001foreign good evening everybody everybody in the room um silence your computers please mute your computer value we have to apologize we have a new uh zoom account and it took us all a long time to get in so we apologize for being late but we think we're finally getting getting it opened up and ready to go tonight's going to be different than the last several months there is going to be an open forum where people will have an opportunity to speak like every other open forum you'll have a limited time to speak and when your time is up we'll go on to the next person uh we will ask that um during the meeting just like if we were in in a school setting that you just sit and listen um it's an open meeting
002in front of the public but it's not open for everybody to just interject um so we'll we'll play the same rules as we do when we're uh in a school setting in an open public setting so we appreciate your cooperation there um we still have a couple of board members trying to get in but they are here and they are listening so we will go ahead and get started we'll call the meeting to order i have 608 if everybody could please rise for a flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands [Music] are there any agenda changes tina no okay open forum at this time we would like to give our audience an opportunity to ask any questions about this agenda or
003about operations within the school district personal matters will not be addressed in public session comments may be recorded and responded to by the board of education or the superintendent we ask that you introduce yourself to the board state if you are district resident and that you keep your comments to five minutes or less so how are we going to know you you are able to unmute yourself if you'd like to talk i would just need maybe a wave of the hand or something if anybody there would like to speak i don't know if i can even see everybody all right at this time we're going to adjourn to executive session for matters relating to the discipline suspension and dismissal or removal of a particular person we will be returning to uh open session and it
004should not take us too long so i would need a motion to adjourn to executive session second all those in favor opposed we will be back shortly we did not expect executive session to take that long [Music] we will in the future be sure to not spend that much time in executive again uh during a meeting we do apologize for that so we will continue on with let me get back to the agenda correspondence we've had much correspondence regarding the black lives matter sign we've had correspondence around district work and also a petition was received from many community members on committee reports policy committee first reading of the board policy be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board of education for the trumansburg central school district hereby approves the
005first reading of policy number 6570 remote working policy number 3520 extraordinary circumstances and policy number 7150 remote learning i would look for a motion to approve that first reading but i can't even get into it [Music] uh wait a minute i think i know why is that better anybody all right so we had a motion by randy ii to approve the first reading by thank you questions or discussion all those in favor of accepting these policies first reading say aye opposed carried consent agenda we have items a through c we'll do them all at once unless somebody would like one pulled for discussion seeing none i'll look for a motion to approve consent agendums item a b and c second any discussion or question all those in favor opposed carry on to new business approval
006of direct purchases be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board of education for the chumansburg central school district hereby approves the following direct purchases for the 2018 capital project totaling 983 568 dollars that total was incorrect oh it's based on those three there yes it is very incorrect you can just say right all right so we are changing this i'll reread it approval of direct purchases be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board of education for the childrensburg central school district hereby approves the following direct purchases for the 2018 capital project building controls from day automation fifty four thousand two hundred and eighty nine dollars cameras from day automation twenty three thousand one hundred fifty eight dollars uh ups power from gray bar
007seventy four thousand eight hundred forty six dollars totaling one hundred fifty two thousand two hundred ninety three dollars motion second any questions or discussions we do this every week yes thank you all those in favor opposed carried authorization to sign a consultant contract with bruce howlett be it resolve that that the board of education for the chumansburg central school district hereby authorizes the superintendent of schools to sign a consultant contract with bruce howlett for special education services for the 2020-2021 school year as presented second questions or discussion randy okay anybody anybody else all those in favor oh okay uh angie you have a question no i don't have a question okay uh all those in favor opposed carried 2020 2021 entry level substitute pay rate be it resolve that upon the recommendation of the superintendent
008of schools the board of education for the trumansburg central school district hereby establishes the following entry level substitute pay rate for 2020 2021 school year second questions discussion all those in favor opposed carried on to board forum uh board of education goals i think the goal here was to look through these and see if if there was anything we wanted to tweak or change on the four goals so we'll start with goal number one tcsd will strive for 100 graduation rate with a strong emphasis on college and career readiness does anybody have any alterations or comments on that goal you're good with that one okay goal two tcsd students will achieve proficiency in all assessed areas and standard aligned benchmarks threes and are we satisfied with that one or do we want to see something
009changed here to give us that time moving on to goal number three tcsd will maintain a strong commitment to learning and safety while ensuring programs and policies reflect the ideals of our community yes we like that okay goal four tcsd will provide educational opportunities and experiences which are inclusive and representative of a diverse global community this goal is only a year old and if it's i don't know if it's sufficient or if we need to add some language to it to expand on it please hold on one second let me shut my speaker off okay yes i would like um maybe to retweet it a little bit um and um kind of like work towards uh let me look at the goal all right again um i think is as a goal more than just
