denise conquered food insecurity and made numerous food deliveries to families that were without transportation she also championed the cause for our local food pantries and was able to secure substantial food and monetary donations to help sustain their programs and to help our greater monroe-woodbury community she ensured that families did not have their utilities turned off and she made sure the families were not evicted she comforted families in the hospital and sadly she helped with funeral arrangements and had costs waived is also our mckinney-vento liaison she helps our families who are struggling and facing devastating hardship which causes them to need housing assistance upon arriving at denise's doorstep families are greeted with a warm welcome and a huge supply of resources resources which include help with
023registration clothing bedding access to student meals student transportation and access to a full and equal opportunity for academic success denise is a pro listen carefully denise denise is a pro at eliminating institutional limitations and securing for our families essential mental health supports medical assistance and job training opportunities denise is full of positive energy and radiates hope and optimism to all that she comes in contact with she coordinates multiple community events for our neediest families and always strives to make the holidays a warm and special experience for our students and parents for almost a decade denise has coordinated an annual heroes and helpers event which pairs over 100 students with local police officers firefighters and ems workers with the generosity of our local target department store each child is given a target gift card and gets
024to shop with their very own assigned police officer firefighter ems worker our local heroes with the strong support of our local rotary club and in conjunction with chicago pizzeria uno denise also coordinates a holiday breakfast for our students and their families each child also receives a holiday gift donated by the woodbury commons in closing our students and families have developed strong trusting relationships with denise and feel safe and genuinely cared for with her involvement they seek out her guidance and know that their entire family is in good hands with denise by their side thank you for allowing me to share just a few examples of why denise is the recipient of the mid hudson schools study council award of excellence for pupil personnel services [Applause] hmm i'm going to add another little note i'm sorry
025mrs rodriguez but we as board members were invited last year as well to one of the events that she ran and i hadn't really had much interaction with you prior and to see the way that you ran the event at central valley was like a well-oiled machine and the amount of families that you helped and are it was really touching so congratulations it's well deserved thank you no no we're going to watch i'm going to watch you [Applause] our next honoree recipient is annie kiekel who is receiving the award for excellence in support staff speaking on her behalf is caitlin caldwell good evening trustees of the board of education cabinet members members of the monroe woodbury central school district community annie kiekel itambien los padres de anikiko mas importante thank you for this opportunity to
026speak on behalf of sapphire elementary school and also mr eric ulau in recognition of mrs kiekel's service to the entire monroe woodbury central school district community although she is often behind the scenes i can assure you that mrs keakle is on the front lines of anything that matters to our families and students here mrs kiekel or annie or annie keagle has served as a an eight or one to one monitor for 16 and a half years in monroe woodbury central school district most recently at sapphire elementary school for anyone who knows mrs kiekel you know that she is the only child of her incredible parents and that she goes through extraordinary lengths to care for all those people around her in the same way she has been cared for and loved by them whether she
027is sharing her mother's homemade alfajorest at the holidays or during multicultural celebrations speaking to parents in our community about challenges they may face as their children grow and learn and encouraging her colleagues and our community to see the best in themselves and our students in the best and most difficult of times she's always on the move during my first year as a part of the sapphire team mrs kiekel gave me a gift around the holidays since holiday season and said i want you to have something sweet my favorite dulce de leche and something that keeps you warm a scarf which i treasure this sentiment beautifully sums up everything that anyone who has had the pleasure of knowing annie kiekel would say but enough about why i personally love her and admire her so much there's
028so much more that she shares with this entire community as a district resident and employee anyone who has worked with annie keakle will attest to the fact that she is truly a child whisperer as a critical part of the staff who serve students in our self-contained special education class at sapphire mrs kiekel skillfully uses applied behavior analysis to support our youngest students in adjusting to their new learning environment whether using non-verbal communication cards to support our youngest learners in navigating the school building and social interact interactions or practicing lunchroom routines and saying please and thank you and good morning and welcome and i'm so happy to see you she brings love and energy everywhere she goes the adjustments to teaching and learning experiences over the last two years have undoubtedly been diffic difficult for neurotypical
