001okay i'd like to call tonight's meeting to order we're gonna start off with the pledge i'd like to remind everybody that uh this meeting is being recorded and review it leader point so i'd like to ask for a motion to approve the present agenda that's right that's a second all in favor aye thank you [Music] public comment this is an opportunity for the public to address the board uh is there any public here right tonight that wants to uh address us in this area okay board member comment any board members have uh been up to anything new absolutely okay the high school musical was presented um last friday night for an invited audience it was done virtually i am so so proud of what our music department did with this um with this program um
002the filming the editing the kids are are theater class did uh samantha said that the theater class did a huge portion of it um it was just wonderful it is now on your website youtube and you can watch it i think it's less than an hour i know it's less than an hour to watch it was a very proud night for me and i think it will be for you too if you want to see what these what this what they've done in the circumstances they've been teaching with so that's it for me craig all right that's awesome anybody else all right building apartments let's start right off of the med as long as people are speaking clearly into the mic and it's picking up on zoom so um we kind of we're going to
003do this as a three the three of us together so uh i'm uh justin um mike and i but i'll start with some just some uh end of the year thoughts and stuff for well that would be easier justin if you come over here um we kind of wanted to structure this the three of us wanted for this like where we were where we are now and like what our takeaways are from this year um so i think what i can say is um for one of the things and and i gave two board reports i'm gonna spend too much time talking about the beginning of the school year but i will say that the thing that i can say that is consistent throughout this entire year is that um is the resilience of the
004staff at the elementary school that at any time anything was in their way it was met as a challenge but it was also overcome there's very little that we haven't been able to do with the resources and the time and the restrictions that we have so i have to say that's something that's been consistent at med for the entire um year um some of the things a really big takeaway for me um as far as what i've learned just recently is that when we we have a group we have a population of students that have been remote um there was also part of that population that mr simon and i kind of encouraged parents that they really needed to come back to school and receive direct instruction um small group instruction one-on-one instruction whatever it
005may be and so we have baseline scores of those students when they were home and we have scores of those students when they remained home for a certain period of time and for those students who actually came back to school their the data that we just recently had showed that their scores just soared by being in school with their teachers and so that just really reinforces for me the fact that the remote option for the population just did not work this year it works in small segments when it's an emergency situation like a snow day or emergency when we had to go out on covered for quarantine it definitely worked for that but for large blocks of time and for an entire school year it just did not work for a large population and so
006having that group of students back to school really made a difference and so i'm very encouraged that we will have our students in the um you want to do like where we were you want to skip around or um you know like kristen said we don't really want to go i don't think anybody wants to um with a lot of anxiety and uncertainty i don't so much the anxiety fully went away um but the uncertainty got um better um you know teachers are learning how to teach in a hybrid setting um synchronous asynchronous learning um we had difficulties in the beginning of the year with remote instruction internet issues power outages but that was a vast um and we we kept moving forward where we are now mental health is still a major um priority
007um and and i say that globally um admin teachers parents students um i think that even though we're in a better place um doesn't mean that everyone's okay um i think teachers maxed out um you know we're maxed out and i think we all are looking forward to some normalcy um you know in full school um we were able to to bring back all of our uh middle school students that chose to come back there's a lot of planning that took place in that um a lot of anxiety on my end i'm sure i wasn't the only one um but to see the the students back um some of them have had over a year and to hear the [Music] i really think it's it's helped um everyone especially these not just just getting through
008so um as of now we have a total of 193 students that are in the building um and then roughly 35 that are that are still remote um you know what what we saw from this similar to what kristen said grades we saw students that you know when they were remote first and second marking period um you know somewhere in the 50s and 60s third and fourth right now jump you know jumped up to 80s and in 90s um we're looking at right now um and we're starting to see growth um since the beginning of the year um even discipline um went up which was kind of like oh all right we're back to normal yeah and but not nothing awful just you know kids being kids getting they're excited to be back with their
009with their peers um so you know um next week next friday um we have our eighth grade moving up ceremony um we're doing it in front of parents we're doing on the high school football field so we're really excited about doing that so this will really be our first live event in in some time um next wednesday we've got our national junior honor society inductions and we're doing that limited capacity but in the auditorium at the high school um we have uh sixth trade orientation tomorrow which we're doing virtually um yeah so i'm gonna because i'll talk a lot i'm gonna give this to uh to justin and then we'll come back around [Music] um yeah i mean like i said you know gotta reiterate what these two have said you know the high school
010um isn't isn't much different um other than the fact that the way our schedules work and the way set up you know we haven't been able to get in um um you know we've been trying to add get more students in as much as we could at the beginning of the year we had we're able to get all the special ed students that wanted to join us in every day and then we moved that to 504 and then we continued to look at struggling students and we were able to accommodate those students and get them in every day then we started looking at a lot of the uh the mental health stuff there's a large there's a large population increase that are of students that are now going to therapy um or on or on
011medication due to you know the past 15 months so we're able to work with kids and get them in um so in terms of attendance and bringing people in you know our goal since the beginning is to have as many people in safely as we could and hopefully next year um we will you know hopefully everybody's back i just maybe a little recap off of two weeks ago um in terms of the failures we are making some progress um i reported that there was 11 um seniors in jeopardy with one project three of those are now off off of the i've personally heard three others and will you know that are working on it um i was able to reach out to the parents of those 11 uh no backlash uh parents were supportive supportive
012um and [Music] just and where we have with the seniors from project on the academic um 31 failures like i said a couple weeks um targeting 99 students um in terms of course failures um [Music] put an emphasis on the um um yeah in uh two of those are now in good standing academically you know just in two weeks time had some some progress so we will talk about some of the things that we've learned about this year some of our takeaways um one of the things that i learned um is that you you you forget what a small win is and how much how important it is um when i made the um announcement after the decision was made that we would uh re-implement intramurals and field trips you would have thought that the
013building hit the lottery the kids being able to go on the playground was probably the greatest day i mean they were running around the building saying this is the greatest day of my life i mean just those little wins that you forget about um we really um mike and i at one point were sharing a mental health provider and we realized that giving them chances that just was not going to work and so now each building has um we each have our own we're not sharing one anymore i have my own mental health not my own personal but the building has our own mental health provider and mike has one um which is going to make a huge difference because that is one of our glaring concerns going into the fall um being outside with
