001Good evening. It's 6:01 p.m. I will call to order a regular meeting of the board of education. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. I know there were some additions, deletions uh made earlier today by the email. There's nothing since that time. No. Okay. Uh is there a motion to accept the minutes of the May 7th board of education meeting? Mike. Thank you. Second, Jackie. All in favor? I I I'm going to ask for a motion to enter into executive session to discuss uh matters pertaining to the employment of a particular person and also collective bargaining negotiations. Motion Dan second. Second Ed. All in favor? Hey. Okay,
002we're going to move into business considerations. We have 61 through 6:15. Is there a motion for one or more? Motion for all. Second. We have any discussion? I just have a clarification question. I don't know if it's Jesse or Brian. Not against it at all. I just don't quite totally get 611, the risk operations center. Can you just give me a little clarity on that? That what what really that is? I mean, I read it, but I didn't get it. 6.11 611 the risk operations center. So, uh, do you want me to speak to it? It's the data privacy. So, uh, with Ed Law 2D data privacy, we have to have privacy agreements with any platform that can access student information. So, up until this point, we have been solely responsible for seeking those out,
003negotiating with our lawyers and their lawyers to get those. This allows us to be part of a consortium where we're where the Boseies are going to be managing that. they will be doing the work of getting those data privacy agreements and having them all housed in one spot so that we can access them for resources that lots of schools are using. So it really is an efficiency. So look like a consortium but I I didn't quite get maybe I didn't know 2D well enough that is there a cost or is this Bosey's cost or it's it's wrapped into our Thank you. I just wanted to understand it better like uh 690 610. Yep. Jesse, do you guys have the MSDS on that or can you can you talk to that a little bit? As much
004as I know, and I asked Bill the same thing. So, what we're doing at AW Becker and Peter B is we're doing a natural uh pesticide. I believe it is I knew I was trying to remember it. Um a wood oil, cedar wood oil. Oh, it's going to be doing it, you know, after hours when we doing it where the kids are there. Uh the other one is a little bit more and that one is just for like the the fields so we can get rid of the weeds and stuff. So speak to all the fields getting them here. Becker Peter B. It's just I believe is it says just the high school, right? And and Peter Peter B and Becker it says that's that's the for the ticks. That's the wood oil. That's and
005then the next one on there, that's the pesticide one that's going to be doing just for the fields here at the high school and at Peter B. And I it says at the end of the school year. Um the only thing is with the that doesn't guarantee that the ticks aren't going to come back because they generally come back in the fall. So I'm quite surprised that we're actually taking this step. Um because because the chemicals are pretty nasty. So, well, I I think what Jesse just said, if I recall back in my health and safety days, a most of the time the chemicals you would norm normally use in places are bad for schools. We we can't do anything. That's why they have to actually get our approval first and it has to be
006natural green approved products that SED says, okay, because the standard things that maybe you guys use in the town, right? I think it's banned for you, too, right? Um, we can't even spray for bees and stuff without approval and certain stuff. Well, maybe maybe Bill can get the MSDS so I can look at them. Yep, I can have it. Then we can actually see what's in there. No, but if it's a if it's okay, then then there should be no problem. But there's houses all close by and there's pets and my experience with them is they're not good. We did this last we've done this every year though, correct? The cedar the cedar is um I never did that. It's I believe it it is it's all natural cedar oil and it just gets on
007floods them and and gets on their wings and stuff like that. It's it's not like the stuff that I put down in my own yard. So you've been doing it every year but it sounds like it's not working. Well, they come back just like you said. They come back. Come back. Yeah. But not I'm not allowed to do anything. We're not allowed to do anything beyond that. It's either yet you do away with the ticks for a little while or you have them there all the time. I know Peter probably Becker too, but in particular PB. Have you ever been down there all winter? It's Yeah. deer turkey head. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I know. Yeah. Okay. But I'll get that information for you. I also wanted to make a note that um senior investigator
008Bray is here from the Alman County Sheriff's Office. He knows that the SRO contract is being approved tonight. He's nice enough to come down. Say hello. Thank you. That that bridges into I have a question actually on the SRO uh contract. on 6.3. I just noticed that it's dated for the school year. Do we have any coverage in the summer when we have summer programs or do we not have an SRO that we keep during during the summer? I think last year we treated that as overtime if they were here in the summertime and we did have a presence on campus. Okay. Um but it wasn't part of the the ordinary contract. Okay. That's what I was wondering. And I just want to make sure that we have some sort of, you know, assistance in
009the event that, you know, there's a there's an issue. Um, can I follow up to that, Jackie? Yeah, go ahead. I having on the board last year though, haven't seen this and in the past, I don't have anything compared against. I should have asked it sooner. Are there any major changes other than maybe cost or whatever? There's no major there's no particular changes, right? We're adding an SRO. Yeah, but I mean No. Yeah, but but to the terms and and the other parts like what their role is and all that kind that has changed. Yeah. And the purpose of the extra SRO, this will be for coverage for after school activities primarily. Second shift. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we decided on a time that would actually um I don't recall specifically, but there'll be
010about an hour overlap with our existing deputies. And um the officer will be here until 9:30 on a regular basis. and if they're needed longer, we would pay overtime in order to accommodate that. Um on 6.8, the um need contract, um I just noticed that on uh page three all the way at the bottom, there's an item on indoor air quality that they do services for us. Um, I was wondering if that includes temperature and if maybe then they are able to do an assessment of our buildings for the air conditioning discussion that we've been talking about because I mean indoor air quality usually includes temperature, especially excessive temperatures. So, if we already have someone that we've hired to assist with that, I think we should be utilizing that resource for the assessment to help
011us inform decisions. I'm sure that they can. They've been very responsive. We ask them for anything. Foul odors, the temperature, the air quality. Yeah. Any recently, too. Okay, that that's great. Then, you know, I mean, if we're able to, you know, schedule some kind of assessment with them that they can, you know, assess the buildings for where our most problematic problems are. Um, you know, we're going to have to be continuously talking about this. So, that would be really helpful information to have. I know, you know, we kind of pointed out some places, but, um, it's hard sometimes to pinpoint way, right? Well, and that's why I figure if they do this, then maybe they are better suited to uh do the assessment for us as opposed to us trying to do it with, you
