001Okay, we're going to call to order the February 4th, 2026 board of education meeting. If we could please silence our phones and we'll stand for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay, we have two quick motions here. Uh, we need a motion to accept the minutes of the January 7th, 2026 board of education meeting. >> Mike, Jen, Dan, >> second. >> Uh, all any qu any comments? All in favor? >> All in favor? I there. And we need another motion to accept the minutes of the January 21st, 2026 board of education meeting. Pete Melanie. All in favor? >> I. >> Good. And now I'd like to ask for a motion to enter
002into executive session in regards to matters pertaining to the employment of a particular person or persons. Jackie Pete. All in favor? >> I exact Okay, before we get into our uh full agenda for this evening, I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Chandler briefly um to uh recognize a matter that our school community has been dealing with this past week. >> Thank you. Uh before we begin tonight's meeting, I need to acknowledge a profound loss to our RCS family. Christina Maloney, a teacher at RCS Middle School for over 20 years, passed away this week. For more than two decades, Christina dedicated herself to our students and to our community. Her loss is deeply felt by her colleagues, her students, and everyone across our district. Our middle school staff has shown extraordinary compassion and professionalism
003in supporting each other and their students through this difficult time. We activated our crisis response protocols, brought in additional counseling support, and our team has tried to be there for every student and every staff member who needs our support. We are one RCS family, and this loss significantly affects our district and our community. On behalf of the district, we extend our condolences to Christina's family, friends, colleagues, and students. I'd like for us to take a moment of silence to honor Christina's memory and her years of service to our students. Thank you. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Um, and thank you [clears throat] to the district office team, the building principal, and the entire administrative staff for the district, and all teachers and staff for um everything they've done this week to handle the situation so well
004with our students and with their families. We on behalf of the board, uh we appreciate what everybody's done this week. Thank you. Okay, now we're going to move right into a special presentation from Needam Risk Management. Welcome >> and uh good evening everybody. Uh my name is Michael Needam and I'm the owner of Needm Risk Management, the uh safety and health conser uh consulting firm to the school district. And with me is my colleague, uh, David Bower, who is our director of technical services, and he oversees a lot of the operations related to the topic that we're talking about tonight, which is lead and water testing in schools. And, um, just to give you a little history and background with this, um, this really started with the Environmental Protection Agency maybe 25 years or so
005ago, they came out with a wonderful document called the three T's. And what it talked about was this idea Well, it's not required. We should test drinking outlets in schools for lead content simply because it came out of your well and you tested it and we do where we have wells. We're required to and the levels were adequate or you got it from a water plant when it travels through pipes and it sits in our uh fixtures which contain lead and that's still pretty much universally true to some extent. um depending on the acidity of water, the acidity of the water and other factors, you can get leeching of a little bit of uh lead. And so they were concerned about that and they called for testing, just guidelines, not regulation. And um so the
006state education department, facilities planning at that time, and again we're really going back a long time here, said, "Yeah, this is a good idea." And so we had gone out and started testing schools 25 years ago using those guidelines. And we found some issues. there was some outlets that were definitely above the recommended guideline and we remediated those and and dealt with them. So that was sort of knowledge within the school community that that was a possibility and then um at some point uh I think the public realized that uh schools weren't necessarily all testing their outlets and so there was a call for schools to do that. the state education department said absolutely everybody should go test their elementary schools and um and follow the 3T's guidance and uh which was kind of made
007sense at the time and the goal here when we think about lead um this is a significant toxin uh not just in terms of acute toxicity but chronic toxicity and the younger somebody is the more impacted it impacts a lot of body systems it impacts the central nervous system brain and spinal cord we so see loss of mental acuity and behavioral changes in children. It affects the peripheral ner nervous system. It can cause a peripheral neuropathy. Uh it causes homoleysis, the damage to the uh development of red blood cells. It affects both the male and female reproductive system organs. And what happens when you're exposed to lead in any form? It circulates in soft tissue where it can cause damage and eventually it goes to large bone. And a child when they are exposed to
