001right I flag of the United States of America the for stands na indivis liberty and justice for Salam City Central School District acknowledges the homeland of the nandaka the people of the great Hill the senica people on Whose ancestral and Modern Day land salica School District now stands and whose water we enjoy we stand with all indigenous peoples in their resolve to remain connected to their land while we cannot undo what has been done it is the goal of the Salam City Central School District to recognize the history and make improvements that will benefit the next seven generations of indigenous students thank you yes there was one edition since it was published orally on Friday which is 7.1 which is our school distri assessment then we need a motion to approve the agenda motion second
002motion by T second by Dale all in favor abstain motion first up we have our FY 24 AIT [Music] presentation so take it away hi everyone doing do you want me to share my screen or does everyone have the presentation in front of them yeah you'll need to share Mary okay switch can you say something Mary can we say something yes can you hear me saying something yes okay and you can see the screen yeah okay perfect so yes this is a presentation of the um 2024 audit so I maybe a week or two weeks ago uh my colleague Sarah Dayton met with the audit committee and went to detail uh the results of the audit and some of the numbers so this will just be a brief overview of what uh was already discussed
003disc so what we are delivering to you is the auditor report on the financial statements it's an unmodified opinion it's the highest level that you can achieve from an audit we also have our Auditor's opinion on government auditing standards which are required and then also the auditor's report on your spending of federal funds so because you spend more than $750,000 of federal funds every year you're required to have what's called a single audit so we also have a report on that um there were no matters to uh disclose for the um audit in the auditor's report on government auditing standards and we also had no matters or findings on our single audit audit we did do an audit of your impact Aid um which you had spent about $10.6 million and that was about 77
004% of your total federal aid we also have a report on the extraclass activities uh listing the clubs the additions to each club and what the clubs have spent and then I'll go into the communication for those charged with governance letter this discloses um any estimates that we have um as part of the uh the audit in the financial statements including your estimate regarding your Capital assets your unearned Revenue which is your impact Aid that you have received but haven't spent yet and then your unavailable Revenue which is your Native American tuition and transportation Aid which again you've received but you haven't spent and then compensated absences pensions reserves and other post-employment benefits it also discloses um the the more important footnotes of the financial statements if you were to be spending time you know
005read as you're reading through the financial statements they would be the more important ones to pay attention to there were no new audit accounting policies that had to be adopted this year and any adjustments that were made were um adjustments that we needed to make to uh to uh prepare the uh the full accounting the governmental accounting financial statements under gasby St standards management letter this is just our recommendations from the audit and updates of any uh recommendations we would have had in the prior year uh your fund balance does exceed 4% which uh under state law you're not supposed to have unassigned fund balance that is over 4% of the 2025 general fund budget expenditures you are at 36% um so we have disclose that and then just an update on prior your recommendations
006uh we had reconciliation differences in your Capital assets uh management has worked very hard to resolve that problem and it's it's very much improved and we're just recommending that uh they keep reconciling periodically through the year to make sure that those uh lists and those items are updated and then for your extra classroom activity clubs uh the uh recommendation we have here which was consistent with last year is that the concession stand inventory uh be reconciled to the sales and reviewed and that also a section a second person who's not involved with that process should review the inventory counts as well summary of funds this is just a summary of your fund balance for all of your different funds for the year general fund you have restricted funds that are restricted uh by law and
007approved by the board um so you have um the bigger increases here are in your capital reserve where you funded an additional $5 million to be used towards um your capital projects um and then your committed funds which are not uh Rec are not um under General Municipal law or education law but are approved by the board and as money put you've put aside for specific reasons there were some fluctuations there between you know your capital outlay and your technology you know some use of those funds but again this this is all based on your board policy when it comes to reserves and to committed funds you know the board uh has these policies that it it recommits to every year and so this is all based on on those uh resolutions um and then
008again we get down to the unassigned fund balance which is uh like I said over 4% of your next year's budget there was also a transfer from your general fund to your capital projects fund so that was another reason for the decrease in that fund balance this year and then your capital projects fund has a small deficit but that's really just due to the timing of when revenue is recognized and when your expenditures happen so as these projects wrap up they will Zero out revenues will equal expenditures general fund Revenue so state aid increased to about $30 million almost $31 million you saw an increase in Foundation Aid which we had seen at other districts that we audit and then for your federal aid um you could see that there was an increase in the
009federal aid you received um some of that was the impact Aid um that was that was recorded as Revenue because it was spent but as I stated earlier some of that is sitting on the balance sheet because you haven't spent it yet so as those expenditures happen you'll recognize that revenue and similarly for Native American tuition and transportation that uh that number is lower than it was last year and again this is all based on when the revenue is received when the cash is actually received and when then it's recorded as Revenue versus sitting on the balance sheet waiting to be spent overall your um your revenues were $52 million and they went up um about 1% you know pretty consistent to last year and then for general fund expenditures um you can see your
010salaries part of the reason why your salaries increased here is that um as your education stabilization fund money that was the money that the federal government gave to municipalities and school districts as a result of covid a few years ago as that money is um starting to dwindle and be spent as it we run towards the end of that Grant term uh any um money that had been spent in the special Aid fund on salaries those salaries are now being brought over into the general fund so we're seeing an increase of payroll in the general fund based on just where those Sal salaries are being recorded in the prior year there was more salaries recorded in the special Aid fund um but you did have uh overall District salaries an increase of about 6.8% um
011and also that also includes hiring of more people you had about 10 more full-time uh people this year compared to last year and then your um health insurance and your retirement system contributions saw an increase in your retirement system even though the TRS rate did decrease having additional employees um and increases in salaries increases the contribution rate there health insurance you did have a supplemental assessment that you had to pay towards your Consortium your health insurance Consortium about $600,000 so that increased your health insurance more than you would have normally seen that increase um and then uh Debt Service you did have um you know payments obviously on your debt and your um your interest in principal payments and then some increases in the Bosey services that you requested mostly Computer Services instruction and career
012and Tech um and there were also some increases in capital costs and special education so overall your expenditures increased about $8 million compared to last year this is the government-wide reconciliation when I mentioned earlier that we had adjustments that we had to make it was to take the fund statements and make them this government-wide summary or reconciliation so the big takeaways here is just to see the value of your Capital assets year-to year and also your long-term liabilities which includes your debt so your Capital assets did increase by about 14 almost $15 million you had spending on your Capital project um which increased your assets and then also um depre that was also offset by some depreciation so as you keep working on these capital projects you'll see those assets increasing and then for long-term
013liabilities you did Issue a new ban in 23 24 and then that was offset by the addition of that to your long-term liabilities was offset by about a million dollars in principal payments and then last page just basically summarizes the the page prior to it and that's it unless anyone has any questions have any questions for Mary um for Mary or Karen I guess uh back on the slide for general fund Revenue we see a huge decrease in Native American tuition and transportation Aid can you explain why we see that increase again so sure so the Native American tuition and transportation Aid that is recorded as Revenue um there's there's a couple pieces to it one of it is it's recorded as Revenue when it's received so at the end of the year you were
014still waiting for um some Native American Transportation aid from not only the 2324 year but also from the 2223 year so that's sitting up in the balance sheet waiting to be received from New York State and then you also had some tuition money that you were waiting to receive from New York State when those funds come in they can be recorded as Revenue but because they have not under a fund basis you don't record Revenue unless it's going to be received within 90 days of your year end so uh those funds wouldn't have been received in that time frame so they can't be recorded as Revenue yet so you will get that money and you will record it as Revenue it's just more of a timing next year we'll actually look at this chart and
015see a huge increase hopefully yes hopefully they will pay those amounts and they'll also pay the 2425 amounts as well my guess would be they will pay everything that they owe through 2024 and there probably will be some amounts that they owe for 2425 at June 30th next year that would be my guess so is this a similar situation we had a few years ago where New York state was way behind in PID us yep okay 22 2334 now 24 25 for transportation and then um for 23 24 and now 2425 for okay but the actual that seting us was that increase decrease or stay the same it's actually gone down it has gone down because of the the money that we had we transferred some expenses over that so that decreased our D fund
016money which decreases so they should hch back up okay any any other question uh one more general fund expenditures we see increases in everything from year to year except for Debt Service I know why but can you explain why that service was a decreased yeah we paid off um one of the uh bonds that we had outstanding so that was out but then we issued a new one last year and we'll pay um majority of down this year in summer anyone else all right thank you Mary thank you thanks everyone presentation all right byebye we have our presentation [Music] trying to do this in aing good to see everyone again I was last year with ter our executive director my name is Monica Rin I am the director of Family Services for ethics every person
017influences children our primary office is located in Buffalo New York but we have a satellite location here at 79 River where we provide a lot of the services and programs for Sal is our new Chief program officer hi I'm Sharon Kev I just started a new position Chief program officer at Epic um I am located in a buffalo office uh have a lot of experience working with not only school districts but um we I forly work for all the Human Services which is a Human Services Agency in Buffalo we do a lot of work with youth mental health uh residential facilities um a lot of different areas so I bring that how experience this program and we're hoping that we can really meet the needs of the Sal School District um and hopefully provide services
