June 16,2021 Board Meeting

001okay we're going to continue the wednesday june 16 2021 board of ed meeting uh we have no hearings and petitions for the first session i need a motion for one or all of the business considerations after all okay wait a second mrs clinton do we have any discussion all in favor all right create a motion for one or all of the personal consideration let's make a motion for all again a second mr roush any discussion in the past we have done some research into the positions and that it seems to be competitive with other districts around us where we start and then we provide training as they go through we've had some discussions about lifeguard salaries and their comparables with other districts yeah okay anything else any other discussion all in favor all right persons

002pass eight one through eight three are informational items only special reports i have nothing to report on any other board of ed members have anything to report i will turn it over to dr bailey so um we've all been here before the the governor holds press conferences quite frequently and he makes announcements about changes to protocols in new york state and he conspicuously leaves off the word school before he walks off the stage and you know throughout this pandemic he has been a great communicator frequently sharing out where we are both with our our infection numbers and changes to the rules but he again has done us no favors by publicly holding a press conference that said we've hit 70 percent we can get rid of almost all of these restrictions except in schools he

003uh continuously leaves off those words and we are beholden to two things um three things really uh executive order the executive order is the thing that closed school at the beginning of the pandemic and made it possible for us to have remote meetings during the pandemic the state department of education which gives us parameters about how we can educate within the pandemic meaning that we could do virtual school we could have virtual snow days instead of having to close school and the last one being the department of health and the department of health has changed nothing about what the day looks like inside of our school building at this time so whether the governor says uh it's up to schools to decide the director from the department of health has not changed about what we're

004supposed to do on a day-to-day basis the only big change that managed to come out is uh last week on the seventh when we were able to remove masks outside with a clear conscience that's a win we were just able to do it and we could see the faces of our colleagues who spent a lifetime here so baby steps seven days of school left in graduation and through all of it we've talked about graduation a few times so we're still wearing masks inside school that's what we're asked to do but the thing that still concerns me that we've talked about for three or four meetings now is the rules about graduation have not yet changed and the the concern that we had had is right now as we enter the times union center even though

005we're going to be at 10 capacity in that enormous space the requirement is still that anybody who attends whether you're a participant a graduate a staff member or a a uh when we say a witness what are they called a guest thank you thank you i guess in the audience you have to demonstrate you either are vaccinated fully vaccinated that you have had a rapid test within six hours of the graduation or within 72 if it's a lab test or proof from a physician that you've recovered from covid within a certain window of time i've already gotten lots of feedback some feedback from families this is going to be an impact on our families testing costs money depending on where you go i just heard they're shutting down the suny testing facilities because our numbers

006are so low i'm really banking that in the last hail mary these last few days nine days before we get to graduation on the 26th that we really do get uh all of this lifted so that people can be normal and come to graduation it's not fair that we can go to a restaurant without a mask and go to walmart without a mask and go in all these places on a mask and it's not fair that we're having to do this to our families the issue is the department of health is mandating that we do this to our families we're at the tu center in the tu center because they are actually the ones who are securing a license to hold such events and the department of health specifically calls out end-of-year celebrations graduations uh

007by name for schools they have a requirement to ensure that we fulfill all of this so it's uh employees of the times union center who will be at the door checking for the different forms of id around this we talked about that if this is what we're expected to do we will do a clinic on site for our students we'll do a a testing clinic that day on site for our students because we absolutely cannot have our students turned away from graduation and i've talked to a few of you i'm not satisfied with this onus on our on our families and i really really hope that we get a window of opportunity where we will not have to restrict this uh to our families it's too late well i guess you could wander out and

008get a johnson johnson vaccine now and and have just enough time but that's not what people are going to do so they've got to figure out how to be tested and it's going to cost money probably i don't know of any other free readily available free and the ones from cvs don't count because they have to be recorded in the system for the county i'm meeting with the other superintendents tomorrow uh from the all 24 boces schools and um by friday we'll be sending a communication out with families again um to be honest if this is how it's going to be on that day on the 26th then um we're probably going to we're going to choose some nuclear option to make sure that even our families can get tested before they go because this

009is the one moment we've been waiting for after being locked in our houses for a year so um if we have to do it and we can do it we may do large-scale drive-through testing or something so that our families can go too but at any minute maybe they'll take away all the restrictions so um i will keep you apprised on a by daily basis so and that's true for our community too we'll send to be sending our communication to our families on friday after i've spoken with the superintendents we'll do it again on monday we'll do it again on wednesday just so they know what we're faced with but saturday's going to be a special day everyone that wants to be there is going to be able to be there no matter what we