010provide educational opportunities and experiences it should be the goal should be a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion and to address systemic isms in general um in our school district um i think that goal kind of seems to be more reachable and it includes educational opportunities and experiences but also other aspects of the school district can you say one more time more slowly what the whole thing yeah oh i could i wrote it okay a commitment to the well i don't know i think he's the heir because i'm usually not um a person that is sad that i cannot be hurt a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion and to address systemic issues in our school district and i think that's more global in the sense that it includes educational opportunities and experiences but it
011also help us look at data and see what areas we need to actually kind of like put extra resources and aim for more equity comments on judith's proposed goal likes dislikes additions a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion and to address systemic issues in our school district before you can talk and i should close mine i i like what i'm hearing there i just wonder some of the things we're leaving out that we're already there just talking about representative of the first global community part that wasn't there when you finished i don't think right part the last sentence of what we do you do you feel like um the part about the isms would include the diverse global community uh after and let me see how it sounds i mean i i don't know i
012mean because he that's missing what you've created with the isms would that encompass that i i think it's two different things because one is again in a way we are focusing on trying to address systemic oppression as it might relate to our school um district the other one is just representative of a diverse global community that's more global okay it doesn't necessarily it doesn't necessarily mean that we are fighting against isms right okay what about just making a fifth goal then or something too for that what about changing it to tcsc will provide educational opportunities and experiences which are inclusive and we can i think we should add the word anti-racist in there somewhere which are inclusive and representative of a diverse anti-racist global community but you know i i remember last meeting um some
013of the board members also were arguing that he's not talking about race absolutely in general if we talk about issues we're talking about heterosexuals i just put that in shortened way but some people might wonder what those kingdoms are so spelling them out might not be okay but there are i'm sure i'm gonna i'm mute of isms um you just you oh i'm just muting myself i'm sorry um there are plenty of isms and we certainly would need to spend some time and also get some feedback from our community because we certainly don't want to leave out an ism tonight that if we left it with this broad brush then then certainly we're not leaving anybody else we're not leaving it is inclusive and and i don't know if this makes sense or not um
014but i will think that before we actually really approve this goal shouldn't we also kind of review the mission and the mission because the vision where we want to be uh and what we value then those goals should actually go to what we strive to be um i mean i don't think that any of these goals is against what we strive to be but um we could be more clear maybe in the next sessions or so we also check the vision and mission to make sure that the medium kind of aligns i don't know that emotion is necessary we can certainly just look at them at the next meeting and maybe spend some time with each other looking at them between now and then so that we're prepared with thoughts and ideas like judith was
015with this goal that will help make the conversation more efficient could we also then um ask our school community to to take a moment perhaps they could chime in as well and share their thoughts because we are only a small group of seven and we represent 89 square miles and we should um we should hear all voices to to actually um craft that mission to be current right and positive the other suggestion i might have in my professional world we've hired people to come in and help you develop a proper mission and vision statements um rather than us just so that's exactly what we did three years ago uh but times have changed and so it's likely time to look at that again and it might be that we don't need to change anything it's
016just kind of like but it gave the opportunity to bring in various stakeholder groups so we had teachers and staff and community representatives and businesses represented in board members and so so how would that look like would it be a board meeting would it be a retreat would it be we did uh we scheduled uh the facilitator to come in and we set dates and then we invited people okay um that could get within those dates and times and it was a process that we worked through right it's very good that would be having been through that process starting from scratch i would that would be my recommendation facilitator i don't believe that we can do it without including all stakeholder groups so i think that's really important we should yeah we can arrange that
017i believe for the fourth goal was written last year and times have changed and the wording needs to change and i'm not sure about the wording i know that we couldn't say racist last year very comfortably but this year feels like we can so times have changed and i think this port goal can be all encompassing global enough and yet specific to 2020. and some of the struggles that people are going through now and be inclusive enough so can we take a little goal for for acceptance and rework it um yeah i don't even know that we need to necessarily table it we're not approving them tonight so it's like a work in practice before we approve it it'll be something that everybody has to agree on and i don't think we can do that
018right now i i i do like the revision but we need time to hear other ideas and and i think you know trying to marry these up with the mission is the perfect idea that's what it should look like so there's nothing that's really stable we just aren't ready to approve them yet thank you so we're not voting for any of the goals actually just but if we have four goals we should probably be prepared with all of them before we approve them that we're not in agreement with the force or that we're gonna be waiting no i don't i don't know that we're not in agreement with it but we just need to be sure you know i think we all need to see it on paper i know i do myself i've heard
019it four times now and i i still don't remember exactly what you said but that's my god as much as i've heard it becomes visual and i think we should also still consider adding the fifth if there's no reason not i mean well and so i had also provided in the board packet the work that supports uh board goal over board goal for as it was written over the past a couple of years and moving forward so i think that um just having this discussion this evening and then going away again and looking at the work that we are currently doing um and making sure that this has the correct wording for the question that we wish to continue to go in as a district and then making sure that that aligns with our mission