018that are going to really help out your families and get them engaged we can go to the next slide so just a really quick reminder of what family engagement is and why we're here why the district has contracted us so family engagement is really just involving obviously family the school and the community to come together to make sure that we're doing everything possible to advance the lives and the educational journey of young people in this commun research has shown tremendously that family engagement efforts when the community the schools and the families come together all the way through adulthood there's positive impact on obviously educational success and wellness and overall health ofes so we're all working together and all the young people hear cohesive message and receive cohesive services and other needs are meant then it
019just benefits from the top down so that's why epic is here it's a slow process I don't know who's Advance with the next slide please it's a slow process it takes time but definitely it's something that's significantly important so we originally came here and we were contracted to do the family family walk through and we were able to see how the community views the school how the staff view the school what the needs are what the overall feel and goal was we did that in year one in year two we came up with a family assessment plan so we decided that we were going to engage a family advisory committee to really look at what some of the goals and objectives that the community the schools and the staff all wanted and how we can
020move forward to the so it's one I don't know how well you can see it but one of the things that I like to point out on this slide is it's individualized what works for one family is not going to work for every so it's our goal to make sure that we're getting as many voices as possible from the staff from the teachers from the schools and from those parents and caregivers to really feel and see what it is that we can do that will impact the family in a me next slide so we support our partners so you guys are using impact so we are definitely making sure that we want to have a positive impact on your families in the community here in so what our priorities were for the past school year
021we can go to the next slide were three so the family engagement advisory committee so we were given 34 individuals which includes two of our eepic staff who were part of this advisory committee we did a broad invitation to give as many opportunities as possible for family to come and engage in the group of that we roughly had about 14 individuals who would attend at the regular meeting we were able to meet four times per year and the committee looked at a lot of the different things that had come up in the family assessment to really come up with some strategies and objectives that will be the working plan for this school year so we had five hyate meetings so we made sure that it was accessible so we tried to eliminate any barriers to
022families so because we really wanted that parent Bo here so we this slide is really just showing you a couple of things so our family assessment really works through the PT PTSA standards and we identified six things that we wanted the district to focus on so being welcoming communicating effectively supporting students sucess speaking up for every child sharing power and collaborating in the community so for the standards we then identify go so the goal for communicating effectively was just making sure that we're looking at how we're exchanging information between the schools and the C one of the things that came through that is we have the attendance magnets that you're using this year attendance is a huge priority for the school so making sure that we're making sure that families are understanding how important attendance
023is we also color coded we didn't do it the team did it the color coding building information so if parents have children each of the three schools then they can see which school that information is coming from so is it coming from Prospect is it coming from the high school or the intermediate school so making that communication easy and also using a lot of the social media strategies to ensure that families have access to that information in a way that's next slide our second priority was professional development so we originally worked with the schoolly aison and we did a Leadership Academy so there was a training that we did with the leadership team there and then we also had a summer professional development program where it was open to any staff member that was able
024to register and this is our attendance so for the leadership academy all of the 10 Liaisons in addition to two admin staff attended and then we had four other professional opportuni that we offered this summer we had attendance from either 10 to 16 staff next so our third priority was School attendance so what could we do to support the district's efforts for School attendance so we did a survey the first survey we gathered about 80 responses which I think is phenomenal to really send out a survey to families and School staff to get some feedback from them and we did that survey again just the beginning of September and we were able to get 115 responses so families are continuing to engage and share some of their ideas with us around why attendance matter we
025started working with the attendance officers to ensure that we had communication what the school is doing and how we can support the initiative that was and then we shared a lot of recommendations for workshops and opportunities in addition to the three priorities had family engagement activities so when there were events at the school we would support the building principles with some of the family engagement that the school was planning we also hosted several um Family engagement workshops to ensure that parents had the tools that they needed at home to further support their next slide so in terms of what we were able to deliver 34 individual families reached out to our epic team to ask for some parenting support so that's either through through one hour workshops that we offer or either our evidence-based programs
026and we know if you have a successful homeline then that transfers into what's happening with you during the day at school so I think even though 34 is a small number the fact that we're not located in the school building we're offsite on River Street but families were still actively calling us and reaching out then I think that demonstrates that there's a need and we're able to fit that need and we're just hoping that that not continues next slide please so for 2425 we're still going to continue the work of the family engagement committee one of the primary things that we're going to do is try to engage more parents that next meeting is going to be November 6 this first meeting is really almost a parent only meeting really to just give parents an
027opportunity to feel safe to make sure that their voices are heard and give us an idea of what things they're looking for both for their students as well as their involvement we're going to continue offering professional development opportunities the one thing that's different for us this year is a lot of times we would have a lot of contact with edmin for really making sure the team has you know access and entry into the building to really sit down with the principles who really know their staff find out what their needs are hear what the parents might need and together and tailor our workshops to what the actual builing administ sh we're still going to continue to work on attendance we have a few other school districts that we work with and we know attendance is
028an issue across the country so we have some schools that have you know model attendance and their programs have really started to develop so we're going to bring some of those resources and make those connections so your team work them to programming increased visibility in schools so we will be able to offer some of our family engagement activities right in the school buildings as much as possible as opposed to trying to draw families over to River Street making sure that we have opportunities to families to engage in an easier way and it's much and then continuing to work on attendance we're going to do focus group we're going to have and I'll show you on the next slide I'm just getting over cold so forgive my voice going in and out but I'll show you
029on the next slide we're going to do workshops for families where they can come in and really discuss what the barriers are what are some of the things that are giving them a hard time with getting their young people to school um our fail engagement manager Laura worked with the student leadership team last year so she even surveyed some of the leaders from third fourth fifth and sixth grade who were trying to get the seventh and up but we weren't able to but we'll continue that this year but the young people had some really creative ideas in terms of what could help make sure that their peers are in school so we'll take all of that bring that to the parents and have some conversations and also sometimes parents just don't know that missing more
030than three days really can change you know what the rest of your year looks like just providing that informational information fores and I believe yes so we have effective communication and potential barriers which is a workshop coming up at the high school it's also going to be on zo so families can register or they can come in person or do it virtually we have a caregiver Cafe which is like a support group it's an opportunity for parents and caregivers to get together and sort of talk about the different needs and concerns that they might have in come with some Comm Solutions we have let's talk about attendance which is one of the first workshops I was saying that we will share the things that parents need to know they may already know but just may
031need to hear it in a different way to make sure that the attendance is a goal that it's achiev and then again November 6 is the first meeting for this year for the family of so forgive my voice but thank you for the opportunity we look forward to continuing to work with your families and again if you're any thank you you have any questions thank you next we have a couple Yes actually um tonight we are going to recognize the hard work of perseverance of two individuals who have taken a slightly different path to earning their graduation credentials and I'm G to ask Miss Oaks if you would come down come on down and I'm going to put you on the spot because um one of the things that makes Sala unique is that we
032have the opportunity and the dedication to really focus on what's best for students and we recognize that not all students follow the same path to get from point A to point B and sometimes along those different paths we have certain members of our staff that provide guidance and Miss Oaks is one of those individuals and she's sort of one of those unsung heroes who does an awful lot of work behind the scenes and an awful lot of good things come out of what she does every day and I just wanted to you know would you mind just talk a little bit about the ASAP program that we have um so the ASAP program we have is located at the River Street over call Warrior Academy so right now we have I would say about 13
033or 14 students with a couple pendings coming in and out of the program that program is for students who have not been able to go the path of high school they're going into the path that they want to work or a different trade part of it so they come to me we work on their ped they have some some of them have to take all four subjects testing which would be your social stence your science your math or your Ela some of them come in with already some of their region testing all done so they get to pick and choose what test if they only have to take math they can just take math part so that's the best part of the program if they've taken a region test they exempt from taking that part