010have to do but um um and then it'll be summer and we can all take a rest for a minute um this has been a marathon that is unfriendly and uh there's a lot to celebrate but this is how we want to end the year um i know i know you clarified this for me but if there was a question in my household i'm assuming other places i'm sorry you're in the prom was different prom students were able to go under different mandates than we are being held to graduation if you could maybe just explain why that is it's a really good point the um a few celebrations to date we had the prom which was this last weekend we've had the senior night at the drive in we'll have an eighth grade uh moving

011up day at the drive-in this coming tuesday we'll have drive-throughs for different events for our moving up ceremonies and other grades the state very carefully calls out graduation and end-of-year ceremonies when we went to the prom they went to a facility that is off-site that has its own department of health rules and the students that attended that they were outside martells in the 10. we need to move more well done when we were outside in the tent they were able to abide by the department of health rules governing uh restaurants and being outside so it is it's confusing you're right when people see that and there are some great pictures of our kids i dr fraternity sent me some pictures from that night i gotta say after a year of this and this staying away

012from each other it was so heartwarming to see the pictures um and the kids just they glowed and they exuded gratefulness that they could have some normal to see that at you know the end of their careers but there is a difference between the two i'm glad that you last that um because you won't see that same type of behavior uh like in here i mean we're all very different than when we were outside because that's what the rules say right now so we are looking forward to some change as we look forward to the fall right now there is no prediction about what will happen but we feel pretty strongly that uh distancing will likely be removed it's down to three feet right now if you're in a low transmission area which somehow all

013money still hasn't been taken off the list i don't know how because we're so low but um three feet and mr engelhard actually went over to one of the building state with mr schram and like mapped out a classroom at three feet to see how we would fit in an elementary classroom uh how did it go it looks like we could do full capacity he just said it looks like we could do full capacity even if they made it three feet so we're in a good place as we go forward a better place master's still an unknown um you know we hear lots of discussion about that in the public and uh through um the governor and the department of health uh vaccinated individuals it looks like i mean it's carte blanche for them out

014in the world if you're vaccinated you'll go anywhere anytime with no mask basically at this juncture um with a few limitations but we only vaccinate down to 12 years old and some families aren't comfortable with that yet so i'm not sure what fallout looked like yet i would we really want to see some normal you know as someone said to me today just the interactions between children the what was normally between children being able to play has been really changed you know you're not sharing toys most of the kids have their own toys um they're not holding hands they're not running together pushing each other on the swings that's not okay that's a normal part of our lives right our existence so we're really hoping for some normal normal when we come back and some

015new rules for the summer schools that we're going to hold so i mentioned some of the events that we've had already um and um eighth grade tuesday and the other moving moving ups uh kindergarten fifth grade some various things going on mr anger may talk about them i'm not sure on graduation the doors open early we just did the first week of tickets for our families everyone got eight and today we opened up the portal we opened up the opportunity again if people needed more than eight we wanted to wait a week so that we were sure because it's ticketmaster so if i wanted to sit right where peta is i wanted to be as close to stage as possible i wanted everyone to have a chance to get that and today we just sent

016out an invitation for people who wanted more seats to get more seats if they'd like them um so hopefully if people needed that they'll avail themselves of that tickets are free no you do not no uh people who are on the stage will not need tickets so we will be providing transportation for students who need it we have always done that and there have been a handful of students who've needed to capitalize on that but again this is one of the most important days for these kids at the end of their careers here so we don't want to we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to be included in that i think that's about it but i'd be very happy to not talk about the pandemic anymore hopefully by july 1st it's

017gone but um i think that we will see some really effective changes you saw some guidance around summer summer camps and summer school i think we'll see some good stuff we will be holding in person summer school in every building this year and we've been talking about how to make sure everybody's in air-conditioned rooms so that they are safe and cool no matter what the conditions are but we'll be sending communication out to families about that as well great uh mr ingleheart so dr bailey already talked about the one event that i wanted to mention which is big in the engle heart household it happened on saturday june 5th where we scour facebook and instagram to see who's wearing what and who's with whom and to uh dish all the tea on what's going on

018and that is the senior prom so my girls were very into seeing who was wearing what like it's the red carpet and i want to just thank teachers administrators parents students who helped organize that event for our students we really appreciate it ms mclaughlin wants to send a huge thank you to the friends of the arts for supplying water and snacks for our performers if you don't know we are having a lot of concerts virtually students will be coming in and then those links will be sent out and a reminder that eighth grade concert is tomorrow um katie pegne pagnotta was recognized by congressman paul tanko for her work in the 2021 congressional art competition so i wanted to recognize her as well as one of our sophomores elizabeth robertson she was elected as artist

