001all right we're unmuted we're good to go okay we are reconvening the regular meeting of the room board of education the date is january 13 2022 and the time is 6 03 pm write for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay our first item is to approve the minutes of river meeting from december never mind any discussion paper say aye opposed look at any additions or deletions there are not tonight very good we're on a roll right now i'm at the speed talk yeah before the superintendent of schools well in honor of my good friend mr brewer i brought a presentation for you tonight to slow this thing down
002a little bit happy new year everybody uh that will get started with humor tonight uh glad to see everybody got a couple things to talk about first a quick covet update uh obviously the district is no different than really anywhere else continue to see um obviously cases increase uh i should say increase they studied out but there's more now than there were in november so we continue to monitor that the good news is i wouldn't say we're any better off or worse off than most places with staffing we aren't dangerously uh low in terms of worrying about school closure because of staffing right now but i would say that it could take one good weekend uh to put us over that hump and have to worry about that but for right now things are going
003good with staffing um as you all know the county and the state have changed their guidelines for uh contact tracing quarantining isolation uh that is going okay so far uh but our principals are saying that they're spending a little bit more time this week having to explain to parents what's happening and what the new rules are because uh that kind of has fallen on their shoulders for clarification in case people didn't see it last weekend are they just a little confused rome city school district is doing a five-day quarantine for asymptomatic students we are still doing a 10-day isolation for positive students all right so it's a little bit different uh the general population can be removed from isolation after five days of being positive if they are asymptomatic on the sixth day we're maintaining
00410 days because in speaking to the building leaders they didn't feel they had the space in the buildings to have kids to be able to eat with their masks off they still would be required to be uh six feet away from anybody else anytime their mask was off they didn't feel that they could do the spacing number one and more importantly than that they had a concern that isolating a kid to eat a meal uh might put a target on them as being uh something different than everybody else or causing uh possible bullying situations so in consideration of that they felt the 10 day was was the wisest decision uh and it probably is with with knowing that we don't have the space we don't want to do anything that negatively affects a kid so
005we're five days for quarantine 10 for isolation right now i you know hopefully we don't see any more changes for a few weeks to months but you never know when something is going to change lately it seems to be friday afternoons that uh things are coming from all of me that they're changing of on the heels of speaking of albany test kits the governor is seems like sending test kits to schools every two weeks the first shipment came in over the new year holiday that was one test kit for every student on your beds form in the fall we got another shipment this week but it was not for one for every student it was about half the allotment of our student population so we've done one distribution already to any family that signed up
006or said they wanted a test kit if you're a family that sign up for test kit hasn't picked it up feel free to come to the district office and pick up that test kit if you did not sign up or get a test kit yet you're still eligible to get one for your child please come to the district office we still have those here we've also done a test kit giveaway for every staff member so every staff member has had the opportunity to receive a test kit and now we're at the point where each school has sets of test kits for students that either are quarantined so if we're calling and saying um you know your child is quarantined because of that you have access to test kits from the school on the school's behalf
007of people like them or giving them the families that want them for peace of mind just to test their children and we'll also be using them for tests to stay which hopefully will be able to officially begin on monday uh in the district i'm just waiting to hear back from the county on whether or not they will uh approve our test to stay program it does sound like the testing from the state's going to continue to come to the district like i said it seems like every two weeks we're going to get a shipment of some kind of these at home test there right now there's no further guidance on what they expect them to be used for so i think most districts can use them for tests to stay kind of help families out
008the best that they can the only last thing i'll say about test kits is the ones we have currently are understanding as they expire at the end of january so i'm going to ask folks to stay tuned in two weeks if we get into the beginning part of the last week of january and we have an abundance of test kits last left over we're probably just going to do a barn sale and just fire sale them out whoever wants one come get it because we want to make sure that they get in the hands of people that need them they don't go to waste so we'll determine that when we get to the end of the month to see how many we have sitting around and if we have an abundance that are going to
009go bad we're certainly going to do our best to get them in the hands of students and families in the community for use we are trying to set up a vaccination clinic next week with the mohawk valley health systems i've been communicating via email with their director right now i'm waiting to hear back which day of the week uh they're able to do it but we're looking to do a vaccination clinic from four to seven pm at strong middle school day of the week is unknown um it's not 100 confirmed yet just simply because i'm waiting on the long valley health systems to let me know if they can actually do that would that be all age groups it would be ages 5 2 whatever yes moving away from covet the board has begun budget
010development with the district we had a retreat last night to kind of start that off so with the next month or so the district and the board of education will be working through some budget uh situations we're a few weeks away from the governor's runs which are usually a key marker but stay tuned for that information i think the board they've had a busy week for a lot of reasons but the budget season january especially is tough for them because it's a lot of meetings and it's a lot of information that is not normal information to think and worry about so we thank you for your time and uh assistance in working on that but we're well underway budget development and i can say up front i don't anticipate this being the type of year
011where folks have to lose sleep over what's going to happen with the budget things in general look very healthy always tough decisions to make but we're in good shape no sleep will be lost redistricting is still moving along the teachers were provided a survey last friday from the consultants asking some questions about their concerns their ideas thoughts about redistricting and testing out some of the models they're looking at they are continue to work with the architects and i believe their plan is by the end of the month to not only have some more developed redistricting ideas but i believe the architects will be bringing some renderings for uh building expansion editions that would relate to what the arc uh consultants are what the consultants are going to recommend so it'll be the board should have
012a lot more information and totality than we've had one thing we don't have a lot of information yet regarding all of that is this daily situation i know rob is working on setting up a phone call with fema maybe tomorrow uh if not tomorrow next week we've been bumped up to the next level of conversation which is where we have to start getting in the nuts and bolts of what exactly do we want uh what are we exactly are we asking for so those continue to move along we're still looking to schedule one more community meeting for redistricting prior to the january 27th board meeting where um ross and his team will present to the board in the community once again more stuff coming out this weekend we're going to launch a thought exchange in
013relation to peer interactions and student-to-student interactions within the school so the thought exchange is simply going to ask community members staff members students to provide some thoughts and ideas regarding first of all what are their perceptions of peer interactions in the schools and or what are some activities that we can do for kids that will help increase peer-to-peer um positive peer-to-peer interactions and experiences for students so please be on the lookout for that we'll watch that this weekend and that will go through january 26th which is a wednesday two last things uh monday is martin luther king jr day we do have our representatives nwc naacp here tonight i was going to mention this prior to but i'm glad they came to give me some details that i didn't remember my head they are hosting