012know, the buildings and grounds folks. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay. And then the only other item on here just to note I think is 6:15 the um acceptance of the election results from yesterday. So the board is, you know, very grateful to the community for the positive votes on all three items put to the voters, the budget, the bus proposition, and the capital project. So thank you very much to everybody for showing up and supporting our budget. [Applause] I'll take a moment to congratulate the three of you um on on your reelection. We're glad to have you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All in favor? I I personnel considerations. We have 71 through 723. Making a motion to approve 71 through 723. Okay. Motion Matt, second Jackie. Uh there's two retirements to
013note on here. One is for Arlene Schaefer and the other one's referred to as employee 561. Is I'll let Brian Dickens, but I think I know. Okay. I think the person didn't want to. uh the employees preference to employees preference okay to remain somewhat anonymous nevertheless whoever that employee is congratulations on retirement very much appreciated tiny detective work is easy pretty easy to figure it out any anything else I'm sorry on the subject of that line I just want to make sure do we have other staff in that role already in Peter B or do we have a plan to backfill that position um I know it's the ENL um so you the posting will be out Okay. So, we need to backfill that position. We don't have other resources in place. Okay. Just as
014long as we're we're covering that. We have two in the district. I'm correct. And both retired, right? Yeah. So, both our ENLs are retired. One position has already been posted for. So, we'll have a second. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Anything else? I'm sorry. I did have one other question. I just didn't know. I know we have one um resignation on here. Did we have a letter from them? I didn't see it in the executive content. Um 7.23. It's Emily Stevens. That's okay. I just didn't see it attached like it usually is. Thank you, Sue. That's it. Anything else? All in favor? All right, Dr. Dr. Bale, I wait for you to finish your notes and I'll turn it over to you. So, after the board's feedback from the last uh maybe before the last
015meeting, during the last meeting, um we've uh recommitted the notices around the construction, the notice that they are still working their way around the sidewalks, trying to be as inobtrusive as possible, but there's no way to be inobtrusive with a dump truck and a excavator. So, as you can see, they're still moving around the campus, and we're trying to transmit to families and any visitors at least a few days in advance of their progress. And uh as they move around the end of the lot in the middle school, the next step will be to move to the uh the two long sidewalks that come from the middle school to the high school. Um and we're going to have some changes in traffic pattern when that happens. And we'll be sure to send a map to
016families so that they understand how that's going to work. Yeah, Jackie. Um, when is that happening? Because you're going to have eighth grade graduation, fifth grade graduation, fifth grade graduation. Yeah, there still be parking spots. There'll still be ways to enter the building. There still be um so we don't know exactly because it the progress the intention is to be open in September. So the sidewalks have to be done prior to any of the paving and the paving has to be done strategically so that all the rest of the HVAC work can occur in the building. So it's a very delicate balance. All of us with an eye on September 3rd when school's reopening. So I see that the sidewalks are being replaced as is. Are there no changes being made to the structure of
017the parking lot? I was under the impression the center section will be completely again center section those going to be in the front parking lot like where the buses are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's no other changes to the flow of the traffic. Sidewalk on the back side of the parking lot is going to be I think 15t wide. It's going to be much wider. You mean yeah on the sides. On the sides. Yeah. currently. Yes, that's the only other thing. Okay. Um, we have a few policies that are timely that we've asked for NISSBA to provide for us. As we know, the the budget has finally passed which has put to bed the question of will there or won't there be a bell-to-bell regulation. There is, meaning um electronic or Wi-Fi enabled devices being
018put away, personal Wi-Fi devices. So the board will need to uh have a policy at least um underway as we close the year for bell to bell for temperature uh policy around that for and the exeicio and all schools are in the same boat. There's they're having to redevelop or develop uh these things. So NISPA has provided some of them for us already and we'll review them at the next policy meeting which is Tuesday, right? Next week. Yeah. And we'll have something for the board on on uh June 11th. And man, as a reminder, the board can um adopt in their first reading and they can make alterations the next day if they choose to do so. I think I think we have some regulatory requirements that they be passed before the end of the
019year. Um, but we could either delay until the summertime or approve them in June June 11th and just make additional alterations if that's what we choose to do. They won't be enforced obviously until September. So, there's time if the board wants to make additional changes. I wanted to uh do a followup on the fire at Peter B last week and um I will say um 33 years in a school and I've never seen a fire although in a school. Um it was contained to one bathroom stall and one bathroom. But as we all know, uh burn anything um that has plastic in it and it's everywhere. The smell is everywhere. So um I've sent a few updates to the community and to the board around what that looked like. And really the the most detailed
020one came out on Friday primarily because um not only did we need to investigate, we needed to have conversations with the potential perpetrator and we needed to um have our remediation specialists do their work and we had to meet with our crisis response team on Friday morning. Um but I think one thing that was was missing, you know, we used our very standard snow day message. Today is Wednesday, May 21st, um, 2025. There's going to be a two-hour delay today. If school is closed, updates will be provided by fam to families by 7:00 a.m. When we wrote the email on Wednesday, we or Tuesday night, we said, um, Peterb is closed tomorrow because we have to do remediation and make sure everything's in order. Um, in the event that Peter B is closed on Thursday,
021a follow-up email will sent by five o'clock on Wednesday. We didn't send an email, but the absence of an email didn't tell people yes, we're going to have school on Thursday. Um, so we could have done better on that. And the other thing in retrospect is um although the Friday late morning email was pretty thorough about all the steps that we taken because when the CRT met they talked about how do we support students and staff who might have been afraid who are nervous about being in school. Um how do we ensure our protocols worked correctly? What shortcomings did we find while we were assessing the situation? What do we need to do differently? What do we say to staff? Um I mean We were fine when students were in school. I think there were