019of the month for may so please check out her photography it's on our website we just also in the same vein as music our rcs students over 85 of them participated in three virtual nisma events they all scored really high with one of our students getting a score of 100 on a competitive level 6 for flute and that's renee rivers so we just want to say congratulations to her well done so the best performances are in rcs please look for the brothers grim spectacular is what they're calling it almost maine so those are the two planes put plays put on by the drama club members of the drama club will give families and parents those in for that information they're also working on a musical theater cabaret as well and that will come out um

020i mentioned in our last board of education meeting regarding keeping our eye out for the spotlight they are going to highlight our class of so please look for that as well um i honestly did not know that the rares were going to be here tonight so i just wanted to recognize chris publicly chris for those who don't know chris finished a pretty prestigious cte program and he got let me see outstanding student of the year and i did not even know this because i read the article he already owns it he already owns his own business so huge congratulations to chris for that and and for mom and dad for raising such a great kid and then we had a student who won both the girls shotput and discus throw at the colonial council championships

021she also was named a section 2 champion in both shotput and discus so a huge congratulations to our own junior uh miss yoshuna uba for the great accomplishments in those sports [Music] [Applause] and then lastly and i'll be quiet uh today fifth grade did a bus parade back to elementary schools so some of those pictures are are tear jerkers they were able to see student teachers and teachers gave them a little wave and thank you to mr jones and miss newbart and mr adamak and our pta and ptos for helping support some of our ceremonies that we're trying to do at the end of the year and that's it great thank you we'll turn it over to mrs moran all right good evening um i have a i gave each of you a copy of

022an update i'm going to go over the capital project that was approved back in 2015 for 31.2 million i thought for some of our board members we haven't had a recap of this and where we begin right now mr schram's going to talk a little bit when i'm done about where we are right now with phase three but as a reminder january 13 2015 the voters of the ravina queen and selkirk school district did approve a referendum authorizing the districts to expend 31.2 million dollars on a district-wide addition and renovation program 1.2 million came from a capital reserve that is established by vote of the by the voters and then we are allowed to borrow up to 30 million ninety thousand dollars to pay for this pay for the work the renovations in addition and

023i'll give you an overview right now on phase a and b that was completed shortly after i got here i think in 2017-18 uh that phase one a b was ten million three hundred and six thousand eight hundred twenty-one dollars currently phase two while we have not submitted the final cost report at this time because of some matters on how we're going to end that project up we have right now 18 million just over 18 million 79 000 in phase two now that leaves right now 2.9 million dollars for phase three originally a few months ago i said that might be as uh as low as about 2.6 2.7 million and that's because of the nyserda funding if you remember way back when several years ago when we did the bid opening for phase two

024we made the nice sort of funds we had the district was waiting on some nice sort of funds to pay for some hvac work as part of a litigation for the area well finally those those funds did come through so we bid that as an alternate which means we could pull it separately out of the bid for the capital project if we needed to or it could stay in well it's nice that it turned out that the district did get 306 000 so that expenditure as well as revenue just comes right out that means we have 2.9 million for phase three now how do we pay for that you guys always hear us talk about bans bonds serial bonds long-term bonds i just wanted it's a brief recap of where we are you know we're

025going to spend 31.2 million dollars 1.2 million did come from a capital reserve shortly after i came here in 2016-17 we did a serial bond for 11 million that was going to pay for most of phase 1 a b and it did and then we have a bond anticipation note or a ban that means it's a short-term borrowing right now districts are allowed to refinance that ban five years for five years so whether we need new money as long as we don't exceed where we are with how much we're allowed to borrow we can extend that for five years so while originally we were authorized to borrow 30 million we did a 11 million dollar dollar serial bond then we did a 15 million dollar bond anticipation note and then we did new money for

026two million dollars and then we did this year going into we're going to take another new million of another new borrowing of 1.3 million to pay for phase three now you'll see that we have remaining authorization of 750 000 i want to talk about that in a minute one of the things that's important to note is there's current uh pending legislation to allow a school district to go out seven years for a ban there's been no determination on that we don't have to do that but i just want to let people know that right now there's a possibility that we could extend that for seven years so what do we do know the next steps what we've done is we have utilized some of the premiums and what a premium is in a borrowing is