014a virtual event um monday morning at nine o'clock uh from the zion episcopal church so the link is i know their facebook has the link i think i linked it on my blog this week i'll double check if i don't i will definitely reblog that out this weekend with a link to the uh the zuma to participate in that and 10 30 is a vaccination flag and that's located where jackie i'm sorry i don't know at the church okay and they will have pediatric doses there as well wonderful so anybody that's interested on monday 10 30 zion episcopal uh there will be a vaccination clinic last thing positive news for our students this past week and maya mcleod who scored her 1000th point on the rfa girls basketball team you may have heard about it
015or seen it around but congratulations that's a uh that is no small feat especially if you think about um the amount of time that was lost during the era so that probably would have happened last year if there wasn't a whole season kind of lawsuit over so pretty incredible congratulations to her and her family and the team coach and with that i'll turn it back to you sir okay uh just one thing mr blake um i saw that the governor has stopped contact tracing so that should be a relief to our principles no no sorry craig i i guess well i don't want to waste a lot of time on that tonight because i will tell you there are some um advocacy groups across the state are really pushing back on the governor's office because
016of this legally school districts have no ability to tell somebody the quarantine we don't have the lawful authority to do that we can suggest that they quarantine but the way it's working now is that school districts enrollment is not unique to this is across the state we've been asked by health departments to tell families that they have the quarantine the issue is most families probably will quarantine uh but a family that does not want to comply and just sends their kid because they're asymptomatic there's a loophole there and i don't want to get into that because it could create a dominant effect that we can't handle but um it has not only because um we aren't quite there yet but there's a lot of effort being being placed in albany right now to make people
017aware that look our principals may have been doing this and our nurses have been doing this for two years for you uh we want to get back to teaching kids our principals want to get back to working with their staff working with the kids or from their families and the changes that have been made uh ironically have increased the the work on contact racing a little bit because you don't have the county health department to fall back on it when you you know you're sending the list uh we're kind of as i mentioned earlier our principles craig like i am sure is spending a lot of time trying to educate people on what the rules are now and those phone calls take time and if you if you've got a hot parent you got to
018calm them down first and then you got to get through it so more to come on that okay but um it looks like things are going away whether you think that's good or bad that's your own personal opinion but it does look like we're going to start to see less of the stringent rules that have been placed on schools i'm just concerned about that this time it takes the principles yeah we're still doing it okay thank you did you imagine if there's any additional situations to them there are no no they were not okay sorry and um our student board member is not here she has colvette oh boy so um better contact i think she's doing okay so i'm gonna pop a comment with okay [Music] at this point the meeting is open for
019full comments if you wish to speak and have not already done so please complete the comment card that mrs berman this is an opportunity to appear before the school board to express your views concerning agenda items and district affairs we have that you limit your remarks to five minutes all public speakers are asked to refrain from making personal attacks for district employees and elected officials be advised that your comments should not enjoy the same privilege and immunity as statements made by members of the wrong board of education that defamatory or obscene statements are prohibited please note that unless specifically indicated on the agenda this time is not a question and answer period there's no exchange of conversation with the members of the board or executive staff however if your comments require a response every effort
020will be made to respond to your inquiry within a reasonable time frame thank you for your cooperation the first speaker is roberto angelicola right here that's fine right there good evening everyone my name roman and is i attended rome schools in fact this is my this was my grade school it was still bell road before i address my concerns i want to thank you the board for your service i recognize the amount of work time and effort that you put into this and i also recognize that your volunteers which i think is sometimes forgotten so i just want to let you know that i really appreciate what you do thank you i address you tonight regarding the failure to approve the contract with access global group the diversity equity and inclusion consultants hired by the
021district i was surprised and disappointed by this news and speaking with teachers administrators and parents i learned that the great progress being made to enhance the learning experience and even the lives of students who may feel as though they don't have a voice i'm not sure what conversations took place among the board or what information was shared with you prior to the vote but as i see it um it comes down to two questions number one is there an equity diversity and inclusion problem with the room city school district and number two was the program making a difference first is there an equity diversity and includes an issue the simple answer to that is yes at a previous meeting you heard just a few stories from parents brave enough to share with you the issues
022their children are having at school and to be sure there are many more stories like this that you haven't heard yes these problems exist in the wrong city school district and in the community at large any denial of these issues and that they exist is ridiculous every student whether they constitute one percent eight percent or eighteen percent of the student's body has a right a hundred percent right to an education free of inequity and free of bias second was the program making a difference well i spoke to teachers principals school district officials the rome teacher center naacp and parents and the answer was very clear the program was working and it was working extremely well here are some of the comments from the groups i communicated with this is from a teacher quote conversations gave
023a good starting point to make changes in the way we teach our students in the district i would recommend joining the conversations if you have any questions about equity or if you are ready to be involved in making changes within the district and then from a principle diversity equity and inclusion is the integral part integral in our daily lives as educators but more importantly as human beings i find this work crucial in supporting our students families and each other advocating and creating long-lasting sustainable relationships with our students all of our students and their families is critical for academic emotional and social success so as i was speaking to these these different groups i kept hearing words like momentum growing improving impressive and innovative innovative whenever we discuss this program um through these conversations i learned
024how committed and dedicated our teachers and administrators are to giving our children a high quality education in a safe healthy environment and more than once i was told that our district was a model for others to emulate this program was an effective tool being used with enthusiasm by our educators we pulled it away from them for reasons i can't comprehend i think we need to give it back to them if your reason for voting no or abstain was that you're unhappy with the rfp process i urge you not to waste even a moment to develop an rfp get it out there and get this program back before any of the progress and momentum is lost if you voted no or abstained because you didn't feel the district was getting our money's worth i encourage you
025to speak to teachers principals and families i encourage you to research the consultants and i even urge you to speak to the consultants one on one after a 30-minute virtual meeting with dr chanel benson reed from agg it was evident that they have the expertise the education and the experience to help us with this very complex issue this is too important not to ask and we need to act now the focus needs to be on the children this is not about me it's not about you this is about our children we owe it to them i respectfully request that you give this important subject the attention it deserves and that you do so immediately in closing i would like to once again recognize our teachers and administrators for their commitment to the well-being of our