020and vision statement so if we could bring in a consultant to lead us in that work and then make sure that our goals are in alignment with the mission and vision statement i see that all as one process and certainly the actionable items and the work of the year that then brings out from those goals is really critical so it's more than just that statement we also did discuss last week about the um the banner as you walk the conclusion that there are a lot of things that we shouldn't be celebrating that we need to really educate ourselves on on a lot of issues and um we need to put more thought into that as well so um if ten days gone by has anybody put me thought into that or any suggestions of what
021how we could rebrand that or is that something that we would discuss with the consultant as well i think that goes hand in hand with the mission and vision work and to talk about how that slogan came about was looking at the diversity that we have within our district which is not just about race but it's about all different marginalized populations so whether it's special education or english language learners or the list goes on and on so we we need to look at all of our marginalized populations and the diversity that that brings to our district excellent i um was uh it's been many months since we had a community engagement meeting because of the pandemic but one of the things that we had discussed was in the very end of last year was to
022celebrate the the new year evening we had no idea what this was going to bring but we do have about maybe 20 um posts on campus where there were the t-bird mascot banners and perhaps we could um introduce our our new mission and goal work um in these 24 and it may be just only 20 um empty banner places where we could um talk about the issues that we are going to tackle and and start real robust uh conversations and learning examples with with our entire community here on campus and along that line i would like to remind the board uh our entire district is participating this week in about seven hours of professional development uh with dr holly and so the board has been invited to participate in that work as well and so
023i feel that that has been really well received uh throughout the district i've been speaking with faculty and staff that have had the opportunity to get through the share of that professional development and there is a conversation on a culminating conversation with dr holly on friday so if you can get through that work i think it's really important uh dr holly actually does speak to just that our slogan of celebrating diversity so um it's interesting what he had to say i found his work to be very very engaging and very insightful so we as a community have a lot to learn and this is not our first step we've been doing some of this work since 2017. however given all that is happening in society right now we are pushing the fast forward button on
024this because we realize uh we need to do more and do better for all of our students so i really encourage all of you to do that work and join us on friday for that in-depth conversation with dr holly what time is that is i'm teaching i will give you that time uh but i don't have it handy right here because i'm going to use everything i have on my screen virtually it is virtual mm-hmm thank you for the invitation we're not allowed to have uh gatherings of greater than 50 so and is it recorded can we watch it after or not i think that will likely be recorded because all these other sessions are so i was actually going to suggest additional education for our board i feel like last week we had a
025lot of different opinions and but with common ideas um and to be able to speak to that and you know really get to these goals i feel like additional you know work needs to be done in part of the board um education on what diversity inclusion and belonging is i know that's a lot of work that i've done at my own job um so i think maybe i have a lot of knowledge that just you know over time i've gotten that and how to speak to that so i think this professional development would really be helpful for the board and i really would appreciate if if our board attended i'd also like to share with you that i've been in conversation with dr brown at ithaca city school districts uh school district and they are
026several years ahead of us in this work and so dr brown has extended the invitation that we work with city school district as we move forward in this culturally responsive work so i think that's an amazing offer to extend to us and in addition to that he has offered that his board members uh because they have tackled some of these challenges and worked through them but it was several years ago that they are also willing to work with our board directly so thank you to dr brown for that offer and i'm excited to hopefully take him up on that i enjoyed organ with him i have some other resources i can share with you um anybody else have anything for board forum i i have a couple things but i'm more than willing to let
027somebody else go first if they do so i uh you know as you all know we've been um inundated with emails this week around the black lives matter sign and i truly believe it's our due diligence to feel all of them regardless of what your feeling is for for the topic um and i wanted to address a few things tonight based on the emails we have received on the against side specifically some people's beliefs in what what black lives matter really means in terms of you know political anti-police so on and so forth so i've done some research on my own um on their website and so forth so what i want to do is based on some of the things that i've read from our emails and what i've seen here those of you
028that know better maybe than me or are just more supportive of it in terms of not being political i have a few questions that maybe you can clarify for me okay but i think as board members we need to fully look at you know the whole community and answer their questions um especially as much as as we've seen this past two weeks so the first the first item i want to ask you about is when it comes to the matter of um not supporting police defunding the police wherever you use the board to stand because right on the front page of the black lives matter website is hashtag defund the police so in my opinion they're promoting that is that something we as a board feel like we can be behind because it's on the
