001welcome everyone to our march the 17th 2021 regular board meeting i would like to say happy saint patrick's day to all please rise to say the pledge of allegiance thank you one two three i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay this is uh uh this is gonna be a long evening uh so get ready for the ride um our apologies uh to uh our listening audience and to our speakers uh we had a meeting prior to this that went over and we apologize to you for um you know we ask that you mute your phones so that we can move forward we're starting off today uh the board recognition and
002i want to talk about two of our uh bps champions who have retired and and and let's uh be clear we have uh a awful lot of people who retire from our district and we are grateful and appreciative to each one of them however when we have people who i have worked close with over the years and who have just illustrated and made such a a big difference in our district i felt that it was the need for the board to acknowledge them our first technology is uh judy biandi is retiring as the assistant director of finance and the plant department and its effect it was effective january the 30th of this year and she served us for 45 years and she was the first woman and so in honor of women history month she
003was one to make history in our district we are proud of that and she had a reputation because her background was financed that she would find money where there was allegedly no money and she would make in addition to that our contractors like to work with judy because she made sure that they got paid on time so we well wish her that she has a safe happy and prosperous remainder of her life and we appreciate you judy for what you did for our school and i just want you to know that i have you on speed dial in the event that i need you now paul mcdonald retired on the 30th and paul uh has 25 years under his belt all the institutional knowledge that's leaving out the door i wish somewhere in space or
004in time we were at the point where we could clone some of that knowledge and put it in a and put it in a capsule and inject it in someone else but nanospace is not there yet but when we talk about paul he retired as the director of facilities planning design and construction and in those 25 years uh paul oversaw so many different things but the joint school construction board uh which was a 1.3 billion dollar project 48 schools between the years 2014 we were able to do it during that period and if you are on some of the calls that i am on uh districts are trying to figure out how buffalo did it and a lot of people reach out to him paul is a preservationist at heart and he loved to save
005our buildings and he loves to save uh uh historical monuments and things so i'm sure in his retirement he's going to continue to save those but i just wanted to acknowledge him the architect that he is and he was our first architect our first culinary school and uh so many firsts in this man's 25 year he comes from a history a family who has a history of working with our school district uh would you like to say anything um on behalf of yourself but i just want you to know that we you will uh definitely uh be missed and you know i have you on speak down because you know that this is common no and i know and i i do expect some calls um yeah for those of you that don't know me
006um i come from family teachers my dad my mom my sister's a teacher in sweet home my grandparents my grandparents met in at south park high school and were married because they worked together my grandfather went on to become the first principal of kensington high school and the library is now named the thomas j mcdonald library so i became an architect thinking i was going to get as far away from education as i could and where i end up i end up with a buffalo public schools um but as miss cotman said preservation is my love and uh we were able to prove that we could take 19th century schools and make them into 21st century learning environments and i would put our schools our buildings our classrooms up against any schools in the state
007in the country and i do travel all around the state i'm a member of the american institute of architects and vice president of education and people are constantly asking me how did you do it buffalo and uh so i'm very very proud of that so thank you everyone and uh i'm going to keep very busy in my retirement thank you do i have any board members that would like to say something to uh paul before we let him go judy was not able to join us today [Music] no hands up oh i see your hands up please speak out go ahead uh uh let's see lou petrucci why don't we start with you thank you sure you know it was uh it was my pleasure to work with paul in so many different projects i
008think paul is being unusually modest uh under his guidance and leadership and those in in his the architect's office we really did have a first class uh buildings and grounds uh i know that when i have served on the big five when i would go to to the council of great city schools people were always so impressed by our buildings and our structures and how we're able to accomplish so much and you know that has a direct impact on achievement as well because when you have good buildings it helps to aid for our students they're not distracted by a poor learning environment it really helps our kids focus on the goal of achieving high goals so thank you paul uh you may you didn't mention any of the awards that you won while you're here
009but that's okay we know that you did uh but thank you paul you're going to be sorely missed thank you lou thank you next we have uh board member jen akuzi whether you may know it or not you impacted a whole lot of um understanding in me around preservation working uh when i was you know parent before school board and we were trying to fit middle college into different buildings and my kids were going to middle college and how angry and upset i was around how things were going you sat down and you talked to me about you know the different the different um i guess the reasoning behind it but also the preservation aspect of it they really sparked my interest and i just needed you to know that you know we may not
010have connected much over the years but that impact really helped me realize just how intricate our buildings are and it also helped me to calm down you know i'm not easy person to to talk to when i'm when i'm at that level but you were able to do that and i just want you to know i appreciate that and i respect you for it thank you thank you so much and then we have board member terrence hurd uh paul um i just want to say thank you for your work that you did in this district i haven't personally worked with you on projects but i've seen you you know quite a few times and um just personally thank you and your family for your contribution to the city of buffalo our children and the city
011of buffalo and um i know somehow you'll find a way to continue on with your work somehow you know unpaid or paid whatever but uh but but um i'm sure it's in your heart and i'm sure we'll see you again thank you so much thank you mr herd thank you continuing with our board uh recognition i am going to give a shout out and i'm sorry oh i'm sorry um dr cash go ahead you have your mute on they muted me from the main okay you're good paul i just wanted to on behalf of the bps staff and family uh really acknowledge your almost 30 years of stellar service uh your energy your passion and your love for buffalo particularly buffalo public schools and the first class edifices that are here in buffalo your remarkable
012background as an architect uh it's just been invaluable service to us helped us usher through the 1.4 billion dollar school building renovation project one of the largest in the country at the time and i still think it's one of the most significant for a whole school system at one time to upgrade all of their school buildings that's that's amazing again we wish you the very best and please help us uh to continue give us stern reminders if you see buildings looking like they're falling into disrepair you don't let that happen you just let us know and whatever board is here whatever superintendent is here uh i'm sure they will get right on it so again your back your service has been invaluable thank you that's wishes to you and keep up that work on on
013on all of the things you do and of course thank you judy thank you for all of your service um and helping us through the years thank you everyone okay all mines are clear okay fine so we're going to give a shout out to one of our uh high school students who because she is handling her business today she is not available she has uh playing um a basketball game uh we have to mention uh city honors uh tyra wood his first bps girl basketball player to surpass 2 000 career points which she accomplished this past friday during the ladies sensors 60 to 23 triumph over the isles of olmstead kyrah is headed to temple university and would have been with us tonight had her team winning streak not kept her on the emerson court
014as we speak we will bring kyra to a future meeting when she is available but we want to salute our young people who are doing excellent and um we look forward to meeting her on a one-to-one in the very near future and my final board recognition is an honor of a fond memory of lord heart yeah yeah appearance it is worth applauding well he is my final uh recognition is a fond memory of lloyd hargrave on february 18th of this year the buffalo public schools in the city of buffalo lost a notable and tireless champion for all children lloyd j hargrave senior dedicated most of his life to engagement with our district encouraging our excellence and forging long left lasting one-on-one relationships with many of us he shared his expertise particularly of title one education
015policies with us locally and with a national audience most importantly he never ceased to put children and family first in his advocacy lloyd fargread senior will be missed so very much by us because he will never be replaced i have fond memories of lloyd we agreed to disagree a long time ago but we both agreed that there was something that needed to be done and he chose his way of doing it and i chose mine i can tell you that i did not know how much respect lloyd had for me until there came a time where he had to make his presence known in our city and then in our district to support me and i told his family at the at the wake that it was almost worth going through what i went through
016that day when lloyd walked in because that meant yeah that's the real deal that meant that he really respected me and he cared and he got out he hadn't been he had been a little under the weather during that period but he got up and he came down there to make sure that i was being taken care of in the right way and for that i respect him and i i love him and i loved his his his uh tenacity and his ability to just fight for our children see what we have to understand is that we don't always have to agree on how we go about getting it done but we have to agree that it must get done so lloyd rest in peace uh uh dpcc i was at their meeting the other
017day they've got some things coming forward uh in regards to um um lloyd uh uh uh memorializing him in the future and i'm looking forward to working with them on that with all that said and without further ado dr cash i would like to turn this meeting over to you to get your superintendent's update after which we will have our speakers come forward president comments what i would recommend this evening is that you have the speakers go first i have five really really important topics gonna take me some time to go through and they are at the top of mind for the school district right now so i would recommend that the speakers go so that they don't have to wait uh as long as it's gonna take for me to give my update thank
018you board members are you in agreement with changing the agenda today to accommodate uh speakers uh may i have a a thumbs up all in favor we agree okay so we're in agreement with that thank you uh no opposed thank you okay so without further ado bring our speakers forward uh uh who's handling that is it darren brown are you handling that for us today jim brown who's handling our speakers don't today that you can okay thank you so much all of our speakers are on right now i will ask mike lucci to unmute them you want me to go through the list mrs cottman i have the list here if you want me to uh call the names out after i read the comments to them yeah it's up to you because we okay
019i just didn't know if you needed to be in city hall to do i mean in the office to do it i didn't know okay okay good we're good then okay at this time the board welcomes speakers who have signed up to speak at tonight's meeting please be reminded that all speakers remarks must be limited to three minutes or less we ask that the speakers be mindful that this is a business meeting open to the public and televised local attendees and viewers include persons from throughout western new york including children this board asked that the speakers conduct themselves professionally and if their comments remain civil and courteous bearing in mind that they will be heard by people of all ages this is an opportunity for buffalo's residents to address the buffalo board of education about
020issues that serve the public interest and district's mission and the board asks that speakers demonstrate appropriate quorum you are allowed three minutes thank you for joining us our first speaker today is terenda brown parent of westminster community charter school uh mr mrs brown or mr mrs brown are you there i'm here you have the floor hello my name is mrs brown i am a parent of um six children my association with westminster community charter school have gone on for about about 23 years in total um all six of my children have graduated from that school all six of my children at this particular time i have also graduated from high school i just want to get on board saying that i'm looking for the renewal for the charters um renewal for westminster i hope that
021all the things that westminster have accomplished over the years ensuring our dedication to our children showing our dedication to our parents how we are all for sending our children off into our proper um a proper educational background and a good head start and i feel that's what westminster will provide and has been providing all this time for our children thank you thank you for your comments you're welcome our next speaker is allison giomundo teacher westminster community charter school allison are you there can we hear you okay we will go to our next speaker and if we can we will come back and see if she is there our next speaker is chantal tucker parent westminster community charter school good evening everyone as a parent as a parent of a child that goes to westminster community
022charter school with the oc it takes a village to raise a child in this case a school this is how i feel about wccs the teachers and staff where they hurt on a sleeve when it comes to the students whom they teach and serve the avenues of communication they give to me as a parent is excellent all the sixth grade teachers have my phone number and contact me if there's any issue with my child if there is an issue it gets resolved very quickly and a game plan is created with an active involvement from my child in regards to his learning there's another saying teamwork makes the dream work and that is what wccns does for me and my family they truly go by their mission statement creating a safe and caring environment and promoting
023community involvement and everything they do to keep us informed and with the ultimate goal of every student being academically successful i give them a reading of five hours thank you mrs tucker are you come is that the end of your statement thank you thank you thank you um mrs tucker all right um uh we will go back and see if allison giomundo is there okay we're going to move forward because we have to wrap this up uh next is sandra mcbride teacher at westminster community charter school there's sarah mcbride can you hear me okay yes we can good i am sarah mcbride i am a kindergarten teacher at westminster community charter school in august the dedicated teachers at my school were given the option by the bts to teach only remotely the teachers overwhelmingly disgusted
024and voted to offer in-person learning too our school community has been so appreciative of those efforts to meet the educational needs of our students while being safe as i said i am a kindergarten teacher and this year i have the class of remote kindergarten learners therefore i have a very direct line to these families every single day i hear how grateful parents and caregivers are for the teaching the flexibility the support and the overall positive attitudes at our school westminster has always had a strong sense of community and because of that we've been able to meet the challenges of this pandemic i thank you so much from the bottom of all our hearts to the board and the district for your continued support of our school thanks thank you very much teacher mcbride thank you
025our next speaker is khadijah assigned citizen slash sibling khadijah hassan are you there okay khadijah hassan we will right here i i see her on the screen mrs cottman khadijah are you not able to speak or unmute her screen is frozen now okay let's go to the next one and then we'll pray let's come back we'll come back to her how's that next we have parent jessica bauer walker who is no stranger to this board hi good evening sorry khadijah is saying that she can't unmute hear me now hear me now yep we can go ahead are you khadijah okay okay yeah i'm sorry i was having trouble unmuting for whatever reason okay this is the khadijah hassan citizen slash sibling good evening my name is khadija hussein um and i am a sibling of
026two students in buffalo public schools and also a community health worker and i was just here today because in january i came to the board meeting i was speaking on a very important sensitive topic which was the overall health of our students and their families that's related to going to school um during the epidemic and i listed some of the things that our students in their family said about the stress that they're um going through and being overwhelmed and feeling they're mentally unstable due to all the work that they um they're getting from school um in the middle of a pandemic i personally felt like after my teeth i felt very hurt and almost overlooked um and as much as we understand that the district is under a lot of stress right now we also
027i was just saying that we need the district to also understand that we are all under a lot of stress um our students and their families are also under a lot of stress and we get that no one was pandemic but i also feel like there's resources out there um and nurses are people like myself community health workers um caregivers um and different types of people that's advocating and loosening up the voices of um their families um we are being asked to participate in different uh places but our work does not feel like is being appreciated or acknowledged um we are also spending a lot of time coming to different meetings um and coming into yeah come into different meetings and listen up the voices of our students and their um families but we do
028not feel like we are also being listened to um over the responses and also feel like there's not actions being taken when we speak um and i understand that a lot of times when we speak we're just being told thank you for speaking um i'll come to the right person but i just want to lift up the importance of how important it is for us to work together as a whole because i'm constantly being told to speak to nadia nasheer and i i highly appreciate the work and the effort that she's putting in when i do voice my concerns with her but it's just i also just want to um [Music] like communicate this out to the district or something that works we're very tired and frustrated and we're really looking for a change and
029um yeah basically we're questioning we're looking for a change and i'm just hoping that in the future we can feel like we're actually being listened to and not just heard thank you thank you next we have jessica bauer walker parent thank you board member cotman um good evening everybody thank you also for the recognition of lloyd hargrave who has been such an important leader and parent advocate to so many of us who've been doing this work for many years thank you khadijah for coming and speaking i wish that you had time to hear khadijah's story and all that she goes through to be at these meetings and what she does to be a mother to her baby as well as help take care of her siblings and all the work that she does in our