027that it's an incentive for the companies that are going to bid on our ban they want to give us a low interest rate and they'll pay us money they call them premiums we've gotten premiums on all of our borrowings and right now we get them whether it's a bond borrowing for a bus or ban for a bus or a ban for a capital project right now we have about and eighty nine thousand dollars in premiums now why that's important is because the ultimate long-range goal is to borrow as little money as possible so we offset that with premiums we might offset it with interest there's not much about thirty nine thousand dollars in interest so we're not going to borrow up to our total authorization we're going to leave 000 off we're going to utilize

028the the premium money again some of the things that go into the steps so when we determine what our bond will be that long-term borrowing um we also we paid principal payments to reduce that so up to date up to today we've paid 910 000 over five years in principal payments plus we have 575 000 in the 21 22 year so right now if we were to close things out we'd borrow approximately 16.6 million and then we'd begin and we that's what we would do we would finance it for 15 years and that's where we stand right now we'll work with fiscal advisors who is our financial consultant for the school district and we'll deter we'll review all of our options for borrowing when it comes to baking that a bond so whether we do

029it straight on the street was what they called or we go through dazny which is through the state the dormitory authority of the state of new york we'll determine that and i'll come back with with fiscal advisors and somewhere between january and march depending on how much work we've gotten done with phase um three which hopefully will be 90 or better or done by january and march um but construction is underway mr sram you all know mr schram he's going to be meeting with us we're going to be getting a line the lion's share of the work done over july and august mr shrum will be joining us at each board meeting we'll go over a budget and where we are and what the construction project prosp progress is today so i am going to

030turn it over to mr schram right now he can give you a brief update because work believe it or not has already begun how are you guys um just wanted to let you know what's going on we did start work this week uh demolition started on monday here at the high school um they have started in the facts room and the teachers lounge area uh the the cabinets have been removed uh casework's been removed uh we've got the electrician in doing disconnects plumber and doing disconnects and we are actually just about ready to stop tonight they're gonna do the final demo and it will pretty much come to a halt until abatement starts on you can't hear me all right i'll talk louder so um so construction started this week demotion started this week uh

031casework's been removed cabinetry has been removed and electrician's been in doing disconnects plumber's been undoing disconnects we are pretty much ready to start abatement abatement is going to start on the 28th in that space um and after abatement uh which should be about three days and then we have to wait for clean errors and after that we'll we'll start reconstruction in that room middle school demolition is going to start tomorrow night and there's a limited scope there they'll just be removing case work and then prepping for abatement work which will start on the 5th of july elementary demo is set to start on the 28th we're going to be relocating the main offices to the back side of the building setting up temporary entrances maps have been prepped and they'll be shared with principals tomorrow

032we have temporary signage and plan in place to continue all of our summer programs in those spaces and that's where we're at at the moment thank you bill the other thing i want to mention is that some of the challenges that we've all felt as part of the pandemic is there's some material and supply shortages so we know right off the bat there are going to be a couple of challenges like we have a filed an emergency project that peter b for the roof well believe it or not the rubber material that goes on they can't get it it won't be here until probably august but we know that we're working with our architect on that some of the things that they know right off the bat are going to be delayed will not prevent

033us from opening school but will mean that the renovation won't be completely done and that is going to be the store fronts at the elementary school and by the storefronts i mean the entrance ways we will get everything ready and some of those the shell on the outside will stay the way it is our main our primary goal is security safety all of that will be taken care of but we know so far in advance that we can plan for that the architect is working on it and we'll go through all those updates throughout the summer we have two meetings a month mr schram mr sharkey will be here the next time we meet he'd like to update the board as well we'll be having construction meetings on friday morning at eight o'clock mr charm

034will be there mr dr bailey will be there myself we did talk about if members of the building and grounds committee wanted to come or any member could come but again we will keep you up to date with the expenditures the progress and where we are so hopefully we'll button up phase three and mr sharkey can help our district identify what our long-term goals are for the facilities for our facilities going forward and that's what i have thank you worry about like that 750 000 that we're not spending do we have to worry about any like changes change orders alternates supplies anything else that we would have a big cost that we would possibly need that money i don't plan on us underspending i just don't plan on us having to borrow the full amount

035through the premiums and the other the principal payments we've made so that's 750 thousand dollars while we're not borrowing right now we could still borrow it if we needed to go to 30 million if we needed to borrow all the way to our total but it's not going to impact on the work that we're having done we're not going to short ourselves got it okay when all is said and done mr reveley we'll have spent 31.2 million okay construction project throughout the project we have alternates knowing that some things may come in lower than projected or as she is estimated there might be some room left at the end which means that we can buy some additional permanent fixtures or something else that we utilize in the spaces that we've been working on sed closely

