001I gota get it together. >> Let me know when you're ready. >> Yeah. >> Jeff, good. >> All right. >> Good afternoon, everyone. My name is William Inuzi. I'm president of the board of education. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Madame clerk, can you please call the role? >> Mr. Anuzi here. >> Miss Lewis >> here. >> Miss Ross >> here. Miss Clayton Fernandez here. Miss Jacob >> here. Miss Klene >> here. Mr. Single here. >> Mr. Vega, Miss Williams >> present. A quorum is present. >> Colleagues, I get a motion in a second to go immediately into executive session to meet with district council and discuss the employment history of particular persons which may lead to the employment of a particular person. >> So moved. Williams. >> Second. Ross. >> All in
002favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. We should be back around 7 o'clock to start the public session of the meeting. It's a great event. >> I'm just worried about the weather. Like last year, I feel like it's going to be worth >> Good evening everyone. Good evening everyone. Uh my name is William Inuzi. I'm president of the board of education and we are about to reconvene the public session of the meeting. Uh colleagues, can I get a motion, a second to reconvene the public session of the meeting? >> I'll move Jacob. >> Second, Clayton Fernandez. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Can we all please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
003stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Well, thank you all for being at our meeting tonight. Mia, before you start, we just have a couple of announcements to make. So, um, uh, any of my board members, do you guys have any announcements you would like to make? >> No, no announcements. Oh, >> that's Williams. Thank you. Good evening, Nishelle. >> Oh, thank you. You make me feel so happy to be here tonight and it's so great to see our family and friends here. I can't wait to see your presentation. I'm excited about it. And I would like to say congratulations and thank you to the registered voters who voted in the 2026 school and library board elections. Congratulations to library trustee Lucille Renwick um who was uh ran unopposed
004and was reelected for a five-year term. and also to our very own Roshani Ross. Uh, thank you very much, Trustee Ross, for running again and adding continuity to our board. And to our newest member, Miss Carmen Here. Thank you so much. And thank you to all of the voters who voted for our budget uh for the library and for the school board. It really means a lot. Uh and I'd like to say happy Junth. Junth takes place on June the 19th. It's a blend of June and 19th. It is an official US federal holiday observed annually on June 19th. It commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people or the freeing of sla enslaved Africanameans, specifically marking the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveastston, Texas to announce that the Civil War had ended and
005all enslaved people were free. Um, this is particularly important to me, um, as I'm learning more about Junth and also, um, my family. I am descended from enslaved people. Um, so this is especially important to me and all Americans and the world because freedom is something that is worth having and every human being is free. I appreciate the freedom and opportunity that I have to run that I had to run for this office and to be elected to the board of education. I am my ancestors wildest dream and that's not lost on me. So, happy Junth, happy freedom day to everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Williams. Any other mic? Miss uh our student board member Cameron. >> Hi. I just wanted to um mention the fact that um at Nuraw High School, we're
006going to be having an event on June 11th um hosted by Hope from the Heart. It's a club that I'm a part of that I'm the president of and we work towards raising money for breast cancer awareness. It's a district-wide um faculty versus student um basketball game. So, we're going to have um students um all throughout the district play a team of student uh sorry, teachers from all over the district play a group of students from the high school and we work towards raising money for breast cancer awareness and research. So, if you guys would like to come support, it's on June 11th at 3:30 in the Nishaw High School gym. Thank you. >> Thank you, Cameron. Um, Gwen Clayton Fernandez reporting the Goats Fest. I don't know if you're familiar with it. 2:26. I
007think it's uh pretty exciting. It's an outdoor fun um event. It's 10 to 2 and everyone can come. It's live music and there are goats in this really cool I'm sure there's going to be more talk about it, but I just I just think it sounds like a lot of fun for families. So, mark your calendar. sleep on this one. >> Right. Thank you, Mlay Fernandez. Any other colleagues have any comments? All right, seeing none, we're going to throw it over to the superintendent for his report. >> Thank you very much, Mr. President. Uh through the board members, good evening, everyone. Hopefully uh you are getting ready to uh witness greatness as it relates to our green schools initiatives here in the district. Um, but a simple uh reminder tonight uh that we will not