026students and for fighting for them uh just in closing very quickly um i was just blown away by how much these people care teachers the administrators and principals and um i was very impressed i i always knew they cared but i didn't know to what degree and i just really think that they need this tool and i would really love to see this you know program be reinstated in the wrong school district thank you so much for the opportunity thank you rob thank you our next speaker is serena ruiz hello everybody everybody's doing good tonight thank you rob um i will actually start off by saying i also had a one-on-one with miss um jordan which was a great experience she's very very qualified to do this work um so my comments tonight are concerning
027things that have been said by a few of our current board members um please don't take this as a personal attack but i do have questions that i really need to be answered um is also is dr fontana here tonight yes sir oh there we go excellent um so last week's newspaper which has just been declared our city newspaper stated that uh the board clerk dr karen fontana invited new staff members we have two new hires that are student support specialists um to join the equity task force noting that their doing so would serve to fulfill a request of jackie nelson president of the rome chapter of the naacp and a member of the task force to include staff quote more representative of the rome student body so clearly my question is when you say
028more representative of the student body what exactly does that mean um did you ask or invite these new hires personally if they'd like to join did you ask them one on one or did you just make a release uh the statement to the public possibly putting pressure on these individuals to join instead of making the choice on their own after consulting the task force now this isn't to say that they wouldn't have joined but it's their choice and it should be their decision without pressure to join just to serve the purpose of being pretty much saying good enough for jake nelson to throw her name into it wasn't right and pretty much the words that i heard the message that i was sent was here you go this will shut you up for a while
029here this will fill a space so that's how i felt and i believe that others that read that probably felt the same way moving on um when running for the school board miss mcgraw you started you in your editorial submission you stated that parents and families and teachers as of now are the ones watching cuts and major changes happen and have no say someone should be on the board knowing the community with younger children they can ask the questions to staff and family about their feelings and how this will affect their teaching methods and family life at home everyone deserves the right to be heard if i'm elected i will take the time out and the community and maximize social media to get opinions and concerns that directly affect positive or negative decisions that directly
030affect families and teaching staff now as far as the agg program were the teachers asked and i'm really happy to see that to hear that rob actually did make contact with these teachers and got their opinions with the principles on how this was going and got a positive response but were they serving about their feelings on it before this was cut um second the social media presence of the board is weak and i will have to say that i did see some stuff recently posted on that was great but still again this should be being live streamed on facebook you need to meet people where they're at in their own and a lot of times the click-through rate to go from facebook onto another site even if it is a zoom and even if it
031is accessible is going to be much less than something that's right there in front of their face so again for the third time i will request that this be streamed on facebook live you can also keep it so you can have it on record it's not anything that's going to be deleted so with all due respect ms mcgraw what you stated when you ran for the board is kind of going against what you're doing or lack thereof concerning the equity diversity and inclusion now you weren't president the vote for whatever reason i'm not asking you to divulge that that is your personal business and the vote is on a contract renewal and you've been silenced about your stance on the program as a newly elected member and as a member in general we the parents
032deserve to know what are your views on this subject directed i'd like to know do you support this initiative and heads up i don't know enough about the program is not an acceptable answer finally tanya davis another member who voted no on the agg is also a member ironically of the equity task force as were the leaders of the agg who actually spearheaded the event the effort tanya i'd like to know and this is not saying that you don't have any but i'd like to know what training do you have in diversity equity inclusion this includes for example sensitivity training as far as the black experience and education and uh lgbtq individuals with developmental also individuals with developmental and mental health disabilities and um outlet that simply knowing those who are different does not count
033and what makes you qualified to hold a position on the committee what are your goals for this committee if you're going to serve on this committee i'd like to know what your stances are actually of equity diversity and inclusion especially if you're voting no against the agencies so these are the questions that i would ask my email is on there i would like a response if possible and um yeah i wonder if there's any grant funding for the agg if you guys are worried about money thank you serena and jackie nelson thank you um good evening i'm jacqueline nelson president of the roma naacp and recently i've been appointed as the naacp new york state western region education chair which um has me working with 10 other branches across our state from buffalo to um
034syracuse all the way to through utica whatever um i what i didn't expect to hear what i heard from from the previous speaker so i'm just it might make more sense um i read the other day in the rome sentinel and i didn't mean what you said would make more sense what i'm going to say that will make more sense i read the other day in the wrong sentinel comment that was made regarding me this made me recall a comment the vice president made at the last board meeting both of these comments were in reference to a recent hire within the school district ms davis and miss fontana stated that this should make me happy and this is what i wanted um this is not about making me happy this is about making children feel
035included making them feel they belong and that they are valued these comments were rude unnecessary and insensitive one could call it a microaggression you know that little dig somebody gives when they think they're getting at someone you're not in your head so i think you understand um which tells all of us some of you on this board could use some bias training because i don't think you understand why making that comment was insensitive diversity is one of the best parts about america and all children and it's all children benefit when they see it every day the rome city school board needs to embrace diversity and not treat it like you're just checking a box we would like to know what is being done in regards to agg and are there any decisions or plans in
036the making um maybe an rfp maybe there's progress with that there's no doubt that access global group was working with administrators teachers and staff to help them understand the needs of children who don't look like them and it was going um it was going so well don't let the 18 percent down please be transparent and let us know what your plans are thank you hey jackie hey that's their work study session with the building presentation of samaritan mr lavera you think yep uh so folks come on now to introduce you we have brian lebaron here rfa principal uh just here to provide a brief update on all things happening at rfa just something new this year we haven't done this yet in the past in the mid year uh over the course of the next
037four meetings you'll see each of the principles come through just providing with an update of some things that are happening in their buildings i know that the board members have each uh they each have a school that they work with and they've been in schools but some of you have uh day jobs and you're not able to get to the schools and the kids are there so we want to do our best to kind of bring some information to you so brian you have the floor is yours for as long as you need preferably 15 minutes or less speech communications menu so i can take all kinds of time does any how many folks would like a copy i just what i did was i typed some notes i have four categories uh student recognition