036monitors those purchases it's not like we can go out and buy a bus with leftover money or you know buy a new concession stand the money has to be spent in concert with the construction that's happening in the space but they have alternates prepared to do that okay and the other thing to note is kind of on the opposite of that often the district might borrow a little bit too much money not exceeding their authorization but they ended up not spending it all and that's not the worst thing that can happen because what the district is then required to do is put it in a mandatory reserve for debt and then that overage would be used to pay down debt in the future so i just figured it's the opposite of what you just suggested

037okay thank you thank you does anyone have any new business i just want to say congratulations to all the the uh the music folks who put on a couple of great concerts that i was fortunate to attend as a parent of a senior i feel sorry for the people that couldn't be here because from what i've been told the huddle system which is great for sporting events is awful for concerts i couldn't hear couldn't understand kept moving same thing for senior awards dr paterny put on a great senior awards program but the huddle presentation was difficult so we i think we have to keep that in mind in the future not that we have a great alternative right now but you know maybe some other form of live streaming but all those events were phenomenal

038and the senior athletic awards thing is tomorrow so just so we know that that's coming up and then finally because i was late and i missed all the the fun fanfare at the beginning i want to offer my congratulations to all the retirees great job many years of service i wish i was there with you but not not long ago and also congratulations to the new hires god bless you livestreaming graduation our preference is to do uh youtube because it is more readily accessible uh than facebook in many instances but the times union center does it for us right say that again times union center does it for us we've uh contracted with their streaming service to do that bill we're gonna say something yeah bill said that's on our rcs youtube channel already so

039and they were cooperative with us which is great so yeah okay good to and that will be very professional um you know the limitations that you talked about we're using our huddle camera which works great for basketball but not so great for award ceremonies every time someone walked in the door walked out the camera went over there watching the players go over there so it'll be much much higher quality okay does anybody else have any other new business have we done any other live streaming besides the huddle thing like other events here uh we've recorded for instance we're live streaming now right we are but not through but this is what this is what it looks like that's the problem where technology is a little uh it isn't quite up to power but uh you're

040right we are live streaming it's not it's not times union quality but it's better than huddle camera quality for like an award ceremony or any kind of any kind of non-sport thing that camera and that system through youtube is much much better so just a thought i've been doing it at april part that's why i thought maybe you know it's worth an idea with a thought you know if somebody's willing to take it on i'm sure mr rooney is buried already but you know he'd have to go to every other family district too okay thank you uh old business any of these topics anyone want to bring up one of the ones i just wanted to discuss quickly to bring up is communications parents regarding curriculum well i know myself and my family i think

041high school right now is going through maybe schedules right recommendations and schedules for next year so i want to see i guess where we're at with communication or where students are at with communications with home and families as far as being involved in their schedules you know how much we encourage students to involve their parents and you know developing their schedules for next year and i guess what our plan is i guess for the district on doing that and making um those recommendations to involving the parents uh with that and the guns counselors have been great that i've dealt with i just thought that we want to make sure that we communicate you know with families about that because i'm sure some of the kids are doing it and parents have no idea having the

042parents either come in in person with their student and advisor and go through that schedule so obviously that's not relevant but i don't know if we'd let that kind of fall by the wayside you know is virtual meetings with parents just as effectively effective as a high school parent or student you know whatever um there were phone calls uh we were definitely doing some uh some meetings some phone calls about you know obviously going into a college area so hopefully that's happening at some of the other levels too i think we had a zoom call yeah earlier in the year or spring with the banks counselors as well i've been very happy with the guidance counselors and stuff and i know that things have been changing and i want to give them definitely a plug

043for for this year being so weird but trying to be as in contact as possible two or three calls at least at least i think as part of the part of the updated guidance plan was to do targeted grade level meetings with families i know at the high school they do their junior meetings because of the it's a turning point it's a stepping stone for whatever their career pathway or college pathway is after and i believe they did the same thing at the middle school they targeted a particular grade and then all the rest is um scheduling that is either sent home in paper electronically parents sign off and things like that do you need teamwork i don't i do know that google me has been really helpful in really facilitating a lot of those

044meetings especially at the middle school schedules but that's something that can keep going it's got to be easier on the guidance i would think too to be able to do twice as many meetings that was good um it is worth noting i mentioned all the unknowns for next year one of the huge unknowns is the mandate whether or not remote learning will be required you know this year we we took a lot of staff from their tenured positions in some areas and moved them into the classroom because we needed to we needed to create six second grade classrooms instead of four to be able to fit students in the classrooms if we're able to go back to normal spacing we expect all of our staff to go back where they belong you know where they're