014no masks on it's just been the greatest thing for the kids this week um you know it's like they they understand they have to stay away from each other but they just again it's those little things that really have excited them um some things that i think that we will take with us that we've done this year going forward is um i think parents really i got a lot of positive feedback about a virtual open house and the virtual parent teacher conferences because parents who normally couldn't participate in parent-teacher conferences could parents who maybe are from two households who didn't want to go to the same open house could um that was really important we did not send home any paper copies of the report card we probably never will again we really got every
015parent sign up for the parent portal and that's going to save a lot of trees on our part we had a um we created a relationship we have had a relationship for many years with the flying deer swell and we have renewed that relationship because we could not send our fifth graders as we always have to nature's classroom flying deer came here and they did a performance and and an environmental day like none i've ever seen i mean they should be commended for that and so that's going to do from this point on that we will always do that um i have to say that some of the instructional things that teachers did this year unlike the women group kids probably something that we will take with us the future um you know some of
016the more kind of um grouping viability that we haven't traditionally done in the elementary school across classrooms we did this year and it worked really well um i think we one of the things i can say is that we really confidently the three of us decide made decisions that were tough decisions but every decision we need was because we knew it was what was best for the kids it wasn't always the popular decision it was decisions that we knew that was best for the students and i have to say personally we have an incredibly strong administrative team i you know we i could be nowhere this year without the people i work with directly every day so that's those are my takeaways um yeah so i'll give i'll give some takeaways and just you know
017you know we've got we framed it where we are where we were where we are and where we're going um you know my hope my plan is that um we're back normal in the fall i feel that the way this fourth market period worked in the middle school with all the kids back um shows us we can do it um moving forward now i don't see us going back looking forward to in-person meetings again you know it was really it was really great um i was at the retirement um dinner last friday and he faculty um k-12 as a large group like that and and we really haven't been like that in a long time was was great um a lot of laughter um it was it was just nice i mean that really does
018make you feel good um and it does bring bring up morale so tomorrow um we're having our first in-person faculty meeting um we're doing it outside um so i'm excited to do that excited about bringing back our panther pride days and and things that um are for the students that they they missed out on um that you know made it fun for the teachers made it fun for me um you know coming in every day and continuing to focus on mental all the mental health needs for for everyone and addressing our academic apps um you know if we can say there was anything positive for many of it some takeaways um you know this year we started having lunch outside that's something that i want to continue to do moving forward i think it's good
019for the kids to be outside um and it's just it's just been it's just something we're like wow why haven't we ever thought about doing this um we've been talking about the possibility of building a pavilion at the middle school which would serve as an outdoor classroom for for teachers um it would be a place for kids to go um a an area for parents um when they're watching um you know sporting events i agree with kristen about the virtual parent night a lot of positive reports from that from faculty and parents and just you know despite you know all the issues we had this year you know each day i would come in and i'd look at our attendance report and and we were in a good place um we were all hands on
020deck and like i said before with anxiety and stress and all this going on everyone um from our custodial secretarial from lunch um our bus drivers buildings and grounds our aides our teaching assistants teachers everyone it was all hands on deck and uh we wouldn't have made it almost to the finish line with without everyone so i'll give it to you justin yeah and just to kind of piggyback on that and mike brings us up all the time so i'm going to steal his thunder a little bit but you know because of the board because of administration because of the teachers because of everybody that might just been you know compared to a lot of other districts we did pretty well this year in terms of having students in the building you know if you
021look at some of the schools you know western new york and other places i mean new york city they what they just got kids back in the buildings a month ago um so i think that um that says a lot about you know all the stakeholders and everybody that's invested in our students um if i were to have a takeaway i think you know we need to take a look at what we did during this time that worked well uh what we were doing before that didn't work well um and make some adjustment adjustments moving forward um i think that you know that teachers learned a lot of things admit everybody learned a lot of things that we need to keep in mind moving to the port i i would hate to see what we
022do just fall back into what we would call normal i think that uh i think that we can go beyond uh well you know what we would consider normal [Music] all right well thank you guys for your for anybody board members have any questions or comments i do muriel justin um i know you gave these figures in your report but it was um on june 8th 6 15 tonight how many of you the same and sal's been very good at keeping us keeping the numbers um keeping our the numbers in front of us how many of your seniors have not finished their capstone project and of those seniors how many of them has academics not tests academically um i left that notebook on my desk but right now there are eight seniors that have not
023finished the capstone project and i want to say maybe half of those are also not academically okay um but i can't say for sure i think that's accurate so if that is if that's true and i don't i don't doubt it that then it would be only four that would possibly be not graduating because of capstone and at least a few of those i'm confident you know right i'm not i'll do it i shouldn't say that they've communicated with me [Music] i'm committed to finishing the project correct okay thank you you're welcome and i have a couple of questions of destiny all right mary are you done what are you done i am okay thank you um so with math compliance you know to be honest um that was one of our biggest fears i
024think you know for myself bringing all the kids back thinking maybe there's gonna be some difficulty with it the students have been phenomenal with it um do we have to send reminders now and then yeah we do um but they've been really they did a really good job with adhering to you know wearing the masks in school i mean you know it was interesting yesterday on the playground how timid they were to take off their masks because it's just not been something that they normally so they're like are you sure are you sure are you sure like yes you could be outside without your house um but no no i mean students in masks that was one of mr fortran and i our greatest concerns like how are we gonna discipline so to speak elementary
025students who don't i can tell you with confidence we have not had one discipline issue really not one in the elementary school um and then so you know you mentioned like we've made a lot of progress since where we were back when destiny player and mike got protected all right i mentioned um before like we've made a lot of progress of where we were before but thinking about like where we should be have we had those conversations about like are we at where we need to be if this wasn't in covered year and i hate to say that because like everyone's been stressed these past 18 months but where are we compared to where we should be so the the end of the year iready assessment is what we're going to probably use in the