008have any schools or offices open on Friday, June 19th in honor of Junth. So, uh for those uh families who have forgotten, yes, they're yours on that day. Um, and also at the end of the year, which I can't believe we're already speaking about the end of the year, um, we will have three half days um, for all schools on June 24th, 25th, and 26th with June 26th this year being the last day of school. Uh, so as we prepare, I saw those eyebrows go up. I can't believe you're excited. Yeah. Okay. Um, so as we prepare for the end of school, remember um to all of our young people, the learning doesn't stop. So make sure that you continue to read every day. Make sure that you continue to learn. Make sure that you
009continue to express yourself and your rights and your responsibilities as it relates to becoming uh a voting citizen in the future, but a young citizen today. And with that, Mr. President, I conclude my report. >> Thank you very much, Dr. Reynolds. So first up of our discussion items is our green schools initiative. So do you want to set the stage, Dr. So, out of the mouth of babes, um way back when, uh Jefferson Elementary School, uh there was an initiative taking place there that was grassroots and not um astroturf le, right? So, the these were deep roots where students said, "We want to do more to save our world, to save our planet, uh to save our community at Jefferson." And that wave really just took over all of Newell where now those efforts have
010been uh formalized into um what's called the green schools initiative uh where we have representation in each of our buildings that are studentled opportunities for us to save our planet. And I always say that we are just stewards of the planet. We don't own it because we are trying to protect it for our next generation. And the earlier we get our next generation involved with saving our p planet, it will be here for future generations. So I'm very pleased at the work that is done um by our students and by the adults who help to support them. I know that the adults don't do much work when it comes to this, right? Because it's all student led. Um they're smiling and probably um shooting daggers at me. Um but we are led in this effort
011by our very own uh Miss Mia Baldry and she's going to lead us tonight in the discovery of all of the efforts that have taken place by our green schools committee. Um, and I would be remiss if I did not give a very special thank you for the level of support, the level of never saying no, um, that is exemplified in the personage of Mr. Keith Watkins, our director of facilities. Not only does he support, he's always looking for ways to improve our efforts and bringing those ideas to our green schools committee. So Keith, as you make your way down to wherever it is that you're going to be moving and leaving us behind whenever we turn off a light switch, we're going to remember you. And with that, I turn it over to Miss
012Badri. >> Thank you, Dr. Reynolds. You just did my first two slides, so I'm just going to pivot and move on. But no, seriously, thank you very much, Dr. Reynolds, and to the board of education for inviting us all here today. What an amazing turnout. Um, my name is Mia Boji. I'm the sustainability coordinator, the environmental sustainability and environmental coordinator. It's a very long title uh for the city school district of Nurishelle. I've lived in Urishelle for 11 years. Both of my children who are here today um either attended or attend um schools and I'm an active community organizer. I'm a local conservancy president and board member and I'm a nature lover. I organize and coordinate the district's green clubs. I identify initiatives with them, work on budgets and expenses. Um, and I also plan
013and organize a district green fair which is on June 11th at the high school in house for cafeteria. I encourage you all to attend. Um, last but not least, I lead the district-wide green schools committee and I just want to give a shout out to our very own Travis Stuks who is actually the one who designed this beautiful logo for us a couple years ago. So, the Green Schools Committee was founded in 2023. Um it uses a multistakeholder approach which is like it could not be more true. We were talking about the grassroots efforts and everything else. Um so we identify opportunities, resources, we make recommendations on potential sustainability related policy uh to help implement lasting solutions for the district. Our members are dedicated teachers, parents, students, board of education members. Um we've got our
014very own director of facilities, Mr. Watkins. Um we have our food service director and our purchasing agent and obviously valued community partners um such as city council members, city employees and leaders from local environmental groups like healthy yards new shell who are right here at my left. Um and without all of these people the great schools committee would not exist. Um each and every one of our members recognizes that um you know although implementation can be a long process we believe that all of our challenges can be addressed through an equity and sustainability lens. whether it's from serving our um most disadvantaged student communities to addressing the climate crisis. Um the green schools committee initiatives wouldn't happen, however, without uh a very dedicated green team um that's composed of teachers from all of our schools