029front page of their website what is the url for that website because i'm sure there are many ways and there may be and i understand that are you in the main black lives matter website so i'm in uh the other thing is and i'm not sure about that because i have not researched that very well but i know that for example that when and this is not how i understand it but i understand that among people that talk about that that defunding the police doesn't mean taking all the money away from the police and eliminating the police it's actually investing in weapons and more in community relationships so it's more involvement of the police with the community not weaponizing them okay but i'm not sure this is what i understand from what i have heard
030about that is saying i'm gonna look at the website for black lives matter so i'm looking at the website right now and what it says is correct it is there it says at the bottom we call for a national funding of police we demand investment in our communities and resources to ensure black people not only describe but pride and then if you're with us um but you can easily see how people could look at that and and that was a question i even asked a friend of mine who knows about the movement that i did and that was kind of like the explanation that was given and it makes sense you know in communities where police and community members work together there's actually less crime and there's less uh fear of each other then there
031are more there's more trust so i'm i'm going to refer to something that happened in our own community this week not ours necessarily here but right in ithaca over the weekend and this is part of the issue with you know some some of the arguments people have there was an incident i believe it was on clinton street there was another couple surrounded by a black lives matter protest group and they they were chanting black lives matter and there was a bystander video taken in it and it happened to be just a block from the police department he ran to the police department banged on the door for help because the group had surrounded this couple in a vehicle the police wouldn't come out because they've basically been given a standout order from the city of
032ithaca so this individual tried to interject himself to help the people and he was pretty severely beat blood running down his face and i don't know if you've all seen it or not but these are the things that people are correlating with this and i'm again i'm bringing it up because we have to it's incumbent upon us to see the whole picture here and what people are talking about and what's coming at us and i watched the whole video and it was pretty disturbing you know the protesters were not peaceable they were being very aggressive towards this couple screaming in their face a little horn and when somebody tried to help them they got beat and it was you know that's not also and i know that's not what you support or anybody in this
033room but that's part of what we have to do but that's probably with any movement i imagine when there were protests for women's suffrage and women liberation you know there were some people peacefully advocating for those rights and then there's people that are there to look for trouble uh there was an interesting article actually because it was also misinterpreted you know in the media about a woman a couple that were having dinner some place and i don't remember where it was and they were surrounded by protesters and they make a big issue and she actually didn't raise a hand to support them even though she supported the movement first of all because they didn't say what part of the move you know which movement they were supported but then she also wrote an article in
034one of the newspapers to clarify that in reality the part that was filmed he sounded look very aggressive but nobody was actually aggressive with her and actually some person of the protest actually called the people he's like it's time to go let's go so i think in general again with every movement there's opportunities for you know people to do i don't disagree again i'm only bringing these points out because i feel like it's our duty to respond to everybody we also have seen that you know some people have been protesting against black lives matter movement and for the most they just stand on the sidelines and just process and some of them have been very aggressive too you know or peaceful protesters um i mean i'm sorry i don't know that's okay if you have
035something else well i i look because i hear i hear what and i was trying really to listen to what people were saying i tried to mark some of the things that people uh argue about foreign school um they say it's offensive and illegal all lives matter i don't think the sign really means that not all lives matter but my thought was and i like to use analogies if our children were dying at a disproportionate break compared to adults and somebody joanna comes and says let's put a sign that all children matter does that mean that adults don't right or that we are advocating for our children who are disproportionately dying or being affected by something so it's not pointing out that not all the lines matter because i'm latinx so that doesn't mean that
036i don't matter but that at this point we are looking for people that seem to be disproportionately and [Music] um but also in schools okay they're more likely to drop out to be suspended and there's research out there that it shows actually that it's not because they behave worse but because we're more subjective in um interpreting behaviors of other groups um they also mentioned that it's a political statement uh a religious statement that doesn't promote family unity and that our freedom is at stake so those are some of the comments i read um some were mentioned by one person some were mentioned by others and so i started researching is this a political move so i started like from scratch and actually i came back i came out uh um with the um us office
037of a special counsel that is actually referring to the um hatch activity violation that they determine that they love black lives matter is not a political movement uh he doesn't have a leader the network has not endorsed a political party for the handling it has no slogan it's not about being for to vote for anyone anyone is at their excuse me um actually at all the policies and things that they are given [Music] is not part of any political campaign so it will be different than saying or sponsoring a america great which is a nice thing to say but it's actually a slogan for a campaign so it's very different um and so based on these arguments they concluded that it doesn't express support um it doesn't need the qualifications so that kind of like
038fun you know i went with the i see the political movement it's not um it is a religious statement um i read and i read it part that it was mentioned for us to read i don't i don't know about religion um at all endorsing or not endorsing i mean they endorse rights for transgender people uh people from different sexual orientations i don't know if that is what the person was referring to when they're talking about religion but i didn't see any um call for any particular one our freedom is at safe and i wonder which whose film because we are all americans and so we all should have freedom i think it excludes certain children from our school district uh i don't know if that's true i mean with 85 percent white uh children