026elementary school to make those determinations because really can't use state assessments every remote child in three through eight had the opportunity to not take the state assessment and most of them did not take it so it's not gonna and it was only half of the test and lo and behold the state decided to give a practice test that's the test so it has absolutely no validity so we're probably going to use our i ready assessment and we are still in the process of doing that however the data that i have seen we are not that far behind most i think we're just about where we normally are some of them are behind but i make any kind of glaring like general statement about it until i see it all done and we are just i
027think monday will be the end of our two weeks of getting all that data okay so i could have a better report and delay for you thank you you're welcome that's the same middle school [Music] uh justin i know we muriel asked you about the seniors but what's the nine through 11 looking like they they're they're on uh like you know like i said i think um so we we targeted 99 students um we have a large spreadsheet that everybody has access to and as as people get in good standing we're keeping their name on that spreadsheet but we're highlighting them green and you know i would just want to say that it's been maybe three or four days that we've really been we've had this focus group out and i don't even think it's
028been that long maybe it came out yesterday regardless since that time 14 students out of the 99 are now in good standing for all of their classes and that's not to say there's only 14 classes that are highlighted green you know some students were in trouble with four classes well maybe now they're in trouble with three or two you know so they haven't come off the list for all of their classes but many of them have made ground so until the way school tool works i can't really pull out um if i tried to run a report using school tool it's still going to tell me in progress right so but we're monitoring that way and we are making progress no i'm sure i'm sure like i said uh we're confident in all of you
029that you did the best you could do and that's all we can ask for yeah and i mentioned the last meeting we haven't really even started our intensive you know really getting with these kids for you know hour and a half slots at a time right you know this is them completing work on their own with the help of teachers um in class after school not during the focus like you know it's go time period so i'm hoping for even better results during that time i'm i'm confident i do have to uh repeat uh for the record that uh because it's probably going to be the first and last time we ever hear this but mike made a comment that chatter in the classroom uh described as amazing so all right first time i've ever
030heard that yeah it's uh i do get what you're saying though we we five sitting here at this table we have no real idea i can't even guess what the administration at the high school the senior team at the high school the faculty at the high school has been been going through this year especially to get these seniors on on track and um i for one thank you um you've done a great job and um hopefully next year we'll have you'll have you'll have and we'll have another plan that you won't be losing your hair okay thank you very much thank you it might be helpful just for a couple seconds just to talk a little bit about your summer school plans um not to put you on the spot if you wouldn't mind just
031a quick overview of what we have in each building plan for the summer sure um typically in the elementary school we do a three-hour summer school where we run it like a camp and we invite any student who wants to participate um and we've done that for the last four or five years this year we're going to do something similar we're going every year we have an overarching theme a couple years ago it was the olympics um prior to that it was wellness um and this year we have yet to choose our overarching theme to do that theme will be um all of our we have um approximately students which is the most we've ever had attending summer school this year and that's only case there's go to um with um mike in the middle
032school and we are going to spend the first hour of the three working on whatever that overarching theme might be and then we are using the scores that i needed this week um we are taking the scores and we are giving 70 students to all intensive academic groups for the remainder of the time so that we can really fill in whatever gaps may be evident through the data that we get for those four weeks of summer school i have eight summer school teachers um who are amazing teachers uh and super excited i think it's gonna be one of the best summer schools we've had 70 kids is a lot we've never had that many well there's changing microphones the other thing that's a little bit different this year is we're participating on kosir with the
033questar boces which is going to afford these teachers an opportunity to work in a small professional learning community they're going to receive a full day of professional development at questar um on july 1st and we're backing up to that with another full day here in districts so and then there's there's weekly meetings um and ongoing assessments so it's a little different this it's a little bit more um more robust than perhaps in the past so we're excited about seeing how that works out for us yeah at the middle school we're doing our traditional arbor day um academy which is you know more so management and you know when uh mike stead sends that information out it's a lot of choice so students want to participate wannacomp also have our um through we're doing a similar
034credit recovery type program really focusing on our students um with the cumulative advantages on close to 65 or under can participate to um recovery and our students who are remote and their parents want them to great [Music] i think i mentioned last year we're doing a credit recovery through questar it's an online service but what we've sent out and what we're going to require is that students come into the building if they want credit recovery we're going to staff it not that we would necessarily have people in here that would have math content or english content but uh many of these students were at home or struggled with the hybrid so i figure you know if the district is going to help these kids that our best chances and this is with tom from questar
035too the best chance for these students to be successful is if they're in the building within with adult supervision somebody kind of organizing them making sure they're on task um we sent out a letter last friday to gauge interest and actually basically sign up uh the the cutoff date for that is this friday so we'll know we'll have some better numbers come friday is there any early interest i'm just curious um you know we had once we have one student that signed up for it i haven't checked on his progress um i'm not aware of any early interest um generally what the guidance department does is reaches out right after graduation to get interest so you know we'd like to start the you know start the summer off running the program runs from july 12
036to august 20th um so you know we have support from staff here and also support from questar hopefully gives some of these kids their best chance well excellent thank you guys very much that was a lot to uh just take in interesting um any other board members have any comments uh yeah just really quick what so hypothetically if there is a senior who has all the academic requirements but doesn't by the time of graduation finish their senior project is that just wrapping that up and presenting it and then they would have their diploma late how we thought about what we would do in that circumstance if not like i don't need it yeah we got an email that's just a slight permutation to what i had several meetings with but no i i think we
037want to put it out there we have we've gone on the record because it has been a 25 plus year tradition that it has been known as a graduation requirement and although we found out that moving forward we may want to um modify that that this year um the 11 families that justin was talking about were 11 families that were identified by the senior team in in the high school that were not going to um potentially graduate receive a diploma for one of those two either failing academically and not done the project or had not done the product and were okay good standing academically and we have said with no uncertain terms that you will not receive a chatham central school strict diploma if you do not finish the capital prize or the capital i'm