015uh in levels K through 12. Many of them are here today and I'm really grateful. And I don't see her, but I still want to single out one very specific person who is uh Miss Carmen Glenn who is the Nurishelle High School. Is she there? There she is. Um, so Miss Miss Glenn is a neurosell high school green club advisor and she um was championing sustainability and uh environmental leadership in her students way before the green schools committee was formed and she has been one of my biggest supporters in the past couple of years and I really really appreciate you. Thank you. Um, of course, none of our work would be possible without our devoted grounds, purchasing, facilities, and custodial teams whose help and support is essential to our project's completion and maintenance. And these
016are our partners. So, you see, um, we have so many incredible partners featured on this slide whom we lean on heavily for support. I want to give a big shout out to our friends again at Healthy Yards New Shell. They've helped us establish pollinator gardens across our schools. They helped me reboot Amy's greenhouse. We'll be talking about that a little later. Um, we're also incredibly grateful to our close work for our close working relationship with GreenNR and the city of Norriselle. And I'd like to extend my thanks, she's not here, but to our city council member Sarah Kay, who gave a gener generous gift, very generous gift to the green schools committee two years ago. And without that, I honestly think I would have a really hard time maintaining the initiatives because a lot of
017our um a lot of our projects start just as the purchasing deadline ends. So, thank you to Sarah for uh for all of her assistance and for being so supportive. Um, and then this is just a quick list of all of our initiatives. You can look at it on board. I don't want to bore you, but there's a lot of good stuff. And really, we're featuring two student initiatives tonight from Jefferson Elementary and Trinity Elementary, which I think really exemplify this multistakeholder approach I was talking about before. Um, first I'd like to welcome our beautiful and amazing fourth grade students from Jefferson who are uh here under the leadership of their wonderful ENL teacher, Miss Lucia Brea. Thank you, Lucia. And they'll be presenting on the steps they took forward um they took following the
018mowing of the native pollinator garden at Jefferson. So, I will give the clicker to Miss Brea and I will step away and then do you want to give them this? All right. Thank you. >> We are going to be talking about our civic science class. >> This is our team. On Friday on in the fall, we went outside to the pollinator garden and it was still alive. But on Monday, it was gone. and the district landscaping company destroyed our pollinator garden by mowing and tilling our garden. Then the plants couldn't grow again because roots were ripped out after that. We had some questions. Some of the questions were how does a pollin pollinated garden help the community? What plants do we need for the pollinated garden? Why did the landscapers destroy the ponator? With with
019the questions started investigating and gathering data, we learned about the parts of a flower. The purpose of this was to learn about the parts of a flower where you can find nectar and what pollen is as well as what different types of flowers look like for different pollinators. We learn we learn about some native pollinators that live in our area. Here are some examples of those pollinators. Did you know native native be live on the ground or solitary? Remember we asked what plants would be best for a pollinator garden. We also learned about native pollinator plants. Native pollinator plants attract native pollinators. These pollinator plants are important because they are host plants. They provide food for specific insects, feeding them, creating shelter for these insects and allow and it allows them to lay eggs. Some
020people may mistake them for wheats. We have been re we are designing the pin garden. We have been researching for native plants and flowers. We have been thinking about the color of the flower that attract the pollinators, helping the plants grow so we can put them in the correct place um in the our pollinator garden. A pollinator garden help the community by improving the environment and protecting local ecosystem. It all it allows rain water to soak into the ground instead of carrying trash and chemicals into the Long Island Sound, helping keep the water clean and full of life. It also supports biodiversity by providing a habitat for many different plants and animals and keep the ecosystem healthy and balanced. In addition, pollinator gardens help grow more food by supporting pollination, which lead to more fruits
021and vegetables in the garden. They also bring people together by creating opportunities for learning and teamworking, making the community stronger while making a healthier and more sustainable environment. We would like to invite you to take part in our event grown and grow on June 10th where we will be replanting our pollinator garden with a thousand donation native pollinator plants from the Cessor society. Join us as we replant and enjoy a yoga session with community friends who are helping us rebuild next week. We hope to see you there. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. I was going to say another round of applause, but I don't think I need to ask for it. Um, Jefferson fourth graders, thank you for your your passion, your determination. You um you know, when you were faced