008lead absorbs this at much greater rates than adults do. their body sees it as something desirable and the halflife of lead and bone is 27 years. Um so this is absolutely a material we don't want pe people to be exposed to. At one time the center for disease control called this the most important preventable public health problem in the United States. It's one of those things the more you research the more concerned you are. So there's great wisdom behind the idea of lowering people's general exposure to this especially children. So again we're not really thinking about acute toxicity. The goal is to just reduce people's total exposure anywhere we could. Uh people have other sources of exposure for children. Probably the greatest one is in their homes. If the mother or father is a construction
009worker, that's probably where we see some of the greatest problems. They track lead dust into the home. But here the EPA had this great document and um uh state ed said go forth and do these tests. And then the New York State Department of Health jumped into the the mix and developed uh requirements that test uh be conducted of every outlet in the school district including slop sinks and custodial areas, hoses, things like this. And I think most of us argued that there wasn't wisdom behind that. It wasn't a good use of resources because clearly people aren't drinking from some of those things. So over time they modified the guidelines for the testing and what had to happen. They changed um uh a number of guidelines what we tested where we tested the levels to
010which we test and requirements for administration like now we sign outlets that we don't want people drinking from. So where we've landed now and there was guidance issued over a course of years. It was very confusing honestly. We had a set of sort of for formal guidelines in 2019 and uh and then in 2023 which is what we're currently following. Um, we I actually stood in front of this board of education in 2016, by the way, um, and announced your lead test results. Every outlet in the district passed, by the way, which was great. But now we're using a much lower standard. We're using five parts per billion in water. So, this is extraordinarily low. It's it's an ambitious goal. It's an admirable goal because there's no good level of exposure to lead, especially not
011for young folks. And um, so the school district has a requirement to test. So where we are now, the school district determines what our drinking outlets. So the way that works is uh our technicians, these are done first draw. So our folks are, you know, getting up at 2:30 in the morning and coming out, we're going around with Mr. Shro or one of his representatives and you sort of do room by room analysis of okay, what do people drink from? Uh if you're in a science room, for example, the laboratory sinks, we generally don't. Uh, and then there's drinking water fountains or bubblers in elementary school buildings where we are. So, we're mapping those as we go and we take first draw samples and those go to an environmental laboratory for analytical testing. Those results
012come by come back and we organize them. We send them back to Mr. Sham and then Mr. Shro has responsibilities. He has to post them so the school community can see them. For example, they're on school websites. We also have a responsibility to enter them into the department of health's herds system as well um so that they can they can track that and um and there's some other administrative components that have been added in those 2023 guidelines and what's happened is the controller and I think this is probably the reason we're here the controller um came out and audited schools um looking for compliance which I think is a good thing um I think uh in doing this they've sort of created the standard because in many cases they're looking at 2020 sampling through the
013lens of 2023 guidelines, but that's good because it's just telling us this is what we're going to we're going to do moving forward. Um, so for example, uh, one of the recommendations that was made by the auditor's report was develop sampling or remediation plans for all district outlets that could be used for drinking or cooking, including details on water outlets uh, that would be exempt. So what they're saying there is to the extent that we had outlets that exceeded the requirements or are not going to be we're not going to use for drinking, we list those and we describe how we're going to deal with them. So for example, if we had an outlet that might have been used for drinking but it exceeded the requirements. Uh we have options. Um we uh uh we
014can do uh remediation by adding filtration. um we can remove them from service because they're not necessary or we can simply post them don't drink out of this outlet for example a science sink. And um so the way that process has worked here uh the this is sort of cart before the horse though because when you're developing the sampling strategy for what you're going to sample that's done while we sample or else you're going through every room in every building twice. Uh so what happened is when we go through the rooms with for example Mr. from were mapping out where they are and so since that sampling protocol was done uh we have a map now of where they are. I believe you have QR codes actually there there's QR codes being rolled out next
015to these outlets in terms of their location. So that becomes our master plan moving forward. So for example, if an outlet's removed, it can be removed from that plan. And um if an outlet is uh designated as exempt um then uh we can sign that um and uh and indicate that we don't expect that that'll be used for drinking. That's one of the remediation strategies. And then remediate or implement long-term controls for water outlets that exceed the lead action level. And that's something that the school district's done. Um they again we added water filters or designated them as not for drinking or they were taken out of service. Um so that's really the strategy um that's been used and those are all options available to the to the school district. Um develop procedures for individuals.