029students however for our students with unique needs they have the potential to feel almost impossible despite these challenges mrs kiekel has made sure that her students are able to wear masks to be aware of their personal space to exercise high levels of impulse control and independence she has taught students to say good morning to ask for anything they need or want and to navigate the building with less support in a safe manner over the last 18 months which for anyone has not been easy she even suggested that a student with whom she works wear heavier shoes to ensure that he feels grounded in his classroom which his parents noted during a meeting was a complete game changer for him in more than one conversation parents have voiced that mrs kiekel is a life-changing force not
030only for their child but for their entire family outside of sapphire annie is also a champion of the autism moveathon for orange county and autism awareness she uses her personal journey to empower the families of students with unique learning needs or abilities to seek out the best possible resources supports and strategies to ensure all of our students have a joyful experience at school and beyond you guys know that i'm not one who's short for words so i'm sorry i just want to make sure i capture everything for annie in addition to her exceptional practice as a monitor mrs keegle is a tireless advocate advocate for students and families for whom navigating the registration process being new members of this community and the special education process can be daunting she makes herself accessible for families for
031whom english is a second language especially our spanish-speaking families and there is no hour at which she's not available further at the start of the covid pandemic mrs kiekel quickly pivoted not only to supporting her students remotely but also acting as kind of an ad hoc social worker she worked with our building to identify families who are experiencing food insecurity significant economic hardship who are unable to access resources to heat their homes during the coldest months of the year she helped to coordinate the resources in the building to ensure that students were fed warm and had access to learning in times that were so unpredictable all of this was done with a smile with laughter and from a place of true devotion and love without exception mrs keegle goes above and beyond her role as
032a monitor or aid as she cares for each student with whom she works as her own she builds extraordinary relationships with each of her students and this is particularly crucial for our youngest learners over the last two years we have all undoubtedly seen the world around us change at a meteoric pace however throughout every change mrs keagle brings such joy to the days of our students our faculty and staff she supports our students learning and social emotional growth in every interaction and the adults too she takes excellent care of all of us she looks at each interaction with our entire community through the lens of a parent and an educator and she does this work with her whole heart in sum mrs kiekel exemplifies the philosophy of service and love in action for the entire
033sapphire community she is a critical point of connection partnership and community for all of us and i know i speak for the entire sapphire team when i say we admire and appreciate annie keagle to infinite measure it is truly an honor to celebrate mrs annie kiekel as the monroe woodbury central school district nominee for the mid hudson school study council award as a support staff member at sapphire elementary school thank you congratulations [Applause] i'll tell you i put it all wrong [Applause] okay sorry say that again i can take that i was just gonna wait for her to finish i can't hear what she said she's asking for a quick break oh we could do that but i was gonna wait for you to finish yeah let me just say one thing i just wanted
034to thank all the recipients um each of them inspired success within our district then thank you very much thank you [Applause] we will take a quick five-minute break okay we are back in um session there was no board business that was conducted during the break um congratulations to all of our recipients and i just want to make mention that we will have some more recipients for next month unfortunately last year due to covid we were not meeting in person so the recipients that received those awards for last year we just kind of did things a little virtually but now that we are able to be back in session we have invited them for our november meeting so they'll be coming for next month so we'll have like it's normally only once a year but ours
035will be twice as nice okay moving on with the agenda item number seven may i have a motion to approve the annual professional performance review hardship waiver resolution motion second all those in favor all right i may i have a motion to approve the minutes of the september 22nd 2021 regular meeting eye motion second all those in favor aye aye um first reading of the policy manual update we are reviewing the policies and recommending changes for policy number 5659 which is charging for school meals there was some language that we had to add in there from new york state and also policy number 5660 which is school food service program for free and reduced meal services may i have a motion to approve motion second um committee reports uh don with her audit yep so