022with a problem, you identified the right questions and then you found a solution with the support of your wonderful teacher and your school's administration. And I hope you're very proud. Great job. So, um, this next part of the presentation showcases our district-wide food, uh, food waste initiative entitled harvesting change, tackling food waste in your shell schools with self. Self being children's environmental literacy foundation. I'll only say it once. So, um, you'll be hearing from a group of fifth graders from Trinity Elementary soon who were the first school to participate in the initiative and who really set the tone and the energy, a lot of energy and great positive energy for how we led these uh, food labs throughout the year. Um, the Trinity students were mentored by their beloved steam teacher, Mrs. Terry Agrivat, who
023is standing over there. and with the with their support of their beloved principal, Mr. Hildebrand um as well as obviously all of the Trinity food food service uh team uh custodial team and uh lunch monitoring teams. Before seating the floor to self and to our amazing Trinity students, I would like to provide some background on what led us to this initiative in the first place. I there's a lot to read. I'm going to skim through it, but what's really important to know is 100% of our students eat for free, and that's really, really important. 53% of them are eligible for free meals based on applications that are filed out at the beginning of the year. Um, and that has to do with the community eligibility. It's like a big yes, the community eligibility plan. Um,
024so or a provision. So, it's based on applications. We offer free lunches and this obviously lessens the very real stigma of food insecurity um and the fact that they all have access to to to this food. Um the district supplies the free meals to the students um and then submits monthly reimbursements uh to the federal government for the school breakfast program and the national school lunch program and also some of it is subsidized by the New York State Department of Education. For a meal to be reimbursed, students are required to take three out of five uh five meal components. And of the five components, students are required to take one fruit, even if they don't want it. And this is an important thing to remember as we talk about our food waste labs and about
025our district-wide um data. But before going any further, I do want to mention that we're here today um in the context of this initiative thanks to a group of students. It was middle school students from Albert Leonard in 2024 group uh green club students who sounded the alarm and um who were really concerned about uneaten food items and uh that were being thrown out every day in their lunchroom. Most of the waste was from items u the students had been required to take that were part of the requirements I just mentioned. Um a lot of it was juices and milks and fruit and crackers and you'll see the statistics. So over five five uh on five days they discarded nearly 300 beverages and nearly 240 pieces of fruit. Um they presented their findings at our
026yearly green fair. It became clear to me that this issue was at the intersection of nutrition, education and environmental stewardship. Um how do we continue offering free meals to all of our students which is non-negotiable. Um and also tackle the environmental impact of all of this food. Um, we're not just throwing away food. We're throwing away taxpayer dollars. We're wasting nutritional resources. We're emitting greenhouse gases um because of all of the food that's rotting in um in these piles. And um I think finally, we might also be inadvertently signaling to our children that food is disposable, and that's not something we want to do. Um so it got me wondering about how we how we tackle this districtwide. And there was no question to me that self was the only organization to partner with to
027help our students across the district bring all of this um this issue to light. You'll learn all about the process of the food waste labs uh from our Trinity fifth graders. But first, I'd like to introduce the self team before seating the floor to these fifth graders that everybody wants to hear. So, thank you very much. Please join us. already clicked. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mia. And good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. We are the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation. As we said, self. Um our mission is to establish sustainability as an integral part of every child's prek12 learning experience. We work closely with districts, schools, teachers, and students to incorporate sustainability, environmental justice, climate literacy as a lens for learning across content areas. My name is Vicki
028Guru Lakeno and I'm the director of education. I'm joined by our team members, Tara Stafford Okansi, our executive director, and my partner in crime, Rowena Capuno, manager of education innovation. During this past school year, we've had the wonderful opportunity to design and implement the harvesting change tackling food waste and new shell schools initiative. As we as Mia just gave a nice overview, it was funded through the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute. This project applied self's inquiry to action framework. To implement these inquiry projects focused on raising awareness of school waste across the district, developing studentled action plans to engage district stakeholders in reducing food waste. So just a little timeline before we dive in um of our relationship with Newell schools through the last uh few years. Self has been engaging with teachers and