038sorry the senior project to the satisfaction of one of those tiers that we have lessened the requirements for regardless of your academic standing and that is the message we're going to send okay so yeah so um so if we didn't know if we discussed the permutation that if on july 15th the student shows up with a finished project what we would do we've kind of and we can figure that out but right now on on june 25th um if that student has not successfully been recommended by the senior team as has having met one of those three tiers of requirements they need not show up and they will not receive a diploma okay is that you they're just looking i mean is that [Music] that's that's what our stance is right i don't know we'll
039have to talk about the exception if somebody finishes in august or whatever but okay any other questions or comments okay well thank you guys and gonna move along hear what andy's been up to building the ground um it's been a long year as everybody knows can you hear me okay yes um so the year and we're trying to finish up for the school year um get things ready for ramped up for the time that's really our busy time it goes busy to busier um trying to do some work on the fields all the materials for that should be coming last week in june um looking forward to that it's probably about 180 ton that's coming um so i'll be quite a bit going in um in the middle school we're going to be doing all
040the sinks and all the gang bathrooms i'm going touch us and um making them a little more handicap friendly in the bathrooms because the ones that are in there now kind of have weird jaunts to them and kind of take up too much room and uh they'll be touchless which will be nice one of the lessons from covet and then in the high school um just trying to you know finish up any little bits of the projects that were left you know programming on some of the units stuff like that and then just really putting that stuff to bed the big project um was getting the work order system implemented which has been going pretty well um still trying to get some people on board teachers and staff but for the most part um everybody
041likes it um you can sign on um put in your location um and i like when the you know the actual person who has it puts in the work order because then you don't have to chase someone else down so if a secretary puts in your work order then i'm trying to find what's broken on your desk and makes it makes it more difficult so um and then for my staff um to get a clear concise work order not an email that has like three other emails attached to it it's made it a lot easier um and with the work order system it also comes with a maintenance schedule that we built in i worked with the company qware and we went through manual stuff like that and got the maintenance schedule for all the
042different pieces of equipment so on mondays it populates automatically maintenance type work orders whether it be filter changes or you know weekly visuals on the generator boiler stuff like that it automatically populates the work orders and then i can assign them to the appropriate people um and you can we can also look ahead in the calendar so some of the staff if they want to look ahead and kind of see what's coming up they can they can look ahead in their calendar um another nice feature for us is that all the manuals for all the equipment that we have to wear has found and downloaded so if we need to know specific torque on something we can look it up in the manual and find out what we need so that's nice to have all
043the manuals in one electronic place and then we tied that into everybody getting a smartphone on the maintenance staff so that they can be reached no matter where they are and then um you know complete work orders no matter where they are so it's been really good um with the work order system next year i'll be even better i'm going to work with individuals to really make it make it a little bit more better and get the uh information out of what they did and set up some procedures as well so that i can make sure what they're doing so every classroom and all our buildings and bus garage will have a code or something how will you know who it's coming from or would just be an email so so um when they put
044it in it actually has their names and um or something like that she can identify um and she submits the work order [Music] is and we can also um mark them in progress and then put like part numbers and stuff like that down so we can kind of see where we're at with them sounds good i'm excited about that uh program it'll be nice to have the maintenance and written down fashion too so nothing gets lost that was one of the board's concerns a couple years ago we had set that as a action item and a goal and we did not reach that goal and now with the new work order system we're much further along uh quick question so one of the things that come up in previous discussions regarding capital projects you can
045put other scheduled maintenance and maintenance items in the system as a reminder as well yes i'm actually going to put some of the kitchen um equipment in there like uh their walk-in coolers they the little milk cooler stuff like that to blow out the coils things like that so as as those things are coming up i can take a picture with my camera put the put the unit in in there put what it is make model serial number and then put that onto a schedule so that you know we can just automatically take care of those those pieces of equipment as they come up and then if something dies and you replace it then you can take one out and pull one in so all right great any questions from the board for andy comments
046um we've sent out a lot of accolades um tonight to everyone all the stakeholders in the district who formed one big team that made this year possible but certainly the custodians um and the operations maintenance staff with all the cleaning disinfecting and um you know new coved protocols we certainly were that you know a valuable part of that process as well so thank you thank you um we're going to keep all those protocols in place that's going to be next year's you know if i battle someone from the flu or pneumonia or getting something like that we're just gonna keep continuing right on and continue to use the stuff that we're using and then hopefully keep people you know from getting sick so they can be in here as you heard before that if you're
047in here you're learning and if you're not you're not learning as well so awesome great thank you andy turn it over to you sal our superintendent's report thank you um i have a couple items that i want to address the board but i want to first invite our ccsta teachers to to join us i think jill and ashley are going to address the board if you recall i believe was the last meeting um a few board members had inquired about our teachers and one of the discussions i had with jill and ashley was i asked if they wouldn't mind coming forward and sharing some reflections on the year as well and i know they've worked with their um with their constituents and i believe they're going to kind of represent the good the bad and
048the ugly of 2020-21 oh yes thank you thank you you can blame you can blame debbie for that recommendation you know what it's counterintuitive it's the opposite way we'll put on debbie just to teach her a lesson if you can hear yourself through the speaker then you know you're doing you know the audience can hear it uh we're here representing our members with feedback about how this year went we were asked for input to share with you and our members had lots to say but we've narrowed it down by summarizing common answers ashley and i did not fill out the form in our comments um but we've summarized those common responses from our members the first question we asked was what was more difficult about your job this year overwhelmingly we heard everything but to
049narrow it down we have engaging with students especially the remote learners it was difficult juggling remote and in-person learners at the same time the logistics of taking attendance recording switching classes on google meets posting everything online all took up so much of our time covering classes due to the sub shortage even especially when staff was quarantined this took up a lot of our planning time which was needed even more this year and limited uh constant changes limited or slow communication being on the back foot all year not being able to commonly use teaching methods like group work and circle rug time being split between two rooms and not having planning time with the ta teaching the other rooms in the elementary school we had tas teaching so that was um an issue uh lack of