022a lot of questions for parents bringing their kids back to school on Friday. So obviously the things that we celebrated is the staff and the students did exactly what they were supposed to do. They evacuated as we would with any fire alarm and they did so promptly and they went to their reconoing point outside. Um the um reuniting with families went well, which I mean it could have been extremely chaotic, but families were very patient and the staff did an excellent job of reuniting with families, were able to mobilize the buses and they all got to school by 1:00 and then returned to the middle school and high school on time. Um and out of all the dismissed students, there was only one who didn't get on a bus who needed to and we just
023had a bus, you know, take care of them um when they were available. But um and the things where we identified were shortcomings are there. We didn't have a way to immediately forward phones when the building was evacuated. Then the phone was ringing. There was no one there to answer the phone. So we've de developed a plan for a single button forwarding so that everyone can just as they're leaving the building push that button. We need a more efficient way to get kids on the right buses. It was, you know, there were five 430 kids outside with staff and it was difficult to hear outside. So, we talked about in our go bag making sure there's a full horn and a little bit clearer way to get kids to the buses they needed to. Um,
024the elementaryaries, all the buildings have access to multiple channels on the radio, but they were using one channel, which to do all the communications was way too much. um they all have access to additional channels. So, Bill will be sending a reminder to buildings about how to do that. And also, what we've learned around emergency response is it's much better to have an incident commander and then someone who can be in charge of communication because the incident commander can't do both. So, we were talking about assigning someone who will be with whoever the incident commander is. And at that moment, um the principal and the assistant principal were at a meeting at Becker when the fire happened. And the reason why we practice all these u strategies that we have is that so that we
025can do them with dogged automation and that's exactly what they did. So they evacuated the building, they went through the recon order point and they called the principal and they called the district office. Um and that goes to the third thing or fourth thing which we discovered is Becker and Peter or Becker in the middle school are not very good at cell phone service. So, uh, all leaders will have, um, be sure to have their, uh, phones so that they will, um, uh, ring on the internet. What's that called? Wi-Fi enabled, uh, phone calls, which would then allow I mean, we're talking about minutes, but we all know that minutes in any crisis is nerve-wracking. Um, so so that we have clear communication there. um will enable Wi-Fi calling to address when they're on their
026own on their phones so that their phones would ring no matter where they are in the district. Uh we're going to plan for tabletop exercises for all the CRTs, the crisis response teams in the fall. This was a great um scientific it was a great learning experience. Um so many things went well. It was a beautiful day which was also very convenient. It could have been look at you know it could have been a day like today. It could have been cold. It could have been raining. We do have a reconider point at um St. Pats. So they are always um on call and ready to accept us. We have the fire department across the street. Although that's not a purposeful reconoting point. We know that in an emergency they came over to our place.
027We could go over to theirs. Um but the the weather obviously played in our favor that day. need and risk management um will be a part of those tabletops and they also the the lessons learned from the CRT are going to be brought to the district buildings and health and safety sorry district health and safety committee because there were a lot of good lessons and a lot of lessons learned that we needed to do but in order to do the tabletops in the fall uh identifying our successes is is bless you is just a tiny component and knowing where all of our weaknesses are is where we need to have the uh the most work. And we do include all CRTs rather than just the leaders because as we know there there are lots of
028reasons why um a leader could be not there, could be incapacitated. There are lots of reasons why every there should be a lot of people who understand um protocols so that they can be upheld. Um, I got two um two emails from families who were concerned about the process and communication. I invited one of them to come to the the health and safety meeting to take part in this debrief and contribute, you know, their thoughts and ideas. Um, Hakee got an email from one parent. Um, so we know that, you know, you always do the multiplier, right? You hear from one parent, there's probably 20 that have concerns or more. So that's 60, right? Three emails equals at least 60 people. So we know a communication could have been better around that. Um and obviously
029the student that um we're following the code of conduct for the student that um we believe caused this problem. They're lighting a fire in school is a felony. It actually comes with three different charges. Barson is the, you know, the first and foremost. Um the Alman County Sheriff's Department has been great from the onset and helped us to identify what we're capable of doing and what we will do. Um and obviously um there are a number of steps that we want to make sure that the student is um that everyone is safe and the student is safe moving forward. Um what other questions do you have? I have a few. Um, first off, I I want to say thank you so much to all the teachers, the staff who were on site, Michelle, I'm sure
030that you were, uh, the SRO's who were there and got everyone out safely. Um, from what I've understood, you know, everybody really stepped up and I I am very grateful for that. Um, however, I think that, as you mentioned, there is a lot to learn from this. From my perspective as both a board member and as a parent, our communication was unacceptably low. it to not have heard a single time that our building was safe. None of our communication said it's safe to send your kids back into this building. That's insane. That's insane. Honestly, even the first communication, the first communication we got about our building being closed where our kids were was from transportation. It wasn't the school saying there's an emergency. Your kids are safe. We are getting everyone out. It said there's
031an emergency dismissal. Your kids are getting home at 1. From transportation. That's another thing that we discussed. That first communication always comes from district office. Yeah. Well, it didn't. And not one of the communications said that anybody was safe, let alone everybody. Um, not a communication on Wednesday that the building had been remediated to a point that it was safe for our kids to go back in it. I I hear that you only heard from three parents. I've heard from a lot more than three and a lot of teachers that really this didn't go in the way that it should have on a district level. Everyone in that building did exactly what they should have. As a district, we failed this. We We did. I'm I'm sorry. I Okay. So, on my questions, the the