038teacher recognition culture and climate and mental health and academic supports and behavioral programs it's enough for everybody i know i think that i do i'll i'll pass out the money's like you know just give them folks and you're gonna take one and pass it all the way down and that way i can keep talking like cut down some time the uh as you're being passed out i know you're familiar with the seal of biliteracy and the pseudo civic readiness we're working on that piece of it that's that's new um we've been working together with our study teacher and chris and jackie and uh it's kind of an interesting topic i think the kids are interested we've got some applications that are due tomorrow we've got some already so that should catch some life going into
039next year because we have a little bit more time to prepare this year was a little bit short so we get we're in pretty good shape um we still buy literacy we're still working on that too that's that's uh the component leaked that and that's been excellent so um we keep moving forward some new things for for our district and it's great for our kids plus to have a diploma we've created seven new student awards we've given out 140 since november i'm pretty happy about that this is was generated to try to get some positive feeling back in the building to try to build that culture and climate it was geared towards having the adults in the building try to find and see more things that kids are doing well that that you might not
040necessarily notice because of the way things have gone over the last year and a half last couple of years it's just been there's been so much negative it's been a lot on folks it's been a lot on kids it's been a lot of teachers and it's been a lot of families and being able to just find things that kids do great uh without them even knowing it and then when we give the award when they we do monday award mornings and when they come down they get uh the award and they get a piece of paper on the back of it we take them into my conference room and we pass the awards out and it has the teacher's name and why they received it so it's not just here you go you got this
041award and they go when i get that for them um we don't want that we don't know why they got it and we've talked a lot about this concept of paying it forward um i have some other gifts for you like christmas all over again we started the school year uh with a concept from my leadership team the aspen team that what we want to do was have every student in the building 1600 students have a connection with an adult and so we came up with an idea that we bought these bracelets i wear mine um every day that it says on the bracelet uh united and hashtagging this got the eye and the center is capitalized and i i brought one for everyone our job was to give these teachers 10 of them and
042their job was to pass one out to a student who was not on their record so that they would stand the hallway hey how are you doing i'm mr lebron the english teacher here what's your name if have you been anything you got somebody to connect with nice to see you hey here's a bracelet um it was a random opportunity for us to get folks in the building because we do have some kids who just don't have the you know the social skills crisis to go out and speak with people and we want to meet them halfway so this was an opportunity yes actually i'll give you two i'm not sure how many were in the bunch i know mr blake's a bracelet thank you okay um so we did that at the end of
043the year that was a good start if you see kids walk around the building sometimes we say hey do you have a bracelet and if they say no let me say okay well if you don't have them come on down we'll get you one this is why so we're trying to really encourage our school in a manner of speaking of um letting your guard down a little bit having the ability to just walk up and talk to people uh some training with our staff and how to walk up to kids and just have a conversation with them and not feel intimidated adults can feel intimidated by kids believe it or not um and it's not always the easiest thing to do so we've tried to break some of those walls down and try to get
044this to be a much more familiar climate culture so the awards we created a character award the principal student week award assistant principal signing greatness respect award resolutions expert award i like that one that one will i'll kind of connect some of these to make this go a little faster too very resolution experts award if you on this performance you have if you look over where it talks about the sros um on the back of course the bottom that says pure mediation and com resolution has been huge success this year we've probably done 15 or 20 of them so what's happening is that kids are saying hey um this is going to happen there's going to be a fight or there's a problem with so-and-so when we get them down to the conference room and
045we let them air it out and by the time they're all done they're shaking hands and typically so far and not kind of what could you say you know it is a principle it's never going to happen it'll happen tomorrow um it's been great because you get it out they learn to mediate um the sro gives them a conversation and there's no problem and it's been so so effective this year has been great so that's been helpful um so when they do that we give them the resolution experts to work so they know that they've been given something that shows that they've been able to do that skill and that's it's very important skill as you know as they get older um we've got kids in our building uh the sincerity and personality award it's
046just we have kids that have an infectious smile so in the definition of that award it'll say an infectious smile the kids are just happy they're just great kids um and we want to make sure that they get recognized that they're just a kid you want to be around all the time and we all know who they are and sometimes they go unnoticed so we want to make sure that they get a word they get something noticed as well that they're just a great kid um 2020 we were recognized as one of the best high schools top ranked schools um and i wrote the definition there have a higher rate of students who scored above expectations math reading state assessments pass an array of college level exams and graduated in four years we have the
047banner we have battered hangs in when you come into our lobby we also have the plaque that hangs um in our main four-year area too and we still qualify for that award so you can only hang so many banners but we still qualify and that's kind of a big deal it's something that we hang on hang our hat on and some recognition for our group especially our school counselors because that is a lot of hard work on their part to get kids into those programs and our kids do a great job there pbis more positive stuff we met the other day talked about some grade level activities we'll do a great level competitions some things to get the building motivated in that area um we were the 2021 vex robotics northern new york state champion
048that's great because we're talking more about steam and stem activities moving forward and that connects to the back we talk about our uh chris and i've been working with um todd gubiga and he generates the money he's got some funding it goes with our gear up program so if you look on the back the bob it talks about our gear up program two adults share room in the 2200 wing where students can visit during lunch or study hall or actually help with homework class work or have time when adult in the building away from the day everyday flow but the core of the program is to get students interested in stem technology and todd has supported us and they're looking into this drone soccer if you've seen that it's pretty awesome and that's coming and
049they they're buying the equipment to do so and i just got chris i just got an email from today that is coming in here soon okay so we're going to add that to the mix the program is great so the way our cafeteria i'll i'll skip around the cafeteria piece which says culture and climate i want to thank everyone in the room for and peter especially for making help giving us an opportunity to get teachers more involved in the building flow by having them be and stationed all over our building has completely changed the dynamics of our school it has been a godsend they are there's somebody where we need to see them all the time and it has simply changed our hallways completely and one of the i put some little data on here
050here we know i'm a data guy we had a thousand 85 referrals up for early november 74 of them were class cuts so in the last since we've instituted this piece we've got teachers all over the building stationed in these areas there's no more hallway out in front of the calf you walk over i encourage you to come over and see it kids are sitting down eating lunch having conversation it's just runs so smooth it's awesome i i love it and at this point that percentage was cut in half so what a difference that made so thank you it's much appreciated um like i said i'll skip around a little bit we were the 2021 utica roman chin up challenge champion again pretty proud of that beat them again there's not a robbery there but