045most comfortable and where they were hired originally if uh at some juncture in the next two months the state says you are mandated to offer remote learning uh it will be a drain on resources uh and it will have an effect on schedulings we're we're not looking forward to that news there is a chance though that we will choose to coordinate with other schools or with boces to offer that programming if it happens that's been a frequent discussion of the superintendents and ideally it won't we want our students to be back but it really does they're all looking at the pandemic the numbers around that when they're making that decision so ideally we'll be able to be back the way we want to be but that may change our scheduling from what we expect this

046year kind of getting them familiar again re-engaging families is there anything kind of on the drawing board for that over the summer we have some end-of-the-year things happening but it isn't about instruction it's more about the socialization we've got a few grade levels buildings asked to bring in their fully remote kids so that they can be together there's some discussion about that for the middle school carnival day or whatever they call it so that they can be together but the transition academically is the more challenging one will be it's going to be an extension of our it'll be after our summer school but it will be an extension prior to when we get back to school um we have done the large-scale eighth grade coming back doing a 8th grade 9th grade orientation excuse me

047every grade is going to need an orientation this year it's going to be different for almost every grade so we don't have anything solid yet but we absolutely will be thinking about how to bring them back so that they are comfortable and and know what they're supposed to do uh public meetings hearing their petitions we could remove that one i think the rcs gear wouldn't discuss solar panels usage i think we're still waiting on guidance department electives instead of study halls we'll discussed that one before i know that's a hot topic now with scheduling classes for next year less study has more classes i are there any on here that anybody wants to keep on here besides solar panels usage i think going into next year um i think doing a little study on how

048we do with student placement is valid we should definitely continue the discussion about our scheduling practices and how we do especially coming back students are accustomed to a very different type of day a shorter day and different responsibilities i'm interested to see how much they're willing to engage uh when they come back so your guidance on there so put guns department and maybe instead of electives instead of study halls we'll just put like student placement yeah scheduling student placement yeah and then we'll leave solar panels usage and we can eliminate the others okay b.o.d reports policy adoption reviews hearings and petitions so i would like to remind everyone that we ask that all comments be addressed to the board from the podium microphone set up for use by the public please limit your question or

049statement to three minutes so as to ensure sufficient time for all that are present to have an opportunity to speak any topics which found properly under executive session will not be discussed in public session please limit your comments to three minutes and if needed administration will contact you with information regarding your topic if need be so the first person that i have is kelly doggett hi my name is kelly daughert i am a graduate of rcs a parent of graduates of rcs a taxpayer and a teacher at rcs so i'm seeing some things go on specifically more at the middle school high school that i just wanted to address two things in particular number one the school seems to be operating under the misconception that it is their job to instill values and beliefs whether

050political or personal in our children i'm not talking about character development i'm talking about deeply held morals values and ideals upon which we build our lives it is called indoctrination if we look back throughout history we are made blatantly aware of others who began mass indoctrination of children and we can see it happening throughout the world today they take children at their most impressionable and they fill their minds with all kinds of things even if we feel that we are indoctrinating good things the job of raising children falls squarely on the parents and while we may not agree with all the parents choices we should not be taking away their right to instill foundational values that will propel their children forward we are not the morality police getting to choose what is right and what

051is wrong for all indoctrinating children is not our role as educators that brings me to point number two collectivization this is the organization of people into groups or divisions based on characteristics qualities genders colors etc by its nature the more we collectivize the more we divide we need to focus on our humanity and all that brings us together we should be kind to everyone regardless of their beliefs i am not defending or diminishing one group over another but where does it stop who gets to choose what issues are worth time away from curriculum content that should be taught in class who gets to choose what issues are morally right or morally wrong who gets to choose which political parties should be mocked in which political parties should be revered we spend many hours days weeks

052months and even years creating curriculum how then does each individual teacher get to pick and choose what ideals are worth setting aside valuable teaching time for in order to change minds we need to change hearts we need to be teaching our students daily through relationships an example how to treat others regardless of what you look like or what you believe we need to stop focusing on what makes us different and remind ourselves what makes us the same this should be our message to children i sat through all the assemblies as a student as i'm sure you all did as well dare drunk driving suicide and others and my question to you is has drug use decreased no has drunk driving decreased no has the suicide rate decreased no my point is not that we stop