032first thing that I'd like to know is is how we could possibly have an event that we don't have an administrator on site. From what I've heard, it's it's law that we have to have an administrator on site. Not to mention that Peter B is our highest need building. It is our building with the most issues with behavior. We already always need an administrator on site. Emergency set aside, we should never have a moment that we don't have an administrator in that building. We should always have an administrator. If they need professional days, then we need to plan those better because we need an administrator on site. Nobody had a any way to communicate to everyone. teachers were basically playing a game of telephone um to try to get communication between them and to keep
033all those kids safe at the same time. Um the the next is I know that we do have St. Patrick's just like you mentioned. Why wasn't it used? The kids most kids went home with sunburns. We didn't have access to water. They didn't have access to bathrooms for a couple of hours. I'm very grateful that they got outside and they were safe and they were able to kind of play outside for a while, but all of their safety needs to be in consideration. And that includes making sure that their biological needs are met by having things like water and bathrooms and some shade from the sun on although a nice day, it was quite a hot day. I got a sunburn from being outside for 30 minutes that day. So, I imagine all those kids
034went home with sunburns. My kid was thankfully on a field trip so he didn't have to experience all of this. However, I don't understand why when we have a safe haven set up that is literally spitting distance from our building that we didn't use it. Is this and and I have to wonder if it's because there wasn't an administrator on site to make that decision. So, I guess with that, you know, who makes that decision? What are the parameters to say that we're using our safe space that we have established? We have this for a reason. I can't imagine that if somebody went over and knocked on St. Patrick's door that they would have turned our kids away. I can't imagine for a second. And then there would have been some level of access to
035water, to bathrooms, to shade for any of our kids. The communication was abysmal. To say that you're just going to tell people that if you don't hear from us by 5:00 tomorrow, it's fine is insane. There should have been a communication that very clearly said that we have mitigated the problems, that we have cleaned the spaces that need to be cleaned, that we have had someone look through the building and it is safe for your kids to go back in it. To not tell parents that that building was safe is infuriating. It's infuriating. Um, on top of that, our CRT T I I understand that they met. They didn't meet before the school was reopened. They didn't have a plan. And the teachers had nothing when they walked back into that school that the last
036that they were in was on fire. They had nothing. They they did the best that they could from their own skills, their own knowledge to handle those kids who were having a hard time because the last time they walked out of that building, it was full of smoke. I I feel like this is being um made to be something smaller than what it was. And I think that there were a lot of very major problems that a lot of parents did not feel great about sending their kids back. A lot of kids did not feel great about going back into that building. Um I I wish for a better social emotional response to this. Um you know, I mean the kids are back at school at this point. Um but waiting until they were back
037in the building to have communication go to those teachers is nuts. Um, the other thing that I'd like to raise as a concern, and this is what I've heard through the grapevine because that's the only way that I've gotten information, um, is from what I've heard, the student who was involved, as well as another student who was considered to potentially be involved were patted down by police in front of all the other students. That's traumatizing. That's traumatizing for all of our students. And I understand that in that moment they need to take care of and make sure that that is safe. But again, maybe if an administrator had been on site, we would have done slightly better to not have that visible to all of those students because for one, that's traumatizing for students to
038watch. Uh for two, every single kid in that school now knows exactly who that perpetrator was because there was no confidentiality surrounding how this was addressed in that moment. Um, and I'm I'm not trying to say anything against our our response teams who were there. I appreciate the police doing exactly what they needed to do and getting safe and our other um first responders who were there, but I am I am so disappointed in how this was handled at a district level. It's um it's our practice that our SRO's do not put their hands on a child. Right. So perhaps that was not our my apologies if I misspoke. Perhaps that was the police who were there. Um regardless, seeing a small child be patted down by police, I can't I can't think that you
039would disagree is traumatizing for children. It's it's traumainducing for kids. That's a very difficult thing to watch. Yeah. And more than one student was uh from what I have been told. Um, but again in front of all of those kids, I my question is based on what she is saying, what is the protocol for using the safe space? I can't hear you. What is the protocol for going to the safe space to the safe haven? When do you make the decision to move an entire group of children outside and exposed to a location where they can be cared for properly? I would say if they believed that their needs couldn't be met in place, the I I was there, Jesse was there. That seems a bit wishy-washy. Is there not a policy in place that
040porties outside? Uh there were the predominantly students and staff were sitting in the shade of the trees on that side of the playground. There's those large elm trees where they were seated. Um, I didn't see a whole there could have been students and staff who are sitting in the sun. I didn't see many people sitting in direct sunlight, right? Um, can we have an official plan? Official if it's five minutes, you do this. If it's 10 minutes, you do that. There's there's not an official why not. So, so what are the parameters then? How is it decided? Because if there's not, you know, a set, you know, this is why we do it, then it doesn't safe, they would stay in place. If we didn't feel as though they were safe for weather conditions, they
041there it was there was another event going on in the location. It'd be the same if um if the power or something happened at the middle school, they make a decision about whether to relocate to the high school, vice versa. My daughter gets relocated to the middle school frequently from the high school for when they go outside because the fire alarm has gone off and they're unsure of the cause. She's told me because the conditions are unsafe for children, right? I don't believe that anyone thought that they were unsafe sitting outside on a 70 degree day in the shade. I don't think they thought that. First, you are misrepresenting how hot it was that day. It was over 80 degrees that day first. And second, many people have expressed concern to me about it. So,
042I I think it's not fair to say that no one has expressed concern. Perhaps they just haven't brought concern to you. Be helpful if they did because I I understand. And I'm I'm gonna bite my tongue right now. I would I find it fascinating that there's not some kind of broader scope to it. And as Jackie is saying, if there's no administrator to make the decision and no information is being effectively communicated based on what you're hearing, I don't know why we don't have some kind of official plan in place. I mean, who's making the decision if there's no administrator about the safety conditions? What types of things would you suggest? Like, what's the baseline? What how would would you suggest they make the decision? You you know, they won't be able to return to