039of color and i think let us have an eight um less than five or six percent actually ratio so um i haven't seen the data to actually see which we're changing or not turning on color but um i don't think we are looking only for certain children we're just advocating that all children are safe have the same opportunity correct not the same way they are giving the same things they need and you know school should remain neutral and this is something that comes very close to my heart with everything that is going on i mean they will talk quiet does that mean complicity if we don't say anything what are we saying so i want to be clear that you know and i put that in my mind when i put my name forward to
040be in the school district the one thing i want is i want our student to experience themselves i want us to eat another list inside the first half of 100 new york city near school that's my first priority but i want that to be providing equity an opportunity for all the students to succeed because we don't want zombies to gather we want everybody to have the opportunity to be able to go through their life whatever they need and live and again i'm coming around to something at the end but back to how people may associate this politically again on the website under the what we believe there's a paragraph and i'll just read the last couple sentences engaged by the death of trayvon martin and the subsequent equivalent of the stellar george zimmerman and inspired
041by the third member to take over the florida state capitol by power and during the defenders we took to the streets a year later we set out together on the black lives matter freedom ride to ferguson in search of justice for mike brown and all of those who have been torn apart by state shanks and sanctioned violence and black racism anti-black forever changed we returned home and began building the infrastructure for the black lives matter global network which even even in its infancy has become a political home for many so that's just one thing in there that refers to politics and the other thing and i'll end with this and then kind of goes with what i'm what i'm getting at after you can say what you want if you go to the donate button
042it goes to a third third-party non-profit called act blue and that blue is a technology organization established in 2004 to the name of leading nonprofits democrats and progressive groups to raise money on the internet providing them with online fundraising software so they definitely identify with a particular political party and we say that because again those are two pretty solid examples right from their website that's the last i have on that before i come around to what i'm getting at here so i don't know if anybody wants to it was kind of a few uh like half an hour ago that we can make a list you know people say it's absolutely not a political movement and others say it is i think you can see it either way for sure depending on how you view
043it or how you read their own website scott um professionally i i teach journalism and and i'm always uh trying to encourage uh the people i work with to seek out the truth and to check sources and there was an article that i read today and trying to prepare for this meeting and i found a pretty um centrist media outlet usa today according to certain ratings um for example allsights.com will say usa today uh has a median bias rating of center so they are not leftist and not right and so usa today had has an article that you can look up that was published on july 17th of this year and it's under their nation section it says federal agency supporting black lives matter isn't partisan or political and it continues as expressing support for
044black lives matter movement isn't political or partisan an independent federal agency has set an opinion addressing questions from federal employees on the topic the u.s office of special counsel cleared the way for federal employees to support black lives matter movement and black lives matter global network while on duty so that is coming from right down the centrist media line saying that it's not political of course if if you subscribe to a more biased news network on either side you will then be hearing what you want to hear and what you're paying to hear um but uh and i'm not an expert on usa today in this reporting but maybe um we could get more clarification from from this particular u.s office of special counsel to know that they are indeed headlines saying supporting black lives
045matter isn't partisan or political i'm not making a point either way i'm i'm just pointing out it i i am how people could infer because we've seen those comments coming in and as i stated from the beginning as a board member we need to look at the whole picture and that's all i'm trying to do is look at the whole picture so i did my own research and i see things that could be construed as political or otherwise that's it so to end what i'm what i'm going to come around to is can we as a district create if if a sign in the yard is what people need to validate what's going on in these walls in terms of education and curriculum and anti-racism can we as a cumulative group with the public and
046the district and the staff create our own lessons create our own science maybe it's a piece of art maybe it's a banner something that is not attached to a national affiliation but something that is specific to us as a district that would give the saints and i don't know what that is i don't even have a suggestion just the idea is that we can do this as a community and detach ourselves from the what's been going on in the last two weeks because all i see happening the longer this goes on is more division and that's not helping anything and so i figured i would come here tonight and lay this out as a as an alternative because i don't see the sides are so divided and you've already emailed we need to do something
047to try to bring it together and that's that's my suggestion so i have something that i wrote because i'm much better putting my thoughts down on paper and reading them and i am just kind of lying up here i'm gonna go ahead and read what i wrote um recent events have made many of us reflect on how we can do better moving forward i believe educators now more than ever black lives matter is a fluid movement it doesn't actually matter if the founder was a liberal or pharmacist a capitalist or a person from another planet this is an opportunity that doesn't come around often and we cannot afford to miss it as such it is imperative that we do the work that we are ready and prepared to support our students and community members and