053promoting kindness compassion acceptance it is that we need to find ways to bring people together and to stop dividing them we need to teach students that accepting others is non-negotiable regardless of their looks or beliefs and we can still agree to disagree and be kind to one another please please finish up your last time yes i'll end with this how would you collectivize me i'm multifaceted a wife a mother a daughter a sister a friend a christian a teacher part italian part german part english i have good days and i have bad days and i do my best to contribute positively to society i don't want to be collectivized i don't want to be placed in a box i want to be seen as a multi-faceted person with many layers i want to be seen

054as an individual who has seen success in failure made mistakes and triumph and found peace in it all i want to be respected and to respect others regardless of my layers or their layers let's teach that to students thank you jessica and planet please jessica o'connor hi i just wanted to take a moment to thank the rcs district for all they have done to ensure the safety of our children during this pandemic i appreciate that the district has chosen to stay the course even while mandates have continued to lift the last couple of weeks of school is not the time to make big changes my daughter was cri for the first two trimesters of school and i was terrified to send my baby into school with the rampant spread of kervig-19 it was your actions

055and policies that gave me the confidence to send her back i thank you for that my child has thrived since returning and her confidence has been boosted she has even advanced several reading levels it is the hard work of the teachers and the district that made this possible your thoughtful and cautious policies are appreciated thank you good evening i want to piggyback on some of what kelly just shared and some other things very first let me say that i am completely in agreement that we as a district need to stand behind those who have been bullied in any form there is no place in our district and we need to stand up for those in the black community the asian community the lgbtq community the differently abled those who are bullied for being overweight or

056wearing glasses or for a stutter or anything else but we also need to be against bullying those students and teachers who believe differently than we believe we need to be preaching kindness and acceptance period by pointing out lifting up one group or another over and over again all we are doing is creating more and more division between our students our staff and our community rcs schools have become a place where politics and agendas are discussed and displayed in our classrooms and the definition of unity has been changed to mean you better believe what i believe where you're not part of this community there are a few things that i and many other parents that i've discussed with this week take particular offense to first we're allowing political discussions in our classrooms that mean far more

057one way than the other i cannot discuss religion in classrooms if i'm a teacher and no other politics should be discussed either the only thing that we all are is americans and unity and freedom that people like my husband fought for should be the only political discussions that are ever had in a classroom second we are having lgbtq facts read every morning during announcements but as far as my kids could tell me there were no black american facts read during black history month and there certainly were no american facts read for veterans day memorial day or flag day as a military family i take particular offense to this again we are not democratic or republican in the school we should not be pushing any agenda or lifting up or pointing out one group over another

058there are students staff and community members who are always going to feel uncomfortable when it's done on either side and now they are the ones feeling singled out to that point i come to my major gripe this evening communication or rather lack of it in this district there have been assemblies about sensitive issues and conversations had in classrooms surveys requested of our children and put on screens for their peers to see with no prior knowledge given to us as parents so we can decide whether or not we want to allow our children to participate there are shelter-in-place drills that we only find out about it after the fact so we don't have the opportunity to preset our anxiety ridden children like my little one there are activities happening in the school during school hours when

059parents are not notified more than two weeks beforehand so plans can't be made to take time off from work we have a website and an app where information is seriously lacking and even when it's there it is so buried or on the wrong page that even i and you know i'm pretty savvy about our website can't find it we have a calendar that doesn't have any information on it at all nothing is updated regularly when emails are sent out they are so jam-packed with information that you miss important things because the district waits to send out anything until we have 20 things to tell parents some parents can email and text some don't some of us have tried to fill the gap with social media but it are hand slapped or put on gag readers

060papers are sent home with middle schoolers and high schoolers or emails are sent to them or posted in their digital classrooms where parents are never going to see them and it's not just academics either class specific information fundraising info sports signups and information on and on and this doesn't even touch the i.t security issues that we have this year please finish up thank you information is only shared in the 11th hour if at all and parents are fed up if any year was the year to focus on better communication it was this year some of us shared ideas to help improve communication and it was considered and meetings were hard about it and nothing ever happened we need to do better i did would have a very informal last minute survey just to kind of

061pull parents to make sure i wasn't the only one feeling this way and let me tell you in the last 24 hours how many calls and emails and texts 70.7 of the 65 people who responded in less than 24 hours said we don't receive nearly enough information from the district and i will tell you that 50 percent say i don't care how i receive it i just want to receive it as soon as possible so if anybody wants to see more i have lots of comments and suggestions from people in the district thank you hello can i take this down to speak or do i have to keep it up which one i couldn't no honestly okay right now i'd rather be at my daughter's softball get together than here i'm very uncomfortable speak in