051um you know i'm a little competitive our building holiday concert this year considering uh i thought was as good as i've ever seen it which i thought was a real um positive for our music staff they did a great job and those kids were awesome and i don't think the music folks expect expected to be that good with all the time that they had been out and trying to do lessons virtually so to be able to pull that off was really awesome so that was great a little shout out to them i added this in here because we haven't had a recent exam in a couple of years but as of 2019 those three consecutive years our ela 11 recent exam among the eight demographic comparable schools that i got from when the elves courtland
052binghamton john city center that were telling you to go where we rank was number one with those schools against them and 92 to 96 percent over that period of time so that says a lot about our ela program and why that test day that exam is probably our district slo so that's a lot um future recognition we give leadership awards a lot to our teachers they kind of go above and beyond um kind of rigor relevance wars so if i'm observing a lesson and i think that uh you know blake's done a great job i bring them down my post conference and if they kind of meet all the indicators and they go a little above that and they meet some of the highly effective areas and they and it's great then we give them
053a little recognition to say you make the rigor relevance award and they really do appreciate that and it's pretty tough to get because you really got to have one of those lessons that's knock it out apart we're going to create a new one for teachers just because i think we've got some staff right now that are volunteering to be around the building they've done a great job they've shown great leadership their attendance is awesome their lesson plans are solid they're well organized and prepared and they'll do anything we ask them and those people need some recognition as well so we're going to create that and that's going to probably be instituted next week and on the back i think i've covered many of those points there's one thing on here that i would like to
054make sure i do not miss and that is dan murphy has been a great fit he's transitioned well we're lucky to have him um the basketball games i've been building principal rfa this is my sixth year and when you go to the basketball game compared to what i what we were looking at here in the last few years before covet you're going to the gym and the kids are sitting down there's none of the cheering the negativity and the comments that you know yelling out the other team it's been awesome so a couple times a little thing we fix it and we move on from there but it's just when you go in the gym it's a it's a basketball game it is you can go and you can sit and you can watch the
055kids play and that's pretty awesome so we're i'm great as you can tell tonight i'm i'm feeling really good about what's going on at rfa um i like what's happening there's a lot going on uh we've also added this new wall mural thing i've talked with our art teachers we have a lot of blank space at rfa especially down our stairwells we just painted the new one um it's outside our cafeteria we've seen it it's pretty awesome it looks nice we're going to add more so what we've done is ask the art teachers to talk to kids about quotes and we as we come down our stairwells we're going to start painting things like what is character what does that mean to you kind of pose some questions out there that kids think about every
056day um and some other things so that when you come down you don't just see blank space but there's something for kids to think about every day as they go through those areas we think that'll be helpful um so obviously you can tell that we're really trying to build that culture and clown and paying it forward that when somebody does something and they do it because that's the right thing to do it's not because they're earning something in return that's kind of the game plan so there's anything on here you have any questions about i hope i'm pretty close to 15 minutes i'm guessing i try to go quickly but not too fast anything i can clarify or anything on there questions from michelle baron i guess mr ryan i'm well i i'm going to
057respectfully disagree with you about basketball games i think they're too quiet and i'm not seeing the spirit and the camaraderie and the student support that we used to see and i miss that and i think a lot of that is attributed to covet um but i miss seeing those kids who got super excited and supported their teammates so i know from a behavior issue it's positive for you but you know i remember games where the stands would be just full and there'd be a lot of cheering and it's been um it's been a little unusual and i know it's probably weird too in the games where you know it's been great that um mr blake supported us and having fans here this year because i think that makes such a difference for the kids it's
058definitely hard to watch the videos of the games where they don't have anybody supporting them so it's important but um you talked a lot about behavior but i guess i i'm looking for a little more academically what are we doing about barriers to attendance for our kids um what are what's happening at our faye um in terms of increasing our graduation rates can you tell us a little about how those things are going for us i mean that's a huge topic so i mean there is a lot going on there there are attendance issues are going to be an issue that we know that that's chronic across the state right now um a lot of our folks that we just hiring sarah fox bringing her back um the child's shoveless person like standard room is
059there all the time we've added another social worker a lot of mental health things that we're dealing with have been helpful to have those people aboard so we're seeing some change our counselors are working day and night to try to make you know reach out to families and get them to school a lot of what you see on paper here i'm addressing just attendance right now but a lot of what you're seeing on paper is about trying to get kids engaged and bring them back to school after being out a year and a half getting them engaged and bringing them motivated to be there and want to be there helps promote that educational integrity so we get that point um and it becomes where our teachers are figuring out right now i'm doing i meet
060with departments every every month we've talked a lot about the curriculum trains but i like to call it i'm not looking ready to tiny i'm sorry when i'm answering this question um the curriculum train to me is when uh the stress and the pressure on a region's teacher is to get to that the holy grail of getting to that release exam and making sure that the kids are well prepared for all that information that's a lot of stress so even in a normal year even historically that's a lot of stress um what we try to make sure of is that the teachers don't feel that pressure to have to cover their curriculum so that when kids get behind or kids are struggling with the academic piece that there's other outlets where there's way to engage
061those kids differently we've talked a lot in the past i've got notebooks full of stuff about critical thinking and literacy across the content areas and because when i've worked a lot on those areas we just haven't really gotten back to some of those real basics pieces that we've had as a mantra of our building the heart and soul of y we've had some real increased success academically but the bottom line is that the more we can get kids in the more motivated they become the more engaged they are and teachers figuring out that when we talk with them um especially matthew recently in science we just talked to them yesterday about the fact that if i've got students who are coming into my classroom who have not maybe not necessarily all the basic skills that
062how can i teach them the entire curriculum and have that all in at the same time before they get to the end of the year and have them be successful if we're going to try to teach the 85 mastery i think we're going to fail i think if we're trying to get kids to have the basic skills and understanding right now and get them to a passing and doing some smaller assessments like i talk with teachers about strategies like smaller assessments so when kids walk in the classroom and they get a one question quiz and that's a routine something they know and they can answer that's aligned to your curriculum and the basic knowledge and skills and aptitude you're more likely to get that student to feel more confident more successful under the current conditions
063and then they move forward that's more motivating it's more engaging and now you're still touching on the basic concepts so they can keep moving through the curriculum what we're seeing is that the kids lack of knowledge or the lack of basic skills from being out for so long is having an impact on the ability to teach the whole curriculum at the same time as normal so we're working on it um johnny as much as we can but that's where the separation comes for if i've got all of this to get in how do i get all that in and not feel like when it come june that i that i didn't have my kids properly prepared for the wreaths exam yet right over here on this side of it they don't have all the necessary