034of the G test so uh and it's I like to say the program we have over there is very very individualized I make sure I get to know every single one of my students that come to the classroom and and before I really dig in to start doing education with them I really do get to know them I want to know how they learn I want them to know me because some of you might not know me I have a different personality so I like to have them get to know me and I get to know them they also get to kind of picture time they want to come so I am there from 8 until 1:45 so they come to me at least 3 hours a day and they get to pick the time
035so if they're not at 8:00 in the morning people they can come at 10:30 until 1:30 or whatever time you want to come another thing is as we're talking about attendance I have attendance problems also with young adults so if they come Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday for their time they get Friday off so that has been kind of working for me for especially this year have been really working first so I have we do have a couple tonight but I also have like this week we have at least four or five students taking their GED class just part of it or they're going to take all of all of them so within the next few months we'll have I would say probably four or five other students by the end of the year get their
036D so it is not an easy program and that is the first thing I let these kids know when they come in it's about them but of course I tell them I'm their school mom so I'll call them and tell to get in so um so it is a hard program but we get through it you want to bring Marcus and Ean down Marcus and Ethan these students have worked hard with a couple obstacles but we got them through this summer and Ethan Jers so I think it's really important to recognize right that this is really just a different path to get to the same point doesn't mean it's easier many times life gets in the way of what we think is where we're headed um and if it wasn't for programs like the one
037we have at Warrior Academy and if it wasn't for people like Miss Oaks to sort of put some of those pieces together and does she guilt you guys once in a while yeah right when she was talking about how she likes to get to know the students and have the students get to know her you know there's many facets to that but probably one of them is she knows how to get in touch with you right yeah does she get in touch with you yes correct and like I said does you use that relationship to get you to come in and do what you need to get done yeah right and the real key here is that you did the work that you needed to do and we want to recognize that because that's really
038important um and we believe that education is crucial to being successful in life moving forward the matter what path you might take to get it and we all want to congratulate you on this significant achievement and we have a small token here that we present people do an outstanding job at something there you go and we also have one from oh because without you uh people like Marcus and Ethan wouldn't be here tonight and um wouldn't have theity to move forward thank you and I do want to say I'm not sure 100% Ethan took the work related great now right school yeah but Marcus is working on getting his ad done and going into the military he's been working with me and his mom is up there and parents are up there so do want
039to say thank you to the parents too because I had to reach out to at Mar so um so yeah thank you for support up there too next we uh have our presentation on Jedi Justice at University got this button to use it what here that's that ruins the idea okay wait wait back up down is up I don't like that anyway there we go guys Mo all right so um one thanks for letting me come and talking about this again I think it was about 11 months ago the last time I came in and presented about what we were doing on the high school Jedi committee and now after uh that work we've got our plan um so I'm here today to talk about our comprehensive plan and how we can move forward with
040it and again I hit the button wrong so really what this comes from is uh last year in the summer I had a conversation with Dr beer and we were discussing where we were with our Dei goals Dei plan it was something that we work on worked on as a district fore think about three years at that time and um I was really curious just where we were going and what we ended up landing on was to review and revamp and try to really create a more comprehensive plan that would be just holistic and affect the entire District um and the reason why I really wanted to take that on is because I saw what New York state was doing and how this was kind of coming down the pipe um so you'll be able
041to see right here that last year in August there was a memo sent from the Attorney General's office that basically all school districts needed to have some type of Dei plan and it wasn't necessarily something that was going to be required right then but it was coming down the pipe and that's very much how New York State Ed uh works they also now have a nid uh Department of diversity equity and inclusion and we could kind of see the steps that this is going to be something that all schools are going to have to do within a few years and because there's a lot of work that um I know in high school but we've done throughout the district um when it comes to Dei I thought that instead of waiting uh and being followers
042I think that we should be more leaders in this field because I think that in our district we honestly already are uh because we've done a lot of work so when there it is so why the word Jedi instead of Dei one I am well aware that Dei is maybe the most controversial topic when it comes to education in the United States um and knowing people in that field um having conversations I get to have the privilege of talking to a Dei professional like once every week if I'm if I'm good about it because she's my sister she's got a PhD in in this field and she's one of the leaders in this and she says you know really what you want to do is not head towards Dei but head towards Jedi because what
043Justice allows us to do is be a little bit more proactive and look at the systemic issues that have caused the problems that we're now see there's really a lot of times when we're talking about these issues of anti-gp lgbtq rhetoric homophobia racism discrimination we're actually looking at the effect we're not really looking at the cause and if you were just addressing the effects of things it's kind of like playing wack you're never really hitting the core so the Justice element lets us hit the core of it because there we're talking about really examining the systems and trying to make them right from the bottom up then we get to the word equity which most of the time people talk about equality but here we really want to focus on equity and the difference is
044that in equality everybody gets the exact same thing but with Equity we are meeting the people's needs everyone has different needs so that's what Equity is actually talking about and what I really like here is how we discovered what we needed as far as Equity those most most came from the students and I know there we go I know that this again is a review um from last year the exact same thing you talked about then diversity diversity is the quantitative value of difference so these are the numbers this is the quantitative data and that's important it's important to have diversity in every single thing we do it can be a real strength but unless that diversity is supported with qualitative support which is inclusion then that diversity isn't going to last there we're talking
045about you know student retention we're talking about staff retention as well just because you have the numbers just because you have the diversity in your school and your staff at any workplace does not mean that it's a quality experience and if those diverse individuals are having a quality of experience they're going to bring out an even stronger um performance in my opinion and I love this graphic board saw last year but for everybody that's looking this is really what we're talking about instead of equality everybody is blocked by that fence Equity we're allowing everyone a real Level Playing Field depending on their need but Justice we're talking about the fence all together so Equity is one of the first steps Justice is okay now that we've addressed that problem how are we going to make
046it so that isn't a problem anymore that's what we're talking about so how did we get to where we are now we created a committee the committee right now is myself uh well the committee that made these uh this plan is myself Judy picket alici Alexander uh Anthony persons was part of it and Becky Nan the reason we set up that team is all of them have background in the work some of them are part of the um foret what university it's from but they're part of a MERS program right now that is Dei in math or science then we looked at the outside guidance and resources some of those are the state documents things like that student input we met with the students a number of times through the advinity groups a holistic approach
047which I'll talk about later we drafted then we had students review then we had staffs review it and we redrafted it honestly we drafted it a couple times after multiple reviews from the staff and the students and then I think it was last year in May we met with Dr beer had him review the entire plan and that's kind of how we landed here today when we're looking at the guidance and resources here we're not really looking to remake the wheel people have already done this work one of the best ones was Williamsville that Dei plan is it's a solid plan um but then we also looked at the culturally responsive sustaining education framework that came out from n a couple different positions that address um specific needs of our district um so when we're
048talking about the ncss position on affirming indigenous peoples and Nations um contextualizing lgbtq history in social studies that also helped us um really address how we would discuss and address lgbtq students and staff needs in our curriculum and in our staff support but then of course the guidance that we just looked at from the attorney general so the student input this was really where the majority of the work was done uh we met with student Affinity groups as a whole all of the high school groups together we met with them four times last year but then we had each individual group review our goals um met with them individually having discussions about the goals and what the plan looks like so really this is this was built from the ground up using the people that
049are going to be the beneficiaries of this plan and then discussing this as a holistic plan like I talked about earlier with the whack Mo idea when you're just addressing you know you're addressing those effects we wanted to not only make a Justice oriented plan but also make sure that it's align make sure that it's not just staff Center um a lot of times when you talk about the EI really what people are worried about is the curriculum and how the teacher going to teach this when really if there's going to be buyin to a plan for any school district or I'm workplace everybody's got to be in it's got to be the teachers and the students but also the community members and all the faculty members as well so it had to be this
050holistic approach and this part right here seeing uh seeing Jedi is something that can be taught and cultivated instead of Simply administered a lot of the tension and the controversy that comes with Dei in our nation right now is it's a very top down approach it's you are going to do this instead it can be something where we're really talking about what are these topics what is racism what is stere um you know stereotypes what is Prejudice but then really avoiding that accusatory langage you know those uncomfortable conversations when it comes to race ethnicity sexuality identity they're uncomfortable and they're meant to be uncomfortable that's really where we learn is in that place of uncomfortability but they're not meant to be so uncomfortable that people disengage from the conversation that doesn't help anybody at all
051and all teachers can tell you that is you got to keep your students engaged and the way that you don't do that is to make it accused Bo so this is not about calling anyone Prejudice or racist or privilege or anything like that that's trying to really figure out the diversity the differences that we all have and strength that we all have and the good thing about this plan is I see it as providing a foundation for the work that we're already doing so this is just off of the top of our group's head last week when we were setting this up of the work that we already do so I haven't found another school that has a pride play outside their doors every single day you know it's rare that a school has a