043the building at a certain point. Correct. After there was fire, there was smoke, you were not going back into the building at that point. Did you know when the buses would be coming? Yes. And then did you know what that length of time was going to be? Okay. And how long was that? An hour and 15 minutes. And in that hour and 15 minutes, do you expect that children would need to use the bathroom and need drinks and those kinds of things? They there was a portaotti there. And during that window of time, we also prepared bag lunches and sent every student home with food, but um in that small window of time, I don't believe they the students were in imminent danger. I understand you're expressing that it was 80 degrees or they got
044sunburned. I don't think they I thought they they probably weighing the balance that it would have been more complicated for student for staff and parents to reunite the children if they were in another location because it's an unfamiliar one. I'm sorry. You say they probably weighed the balance which implies that you don't know what happened. So I mean like we're asking like what happens here? What was the discussion that decided we're not using the safe space that we have? That staying in that space was a better alternative than going to an alternate location. I guess I don't know what the parameters would be, but I would hope that the people on the team could discuss that in the future to formulate policy moving forward. You said the CR team met and had a variety of
045different different suggestions. You're leading right into my point, Jenny, so perfectly. I have three more things I'd like to bring up. Um, there was notably little communication with the board, which I know you've acknowledged. Will there be an opportunity for at least one of us to come to that health and safety committee meeting along with the parent that you suggested? Okay. Was Mike, were you predominantly on that one? We were previously. Yeah. But Okay, we'll make available the dates so everybody knows when they are. Okay. Um Jackie, I was checking off my points as Jackie was talking so I won't rehash some of those. Um the last one and I don't know if maybe this is more of a Jean question. Um being the I have my special ed hat on now. I do also
046have a concern for the social emotional health of everybody when this child does return to school. Don't need to know anything other than that the child will be reintegrated in a way that the child is not alienated and still feels welcomed into our school. but also that the children in the class in that the classrooms that were most affected by the fire that they all have some kind of well-being check counselors something available so that both parties don't feel like he's not he or she is not shunned coming back to the school district and also that the other children feel safe. So both both parties I just want to add on to that that also the faculty and staff should be included in that there are there are many faculty and staff that you know
047raise concerns of when the student returns um you know and to to the same ends that that Melanie is we need to be taking into consideration both the needs of the one individual child but also the impact that this has had on our entire school. Okay, that was Thank you. I'm sorry. I had one other question as well which um was mentioned to me. Um will Peter B need to make up a school day or are we still within, you know, kind of bounds of how many days we need? The schedule for the entire district will come out again tomorrow. Um and because they've missed a day of instruction, their year will be extended by one more day. So, Thursday the 26th will be your last day. So, the entire district's changing or just Peter
048B? Peter B. I I'm going to tell you right now that this will be met with a a lot of upset folks. Um because the the building is kind of being like in its entirety almost being punished for the actions of one student where they now have to extend their school year. Um, and I understand that we had to close the school, but you know, it's there will be a lot of unhappy people about adding a school day to just Peter B. Students will be punished by going to school by adding another day, taking a day off of their summer vacation. Yeah. If we had used snow days, the same thing would have happened. But I understand you're saying that a human caused this, right? Yeah. Usually it's a water mane break. First year we
049haven't had one of those at Peter B. I knock I know right now we'll be going to to school through July 22nd. So before I move on from that, just a couple of points I'd like to make as we look back on this and reflect and look at what we might be able to do differently in the future. Um, I believe that the I believe that the students were back in class at approximately the same time that the CRT teams were were meeting, which would signal to me that perhaps there wasn't clear messaging provided to the classroom teachers on how to address this with the students ahead of time, leaving them to do that on their own without any clear guidance, which I'm sure they did just fine. if not, you know, in a very
050excellent way. But maybe in the future if we have that advanced uh uh time to have the CRT team meet and then push out some guidance to the teachers on here's how we address this as the students come back into school. And for the students, maybe maybe the re-entry is not into the classroom business as usual and it's some type of welcoming assembly where the entire student body is addressed and you know we it very directly you know what happened and you know what we're doing and what's available to them. And then the other point in my experience um incidents like this don't just happen without any warning signs. Um there's usually some indicators that a particular circumstance might be uh becoming aggravated. There's certain things that might be caught earlier might be some predictive
051ability. So just taking a look at what we might do better as a district to look at some of those indicators, some of the warning signs and maybe prevent some of these things in the future. Um, and that's a bigger right that that's a bigger ask. Obviously that's more strategic thinking, but what can we do better in terms of picking up and addressing warning signs before they result in something like this? What's up? Thank you. I said I'm going to say just really quick. Um because everyone touched on everything, if we could go back to looking at how administrators meet, um in the middle school, the high school, there's both a principal and an assistant. In the elementary schools, there's one assistant who travels between both. So, um I don't know the protocols and everything,
052but it seems like if there's going to be an administrative meeting that there should be an administrator in every building at every time. It's easier on the middle school and the high school where one can go and one can stay and um maybe at an elementary school if both principles are in one place the assistant principal is in that place where the principal is not and the people who remain in the school could attend the meeting virtually. That way they're all there but there's always an administrator in every single building as a lead point in case anything like this happens again. Thank you. Sorry. Um, so just in the uh board agenda, you will see the minutes from our board of ed CNI meeting. um Colleen and Kate and Tim and Nicole did a really