036we received uh a report on the extra curriculum activity fund this has been an area that not just monroe but pretty much every school in the state constantly gets dinged it's it's the various clubs and groups that collect money and the state whenever they audit a school almost every school gets dinged on some procedural issue with it and uh tanya and her team have done an absolutely fantastic job of making sure that the procedures to do that are very very tight and have been training and implementing stuff so um i think the the audit committee received i don't think we have to vote on it i think we just uh have to recognize that we received it but uh yeah the uh but uh fantastic report and more important is the fact that we're we
037we're getting close to the top of the list of people that do it right and this is something that most schools struggle with so monroe woodbury i know from an audit standpoint this is this is a pretty big accomplishment thank you i'm dawn for visitation stacey i don't think that there's anything to update since our last meeting uh i just will note that we are meeting tomorrow to visit sapphire the mcc center and the sapphire dorm okay i don't know if patrick wants to add anything for updates or i i think we're just going to update uh do some updates with facilities you know okay so do you want to go right into facilities don or for you yeah i think so there's yep so um a couple of things the bcs or the building
038conditions are required by the state every five years to um have an architect engineer walk around look at our buildings and and write a report that says is everything okay and if it isn't what needs to be fixed i believe patrick you're working on the rfp that's progressed considerably to issue that it's a state requirement an exterior wall repair at sapphire uh is is pine tree is underway we had uh one of the walls that was in desperate need of repair so patrick and his team authorized uh the funds to uh to go about that also the signs on the fields we agreed on a new format we have existing signs but we're in the process of making them a little clear there was a universal agreement on kind of a format general format uh
039they're in the process of reviewing that and uh should have the new one soon it's not urgent because we have existing signs up so once that project is uh is uh completed and uh facilities grounds gave us an excellent update on all of the work that we're doing at the various schools um and i know recently there was uh the uh i forget the name the uh the vestibule outside for the uh what do you call the man uh the manchester but i think that's a step the man check was addressed um that the uh the facilities part of it was nearing completion and there was some additional operational um things that needed to be completed afterwards which um should be should be done soon okay is there any follow-up to that patrick i know
040we discussed that at the last meeting it was supposed to be done by september 30th so so at the last meeting um there was a there were a couple of components sort of a component related to the locking system for the interior doors so that was the one piece that was sort of missing you know of the puzzle and that was that was done a few days or i think it was actually either the day or the day after the board meeting i think it was september 21st or 26th and um and so from there was it was basically how do we operationalize this so there were things such as setting up the office you know the physical configuration the physical construction to the building was complete uh so we we needed to deal with
041some technology issues which we have done and uh you know those are related to both the raptor system which is the visitor management system and actually configuring the telephones to lock and unlock the doors and there's some issues with that there was some uh you know issues to be ironed out and and they have been more or less their training issues with the staff now that we have to deal with and there's been you know there's been some hurdles with that like on how to use that system properly and and fully we've uh we've all also you know talked about the furniture furniture furniture and signage in the area so those are things that are i sort of looked at those as sort of ancillary things that we'll we'll deal with you know probably in
042the next uh few weeks but we want to get the the vestibule at the high school in particular operational as soon as possible and then use some of the i use the word the blueprint uh what we do there and how we lay that out for the middle school in north main north main is i think pretty much operational but it's the high school in the middle school that still need uh some tweaking um you know both in terms of uh you know the technology there and the training for the staff to use the technology and use the systems there so i mean one other issue that came up which i look at this is sort of something that's in the future maybe never but we were considering the idea of at the high school
043and this potentially could be also rolled out at the middle school um moving the the entrance door so if you think about the high school this the security vestibule you enter on the right and then make a left and go down the vestibule to the security check-in point so what we were considering and what we're doing now is sort of researching um best practices and sort of what's what's optimal in the security vestibule arena if it made more sense to have you enter on the left where the security vestibule is and have that vestibule partitioned somehow so that you're truly you know sort of isolated in a smaller area so that's something we're investigating you know sort of thinking about assessing and uh what we want to do what i really want to hear from