016Um so this is one of the administrative pieces that's sort of the standard now. Um they want a uh a document that lists who has responsibility for the different components of the testing process and We have that. The school district has that now. And uh essentially it says Mr. Shro, Mr. Sham, Mr. There's a lot of Mr. Shams on it and a couple of uh where we're included or the environmental lab and um or the superintendent has responsibility for certain things there, but primarily it's Mr. Schro does a lot of the work behind this in terms of managing the process. Uh and notify all required parties. So there's two a couple different notifications, the school community and then the herd system. And so the controllers audit indicated that uh that this that number one the
017notification to herds wasn't done in a timely fashion and we disagree. Um actually we disagree with a number of the findings but uh the reason it appears that way to the controller is when you go into the herd system what you're looking at the date where the data was entered is the last modified. So the last time somebody went in and modified the data is the date. So if we said to Mr. Shum did you in fact enter those in a timely fashion? The answer is yes but he went back in and modified it and they looked at that date. Um and then the other component was um we didn't have documentation. For example, if we're an admin sent Mr. Shamro a letter indicating the date that he sent out the communication and made the
018do the documents available to the school community. So that's something we'll do going forward. But >> why would we be modifying entries after they're submitted to DO? >> And Bill, what was the specific circumstance? If there's if there's an outlet that wasn't tested in the initial first draw sampling, you have to go back and then add that outlet in. So, we have to show that we have a total number of outlets that are sampled. And there might be so like out of 71 outlets, only 68 were sampled in that first draw. You're required within that within the was it 10 days of the first draw sample to enter that data into herds. Um, so I think in that situation, we had sampled a whole bunch of outlets, but then there were some drinking fountains that
019were still offline due to COVID. We went back and sampled those at a later date, which is why then that um that modified was not reflecting the original first draw sampling date. >> That makes sense. >> And the other thing too, that Mike was talking about with the the parent notifications, we sent we're required to send home a a printed letter. It can't be an email communication. It can't be a text message. So, we sent home a backpack mailer. Well, it's really tough to justify, you know, or to to to prove that you sent home that backpack mailer on a certain date >> just due to the nature of the communication. >> So, the way we can do that in the future is you send us an email or have an admin give you a
020a letter. Um, the the other thing that happened, by the way, is we had construction activities at different points because I remember we questioned uh Mr. Toronto, wait, these haven't been tested. He said, "Yeah, Mike, they we're under construction. They weren't operable at the time." So, that happened. So, that would be another reason for the modification. Um, so I think there's a misunderstanding there is that I would characterize that. But what I will say, and I would say this about most of the schools we work with, I think the schools have done a very good job. It's been incredibly confusing. It's an understatement. You have to have the Dick Tracy decoder ring to follow the changes in these rules. It's been incredibly complicated. Trying to keep schools on track with this has been phenomenally difficult
021for us. We hold health and safety officers meetings every two months and I think this has been on our agenda for the last year and a half. We're always talking about the changes in the next round of of testing. So, it's a challenge. It's a challenge for us. It's a challenge for schools, but I think schools have done a really good job with this and we were initially concerned because the five parts per billion is extraordinarily low if you went and looked in your places of work or your homes or the drinking water bottles in front of you. Um, this is a very aggressive standard and it's a good standard. It's an admirable standard. But I think schools in general have done a very good job with this and the comments that I would make
022are the school district did the sampling it's required to do, did the remediations and did the notifications it's required to do. And some of those admin components are in play now because that standard's really been set by the audit. In other words, if I'm asking you why your 2020 sample didn't comply with the 2023 guideline, the answer to that's intuitive. >> Yes, sir. >> of construction families being at higher risk. Um, could you expand on that? How do how do you come home with lead dust? Well, what uh what happens and you'll see this through wick programs by the way. Some social service programs uh children are automatically enrolled in lead testing and so we have like we'll say 10 micrograms per deciliter is what we're looking for although I would argue that's too high.