048cannot afford to lose this opportunity by taking action now we can position ourselves for success as an educational institution in the long run i would like to perform the motion developer and vote whether or not we remove the black sign until the students and community can create a signage of their own or come up with something on their own and when i do vote to keep the sign up does it agree does it mean that i agree with all of the actions of everyone associated with the black lives matter movement no it does not we were tasked last winter with reading fighting fragility by ron d'angelo which i'm assuming whale did um are our actions perfect no we know that because we read the book we've done the work i'm invested in supporting the social
049movement at this critical inflection line and our nation's history by engaging us through accountability and compassion and i'm here to help the school become more just more fair and more equitable i hope you all agree and we as elected members of the board need to take the stand for civil rights and vote on that i think that's really really well said becky we take it down until the students and the community community i don't think we're ready for a vote i if i write this down a lot of time reading this book what is that book so that people know becoming a better board member a couple of things that will jump out of me out here again i believe it's our job to listen to everybody and i highlighted santa claus section here says
050it's something that you must represent all issues your decisions must be made in the interest of the total school system and not made solely for special groups or interests appreciating the change comes slow well again i've got other sections here it talks about special interest groups and not becoming a part of respect special interest groups because we represent everybody and again that really is our job and i know the issue is critical i know it's important but we're also supposed to be listening and then we've seen those letters and some of them are nasty letters people who have written things that they shouldn't have written i i'm upset basically in amazon races without using my name and i don't know i know i have biases and i know i have racial whatever i know i
051do i'm working at being a good person and i but i just think we've gotta also listen with other people out there who represent them still and so again scott talks about putting our own sign out there our own [Music] and i understand like like you're suggesting that we are going to engage in the school community and coming up with our unique language to to really move the needle and make the changes we need to make and we need to do this starting now um i do want to say that the i don't think that it's something that the board needs to vote on because it's my understanding that if kimberly wants if uh decides that she wants to put the message that represents the school she wants to have support of the of the
052board we never voted to put it up we never voted to put it down but we certainly got a conversation going so kimberly jim i just want to clarify on that so at the time that we were presented with the donation of the sign um we did we did not have a policy on placing signs on the school premises and so i did reach out to legal for consult and at that time legal said certainly administratively the superintendent may place a sign or remove a sign on a school yard however she would never advise the superintendent act alone on that so yes i did seek out support from the board to both place that sign and then later on i got feedback from the board to remove that sign so i'd like to say tonight
053that i think we're all saying the same thing that we need to make a commitment to our students faculty and staff in this community that we want to validate and affirm the various cultures and diversity that we have within our community and teach our students to be global citizens so whatever sign that happens to take the form of um you know this board can decide decide that piece uh i think the work that needs to be done needs to be reflected in the mission and vision statement that needs to be revamped with special emphasis on goal number four and we really do like the wording that judith has offered this evening to rid of the isms because we're not just about race here we are mostly white population however we do have an obligation to
054welcome the individuality of all of those students and affirm their culture within our classrooms and our teachers are eager to do that work i do feel that right now there is a divide in the community and there is some angst on the part of our teachers that they cannot do this work fast enough and they don't really quit to do this work well yet because they are in the learning process but what i'm most proud of is that we have faculty staff and board that's willing and interested in doing the right work and so there are book studies going on and they're like i said last board meeting there's a large group of teachers and i want to say at this point 40 or maybe greater which is a significant percentage of our instructional staff
055that have taken this work on over the summer so the climate is right for it people want to do the work they they want to do better for our student population and so i'm just going to keep saying this isn't a new work for our district but there's a bright shiny light being shown upon it right now which is great to have the community with us and i think whether people are for or against that sign up front they're all seeing the same thing they want to value every single student and they want to give them an equitable opportunity within our district and i couldn't be more behind that we have an opportunity here it is an opportunity do you think that in a process of coming up and encouraging our school community to to
056make their own unique voice and messaging for this movement that we could um then take these submissions and perhaps use it as uh artwork for our empty banner spaces and rather than just having a sign that someone might remove when they're 25 feet up in the air throughout the whole campus and we have the hardware to do it we could really do something very uh community-based and very school-centric and very meaningful but i think that was the statement but in the meantime she made a motion to keep the sign until something else comes out so the emotions on the table i think maybe we should vote uh i think there's you know we have to vote for what we feel is right um if we decide to take the sign off you know we're basically
057telling many people that we are not recognizing systemic racism that's my perspective at least we're worrying about you know human lives or thinking that is a political statement whatever we want to move but i think is the time to put you know whatever decision we make is not going to make everybody happy right um so we have the opportunity we have been talking about equity and diversity and inclusion we want it so um talk to us for voting now also i'd like to still comment that um i did read the petition that was uh shared with us and one of the things that i write this is not just about black lives matter this is also about indigenous people and um we need to also um really look at how we are studying and celebrating