053excellent job of highlighting what they've accomplished that came out of the um audit and how that has informed future work. Um some of them things that they were able to accomplish in a year, some that will be multi-year. Um so if you have questions about that, Colleen, um Kate and Tim all offered if you have questions once you read through that to ask. I really appreciated the fire it was being addressed and how items were being remediated. I don't know what the correct term is, but addressed and um felt confident with the information that was presented and the way that's being moved forward. So, I appreciate and applaud their department and all their hard work. So, thank you very much. It was a great meeting at all. I actually had somebody read through the agenda
054and the notes and ask if you can give just a very brief description because I don't think I did a very good job on the difference between ICT and DCT. Um, okay. So integrated co-e is a co-eing relationship where the special education teacher is working in the classroom with the classroom teacher. Um and probably the biggest difference is in that relationship the special education teacher is responsible for all of the children in the class. So, it truly is a partnership and there's different models that you can use. Um, with a direct consultant teacher model, when the special education teacher who is also in the classroom during that period with the teacher, they do not have a co-eing relationship. They are responsible for the special education students in that class. I did. You did. There's there's
055other pieces around regulations and how many students and those things, but um those were those are the big ones. Yay. I understood it. Thank you, Jean. And we can thank Colleen because I'm just mimicking what she said. Um, I also just wanted to let you know that uh last week I was able to attend a navigating pre-day prek day that uh nice the New York State Education Department put on. This was the third annual. Last year when I went it was very much based on fiscal and how you fill out the grant application. This year really shifted towards best practices. They had panel discussions with school districts that have made some changes in their prek programming. Um, and they offered some opportunities to meet with district liaison, teachers, more teachers were there, including one of
056our own. Um, so they were able to connect with colleagues across the state. Um, and they had some really awesome um, resources around what they're providing that we can implement in our classrooms. So, um, our prek teachers are going to spend a little bit of time reviewing some of those materials on June 5th. Um, which is my other highlighted. I wanted to just thank the board and the community for their flexibility with June 5th being was originally a half day for class placement. That's still going to be happening. On the other half of the day, our teachers are going to be our K5 teachers are going to be engaged in um professional learning around the new math curriculum. PreK won't be doing that math curriculum. So, they're going to use that time. Um the other
057thing I just wanted to make note of and I'll circle back when I get more information at my capital region Bosey's um assistant superintendent meeting last week they mentioned that they are building a training anticipated for the third week in September for student exeicio members. So uh training for student exeicio members. So um Boseies will hopefully be able to get that information out once we have our our students on the board. Um, and then finally, I wanted to um let folks know I sent out invitations for the code of conduct review committee, two meetings. Um, they will be uh the 28th and the 4th, 3:45 to 4:45 right here in the DLR. Um, our goals really are to review some district uh discipline data, district level, and then building level. Um, we want to take
058a look at any updated board policies that are ref reerenced in the code of conduct to make sure that we update those and then we can start to take a look at but until we have a policy but language around electronics use in our current policy given the new requirement around internet enabled devices. So there there might be a need for language change in the code of conduct based on that. And that's all I have. All right. Thank you, Jesse. Um, so to, uh, this evening, I'm going to go through, uh, our state budget and how it kind of affects our district. Um, so first off, it was very nice to see that we actually received some additional state aid. Uh, about right about 195,000 additional fund um, foundation aid that I didn't expect to
059get. So, uh, that was very nice to see. Uh, also they did not change anything with the expense driven a so what I estimated uh in my budget presentations will still be there. So um I think we're sitting pretty nice with the with the state aid calculations right now. So I did share with you guys and it is attached to board docs kind of again what I see um being the amount of money we'll be getting next year uh from state aid. Uh a couple other things mentioned. Uh they did mention that uh we will be getting some Boseies aid increase. So right now when uh there's a salary associated with someone working with Boseies like a CTE or anything like that, we would only get aid on 30,000 of that which is a number
060back from 1997. So uh they did say that they are going to increase that from 30 to 40 uh for next year but we we will not see that additional aid amount until 26 27 but they are going in the right direction. Uh and after that they do plan on going from 40 to 50 and 50 to 60 in the consecutive years. Um so that that is definitely a benefit. So that will show some additional uh Boseis aid for the for the district. uh zero emission buses. Uh they did didn't speak a lot about it, but they did uh introduce a new uh waiver uh provision uh which would push out um up to two years of the requirements to for electric buses. and they are are saying that if districts can prove that um
061they're having trouble getting the buses from um from vendors or their infrastructure is not there, they will be um you're able to get these waivers. Um so it is a step in the right directions. Uh I'm hearing that you're probably going to see more around this. Uh I think it's a pretty hot topic, but it's nice to see that they are looking at it. Uh the other thing that was nice um was they are doing independent range estimates. So when you're looking at purchasing these electric buses uh you get a estimate from the the vendor uh saying hey this bus can go 300 miles on a charge but that's all they say and it's from the vendor. The vendor gives you that number. Right now, they're saying that the state has to have a third
062party independent vendor that actually tells you how long and and it's required to tell on different ter uh terrain uh weather conditions um how long it uh the battery will last per 10,000 miles and also some consideration on uh on weather to the bus. So that will be good for us when especially now when we're in the middle of our study uh to be able to get some better estimates on how these bad batteries will actually last. Uh next, uh the school meal programs. Um so the state has said that everybody should have access to university free meals. Um as we know here, we already do have that um through the C program. Um and what they're saying is if if you what happens is we here at the district we are part of that