030community as a community health worker i am a mother as well and also a community health worker and i just want to be clear we don't come to these meetings to complain we come to advocate because we love our children we love buffalo public schools and we believe in the power of public public education to be transformative to create a more just equitable and inclusive world and we can't achieve that if we don't discuss our challenges and truly listen to and partner with parents and students we as mothers are tired and frustrated and we need a change we have borne the brunt of the caretaking and educating of our children and filling so many community needs right now women have left the workforce at a much higher rate than men have many of us that
031are still able to work are balancing an enormous amount in both our work and family lives we come to these meetings asking you to partner with us to communicate coordinate and collaborate with families and communities we're asked for specific suggestions and we've given you many ideas and solutions we've even been told by district leadership all i hear are complaints or join a committee this is hurtful and disrespectful when you tell us you're doing things like implementing the wellness policy when we've told you that you're not our direct experience it devalues our work and our contributions and what we have done as community health workers and parent leaders we are not problems to be fixed we're not boxes to be checked for parent involvement we're here to advocate for ourselves and our families and our community
032i'm encouraged that the district is taking a restorative justice and restorative practice approach i would like to just remind us that the restorative practice framework is to recognize harms and needs we have an obligation to put it right and we have to engage everybody in the healing process so again we're here to let you know that some harm has been done there is some hurt here that we have expressed um there's a lot of parents who cannot come to these board meetings so we're trying our best to lift up and amplify those voices and we look forward to finding ways that we can truly partner and come into restoration trauma-informed and culturally competent approaches as we move forward thank you jessica bauer walker next up is annetta rose parent vanetta yes can you all hear
033me yes we can okay good evening everyone and good evening president belton kaufman thank you very much um i am just here to provide support to uh khadijah hussein uh we shared a meeting in for the um emergency uh child care task force erie county child care task force where she was there and dr coretzi's was there she posed a question to dr caretzy's regarding communication methods that could be used to better serve families of other cultures especially ones that are where english is not their first language she mentioned how it is difficult for them um to receive any written materials and process the written materials in english or to check the website and that they need a more connective approach of in terms of outreach from the school district so that they can learn
034where indeed the resources are for um virtual learning support centers and anything else at that point she was told it was basically thrown back in her lap and told not to wait on the buffalo public school district for any help that she should take uh uh i believe it was uh get it in motion or take legs with the issue um and uh reach out to students and uh families and basically get it done herself and i just really really felt very uh um uh just frustrated um and shocked by that approach because there was no offer for partnership there was no connection or communication no resources offered uh no plan or at least the uh beginning of a plan that possibly could be discussed even after the meeting and you know that just really
035was uh just i was just really really very very shocked by that once again um in terms of cultural responsiveness which i know is a big push by the buffalo public school district and i do compliment them on that um this was again made me wonder um do all the members of the board of education or within the buffalo public school district administration uh truly understand how to approach and communicate um uh and work with children and families that are expressing need constantly and having it just outwardly thrown back at them um really really is just bothersome um it made me wonder how much uh other uh times is this a microcosm of other times that khadijah uh through who already you know reaches out to through children and parents uh by virtue of what
036she does every day professionally so okay itself so i guess what i'm trying to say is that um you know that we really need to somehow fix right this wrong uh come up with a systematic systemic approach at uh making this better and having immediate action steps being taken because i'm sure thank you thank you i'm sorry to cut you off but you can finish your last statement you're sure what okay i was just gonna say i'm sure everyone agrees that in serving these these children and families we are improving the school district as a whole thank you very much thank you for your comment next we have a santa banchesta citizen parent grandparent implication of child wellness policy sue are you there susan chester okay we're going to move forward next we have gwendolyn
037coleman parent excellence in school slash curriculum is gwen dylan calling i'm here can you hear me i can hear you yes yes i'm a grandparent i have three grandchildren who attend westminster community charter school and i've had great experiences at this school with my grandchildren um i have a kindergarten grandson who's reading at e level he knows colors additions subtraction alphabets his teacher um and his teacher aid they go above and beyond to make sure the students who are excelling that they get you know um work to meet their curriculum you know they do have a curriculum to follow i have a fourth grader who you know they go virtually hybrid and the teacher you know they do great work when they're in school they do excellent work when they're at home i have a
038sixth grader who his teacher his science teacher if he has a problem he'll even work with the children on saturdays now to me that's a village that's somebody who's teaching these children who never you know say they don't want to go to school they don't like school they look forward to the days that they do go to school and i appreciate that because to see that a child is willing to get an education because of the way the teachers are and the school itself um they offer these children so many different curriculums um even though it's virtual they have ub coming in to do project science projects with the students and they look forward to the two days that they do though and to me i really appreciate that type of education because like they
039say a mind is a terrible thing to race and time is as well and i look forward to the mondays and tuesdays that i bring my fourth and sixth graders there and uh you know the week that i bring my channel got me there because to me it shows that they're giving an excellent education these teachers go above and beyond to make sure these children are given the education that they need if there's a problem they they'll dojo me they'll call me they'll send a letter you know they keep me informed of everything that the children are doing um they keep progress reports um i'm just proud to have my grandchildren there and me i would um recommend this school to everyone i have eight more years to go here because my grandson has been
040kindergarten and i'm going to see that he graduates from there thank you is that your statement coleman thank you so much for sharing that with us next we have another person yes uh suvan truska has joined the meeting oh okay i will go back then susan chester citizen parent grandparent hi i'm sorry i could get off mute also so uh here i am again today to advocate for the full implementation of the district's whole child health is academic wellness policy which was developed by all district state stakeholders including parents and students an engagement of parents and students in this process was extremely valuable in creating a nationally recognized policy from my experience and perspective the implementation of the policy has not been a priority for the district from my perspective the health and well-being of
041the students does not appear to be a priority i mean the district wellness coordinator position has not been filled and there's a lack of knowledge and understanding of health services or public health the last time i called in i was asked what aspects of the policy were not being implemented in order to clarify to the board of the district administration on the shortfalls of the implementation i have a copy of the policy that it will be shared couldn't get it to you today sorry and i highlighted sections that indicate areas not being implemented but i want to say over and over i kept highlighting the district wellness coordinator you don't have anybody in that position who is addressing issues and monitoring the progress for example the yrbs it was done in 2019 there's still no
042report uh k to 12 comprehensive sexuality education is not being taught so there's a lot of things not being done and it's highlighted and you will get a copy of that bps students are entitled to opportunities that will enable them to grow up in the healthiest way and become thoughtful caring and self-sufficient adults this can be achieved with full implementation of the whole child health is academic wellness policy this is a major equity issue facing our students for full implementation there must be administration that prioritizes health and the well-being of all students in an infrastructure that has staff to implement and monitor progress please prioritize the health and well-being of students and staff please prioritize partnering with parents and share decision-making on issues of health and well-being please prioritize full implementation of the wellness policy
043and the infrastructure to support the implementation and monitoring of the policy remember research has shown that healthy students do better in school and have higher grades than their less healthy peers our children deserve an equitable chance to be healthy and reach their full potential thank you thank you uh sue then treska it's good to see all of you it's good to see you and this gum and thank you for in your retirement uh we're continuing to work with us we will we will work thank you so much thank you bye-bye okay bye-bye next we have uh another person who's not a stranger to us uh sam rafford cao we the people's slash parent president with the culture mou yes mr radford um left a message in the chat for us it says sorry i am
044not able to stay on the call to speak tonight due to the late start i have to teach bible study i will i will be on the list and speak at the next meeting my apologies mr um bradford for that but this would have been the time for real if the superintendent had done his uh his recognition normally this would have been the time period that we would have been speaking finally i have um dr linda wendy mastrata parent and deep of and dpcc president with an update dr misrata good evening everyone good evening um okay i i need to to take a step back from the comments that i intended to deliver tonight um my plan for my dpcc update was to highlight our last business meeting and other input from our parent leadership
045within last month and that input that update is still very important primarily because of our discussions about honoring our sage advisor mentor and friend lloyd hargrave instead i will email that update which includes a request to name the parent center at bennett high school in his honor and a renewal of our request for our cfo to attend our april or may business meeting however i feel that i would be doing the memory of lloyd a great disservice if i didn't say something about our other speakers tonight i'm going to ask everyone to take a deep breath with me and really listen not just to me but to everyone please listen to understand many of us participated in the urban forum yesterday every session that's led by dr morel and her staff begins with norms the
046first norm is always a request that we listen to hear rather than listen to respond all of our families are hurting those of our students and our teachers and our staff and our community leaders and our school leaders we may be struggling in different ways but we have one thing in common we do not feel like we're being heard one of our struggles is the stress of not knowing a plan i've been on many meetings over the last year we were told that there'd be a plan for the return of our students by the end of july but that didn't happen then it was four to six weeks after school began but that didn't happen in mid-december we were told that there would be a plan to give all students the option to be in
047our buildings by mid-march it's march 17th and i'm not even confident that my daughter will be in a building by the fourth quarter so yes i do not feel like we're being heard added to that we're waiting to hear more about the ransomware attack while it's important to get our kids back into the building for academics we have families who are very concerned about the security of our family's personal information in our district files we're waiting for that communication lloyd's hard work was about shared decision making for our families every stakeholder needs to be informed through timely and meaningful communications and we want to be engaged from the first day of planning setting goals identifying obstacles discussing solutions and collaboratively implementing plans that's how we wish to be engaged not through bringing you problems with
048potential solutions in three minutes but through a meaningful and collaborative process during my course phd studies i learned about the history of in local apprentice theories of education but those practices do not work in the 21st century i'm willing to bet that we could all do a better job of listening to understand this will truly under honor lloyd hargreaves memory by authentically treating families as colleagues and engaging in collaborative shared decision making with all of our stakeholders please take another deep breath we've got this when we work together i thank you for your time and attention thank you uh dr misrata thank you um before i i'm sorry dr cash um before uh let's do the uh do you have any response to our speakers tonight dr cash colleagues would you like to respond to
049the speakers uh would you like me to respond how would you like to handle this part i have a long um item series of items you want me to say a few words i would yes i only have a few words yes i would like for you to say something and if board members would like to comment certainly we want to appreciate any parent who is thrilled with the services that their school is providing to their children or to their grandchildren so for the westminster community charter school speakers the four parents grandparent and a teacher um we we're pleased that you're pleased that's good to know in the three speakers that spoke about i don't know community health uh being frustrated tired and in need of change i think we all share that sentiment um
050what i do know is that i have an extraordinary associate superintendent of student support services dr tanja williams who reached out and works with all of the parent groups under the aegis of parent congress and i've always directed her to work closely with parents and figure out what their needs are provide services support services for our students and families that's what that whole division is all about he says he's there 24 7 to take calls to have a conversation and to work the work work the work so work with dr williams so that it can be clear what it is you want i'm not clear uh what it is that you want us to do uh with this community health worker thing i think you should help i do think you should do everything you
051can under the time that we're going through to help and reach out with parents your partner with us then your apartment and let's work together and and do that i've said that numerous times in this space in terms of suvantraska certainly we agree again this work falls under a person who i hold in high esteem dr tander williams and the child wellness policy is critically important to the school district over 19 disruption is the time to implement such a policy and i expect that we are and and so if we're not then again have a conversation with dr tanja williams and and let's figure out how we where the gaps are i haven't heard about these gaps in terms of uh wendy um i'm i don't know meaningful and collaborative process i would take umbrage
052with that i have to darren brown hall as our lead communicator and person who absolutely has coordinated help to design and implement a meaningful and collaborative process to work with parents throughout this whole disruptive covert period from a year ago almost to today a year ago today we began this journey together and we've got people on meetings uh we had 28 meetings at one stretch during the summer dr brown hall meets every two weeks with this parent group this community group um there are many sub committee meetings that ann botticelli and kim hoescher and nadia and the cheer and others dr conda williams all chair and there's many of you are on those committees as well so i am i i guess i'm if you don't feel like you've been meaningfully included then my apologies
053i will apologize on behalf of the district uh if there's more specific things that we can do but believe me when i tell you all staff are trying to do that the students are the most important uh at in our heart and in our mind right now we want them back in school and we have done everything we can to begin systematically to do that and we have been very systematic and thoughtful about that process so you'll hear more about that this evening none of these events are easy we have had two catastrophic events happen to uh this district this year and we are working our way through it and i do believe that at the end of it we will be writing about the face that that you will have expected when you really
054look at large urban districts across the country uh so again i couldn't be happier with the staff have been dedicated and committed to doing and our families and our parents and our students are our uh most important uh customers and partners so we we believe that so any anything we can be better uh please please let us know president those are my comments tonight thank you dr cass uh is there anything that any board member would like to say i have a hand up for mr terrence hurd a second hand with paul edwards okay um i heard the concerns of our of our speakers tonight and i would just like to um just address some of the concerns of um mrs hussein um jesse byrow walker uh nettle rose and um and uh mrs john
055ventresska um i would like to just work with the board maybe possibly we can look to have a um a community forum that we can put together on the educational support committee um to just listen to um your frustrations i hate to hear that that you're tired and frustrated and that um there's a need for change i know this district is doing a lot you know to try um to work through this um the conditions you know through kovic 19 and reopening um there's a lot lots that's going on right now but i know we'll take the time to hear the superintendent message this this um evening and then maybe possibly in the near future we can work together together for them just to hear concerns after that i hope that someone will be addressed
056today and um and that we can try to get some resolution but i don't want any of our stakeholders to to believe that that that we're not listening that that we're not um trying to understand or try to work out some of the ideas that you have and how to move things forward thank you mr herd next is paulette woods i heard the concern from the parent who addressed that our immigrant population our elves our our parents who speak so many languages are having a problem with reading our instructions finding out how to find out the centers i am hoping that working with toddler williams and the superintendent and the board that we can put an emphasis on that we we cannot afford to have 17 of our population not able to gain access to
057the resources i know we're doing a lot we're translating a lot of information but that's a communication gap that i truly feel we we have to put some more resources on and that's the that's the thing i wanted to to bring to uh an emphasis on as far as the other speakers i do feel that we're trying very hard to reach out to the to the community and all i can say is we will try to do better and i talked with tanja and the superintendent and see what we can do to to make this better it's our commitment is student and families first thank you board member woods uh board member larry scott common um in line with what a board member heard in miss woods shared i just want to bring to people's