058indigenous cultures and we live in an area here in the finger lakes that was populated well before white settlers came and i believe that if the city school district does not and you can verify this on their website that they don't uh celebrate columbus day as a regional holiday in fact they celebrate indigenous peoples day um and again maybe this is something that you know we need to really look at this as a broad brush they mentioned this it is important maybe as a board we could consider the option of renaming the data that we typically have observed as columbus day to be more in line with uh with many school districts nationwide for uh celebrating indigenous peoples so before we vote i just i have one more comment um i've been trying to find
059out how many schools where other schools in our area have landed on this issue and from the best i've been able to come up with is that we're the only school that has taken the stand to put the sign up and and the other schools have not for simply for the reason that we find ourselves in now because of the division in the community the far side's you know right wrong or indifferent other schools have chosen to stay away from it so that they can concentrate on the work that they need to and i just you know i know there is no right answer here because we have a group that's going to be upset with the sign stays we have a group that's going to come down at this time sign goes and i
060go back and i'm actually really glad to hear the second part of your motion and we need to come up with our own thing because that's exactly what i was supposed to i just i just feel like the division is growing every day whatever the reason is whatever the decision is somebody's not going to be happy and there's going to be on facebook and all that stuff like there was last week and um you know i i saw the comments randy saw you know and it's just you know it's that doesn't help that that doesn't help but what an opportunity we have as a school district to be the first exactly right not only that i would rather be in the news as the first school that is actually speaking up and supporting this movement
061that coming out as hypocrites i would suggest putting a date to this i think that that you know i mentioned columbus day i think it's the 8th of october that is just one month shy we can do a lot of work engaging our community one month to come up with with our right message where we are unified in this work because if we just say that we're going to do it we're going to wait we could be waiting a very long time and i i the time is down for this change there's also a possibility that this message that they want to send is black lives matter so you know i i don't know if we need to put a hard date on it i think that's kind of getting mangled up in perfectionism a
062little bit but i do think we need to vote on this oh yeah and i think some people were saying that you were used i was muted no no it's because all the microphones are on this muscle all the way around muted if we i'll turn our mics off um and i also want to ask like from our 30 000 foot view kimberly can you please um like we make this type of a vote and then how does that and how do wheels get into motion so my preference would be wheels get into motion and that we bring in a consultant to do the mission and vision work and everything is then filtered through that so as we move forward um i just did see that somebody mentioned in the chat that ithaca city school
063district does a black lives matter uh month or week i don't recall which that is and so that's where they've moved to it's very educational uh in nature and so that has removed and helped to educate the community that it's not political it's about education for students so i also work today school district provided banks to teachers to attend the process and that other school districts also have had a similar statement in their website kind of so i would like to put forward the motion to call for a vote on whether or not to take i guess we have many people helping with the phrasing on this um on whether or not the black blackness matters sign stays up until the students and community take action and create signage so [Music] i believe becky is
064saying the motion is to leave the sign up until students and community members and faculty and staff have an opportunity to weigh in on whether or not to create our own messaging which is valuing all diversity cultures yes all right so my guest vote will be to leave the sign up um and yes it's to leave it on leave it up until until until you sign in and that and that messaging is not going to be voted on by the board it will be voted by the students it would be through this mission and vision work who is the stakeholder group so community members students faculty staff it's a large group representative vader all right oppose the post sign stays up as an opportunity to grow into what we're going to become as we work
065together to define who we are in these turbulent times where there's so much fear we need to focus on children and educating them and leading the way to value them all right so kind of on that note i have one last thing that i kind of prepared um because there's been a lot lost these last couple weeks in terms of what's been going on here so like becky prepared something in writing it's easier to get all my thoughts down but i want to take this opportunity to offer a statement not from the entire board but just me as the board president a parent and the taxpayer last couple weeks have been particularly challenged for everyone challenging for everyone here the district has been working tirelessly to prepare the school to open an attempt to accommodate
066the staff students as best they can amidst all this the community finds itself in a very intense debate surrounding the black lives matter sign in the schoolyard there's been many many emails from both sides of the discussion around the sign many have been very respectful while others not so much i'm asking you to show a little respect and compassion to this board the administration and the entire staff at tcsd since this topic has escalated in the past two weeks the administration is trying to remain focused on opening the district with the safety protocols accommodating personnel that have special needs due to the risk component ongoing capital construction and displacement of faculty from their classrooms increased disinfection and sanitation additional preference professional development for administrators and staff new technology and infrastructure to support instruction and remote