029schools in various ways. Back in 2021-22, we provided PD professional development sessions to a team of teachers under the leadership of Kim Neves from Jefferson Elementary School to leverage the connections to sustainability and ways to integrate the garden towers and the outdoor garden into the classroom curriculum. In 2024 25 school year, we recruited and reconnected with a few teachers, Amy Ferguson and Lucia Brea here tonight to be part of our EFS leadership fellow team where we modeled ways to to engage more deeply integrate sustainability in school communities alongside peers across Westchester County. In addition, Carmen Glenn, also here tonight, Terry Agravat, Lucia Brea, Monica Argentina, and of course, Mia, um, have also engaged in our civic science program and summer institute cohorts to develop and ampl amplify student action projects such as, as you may
030know, the air of truth with the high school students. We are very excited that the food waste project allowed us the continued opportunity to engage in new shell teachers, students and administrators working together towards sustainable systemic change. So for this self project support um this food waste initiative selected teachers across prek12 participating in self series of three virtual workshops that kicked off in the fall. additional coaching sessions one-on-one to learn about the inquiry to action framework and how to engage in food waste data collection and analysis which you'll hear from in a little bit. We supported students as they led food waste labs during breakfast and lunch periods and interviewed their peers to gain insights on food preferences and reasons for tossing away uneaten food. That was really great interaction seeing the students ask why
031why did you like what didn't you like? Jefferson and the Trinity students presented their projects during self's annual student symposium at Mercy University just two weeks ago, so they're getting their practice in. We want to highlight that while this project is valuable in its own right, our place-based approach to teaching for environmental literacy and climate action is a powerful way to bring life uh to bring to life several state initiatives and requirements such as the seal of civic readiness and the New York State climate education graduation requirement. both elevating New Rashell schools as leaders in these areas of educating for civic engagement and climate action. Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing more from our Trinity Elementary fifth graders who helped pilot the first food waste lab with steam teacher Miss
032Terry Agravot. Thank you. Good evening. We're the fifth grade steam class from Trinity Elementary School in Nurell, New York. We are here today to share our civic science project, harvesting change, tackling food waste in Nurell schools with self. We started by creating maps of our community around our school using a bird's eye view. We discussed our community's assets and challenges. Some of the positives we noticed are the large bodies of water including the Long Island Sound and Titus Mill Pond. We also have many green spaces including fields, parks, gardens, and many trees. But one main challenge in our community is that there is no big supermarkets in walking distance. This led us to asking questions about our food system. Where does our food come from? How does it get to our community? What happens to
033the leftover food or food waste? We decided on the inquiry question for our project. How can we as Nurell community members explore our local food system to reduce food waste and address food insecurity in our school community? We observed our school's lunch menu and discussed what we noticed. Students shared what they liked about lunch, including talking to friends, pizza, and brunch for lunch. Some things students do not like about lunch are not having enough time to eat, inconsistencies in food quality, limited choices, and having to take all of the items included inside the lunch, even if they do not want something. Next, we started to prepare for the waste food waste labs. We decided to sort the waste into five categories. Liquids, partially eaten fruits and vegetables, other partially eating food, uneating/ untouched food, and
034non-food materials. We made posters for each category so that students would know where to put their waste. We also created an interview form so we could gather more information on why students threw out their food items. We conducted three food waste labs on January 23rd, February 3rd, and February 5th during the fourth and fifth grade lunch periods. Sorting the waste was a messy job. After lunch, we weighed the waste by category. On average, 6 lbs of partially eaten fruits and vegetables and 22 lbs of partially eaten food was wasted per day. Additionally, an average of 19 pounds of liquid and 16 pounds of non-food items such as wrappers, cartons, and plastic were discarded each day. We also collected an average of 229 trays equals to 14 lbs per day. Finally, there was also an average