052pride Le but the amount of affinity groups that we have the fact that we have a Native American curriculum team and a nationally awarded Native American curc team um right here last year we were actually highlighted as a district for the work that we're doing in Dei so we're already doing so much in this now let's create the foundation so that we can approach it more holistically so all of these things we could see them trip so these are the eight are goals that our committee came up with and we have create a Justice Equity diversity and inclusion culture in the district based on consistent practices create Equitable and anti-discriminatory administrative practices and policies increase family and Community engagement recruit and support diverse staff incorporate Jedi into classroom curriculum engage staff in Jedi professional development
053Elevate and support student voice and support and celebrate student diversity we're going to go through each one of those but really you can break into down into three different groups so here we have district and Community we have staff faculty in classrooms and then we have you know the part that was entirely generated by our students is that student voice and student diversity so jumping into the specific goals here number one create a Justice Equity diversity and inclusion culture in the district based on consistent practices now I'm not going to read the entire thing there I could no wants to listen to that but I'm just going to highlight the the main takeaways here the point of the first goal is that it's holistic it's going to take time and it's changing culture that is
054the most important work if you're just addressing the problems constantly and you're not really talking about the culture the way that we live in our community you know who we really are as El make warriors then you're not actually going to get much work done so if we change the culture or Elevate the good parts of the culture of this school and of this community that's where the real strength is going to come from and the way that we do that we incorporate it in every single school so right now we have a Jedi Committee in the high school the goal would be to get that in each school and then to make their um make it so we have a district level Jedi Council committees would send a representative up to the district level
055Council make sure everyone is align make sure that all the language is vertically horizontally lined so everybody's on the same page um and that's just coming down to communication this part right here the d The District level Council will identify and employ anti-racist anti-discriminatory strategies to be implemented by The District in order to prevent and respond to the negative impact racism and discrimination have on our students staff and community that is looking at the entire District and saying okay how where are our issues how can we address those issues but this goal is going to take as longest you know it's going to involve a lot of work and it's everybody but really it's a it's that first goal because this is what we want to be the end product of all the work is
056to change the culture of our school I love this picture all right but here this is create equable and anti- administrative practices and policies here what we're talking about is the Board of Education goal um so it's already in the Board of Education goals that we will be reviewing at least six District policies to Ure that they are Equitable and non-discrimination um then also looking at the student code of conduct I know that there's student code of conduct review every single year so this is work that we're already doing but then taking that lens taking that Jedi lens look through um look through that as well uh School level committees will examine the impact of implicit bias systemic racism sexism other forms of discrimination in the actual code of conduct now the next goal here
057is similar the way that we kind of differentiate it there is goal C is coming up with ways to gather that data cuz right now we don't necessarily have those methods of gathering and analyzing that data and then what are we going to do with it and how do we look at this data because like we talked about um diversity is that quantitative it's those numbers but inclusion is that quality right it's the actual lived experience so we want to look at both and how those are both impacting our district and then create a mechanism for student and family input um that's extremely important there then family community engagement uh this is you know this is extremely important mainly because we want to make sure that each member of our community feels like they're a
058part of our district um one of the big one of the big responses that we got when we were doing the um student offending groups doing that work is that a lot of students don't feel like they have the support in the school because the school isn't necessarily able to connect with their family here it could be something as simple as your family does not speak English or your family has a different culture than the cultures that are the majority in this area so there's a disconnect there and we know that those disconnects between families and schools that it really puts all the weight on the student shoulders and we don't want to do that also what better way to make sure that we're a reflection of our community than to bring them in now
059of course this is something that we're already doing um one of my students two weeks ago we were talking about what community is in our ciens classroom and he's he said be Park I was like how is that Community when I go to vth park everybody is there and that's what we're looking at so this is work that we already doing we just want to highlight it and do it more um I'm talking is going okay then here um we continue with that goal and really we're just talking about buyin um we're already doing a lot of it and this part right here um utilizing student support staff we aison social workers counselors Etc um this is work I can tell you at the high school that every time we have a discussion about our
060family schoolly aison there's a teacher in the crowd that says I didn't know they did that every single time Mr long might not know that but I I'm in the crowd so I can hear them every time they say I don't know they did that we need to utilize the tools that we already have here more in order to make that connection um because those are the people that know these families they know the community and they're going to be able to provide that bridge so that we can really address the needs of our families as well as our students and then right here this two-way communication I'm going to talk about it again because language bear is really something that um we don't necessarily have an answer for and it's it's an area of
061need for a lot of our families then we get down to uh our fourth goal which is to recruit and support I diverse faculty and staff here you want to do really two things um you want to make sure that the staff is a reflection of the community so here we're looking at keeping in contact with the alumni and education field and partnering with the sen Nation to advance education as a career option for our indigenous students there we're trying to keep it local because it's extremely important to make sure that our really our homegrown talent that graduate this school that know the community that we're raised in this community come back and take those gifts take that education that we were a big part of building come back and give it right back in
062the community that's only going to strengthen us but what we also want to do is make sure that we are cultivating a diverse culture that's supportive of other staff so yes we want our staff to be a reflection of our community but we also want to fill the needs of our students that are not necessarily within the already and what I mean there is it's a good thing if a student comes to school and sees a teacher that does not look like them that's a good thing it's a great thing if a teacher can talk about experiences that they've had in life and a student can go I never thought about it that way I didn't know that perspective that only makes our community stronger and in order to do that and make sure that
063the diverse staff feels supported and that they stay is to allow them to express themselves allow the staff to express all of their culture as well this right here building and uh building and District leadership will strengthen anti discriminatory and anti-racist policies here we're really talking about leadership training um having those having the training for administration but also all district leadership when it comes to anti-racism lgbtq issues all these issues of identity is extremely important not only for the relationship with students but also the relationship with staff and that leads me to part e right here School level committee will be available to support any staff ever with issues relating to inclusion and or discrimination in the district this one we kind of hesitated to add because we're thinking is this actually the role of
064this committee and to me the answer is yes because it's already happening since we started having these conversations last year and set up the committee I I can tell you 10 different incidences when staff has come to me talking about issues they've had of you know either discrimination discrimination that they're witnessing amongst students from other members of the staff from members of the community so these are things that are already happening and what that allows them to do is have a place where they can talk about these issues um I've had a number of younger members of our staff say you know Mr hubt I this happened I don't really know what it is or how I should talk about it how would I do that because these issues of identity and race they're sticky
065they're hard to talk about they make you uncomfortable and when you have people talking about them that that have a background in them that really helps um no matter how you're having that conversation if you know that you're supported in it it's only going to make your uh St culture stronger and better now we get to the curriculum this is where the real meat of it is overall we want to be both local um to provide that reflection but we also want to provide a different perspective for all of our students so we're looking to expand our curriculum examine all of it it's kind of the way that I see Civics I'm constantly telling my students and and my co-workers that like Civics can be everywhere Civics can be in every subject Jedi can be
066everywhere Jedi can be in every subject it doesn't just have to be social studies it can be incorporated everywhere and really what we're doing is we're just talking about diversity talking about differences in the classroom so so right I don't think it's work talking to right here a curriculum will represent the stories and perspectives of African-American Hispanic Latin American Asian middle eastern indigenous and other Global communities that are underrepresented in our own community so there you're coming into the classroom and you're able to see the entire world that's the experience that we want our students to have there are so many times when I especially when we go to DC when I'll bring students to DC and they'll look around because they have never seen something like that before they've never seen that representation or
067just that diversity it's important that especially in our community in a small community that they can come to the classroom and really see what the world is but also see a reflection of who they are representation really matters and um through the work that I saw done by some of my students last year um I really got to see how important representation is um the fact that we have um one of our products last year was uh a student that was looking at media and said I don't see myself reflected positively in any media um uh and she did a year-long project on it and um was able to really create a product that represented black women in a more positive way in the school district and brought that year like that the work that