067teaching resignations and filling of positions onboarding of no employees shift in instruction and professional development to support our hybrid model reporting requirements and planning is required by the state department of health and compliance with executive orders personnel matters migration of new software platforms this is just a short-lived list of the amount immense amount of work that's gone into preparing to open school for the first time in six months i'm not trying to minimize the importance of any issue the community brings to us when simply asking the entire community to respect the fact that this is a volunteer board the administration and the entire faculty staff of this district have the absolute best intentions in mind we are all here to see our students succeed the best vulnerability so something said that you don't particularly agree
068with don't like i'm asking you to simply be nice it's very possible for human beings to disagree and still be respectful of other opinions after all we're setting an example for the children of this district how wonderful would it be to show them how to communicate respectfully and see the end result everyone can live with i personally want to thank each and every one of you let's take the time to send the message to the board these past couple weeks we're on a very important topic this particular situation proves to me just how vested the community is in our schools thank you thank you scott anybody else i think this has been a good discussion to engage in uh for the community and for us growth and and trying to see each other's sides too
069so i think it's important that we respect what everybody has to say whether you agree or not important conversations so may i ask how did the first few days of school go and are we ready to open the doors monday i will tell you that uh district-wide people are working beyond their capacity so there's a lot we put a lot on their plates in terms of professional development um our it team especially has been running around trying to get devices in the right places in the right hands and make sure that everything is working in working order before next week as scott mentioned uh our teachers are working on several new platforms we've built a couple of new platforms recently so there are a lot of moving parts still at this time but i think
070the general mood is a excitement about welcoming back our students and getting back to the normalcy of teaching if we can call it that and we'll all feel better once we just open those doors but it is a very heavy lift and i feel very fortunate to have the strong faculty and staff and administrative team that we have i have no doubt that we can do this and we'll do it really well and perhaps stand up in the region so we have an incredibly dedicated staff i just want to remind the general public that our teachers really don't work over the summer and that has not been the case many have volunteered hours and hours and hours and we have had numerous teacher leaders stand up and lead professional development for others so no one
071here is in it on their own there is a lot of support but nonetheless it is it's stressful we didn't change one thing we changed multiple things and people are feeling that but again they're caring for each other and we're caring for them and the community cares for them so i just ask the community for your patience it won't all be perfect but i just keep reminding everyone that at the core of it we have solid instructors and we care about our kids and we want them to have the best possible learning outcomes and i have every bit of confidence that we will do that oh i think it's our job we had a request from one of the community members if there was time for a public comment we have in the past that
072person the board of meetings done [Music] recorder there's nothing she's waiting for microphones so scott can turn his volume up so we're able to hear the questions i will is everybody's microphone muted and also the volume on your computer um so i don't have the verbiage in front of me but please state your name where you're from if you're district resident and uh keep your comments to five minutes or less thank you yes thank you so much my name is molly wads at krauss i'm a trumansburg resident technically in covert just over the county line in seneca county um i have a kindergartner entering this fall and a second grader thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak um speaking on behalf first is one of the anti-racism petition collaborators i wanted to briefly
073update that there are now about 240 signatures and we intend to send an updated list with additional comments tonight or early tomorrow uh now speaking on behalf of myself i just wanted to say that some might wonder why the timing why the urgency now of such a petition regarding anti-racism standards in our schools when schools everywhere are in the depths of chaos that this pandemic has caused we know the administrative staff and teachers and board of education members and non-non-teaching faculty are working tirelessly trying to figure out the reopening of our schools and we are very very grateful i'd like to emphasize that justice does not wait black and brown and indigenous lives matter all the time and systemic racism especially embedded within institutions like the public school system as a whole is entirely interconnected
074to this pandemic and its disproportionate effects on families of color in fact it is completely inseparable from the death wreckage and suffering of covid19 fixing systemic racism and education does not rest on the shoulders of our teachers or even you as the board of education or the administrative staff many of whom the teachers i speak specifically are wading through exhausting and devastatingly difficult waters right now some of them parents or caregivers themselves questioning the careers they've chosen struggling with their mental and spiritual health etc i want to emphasize that we see you i see you but this this petition this call is not merely about a sign but about what that sign and the removal of that sign and even the conversation about that sign represents please do not feed your community with empty platitudes
075about broadly worded change or trust us we are addressing this please expect you have a community invested so deeply in the school these children and trumansburg future that we will continue to hold you accountable to what you say to what you write and most of all what you do you have a community filled with individuals who are hungry for change all of whom bring their own unique and extraordinarily various talents ideas resources experiences to the table please don't just listen to them but invite genuine collaboration we are waiting and we want to thank you for your time thank you molly um i believe that's the only one that had requested so having no others i'll look for a motion to adjourn second all those in favor of adjournment kerry thank you thank you everybody there's
076more times here to celebrate johanna's