058attention that last week i hosted a live chat with dr turkovich chief medical officer at children's hospital and invited all the parent congress leaders to participate in that um miss usain that you were on the invitation maybe it didn't come through um i'm open to you know having that conversation with you if you have questions or um have concerns feel free to reach out to me but just wanted to bring that to everybody's attention that it was a very profound educational discussion on reopening schools with dr turkovich parent leaders other parents and teachers and a student participated so you know similar to what mr hurd said about a community forum i'm always open to have virtual forums at this point um open to all to discuss this important matter in regards to reopening schools thank
059you thank you um are there any other board members with any other comments i see okay i don't see any other hands open uh i can say that um in my working with uh dr williams and ramona or dr ramona williams reynolds excuse me and dr williams uh back when things are brought to their attention what i will say is that there had sometimes and i'm i'm going to say this respectfully sometimes okay um we have to um understand that um if if we want to move forward we have to stop digging in our hills and in order to move forward there has to be a give and take one of the rules of physics is that a matter in in in in at rest will remain at rest unless force is applied okay and
060so uh we see that concept when you're riding on the bus you're moving fast you're going forward and then the bus stops and you go back and forth same applies when you're at state when you're at rest so i think what we need to do at this point is to see where our uh rest points are and how do we move forward and i'll be happy to have that conversation as far as having uh community forums i think there's a need to have small community forums however in regards to the board and i will share this in the new business uh the commitment that i've made with the council of great city schools is to talk about having uh meetings um several meetings with several groups of our constituents and starting first would be our
061students uh to address their needs since they have been the ones who have been uh harmed the most during this process so we'll talk about that under unfinished business for the end of this meeting but in moving forward if um i want to assure our uh parents that it is not our intent not to listen or have uh and i don't believe our staff intent not to listen or to uh feel that you have been marginalized and we uh apologize if that if you feel that's the case however um we do have to start with a a new paradigm and that paradigm begins with each one of us taking a look in the mirror and seeing what we can do differently and that's what that's what we're going to do moving forward okay and i'll
062make sure that happens thank you all right mr scott uh we have some unfinished board business can you uh address that uh uh so that we can move forward please yes thank you president uh motion to excuse uh board member dr ann rivera from the meeting tonight but i get a second from lou petrucci all in favor please raise your hand any of opposition no so move thank you very much mr scott okay with that said dr cash are you ready to do your superintendence update because i want to assure our uh parents and our listening audience that uh uh we are going to update them on um our uh uh mayhem i'm calling it uh that has occurred i like to think that it's that guy's on a commercial but it's not so i
063want to uh think about that but i said yesterday we're like the goodyear bunny okay we take a licking and keep on ticking so don't get it confused we're not down yet okay all right thank you dr cash thank you president cottman board members and colleagues mike lucci if you could put the slides up now board members i have asked one of my assistants ms lowe to send you this deck now so that you can follow along colleagues i have five important items to discuss with you tonight tops each one is directly or indirectly related to student achievement and our ability to get back into schools and commence the teaching and learning process with bigger as we have been doing most of the year first next slide mike hmm i hope you can see it
064better colleague than i'm looking at it i'm not sure we can see what's creating a problem can you see oh okay here it comes thank you mike colleagues the first item i would like dr fatima morale to take one or two minutes just to highlight what did occur yesterday we continue to keep our plan moving forward in this district regarding our emancipation curriculum um we don't stop we don't quit we don't get deterred when we're doing something right for chill and when we're doing something right by our families and our teachers are full partners with developing the lessons and learning as well so dr mcgraw if you could share this slide i thought it it's a very uh active slide it says a a million things as we know a picture can is better than
065a thousand words so mike share the next slide please and dr morrell could give us a nice synthesis of what happened yesterday thank you go to the next slide thank you dr cash thank you um greetings esteemed board of education members uh madam president mike this is the flight okay the rights okay okay one more forward please mike one more two forward two forward one more there we go right there leave it there thank you mm-hmm the slide with all the pictures mike that's it we have a dr cash thank you thank you thank you dr cash green is a steam board of education members um madam president belton cotman um thank you so much for allowing this opportunity for me to discuss briefly um the outcomes of the urban forum it was an excellent
066urban forum and it was uh well attended i want to thank myra burton and her team for their tremendous work in ensuring that the urban forum could proceed even after such a vicious cyber attack on our district systems and i also want to thank the office of clri who worked tirelessly for months in order to ensure the urban forum virtual uh urban forum could occur and so um there were approximately 500 people who uh were greeted by our board president um with the welcome and i want to thank her for her welcome also other board members who attended uh miss woods mr scott and uh dr rivera thank you so the district uh community members uh were able to hear nicole hannah jones she is of course a pulitzer prize-winning investigative journal journalist for the
067new york times in the creator of the 1619 project which is one of our required readings in the emancipation curriculum she really demonstrated the power of teaching from a platform of honesty and veracity and how our students need to be taught the truth of the legacy of enslavement and how that truth is a strength-based educational practice that really prepares our students to be free critical thinkers and future leaders and as you can see in this graphic that is a synopsis of her of her speech we talked about everything from any racism begins with re-education on to teaching complexity and nuance and teaching also from a platform of veracity as i stated and so in closing um she really discussed how teaching from a platform of veracity prepares our future leaders in our and our um
068as american citizens and ready to take on the free world in a democracy she explained that there is power in the pushback and that we should question the opposition to any of our work as this is legacy work and that we can grow from that opposition and there has been positive uh responses from the community the teachers parents uh overall it was just a tremendously great urban forum 2021. thank you wow great it was beautiful thank you dr morell and thank you for your continued excellence in this in this work i know you're always humble about the work but colleagues the pulitzer prize organization has mentioned uh this work about the emancipation curriculum uh on its its postings and website and that's that's to me one of the highest honors you get in this country
069if you have the pulitzer prize uh organization uh watching you closely and commending you for your progress here so again great work dr morell thank you for your support doctor all right colleagues colleagues the next two weeks are integrally related they are the cyber security outage update and i have six slides to go through on that critical topic and then i have the phase two the opening update on one slide that i will show you the main points and give you our recommended reopening date and uh make sure that you're the first to hear about it because as you can imagine we'll be getting a lot of media requests throughout the week about all of these top these issues my next slide colleagues on this first slide i'd like to give a little bit of
070a context i always think that when you're going through things that you did not anticipate well then turn it into a positive educate learn about it get well first in it the best you can short amount of time and then share that knowledge with the public and that's what that's what we're doing here new york times writer her name is nicole pearl you can look up the title of her new book um but what i i came across it this weekend uh reading my new times as i do every sunday morning and what she's arguing it's a piece of non-fiction she does immaculate research on this topic and she basically is saying that the single grade to the world and to the united states is cyber weapon and under cyber weapons of course are a
071whole host of issues including cyber attacks on schools for example colleges university cities institutions of all kinds so please take a look at that book and educate yourself about this issue it's much much bigger than the attack on buffalo public school there are over 1 000 cyber attacks on school districts in just the last several years some of the large districts include hartford public schools in connecticut jackson and mississippi miami-dade county pittsburgh pennsylvania toledo and clark county which is essentially is las vegas uh in nevada they some two types of cyber attacks on food that's the distribution of denial service it attacks and overwhelms the internet bandwidth and that's called a dbos attack and then there's the ransomware attack where the hacker or hackers take control of the target's computer systems and demand some kind
072of ransom at this point based on the definitions and the partners we're working with this appears to be the latter uh kind of attack next slide please myra burden are exceptional and i mean exceptional ci chief information officer will take these next three slides and keep in mind colleagues that uh this is a criminal investigation and that we are probably being watched uh at this time so we keep our comments at a very high level while at the same time trying to help the public understand more fully what has happened myra dr cash good evening board members president cotman and colleagues before i begin i would first like to acknowledge and commend the amazing amazing information technology team for their dedication and perseverance since friday each and every one in the iit department has been
073absolutely phenomenal and i would like to especially acknowledge uh sarah edwards from the instructional technology coaches josh kovacich wendy turton eric stockmeyer david maguire mike lucci and the network team who've all been committed to dealing recovery since this incident occurred i would also like to acknowledge the support of the board dr cash in my appreciation to the cabinet colleagues and the school principals for their collaboration so first i'm going to begin by highlighting the significant progress we have made in just a short period of time i personally personally believe we have defied the norms and gotten our district back into a mode of communication in record time our focus has been on restoring connectivity and system access for school readiness and for relevant critical applications we immediately mobilize our response teams to address connectivity in
074periods of instruction network business operations and facilities so our first phase for our school system restoration has yielded the following status for each of the areas that you see the network infrastructure is considered green and while there may still be some intermittent issues wireless and wired connectivity has been restored and rit department will respond accordingly and swiftly to resolve any isolated issues that may arise staff and student access to our court instructional applications is green we work with our principal to determine if staff can get connected if students can get connected to our core instructional application and we are continuing uh doing that but we have yielded um great success in that area as well as well access to us operational applications is yellow and we do still have some tasks that need to be
075completed in order to stabilize some of those systems and i will speak to some of the um critical next steps that we will take um in the next slide to continue this work particularly in this space and our overall status for core facility systems is green and our major safety life systems are also green um as they are not reliant upon internet or technology next slide so dr cash i will turn it back over to you dr cass we can't hear you i'm sorry um trying to be educative at a high level to give you a picture before the ransomware or before this cyber security attack the pie on the left represents the academic side of the house business side of the house and most of our systems if you consider us like myra explained
076to have four buckets of major systems and across those things like you know our network connectivity between buildings our wireless internet network our wired internet net network our phones our cameras 365 microsoft teams clever schoology infinite campus school messenger our website our emt or amp center our versatran which is our transportation systems technology primero which runs our food service sites our professional growth system our pa systems our hvac systems and um all of those are systems that are run by technology and so those all have to be functioning well in order for a large school system to function well well before the attack the pie on the left shows you that we're mostly doing really well with those systems and again it's a credit to to the staff and to the i.t department and we
077always have had some that are i would say aged and need to be uh either replaced or upgraded and we were working uh toward that and so you see some yellow dots after the attack you see light green i put it in light ring again amazingly the academic systems and tools that we need to for teaching and learning are by by far they're at 90 95 um functioning back to functionality uh so that's really good news on the business side there's some uh some of these systems that i've mentioned uh are going to need a few more days of work and we're going to have to dig down and and continue to either stand up rebuild uh or put onto a cloud uh these systems so that we can continue to function while we work
078on the long-term solution of upgrading and uh restoring and all of our all of our information so that's just a graphic to kind of show you where we are uh and i thought that might be useful to you we'll turn it back to myra for her last slide and then i'll finish with something that i think as board members and as legislators we should push uh given what has what has been occurring next slide mike okay so um i'd like everyone to keep in mind that this is a marathon not a sprint we still have a long way to go on this recovery and restoration journey the previous slides that highlighted our progress and status in the first leg of our journey showed that we have made some significant progress but our next step on
079this journey includes engaging professional expert partners that can assist us with a full recovery and to help us implement best practice mitigation strategies as part of this work and with a cross-functional executive team we will develop a detailed plan for application recovery remediation and testing this plan is also going to include a transformational roadmap that will illustrate how we are going to harden our infrastructure and our security controls we will continue to increase employee security awareness and training for cyber security and internet safety best practice and also of course we will continue monitoring our schools for stabilization so i'm looking forward to where this journey is going to take us and i look forward to coming back to you um to show the accomplishments and how we're going to um turn this incident into an
080innovative opportunity thank you dr yeah next slide so colleagues i wanted to share with you what i think is would be a proactive approach given what has happened not only to buffalo public schools but to school districts all across the country on july 20 july 9 2020 this piece of legislation was introduced in congress by a josh carter he was a democrat from the 10th congressional district in california and this is a very promising piece of legislation if if it had passed it did not but if it had it would have provided 25 million in cyber security over the next five years for school districts across the country that amount probably should be increased significantly and then the grants would be applied for the purposes that we've been describing here uh this evening and it
081also would uh fund programs to prepare next generation of students who are looking to pursue cyber security careers as well as scholars scholarships and apprenticeships interested in this field and that is part of what we had introduced over at east high school is this very kind of concentration for our students so i thought that piece of legislation was promising it it did not receive a single vote on july 9th in 2020 but i can tell you that we need to ramp this up i intend on sharing it with or at least the gist of it with our legislators here in western new york and this this needs to be a priority for school districts uh to attack a school system we're finding is very cheap it doesn't cost a lot of money to do it
082but to defend against cyber attacks is quite expensive uh inordinately expensive so we do need legislation like this going forward colleagues and i trust that you would would support it all right that is my uh update on that um that is all i can talk about at this point um because it is an ongoing investigation but let me move to the next uh topic at this time mike topic number three so colleagues again this this afternoon as always before a board meeting i talked with our medical director dr dennis quo and he has indicated that um while at a month ago covert cases were dropping uh he pointed out that they are no longer dropping they now have stalled and they have stalled at a high level um so he recommends that we do not
083drop our safety protocols in any way at this time that we continue testing and that we continue the social distancing of course the mask wearing uh the hand washing and so forth um he believes that the variants are still a concern and that we do not know at this time how uh spread they are in this community and to what degree they've reached our community but they are spreading fast and they are believed to be much more contagious and lethal so his advice is to hold the course on what we're doing with safety uh protocols in our school do not reduce that distance uh from six feet to three feet as has been um being talked about in in some places in some quarters um so the bottom line is now that these businesses are
084opening and social gatherings are starting to happen again he's worried that we stalled but we stalled too high and then now it could start to creep up again and this is not the time to back away from important safety protocols for our children and our families the major systems that are required to continue to reopen in the phased way that we are doing it are the systems that we talked about uh just now under myra's reports so those major systems of academic systems business uh systems are mostly doing well right now but as fragile colleagues we can't say that they're sturdy and really strong as they were before the attack but they are if we continue making the amazing progress that we have been making over the last several days we do feel confident that