050ais and support for students and then just the logistics of teaching in two or three different rooms um that was one of the middle things the middle school teacher said lack of direction or expectations for teachers and students with remote learning we heard from our nurses in guidance that their usual tasks were tough to keep up with because of increased work due to covid but also the mental health needs of both teachers and students safety the pressure to keep kids safe reminding kids to keep mass on and socially distance our students our second question that we asked our members was what is something you learned or did differently because of this year that you would use in the future so using new technology like seesaw and google classroom was really helpful for us to organize
051and assign work and also using goguardian to monitor students that were especially the remote students but even the students in front of us using walks slowing down and practicing self care okay and not to just always keep going with the curriculum it's okay to kind of take um a moment and it really actually even helps the students google meets for parent conferences new ways of meeting and connecting with students who are absent and then that the strength and resiliency of our teaching staff our last question that we had for our members was looking back now what could have been done better by admin or the board to handle this year consequences for students being absent hold students accountable having a plan and direction making informed decisions with teacher staff input and then discuss that implementation
052in meetings where teachers can ask questions make meetings more meaningful and useful not canceling or doing something gimmicky be present in all buildings in our classrooms watching us teach would have gone a long way some felt that overall everyone did the best we could in this difficult situation um so i'm gonna um also just do kind of some themes and takeaways from all of the responses um and the things that kind of came up over and over from from the responses a lack of accountability for students which is really going to need to be a focus for the upcoming year accountable for attendance participation academics a disconnect between parties you know administration the teachers the board and the teachers um a lot of um the responses spoke about a disconnect a lot of responses spoke
053about the lack of presence from the administrative team a really common comment was not seeing a lot of administration in our classrooms in the buildings this year and it was felt that because of that they're just you can't grasp what we're dealing with on a day-to-day minute to minute um if you're not there and so a lot of the respondents felt that administration didn't really have an idea of what we were going through emotionally or on the job another kind of key takeaway and theme was a lack of direction communication clarity and transparency um many felt that decisions were made last minute not at all put on teachers to make and a lot of times the public heard things before we did um um many of the responses recognized the ever-changing landscape of the decision-making
054and really um felt that despite that there was a lot that could have been improved in terms of communication and um huge increase of responsibilities for teachers and staff um something as simple as taking attendance takes double the time um trying to get onto meets and get off of meets um and and the extra um google classroom posts emails um there was just so much increased responsibility and no real added time to to help um complete this workload um probably the biggest one of all was the really low morale um teachers are angry and frustrated were drained were overwhelmed and most of the respondents felt um just a real laughing care and support um there were good intentions but they didn't hit the mark for what we were dealing with um and and it was
055really palpable the the level of morale i mean it's full frankly it's helpful when you walk through the buildings um it's palpable in the classrooms it's palpable in every conversation that you have with a teacher um but it is it is the lowest i've ever seen it um and that was one of the biggest takeaways um and then the last big takeaway which was to me kind of the most upsetting was that many teachers just felt ineffective this year um it was so hard to do our job and there were so many obstacles um the biggest one was connecting with students and families and that's why we do this those connections um and it was just so much harder and the the feeling of ineffectiveness uh and the low morale and the lack of support
056um it was really hard for me to read that um and and so it was it was an upsetting thing to to see that so many of our staff felt that they didn't do a good enough job um and and i think that contributes to to the poor morale that we're all feeling so those are kind of the themes and takeaways i'm so glad you guys came out to talk to us and i i wish you could put that in a letter somehow we could send it up to the state because i have a feeling they're not hearing this all the way at the top either because a lot of those quick decisions a lot of the hang hang on and all that we were tied i mean me and sal talked waiting for a
057a last minute decision that was teased to us i mean it was just crazy here i guess that's all we can say but you know we felt for you guys and it was uh it's pretty universal it's it's throughout the whole country probably but you know you guys were put in a spot where it was maybe a little tougher than most um and like i said i really hope that this stuff is recognized by the state somehow and it goes to the top and new protocols and thoughts are in play that trickle back down to us yeah and i i mean certainly it's universal i have a lot of friends that are teachers in other districts and and certainly i think the state um i mean you know i don't think we have to go
058further the mass guidance coming out on a friday afternoon you know i i think we get that um but i also think that we have to focus like this board this admin has to focus on this teaching staff because the state can do directives but i don't think the state can fix our morale and i think that hopefully other boards are working on it you know in their districts um but it was hard to read those comments um and and it is we're in a bad way um and i think we need some real focus and some real um care and attention to that actually that was a district-wide it was district-wide not just the high school years correct it was district wide to r members um so it was um elementary middle and high
059school and it included teachers um teaching assistants and guidance department i think okay thank you we sent it out on friday and had until monday to get back and we heard back about 50 people responded okay so it's not a third but i think the sentiments of most of our people so well thank you for uh bringing that out thank you sal for that thank you thank you ladies and the rest of the members who are present tonight and teachers um as ashley alluded to some mass policy changes uh coming down the pike um a lot of confusion from dr zucker's memo on friday but we've kind of weighed through that and um as you've seen by some of the communications over the last couple days we've landed on the ability not to have to
060wear masks outside for any purpose whatsoever whether it's physical education interscholastic sports or any function whatsoever however at the present time masks um need to be used in school by all including administrators um we didn't do a good job of that yesterday ourselves so shame on us um the the governor in his press conference essay did mention um and set some expectations that if as a state we get to about 70 or above 70 uh in the vaccination rate that potentially many of the covid restrictions that are in place will go away um by some estimates that could be as early as a week or two so we'll have to keep uh up to date on that there was a lot in you know my colleagues who felt that were real close to the finish
061line for this year and for the next few weeks why mess with um a successful year in terms of mitigation of covert within our uh within our schools and and so um we'll have to see how that plays out at the uh at the state level um and again craig there was a lot of confusion and still even to this weekend in terms of governor versus this department of health versus the state education department and getting everybody on the same page and um that's often difficult um we are i've said for a month or two now that um our focus for next year and it seems more likely each day it will be on full in-person instruction we have no desire to offer uh remote instruction um as an option to parents um that doesn't