035of 170 uneaten and untouched items that were put on the share table. Based on the data that we collected, we predict that in one school year, fourth and fifth grade lunch produces approximately 5,040 lb of food waste, which is equivalent to 2.5 tons or the weight of two small cars. We also estimated that in one school year, fourth and fifth grade lunch produces 2,880 lbs of non-food waste, 30,420 unneeded unopened items, and 41,220 trays, which is equal to 2520 lb. Based on our interview data, the most common reason students threw out food was that they were too full or they did not like the food. The least liked items were scrambled eggs, sweet potatoes, and chicken. >> All of this food waste is harmful to the environment. When food rots away in landfills, it releases
036methane gas. This contributes to clim climate change. When we waste food, we also waste the resources that were used to make and transport the food such as energy, fuel, and water. To help our school reduce waste, we are working on promoting the share table. We created posters to advertise the table so students know they can put unopened items there for another student to eat. We are also vermic composting some food scraps uh in our classroom worm bin. Verma composting is when the worms break down the food scraps and turn them into nutrient-rich compost that can be added to the soil in our school gardens. In the future, we would like to establish standardiz share tables throughout the district. We are also interested in implanting districtwide food scraps, composting, and also the districtwide use of reusable
037lunch trace. This will greatly reduce waste, but would also be very expensive. Throughout this project, we collaborated with many people including students, teachers, principals, custodians, lunch monitors, food services staff, the self team, and Miss Mia. We are grateful to everyone who helped and supported us. Thank you. Or actually Yeah. Let's just give another huge round of applause to our Trinity fifth graders. The uh the future is incredibly bright and I cannot wait to work with each and every one of you as middle schoolers. Haha. I'm going to get you all in the Isaac Young or wherever you're going green club. Um so I'm deeply grateful. You'll see here this is district-wide data and I think it's worth perusing the board docs later to really get a your brain around the numbers. um that the uh
038Trinity students presented. This is the district-wide data. Um I'm super grateful to the 12 teachers who stepped up um on top of everything else they do to make this initiative possible. Thanks to them, 126 students across our district participated in leading the harvesting change food waste labs, which is not nothing. I'm super proud of these students and I hope they feel empowered by their impact. Together they observed 23 meal sessions across eight schools and collected over 800 lb of lunchroom waste. And remember that that doesn't include the waste we see in our kitchens. This is only the waste in the lunchroom. So that's a whole other can of worms maybe literally hopefully. Um so of course a massive thank you goes uh to the self team for their passion and dedication. Uh, working with you
039and I will cry was an absolute joy. Um, I genuinely miss our daily teamwork. Like these are my work wives, guys. Um, and I don't miss sorting trash or getting yogurt in my hair, but I do miss you. Uh, finally, none of this would have run so smoothly without our administrative, custodial, and food service teams. School lunchrooms have incredibly tight schedules and super fast turnovers. Our food labs meant moving tras from where they usually are. um hanging signs, adding to the daily chaos. So, by keeping our teams in the loop, all of our custodial and food service teams in the loop, they didn't just tolerate the disruption, they fully supported and appreciated our mission. Um so, thank you for everyone for making this project a huge success. This is a quick snapshot, sort of a
040breakdown of the food waste over these 23 sessions. And like 23 sessions, just for context, is like not even a week, right, in one school. So, just think about what that looks like. Um, I think what's neat to to look at this, you see the liquids, the food waste. Um, I'm glad that our kids like veggies because apparently that is the least the least wasted metric. This could also have something to do with the fact that we were um making sure uneaten fruit was placed on a share table and not thrown out. Right now, our elementary schools and middle school students are served um food on compostable trays that are then thrown into the trash. There's a pile of what those compostable trays look like. Um, the numbers are pretty pretty amazing. I I wish
041that our Trinity students had done the math for me because I'm not I'm not as good as they are. But if you think of 138 lbs of trays and you translate that to how many pounds that would look like in a year, um, that's a lot of carbon that would be useful compost that we're paying hauling fees for to send it to a landfill where it sits and produces harmful methane gas. Worse yet, we observe that many trays, especially during middle school breakfast, are thrown away completely clean because they only carried a piece of fruit or a prepackaged pastry. Um, so we urgently need to reexamine how we use these trays. Food service is aware, our business office is aware, we're, you know, we're finding solutions. We also discovered incredible potential in our share tables.