085we can start um on march 22nd monday march 22nd with the phase three uh reopening the plan that we had intended to uh execute this past monday uh we believe we we will be able to do it this next monday tomorrow and friday will need to be uh days of remote learning for our students uh pre-k through 12 as the teachers continue to work with the students to learn these new uh password and processes to get into the system and do the uh teaching and learning remotely so that principles feel that way we pulled all of our principles today uh they are also in touch with their teachers and the teachers are feeling like there's more time needed uh to get to get this done i'm hoping these systems that have improved hold because that's
086the big contingency if they hold then then we believe we can uh open and open um safely and efficiently and with great excitement uh for our children we want our children back in schools they need to be back in school um and and that's what we're going to be continuing to move forward to do so that's that's the update for that uh certainly um we can take any questions regarding uh any of the topics i mean any of the points being made under number two and number three uh before we go to four and five i think this is a good time if there are any questions um that i can answer i will answer it uh otherwise i do have two more pieces but they're not as related to these two these two are
087related all right if no questions then we go to number four number four i want to give a high level uh point about it dr care there are questions that have have come up are you ready to take them well i'm sorry i didn't see it so sure go ahead mr hurt has a question board member heard um thank you president bill cottman hey dr cass thank you for your report um the question i would like to just ask um you said this thursday and this friday we will be continuing with remote learning uh how would this affect the saturday academy for one the saturday academy if if it's remote i would think that it should it should be able to go they should be able to go if they're using one of these systems
088teams um microsoft teams or lifestyle or zoom then i would say uh they should be good to go but i would have i would defer to myra on that myra is there any concerns or anything that i'm not aware of about the saturday academy that they've been holding that say yes has been holding virtually uh for most of this year so we have put some additional restrictions in place on our video conferencing tool um and dr paul and i have spoken about it and he has worked with um the lead that manages that program to develop some workarounds on how they will facilitate it on saturday um dr brown hall did you have any more information to share absolutely thank you my uh working with myra today we will be using microsoft teams for our
089saturday academies and we will be again partnering with our ceo and say yes for that it may be limited in the sense that we're only going to use microsoft teams and we won't really be able to have many guests on there but our students have their microsoft teams accounts our teachers do also and our say yes uh partners have their login so we'll be able to hold a virtual saturday academies they may be a little limited this week until we still work through some things but we are going to be able to hold them thank you you thank you and how is it affect our food distribution were that still going as planned for our families of need you mean monday wednesday friday yesterday or on saturday both um jim i believe you're on the
090call and my understanding is that those those will continue as they have been do you have any updates for us on that question from board member distributions will continue as planned dr cash thank you okay okay those are some of the questions from our stakeholders and my last final question we will be about monday uh what who will be allowed back into the buildings on monday so monday will be the phase two plan that we've had all along uh phase one just so we're very clear phase one included pre-k through grades two in a hybrid model and then our highest need students as identified by each school in a five day a week model highest need so pre-k through two and highest needs at the high school for phase one we invited back seniors seniors
091only and we work to develop really individualized schedules for all of our seniors and that has been one of the innovations during all of this time difficult time that i'm really most proud of and all of you should be because the seniors are being very well served uh overall right now and because of the special attention that we put on them during phase one now for phase two which which will be added to phase one we will be inviting back all grades three and four uh which for some schools that's their full complement three k to four we have a number of pre-k to four schools um we also will be inviting uh ninth graders back in in many high schools uh the whole class and then in some high schools there will be a
092mix of partial ninth grade and partial eleventh grade because they want to accommodate more students in the five six seven and eight uh continuum for those schools that have grades five through uh for example so that's who that's who was been by invited back and the bus schedules are uh have been mailed out to all of the uh students and families in the pre-k through eight the yellow bus schedules and then of course in the high school they depend largely on nfta uh or other mean transportation thank you for that report dr cash just one last question um will will our students that return it back to school would they be using uh the technology um pads once again inside the facilities or were they coming yes yes though that is their that is their
093lifeline those those those tablets so you carry those back and forth back and forth to school to home to school to home uh so yes bring those uh bring those to school and then for those students who families desire to stay at home and continue the remote learning process um certainly the students keep the tablets there and teachers will be teaching both their at-home students and their in-class or in-person uh students short answer is yes bring those tablets to school and thank you for thank you for your time dr cash thank you are there any other board members with any questions i i have a question a few questions uh yes mr board member scott thank you president cottman um my first question is technology related and first miss burden thank you tremendously to you
094and your entire team for all the work that you're doing right now um everything went well today for both of my boys with their technology but for some reason my wife and i were knocked off of infinite campus and we couldn't find a way to get back on or you know reset our login and i assume many other parents are in that same position um is there some some some easy way to to reset it yes reset your access to infinite campus yes yes so i'm not sure that your access to infinite campus should have necessarily changed change if you don't mind i like to follow up with the um the team tomorrow on that to see what the problem uh might be but you could try um possibly i guess signing back out and
095checking back in um to see did you try doing that i did and then tried to recover my username and password and didn't get an email uh sent to me with that username okay so i think it would be you know easier to just try to give you some hands-on assistance and possibly get somebody on the phone with you to try to walk you through it um with to you know to resolve your issue okay thank you um my next question has to do with the distancing i brought this up in the last meeting about how we're following in most of our schools eight feet of distancing and can we reconsider to to make it six feet of distancing um and i that we were told that that was going to be considered and then
096looks like it's something that's definitely going to need to be considered for face the next phase beyond phase two so just wondering if there's an update on that do you know that dr cash is looking into that we are working out numbers i know that um juan perez met recently to go over the numbers and what the class size sizes will look like and what that distancing will look like so we're still updating dr cash on that information so that is something we are still looking at and we are working through thank you dr braun hall and i think the next question is for you too just want to because there's a lot of the public a lot of parents are watching tonight just uh reiterates um that all parents in the phase one and
097phase two the grades of the phase one and phase two that have had a chance to return will have a second chance to return their children for the fourth quarter in april correct absolutely so we i know um even at our last principal advising committee we did discuss that so um students that opted out or families that opted out of in-person instruction for the february one return or this phase two return will be able to change their mind for the fourth marking period if they opted out it was um up until the end of the third marking period commitment april 23rd after that they will be able to change their mind for the fourth marking period yes thank you and my last question i think is for mr weimer um sent him an email i
098think last week some of the teachers have been reaching out to me regarding the playgrounds and having access to them i think some of them are still locked and not accessible from uh when the pandemic began and with our kids returning and met wanting to get them outside um any update on opening up those those playgrounds board member scott we i spoke with barry kirker director of plant services and also our director of health and safety yvette gordon there are no specific limitations on cleaning of playgrounds or anything along those lines so as soon as the weather gets to a point where we feel that you know the principals will be comfortable in taking their students out there we can absolutely open those playgrounds but that'll be a decision that will make uh you know
099moving forward thank you mr weimer okay uh uh next question is coming from uh vice president lou petrucci thank you president kaufman i know as a as uh you know phase two is about to roll out i was just wondering um about phase three um has there been discussion what that might look like is it going to be fifth and sixth or five through eight or fifth through six and ten um i know that a lot is going to be dictated by uh the science and the safety of our students but i was just wondering if we could just have a little update as to where we are with the next phase well what i can say to you uh is that i had instructed before phase two for principals to keep it fluid to
100continue to reach out and invite students to see who would be coming back and who would want to come back for all of their grades so they've been continuing to reach out so if you're if you're a pre-k through eight for example you know they've been reaching out to their fifth sixth seventh eighth trying to get a handle on uh who won who would want to come back and and what that would mean for the design of the footprint uh so that's continuing um and you know high schools are nearly there if they get the 10th grade in uh they'll be they'll be there uh and pretty much 9 10 11 and 12 uh except for the five through 12 schools and then in the pre-k through eight um i'm start i worry about all
101of the kids about this time so you know i can't say seventh and eighth grade more so than the fifth in the sixth grade uh but i am i am going to try to get both of those groups in uh within a two-week span you know rather than than a four-week span so whether it be fifth and sixth and then seventh and eighth or whether we start seventh and eighth and come down the fifth and sixth uh it'll be some combination of that in phase uh phase three thank you very much dr cash because what has happened to us i'm trying to compact it now i may have to compact three and four and try to see how much we can do uh get as many back as possible but again given the safety protocol
102i'm going to be working on that right through the break with with staff uh thank you yeah dr cash i have a question uh my question is about summer school uh yeah uh the uh conversations uh nationally is that uh charter uh that summer schools are going to be a uh a no-brainer our uh that uh it will that most districts will be having charter excuse me i'm sorry summer school um are we in agreement with that for uh philosophy as well oh absolutely we'll probably have at least two major summer schools for pre-k through six pre-k through eight um one that we will require uh for students to catch up to grade level and hopefully go beyond even if we can because you can do so much now with the technology if you if
103you apply yourself uh so that would be a six week uh six hour a day required summer school um for the elementary grades and then say yes to education in buffalo is also sponsoring the summer school uh that has a little more enric enrichment kind of approach for recommended uh students from our elementary schools and then the high school is likely to have two two strands of summer school as well so i'm going to put a lot of b i'll be recommending to you as a board a lot of resources that come from the stimulus for example go into our summer school go into our after school programming our saturday school programming uh long story short colleagues we're going to need a year or two of intensive sort of six day a week learning opportunity
104for our students in order for many of them to catch up and go ahead so you'll see more and hear more about that in your committee sessions as we go forward short answer again is yes thank you one of the uh issues we've often encountered with the summer school is the uh students wanting to work under the may uh summers uh the mayor's summer youth program uh i would appreciate if we could start having some conversations around that with the city to make sure that uh everything is done to provide the opportunity for children to get educated as well as uh make a couple of bucks this summer as in uh never before all right so if all questions are answered on that um and you are concluding your superintendent's update dr cash i'm sorry
105president cottman i have two more uh okay go ahead we'll try to keep it brief all right the next slide free please next slide please uh mike and colleagues here i just want to i want to let you know at a high level uh from my perspective when i heard uh board member woods i believe it was um tell us that uh some of the or one of the subcontractors for this important north park community school project was really exciting we want to get it done need to get it done but i didn't like what i was hearing about some of those subcontractors whether it was a raggedy form that we had or something else that needs to be improved long story short we pulled this project back and we're going to um re-examine it
106and re-bid it that's that's what needs to happen we need to re-bid it and there'll be an opportunity uh in the process to uh really hold a forum that rick fanton is going to do to invite uh mbe companies mwbe companies to hear uh what we're doing what we have to offer and hear specifically about this project uh that is that is gonna be worth somewhere in the neighborhood seven to nine million dollars when it's all done uh so long story short um we're gonna rebid this and i believe jeff pritchard has put a sort of a resolution before you i'm not sure where it ended up darren um 13 dr cash of board games so darren and board president what what do you recommend because that's the bottom line is that we're recommending for
107a host of reasons the substances listed there uh that we rebid this and that's what we're asking your support for tonight uh do you want to uh read through this if we do that will take some time or do you or or how would you like to handle it i don't i want to do it at the way the board feels most comfortable so this is a project that was pulled at the last board meeting right we have not bid it on this at this point right parts of it were pulled miss cotman the part that dealt with the part that miss woods was talking about i don't know if that was the mechanical or the plumbing or the electrical but some of them two two parts of the project i think had already been
108um uh awarded if you will uh and so that what we're saying is to pull all of it because even those parts now have shifted with what the cost is going to be so we would need a legal we would need legal to explain to us what's the board's obligation on this before we decide what we can do okay because we asked legal about it right sure apparently i've reviewed the resolution that's in the packet this is nate and uh i feel it's sufficient appropriate so i think the resolution as it's written is sound and uh i think the justifications of the district are are sound and you're comfortable with that then of course the board would uh be you know be moving forward um based on your recommendation now the resolution is under 13
109okay a board members okay all right and if you'd like colleagues my my suggestion would be you know if you're comfortable with it being part of the consent agenda to give you a chance to read through it while we continue with the business or you can pull it separately uh at that time and and vote on it well i think we should uh don't we have another resolution listed that i'm not seeing right now uh yes yes where where is that darren i'm not saying it this is a super this is a superintendent's resolution it's already part of the consent agenda so you'd have to move to to remove it and have it be a separate item okay i mean i would recommend it be part of the consent agenda and if board members have
110questions they can look through it now and ask it as part of the consent agendas okay no problem but where is the other one uh darren another resolution that deals with assessments is 24a 24a okay all the way down there okay um edits to that resolution to board members this afternoon so you can discuss it when you discuss that resolution right and that's independent of the consent agenda so board members um do you have any concerns in regards to accepting uh our council's uh recommendation and to accept this resolution and a vote is it vote on it as part of the consent agenda is there anyone with the problem with that okay so if there's no problem with it we'll keep it as part of the consent agenda and when we vote we will be
111voting on that item okay thank you colleagues colleagues i have one more item and again um i apologize for so much tonight but it's just that it's that time it's the convergence of so many critical issues all at once that i didn't want to wait until the april meeting to bring this item to you because it would be right upon us and then also because next slide might also because you do have a resolution that you just alluded to in uh item 24 uh a i guess it is uh but we wanted to give you a brief update on the student assessments that are being required and what what it means for our for our young people and so ann botticelli is going to just in a in a very high level give you where
112we are and what the state is um you know indicating to us regarding these issues and what the what the implications would be for us so and if you could in your own good concise way give us the highlight on this because i think it's instructive for the board as well as the community there's been a lot of questions about what will happen this year with with three through eight assessments with regents exams and so forth i figured we'd just give it all at once and then everybody will be will be crystal clear so ann thank you if you could please yes all set um good evening board members i will be short and sweet um in some cases we don't have all the information and but i will share what we are aware of
113so there is the potential that certain mandated assessments could be cancelled if the federal government approves new york state's waiver so that would apply to um english and math three to eight the regents exams and the science four and eight um if that waiver is not approved and currently it is it is not approved um then we would be administering at least portions of these exams so i'll just uh quickly go through them so grades three to eight ela and math assessments we are required to administer book one book one of those two tests consists of multiple choice items only students scores on the session one questions will contribute to the student's total score the test will be administered during the following windows so the english assessment book one would be administered the window of
114april 19th to the 29th and the math assessment would be administered the window of may 3rd through the 14th again that's only book 1. the regents exams we can't hear you anne i apologize um i'm gonna i will start again um so right now the state has applied for a waiver from the federal government right um okay so if they receive that waiver we would not be administering certain tests like the three to eight english and math or the regents or the science foreign aid however right now we are operating on the assumption that we will be administering those so grades three to eight english and math the district is required to administer book one or session one book one consists of multiple choice items only students scores on the session 1 test questions will