023We've lowered it five times and I still think 10 is probably too high but um what you'll see if a if a child has an elevated blood level the first question you ask is who's the construction worker mom or dad? Because in industry or here in the school building, if we were going to engage in construction work, our architectural firm tells us what we're going to be touching and there's a hazardous materials survey, PCBs, asbestous and lead because we want to make sure those are addressed properly prior to the work. Um, now, so if you think about like lead workers or asbestous workers, they're wearing coveralls, they're in containment, we have negative air machines, everything's cleaned and sampled. But if you hire um a contractor to come to your home, my house is 200 years
024old. Uh and if your house was built before 1950, you have lead paint in it. If it was built between 1950 and 1980, it's about a 50/50 shot. So if somebody's coming into my house, there's lead paint in it. And I tell the contractor, I want you to punch a hole in that wall and build me a bedroom. They don't do asbestous and lead testing. They come with a saws and a sledgehammer. So when I'm hitting that um I'm getting lead dust on myself and uh and so when I get home I walk through the door and if you're a reasonably good parent, children come up and hug you and then you're tracking the lead dust and the child crawls around hand-to-mouth behaviors. And so this uncontrolled demolition is really where that problem lies. And
025my big takeaway from that from doing sampling of floors and things like that over time is uh some cultures don't wear shoes in their house. Excellent idea if you have children. And further, composite floors are vastly superior to carpet. Um, you can't really clean a carpet per se, as Mr. Bower will tell you. He does a lot of carpet sampling, which is uh, interesting what you see in a carpet. But, uh, carpets are wonderful in an environment like this because they soundproof, but you can't really clean them effectively. And I can tell you a lot of stories about what we find in carpets, but that's that's the reason. >> Yeah, we're good. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> Yeah, go ahead. Mike, if you can go back to a slide four for me. It's a remediate
026implement effective one. That one. So, I was in I was teacher here and had a science classroom as you know upstairs during some of that testing and some of those came up hot for lack of a better term and they we labeled them right and said you know don't drink out of these all that signs didn't last very long you know this high school and now with the summer and stuff disappears. >> Yeah. Do we now because I haven't been in the building for a couple years much. So, do we now and if not, should we be looking at those um sources that we say would not be reasonably drinking sources, but kids might uh for example bathroom sink, right? Not really a drinking water, but kids may do it. And do we label those
027andor should we be labeling those in all those? >> Yes, they're all labeled. >> Yes. And I think the bigger challenge is making sure they all retain their label. By the way, for science departments, that was complicated because initially we had to test science department sinks, which always failed by the way, uh or I shouldn't say always, but they often failed. And uh people really didn't drink from them. And at one point there was this argument that if you said in our laboratory chemical hygiene plan for the school that we won't drink out of those outlets, there'll be no eating or drinking in the labs whatsoever. Uh we don't have to test them. And I argued that that's unreasonable. I didn't like that because we do eat and drink in science laboratory. Students come for
028extra help. We don't eat or drink on surfaces where we handle chemicals, but it's misrepresentative to say we don't eat and drink in those rooms. Now, they've changed it entirely. Mr. Shum's god. He can decide what we're sampling and what we're not. >> So, to follow up, Bill, so anyway, we go in building like you know those bathrooms and stuff, they have little signs. I happened to see one this week and we were up in a science competition somewhere else and I noticed those signs were there. I thought it was a great idea, but you're saying we have that now. Okay. [snorts] Anything else? >> We do birthday parties in bar mitzvah. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> All right, moving into business considerations. We have 61 through 610 this evening. Is there a motion for
029one or more? >> Motion for all, Jackie. >> Second, Dan. Thank you. Uh before we open for discussion, just going to note that we have a few items of good news here. Um and our business considerations, we have a generous donation from the Queenman's Rava Women's Club that we're going to use to establish a scholarship program, which is fantastic. Thank you very much for that. We have a $1,500 donation from the Bank of Kasaki for the backpack and food pantry program. And then also under theformational items, we have an additional donation uh from Hannerford for $396 uh towards AW Becker. So we certainly appreciate those donations. Keep them coming. >> Any discussion on the business considerations? >> 1667. Um we have I don't notice any backup documentation, but is that enough to replace our sign?