042Um, our students rescued nearly 1,000 untouched, unopened items that were headed for the trash in 23 food sessions, lunchroom sessions. Um, this included fresh fruit, juices, milk, cheese sticks, crackers, yogurts, and so a few of our schools have their own informal share tables. Uh, but too many of these perfectly good items still end up in the trash. We have a massive opportunity here to reduce both waste and hunger. So, here's a quick sort of look at what's in store short to long term for the green schools committee. Um in response to the findings from the harvesting change initiative and you know everything else that we do with gardening um we will continue to research grant opportunities and hopefully continue our collaboration with self and with food services. Uh we hope to pursue regular food food
043waste labs and seek funding to standardize share tables districtwide. We have the support of food services and the business office like I said before achieving the long-term goal of implementing food scraps composting across the district which I would love to see. Um, but that's something that requires uh significant infrastructur infrastructure and funding. Um, I'd like to pilot a food scraps composting program in one school and maybe try to implement district-wide composting of the cardboard trays. I think that would be a huge success in in of itself. Because very few schools are using share tables in the lunchroom, we believe it would be impactful for the board to issue a policy mandating standardized share tables districtwide. Um, I'm already always available to answer any questions to meet with you if you have any questions about the
044process and I really appreciate your attention and your consideration for having and for having us here tonight. So, thank you very much. Oh, I just saw I just saw Miss Tanner there. Hi, Utilia. Um, and but I'm not done. So before I open the floor to your questions, we do have a gift uh for all of you, for our board members, our cabinet members, and some people in the audience. Um, one of the highlights of my year has been working with Shelley Owens, the principal at uh Barnard, and we uh rebooted Amy's Greenhouse. Uh we turned it, it's been amazing. I mean, look at this. Um, it has officially returned to its original mission, which is serving as a vibrant space where Barnard students learn about environmental stewardship through seed starting and plant cultivation. I
045want to extend a huge thank to his wife Stephanie Jiu. I pronounce it in French. I can't help it. Uh, for helping me kickstart our planting sessions. I learned a lot from you. Thank you very much. There's a picture of Bob there transplanting basil. And that's me with a first grade classroom there. And that's all of our basil shoots. So we um you know it was a huge success, more than we ever could have anticipated, right? Like we almost have too much basil, if that's even a thing. Um and it's cute when you talk to first graders and second graders and you ask them if they like basil and they're like, "I don't know what that is." And then you ask them if they like pesto, they're like, "I love pesto." So um so anyway,
046we over the course of two months welcomed 16 classrooms and 275 students into the greenhouse. And every student got to take Basil home and so will you. So tonight we wanted to share this success with you. And we have is Ricky here? We have some students from Barnard who are there. There he is. Ricky is here with Shelly. Um Rick is a second grade student. Ricky Ariaga and he's accompanied by Miss Owens and Mr. Watkins and my children who will probably help uh distribute some uh basil to our board of education. This is Barnard Grown Basil everyone. >> Thank you. Really? I think so. >> Oh, no. I think I don't know. I'll see. >> And so we have instructions, basil instructions for you guys. Oh, no. And so, yeah, we have basil instructions because
047this is basil that's been growing in very, you know, in a protected environment. So, I want you to harden it off. You'll learn all about that in my instructions. Some of it has spent some time outside, but just, you know, better be safe than sorry. Um, and I please I encourage you to join us at the the June uh June 11th green fair which will showcase these initiatives and every single green club initiative and our partners and the new Relle High School green club that is, you know, basically runs the green fair for me. So, and there's extra basil for everyone who's here outside. And if you don't get any, then you come to the green fair and you'll get more. Thanks everyone. I don't know if you have question. We might. >> Well, thank
048you very much for that presentation. Colleagues, does anyone have any questions or comments? Uh, Miss Clay Fernandez. >> Oh, boy. You guys, good to see you. >> Um, I'm just going to say that to the young people in the room. Well done. these these little these things that seem so little now are going to change the planet. It has compounded interest when all of you work together. And I can't say how lucky as a community because this wasn't here when my kids were little boogers. Um, but what a great thing to have for our community of kids and parents and educators because honestly, um, it's going to take a whole new game change to really make an impact. And to see how cleverly and forensically you dug in on the waste of food is huge.