115contribute to the students total score the tests will be administered during the following windows so the english assessment would be administered during the window of the april 19th to the 29th and the math assessment book 1 would be administered during the window of may 3rd to the 14th regents exams we will administer the required exams so as of now we anticipate we are administering algebra 1 living environment physical setting earth science the written portion and the english assessment right now we are under we are aware that the august exams have been canceled so we would be administering those four in june students who have met the standards for the course of study may be eligible for an exemption to the exam requirements if they meet the criteria that that state ed has outlined and it
116is similar to what we did last year um we will clearly provide more information uh to the student as we determine who is eligible and who is not eligible we are required right now to administer the science assessments in grades four and eight um the window is june 7th to the ninth and we will administer the written test only we're waiting for more information to be released from the state the world language assessments um checkpoint a and b we are waiting for more information from state ed but we are aware that our checkpoint a vendor is not going to be providing that exam so it is unlikely that we will be administering um the checkpoint and b exams the nisa so the new york state alternative assessment is being administered to qualifying in-person special education
117students during the window of march 8th through june 11th the nicest slot um is you know broken into several portions the speaking portion of the nicest lot will be administered april 19th to june 9th to multilingual students with a nissitel designation so they've in other words they've taken the ncitel and have we know whether they are beginning or emerging etc the nicest slot reading writing and listening portions will be administered the window of may 17th through june 9th to multilingual students with the nissatel designation um we also have two other assessments that we will be giving this year the ap and the ib so the college board has provided multiple testing opportunities to schools this year we're coordinating individually with each school to determine what type of administration will work best at each site so
118in other words paper and pencil or online assessments just as a side the ap spanish language and culture exam and the ap music theory are only available paper and pencil so those those students cannot take them online the paper and pencil administration window for the ap exams is may 3rd through the 7th may 10th through the 12th the 14th and the 17th so those are school day exams and then in terms of the international baccalaureate the majority of our ib courses will only administer the internal assessments this year and upload those to the international baccalaureate to be scored a few courses are assessed in alternate ways so for example they might have a portfolio assessment but the majority will take the internal assessment and send those to the international baccalaureate so that is a very
119high level list of assessments that we will be providing this year again if the state does get the waiver granted from the federal government there would be some updates for you thank you anne really good well done president cotton thank you uh and vanitelli our chief academic officer and dr cash myra burton our i.t officer dr fatima morrell and dr darren brown hall and if i forgot anyone else i'm sorry thank you also with that said uh that concludes your superintendent's update yes it does thank you all right moving forward board members i need a motion to accept uh the previous board minutes so move president second by jennifer mccoozy and first by lou petrucci all in favor any any opposed okay so moved next um we have our committee reports i'm going to start
120with our uh student board representative tamicia walker she has been here since 5 30 and i can tell she's ready to let us know what's on her mind i can share with you that i was on a meeting not too long ago i think it was a mental health meeting at her school and she really rocked it out of the park very proud of you young lady uh with what you provided she provided a lot of substance to those adults in that room and kudos to you thank you for being there and thank you for sharing uh student uh impact uh so what's on your mind today what do you have to share with us as far as your report oh we can't hear you uh mike if if you have her um on mute
121or anything see if you can unmute her and now tanisha you're not getting through mike hey you unmute to misha walker it must not they don't have her muted so i'm not sure okay so then we uh we need to form a uh might we need to get another a way to access her uh what we'll do is um uh to misha if you'll let us we will move on and then while our staff works with you uh to get you up and running okay darren what we can do is tanisha on the email i sent you earlier there's a the call-in information so use that information and call in okay thank you okay all right so we'll just take one person before you while you do that and then we'll come back to you
122okay thank you um do we have any uh committee chairs that are uh interested in reporting out at this point anything report out uh paulette woods well we did have the finance committee meeting we had an excellent report on the eeo updates i'm glad to hear that dr cash is uh moving aggressively on that particular contract uh we did have an uh vote on saving 26 million dollars on refinancing our bonds and the other thing was there was a meeting with the controller we are moving forward toward a written agreement protecting our fund balance and providing transparency in the relationship of between how the board of uh buffalo public schools funds can be used and with the with incorporation with the city of buffalo but uh i believe mr petrovsky will probably have something else
123to say on that that's my report yeah i was okay thank you i'm gonna go to uh terence heard next then we will do vice president kathy evans brown then we will do uh vice uh president lou petrucci then we will open it up for any additional uh conversations uh that our board members are working on independent like that okay mr um thank you president um on wednesday march 10th um educate for support committee meeting we spoke about um the kenny mckinney-vento programming overview and also the um internet security and safety for students and families and it was the third thing that that was added and hopefully we'd be able to get through it today was um an update for the athletic ad hoc uh department um that deals with the um sports department buffalo
124athletic sports department here in the city of buffalo so be to begin with uh uh start off with the mckinney venture program um dr tanja williams she's associate superintendent of student supports um did a wonderful job of giving the presentation about the mckinney-vento program and the overview of his program um actually this is recommended by school board president sharon belt copman um to look into about some of the um things that was going on with the mckinney venture program and um dr tanja williams um spoke about uh the six new york state education department requirements for the mckinney venture program some of them were about students that used to be allowed to continue with education of the district um then students must be uh provided with transportation meals educational service another one of the things
125that were appropriate identification of student housing a questionnaire has to be given out immediate enrollment into schools for these families and children also provide educational support services as needed and maintained um and not disrupt the educational process we learned that there's many challenges that's been going on with the mckinney-vento program uh virus funding we haven't had funding from the program since 2016 that these are some of the things that as a district in the board that we have to address and um just defining ensure gaps you know from previous applications that are connected to establish best practices and we will make sure that we can continue on with the funding for that uh so that's something we'll be looking into and dig into once again and um and hopefully become with some better conclusions and
126applying for grant monies for the mckinney venture program um the next one internet safety mr hurt before you go on you are blurred i don't know if you've done you've done something to change the way you're uh but i yes i would yeah i want it i don't want to interrupt you that's a little bit better but earlier you were much better okay i didn't i'm sorry to interrupt you go ahead thank you thank you that's much better but not as bad as good as earlier there we go that's better thank you okay thank you president um next part of the presentation was internet safety and security update um um this was done by um myra burton our chief chief technology officer and also dr tanja williams who worked hard our associate superintendent of us
127uh support services student support services and uh this is a great presentation we talked about internet safety um you know it's ironic that you know uh we went through uh this challenges with the internet um you know just now um this past week was in our district but uh we learned that last week that we um the district has done a lot you know to enhance our internet safety and technology and um the district gave out a technology handbook to our students they can go online i believe is buffalo schools.org backslash right and so um they can look at some of the things that will help with internet safety and uh we we talked about uh some things that happened within the districts that something that's very common it's a it's about on human trafficking
128so this this is one of the reasons why we bought this up you know to help you know put another layer of protection for our children as they um do virtual learning from their homes and the teacher teaches virtual learning protection for their families so um another thing that we spoke about you know to help you know with these families these conditions that we have to deal with i'm sorry that we have to deal with these things in our community with our families and children but it's reality so we talked about digital citizenship we also talked about content filtering and um and about appropriate sites are being blocked inappropriate sites are being blocked by our district and we got software to help block these type of sites and uh that that includes um dating sites
129sites that promote drug use usage weapons and gambling and um we also um you know as a layout that you can go into our buffalo public school web page itself and see some of the things that um the district has done so go to buffalopublicschools.org and you can see some of the other things we are also great to have a speaker come on um that talked about um path from the path organization her name is julie palmer and passed them for people with his trafficking humans now the path organization uh um is a faith-based organization and its mission at the end human trafficking and exploitation through education prevention and restoration um so the path organization organization has been working here in the city of buffalo that i have um i had many programs with in
130the past and um and asked they can help out here you know with the conditions of trafficking and child predators you know that exists um through social media and on our um live stream platforms um that that somehow you know they can get into so we talked about human trafficking and some of the numbers that we read about um and we learned in the last week on the 10th about human trafficking is that every 2.5 hours a child is taken by human traffickers and also the average lifespan of a child victim is seven years once he or she is taken and here in the united states um 10 000 250 000 victims um are are held as commercial sex slaves another staggering uh number that we learned was 96 percent of trafficking victims are females
131but um the males are really on the rise right now and they're big targets especially in the city like buffalo the size um every um traffic child is purchased for sex about 4.5 times a day and 50 percent of our trafficking victims our children and here in the united states this is a billion dollar a year industry so this this is something that this district take very seriously and and and and dr tanja williams talked about programs that we have within the district that we establish to try to resolve some of these um these instances and so families that are affected by it if you have um been reached out by um or targeted by a victim uh or our victim or your family has been been um been under this this challenge you know
132from um from a contact to somebody that's not familiar to the family to them that is just a couple of signs that you should look out for i'll get through the signs and we can move on but uh if you know the signs uh the number one sign is is the hunt is when um your victim is being targeted the number two sign is on the scouting of victims where where um they tend to pry on children who have emotional um neediness low self-esteem and low and confidence and economic distressed areas the third sign to look out for is manipulation that's when uh they try to gain their trust the fourth sign to look out for was dependency um that's when you fill in their needs um the fourth sign is to look out for
133uh manipulation um um that's that's third but it's about gaining trust dependency um and then the victim get trapped when they get forced into isolation and um the last sign number six is abusive behavior that's when they um try to maintain control of whatever individual that they have and another person that now we spoke with that i'm introduced to the district was kelly galloway she's the um she have a program here in buffalo called mona's house and um if she also wants to get involved also with the nutrient of our children and the safety of our district so there's a couple other elements that we added that we can have outreach to to to help us with this um conflict and problems um that people have um with our children in our district so thank
134you so much that concludes my presentation thank you board member heard okay so we're going to change things uh cathy and lou i'm gonna ask you to wait uh we're going to get our student board representative she's been on for a while and she has to get her rest so let's uh miss you you're there can you hear me yes we can hear you we're sorry we can't see you but we can hear you thank you okay um first off let me start off by saying my name is tamisha walker i'm the board um i'm the student representative for the board of education um the first thing that i want to speak about is that recently i've been a part of the berger mental health grant i've attended and i spoke my opinion on it
135i feel that what's happening with that grant should be happening in all buffalo public schools it shouldn't just be bergaard so i want to take that as a stepping stone to breach it to other schools and to give other schools that opportunity as well with that being said one of the things that i want to focus on mainly this year is mental health getting mental health out there mental health and awareness is very important especially during this pandemic some students don't know what mental health is or how it affects them i mean mental health can be good or bad but students don't know that so that's something to definitely get out there and tell them that they have resources that they can reach um and in our high council we went over five ways to
136have good mental health which was be active you can go outside you can go ride a bike take a walk give you know give support to someone give some type of credit someone give a compliment another one was take notice take notice in a small things like um just appreciate the little things another one was connection um just being connected with you and your family and connected to people in general even if it's on facetime and over the phone and the last one was keep learning and just to keep keep learning and being involved in your community and stuff like that um and also another question um i have for the board is whether why um i'm sorry let me rephrase this why am i the okay so there's a student board there's um myself
137the president the vice president and the secretary i feel that the vice president should also be allowed to these meetings um especially because the current vice president right now she's the um sophomore so when i leave and when i um graduate she'll be taking over for me so it's good for her to learn these things now and to be educated about it now and to experience the noun then later until like like if she wait until next year she'll be walking into something new and she won't know right now i'm trying to show like when i when i walked in i just walked in i i would have rather have somebody show me on what's what and how to do things i think it's better for her to learn these opportunities now than later and
138yeah that's all i have well thank you and let's talk about that okay um because um if you're saying that your vice president is a sophomore then we would have to change our guidelines because if i remember right the president has to be a junior no a senior or a junior so uh uh samitia or board member walker i should say um we should we talked about uh the policy and so what i need you to do is to make recommendations in the board's policy for changes and we can uh have you work with the board's attorney on that i can work with you then we would have you work with nate kuzman you would have that under your experience as well and if there's some things that we need to adjust i'd like to
139share with the board that recently it was brought to my attention that many of the urban school board districts are giving stipends to their student board representatives uh there are two sets of different groups that are doing it one is just to help them have additional uh money if they want to do uh things for students so it would be something that would have to be a student activity or the majority of the uh uh council of great city school members are giving the students a stipend and so i'm planning that seed that we can talk about that uh under mr petrucci's uh committee moving forward but we are in a uh district where uh our children have uh most of them have low income and we might think about uh moving that forward and
140we can talk more about that uh at the um uh mr petrucci's next to me if you will sir uh the mental health piece is huge and so each one of our students normally have a legacy that they leave and i believe from what i'm hearing board member walker that you're saying that you want your legacy to be in the in the work that you do in regards to the mental health of our students is that what we're hearing okay so we can talk more about that um uh i think it's a great opportunity uh for you to move forward with that and so we'll we'll take a look at that and we'll talk a little bit more about that does any other board members have anything to share with this uh i bought our
141student board number okay so we'll be working more with that um more than likely uh you'll be working uh with uh vice president lou petrucci on a few things as well okay okay thank you so much and thank you and we appreciate you coming we know that it's late so if you have to sign off it's fine with us but uh keep in touch at least let's talk to each other at least once a week okay okay thank you oh mr hurd your hand is up yes um on board president i think that's a wonderful suggestion or um to help out with our student president um if there are any type of programs that she's involved with or speaking of i think that's a wonderful idea that we shall really uh embrace and talk about
142uh near future and dr cash may i ask that she'd be considered um as one of the spokes people uh students for this district dr cash and that she'd be allowed to participate on student forums if she has the time etc we um she uh is really an articulate young lady and she has a lot to bring to the table and uh we have stu um we have other student um groups that are working and i like to tie all of them together and try to see if we can uh strengthen our student leadership piece okay sure thank you all right all right so thank you board members for allowing our uh board member walker to uh have a say in that um next uh we talked about uh dr kathy evans brown moving forward