062public but here we go my name is louie collins i have been a ta at peter b elementary for 23 years but tonight i am here as a parent i have two daughters that attend rcs one in eighth grade the other in ninth grade both with very complex and unique backgrounds i was recently made aware of some assemblies and workshops that were going on in high school during school day that i was not aware of as a parent unfortunately this is not the first time that i have to request more communication from school administration about these type of events back in january 2019 i previously reached out to the middle school district administration about being informed of all assemblies and their intended content prior to taking place why i understand the desire for these types

063of assemblies it's my job as a parent to determine what is appropriate and inappropriate for my children i want the board to be aware of the lack of communication and transparency that we as parents are receiving from our school administration i feel as though we as parents and guardians of our children are purposely being left out of these conversations this morning i sent the following letter addressed to dr lisa paterni high school principal cc dr bailey mr engelhardt and mr tedford dr paterni i invite you to respectfully respectfully request to be contacted prior to all assemblies and or workshops that my daughters will be asked to attend whether it be in person or virtually i would like to know when the assembly or workshop will take place as well as well as what information will

064be discussed or presented during this time i think the communication between school administration and parents and guardians is severely lacking and that it should be standard protocol for all parents to be notified of all assemblies workshops taking place during the school day for example in the past when sex education assemblies or talks took place students had to bring home permission slips to attend this ensured that both parents and guardians in school were on the same page this process made the parents and guardians at home aware what was aware of what was being taken place at school thus allowing them to prepare for further discussion or questions furthermore some of the topics being discussed in these assemblies workshops are regarding very controversial topics today in today's society topics that while very important to discuss i believe

065are better discussed at home if you feel as though school systems must intervene why aren't we preaching in our children love acceptance of all and leave it at that why do we have to target specific groups of people teaching acceptance respect compassion and understanding in more general terms all year round would be more beneficial to our community than what is being done now sorry are we going to have workshops on acceptance of black community the asian community the muslim community christian community the handicapped community law enforcement community the homeless community the list can go on indefinitely there will be no time left for learning school material if we embed these values of acceptance respect compassion and understanding through the year and everything we do at rcs then we should not have to make it community

066specific but not including families at home and what is taking place during the school day i feel as though you're undermining the parent and guardian involvement in the education there needs to be more transparency from school because as parents and guardians we need to be aware of what conversations questions or children may come home from school once again i'm respectfully requesting to be notified of all assemblies workshops prior to them taking place my conclusion the reason i'm reading this board to the board is because as an employee of rcs i know that one of the main objectives over the last few years has been to do more community outreach and to gain more parent involvement well i feel that we're doing the opposite as a parent i currently feel that lack of transparency leads parents

067to feel as if the school is hiding things from us until after the fact you know that old saying goes better to ask forgiveness than permission right thank you thank you jeff uh yeah stand for something or stand for nothing you know as uh i tell you a little bit about i'm english i don't if you can tell working class proud of it grew up on uh evil knievel and starsky and hutch okay fell in love with america won one lacunder came here met the girl of my dreams 33 years four beautiful children going through this school system i got nothing but love for you guys but something's happening you know it's happening you see it it's on the internet everywhere people have had enough they've had enough and i don't know where you guys

068stand i don't know i know lori i love lori i know mr bear i love you mr barry you're such a good man uh i don't know where any of you stand i'm not shooting arabs okay i'm just saying i want to say my peace okay i i i work with old people okay i hold their hands when they die i look jealous of teachers you know they get they get the other end of the spectrum you know i was always jealous of teachers but then in hindsight i've learned so much from the greatest generation this world has ever seen okay i learned a lot from them you know you think about the boys in the trenches the guys going on the beaches you know we have such a charmed life because of them and

069they believed in the constitution we've got to get back to the constitution we've got to stop these lawyers telling us what to do they have no constitutional authority okay and teachers and the school board need to answer to the people and we're begging you please do not continue down this path of deception okay critical theory i mean critical race theory comes from critical theory there's a bunch of angry jewish men who were flushed out of russia into germany and they started a school called the frankfurt school there was a associated with colombia and that's where the have been started and it's infiltrated education throughout this country and the the educated world even i'm from england you can't believe what they're doing in england they're firing gay people for using their own pro-match this is madness

070guys we've already jumped the shark we where we need to be we don't need to be progressive okay gays are not being hounded down the street they're not being hung black people are not being hung in ravina we are not racists stop this madness god bless thank you [Applause] upcoming activities with high school commencement ceremonies which will be june 26 at 4 00 pm at the time junior center our next boe meeting will be july 7th which will be our organizational meeting i don't see any reason for us to go back into executive session anybody have anything no okay notion to adjourn mrs burns mr hisself all in favor all right you