068we're talking about that we should be doing in all of our classrooms where it's how can we see the entire world um from our classroom oh and by the way and I I can't skip it uh this was made by a now they're a freshman no now they're a sophomore that was roow and brown that made that design that's a really cool design probably going to use it for this year's Pride week or yeah this year's Pride week in June so make sure you order that shirt because that's anyway incorporate Jedi curriculum the uh or Jedi in the classroom curriculum the second page of it um here we're talking about school committees will provide guidance for including the diversity of our local community in the curriculum so we said you're going to get a bigger
069perspective when you enter the classroom we also want you to have a reflection of local history um I can tell you as a social studies teacher if you look through the New York State Standards not much of them talk about really emphasizing local history this is work that we're already starting to do on Travis H 11th trade US history at the end of the year they have to do a local history project and that's work that um we should be doing in every grade because in Salam in kogas county and just in Western New York there's amazing things that have happened and a lot of the lot cool things that we saw last year it was students going I didn't know that someone from Salam did that that is massive because just like we talked
070about of expanding that perspective and seeing the rest of the world now you're getting that reflection back if someone from Sala can be in the NFL Chuck Chris right if someone from Sala can be in NASA I can do the exact same thing in order to do that we need professional development so uh we already do we really have a robust amount of professional development offered in this District we already know that um I know that because everyone that I uh talk to on a social media that's teacher is constantly talking about how they don't get professional development in their District we have a robust amount um just make that even stronger by including Jedi work in it uh what we'd really like to see is embedding Jedi 10 Jedi 101 Workshop in the new
071teacher Academy but in the first I would say two years try to make it so every single faculty member within the district goes through that Jedi 101 Workshop have we developed it yet no but when we do it's going to be fantastic now right here uh District leadership will ensure that all staff that's everybody engage in consistent ongoing professional learning around fundamental Jedi Concepts all of these things um and really there that's a good way of something that pops up being able to address and being comfortable talking about these things reason being there's not a teacher in the district that's been here for a few years that hasn't had a conversation about lgbtq issues race language difference poverty these things are constantly being discussed by our students and I have many co-workers who come up
072to me or come up to other people in the committee come up to administrator and say Hey how do I talk about this how do I do this that's why we need that ongoing all right and because it's really what we're talking about here is social studies because people it's constantly uh changing um I had uh Meredith Bree Isa come up to me the other day and say what we need to discuss is um the upcoming election because even though it's something that's a little bit controversial you could have a woman a woman of color for the first time elected to the presidency and that's a great thing but she goes back to when Obama was elected you actually saw an upale in racism towards the black community so could that be something that happens
073if Camala Harris gets elected absolutely so that's a way of us being proactive and saying hey if this was to happen look out for this and know how to address it when it actually comes up you're good C right here is just ensuring that all the people on the school communities have additional training why because those are supposed to be the people that are really the experts in house so if there's any questions they're the ones that staff is going to go to you know in order to be the person to go to you got to have additional training you got to be a real expert in this field that could be just as simple as book studies you know different conferences but it's definitely something that we should have um curriculum specific learning opportunities
074here it's simply because Jedi in high school global social studies it is not going to be the same as Jedi and kindergarten so how do we make sure that it is curriculum page you know um grade level specific and then this one right here is one of the most important um e District leadership will seek out and make available professional learning opportunities to promote and Foster student self- advocacy and activism one of our standards is elevating student voice I love that standard but the way that we Elevate student voice is teaching our teachers and our faculty and our administrators how to get them to do that and really what that'll do is it gets our classrooms to become a reflection of what our country is supposed to be right an active robust democracy that's civically
075engaged that's how you do it you get the staff to actually encourage that within their classrooms and then you get that student input and then once the students start being able to have those skills we can Elevate and support student voice we already do a great job at this in the district elevating and supporting student voice I only want it to continue and to get bigger um we have these groups um indigenous youth Coalition Student Government student council GSA we could keep going but we want to not only continue to support those but um provide opportunities for their to be more so like the Hispanic Student Union of the black student unit those were groups that were started last year we want those groups to be able to continue but all of those groups that
076are on that are within the high school we should also be pushing those down in the middle school and in the elementary schools what that's doing is it's creating community and providing a space for students to have more elevated voice in their classrooms and in their school and again that just builds up the democracies that we're creating within the district and I mean this picture right here is an obvious example of it but this picture right here this was taken last year at the New York State Bar Association because we had one two three alumni present and they got to ask uh justice Sodor questions that's a massive opportunity they were able to do that because they went to Salam um building leaders will Foster a culture of promoting student self- advocacy and activism really
077that's talking about the process so one of the great things that came from putting up the pride play is that it created a structure created a process of how we're going to do this and it created the system that students can now follow which is really Civic engagement knowing who to go to when you have questions knowing how to do the work and how long that work is going to take and that's only going to provide more opportunities for our students you know in the community but when they get out of high school when they graduate they're going to be able to have these Civic skills and become leaders a lot of the students that put up the pride flag are now leaders in their Cals you know starting their own Affinity groups um some
078of them are activists on their college campuses why because they gain those skills here those soft skills those organizing skills we only want to elevate that and continue it and then this is the final goal right here this was completely student generated down to the language so support and celebrate student diversity the district council will promote and support uh school and district-wise celebration of various cultures and identities including Spirit weeks Multicultural events and celebrations we already do a number of these but we can do so much more um for example right now we're in Hispanic Heritage Month um Miss Martinez asked me first week of school let's do something for Hispanic Heritage Month even if it's you know just posters just student work I got an email from the principal of dunker that they wanted
079to do that in their school and they wanted use our material now all that material was student generated so we weren't able to give them any of the material but just that right there just something small that's posters it makes a massive difference to our students and it shows other districts what we're doing and shows them that we're leaders in this field um awareness to holidays and culture events for marginalized and underrepresented people uh last year we had a number of students that were observing Ramadan and we had staff that did not know how to address their um unique needs during that time we're able to get out paperwork to do that um I've had students that have come to me that say that we're still not doing enough when it comes to long housee
080um ceremonies and how to support students during that that's something that is a big area of need that we have to address uh promote student diversity by encouraging and supporting culturally um identifying affirming dress and expression here I've seen and I I tell almost um everyone when I see it I've seen a massive change over the last I would say five years um five years you may see a ribbon skirt once or twice a year during hip week in the high school now it's an everyday thing this is something that our students are just um wearing regularly that's fantastic it's an expression of culture so we should be promoting that and doing that more and then district will highlight under repesentative communities through the use of classroom hallway displays that's a lot of what we
081were talking about earlier for Hispanic Heritage Month but we also in high school do one for Black History Month um for pride month uh we're doing one right now uh for the election where simply they're walking by and they're saying oh that's going on and it catches their attention makes them ask questions has them do the research at home and that's that constant learning that constant feedback that we're looking for so the benefits of all this is it's going to Foster that sense of belong and and value for all members of our school all of our students all the people in our community um and our staff having the districtwide comprehensive plan is going to establish clear expectations so that yes we're already doing a lot of this work but let's make it very straightforward
082very clear as to what we're doing and how we want to do it um getting rid of those barriers that are stopping us from being more Equitable that's that Justice element right um enhance our understanding of the perspectives of our communities so getting that Community engagement um exposing students diverse perspectives so again really expanding that perspective while also providing a reflection for them uh promoting critical thinking preparing students to thrive in the increasingly diverse world and this is the biggest one fostering a sense of Pride and appreciation for diversity among the student body um and this is the quote that I really like uh the reason why we do all this why it would Pro why it would help our student body why it would promote more Pride with in Sala is because diversity doesn't
083look like anyone it looks like everyone and when you do that when you provide a reflection of people and you really promote the strengths of all the people in our community our our school our district only gets better only gets stronger and if you have any questions I can answer those too all right [Music] question we move on the Communications have a post small that requested to speak my name is John C um my daughter's name is Georgia Miller she's uh an athlete she's a junior this year and she plays on the volleyball team um I'm here basically kind of ties right in with um helping be the voice of the girls on our volleyball team every single one of the girls is struggling right now and is frustrated with the situation they're not able
084to be here tonight because they have a game um I want to start with reading a little bit of a letter that came from some of the parents we are writing as a group of concerned parents regarding the current state of the girls volleyball program at our school our observations have led us to believe that there are significant issues with the coaching and Leadership provided by the C volleyball coach that are negatively impacting our our athletes experiences effective coaching is crucial for developing player skills understanding game strategies and fostering teamwork unfortunately we have we have witnessed minimal instruction and support leading to confusion among the girls and hindering their growth resulting in a great deal of frustration and anger as this goes un addressed the girls one example is they're being trained for one position