063C program. So there is no state really filling in that that small gap. Uh but what happens in these programs if they don't meet that C which is the 40%. Um they will the state will come in and pay the difference on those rates those federal rates. So, the only requirement that that our district needs to do to make sure that that we uh are getting this um is the application for C, which uh Doug has already uh extended that. So, we have a few more years of that as well. So, we will be seeing free uh free lunch for our students from for a couple years to come. What's that? Breakfast. Yes, breakfast and lunch. I'm sorry. Yep. Um, another thing, uh, retirement income waiver, uh, has been extended for two more years. Um,
064this is, this helps us for retirees are able to come back and there's no income, um, level. They're allowed to come back even though after they're retired. Uh, this is really helpful for districts uh, that have trouble filling some positions that are hard to find. Um, so this was great to see. Uh, again, I think we went into the internet enabled band uh, device band. Uh we we did reach out to uh Nisbot to see what kind of policy that they have around this. They are working on it. Uh they assured me we will be getting it soon. Uh so I think that's a good starting point for it and we can work uh to get it ready. Um the state has said that the policy they would like the policy in place uh by
065August 1st which is a short window. Uh but we will work on that. Uh the one thing I did want to mention and it's kind of a interesting thing uh that also in the state budget they have executive uh budget superpowers uh and uh what this is this gives um the New York state uh budget uh director the authority to withhold all a part of the appropriation payments. So, in other words, if if something was our budget, our state budget was off by a certain amount of money, I believe it's $2 billion, uh our our uh budget director would have the ability to hold payments to schools or any other um areas uh to balance the budget. Um this is a little bit if you remember back in COVID, uh this was something that our
066our governor did at that point. there are some a little bit more guard rails as there used to be. Um what they do have now is the legislation uh does have an opportunity within 10 days to adjust that or make recommendations. Uh but if nothing changes, it it does take effect. So uh I I think this brings to light some of the concerns that the state has with the uncertainty right now in our in our um in our future. Um it's it's definitely especially when our our state senator came here and let us know some of the concerns that they had. Um it's definitely something that we need to worry about that I know when people that have been in schools for a while now remember those days of you know gap eliminate adjustments and
067how that affects people. Um we just need to be plan and be aware that this could happen in the future as well. So uh any questions? Yep. So going back to the beginning, it's been a long time since we had such a late state budget. Yeah. So since we already published the budget that we had out there, what what do we do with that 195? Because we just make adjustments to the budget. Do we uh So you got they approved the budget. You don't improve the revenue. You approve the expense the expense plan. Okay. Uh so there wouldn't be any increase in the budget at all. Okay. So I guess it gives us kind of a a cushion. Okay. So I I would say if everything planned out, I would plan to use less fund
068balance. Yeah. Okay, great. Great. And to the last part, I think you addressed it too, but the state even when they passed their budget, just so everybody gets that part, too. States already said expect to come back in August or so and maybe redo the budget based upon federal funding because they they still don't know what's happening there. That's that's where it could affect us. It's a scary thing. And uh schools is one of the biggest things that they're funding in their budgets. When I heard you say GA, I got the chills again. It's a scary thing. Bad days. Yeah. Yep. Thank you. All right, that any new business items. Yeah, Jackie. Um I have I have a couple of things um from the other incidents that happened in our community last week. Um so
069the first one um and I I sent an email on this last week to you, Brian. Um there in the news there was a sexual assault that happened in one of our um local parks um and also involved some internet safety issues. Um it was of a a younger child who potentially is in our middle school. Obviously I do not know who who the um victim is. However, I do want to make sure that we're responding. we need to be, you know, I've spoken to to my own child about it and nothing has been brought up in in the school with this or with the bullet that was found on the property, which I will get to after this. Um, but we we need to be responding. We we have a child who went through
070something very traumatic, who very potentially is in our school, who most likely has friends in our school. Um, and it happened in our public park. Um it's it's very alarming for one, but we need to be responsive to this. We need to make sure that we have supports in place in the school. We should have had them last week. Um we also should be providing some sort of responsive assemblies or something on um sexual assault and internet safety. um especially I had also reached out a few months ago asking you for some information on how we are addressing the issues of sexual assault and um you know I had reported to you that I have heard about some I'm going to put in air quotes because it's not a joke jokes that students were making
071about rape. Um I it is not a culture that I am willing to accept in my school district. Um it needs to be absolutely shut down and we need to be better educating our students on on being better community members um on how they need to protect themselves about how they need to be treating other people. This is really alarming um you know and and again I had asked you for information on how we are addressing this issue a few months ago. Um and you know now especially though knowing that there was the sexual assault of based on news reports a 13-year-old in our community um we need to respond. So I'd like to hear about how we are addressing this issue and the culture in our middle school. Okay. I are you unprepared to
072discuss it today because I reached out to you in February about this about what happened last week? know about the jokes in the middle school and what we are doing in the response to sexual assault culture um where students think it's okay to make jokes about things like that. Right. I'll get that information for you. Oh, I would love it really soon. I would have loved it three months ago. Um my other topic is the bullet that we all received notice about. Um again, you know, our students weren't talked to about this at all after it happened. My middle schooler said, you know, the other middle schoolers are talking about it, but not a teacher said anything. There wasn't an assembly. There wasn't even a reminder that even if you're a hunter, which I understand
073we live in a community that it's very possible that that's what this was from. We didn't even have a reminder to students that this isn't something that's okay to have in your pockets on school grounds. Nothing. We said nothing. Nothing. That makes me feel so unsafe for my kid. Feel so unsafe for all of our kids that we aren't addressing this. We sent out a notice to the entire community saying, "Hey, there's a bullet on the ground." And then we didn't follow up with our kids. Last week was an incredible disappointment for me. So, I'd like to know how we are addressing this with students and not just a blanket message to the community. Okay. Good. All right, I've got them here. We're going to track them to make sure we have some followup on