044is security experts you know folks and there's a there's a group that we deal with intralogic is the company and we're also going to consult with law enforcement to say what's what's optimal what's the best practice what's the you know how is this typically done uh so that is one of those things that i think it came up today um it's not something that we're ready to roll out it's more more about being in sort of the research phase of that because it would take a little bit of time a little bit of effort to sort of move the i'll call it the intercom which at the high schools on the outside of the building to the other side and then do a partition you know there's it's like anything there's there's a lot of
045not a lot but there will be some hurdles and complications that come about one of which is related to the fire plant where you partition that vestibule and we may need to involve the architect and new york state ed department so it's you know it's never never super easy or simple so that was the one wrinkle i think that came up today and i think there was some discussion or um you know confusion about how did that fit into the existing plan well i think because at the last meeting at least that was my understanding was that it was going to be up and operational by october so i guess now there seems to have been some problems that were kind of going back to the drawing board with it so i guess my follow-up
046question would be at what point do you think it will be operational i mean i know you know do we have a deadline in sight that we're going to be able to say that this i mean because this has been since over a year that we've had this plan and action now the equipment is there and stuff so when when is the end date that we i would estimate two weeks stacy because at this point the physical infrastructure is there that was the at the last meeting that was like a piece that was missing right like literally the locking mechanism wasn't installed yet so that was done we are talking about the training really the training is at this point the training and uh and the technologies in is the technology is in place the
047training for the technology is what we really need to deal with now okay and i think two weeks would be sufficient amount of time to get that running well um you know the other piece like i said we've we had discussions about new signage so we're talking about like having sort of a consistent uh look and a consistent verbage for all the signs in each of the three buildings you know related to this so that's something that we said let's let's pause and slow down and make sure we like what we're saying make sure it looks good make sure it's appropriate um so that's one of those things that we were we thought we were ready and then we sort of reevaluated it um you know and then at the last meeting like it was
048it was one of those things where things are evolving the technology that we put in place we needed a little more time to iron out a few issues the staff i think needs maybe a little more time to become accustomed to it so i think that was sort of the hold up where i said end of september it was that was sort of an estimate at that point and i think now we can with more confidence say you know two weeks i think we'll be ready okay and that's for both the middle school and the high school but the ones that are at the other buildings are already current and operational north main i think is is operational yeah okay there was an issue i think there was an issue uh with the with the
049buzz in on the door but um that's one of those things that we're attempting to iron out right now okay patrick i just want to clarify you said that the the locking mechanism was corrected right at the high school yeah as of the last meeting that was the piece because i was there today and it was not fixed so i i'm just confused by that well what i'm referring to don is we had open systems the company come and and so there was a piece right that needed to be installed and configured to be able to unlock the interior door so that was done and now we're at the point where the i think the doors can be unlocked by through the telephone and again it's a it's a somewhat of a technology issue um
050as well as a training issue for staff uh there there was some confusion about and uh this is getting into the weeds but right now this system requires the the person the visitor on the outside to actually buzz in ring the bell if you will the inner comb bell for the system to be able to unlock the door remotely through the telephone that may be what you're talking about no talking about the second door and frank is here can you speak to that because the the it opens up the first door but then when you get to the second door it's it's locked and they cannot buzz and open up that door so we've been propping it over so can i just pause for a second because because what i'm hearing is you're saying two
051weeks mrs talbert is saying that it looks according to what when she went to the high school it looks like it may be other issues rather than us speak about this i would much rather not say two weeks because i think that when we say two weeks the expectation is it's going to happen in two weeks and and there i mean i've i've only gotten an overview of this and there's a lot of moving parts to this so i would much rather say that let us go back i i feel more comfortable saying that let us go back and take a look at you know what are some of the issues what are some of the operational issues and then you know let the board know and then let the public know when this is