030Did they they give us a good settlement, I guess, is the question. Yeah. So, we got we got 30,000 to replace what we made. >> This is the Peter B sign. And so, people know on TV, this is the Peter B sign. >> Yeah. So, this is a Peter B sign. And we got 30,000 for Thank you. >> Uh 30,000 for the sign we replaced, but since we're replacing it, we decided to upgrade it to the new um style that we're going with or new. So, it was only an additional What's that? >> It matches our branding. >> Branding. Thank you. Um, and it was only an additional uh $3,000. So, >> thank you. >> It probably won't be installed until the spring at this point because of the ground or does it not need
031that? >> Uh, it's in production right now. Um, we reached out, Bill and I both reached out the last two days and we haven't heard back yet, but it's in production. So, I don't know how long that takes, but we're moving forward with it. [laughter] Anything else? All right. All in favor? >> I. Personnel considerations. We have 71 through 720. Is there a motion for one or more? >> All right. Thanks, Jenny. Motion for all. Second, Jackie. Thank you. Uh, within these, we have do have two retirements. Uh, Mr. Frank Bruno is retiring from as a bus driver from the bus garage and Marian Ortiz is retiring from the middle school as a head custodian. Uh we also have what's probably fairly characterized as a promotion on here for Miss Deragon from payroll specialist to
032treasurer. So congratulations to Marsha. That's fantastic. Uh does anyone have anything else? All right. All in favor? >> I All right, we're going to move to the district office team. Okay, thank you. Um before anything else, I just want to thank our uh all of my colleagues for for their uh for their efforts this week. Uh as you know, uh we've had few hard days and we have several more hard days to come, but um the entire administrative team was on a Google meet on Sunday night. Everybody pitched in. Everybody uh has played a part in our response to the tragedy. So I very much appreciate everyone's teamwork. Um, I want to thank our board members that were able to join me on our school visits over the last uh couple of days. They've been
033very well attended by staff. Uh, I think interacting directly with our staff is one of the most valuable pieces of our budget process, not alone our budget process, but just for board members to have the ability to interact directly with staff members. So, um, and we really do want to hear everyone's ideas and their day-to-day realities. um because the decisions that you make obviously impact the work that they do. So, I know that you want to be fully informed. So, I'm very grateful that you've taken the time to listen alongside of me with those. Uh I do have a request to bring to the board. Um I recently heard from Senator Fehee, uh who is potentially interested in coming to speak at a board meeting. Um, so, uh, at some point if you would like
034to, uh, discuss and let me know if if you would like me to extend that invitation to her, we could try to get her booked for that. Um, I hope that your weekly updates continue to be useful as we navigate budget season, uh, and all the other things that come our way. Uh, as you know, my goal is to keep you fully informed and fully equipped to do the important work that you do on behalf of our community. Um, and at this point I will turn it over to Jean with an update about uh prek registration. >> Mel, what >> can you raise our new 13 top 10 teacher top? >> Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, congratulations to Majel Baker uh WNYT uh top teacher. I just uh sent a note to her this afternoon and
035uh copied all the board members. So, but uh yeah, I shouldn't have forgotten to mention it publicly. It's really quite the recognition. If you get get the chance to watch the uh the piece um the board, obviously I gave them all a link, but anybody that's here or anybody that's listening should definitely go check it out. It's uh it's a very nice honor um to a really excellent teacher and a great person and uh it's welld deserved. >> Um she's phenomenal. She's the best PE teacher. Uh, also we had another hero, which is why you had noise on my phone. I had to remember his name, George Langden, who was able to notice a fire while um dropping off a child this week. So, thank you for our attentive bus drivers who really are always
036watching out for everybody. We had a good good news week this week for our >> uh both of those. Actually, I would like to uh get those individuals here to be recognized by the board. So, it's on my list of things to do. I will say >> I did I did just send George a note >> uh this week because he so he actually had the student on the bus >> noticed that there was a small fire fortunately at the time outside the house >> quickwitted to call 911 keep the student safe they were able to get the fire out so that it was uh you know still still tragic but somewhat minimal loss and everybody was safe so yeah we're super proud of him for that >> I will say that uh the bus