074those two points. Anything else? All right, looking at the old business items. Anything we need to cover on that tonight? Just to Jackie's point earlier about whether need can assist at all in the temperature monitoring. The sooner we the better on that just you know we're watching those dates approaching in in September and you know we may be heading into some warm weather here hopefully soon. So it might be a good opportunity to get that monitoring in place. All right. Um well nothing else then we do have a hearing a petition form from Ted Smith. So come on up. Welcome. Good evening everyone. First I just want to take a second to shout out all my my people at Peterb for uh responding so well to the fire that took place. appreciate a lot of
075you mentioning it here, uh, calling them out by name. I heard from a few emergency responders that said the teachers over there were fantastic. They had everything locked down in a moment of real chaos and uncertainty. Uh, they did a great job. They kept levelheads. They kept everybody safe. Um, and they deserve to be commended and I appreciated hearing it uh, from many of your voices here today. Um, thanks. Um, just a quick comment. I also appreciated the um, administrator onsite comment that several of you made as well. That is a problem that I would appreciate too on behalf of my members having addressed. It's something I we had discussions about earlier this year. Uh, not regarding something as dramatic as arson, but just general behavior stuff that I thought we had sort of dealt
076with, but apparently not. Uh so yeah, we would appreciate that being uh hammered out. Uh to switch gears real quick, I just want to thank again the community for coming out and supporting our school budget. And uh it's very important. It it it was uh overwhelmingly approved. And I want to thank the administration and the board for all the hard work you guys put into creating a budget that could get such overwhelming support. Uh board elections as well. Congrats to Mike and Jenny. Um, and thanks to the challengers for taking an interest, one of whom is here right now, uh, participating. Um, it's great to see. Uh, I mentioned this last time I was up here. It is an uncertain time and there is lots of stress and anxiety and, uh, I expect optimism then,
077but, now after in the wake of of election day, I even feel more optimistic. It's so nice to see a community being so level-headed, so full of common sense, and so willing to support education. It's something I don't think we can take for granted and it is something we all should uh be proud of. Um, and just finally, another shout out to another set of my my people at RCSTA. Those art shows uh last night were spectacular. Uh, Tina Wallace and Amber Simmons here at the high school. They had a national uh art honor society induction ceremony to start, which is was wonderful. The art hanging up in the lobby here was great. Over in the middle school, Tim Mervy put up just boatloads of middle school artwork. Dan Gallagher and the jazz band performed
078for parents. This is what we do this work for. It is this time of year when you just see these kids starting to bloom and the whole year all the blood, sweat, and tears starts to really show. And it's uh it's why we do this and it was great to see so many of you there enjoying it. Uh so thanks to them and again thanks to all of you for your hard work. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Ted. As far as upcoming activities, we have a few days of no school coming up. Uh our next meeting is June 11th. And then of course we're looking forward to the last day of school and graduation, which will be on June 27th. Um anybody from the board who would like to attend, of course, welcome to attend.
079I'll be there and you'll be there. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, you'll be there. All right. So, you've got a list of everybody. Yep. We're good on that. Okay. Okay. All right. Very good. Does anybody else have anything else before we head back into executive session? Okay. Then I'm going to ask for a motion to enter back into executive session to discuss matters pertaining to the employment of a particular person and also collective negotiations under the civil service law. Jackie, thank you. Second, Jenny. All in favor? I and we will not be taking any further action after. Thank you. Okay, we're back on. We have an additional hearing a petition form that we'd like to uh hear. Before we do that, uh Jackie, would you like to withdraw your motion to enter into exec? Thank you.
080And Jenny, you'll withdraw your second. Okay. So, we have Frank Mcdana at the podium. Welcome. Sorry, it's my first meeting. Uh, I graduated here 2006, bought our first house 2016. Jackie hit a lot of good points on the head. The world is a different place. Each of you should put that into perspective. I don't know who has kids here. Schools are different. Administration needs to be keenly aware that my wife and I will be the voice of 400 if we need to. Because you don't get a thousand emails does not mean you can act the way we're currently acting. Jackie had an amazing amount of my points that we were going to share. As my wife is probably still in tears after she spoke, I wasn't going to speak, but the things I'm hearing and
081seeing are not okay. As a professional, a local volunteer fireman, a little league coach, this is not okay. The Peter B population is not going to voice their opinions or stand up for what's right. Maybe they think it's being held by the police, the board, somebody's handling it. Schools, Peter B, maybe they have a reputation, whether it's true or not, of brushing things under the rug. maybe not handling things as quickly as they can. And I won't continue to beat it, but Jackie brought up a lot of great points and so did Mike with warning signs. This last incident, the fire, there was a warning sign that should have been addressed. Thank God no one was injured because the blood would not have been on my hands. It would have been on somebody's hands. And
082I can't we cannot have that. My kids only in kindergarten. I'm surprised it took me this long to make it to a meeting. My wife had to email after the first week of school with concerns. We're not complainers. Most of you know me. We're easy people. We're real people. Some of you may know me as a local magician. How many magicians do you know? We're not complainers. We don't want the world. We just want safe, clear communication and safety. Lastly, sorry to make the meeting go longer. I said I wasn't going to speak. It sounds like more people need to speak up. Arson in the second degree is a class B felony for anyone keeping score. Speaking of rape, rape is also a class B felony. Rape in the first degree. Also, assault in the
083first degree, class B felony. And that has to do with permanent disfigurement, serious fing serious physical injury with a deadly instrument or a a weapon. So, this is a serious incident. I know whoever did it may be of a certain age, but we should handle this seriously. And the fact that there's already talk about somebody coming back to a school after committing such a violent offense in my opinion is alarming. But I will let the next steps take place. Thank you for your time. Does anyone have any questions? No. Thanks, Frank. Thank you. Stole somebody's pen. Okay, we're going to redo the executive session motion. Uh we're entering in for the purpose of discussing matters pertaining to the employment of a particular person and also collective negotiations. Um Jackie, your motion again. Jenny second. All
084in favor? I