143and then uh vice president lou petrucci followed by larry scott he has uh a a committee report as well thank you thank you president continent thank you mort member walker those were great ideas um i'm going to do a brief report of the march 10th student achievement meeting can you hear me yes all right so there were three overarching things discussed the first one was the jesse ketchum resolution update and dr will cress's provided another update from the previous presentation related to uh this resolution that really initial initiated in november of last year by vice president or submitted by vice president lou patucci and president sharon cotman and sponsored by some uh specific board members so we were pleased with the updates and the inroads that have been made so far we've provided feedback uh
144through uh dr kress's um update uh along with dr cash um and he's going to he said he would take that back to dr cash and submitted again with the modifications uh the second theme was the new york state region's exams and grades three through eighth testing that was uh discussed everyone agreed that some form of assessment uh is critical to discern where uh our children fall especially during these turbulence turbulent times um during this uh pandemic uh chief accountability officer ebony bullock along with chief academic officer ann botticelli presented robust information as it relates to current assessments and tools used in the schools um other than new york state assessments um and then the third theme was connecting and engaging all learners uh we talked briefly about how student ratio has significantly dropped especially
145from the mckenna mckinney bento program and some of the other young people who have not engaged so far uh dr cassandra wright uh and other cabinet members provided a robust uh presentation of how the district is continuing to connect engage uh young people for example the importance of educators allowing students to have flexibility and learning uh remotely and turning in assignments without being penalized um they also talked about you know some wrap around services how they reach out to students by going out to their homes social media texting and all kinds of wrap-around services to engage young people in learning and pretty much that was the uh the thrust of the student achievement thank you very much next we have vice president lou percucci uh thank you president belton cottman um since the last time
146i had opportunity to visit uh three different charter schools uh enterprise westminster in reach maritime has reached out to me also when i finalize a date i'll let all my fellow board members know you're more than welcome come with me to attend and take a walk through maritime has a new location in a former buffalo public school school 29 it was also formerly uh south buffalo church school as well uh but it is one of our uh buildings that we no longer use but i'll keep everyone posted um paulette woods and myself did meet with uh comptroller barbara miller williams and deputy comptroller delano dahl it was a very good meeting uh we discussed a variety of different topics um one of the things that came up because some of the uh the two topics
147were kind of conflated and they asked going forward that we separate out with uh some of the topics that pertain to the city of buffalo and keep that separate from the comptroller's office so with respect to the comptroller had to do with the refinance of the bonds as paulette woods had mentioned we had also discussed the there's a old agreement that dates back to barb smith when she was our chief financial officer in the district they're going to dig up and provide us a copy we're going to provide to my fellow board members just to see what we're operating under we discussed putting money into an interest-bearing account but the interest in many of these accounts are so low that it would be negligible to the district the the real savings the real benefit the
148district was on the refinancing on the city side we did discuss with um i did raise the question mr hurt had asked previously about where the dollars are going from the uh speed zone cameras the city is going to use those dollars into infrastructure work in and around the buffalo public schools particularly starting with the areas that have the cameras but that has to do with crosswalks and sidewalks and traffic calming as opposed to actually dollars going in for instruction so that was the response um the second thing that they were waiting for is that even though a group of dollars have been earmarked for the district uh in from the federal government they want to see what the state budget comes from whether or not our actual allocation from the state will be reduced
149by that much or how much i think we'll all have a better idea once the state budget is prepared as to what the final numbers pass because if they allocate 50 60 70 million dollars the district whatever the final number turns out to be and the state reduces the amount by that much well then it's a wash and that that isn't what and that isn't in my opinion the purpose or the intent of the legislation the other thing that um that the uh that the commissioner asterisk who's in charge of the city finance that wanted to remind us was that even though the dis the city's contribution to the district has been constant the amount that the city has received from the state has consistently been reduced so that that numerator has stayed the same
150but the denominator keeps getting smaller and smaller so they just wanted to remind us of that they also remind us that we have a sales tax sharing agreement that the other big five districts don't have and the other in-kind contributions you know that was that was the response we brought up when paulette and i brought up about the increasing of the dollars to the district they said it's not this simple and let me explain all the reasons why uh we'll let you know that we did bring that up and we will uh eagerly await the state's budget as to how it's going to impact the district uh that is my report for this evening uh thank you president sharon belton i want i want to answer that to that report that we also pointed out
151to them that although they felt the buff for public schools is getting increased we received 15 million dollars went to the charter schools so we also did not get an increase so i did want to make sure i let you know we did point that out thank you i'm glad that you guys uh represented us so well my again my apologies that was the day that my granddaughter's computer was down and i was over at south park and i got to tell you i was very impressed with how they handle things at our i.t department but thank you for that next we have board member larry scott please report out thank you uh president cotton i think dr cash has hand raised oh i'm sorry dr cass your hand is up okay yeah colleagues i
152didn't want to be the one to say it but i think i think we do have to uh when we look at these these dollars and the way that you know i've been concerned for example that some news outlets in particular uh the main one of record for here keep talking about this the district getting 245 million in the windfall um for three weeks going now and when we look at this this attack is honest i mean if you if you look in the whole ransom for anything i mean stop saying that stop saying that you know and and um almost every day every day there's some big number that the school system is getting ready to get so that's one point i want to make and you guys need to pull in around that
153and and you know be careful when you're out there on the meeting number two is and jeff and i talk about it jeff has mentioned it so many times and i and i can understand the city you know you know that but it seems to me if you're borrowing millions of dollars you know each year just you know to keep your cash flow going and not have to go and borrow it seems like we should be able to get some kind of interest uh around that when this has been this has been two or three years going now it's just a question and you know lou if you're in those meetings and paulette i i i would just be like a broken record about that issue i get that they've helped us and we this
154and with that but if you were to go out and borrow 12 million dollars 20 million dollars to make it through the year the interest on that is is considerable over time and then you'd have to pay back that amount plus interest and i just you know i i don't know if we're getting enough uh credit or whatever you want to call it around that because every bit is gonna matter when it comes to you know getting our kids where we want them to be and i just think while we listen and and certainly we're partners and polite and all of that you got to hammer that issue because if you look at those sheets month to month there's about a six-month period off of our largesse off of our largesse and you know dr
155k dr cash i i want to make it real a strong point that we did let them know that it is not even a question of whether we get interest because it is an accounting principle founded in our audit that we are required to be paid interest so i'm not um letting that drop because the controller is over accounting principles and law and i think she will respect that but we didn't have uh we didn't have jeff there to hammer that home so you know next time so can we also talk about the fact that they keep uh using the fact that they are providing resources for the citizens of this district and trying to tie it to buffalo public schools as if there is no responsibility for the city to provide support for the
156students in the district you know when we think about it we realize that for the past i don't know how many years that we've received 22 million dollars less than anything closer to our counterpart part of the big fives and to have this conversation so in an audit it was cited that we're supposed to receive interest we expect to receive our interest okay take it from the money that you're getting from the school board from the school cameras that uh a recent report reflected and we're gonna have to bring this up in educational support if that report is true that i heard that there was an investigative report i don't know if it was done by the investigative post or whatever but there's a report out there that says that there are areas that are
157specifically targeted but to for those um cameras and i'll give you an example we needed a camera on maston which is a direct route from main street to the medical corridor and it ends up on ferry street which has about three or four uh stop signs inside the school we couldn't get get it where we need it the city determined that that would interfere i'm sure with the flow of traffic to the medical corridor however it ends up on ferry street okay and ferry has three stop lights uh within a within a quarter of a mile distance so come on now if we need it we need it but i have a major problem with what i'm hearing about this and um i plan to export it even more i'm not going to play games
158with with low-income people and have them uh subject to additional penalties uh because of the deficit that exists within the city and and and and making earning that money on the backs of our of our citizenship our parents that's not right and we're going to be working with that uh so i'm sorry um so uh i just had to put that in there it's unacceptable um that that report showed that there was some biases but if then the record will reflect that i said that from day one that those there were biases associated with that and i was somewhat disappointed that the letter that was written recently to the city supporting from this district was not brought to the board before it was uh sent to say that we want every every school um to
159have the same problems and have it all day long i i have a problem with that with what i'm seeing then on in my community one one parent had a 700 ticket and the city reduced it to 300 okay and she just had to pay the 300 she didn't have to pay the 700. come on now just stop it um okay so um i'm sorry mr heard you have something to say about this so we're moving forward what's up yes speaking of could you please send that to the board also so we can take a look at it and the investigative report yes yeah i don't have it in my hands but once i get it i'll i'll send it to the board that's the intent please this is the channel i'm going from what
160channel i think it was for put on their website wgrz i think put it on their website that's the report that was put on their website i brought i brought it up the other day but i didn't get a chance to get really into it so we need to look at that we're not going to be a party to um that type of uh uh uh unequitable and unequal treatment of people it's just not um hopefully miss keller can pull it up for us um that we can take a look at that because uh i receive complaints all the time and i myself you know uh look at the uh the practice of these speed zone cameras and um how they're being utilized and um it really affected on people uh of uh low income
161and uh especially during times of work hours so we really need to take a look at this strong as a board and i would love to uh present this in educational support and um also uh have an opportunity just to meet with the council possibly so that we can um um try to address this a little more seriously but we also need our community to respond also you know our community write letters and and and have fun they are they're doing their thing but i want to also say that that report said that in the areas where the accidents had occurred but people have been questions have been hurt that there were that the uh cameras were not put in those areas so you know that's interesting um mr petrucci uh thank you president cabinet
162yeah though the one the main complaint that i hear is on uh abbott road in south buffalo we have two cameras with our within less than a half a mile leave each other and it just you drive you have the 15 miles then it's two three blocks that's the 50 mile per hour zone again also so there's just a heavy concentration i know that i've received many complaints about that area in particular we're going to have to go through main street in buffalo also going going out north college yes just want to know if we're starting to go off the dot off the trail a little bit are you are you saying you want to have a meeting parents to talk about the impact of the speed zone cameras on on what there's there's a
163lot of keeping concern about the uh about the cameras and the usage of the cameras the time that they're being utilized and um and a lot of places like uh concerns for um jefferson avenue uh school 99 the kids um should be letting in the parking lot behind the school to where you know a species on camera would be utilized you know for traffic in front of the school though those kids are bused to that location and and people are receiving tickets going up jefferson up the hill and and down the hill you know he's on the hill so your car naturally speeds up so you're trying to control it you know during that time period so a lot of concerns that came from that particular location also and also main streets where we have
164about uh four zones back to back to back to back and then another one that goes out by the university of buffalo so uh so it's uh you know it it caused a lot of traffic it could be more of a hindrance you know as far as a traffic traffic safety then then it could be you know as as protecting and helping you know um you want to look at specific places not take umbrage with the whole idea of speed zone cameras uh around schools that's correct at this time yes sir okay because staff have worked very hard to try to make sure we have a safer zone around schools uh colleagues i don't know you know you've lived here a lot longer than me but i can tell you this this we got a
165heavy foot here in buffalo and i i see people speeding all the time uh right through traffic lights right through right past me everywhere 60 miles an hour it's a problem and when we get into a place where we got children crossing the street we got families trying to take their kids across the street we got buses stopped that they're gonna be stopping on a regular basis as we continue to resume somewhere you know i'm hoping for dialogue but i don't want us to retreat from the notion that we should have these these speed zone families just not tenable well we'll talk about it okay i'm i'm i'm i have a problem with uh what i'm saying that's all i've got to say and i said i mean me too slow down at the end
166of the day at the end of the day if the cameras had gone where the children were being hit and where the accidents were happening we would not be having this conversation they did not go in those zones uh madam president that's that this conversation is a matter of lawsuit it will be resolved there there there have been studies that has been presented to the council about the inequities of the positioning uh they need the revenue we need the protection but the placement appears to be not correlating with where the accidents were and that's the matter of the lawsuit so we'll stay tuned all right i'm sorry okay we got officer okay mr scott moving forward i'm sorry are you reporting all right real quick is uh chair of the ad hoc charter school sustainability
167uh committee um the board had a hearing today with a brick academy charter school which is a charter corporate charter management organization that is proposing two charter schools for buffalo um an east campus and a west campus campus their application is before the suny board of trustees um just some uh financial information and this is coming directly from their application um estimating over five years it would cost buffalo public schools between 20 to 30 million dollars um to to cover for these two schools to be open and and be at full capacity um and that's in addition to the well over 150 million that were already spending on existing charter schools most importantly because of the charter management organization that's involved of that revenue that they receive over five years 3.5 million per school will
168leave buffalo will leave our children and go outside of new york state to where they're housed in new jersey where their charter management organization is housed and that's all public tax dollars and that's 7 million total for both schools that will be leaving buffalo leaving our children um have nothing to do with educating our children and just go into the pockets of that charter management organization um i i'm for the board members that participated it was surprising the the lack of knowledge they had on buffalo there was only one of the maybe seven applicants that attended that actually live in buffalo right now um they had no awareness or understanding of the education bargain that we obviously invest all of our work in here in buffalo public schools um so for those that are listening
169and are concerned about what this is potentially going to do both for buffalo public schools and existing charters i welcome you to send your feedback to bps board members at buffaloschools.org and to make it clear there are three entities that can authorize a charter school suny charter school institute um nice data department board of regents and the buffalo board of education most of the charter schools are authorized by suny and state education department board of regents um there are two that are under our authority that's enterprise charter school in westminster and they're up for renewal um and we need to discuss and take action on those two charter schools which is being requested requested by the commissioner the state commissioner uh miss rosa so i would i'm recommending that with us not having a meeting
170next wednesday that we convene a meeting to discuss and take action on those two charter schools next wednesday okay i think that's a great idea i wanna i think you need to let our listening audience know that um the reason why westminster enterprise are being highlighted and are going through this is because of lack of proficiency and um i'm gonna i've said it before and i'm gonna say it on record uh when we met with the interim commissioner uh rosa uh betty rosa um we were somewhat uh chastised because buffalo public schools um is the sponsor of these uh two schools and for whatever reason we did not understand our proper role in this equation and so when i heard the parents today talking about how great the school is well the missionary approach works