052really going to be ready because to say two weeks um and there's other things that are that are issues and glitches and training people and you know when we're training staff it can take longer my understanding elsi at this point was that most of the issues with the technology worked out the infrastructure building issues i think are settled there's a hole in the cinder block wall where we have some limited furniture in there temporary that the locking mechanisms have been worked out we're installing another phone which would help with the locking and unlocking of the doors and that at this point it was more about process where where are we going to enter what are the signs going to say how is the staff going to handle situations training on the use of the system
053but but you're right it's better to right right two when you say two under promising the expectation is it's gonna be operational and running in two weeks and i and i don't know if that's that's a fact could we could we actually have frank wayne here because for a moment or not it's okay and and also what we can do is we'll schedule a facilities meeting yeah at the point that um it's ready and then and then we can right right because see this is this is it gets a little complicated because this this came up through the visitation committee and so it includes the facilities but i think that what we need to do is we the yeah the the um overseers of this um need to sit down and take a look at
054it because because i don't want the public to think that we're ready for something and there may be other issues rather than having frank get up and speak and um i know that you've put tanya in involved in this so that we have sort of a person who's overseeing this because we're all extremely busy right now and so i feel that rather than us say that that we go back and we take a look at the plan and we look at what some of the issues we may have how do we mitigate it and then create a plan and then share it with the board of education and then share it in public in the public and then we'll be able to answer um more answer the questions and give a definitive plan i think
055that that's a better idea i mean i said i estimate two weeks and i like to say approximately when i think of a dollar when you when you say two weeks everybody thinks you're right okay so i'd rather not say that okay that's fine okay so that's audit visitation and facilities um i'll give an update on policy we met this past monday um the primary focus that we met for was in regards to a policy that we've been discussing for several months that is going to be mandated by the state quote unquote soon we don't know exactly when but it is basically our dei policy that they're looking at having us do one of the things that we have discovered with this is that they are looking for a lot of in excuse me of
056feedback from stakeholders so i am happy to say and i know i don't know if mrs rodriguez wants to add anything to it but we we have been doing that work which i think is great we have committees in place that we're getting from various buildings and stuff so that's been a positive movement but the quote that we received for is that the state is asking school districts to use fidelity in this matter and urgency so we will continue to keep working i think we're hoping to get some reports back from the individual buildings um as they've all come back to meet now for september and october so we're hoping that um within future policy meetings we'll hope to have something i say finalized but the truth is i don't believe this policy will be
057finalized for quite a while we did discuss that as well so i do think it's going to be something that will be somewhat of a work in progress we will be putting something out there with the language that the state is mandating us to have however there will probably be changes but i don't know if mrs rodriguez wants to mention any of the committees that we've gotten to tackle this no well we we started this work probably at the beginning of this this calendar year and we we shared it with several groups we think that we're going to share with several more groups again stacy used the word fidelity they are really strong on creating a policy that's inclusive that makes sure that you've reached out to key stakeholders but we were we were told
058that this is going to be a policy that will be evolving right so we will put out a policy and so it's very likely that the policy will be updated it could be in six months because this policy is really coming from sed and they're they're evolving they're creating this policy so in any case um it's a work in progress but we will have something out i would say what do you think in a i'd say in a couple of months probably but it it'll have to be evolved you know we'll have to it it'll it'll change okay and we did the updates that we had on the agenda this evening with the food services so i think that's it our next policy meeting is um i believe the 19th of october and we have
059audit on october 14th and as dawn mentioned visitation we have one for tomorrow and as don mentioned i don't believe our next structured facilities meeting was supposed to happen for a couple of months but it sounds like we'll probably add one to the agenda so those can all be found on the district website okay moving on to item number 11 which is a report by our student board representative omer go ahead thank you um hello i hope everyone has a great week um i just wanted to let everyone know that i have sent out emails to all the school principals in the district prior to this meeting and i'm waiting out for responses from every one of them um earlier today i just had a meeting with my first meeting with mr cassidy and we