064skills in the last year to be prepared to have all that curriculum all at one time so there's there's a gap in there so we're trying to close that gap and help our staff feel comfortable if they have to kind of tweak their curriculum move some things out of it and shift around a little bit they don't feel like at the end of the year i want to get hung out because i didn't have everything in so it's a little tricky um and that's you know how those teachers are feeling i mean if you're a high school principal in the room you know how they feel they feel like i gotta get all that in to me i think right now that's our biggest hurdle that our kids are our teachers feel like i've still
065got to get out like a normal year and it's not a normal year and that's a very difficult adjustment but they've been very receptive to that feedback i've got a couple examples from teachers co-teachers that did a great job what they've done is they've created some smaller incentives and assessments in there like we talked about and they're seeing real success with that so what i do is i use that in my other meetings and say hey someone's still doing this you might want to take a look all our three aps have almost covered all of their official observations already and we're talking giving them feedback the teacher's moving forward too so there's a lot like i said it's a huge conversation because there's more to it than that i mean the literacy piece we've got
06610 sections of literacy in our building which is awesome for high school because it's not mandated past seventh grade so the fact that we can have that is a bonus and those kids get progress monitored um they're in separate there are three separate categories for fluency decoding um and comprehension and making sure that their literacy needs are being met that's a big piece because if they can't read they don't understand the context how they're going to answer the question so we've got a lot going on at the same time um and there are some other things anytime i'd be happy to sit and chat even more i want to say just personally mr lebaron took the time to reach out to me last week when he was concerned about my child and i appreciate that
067as a parent but i hope that that's something that we're emulating um anytime we're seeing a child that isn't themselves um you know i know that you happen to see my son because he does morning announcements and but i know that um i need people to know that you're that kind of principal so i just want to tell you that i appreciate it and i know that you are doing a lot on relationship building and um you know making yourself visible and the aps as well and you know the counselors and social workers um my mr nash's wife has had the trifecta of davises and as a guidance counselor is also amazing you know what's wrong with her um you know just i don't think people realize and i think that's the hardest part when
068your child goes to high school is trying to stay connected as a parent and so i i applaud you for doing that and i hope that that's what you're emulating and encouraging because every kid needs that one person every kid needs someone that's keeping an eye on them so um i hope that that continues and i know my child's not the only child that you're doing that with and i just i hope you don't mind that i shared that um but i think it's important that people know that it's it's worrisome to think that your student is there among you know 1500 and can get lost in that but um you know this is some good information and i know i did come in the day that you had started the awards and you were
069really proud of those so thank you for always welcoming us and thank you for you know trying to still create personal relationships in a in a time when as you said nothing is normal so appreciate that thank you i will i'd like to end with um i i whatever the policy procedure is through peter or the board out your anybody's welcome if that's if that's whatever the will of the board and the superintendent is there's different districts have different rules about board members coming to buildings but we we're an open book um and i want that to be spoken we're an open book we lay it right out there there's no smoking mirrors at rfa we we love what we do we're compassionate about what we do do we make mistakes yeah we're going to
070make mistakes but i think at the end of the day the heart of our staff and our people are in the right place and they're always looking to try to find ways to make sure the kids get what they need and that's the high school diploma get across the stage and have a great time and it saves time i think this year without reestablishing trust with our families and our kids was the primary goal in order to get the academic piece there we had we had to create an atmosphere of trust and reestablishing that with our kids and our families and i think we're doing a pretty good job of that so kudos to my staff they're working very hard thank you for having me tonight appreciate it thank you and we'll see you friday
071for rhapsody we hope okay now we're on to our consent agenda which is stages two to four agenda has kind of recommendation of the superintendent of schools the senate agenda accepted by the board of education and new revolutions discussion all in favor say aye all right starting on page five regular meeting agenda by finance action item number one resolution to transfer money to capital reserve plan whereas on december 18 2019 in rome city school district the school district voters passed a proposition that said the capital reserve fund pursuant to section 3651 of the education law known as the 2019 capital reserve fund and whereas education law section 3653 requires that no monies may be paid or transferred into any reserve fund established by school district thus expressly authorized by a resolution of its board of
072education and whereas it has been determined by the board of education of the school district that up to five million dollars held in budgetary appropriation our surplus funds and that it is in the school district's best interest to transfer monies to the school district's 2019 capital reserve fund now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the school district will hereby approve the transfer of up to five million dollars from budgetary appropriation or such revenues as are not required by law to be paid into any other fund or account to the 2019 capital reserve fund created in a book accordance with the section 3651 of this education law this resolution shall take effect immediately i have moved the resolution right i'm talking about mr malachi any discussion what's the uh current uh balance
073zero zero we have a million dollars that was appropriated in last year's budget and we have four million dollars that was freed up with the first round of our funding cursa back in the spring we used our curse of money for uh district operations that were allowable under that which freed up four million dollars in general fund monies to be put into this reserve we'll probably discussion resolution number two resolution discuss the controller's autograph action plan resolve that upon review of the district audit committee and the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board approves the corrective action plan in response to the control of audit number two two zero two one m-144 i'll move the resolution mr hagen i need discussions but we just uh our audit committee and finance both looked at this
074and we were okay any further discussion all in favor say aye all right close here question item number three resolution to accept change orders for 2019 capital improvement project where the board of education of the rome city school district previously authorized its 2019 capital improvement project and whereas during the course of the project certain changes could work covered by various contracts have been determined by labella associates dpc the project architect could be required and whereas the project architect and the involved contractors will prepare sign and submit proposed change orders for the following work ce-033 pool painting for twenty nine thousand eight hundred dollars and whereas the board of education has determined that it is in best interest of a school district to approve the pro to approve the proposed changes and accept the proposed change
075orders now therefore be resolved as follows one the board of education proves the changes set out in this resolution two the board of education hereby authorizes the president of the board to sign the change orders on behalf of the board of education take all actions necessary or convenient to proceed under the contract as amended by the change orders in connection with the project three the board of education hereby authorizes the superintendent of schools to sign the new york state education department required certification in connection with each change order take all actions necessary or convenient to satisfy applicable change order certification and filing requirements four upon board of education approval this resolution should take effect immediately and move the resolution second second right miss maguro any discussion just quickly this is something that came up last