037drivers do a lot of that if they see something going on out in the public, they reach out to dispatch quite often and say, "Hey, listen. This doesn't look right." I believe we had a last year had a someone with a medical issue where a bus driver called in and saved the guy's life as well. >> So, it's Thank God that they're there and they, you know, they do that because they they do great things for the community. So, it's awesome. >> Sure. >> Full of kids, too. I mean, honestly, >> all set. Okay. >> Um, just uh two quick reminders. Tomorrow we have a PD half day, so kids will be headed home mid midday. Um, and also just an invitation, open invitation. We have a board of ed CNI committee meeting next Thursday
038at 4 o'clock. Um, and finally, uh, please to the families out there, our prek registration, the open enrollment window opens on Friday and goes through March 27th. Um, it's not first come, first serve, but please, um, if you plan to send your child to prek to register. Um, and of course, our kindergarten families, uh, registration is open and rolling at all times. So, if you are sending a kindergartener, please register. Thank you. >> Thanks, Jean. And uh Jesse's got an update for you. Uh there was a question last meeting about uh some past year's data of the Ebl Reserve. >> Yeah. So I do I gathered the information that was requested. Uh I believe it was three, but I put five because it's it kind of shows um this is the amount of money that
039we use for our EBAR reserve or employee balance leave acrual reserve. And uh as I mentioned in some previous meetings, this is used to pay for uh leave payouts when uh either employees retire. Um so you see some of these numbers are pretty significant. And because we have a a decent size reserve, we don't need to budget these because they're hard to budget um to because we're not totally sure who's going to be retiring every year. So um this is what we've done the last uh five years. This is the amount that was paid out. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, the numbers are not related to one another in any fashion. >> No. No. It's just >> Okay. >> Certain people retire and then some have more acrruels than others and >> there's no relative
040to given year. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And I forget the exact figures that we had in here, but it was significantly more than [snorts] what the annual payout. >> Yeah. So, right now we have a little bit over 3.6 million. >> Okay. All right. um per we do a calculation or every year uh and to be fully funded that means if everybody were to leave now and get paid out uh we should have uh 4.9 million so we >> we're sitting pretty well. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> All right. Thanks, Jesse. >> Yeah, Jess would >> be the least of our concerns. >> Yeah. Like that fund would be like [laughter] >> All right. Anything else from the office? >> That's it for us. Thank you. >> All right, Owen, you have anything this evening?
041>> Uh, I don't have anything this evening just because I haven't been in school for the past two weeksish because I was out sick all last week and midterm week right before that. I had no midterms to come in for. >> Uh, thankfully. Uh, so I feel like I've been removed sort of from the school a little bit, but so I don't really have anything, but if Hike has anything. >> Well, hope you're feeling better now. Seems like you are. >> I'm feeling pretty good. >> All right, good. >> I do have something. Um, I noticed again I went to the bathroom today and I noticed another really foul smell come and I feel like it's from like the vents. I don't know what it is, but it you it's not that bad to the
042point where you can smell it outside, but it's like when you go to like the end of the bathroom where the window is, that's where it gets like really really bad. I don't I genuinely don't know what it is, but um a lot of kids have told me that it's it just smells absolutely horrendous. Um, that's one. And then I noticed that in the upstairs and downstairs hallway, like this wing over here, um it there's this like smell that just like goes through the entire hallway. It was there this morning. Um and it wasn't that bad, but throughout the course of the day today, I noticed that it got a little stronger. I thought maybe every kid like coming from gym and stuff, but it didn't go away. And it kind of got pretty nauseating.