062mean that there might not be a case or two where we provide some sort of alternative instruction via a boces or a questar for a student whose circumstances may be such that they can't attend in person but by with no uncertain terms um we have no plans uh to offer remote instruction uh next year here in chatham we've talked about the senior project um i i know something that was mentioned tonight was kind of probably a surprise to a couple people just kind of to elaborate on that um andy mike um burns um mike teddy and i and i think maybe mr said joined us we um through some recommendations uh from the middle school including mr burns we are just taking a look at um the feasibility of a pavilion that would be um
063somewhat between the soccer field and the building and potentially doing some fundraising um andy's looking at some different structures and some costs perhaps a fundraiser regarding the decorative bricks that could be around it so once we have a little bit more information we will um we'll approach the facilities committee and have a conversation we um we think a multi-use pavilion like that would come in handy for many reasons including outdoor education um and um proved to be a nice addition to the middle school property um just before uh coming here and i don't know if you checked your email i shared with you that um there the governor has come out i saw a it was a nisba update that there is no appr uh this year we it's a long awaited decision it's june
0648th um and so we do have um some official word that that now is not in place and i think that's the conclusion of my report for tonight thank you any questions comments from the board i do have one sad thing to announce they're trying to get our picnic tables back to the fairgrounds but i emailed back a little can we delayed as long as possible so i haven't gotten a reply maybe they're watching right now andy um sent an email that they're not going to be much good with three legs so they might want to leave them here no but we did have that discussion because that worked out tremendously well yeah and um since we were outside looking at the pavilion and the picnic tables are right there and i know i know
065i've seen students here at the high school um that we would we'll look into purchasing our own um and it might take a few years to get to have enough where we can replace the ones that we've borrowed from the fairgrounds but i was pleased to hear that they have a number of activities that they're ramping up for uh at the fairgrounds and it's nice to hear that things are coming back so i think our flatbeds and trailers are kind of disabled for a couple more weeks but andy you know one of the things that was of uh concern and and andy's going to go through them and if they need to be touched up in in in in any way shape or form we want to make sure that we were good stewards and
066that we returned them as they were in the same condition or better than we were given them sounds good can i just make i'd like to really thank both of you for coming tonight and expressing um where the staff feels um you know i what i was the one who posed the question about possibly observing or coming into the classrooms i think it was misunderstood i didn't want to put any more work on your shoulders at this time of the year probably of anybody who's sitting here tonight i'm probably the one who understands the closest to anybody and that wasn't my intent and i do understand what you're saying and hope that maybe next year we can start having a few visitations a year like we used to okay we're going to move right along
067uh that's it we're going to hear about c plaque hey c-plaque um met on tuesday june 1st on zoom it'll be our last zoom meeting and we welcomed our new librarian jen mccleary mccrory and that was the same date at the public library open to the public since it is part of our school system they will be under the same covered rules as the rest of the district masks required sanitation schedules etc the library is also um retaining the pickup schedule for customers that still do not want to come inside uh it worked very well for the past year our staff was great a patron calls for a book orders a book left on a table at the bottom of the ramp for pickup all returns will still go into the outside dropbox multiple problems
068have been plaguing the staff because of the internet problems they've they've been very creative and thanks to mr chutty we have now ordered um a separate internet line for the library will be installed soon and we'll be keeping our fingers crossed if that works the outdoor children's program is being planned for the summer months that is a very popular program that becky klein uh oversees along with a librarian you can see the information on the website when they have it finalized friends of the library friends of the library are we'll be talking about their goals and plans including outreach to new residents of which we have many c plaque will focus on a timetable for the strategic plan during the 2122 year jen our librarian has information in developing strategic planning from her previous position
069our next meeting will be we usually don't meet in the summer if it's not necessary and we don't think it is right now the next meeting will be september 14th back at the library we're going back at the library space in our buildings has been scarce this year we're changing our meeting time to 9 00 a.m so we'll have a good hour before the library building opens and so we are off and running at the public library thank you thank you uh any questions for muriel on the library comments all right move along to pat on policy second reading okay we're on to the second reading of the diversity equity inclusion policy um only a few of us here on the committee um are there any questions from anybody that um regarding cause we didn't
070make any changes from the first reading no no questions well i had been concerned last time sounds like it uh i was the only one so uh but uh i thought for the annual review um that we didn't need that line but you took that back and it's still there so i assume somebody felt that you needed it well actually yes we um i told all the members on the committee and we all were in agreement that given the sensitivity of the subject matter and the policy that we really needed to keep it in the forefront for the at least the next couple of years until we get a good feel for where we were headed with it and at that point in time we could maybe change it modify it and the results of
071the task force um to whatever their findings we may end up having to come back and revise our policy too so um so at this point [Music] um [Music] every time i get a policy something like this and i is this tip this inclusion task force a new something new that you that you the policy that the policy committee wrote and another inclusion task force another committee and now you want the superintendent to is is tasked with overseeing the creation of this task force i don't know how much more we can ask our superintendent to do i just do not know how much more and then no less than annually to determine the extent this it's just it's just too much too much that's my opinion okay i think this was a policy that we
072wanted so we can change it another year because we're getting ahead on this because i believe that we all are in agreement that the state is going to require this to be in our policy at some point so this is a starting point sal does not have sorry dr d'angelo does not have to have control of this like going on but this is just a starting point so the language is there that it that we have this and it's established so if there is ever an issue there is a spot where someone reports to it and there's a committee and i think like it is different than 34 20 the non-discrimination policy because the writing is is different than it was and i think it's necessary but yeah i think we're just trying to get
073ahead of that if i'm paraphrasing you're you are um we've talked about this since last summer off and on and on the policy committee we've gotten obviously you know the readings from the state from the uh education department from um nisba uh there's been a lot of discussion there a number of sample policies out there and we just wanted to do something that we felt was right for chad for this district and not necessarily what somebody wants to immediately eventually impose on us which we know it's going to it's going to come down and we thought we at least would be ahead of the game and hopefully do it the way we feel it needs to be done here in chatham because um so um that's that's what we did and i think unlike a
074lot of the sample policies which are 10 15 20 pages were very simple one page well that's that's my opinion i guess you know it's just you mean we're going to have a policy that we're not going to see through that we're not going to have the task force we're not going to have the superintendent but what are you saying that if we have this policy we don't have to do it what's the story here it's it's just it's just district-wide diversity equity and inclusion task force will we have one will we have one and will the superintendent have to see over oversee that yes yes it doesn't necessarily happen the superintendent as we wrote it the new uh couldn't jump in any time on that we wrote it in such a fashion that it's