076minute over the weekend we did discuss it quickly at finance um if you're familiar with the pool there are tech panels that are meant for sound proofing way up high near the roof those have faded over the years rather than take them all off and replace them all which is extremely expensive the plan was to paint them we had a pricing for painting when they went to go do it they realized that they needed a special type of paint that would stay adhered to that surface and rejuvenate it and actually last uh that was not known that these panels would need that paint at that time so the need is to move forward with the change the change order is to get the proper paint to get that done the reason it's moving fast is
077because as you may know we have the scaffolding city up there right now so right now there's a floor that actually sits about 10 feet from the ceiling uh the roof line the pool it's costing us about 2500 a week to have that scaffolding up if we would have waited on this we would have just been wasting money increasing the cost it's one of those things that if we don't do it you're gonna have a brand new nicely painted pool with these faded uh these giant faded squares all over the room money is clearly in the budget as we talked about in the past uh so we figured it'd be best to ask the board to move forward quickly on it i apologize that it kind of came on quickly but it was something that
078was discovered last weekend didn't want to wait two weeks and spend five thousand dollars for scaffolding rental and it really didn't really delay the pool opening another two weeks any further discussion all in favor say aye opposed motion carries thank you okay so to the the the audit committee and the finance committee back the other committee um we've got a presentation on an internal audit risk assessment report uh the draft report it was pretty good um we will need at some point to decide which area we want them to focus on next we've got a couple ideas but we probably want to discuss it at some point not tonight though um and we thought the next round were on the agenda i think the corrective action plan no and the upcoming only one london and
079we talked about um we're still working on getting a charter for our audit committee uh we've never had one so we're working on it so we've got a draft and now we're gonna start massaging it so no huge rush because we've never had one so um but we will have that hopefully within the next month and we are also uh uh we're given a couple rfps for our external and internal artists where we talked about them i don't know if we've decided to do them or not like we decided to do that in the springtime okay that was the auto community the finance committee uh we talked to he always gives us an update on the health consortium um what's going on with that uh we talked about the concept of reserve funding and then
080we we are um we got we saw a rough draft of the dei draft a rfp so that's it's in the works we saw a draft rfp on uh on getting a furniture consultant for the furniture that we've got for the elementaries can you clarify that one though because that was probably the most enlightening discussion it was a long two hours but i don't know so the rfp isn't for the furniture itself so it's not like we want you to come bid on like chair by chair it's a person who would come in and assess our needs and if i understood it correctly then that person would either look at state contract or what are available sources for each grouping so let's say it was bookcases and library furniture and they'd look for the best
081pricing on that or if it was kindergarten tables and chairs they would look for that so the rfp is for the service to assess the need and get the quotes not an rfp for the items which i think is what i was confused about before sitting in this meeting yeah so yeah the rfp is for an individual or a company to do the assessment on the district of what's needed and then do the work to go procure that furniture so that we have standard furniture throughout all the elementaries the conversation in august was that we want we want teachers to have the ability to have input and use furniture that works for them the problem is you can't go to teacher a and say what kind of furniture you want and then order for that
082teacher knowing that maybe in two years they're not going to be there now you got a classroom instead of furniture that so it's more or less going to the buildings getting a general feel for what people want and getting consistent furniture throughout usually what you're going to wind up seeing is you're going to see a classroom that might have you know 18 regular desks some soft seating some stand-up desks some foot swing desks you know options for a kid when they walk in the room and sit in different things furniture that's mobile but also provide that opportunity if you do have a teacher that wants something that's really different to give them a chance to say hey i want to try something really different and that the person or the company would do the work
083of what do you need in totality then they would go find it at the best price and procure it for this right and i think i mean it's important for us all nine of us to know when it's time to make that decision because i think it's important for the public to know because we are in this time and space where we deliver instruction differently and not everyone sits you know in the rows that we were used to right when we all went to school uh straw was probably the best example of anyone seeing a straw classroom of how you know you can make those dusts into groups of tables you can make them into a u-shape you can sit them in a circle um and i think we're doing the same thing with straw
084as we did with rfa right our favorite furniture seems to be be like the first time we really did that but that building's gonna be 20 years old but that's on a replacement cycle right yeah they use their whatever extra budgetary funds they have for equipment at the end of the year they purchase new desks and i mean because overall you're in good shape for that stance right ryan like i feel like i feel like i don't ever go in your school and be like oh you know they're sitting in the same desk i said it not that long ago okay and for discussion but thank you though peter that was helpful during that night but we were just talking okay and then uh we talked about um dave dave and his departments um developing
085a multi-year financial plan which is something the state that controller wanted so that's coming along we talked about the budget transfers that we approved the consent agenda and then uh we talked about three years before so that's about it and i will now our next uh committee meeting tuesday february 8th at 10 a.m use the audits the first and then we follow finance friday facilities well facilities were scheduled to meet this past monday and it was a snow day so we postponed that meeting it's now it's a meeting of the whole respectable great king january at 6 pm and the subject of that is the architect and construction managers can be coming in and talking to us about the next capital improvement project um okay so the next committee meeting is january 18th at 6
086pm committee of the hall thank you mr hegarty educational programs dr fontaine looks like you're off the hook unless you want to say anything well we just have to pick um our next meeting because we had to cancel so okay we have a committee on the whole the 18th maybe we could do ed programs um five to six that tuesday the 18th i worked that day okay that's why we went with a few of us i can't do it yeah yeah craig candy that's how we went with six that night oh okay i got you only we don't have any other time next week or anything sounds like saturday no saturday night saturday right because the 19th is the budget and the um professional development right so that was already a long one we have
087the 25th do you want to do it okay can you do it i mean it's not a long one right no oh yeah karen can we do it right after policy on thursday which thursday when's politics the 20th we have policy at 4 30. oh yeah that would work or what time do you work i i work tuesday at until one until six but thursday we're until four no thurs okay did you want to do earlier could we do 3 30 and then i'm presenting at the ahcb conference [Music] karen are you okay with that then 5 30 on the 20th policy should be short because unfortunately i haven't gotten anything new our person has been out too so okay policy won't be as long as anticipated so 5 30 let's do it does that
088work chris thank okay or if you need to flip them we could do ed programs at 4 30 and policy at 5 30. could wait can you do that again what day thursday at 5 30. is is 4 30 better for ed programs i guess i'm asking policies already at 4 30 but if you want to flip them uh you can't do that you can't do that day at all so what's better for you for thirty or five thirty or it doesn't really matter so what are you flipping policy well he wants to make sure john and dana can be here and that's why the question came oh no one through the 19th is the professional development of nisba and the budget retreat so there's no we're putting pots in the bathtub that's on wednesday