043like at one point I kind of ignored it and I said I'll see you know if it goes away it did not. Um so that just was another thing um that was you know in my head. Um but other than that I have nothing nothing at all. >> Yeah. Jesse, you want to speak? >> So we were made aware of that as well. >> Yeah, we were made made aware of it and uh Mr. Shro did uh figure out what he believes to be the issue. Uh we found another uh cracked pipe. Um he did do a temporary fix um for now and we'll have a uh specialist come in over the weekend to fully repair it. >> Great. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Uh any new business items tonight? >> My
044when we're talking about our next capital project, I think something we need to take into consideration is the size of the band room. Um it's a lot of people in a small space and from what I understand there's not many seniors gradu or there aren't many seniors graduating but the potential for a large group of incoming freshmen and from the way my daughter says it's maybe unsafe would be the wrong word but very hard to navigate that environment when the full band is in there >> especially around like a bill >> yes >> happens it's like it's pretty unsafe >> so I would like to make sure that we address that maybe more immediately but within the next capital project as a discussion point >> and a growing band is a good problem to have.
045>> Oh, I absolutely I'm fully for it, but I want to ensure that the students who are participating in it are able to safely do so. >> Kudos to our music program for this problem by being so popular. >> Absolutely. >> We can get somewhere um maybe you know Jean I guess um start having some discussion of the test scores. you know, there's some sores I've seen out there that for me, if I'm reading them correctly, are very disappointing, problematic, and really, you know, um really, I hate to use the word, but like unacceptable. You know, in my mind, that's we shouldn't the places we shouldn't be. So, I'd like to make sure we're seeing them correct and know what those numbers are and then maybe hear what is our plan to address them because
046just there's sometimes good excuses like I was a bad, you know, uh cohort that went through or whatever, but some of these things are long-standing. So, I'd like to see some longitudinal data on that. And then what are we really, you know, what is our plan to correct these? We we shouldn't be if these numbers I'm reading are bad like 41% and I think it was ELA or something math, but we shouldn't be. >> Huh. >> Are you available next Thursday? That's mostly what should be discuss. >> I know we have the C and I have some discussion, but I think we need a full board discussion about as well full >> but that is in preparation for some of what she'll be presenting. >> Yeah, >> we we met yesterday. >> So, I think
047next I thought the next one was high school. No. Uh, no. The next one is all we're going to but and and [snorts] if you do want to at least take a look at in the minutes that have been posted, we do have the data that we've been looking at over time. So, we looked at elementary, middle school, and high school over the past three meetings. But, um, public discussion, sure. >> I think it's important for us. Yes, that's that's really what we're all here for, right? after the you discuss it from CNI and and um come up with a your plan or everything you can make a b a brief brief presentation to the board to the public you know after because you'll have plenty of time then to finalize it after the CNI
048and nothing extravagant you know couple slides of >> the direction we're we're going and why thank you [clears throat] >> yeah um I'd like to add that um that was like a really good point you made because I tried um to bring it up at one point, but I really didn't think it was that much of a big deal. But I've been noticing that a lot of kids that are either in my class or not have been complaining about really bad test scores. Um, a lot of them said that the current midterms that we just took were rigged in my opinion. I don't think that's true, but um, every kid learns differently and that's one of the things that I've noticed. But a lot of them have been complaining in or saying that like half
049of the material that was on the um tests wasn't relevant and that it wasn't topics that we learned about. I noticed it too, but I thought it may be like a one level higher question to see where we're at. Um but a lot of them have been kind of struggling like in this second to third quarter transition. Um and I just kind of wanted to bring that out. Um I definitely know it's not intentional. Um, and again, it's it I'm not a teacher and I don't teach, but that's something that I've been noticing. And a lot of kids have complained, mostly some of my friends. Um, like they asked me, they were like, "Oh, how did you do on your midterm?" And I was like, "I did good. I did really good." Um, we all
050know that's a lie. But, um, yeah, that was just something to kind of bring out. And see, I don't know, but that's like a decision you guys would make. So, All right. Thank you. >> Anything else for new items? >> Okay. Uh no update yet on our old business. Uh but we are tracking that. Um policy committee, we do have uh under policy adoption review, we do have one action to take uh with respect to [snorts] uh removing two policies. I don't know if you want to comment on anything, Matt, or >> No, let's just add there's a couple of duplicate policies. One that's one is a duplicate. I think the other was just irrelevant any longer. Um, so we do have to we can't just get rid of them. So, we have to motion