075he's not necessarily directly responsible for it he just it has to fall under the administration though so he would have direct oversight but he can essentially that committee that task force can be of led by somebody else and who in turn would report up to him that's just the person that it would report to so dr angelo would have the if someone was have a issue about it it would be him and i think we do definitely need that especially with with the current climate is we're gonna need that task force because there's i mean union just created ours so it's gonna it's a new theme that we're gonna need in the next two years i believe so getting ahead on this is definitely the better thing to do um so if there is ever
076an issue that it's there craig what do you think well it sounds like they put some thought and some time a lot of hard work we'll see how it goes and we'll find out how reviews out next year just you know um in terms of it as a theme diversity equity inclusion it's not just about a simple policy um it's about a culture and um you know we're starting to ask questions um of ourselves how is how is this reflective in our curriculum uh how is it reflected in our staff and it's a it's a delicate subject that needs attention and i think the establishment of the policy at a minimum says that we care enough about this topic to give it its due uh its attention so um i'm comfortable with it and um
077i think we it's appropriate to have to review it early on the first year or two make sure it's accomplishing what we set out to and then we can modify it or make recommended changes but i work at the pleasure of the board i just we have a lot of redundancy i mean our our main goal here is uh every every one every day and you know what what says it ain't better than that where we're coming from so but you can move on we're gonna thank you this is the second reading tonight right this is it we're voting on it right now it's adoption or we're asking for changes but i'd like you to pull the board please sorry are we voting on it or voting on changes is there is everybody at this
078uh [Music] board uh right now present ready to move on on this policy to adopt tonight uh show of hands yes okay that's majority we're moving on uh no because you need a majority of right it's not the majority of people who are here to pass a resolution in the apps you have you have a uh currently have a nine member board well it's either eight or nine um but you would need you would need right even though one seat's unfilled even if you say you have an eight member board you would need five votes to pass a resolution so all right so after hearing this i i like the idea of it i just like to work on some of the language and some of the directives and know a little bit more in
079the future so we'll have it back next meeting for a new second reading or would that be a third possibly a third reading yeah third reading so um you know because i i had made comments and it states here that there was no comments there were no changes suggested for 34.60 i know but we didn't get we didn't get it to like 4 35 o'clock the week today oh but there were at that board meeting and it's recorded what there there were so so that's even wrong but anyways we'll deb will i we're going to uh scratch we're going to put that on pause for now do my resolutions all switch now yeah okay do they need a motion to table um r66 okay okay and we'll use that same resolution so so i'd like
080to make a motion to table r6 r66 until the next possible movie can i get a second second all right all in favor all right all right anybody opposed okay so moving along new business well can i i'm sitting here confused as we go forward it appears to me now that with or who is eligible to be here yeah that's that's not the way the majority works um in school board it's you have the number of board members and you have a nine-member board technically you just have uh an unfilled seat so you only have uh you have it's kind of an anomaly because the the person who would have been elected to fill one of the vacancies who was the top vote getter will not start to july 1. so you technically still have
081a nine-member board with two vacant seats on a nine-member board you need five for a majority to pass anything so tonight it would have to be unanimous to pass anything i guess that's what i was giving you yes all right i'm not opposed to it it's just some of the language needs to be cleaned up and uh i i need we the board as a whole needs to see what the future of it looks like how many people on the next committee uh what are they tasked to do i mean there's a whole lot around this one little sentence it's actually the last sentence it's not even the policy it's the directive and i said something to you it talked and you were gonna and and we bring it up and we actually i'm not
082comfortable with it can you suggest i will okay we'll work on it thank you um new business discussion uh our 67 be it resolve the board of education of the chatham central school district hereby abolishes the 1.0 fte director of schedule special education effective june 30th 2021 and directs the super intended to notify the affected employee can i get a motion motion second second questions or comments all in favor all right anybody opposed that motion carries r69 be it resolve that board of education approved the agreement with the chatham school district principals association effective july 1st 2021 oh yeah 16. yes our 68 she resolved at the board of education effective july 1st 2021 boy i bet you somebody was nervous in this room [Laughter] you should have jumped up yelled something hereby creates the
083full-time 1.0 position of director of pupil personnel services can i get a motion on that motion second all in favor aye motion carries all right you have a faulty first reason yeah 72.50 is an existing policy but when we were yeah um 7250 is an existing policy that when we were looking at student data and the 5676 on um benton dressed uh pii we also took a look at 7250 and the version we had uh was actually was rather confusing to read and looking back at the actual us code the law that was behind it that was fairly straightforward so we went to our another policy service newsbook and actually got their version of their sample policy which was very clearly written um and uh addressed the all four topics that this this law was
084actually had four separate topics in it which made it very confusing to some extent to address so um we've actually um took that sample policy and that's what we're recommending uh here um we had consent concerns and some questions which is why it's been a a couple of months before we brought this to you uh we needed some clarification which we we actually obtained from this material and from our attorney um for the board and uh so there isn't really nothing changed this is based strictly off the law it's a required policy but i think yet the way it's currently worded it's very clear as to what it is addressing anybody have questions is the um yes go ahead number four the explanation of policy the rights parents guardians to inspect upon request any instructional
085material used as part of the educational curriculum is that straight out of the law straight out of the law thank you yes it is and pat also part of our previous policy that's not a change right it's not a change but it's yeah thank you it's right on the law you're not in the halls okay any other questions or comments for first policy reading okay thank you now we get to a new business r69 be resolved at the board of education approved the agreement with the chatham school district principals association effective july 1st through june 30th 2023 which includes a three percent raise can get a motion motion second any questions or comments all in favor aye all right anybody opposed all right r70 be it resolved that the board of education accept the consensus
086agenda k through l as written and get a motion motion second questions or comments all in favor anybody opposed all right motion carries thank you future dense gender items anybody have anything that's i want to put in a parking lot okay this is a second chance for public comment and i i'm sorry i forgot on the first public comment that i didn't look for hands up on we'll assume okay um so once again just a reminder this is recorded and any public has any questions or comments we also have someone online okay oh let's uh let's go live first sandy she's been very patient i wasn't going to say that i'm sandy fisher i teach at the high school and i just wanted to give first a huge shout out to jill and ashley for