089that's what's it's banking now this policy point the policy at four years right yeah that's what i have but we were just going to add programs at 5 30. anything else thanks everyone for the possibility okay thank you people operations mr malachi action item one resolution to appoint instructional personnel long-term substitute results that upon the recommendations of schools the board of education here by the points following instructional personal long-term substitute lisa de bongio fellaini gans uh special education teachers uh bs 90 stuff four plus 75 plus amount of salary thousand 62 fifty four prorated effective date one seventeen twenty twenty two through june thirty twenty twenty two and movie resolution except negretic any discussion on paper say aye action 92 resolution to appoint instructional personnel probationary resolve that upon the recommendation superintendent of schools the
090board of education here by appointments following instructional personnel probationary as listed in the agenda at action 2 page seven a new resolution second any discussion all in favor say aye aye action item three resolution to appoint non-instructional personnel probationary resolved in a founding recommendation superintendent of schools board hey food service helper 3.75 hours per day from john joy to bellamy effective date january 14th 2022 and remove the resolution any discussion on paper say hi excellent five resolution employing interim administrative personnel resolve that upon the recommendation of superintendent schools board of education here by appoints the following interim administrative personnel kristin checha interim director of supported learning effective date 1-3 20-22 resolutions second senator mrs mavero in the discussion we're still working with the raa on a salary for the position we'll have that for you
091as soon as possible thank you say hi hi actually i'm six resolution to a point tutor for the after school program for the 2021 2022 school year that resulted upon the recommendation of the superintendent schools the board of education hereby appoints the following tutor for the after school program for the 2021-2022 school year uh dave roberts uh at rfa at 26 per hour effective date 124 2020 is that should that be 22 through june 30 uh 2022 i move the resolution um do we have any data on how many kids are taking advantage of this program yep it's it's if you read my uh ongoing i can never get in the drive when i'm not i'm happy to help you it's okay it's updated all the way up to date no no i i can
092i just when i'm at my work computer i can't get to cloud-based stuff so i can't get in the in the drive you have to make a point the link's right in there so that you can see what i'm doing awesome thank you so much resolution increase hours uh resolve that upon the recommendation of superintendent schools the board of education hereby increases the following employee hours uh eleanor cook food service helper uh five and a half hours from five and a half hours per day to six hours per day effective day january 14 2022 at moon revolution uh mcgirl any discussion my favorite say hi okay uh we had a meeting this past week it focused primarily on uh the district clerk position what we wanted to look like uh how we want to staff
093certain obligations uh whether we want to shift certain obligations from people that are already doing them now to to other staff members or to district clerks so it was a long but i think productive uh discussion and i think mr borton has a sense of what a job description should look like moving forward so i think he's going to be putting that together and presenting it in our next meeting other than that he continues to search for both instructional and non-instructional personnel in a variety of areas the meeting is tuesday january 25th 4 30 p.m and while it's not a whole seems like that it is uh and anyone obviously coming to popular committee yes it is what is chairman yeah maybe that's why it's so bad other than that that's my report thank you
094mr mahaji action item one resolution to accept the second reading and adoption of policy number one four zero zero public complaints resolve it upon the recommendation of superintendent of schools the second reading and adoption of policy 1400 public complaints be accepted by the board of education i move the resolution saved by mr hagerty any discussion on paper say aye aye opposed item two resolution to accept the second reading adoption of exhibit one four zero zero e public complaints resolve it upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the second reading and adoption of exhibit one four zero zero e public complaints be accepted by the board of education i moved the resolution second my name is reddick any discussion i just want to clarify that we um we're accepting these because these are transitioning into
095the new policy format in the future we don't need board action to update add or modify um exhibits exhibits are things like forms that might need to be changed but as part of the transition they recommended that we adopt each item because we're going to the new numbering system and the new titles and to be consistent so we're going to answer this the new numbering system here over here yeah so this should be ease of doing business for um you know if you know legal changes and you need to change language on a form it doesn't have to go through first reading second reading adoption in the future you hear a discussion paper say aye opposed jerry resolution to accept the second reading and adoption of policy one seven four one homeschooled students resolve that
096upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the second reading and adoption of policy number one seven four one homeschooled students be accepted by the board of education i move the resolution second amendment girl any discussion on favor say aye aye our next committee meeting is on the 20th at 4 30. uh outstanding items are we are still trying to see where we are on board docs any updates on your own meter they've been starting to try and schedule trainings with patty and myself okay and then subsequently the full board perfect and um once that is um up and running it will be really helpful for us because it will not only house all of the districts policies and make them much more easily searchable by a particular word or phrase or topic but all
097of our um agendas and minutes for all of our meetings including our committees will be able to be housed there and it'll just be much user friendly for us and the public and much more readily updated so we've really been grinding away at trying to get that up and running um other than that we are still waiting on um our next two sections section 2000 and 3000 so we continue our progression um on moving into the to the nispa system and consolidating our manual so probably um sometime in march we'll probably have an agenda item that will abolish some of the policies that we've added through these 1000s and replaced other than that moving right along next canadian meeting uh will either be 4 30 or 5 30 once mr brewer gets back to us
098very good thank you ms davis miscellaneous business one revolution to approve sales district property or is the rome city school district the owner of a real property is the owner of real property located at 110 112 west linden street in the city of rome county of oneida state of new york identified his tax map number two two three point zero two zero that's and whereas the voters of the district on may 19 2020 authorized to sell the property at the price of 525 000 in accordance with education law section 250 2511 i and section 2512 sub paragraph 5 and whereas ford has considered an agreement of purchase and sale proposed by bowers development llc and seeks to prove the same result by the board of education of the rome city school district as follows one
099the board approved the agreement of purchase and sale proposed by bowers development to purchase property the price of 525 000 upon the terms and conditions set forth in a purchase contract two superintendent or as designee are authorized and directed to take all steps necessary or appropriate to complete to be transaction contemplated here and three this resolution shall take effect immediately i moved the record purpose for goal and he just didn't just refresh my records did we deal with the prior offer i said is that official i think the community when they see the practice will be very happy with this um any further discussion [Applause] [Music] we did have an opportunity to meet with them and they are they are anxious to meet with them this out to the community as well meet with any
100people that might be concerned about the project they're very open yeah as soon as it's as able to be shared right the district wants to make sure the community is aware and comfortable that's and we correct be happy i believe i agree any further discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed kerry and we do not have an executive session because we've covered everything in their earlier sessions so i will make a motion to turn second okay i think that maybe trying to gossip