171real well everybody can feel warm and fuzzy okay but if you if the commissioner of education says to you that this this school these two schools have not been performing at proficiency for over a decade then we got to start having a conversation about what's going on here because warm and fuzzy is not educating children and there's not the same transparency is not being addressed between the buffalo public schools and charity schools and had those in buffalo public schools they would have been shut down a long time ago and required to go through a series of steps so we're gonna uh i i i know the board members i hope you will agree and let's see if you're in agreement that we meet at the meeting shouldn't take that long anyway uh next week wednesday
172and um let's get this resolved because we have to get this to the state uh within the next week after that right darren supposed to go to the state this week so we've asked for an extension but it needs to get to them prior to um us leaving for easter break because it needs to the board of regents has to consider it okay the 24th or the 31st that you'll be able to meet and accomplish that and i want that date for those proficiency rates to be made available to the public okay it's one thing to compare buffalo public schools uh a 50 school network 50 plus school network to to one school or two schools but we're in a situation now where um we are being held accountable and we cannot find fault with
173other charter schools without doing what we're supposed to do for our charter schools and that's what just what the message was talking about that we have responsibility to handle that so we need to uh get to that anybody have a problem with meeting next uh wednesday for a brief meeting no everybody's okay okay all right with four o'clock you want to do the can meeting earlier four o'clock people who could can anybody not do four can you do four can everyone do four lou that's good for you okay jen said it's okay larry says it's okay okay it's okay okay go to four o'clock go ahead and do it it's fine say that again i said i'm not available but go ahead and do it i don't want you to not do it because of
174just me so go ahead and fella boy at four o'clock are you that date at all i'm not available next wednesday okay all right okay all right so um hopefully the majority we can have enough that we got enough people to have that meeting we have to have the meeting it's not an option what happens if they don't extend us there do we do we have to pull something together real quick quicker than that we have to do something because their charter is up they only got an extension so their charter is up and it's you know charter the the district has to make some decision all right thank you okay thank you all right thank you um uh board member scott for your uh for your uh report okay if all mines are settled
175we're gonna move forward um i i did hear a requested to find out more about our sports department uh or our sports activities so we can give our parents uh some information but that's about all that i think is outstanding uh may i have a mostly to accept the consent agenda uh paulette lou uh all in favor just put your thumbs up any uh any opposed we're all good okay question number nine eight uh is on the table uh with mr lou petrucci civil service personnel change uh thank you president kaufman as we go uh with phase two starting on monday uh my question just i wanna make sure that we have enough uh bus drivers and bus aides i saw in this in 9a that we saw some resignations of bus aides i just
176want to make sure that we'll be as well stacked or staffed as possible well mr patricia um you know there's a position open so you know maybe from seven to nine before you start to day job maybe me and you could get out there pick a bus sharon i'll take one you can have the other one okay uh dr cash uh you had mentioned that uh you felt comfortable you wasn't sure about bus aides uh and uh maybe we can get something updated through our transportation department to us on that via email okay thank you okay next uh mr heard were your questions in c d and e answered um dealing with uh fitness rooms at emerson south park and um primate try maine yes i'll just make it quick uh i see the purchase
177price for um ninety thousand almost ninety thousand five hundred and um i would like to know what equipment are being purchased for that monies uh what's what other uh activities going to be done you know the usage of that money i didn't see a list of of actually uh what's being purchased what upgrades are being made to those facilities so if you can get that to me please yeah i will share with the board as i shared in my answer this afternoon it's actually import docs under the administrative section it's actually five pages long all the items that are being added to those schools and you'll also see there's additional um new flooring in those fitness rooms and with the answers i sent out today there's a proposed schedule for the updates of the other
178fitness rooms in the district also but what i can do is detach those from board docs and send those to you separately if you can't access them mr heard they're not on my board docs so i'm not pulling them up so that's what i was asking again just to be clear about what services are we getting is it gonna be a service also or is this going to be the equipment or upgrade so so what i'm concerned about is the equity piece here okay i'm concerned about what equipment exists at what schools because what i what i've seen is there are some schools that have everything that you can possibly name and some that do not that's something that we need to look at to make sure that all children have access to the same
179type of equipment okay we really do we really do that's that's for real okay um so 18 h mr hurd uh 18 h was um um dr um dr brown uh answer to some of those questions about 18 h but i just want one question i get a lot of complaints i know larry mentioned this also um what's about the children who don't come to school who um don't wear masks who can't wear a mask because of a mental uh disability or probably a health a health risk a health so i just want to know can some of these masks be used for those children that that have problems wearing masks over their face for education okay so 18 h is youth clear mass uh school health corporation supplemental purchase okay that's what we're talking
180about so and i i explained that those masks are used um so that you could the students are able to practice their articulation beneath phonemic awareness skills you know the hearing impaired speech with articulation concerns um entering and emerging enl students pre-cater to and it's helpful for those teachers to see their mouths when they're practicing those skills and these masks aren't reusable i think what mr hurd is asking is about masks of when students can't wear a mask nor a face shield these are still masked mr hurt they're just clear in the front so what i will do yeah i i will ask kim hosher if that's been explored with some of the students that you know don't feel comfortable wearing a mask but those are the two choices for students a mask or a
181face shield but there must be a cover okay i i was not seeing nothing clear a mess i thought it meant had a shield or some some sort of um divider that was attached you all the board approved i believe last board meeting or the board meeting before that the face shields so we do have those in stock that students are able to use if they can't wear a mask so for our parents to have complaints up from their children who have trouble wearing masks have those been utilized for that purpose yes they have oh yeah yeah okay thank you okay good okay if you're good with that okay then uh we are ready to vote mr uh kuzman would you please pull the board uh are we removing um number 23 h i believe
182that was the last one mr heard had a question about oh i didn't have that okay 23 i didn't have that 23 h right because that resolution is set to be tabled so mr hur can ask his question or his concern tonight we can send it to committee because the board isn't voting on that uh policy until next board meeting the next four meeting tonight okay okay thank you but my only question about that was um was the city honors uh in our criterion schools um but the jesse ketchum awards is states that for uh for uh one seat they'll go to a criteria school or lift the schools that was on the list um for 110 students and one seat would be available and for above 110 students in that school on that ninth
183grade that two seats would be available and i would like to see those numbers raised so we can we can talk about that at another time but uh but um i know that dr will caress reached out to me today and i wasn't um available but uh i would like to see some adjustment to that that more than one or two cc be uh be awarded for those uh jesse ketchum award awardees and um and so that we can have a little more diversity in that thank you and so has that admission test been removed is my concern so let's take that back to your committee president yeah president cobb and that that issue has been addressed in the new policy where we raid that requirement except that uh except that buffalo academy of visual
184and performing arts where the uh audition is certainly a very heavy component of admission okay thank you so lou uh would you put that on your agendas also your agenda also so that we can review that and uh wrap that up okay sorry about not having that um okay so uh uh councilman i mean councilman lord council uh nate hi all right on the consent agenda how do you vote uh dr kathy evans brown no exception mr heard no obsessions miss jay no exceptions miss mccosy is that no exceptions i couldn't quite hear yeah no exceptions i'm sorry no that's okay just want to be clear for the record uh mr petrucci uh no exceptions councilmember mister missed not today well maybe probably not probably mr scott didn't hear you mr scott thank you uh
185board member rivera is excused uh board member woods since i'm sorry exceptions i said no no exceptions okay and president belton cottman no exception all right consent agenda passes thank you consent agenda passes okay so um lou do you have your list of um uh uh list of our honorees who have uh parted from this with transition do you have a list i do i do present okay i'm sorry um very quickly because you still have the resolution to deal with i'm going to make sure you thank you okay uh so uh what will okay the resolution i'm sorry uh number 24a uh board member uh larry scott sponsored a resolution on grades three through eight state assessments in the planned image um yes thank you president cotman so um i am introducing this resolution
186tonight it is currently sponsored by vice president kathy evans brown uh member at large terence heard member at large dr anne rivera west district jennifer mccosy and north district hope j um to summarize as we all know the at an acting assistant secretary of education denied a requested waiver by state ed to waive state assessments for this school year in state ed's waiver request it was indicated that the spring 2021 state assessments quote cannot be safely equitably and fairly administered to all students across the state given how severely the pandemic has impacted the delivery of instruction to students and adversely affected their social and emotional well-being we know that students have incurred ongoing interruptions since last year most have received instruction remotely especially in buffalo public schools and other large urban school districts students of
187color their parents are more likely to choose to re uh to stay full remote and as we saw this week in some surveys and articles that mr petrucci and i shared with the board um that has been reflected that students of color those parents and from lower income families they're more likely to choose remote instruction um administering state assessments grades three to eight for a limited number of students will reduce time for instruction intervention social emotional support for us for all our students at a time that it is needed most weaving state assessments would redirect funds affiliated with state assessments to providing most needed interventions and supports directly to schools and students administering state assessments in an altered manner with a limited number of students will yield unreliable results in comparisons to previous years of
188administered state assessments state assessments provide little to no useful information to school staff and parents and have been mostly used to judge and punish public schools staff and students in attempts to privatize public education especially in urban school districts such as buffalo public schools buffalo public schools and our staff continue to utilize local diagnostic and holistic assessments and i've added some of those that were shared and this was recommended by um board member heard some of these came from uh uh miss bo charlie's presentation last week for example star math dibbles eight independent reading level assessment new entrant screener i station district benchmark assessments common informative assessments etc which provide far more meaningful information on student growth strengths and weaknesses than the state assessments therefore be it resolved the buffalo board of education respectfully requests
189that newly appointed united states secretary of department of education dr mcwell cardona overturned the denial of the nicest request to waive state assessments for the 2021 school year further be it resolved the board of education respectfully requests the assistance of president joseph biden senator and majority leader charles schumer us senator kristen gillibrand and u.s congressman brian higgins in over overturning the denied state ad request by the us department of education to waive state assessments for the 2021 school year further be it resolve the board of education assures buffalo parents and caregivers the right to choose to have their children opt out of grade three through eight state assessments free of any penalty or repercussion in the event that they are administered the other um changes that i've made um from uh recommendation from president cotman
190was to make this inclusive of all state assessments not just grades three to eight so in the title i took out grades three to eight so it's now titled resolution on assessments and a pandemic and then i also took grades three to eight out in the seconds for the first further be it resolved um in the end and i want to i thank you for those making those changes i also would like to uh co-sponsor i'll be a sponsor of this as well uh paulette woods your hand is up uh yes i just wanted to say that um at the urban forum yesterday dr nicole hannah jones strongly said that the state assessments were the the vehicle that we had to measure where our children are and to be able to judge what necessary supports
191we have to give them for how to find out how far they've fallen behind and to make a difference so based on listening to her i will not be signing or voting for that amendment thank you i participated in that urban forum and unless she said it at a different point i asked a question about standardized testing and her response was that she felt that standard standardized testing um there's value in it and it plays a role that we need it but i don't remember her referencing specifically state assessment she did not that's right i would say hospital and she did not reference faith there is what you mentioned on this resolution clearly depicts other assessments that are worthy of uh telling parents and showing the district correct here problem this is the pandemic and
192so you can't expect regular rigorous state assessments to be the same if it wasn't a pandemic thank you yes i believe they said the tests would not be used for slapping our hands but more to let us know where we have to catch our children up our parents want knowledge of where their children are so that we can catch them up and that that was what was pointed out yesterday so i just wanted to be clear on it okay jennifer your hand is up or did you take it down no my hand i just wanted to make sure that um for the record my reasoning for being a part of this uh responsible resolution is the same as that it's always been not just during the pandemic issue but the state assessments do not really
193evaluate a child's whole well-being and what a child brings to the table is not just what they've taken a test that day you know i mean it i it doesn't it doesn't depict a child's uh entire scope of their knowledge and their interests and what they bring to the table and i believe with the list and there was a plethora of different assessments that you know um dr ann botticelli and and larry scott that you mentioned that you know also can dig into a little more of what that child needs it isn't just a method of whether or not they can it's two plus two but it's how they get there it's you know what is their roadblock if they cannot get there what is their understanding of the of the subject in general and
194the state assessment should not assess that in any way thank you and i like also like to say the state assessments take months to come back okay so it's not as if it's a diagnostic tool that can be used to help the students move to the next level it's just not happening so uh i think there needs to be a further understanding of what exactly the state assessments are that is uh the conversation when we are teaching to the test mentality versus finding out what children actually know and where they are and that's the reason why um i think it's great that we've added these assessments and i think part two of this is for the board uh to uh set up time schedules to have those uh assessments reviewed and um i certainly am
195not for my child being compared uh or my grandchild being compared and he has not been in the classroom for over a year uh to a student who has had a smaller environment and was in the classroom for the entire year i don't feel that's fair to him but i am we are going to be looking at the the tests or these his scores on the uh uh tests that are being used um for diagnostic purposes and i'm proud to uh sign on to this and i will uh take on that debate for anyone who feels especially after that debate for so long about uh the uh common core debate if you'll remember that debate how all of a sudden that that mentality flipped so we should not uh that all children should be tested
196even though they haven't had the same opportunity to learn i'm not with that and i'm not standing for that equity does not say do this uh equity says do what we're doing i'm proud of you thank you president so thank you i i move to um approve the resolution um with the amendments presented including adding uh president felton cottman as a sponsor to the resolution thank you okay second okay so i secondly uh taren second um all in favor um do we need to do a roll call vote or we can just raise our hands i i'm okay with you raising your hands based on the comments okay jennifer stepped out her hand went up and then she left jennifer your hand up okay jennifer all board members present uh except for uh paulet woods
197has raised their hands thank you so paul that woods is a naval they vote okay and every other board member except dr rivera is in favor okay okay we got that all right thank you dan for keeping me on the straight and there i appreciate you okay so in moving forward we do have uh nate asked that we go into executive session he has to share some legal things with us uh we still want to do our respect our bereaved uh individuals so um before you move on what about uh 24 i think is 24a that's the one that we just passed no no i'm sorry it's um it's about the holocaust oh that's gonna be under unfinished business uh uh once we come out of executive affairs okay all right under unfinished business tonight
198i would like to talk about the rich the retreat the restorative justice um uh and the uh uh sponsorship uh of a uh of a student um scholarship um with the uh holocaust resource center okay and then um any other items that you would like to talk okay all right so uh mr petrucci wait a minute wait wait wait wait wait unfinished business needs to be posted on what it is no uh it doesn't happen aaron i asked darren about that and nate and so anything else you want to talk about what that could be anything we can yeah we can talk about anything under unfinished business that's under robert rosa border if somebody wants to bring something to the table it does not have to be a part of the uh consent agenda that's
199what that is the place where that is discussed if it's something that impacts you or whatever but um certainly um that's my understanding well it's it's it's not fair to staff or to me to bring up unfinished business that i don't know what's taught what you're going to talk about you ought to give me some advanced notice i just gave you what we're going to talk about no you did it i did too no you did it athletics as we discussed earlier no and what does that mean what does that mean we went through this last time colleagues i told you you don't ambush me i will not participate what does that mean we're going to discuss athletics i sent you a blue line response today last week that you asked me to do i