087their quick turnaround in gathering the comments and the thoughts from our faculty and staff and presenting them to you tonight and i'd also like it on the public record that their dedication to this district is strong and true in the last two years have been impossible particularly the last 15 months and navigating through this has been extremely difficult and there's been lots of tiers of sadness and frustration uh through this process um i'd also like to thank craig and the board for your recognition of us at these board meetings and your genuine interest in getting our feedback at these boardman at these board meetings and i hope you can kind of understand how uncomfortable it is at times for us to be able to speak in this public forum um and i i wish we
088could bring the liaison committee back where we could have some of these discussions on a more regular basis instead of it coming sort of at the end of the school year um i'm grateful to the board i know you dedicate so much time and energy volunteering on behalf of this district and when jill and ashley say that the morale is low it's true and i feel like we're the foundation of this district and we're at a breaking point and i for one am having a really hard time finding light at the end of the tunnel and i do have concerns we have a lot of people leaving this district and it's difficult finding acceptable candidates to fill those open positions um so there's a lot of work that that we need to do and i'm
089concerned so thank you thank you thanks sandy so um we'll go to mark connolly next and then chris has his hand up too mark mark do you have a comment there you are i see you [Music] hold on i want to get in all my uh chances and words over on you i uh i didn't realize i'd be on camera i would have not put my pajamas on [Laughter] um good evening everyone for those of you that don't know me my name is mark connolly i'm finishing up my 25th year as a teacher at chatham middle school i'll be briefing my comments tonight and i want to thank the board and uh dr d'angelo for giving me the opportunity to speak i didn't plan on speaking this evening but after the board response to ashley
090and jill i feel like i need to the morel issues amongst staff really has nothing to do with the state or health department guidelines um i think a lot of it started pre-covered um it's a uh you know i've been here for a long time i've i've seen it all the ebbs and flows of education the coming and going of administration and i want to congratulate them on the raise tonight but i've never seen morale so low amongst the faculty to say i feel undervalued as an understatement we are constantly being told how valued we are what an amazing job we've done during this unprecedented time but sometimes those accolades really ring empty they really do sometimes we feel like we're not valued you know i'm not going anywhere this is where i'm going to
091end my teaching career and i i love this place it's a it's an amazing place to learn it's an amazing place to teach um i've served as a colleague as a mentor and as a teacher to some of you in the room and uh it chatham central schools is near and dear to my heart but new teachers that we need to keep the ones that i think um you know that we need to keep in our district to take our district to those great places in those next 25 years you know they're looking to leave um if they haven't already and it's because of this unfor unfortunate atmosphere that we're in and uh you know i i think there's a lot that we can do together to get back to the place that grew me
092as a as a young teacher that made me want to stay all these years and uh but i think there's work to do on on all our sides and uh i'm just looking forward to to building that relationship back again where we can uh make chatham what it used to be so thank you for your time tonight thank you mark you have uh some [Music] another public mark you can mute your video if you're comfortable i can't seem to um put you back as a um attendee so whatever you're comfortable with chris welcome chris spencer you're muted chris you've been um promoted to panelists um okay can you hear me now we can okay great um so i'm just uh here tonight uh you know as a chatham parent and um i just wanted to
093i think uh expand on the the the topic of uh the teacher comment and participation and reflection of the year i wanted to commend the 50 teachers that did uh participate in sharing their their views i think the fact that um not more participated also um i think speaks to some of the issues that the district is facing regarding this situation and as a parent i you know i just probably am not the only parent you know concerned about teacher morale in the district and um i i i look forward to learning more about how uh this morale can can be looked at and um and and improved um i think as mr carnelly uh uh spoke to in in great detail um about his his love of the district and um uh the fact
094that he looks forward you know to to making changes and and seeing great improvement i as a parent also uh look forward to that and look forward to to share in my part as to what i can do in that regard thank you thank you chris any more comments out there i'm just gonna make sure we're not missing anybody we got uh jen we got a live one yeah there's no more online um thank you my name is jen dior i'm a teacher also here at the high school um i have two different things i want to say number one i want to go back to a question i heard destiny asked earlier about being worried about where our student's going to be when they come back in september i can't speak to everybody else
095but i think that's an important question we should be asking our entire faculty to give you a little glimpse in my world i'm really worried about it as you well know because you survived it i teach algebra 2 and i'm really worried about the foundational information they're supposed to know coming in because i hit the ground running and for 180 days i'm teaching algebra 2 content and if all of a sudden i have kids that don't really know the first half or the second half of algebra one because of and they had that two years ago right so i don't want to get too much into one subject but you can see where that's gonna right so one of the questions i've been asking and i think we probably should ask it of all our
096teachers what do i do next fall if halfway through the first quarter 50 of my students are failing because i start where i'm supposed to start and i got to get to where i got to get to and we know the state's going to give us a regents what do you want me to do like that that's not a state policy that's not a department of health policy that's a chatham needs to give me some direction and a lot of my colleagues some direction on what do i do do i slow down and not finish the curriculum do i you know and again i don't want to get into the details of it but that definitely needs to be explored in my opinion i think that's what you were asking before so okay um i
097forgot already what my second point was oh i heard mark say that you know he intends to finish his career here i i i'm not sure i do i'm at the point where i'm wondering whether this is where i want to finish my career um i've just seen things slide kinds of policies like attendance policies kind of policies like student account about accountability policies grading policies this given away 50s and given all these second chances i heard mr fish mentioned um at a meeting a couple of board meetings ago that one of his friends who runs a trucking company right is having trouble getting kids to show up and actually work for eight hours like well i understand why that's happening because we don't expect them to show up and work for six hours and
098that leads to something um and that's not why i got into education as a second career i got into into education as a second career to move towards getting them ready for that and in my eight years here i see us and it's not just the last 15 months the last eight years i see us sliding away from it on a on a fast pace um kovid certainly exacerbated and accelerated exponential functions and all that kind of stuff but um i think that's what i had to say thank you thank you dad you have uh one on remote anybody else in this public in this room okay so how many participants do we have today um we have 42 but we've had 60 at one point okay well we're gonna um enter into executive session
099so uh we're gonna need a motion to do so i'm gonna need a motion to appoint you're starting it off right so sal d'angelo as district clerk motion so uh all right we need a motion to appoint pat as district pro clerk second and everybody's in favor all right and then uh do not intend on returning to open session and we will not be voting on any business new business so this meeting's over thank you folks for all coming out and everybody on zoom thank you