060spoke about um homecoming and spirit week that's currently happening soon um he sent out an email earlier and i know a lot of people and parents were concerned about the homecoming dance and it's confirmed that homecoming dance will be on the football field it will still be a semi-formal dance and i know a lot of people are concerned about that um spirit week will be from october 12th to the 15th um email went out with all the the days and the descriptions um the students have come to me about concerns and i have met with administration and talked to them about it so hopefully it will be fixed in your future um coming into this it's um it's a little weird because i always looked at things as a student's perspective but going into this
061i have to look at it from an administration so it's things that may look good as a student may not turn out so well from an administration perspective a lot of people it's a lot of it's it's true because a lot of the students don't realize it and they come to me and they're like this is a great idea but i have to think about it i have to play devil's advocate um so yeah with the emails i hope to get um as i planned less as i mentioned the last board meeting i plan to meet with a group of small students every week before the board meeting and just kind of give a general update about each school and the district so yeah okay great may i ask one follow-up question how is it
062then that you are going when you're meeting with your groups such as at the high school that you just said that they're giving you feedback and then if you take that to administration are you then meeting back with them to to do exactly that and give them the opposite feedback that you received are you following back up okay has that been received well yeah um a lot of them a lot of them understand actually right it's surprising because okay good yeah now well that's that's what your role is i mean that's important i mean you're basically a liaison between you know the students and administration and sometimes you know students think one way and administration tells you differently so yeah i'm happy to hear that there's some good progress though okay great thank you so
063much um matt for personnel uh thank you very much before i ask for um formal approval i just want to point out two things on the personnel agenda uh first i want to recognize our certified staff appointments one who is one of whom is in the the audience and that is matthew mitt beau who is going to be a leader placement physical education teacher at central valley so congratulations there is there is one retirement i just want to mention um it's a woman by the name of carmen coss carmen um has been in the district for over 30 years she's worked in in many buildings but for the last 20 or so she's been at north main elementary she is in a lot of ways representative of all that is good over in that building
064and that side of town she is the the definition of selfless what she does in terms of connecting families to the school district is it's it's simply amazing she will be missed but one of the things that she has made sure to do is to train as many people as she can to help take over for for her once she goes and she's done a wonderful job you know sometimes you hear about the the the seasoned quarterback who's not really interested in in helping that newer quarterback you know learn all the plays she is the opposite of that she's just wonderful um she'll be missed and congratulations and with that i asked for approval for the items listed under personnel emotion all those in favor aye aye thank you congratulations to our retiree and welcome
065um i'll turn it over to patrick for business and financial thanks stacey so i would uh also respectfully request the approval of the items under the business and financial section of the agenda emotion exactly all those in favor on special education and preschool special education may i have a motion to approve the recommendations motion a second second all those in favor reports by board and central office sergey um i wanted to acknowledge the recipients of today's awards congratulations it is great to see that the staff of monroe woodbury achieved such excellence and i want to wish everybody a happy week thank you dawn same congratulations to the recipients well deserved i know each of them well and i agree with everything that was said about them and uh welcome to the new employees and congratulations
066to the retirees thank you don yeah same uh congratulations to three award recipients that's a that was a really really nice award and that's it for me thank you suzanne yeah i would like to echo that and congratulate oldest denise and annie on their awards and i'd also like to welcome matt and congratulate our retiree and have a good evening thank you omar um i want to congratulate all the award winners um welcome matt and um yeah thank you donna um i'm going to echo everyone congratulations to all the mid hudson school study council award winners they're well deserved i wanted to remind everyone to think pink and wear pink on october 15th friday the district's gone pink and uh observance of breast cancer awareness and i wouldn't be the same if i didn't wish
067some birthdays before our next regular meeting we have a bunch dr vias mr kravitz dr koiffman mr k hell and mr anderson happy birthday happy birthday month birthday already in the cabinet oh goodness gracious they're all having fun have a good night congratulations to all this annie and and denise well deserve congratulations to carmen um she is one of the big part of even technology connection because of her help especially at the north main we were able to roll out some chromebooks with the families who don't have direct access to technology or the language barrier right now we are at 99.36 percent so almost every kid in our district has a district assigned device and a big part goes because it goes to her to facilitate to the that community we are in a planning