085and then they're thrown into another position they're L less out there and they're very embarrassed as they've tried to communicate to the coach we need more training we need more coaching while we're in the game we need to understand the position you're putting us in and so forth they have felt um that she has become very defensive and hasn't listened to them two weeks ago my daughter became so frustrated with this situation she went in the locker room in the middle of the game and punched the locker I would love to show you all the picture of her hand her knuckle was swollen up like that we immediately took her to the ER this is not like my daughter she's very high functioning she's she's able to communicate and for her to do something like
086this really scared me I definitely have her in counseling and we're trying to find better ways for her to manage this but this I I've also worked with her on her attitude and to listen to the coach and she for the last month has not talked back to the coach she hasn't expressed her concerns you know like I said she punched that Locker because she's trying to hold it all in she's trying to deal with this frustration so Saturday they had a tournament all the girls collectively tried to communicate to the coach the two captains who were very experienced have been on this team for a long time took the lead and they explained to the coach you don't communicate to us you bench us and we don't know why every single game there are
087two to three girls on that team that are in tears some of it is during the game some of it is after the game the Georgia says the reason she punched that Locker is I didn't want to cry again mom I didn't want to stand there and cry in front of everybody that's embarrassing she I said well do you think getting angry and doing that help no it didn't but here She is again Saturday the girls are trying to talk to the coach she gets very um upset the coach got defensive she didn't listen to them she said we'll talk about this Monday well the girls wanted to talk about it right then they had time in between the games so anyways she um comes back and she says here's the lineup there's no substitution
088this is our last game and you're not in so my daughter she get signed out and she left and the coach started yelling at her and she's like if you leave right now you're done she said I've been done and honestly I've never condoned quitting or walking away but my daughter didn't punch the locker again she didn't walk up to the coach and punch her like she wanted to she just said I need to get out of here right now but every single girl on that volleyball team wanted to do the same thing my daughter did but they didn't have the courage so I'm just asking that you guys will look into this situation that you will sit down and listen to these girls don't talk to the parents we're angry this is our children
089you know we got their backs and this Mama Bear Instinct flares up we'll do whatever we can we have done what we can there's parents that have written letters they have gone and talked to the athletic director they've talked to the superintendent there's been conversations with the coaches the assistant coach is amazing he has listened to us and not one single person has an issue with the assistant coach um I know now that this is not my daughter being you know an attitude problem this is a problem that every single person is experiencing so I guess that's what I just want to ask that this not be held against my daughter right now there's threats that she's not going to be able to play a sport again for the rest of the year that would
090be detrimental I mean she's had dreams of playing lacrosse in college you know and now they're they're saying you're not going to go play lacrosse this year because you quit volleyball she would love to come back if there is some kind of Remedy with the coaching or with all of this I know we've talked about um Resto practices I think it's amazing the uh Leaps and Bounds that our school district has made especially with restorative practices and maybe that could be used in this situation you know with the whole volleyball team with the leadership of the volleyball team but just listen to the girls that's all I'm asking just put them in a situation where they feel comfortable to express how they feel because right now none of them do because they don't want to
091be benched and they have learned if they speak up they're put on a bench and they don't they're not told why or what so I guess that's what I'm here asking for for your support in this issue okay thank you than you than I've been Googling a lot of information of how to address athletic director Chad I talk to Dr deor sat with him try to email him but he haven't responded um I wanted to know I sent letters out to you guys that you know charging Chad with against discrimination against Sports um we you know I started from second week of of school my daughter comes back with her uniform all ripped up and I said what why do you have a ripped up uniform and she's like oh because we they can't buy
092because we don't have any money I go that school had a lot of money I said you know if we can get the nation we'll get the nation involved we'll get you some you know you need unicorns then there somebody had missing airs so that started a big St with the so there was no crew where the airpods were where they who stole them there was two girls that were from what we heard but they didn't see them take them out of their out of their um bag and I said wasn't the locker room locked and she's like no we don't have locked and I said oh my God 19 1985 is when I graduated and they still don't have locks in the locker room and I was like you know because everybody's got expensive
093stuff in and they have to leave them in the lock room so Dr Baylor said they were working on getting lucks so I talked to Chad he just does not um come forward of what's really going on and you know I feel like I've been you know like oh I said this and that's it so you just got to deal with it according to Chad so I don't I went above Chad I went to Dr B and then nothing came about it I even talked to the JB college and I said I play division one volleyball I got 40 plus years of athletic experience I can play I can teach them and I've been teaching my daughter on the weekends how to play volleyball the correct way and she's been doing really well but I
094can't teach everybody because I'm not the coach I'm not the trainer I'm not anything and right now I can just do limited stuff because I had surgery so um but with Malia I'm going to do the best I can for her I'm her only support in this school and then now we have other parents that are going to are supporting now because they supported of what's going on with the JB andity volleyball so during the time when the airpods were missing the kids got threatened they were Adam Bennett came out say I'm going to call the cops on you another threat none of the parents were notified none of nobody told us I oh now the girls can't be in the locker room nobody told us that they couldn't be in the Lo no parents
095were notified I call Chad and Dr beer I want this in writing everything in the writing because if those girl if so if M goes into the locker room it's in writing I can see it like don't go in the locker room because I guess apparently you're going to get some SP so there's nothing in writing so most of the girls are natives on The Zo about 100% they either senica or other natives their other native and so I don't know why the coaches are being so you know they feel intimidated that they don't know anything um just watching the game I know everything about volleyball and I'm just like the loation wrong um they always miss points because the the coach forgets who's who's in line who's who's next to serve so my daughter
096was next to serve and I yelling no it's Malia's turn and she said no it's ania's turn and parents are yelling at her like no and it was game point the other girl went and served M missed her serve because it was you know mess and I so she was mad and she's like I don't want to play anymore she doesn't know what she's doing and I said well we'll go talk and see if we can get this you know figured out and so I've been going for since second week of school we're still going if we didn't go talk to Dr beer they would have still probably been like not able to you know address in the they were told they had to dress on the bus and you got a bunch of girls
097dressing on the bus and I'm like what is this and then so I told Chad I said I don't appreciate that I said my daughter is being discriminated against this is discrimination I talk to other parents they're all saying this is discrimination so I wrote that letter I went through all the process of trying to get this figured out and I there's still nothing done I went to J she said no I got it another I over CER help because she's play volleyball also no I don't want any of your help she just she dismissed us so you know and I'm like well your rotations are around you're you your girls don't know how to dig your girls don't know how to you know there's so many drills on YouTube I told them just look
098you know and she tells me oh I did watch the last team fight I see how you were rotating like she has no clue she has no clue what she's doing so with the so I watched The Varsity just to see what is going on there and I feel so bad for they wor in J I feel so bad because the way she has been rotating they can't get there quick enough lot you know so there's a mispo there um she has them all confused because her Ro the way she rotates the girls is so confusing like it's not just plain and simple you know make sure you put the girls where they need to be so they're not running across the court and they missao and I I was telling you know Barbara H
099laor C like how the varsity their set up is just totally wrong and when I watch the actions of the varsity coach she says nothing she just sits there with a CL Lord and she just St stands there and these poor girls are struggling so then we got this nasty little email from Chad BOS stating that one of the somebody had said something terrible to one of the other girls um on the team from the JB team and I didn't hear anything I was sitting on a bottom I could hear everybody talking they were mostly yelling at the coach like you know get your act together do what you're supposed to be doing and so he stated that the girls are crying after the game he was talking about the varsity team they're they're crying
100all the time my daughter had to ride the bus back from cat Little Valley the other day and she said all of them just fell apart they cried one of the girls went running into the bathroom she just left the game because she was so upset and she stayed in there for a little bit and I said it's not JV that's crying it's Varsity they're crying every day they're all crying and but this is we're going to keep supporting this coach against 12 girls that know what they're doing they need to be coached and there's not know nothing in the news about how many dayss they had how many aces they had how many Serv they had you know there's nothing nothing about our girls and all there's there's no videos there's nothing so our
101girls are like nothing right now they're just like treated so horribly so that's why I wrote that I asked Chad I go k get a better Coach I asked Dr can we get help help for these coaches something and every I don't went to late Shore I talk to Lake Shore I talk to Goa they're like that's discrimination so us should be chared with discrimination against female sports and I said and my daughter got offered to go to Lake so I said well if I can get her out here I will take her to Lake Shore she will be treated fairly we were at a tournament recently in Ganda um volleyball program is amazing they hired The JCC coach and she took JCC really far they were very successful and now they have her coaching
102the blonda girls and it's just so neat to watch that the getting the actual coaching in the moment on the court and the team is just working together and it's like that would be amazing coach at that level that knew what they were doing to help these girls that's all they want so we're never opposed to getting extra help for kids uh we put in place a long time ago um a process where if a a coach needs help uh we've done it with well several of our programs that you can come to the board and ask for a position we there to listen um we can't talk about Personnel uh unless it's an executive Sant but we do understand your concerns and we are working on um one thing you don't want to do