051to take them out. I will add from our policy meeting, we had an aggressive agenda last time. So, in the next meeting, we hope to be able to bring back code of conduct code of conduct and a whole variety of other things >> um to get going. >> We did also I Jesse, is it up? Is it there now? I'm gonna check. >> Okay, he's checking. What we're trying to do, just to make the note, well, I just want to bring up the point that we're trying to get them all in one place, right? >> Yes. >> That's it's active now. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And it's linked on the website. >> Okay. Good. So, so now we the problem is we have an old policy manual and now we're updating and they were
052in different places. They're not easy to find. So, now if anybody is looking, if you go to the district website and click on policy manual, it will direct you to a place where all our present policies are, the new ones and the old ones. You don't have to try to figure which is all the new. Just puts them all in one place. And as we continue to change them out, it'll be fine. Well, they will have a straight manual, but it's now accessible in one place for anybody that wants to see our policies. >> Great. >> Right. >> It's not just one very large document anymore. Uh it's within board docs, so you can look more easily at an individual policy than digging through 400 pages. >> Yeah. And I think that's a key like
053when we had the old policy online it was just a PDF of a very large document because it's now in board docs if anybody's out there caring about it and you you can now search you can you know one word you're looking for you know smoking you put smoking in you know whatever it might be. So >> I just good for people to know. >> Yeah. >> And we have uh EC's and Michelle Ki to thank for getting that sorted out and finally updated for us. >> Excellent. All right. Great. uh for 13.1 then the motion to remove the two uh duplicate policies that we no longer need. Is there a motion Mike? Thank you. Second, Jackie. >> Any further discussion on that? All in favor? >> I uh we have no hearings petitions. Uh
054upcoming activities, we're quickly approaching February break. Uh, does anybody have anything else? >> So, it's like one of the first topics that I think Owen talked about. Um, and it was about like the YouTube ban from our Chromebooks and about like um that we would need it in classes. Um, there's a lot of things that like we have now that some of my classes like need videos for and they post it in Google Classroom. Um, and when we try to click them, it says like this like it's been blocked. Um, I wanted to ask like what are we are you guys going to do something about that or not yet? >> Probably can't because those sources are probably not Edlaw 2D compliant. which basically means like um any of those companies need to sign a
055[clears throat] an agreement about data privacy >> for your protection. >> So what do you do though in that situation where they're now in high school and the topics that they're expected to be able to research are >> there's definitely on the borderline of something that could come up that's inappropriate. >> Oh, that's not what she's talking about though. Oh, no. Oh, okay. >> We're just talking about uh the Edlaw 2D compliance. >> So, that anything that potentially is is grabbing personally identifiable information, those companies need to sign an agreement to make sure that it doesn't get shared. Um, but there are we have a long list of resources that are at law 2D compliant and have signed our agreement. Um and in terms of research like the libraries generally have lists of uh you
056know electronic databases where kids can get access to things that yes sometimes would you know if you just go to Google search it >> it's probably going to get flagged but if you do it through the right channels >> yeah we all got flagged in English class today because we're um on this med medical ethics topic and a lot of kids were researching a lot of stuff on based on the things we got and everyone got blocked. It was like anything we searched up, it was immediately blocked. It was funny, but >> and I don't want to I don't want to speak for Bill um but I know in other places like when that happens sometimes a teacher can notify the network administrator in advance so that they can whitelist a certain thing and you
057know that's a term we've used before. They can whitelist some things in advance for those students in those particular classes so they have access to it for a limited amount of time. >> Okay, got it. Thank you. >> How you don't mind me asking how do those things get on the Google classroom in the first place? >> Is it is it part of the teacher chosen curriculum? Yeah, sometimes like you know a teacher might not be aware that students aren't going to be able to access this link and they put it there and you know YouTube is owned by Google so anything YouTube related is always going to be there but that's one piece that we're not allowed to use. All the rest of the Google suite we can but not that one. [snorts] >>
058Got it. >> All right. If there's nothing else I'm going to ask for a motion to adjurnn. Pete's motion wants a second. Dan, thank you. All in favor? I