200sent it to you this afternoon anything beyond that i don't know what you're talking about okay i i don't i i guess i guess this was uh in the uh works prior to coming to this board meeting uh certainly i should have got should have had a conversation with me but my understanding is if this board wants to talk about something they have the right to talk about it they may not be able to resolve it but they certainly have the right to bring it up now there's no mother on this board and there's no muzzle on this board if you feel that if you know it's not about a muscle about having preparation to well the reason if if you can't if there's a situation where you cannot address it because you have not
201had enough notice that's fine okay then we move that to a committee and most of this stuff always ends up in committee anyway but certainly if something uh comes up we can't be just governed by just not saying that now this particular risk that's going on in regards to this sports department or the sports information i have a major concern if you send some information over i haven't looked at it and mr heard there's obviously a communication problem between you and me because somehow or another i'm not aware of what what you're trying to move forward i would encourage you and all the board members to speak to me in regards to what things you're trying to move forward so that we can get on the same page and understand what you're trying to do
202you know that's the least that can happen as president of this board that you let me know what you're trying to do because if you don't then this is the conversation that we have out in public that i would prefer that we did not have okay so um my understanding is that items that are under um you were discussing were you gonna discuss discuss with the board a time for that restorative justice retreat and we sent the board earlier eleanor ford to the board what you had sent to the board members weeks ago about the sponsorship of that award correct right right and and it's been on uh we discussed this two weeks ago about um about the future the athletic department uh email went out and dr cash responded um he was supposed to
203respond um i actually be placed on the uh educational support committee meeting for wednesday march 10th and it wasn't added on to the uh to the meeting and uh which which is not uh which which is advised that uh if a committee member as acts that has something added to the committee meeting it should be added to the meeting and um i i think there are some legal liabilities that go up with that no there is a difference between this is your business meeting board there is a difference between unfinished business you know like scheduling future meetings to discuss something that's already been talked about or to vote on an item that's going to be before the board to spend money and bringing items as a catch-all to talk about anything and everything you want
204to i think you have to be very careful about that and there needs to be those need to be distinguished and a lot of this can be resolved by simply communicating with people this is you know it it it's simple you know if you have a concern and you bring it to my attention and we're trying to work things out that's why we have uh this uh darren we have uh nate kuzman and we have the superintendent we and we can work these things out but it's not gonna be a situation we're not trying to play uh gotcha i don't have time for that at nine o'clock at night i'm not playing that and so if you don't feel that your your questions are being answered or you don't feel that you're getting what you
205need mr heard you need to communicate with me if you're not then that's the issue here you need to communicate with the board president moving forward on how how how you want them so that we can decide how you understand i i did communicate with you um several times about this topic how um did you call me up we were talking to text message okay well i don't remember texting you on this issue i for one feel as if that if we don't really discuss all this openly but just like you just said but uh but this agenda was asked to be placed several times on the educational support committee meeting and it wasn't and this is something that our community members have sent a lot of emails have a lot of concerns you know
206about the future um and the recent uh um reactions you know our recent um uh uh sports events and and and how this one how he's gonna go forward so uh this is something that had urgency okay so so so if it had urgency mr heard after cash that you stopped and i called dr cass several times on it and i didn't get them i responded i responded to you in blue line last thursday we couldn't get it to you because the system was attacked on friday morning but i completed that last thursday you said you're in a question we ask you that since i wasn't going to be able to be there send the questions and we will blue line them for you in the morning you did that and i have since blue
207lined those questions so tonight's topic i don't know what you're talking about and it can be a wide open long thing i don't have staff here i'm happy to talk about anything you want to talk about but this is not this is not how you do unfinished business in my opinion what what president kaufman did is fine but if you want to just have an open topic and say we need to talk and then you have a bunch of questions there that no one else is privy to and you want to ask me those on the spot tonight and then if you don't like the answers to my questions then what and what are we doing so i have to get very good clarity about that uh before we go into anything to do with
208athletics tonight my staff are at games and finishing off the season tonight but they're not here i'm here so in moving forward okay let's so let's let's let's set the let's reset state and reset the ground rule if something is so important and i sent this out in an email okay mr heard that the you know the community is is moving an agenda forward then it's important that the president knows how serious it is so that i can let uh the staff know and we know we need and i can let the staff know uh and we can move forward uh with that okay but at this point in time this this is not the time that we can do this it's just not and i just want you guys to know i totally disagree
209with with your statement you just made right now um respectfully um this this these questions were submitted to dr on um on last week of monday march 10th and i did reach out to like i said several times i didn't get a reply back about them i also reached out to you we talked through text message about this back thing when did we talk about a text message show me where we talked about a text message done it see this is the problem mr heard okay if you want to move an agenda from the community as i've told the community if they want to move an agenda they better start talking to me as far as moving any agenda if they want to talk about moving in agendas they better come through the president because
210to hear all this other rhetoric and all this other stuff that's going on that i'm not getting the full understanding of until after the effect of it in the past when there was an issue you were compassionate about you certainly took the time to lobby board members about it but what i don't understand is that if this issue is so important to the for the uh board that the community has brought it to you why haven't you lobbied the board members on it these are the dates here i had a very busy and i thought you were talking to me and i responded as if you were talking to me and told you you should have said that these text messages here you said you wasn't talking to me you said you were talking to
211dr cash that's what you said you have a problem with communication solve this issue right now the last email that you said yeah you had a word in there that changed the entire meaning of the email so that you got to understand you should call people and talk to people that's what you need to do whether you like talking to me or not you need to call me and no no i had a very busy and trying week i had a lot of things going on but i had a lot of business to take care of also and some of the things that i did work through text message and they wrote communication through you so don't don't no no let me help you and i'll be happy to share with the board with let's
212remember the public is watching okay so calm down i'll be happy to share with the board what you said to me that's what the problem is you gotta send it to dr cash and then you sent me back and said something altogether different so you don't need the car you need to call people you need to call people and then the next time something is so important that the community brings you the information information you need to do what you do paul and lobby the board to move things forward if it's that important because i'm not going to have people having rallies telling me that there's information going into board members of not getting through to the whole board or to the superintendent we have crossed that line in our community that they will be
213talking to me about concerns that impact them moving forward because they want to make sure that we get it resolved because it does not look good that the community is coming at this board or this superintendent and there's a communication problem on this board sees information that he's trying to get through to um to others people and it's not it's not until you get it that's how it goes okay i mean i am receiving many text messages about what this might be perceived as and it's miscommunication i've been asked to see if we can move along um if the community is responding this way i'm hoping that we can pass this and maybe discuss this at another time we will be interrupting but yeah we definitely need to discuss this and at another time though
214as the community is reaching out i'm here to others as well thank you i'm very concerned that the community understands that dr cash and is our only technically our only employee and in in in addressing these issues if if there is something that this board needs okay and we're not having a conversation amongst ourselves about it then how do you expect for it to get resolved and that's what i've got to say about that okay now and moving forward um and i think it's healthy discourse i really do i really do because at the end of the day if we can get it clear that if we have a problem we need to talk amongst ourselves before we take it to the superintendent the superintendent cannot answer nine texts of uh messages every day or
215whenever people are requested that information is supposed to come through the board and the board is supposed to direct the superintendent it's in his contract thank you new moving forward let's do our bereavement and then we will um uh come back i would do a motion for executive session and uh nate has uh some things he needs to discuss with us and then we can move forward okay thank you please rise so these are our uh bereavements for the uh march 17th meeting of the buffalo board of education on february 8th uh anthony tresillio father of anthony trazillio uh anthony tresillo senior father radleigh truseau jr gym teacher february 22nd donna mae kent grandmother of valerie kent principals at pathways academy february 26 thomas j lynch son of susan lynch retired benefits office february 28th
216linda ann corthois mother of stephanie berkmeyer cse chair school number 197 march 2nd mary g turney retired teacher aide at school 30t school 32 i'm sorry on march 12th uh marlene kk gaz mother of kimberly gonzalez west turtle academy clerk and then on february 6th or i'm sorry march 16th lennie j taylor senior brother to jackie jones human resource journalist human resources and waleeda jones brown teacher aide can we have a moment of silence for those who have passed before we do that that we please acknowledge the passing of emilio fuentes who is a strong strong education advocate i wasn't sure of the date and i just heard about it um but he was involved in education for so many years and with so many people in different organizations across the city thank you miss
217mccosy thank you board members thank you okay nate how much are you ready to move forward into this as soon as you make them i'll just have to log on mike lucci you'll have to let me in uh okay listening so may i have a motion to go into executive session for the following purpose one to discuss pending litigation with buffalo collegiate charter schools too to discuss pending litigations with the buffalo teachers federation three to discuss pending litigation with bcsa and four for the purpose of receiving legal advice may i have a um jennifer second by uh lou all in favor any opportunity and pose all in favor okay so moved okay so uh they will need about five nate how much time do you need a couple minutes a couple of minutes does anybody
218need a five minute break or are we ready to move forward and wrap this up and no actions were taken may i have a motion authorized in the district to appeal case number eight zero zero five nine six slash twenty twenty one to the appellate division fourth department jennifer and i saw cassie's hands jennifer first kathy ii all in favor raise your hand any opposed no oppose okay under um wrap this meeting up under unfinished business tonight cassie um evans brown can you uh move forward please sure so i'm going to paraphrase this sponsorship um request is for the holocaust resource center of buffalo better known as hrc it's a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching the lessons of the holocaust the survivors and victims and promoting social justice civil responsibility and human rights it's achieved
219by educating students and teachers about the holocaust with survivor visits to schools hosting educator conferences organizing community-wide commemoration events preserving survivor testimony and artifacts and recognizing upstanders in our local community uh and then i'm going to go on to say that they're they're always welcome um our involvement and they're considered they want us to consider sponsorship and participation and this year's upstander event taking place virtually on thursday may 20th 2021 at 5 where we will be presenting the sophia effer upstander award it's an award named in honor of sophia's sophia zephyr a cherished local holocaust survivor who continues to reach thousands annually with her message of the importance of being an upstander in the face of adversary so this year the hrc is proud to present the 2021 sophia buffer of stan upstander award to
220david ross david ross is the executive director of say yes buffalo under david rust's vision and leadership yes buffalo provides services and resources to increase high school and post-secondary completion raised in the city of buffalo in addition the hrc is thrilled to announce the inaugural student of sander award to present it to a young adult in our community who was courageous and who chooses fearful fearlessly to defend what is just what others choose to be bystanders so they're asking us to join in honoring david ross and our student upstander on may the 20th and by becoming a sponsor so the sponsorship opportunity is in the amount of five thousand dollars the student will receive a plaque in tuition to attend the academy for human rights summer symposium uh to further their development as an upstander
221the summer symposium provides students the opportunity to hear internationally known human rights experts take part in hands-on activities and field trips and learn the skills they need to make an impact on the community nation and the world and so with that that is the recommendation of the sponsorship opportunities of five thousand dollars so can i have a motion to um move forward with this uh this sponsorship uh uh it is an opportunity for us to provide a public school student the opportunity to attend this uh session and up is mr hurd second by jennifer mccoos all in favor please raise your hand hi we have 91 opposed paulette was your hand up your hand was up okay all in favor all okay no no one is opposed to it okay thank you um all right
222moving forward let's wrap this up we have a retreat that we are in the process of trying to plan as you will remember uh gina thompson is going to be uh working with us uh in a retreat uh dina uh wants to start talking to the board members how she has outlined this um she would like to come in on next week i got a response for her to at least uh uh and and darren seems to feel it may be a problem because of the work that we have to do with the charter school but she wanted to at least outline the program with us then she wanted to do at least uh and if she can't do it then we'd have to do it at a later date but she liked our permission
223to move forward with the one-hour interviews moving forward uh each board member including uh the superintendent would uh if he's part of the board would have a one-hour up to a one-hour interview with her uh then they will outline lay out what their plans are originally she wanted to lay out her plans and then meet with board members but time is of the essence dina takes vacation uh in april uh we are out from uh january i mean april the 1st through the 12th and we don't have a lot of time so here are some of the dates and and we need to and we'll throw some dates out but we need to talk about if we want to get together for a four to five hour retreat on a saturday or a friday evening
224or when we want to do it uh some of the dates that were mentioned um were uh in march uh march the 31st there's a wednesday that we don't have board meeting that we could maybe do it that night um sunday she's available on sundays the 28th of march uh uh saturday april the 10th and sunday the 11th in addition to that uh she would like to talk to us between the 22nd of march and the 31st so uh she has your phone number she has your email she'll be reaching out to you um her concern is is that we have not had our initial conversation are you guys okay with us not having the initial conversation until after she does the uh one hour interview are you okay with that because it would take
225some weight off of her or would you like for her to come in next week on the 24th and talk to us after we deal with the enterprise and charters and westminster charter school issues does anyone have an opinion yes mr petrucci uh i think i'd like to hear what she has to say after she speaks to us but that's you know my opinion i would like her to get going and and then maybe afterwards she can she'll have a better um again better idea of the scope of work that needs to be completed okay good so do you think um anybody else having a does everyone else that's okay you agree okay good okay okay so april the 7th uh we have a committee we don't have a committee meeting our next committee meeting
226isn't until april the 14th um and so i guess the question is does anyone want to uh throw out a date during that week that we're off from school or whatever to meet um or whatever so we're going to throw out some dates to you let's see what we can come back um does anyone opposed to doing and the reason that she picked five hours is she incorporated two breaks for 15 uh for uh 15 minutes and a 30 minute lunch incorporated in that and so she would really only be dealing with four hours with us on that okay there's definitely a need you know for us to uh get this uh facilitated and moving forward uh is anyone uh receptive to opening up on a saturday maybe uh saturday april the 10th you don't
227know what throw some dates out there there's something going on with the uh you master something like something is that i haven't even looked at myself now for oh my goodness i haven't even looked at my schedule i'll be all the time okay so that's not gonna work so we'll just throw some days out there do the first of april 31st of march you guys think that the 31st of march then on a wednesday where we normally don't have board meeting i'm okay with that you like that jennifer what about you it makes sense it makes sense okay let's do it then all right that's good okay i'll let her know and we'll send out uh we'll get an email sent out with more detail in it okay all right okay so if we're ready
228to adjourn may have a motion to uh conclude this meeting jennifer second by dr kathy evans brown and i'm sure there are no no ones that's opposing if you are raise your hand all right no put your hand down you'll be here by yourself lou all right thank you very much i appreciate it have a great week and stay safe everyone