103is ever deter kids from playing sports because um it's not that Sports is is the end all but you know that if kids are in sports a lot of times are engaged and they want to come to school and and they they do do better um it is something that we're looking at and it's something that we will have an executive session of um because we want to go through everything and address the concerns um we will also make sure we set up a meeting to talk to the girls and make sure that they're concerned they're hurt too because we don't want them to feel that they're not being hurt um you'll hear me say from different times you know yeah we're doing a lot of good things and we love the boast about the
104good things that we're doing but if there are bad things we need to hear about that too so that we can get best um and that's what we will do get things that is and with the the previous presenter we would like that's what our what the four parents that want to talk to Dr that's what we were bringing up like that's that was right our point of what we need in this school um just so that everyone you know the school everyone is on board with our neighbood right and it's just like if there's no support here no no child is going to talk to anybody right so like I was stating like when my I was in a hospital for two months nobody supported Mala nobody checked up on her nobody did anything
105she was failing she had a 50 she couldn't play lacrosse because nobody would help her and I said what is going on and M kept saying and she probably broke down and says nobody's helping me and she was she missed school because she was so sick and she started crying she goes I can't do it I can't do the work CU she was at advanced classes and so missing that that one week really put her behind and I said isn't there anyone like there was no title sex involved no support in the Native American programs so I had to call Nancy she's my always to go person and she got Pat on she was like back up in the 90s and no problem you know and I was just like what the heck you know
106how can they just let our native children we have all these programs as you say here at Sala but you're not supporting our kids whatsoever when they're they're failing in 40s and 50s you know nobody like you know I know a lot of parents haven't been involved and I feel like to the teachers if they find out the parent is not involved and they don't care but when you start getting on them the teacher then they're like oh oh you know I better to get going because I had to tell the English teacher she was horrible she's a horrible teacher to let her fail and I said how dare you let my child fail and I said I'm laying on my back in the hospital and I can't be there for them and so then
107she understood like then she was like oh oh you know like I need to help you you know and I said if we got parents out there that can't help their children because of illnesses or they just can't I said we shouldn't let these kids Suffer Well you should have a family support worker have you never been reached or contact acted for family support we I told you why I don't do anything but that is one of those that's a personal problem okay that's personal so that's that's I mean even if you didn't have a leaon and you shouldn't really like trust that Lea on because maybe you know they're not going to be maybe they got too many kids and how are they going to reach out up to all the kids but I'm
108just saying like the school itself should trust you know shouldn't have to rely on the liaison like the teacher should say I your child is failing here's the problem I emailed her like you know is you know like I I gave her my email shie got a hold of her you know her sister trying to help out you know just to make sure she was in touch with everything because we didn't know how M felt because I was sick we didn't know how she was feeling you know if she was sad or what was wrong you know but she really went down you know after I went the hospital yeah the futur definitely we would hope that they would be reaching out especially going down a bed P um I forgot about the but one
109of the reasons we do have that is to help bridge that gap between parents and teachers to help give the kids support I other Native Americans some of them don't use them because of there's problems with but that doesn't mean that we can't come up with other Solutions yeah there should be other solutions for like I said title six wasn't there you know title six I talk to title six and I said what do you guys do actually you know and you know they didn't really they couldn't really come up with it except they had them but what do you guys do anyways you know yeah because like when I was we had four we had you know we had the best programs and I wasn't you know like maybe a sophomore junior in school
110and we had great program and our ped for person was always on us like what do you guys want to do are you guys doing okay you know we they made sure we were just you know we were okay now it's title six it's just like you know you go I went to one of their meetings and they talking about stuff that is here and you're sending people way out or conferences and we got that problem right here go talk talk to me I've been I got generational problems right you know all of us do but it's just like nobody need the conferences that they should be planning is right here you know have a conference here bring us all in bring in all the na of parents well I appreciate you speaking bringing the
111concerns up because again we don't know about it we can't address it but once we know about come up with a plan and try to help address things like I said I went through everything want to athletic director want the doctor to be alert I want to give you guys all the letters and I go I got a petition I got I again CH by Co right now so we got parents sign there's a couple other parents too that are trying to start petitions and writing letters and I just hope we can resolve it yeah we can't talk about Personnel Open Session right my my problem was what I did was every step that was made possible and then I will go further on if I have to I will find more information I'll keep
112going until this is resolved president Ray can I request executive session at the end of the agenda the personal discusss yeah make a motion again to um modify the agenda and then to thank you guys so much for listening appreciate it yeah do the agenda yeah okay move on to central office message [Music] start um oh um standing this Thursday and next Thursday right W so w walls um this Thursday and next Thursday that we'll be getting out vegetables um at as part of that so um in the evening when parents come in for the health and wellness stuff um for those things uh both the buildings will be there um other then that Don is in Texas this week for his check Fellowship thing and he got an email from the fellowship um it
113was Thursday last week asking if it would be okay if they came up and film him and our program because they are so impress what's happening and how our John Capone to incorporate food into the ceter and they're so inol with that that they want to come and interview him um so that's pretty cool um transportation r r short L driver so I that once drive and Facilities is working away keeping and sure so tonight you're going to see the assessment plan on the agenda and I just wanted to update the pr teachers with the critical data that they need to personalize instruction and Target interventions I want to thank Marcy Brown our instructional coaches and of course the teachers and principles for the work they put into the plan Marcy started this work during
114her internship which help leave the foundation we were able to pick up where we left off and R that out um the plan directly supports our goal of making students smarter by ensuring that every student gets the support that they need it's a districtwide plan expectation for teachers age 12 in addition to assessments we've been focusing on the attendance the family engagement so I just want to thank Chris dud and Steve brage and supp our school Serv counselors family schoolaz and everyone else involved in approving the attend young engagement we' been working out new initiative reward programs and celebrations partnership upic you um and something really awesome that's happening at CER school is our family math night every Wednesday from 5 to six I want to thank Aon anastesia and school teachers for their efforts
115in doing this they bring in families parents go in one room and learn math lessons and students go in another room and get additional hour practice so that's really great received been received well we had approximately 14 families attend at one point on September 27th we had our every child matters assembly so that went really well it was so fun to see all the kids participating they were truly engaged in Breaking the culture and just a reminder that Thursday October 10th will be the Sona and High School open house prospects will be next Thursday the 17th and then open house we'll have our annual annual Wellness fair in the gym that Karen was alluding to it's the and various vendors so thank you to Chris Morrison for facilitating this and last but not least edep
116rolled out this week um lots of extended dat learning opportunities as well as Power hours um and just thank you to the transportation department all right thank you very much then we will uh move on to the board message Christian I we start with you all righty yeah thank you T um it's good to see everyone here tonight uh thank you to our presenters and some very well put together and informative U messages there um yeah it was good uh seemed like a good past weekend with um homecoming it seemed like that was a big hit and uh obviously the football team had a very successful night and I hope everybody's having a good start to the year thank you for everyone's um you know commitment and service to our to our students and our
117families and uh yeah I just would like to thank our speakers for coming out tonight as well and that's kind of it just keep it moving tonight all right CRA um I'm Not Really Gonna um say too much because I'm kind of raspy now probably I'm gonna dry spot and start coughing so but thank you to everybody thank you for all the everything that you do T no I just want to thank everybody for coming out tonight the uh Miss Bieber the uh W welcome to your first meeting here in your new position the uh glad to glad to have you there the um the uh weather's changing the sports are all in full run it's good to do all that and uh just wanted to say the uh a little thing because uh I
118got to participate in it during halftime in the football game um just want to thank everybody for that helped out organize the kindergarten run um the kids had a hit the uh parents I think were pretty entertained too so I mean it was a nice little nice little event in the middle of the game um but uh everybody enjoyed it uh thank you to the presenters and congratulations to the recent GED recipients and welcome to yeah I'd like to thank all the presenters and the parents that showed up to speak tonight um Justin keep up the good word he's doing great thank you very much um I also like to congratulate our our two graduates tonight um I spent my whole career in exception on alternative education so I know how important those kinds of
119programs are um not everybody reaches point8 point be like Mark says in the same way sometimes the path kind of looks like this but um congrats to them um and thanks to all the students that stuck around I I know it's a long meeting so we apologize for that but you know you have to pick better meetings to come that's all thanks I keep it short I just want to thank all of our staff everybody for everything you're doing uh get our kids moving I know pass the halfway mark of the first marking period but good job to everybody keep up the hard work and to our students do your best keep trying hard every single day that's so thank you I just want to welcome everyone tonight um coming out uh and thank you
120to all the presenters it is really great when we get to hear and see different things that are going on that um you know I don't have any kids in school anymore so um um sometimes you lose track of all the different things that we have so it's really great to to hear and to see um and to the to students that did get their GED um it is tough sometimes for for life sometimes gets in that way you it does take you longer but the fact that they actually stuck with it and showed up and persevered to get to where they wanted to be is really important and it should be elction we all all really sit back and look at and say doesn't matter how tough things get if you want it B