068or a little bit more than planning or implementation stage of student health desk this is one of the thought that we have since last couple of years this is the for the student by the student health desk at the high school working with the high school administration and our tech coach we are looking to start implementing that in next couple of weeks the goal is over this summer we had about we had three graduates and two juniors work with the technology team in rolling out some chromebooks throughout the summer now we feel that we have this students ready for the real experience working with other students helping us as well as the students in terms of troubleshooting that so more to come okay great thank you so much eric i want to first begin by
069apologizing to omer i'm sorry for what you're experiencing i think everyone up here has has experienced that when you come to the table with one idea and then you have conversations about it and then some of the realities sort of factor into that but don't don't let it slow you down i i witnessed that tonight yes you have to stick with it you got to stick with it um congratulations to our award winners certainly deservedly so um i can attest to everything that was said about them and in actuality um what was said is really an understatement about what they bring to our school community and and is so well deserved the the last 18 months have felt challenging it feels like things often slow down but i can tell you we haven't we continue
070to add and expand programs to the school district if you look in today's paper you see an example of that our up our upk program is is up and running uh certainly a huge thank you to the team at sapphire and to the team at little pals for their for their hard work and getting everything off the ground and it's it's made a difference in 71 little lives in our upk program so thank you very much and i wish everybody a happy long weekend thank you patrick so i'd also like to congratulate all this denise and annie well done um i also just like to thank woodbury commons they made a donation of school supplies to district students we sort of facilitated that we didn't need to take possession of it but and denise helped
071with that actually um and i also like to mention sort of a psa for woodbury commons they're having a they're having a job fair on uh october 20th from 3 to 7 p.m at market hall and they asked us to get the word out there might be some students at the high school seniors and juniors that might be interested in going over there and seeing if there's a an opportunity for them that's it thank you matt well i'll continue the congrats congratulations to all this annie and denise there is very well deserving uh it's been it's been a busy time in across the district a good a lot of good things um have a wonderful night everyone thank you jamal it's not very very similar but to any genius i know they stepped out but
072uh i don't take anything away from their contribution uh clearly they're obviously extremely appreciated but specifically um obviously i heard 27 years so you started when i was still in school so i want to on behalf of them [Laughter] thank you dan uh good night everyone thank you anthony congratulations to our award winners and good night everyone thank you michael uh congratulations to the award winners welcome matt and have a good evening thank you we'll see congratulations to our award winner matt were you not a student of mine in the middle school [Laughter] all this fed him too see what happens welcome and i also want to say that it's it's it's uh it's a sad goodbye to say goodbye to carmen koss she is an amazing human being and i will certainly miss her
073and my big hugs that i get to give her when i would visit um north main and with that turn it over to take care of it okay so thank you i echo the same um i actually have made my comments i should have said something about annie as well prior to my sitting in this seat i was pta president for several years at sapphire and she really is just a gem over there um i know even for somebody like myself she was instrumental in help always there always smiling just great to see her interacting with kids so definitely well deserved for the three of them it's disappointing that because of covid normally there is a large gathering of i believe it's everybody in orange county right donna that goes and they have a large
074dinner and everybody gets to get recognized i do like our personal recognition here as well but unfortunately i think because of covid some of that has changed so i'm happy that we're able to at least recognize them and as i said next month we'll recognize those that won those awards last year so that'll happen in november um i want to thank omar for his updates i look forward to the next ones from all the elementary schools i'm happy to see that there is a lot of great things happening in the district i always give my plug for the website please check there because there's constantly something going on for parents to see there's clothing drives events happening so please make sure that you check that out i know we've got the homecoming football game next
075week we've got the homecoming dance now which i'm sure people will be thrilled with so i know that there's a lot of great stuff going on um and i think that's it so with that i have a motion to adjourn into an anticipated executive session to discuss the discipline of a particular employee second all those in favor you