121enough enough you stick with it you can do it so congratulations to them um and for the parent concerns you know we always like to speak about all the great things we're doing and we are doing a lot of great things um but it doesn't mean we do everything great all the time uh and when we don't we need to be called on it and and um when we're called on it that's when it's up to this group here to sit back and evaluate what's going on and to see how we can intervene to make changes for the better um of course we have perspective from just a couple so we need to always listen to everything and get input from everybody which I hope everyone out there realizes that we do um we address
122concerns we want to talk about concerns and we want to take action that benefits our students um and and hopefully that will satisfy the parents in the community so R rest assured that if you do have a concern we do want to hear it we might not like hearing it but we want to hear it because that's the only way that we're going to get better so I just want to state that I'll turn it over to that well that's been said up here at the table uh so far I want want to draw our attention to an upcoming event about a month away which is our uh Key Club Thanksgiving Community dinner which will be on November 18th uh I also just want to acknowledge and thank the presenters um hopefully we notice each
123the exception of our audit one each one of the uh presentations Focus directly on one of our board goals from making kids smarter to community engagement and Jedi next month we will be hearing uh from our school leaders and possibly some of our teachers as well about where we are with regard to data so when we met over the summer we said every six weeks we will have card numbers presented to us um and the last uh goal that will be presented will be attendance next month uh that will be included as well as uh some of our academic measures that we will continuously look at every six weeks uh which we'll focus on improving things across the board other than that as uh Mr John mentioned we are beyond the halfway point already for
124the first quarter seems like just yesterday that we started school and uh we're already well into the first uh quarter so things are going exceptionally well and a special thank you out to all of our teachers who work every day with our thank you thank with that we will move on to our consent agenda so we need a motion to approve the agenda second motion by D second second by Brad are there any questions sorry Pages motion byad thank you yeah I had a question on minutes from Monday September uh notes that we reconvene regular session at 6:17 p.m. should be 9177 yeah 97 we got a motion by Dale second all in favor I I oppos abstain motion carried we have no old business under new business we have a Consulting agreement for Tech
125Edge LLC that will run from October 1st 2024 through Jun 30th of 2025 so we need a motion to approve the edge Consulting agreement motion motion by Christian second second by are there any questions yeah Dr beer can you give us a brief summary sure tech ed is the organization that we utilize to uh make modifications and improvements to our uh student management system particular ref to power to we have a significant number of customizations that we uh essentially have built and uh those allow us to more accurately track student data more uh efficiently get that data out of the student management system for some of the custom reporting that we have to do uh given our location okay any other questions all right then we have a motion by Christian second by Tracy all
126in favor oain motion Carri Item B is a change order uh an allowance uh dispersement so we have an allowance distribution for William sper of 8,692 that we need an approval for so we need a motion to approve that allance first motion by D by Carrie are there any questions um related to this so are we building the Press Box on the softball field we there will be a press box it's being um it's a pre one no we will have press we will have Press Box yes I I just wanted to be careful about whether we're building it or not there will be a Press Box there it's similar to the one that we have say similar in nature to the one it uh vs yeah so was that preapproved or was that part
127of the change orders because I thought the original documents that was an option and add alternate if I remember correctly alternate ending BS coming in and the BS came in under so we it I do have news on this though um that that project specifically with relation to the Press Box um has been moved up time frame wise drastically we uh at our last meeting we were told that the Press Box would not be installed until July which we can survive without a Press Box except that's where all the electrical gets pulled into so that would man no lights no scoreboard nothing for the spring um so we pressed I we pressed that hard but we asked Lakes Shore the the holdup where was the pad for it and the risers or leers could not
128be poured until the spring uh but with the good weather and the cooperation of Lakeshore they're po there in the fall which means we've can up the uh Pace out that drastic and have it available for spring use awesome all right well we have a motion by Dale second by carry all in favor oppos abstain motion Carri item C we have some items to declare Surplus items9 here need a motion to declare motion motion by Tracy second second by Tad are there any questions on any of the items all in favor oppos abstain motion item D is our budget development calendar for 2526 so we need a motion to approve the budget development calendar motion second motion by Brad second by car are there any questions all in favor I opposed abstain motion carried I
129we are creating some positions substitute keyboard specialist substitute Food Service uh teacher Aid a couple teacher aids uh and then we have a revised New York food uh and New York Family Positions from May 1st 23 through June 30th 25 where we have our grant coordinator educator and a couple F service helpers so we need a motion to create the positions motion motion by Dale second second by Carri are there any questions all in favor I I opposed abstain motion C item f is our district professional Le plan uh and that is for 2425 the development plan statement uh of certification part 100 regulations for the New York State Commission of education so we need that document approval so please uh make a motion to approve the district professional learning plan motion by Tracy second
130by chrst any questions in favor oain Carri item G is our districtwide safety plan and remote instruction plan we need a motion uh to approve both the district safety plan and the remote instruction plan motion motion by Tad second second by BR we have any questions on either of the um just an observation um on the list of safety um committee staff members or safety team members there's some think need changes so you might want to take a look at okay okay I know it's you know it'll constantly be updated throughout the years thank you for that we have a motion by Tad second by Brad all in favor abstaining item H is our acceptance of our just year 24 audit we need a motion to approve the 23 24 audit that was performed by
131lumson and M motion motion by Christian second second by Tad all in favor oppos abstain motion carries item I is our assessment plan for 2 4 which C School District assessment plan attached that we all review a motion to approve that plan motion motion by Dale second second by Chris are there any questions all in favor oppose abstain item eight is our personel consent agenda Item B we need a motion to approve all the person in item 88 motion moot by Tracy second second by T are there any questions all in favor oppose abstain motion car I think our group has even our Ai No translator has quit on us um please absolutely so we did have jenal was on the zoom call and she had to um step out but I just wanted to
132recognize her real quick she is a Cel graduate she um moved away she she'll be appointed as an elementary teacher um focusing in first grade and she moved away she went to the Cleveland area was teaching in a school in Cleveland she was teaching kindergarten um but what I'd like to share on her behalf is she obviously wowed us throughout the interview process but she's so excited to come back to the community and make an impact in um in our building obviously but the this whole entire SCH district and the community and she just she wanted to express that there have been so many Educators that have made such profound impact on her and that really resonated with us that she's so thrilled to be back and to impact our kids soate congratulations to can
133we fight over Steve or are you gonna talk about Steve all right fine so I am going to get to introduce me BR which everyone knows over the past year I've had the pleasure of working with and observing Steve as he stepped into his role as the attendance officer um his relationship building with students has been amazing and with staff has been even larger than mon to a point where personal stories that were shared were students that he had to come down hard on a little bit with some absences they ended up being the same students that invited him to their graduation saying if it wasn't for you being on my case I wouldn't have graduated and I wouldn't be here so to me that's an Testament of Steve and the work that he's doing
134his willingness to ask questions reach out to others attend conferences and bring back information and right now streamlining some of our things so everyone has access but everyone doesn't have to duplicate the work they're doing has been outstanding so our goal is to find him and Mr Incredible costume because the attendance officer building is Mr inredible thank you st much better off I just want to say you know it's really great that um like we have people that are coming back to help make our school better um like you mentioned Jenna's coming back um she graduated with one of my daughters um Steve came back to Salama um after going out into the real world for a while not that we're not the real world but just that the community members are willing to come
135back and really want to invest in the school to help make it a a better place and uh I'm glad to hear that some of our former students are coming back to to be uh teachers here because that's one of our goals is really the make our community Str there so very exciting item uh item nine is our board information and reports we have um couple transfer andw is going from high school music teacher to uh Prospect Elementary we have our indigenous Education meeting minutes um excuse me from 911 our enrollment as of October 1st our transportation report and then we have our first reading of policy 5630 6140 7350 7420 7513 75 down here your notes don't say ask for TR it's only the first reading sorry up uh again our upcoming events uh
136tomorrow we have our indigenous education committee meeting uh here at 4M October 10th is4 open house for senica and the high school October 14th is indigenous people's day so no school and no school on the F week um for students bring them St little bit of a nice on weekend and then October 17th is the Prospect Elementary open housee uh and then the new the conference the 19th through the the 22nd uh we do need a motion to amend the agenda before that question oh so on the enrollment Dr berer what is grade level minus two uh I explain if you want right all right um because we service students all the way down to the age of three those students are serviced through our committee of preschool special education so in the state -2
137would be threey olds negative one is four year olds zero is 5y olds and then continues from there thank you drer okay so we need a motion to amend the what something no I did I just wanted to acknowledge that um you did appoint Karen to the uh principal inter principal position um it seems like she's been the Principal there for a long time so I just sort of over so that's totally my oversight but we wanted to congratulate you on it we look forward to working with you as we uh go through the process thank you else we might have missed okay so we need a motion to amend the agenda to add an executive session moot by car second by Christian all in favor now we don't antip