049And I really wish this is the kind of presentation that should this should be on television. Honestly, this is not marked. And I'll tell you why. Because there is way too much waste. It is. It is. We have lost our minds. We have We are so privileged and we're so blessed. And yet there's hunger at such a high exponential rate. And it doesn't have to be that way. But I do think having young minds take part in it now. And if not now, then when? when you're in high, you know, like like you're growing into this really incredible person, new young people, and before you know it, you're going to wake up and you're going to be, you know, big business people and leaders and you're going to remember these little seeds that you planted,
050these this this time where you thought about more than just yourself. You thought about other people, the earth, and just a better planet. And that is absolutely priceless. And I'm just I'm just blown away that this is part of our community and we're so lucky. And Mia, thank you cuz you really do a great job. >> Henry, >> um I just want to piggyback off what Miss Clayton Fernandez said and congratulate all the students that were here today. I think as a student myself, it's very impressive at such a young age for you guys to come up and talk about something that you guys have worked so hard for. And so, I just wanted to give you guys a shout out. And I want you guys to know that if this is something that you're
051super duper passionate about, I want you to continue that throughout middle school, throughout high school. If it's something that you are super passionate about, you can make that change. And you can continue to make that change if you continue with your passions. >> Yes. >> So, yeah. Miss Williams. >> Uh, thank you so much for the presentation to all the facilitators, the parents, and the students. I actually attended, uh, Jefferson School from kindergarten to third grade and Trinity School from fourth grade to sixth grade. So, thank you very much for keeping that mantle and also keeping the two schools so innovative. Um, I really feel that I received a world-class education at both schools. And I have two questions. One question is, um, how, um, do you let the landscapers know not to mow down
052your pollinator garden? And then my other question is with, uh, the food sharing table, um, how do you ensure that the food is uh, safe and hasn't been tampered with? Those are very good questions. To answer your first question, a lot of emails. A lot a lot of emails. Um, and we're getting there. It's a culture change. Uh, not everyone understands what a pollinator garden is. Not every one understands or few traditional landscapers understand that when the plants die off, they should stay because they remain. They are food for birds and and animals. And so, you know, uh, Miss Brea and the students know and I know and a lot of our native pollinator gardeners in the district know, but it's it's a it's a long game and we'll get there. >> So, do you
053put fencing around it or you just tell them don't don't mow there? >> Mr. So, been here almost 10 years and our grounds development, the way our schools look. Um, for those of you that are community members and have been here for a long time as you drive by our schools, I'm I would I would gamble to say that our buildings look pristine compared to what they used to look like. We we have room for growth. We we get better every year, but our grounds, we take pride in it. Um they they look phenomenal. Our our team and our contracted team do a phenomenal job. With that comes challenges. Um at Jefferson, we it was uh a great idea. We started it and um someone who wasn't paying attention thought they were weeds when a
054lot of times if it's not an established pollinator garden and there's and there's a difference and you're you're you're you're slowing down enough to realize what you're doing, right? A lot of times you just put on headsets, you put on, you know, whatever. And you just go about your business. So it was unfortunately mode over the the company made a $750 donation to to get plants back. So that was uh great, but that doesn't buy back the time it took to establish it. So we understand that. I love the fact that I heard someone say you you you you had a challenge. You brought up solutions. So I again thank you for that. Um we now have signage in English and Spanish uh identifying our pollinator gardens. Um, and as we continue to grow these
055things, there will be plenty of signage so that it shouldn't be a mistake. And what our what our vendor is now doing is he's actually taking drone footage and we're marking the footage of with with um red pen to circle where not to mow, where not to go, do not touch, hot, do not do that again. So again, we apologized. Uh the vendor was was embarrassed, but they did what they could do. um as we progress and and continue our collaboration, uh we will continue to make sure that that these things are very limited because we do not want to um end the good works of our students any sooner than we need to because we want to continue to foster and nurture and grow that. No pun intended, >> right? >> Thank you. It's
056don't go there. Okay. And then >> I don't know why I have this mic over here. For your second question, which is an excellent question too, Miss Williams, regarding the the the share tables, the USDA has a long list of um fact sheets on how to properly run share tables. And so I've and I have joined a somewhat scary food service group on Facebook. I've learned a lot. Um but there are ways to do this. And Mr. Watkins and Mr. Leel, we've talked about uh solutions. I think that we should have hopefully finance um coolers that are similar to the ones that you'll see in the food in the in the lunchrooms where the the milk and the juices go. Have one right outside on the other side of the lunch line. The issue uh
057with New York State health and safety guidelines is that once the food leaves the cafeteria, it can't go back. So, the students get the milk and the juice because they have to get it or the cheese or the apple and they literally throw it out. I wish they could put it back in the fridge, but because it's been touched, to your point, they cannot. Um, as long as these dairy products are maintained at 40 degrees, they are perfectly safe for other students to consume. Um, we could have them in the little in a refrigerator on the other side of the of the lunchroom. Our nurses could come and get them and give them to students who who need it. Our our social workers, our psychologists, students who need an extra snack in the afternoon would
058be able to come and get it. When we started implementing the share tables during our food labs at Trinity, you guys remember how everyone was really excited to come and get an extra pack of carrots or an extra pack of crackers? That food disappeared really really quickly. Um, so yeah, there's it's it's definitely something we have to look at carefully when it comes to the the temperature, but we have solutions for that. >> Great. Thank you very much for finding the solutions. And I'm a teacher, so I'm going to take this back to my school. Okay, Miss Lewis. >> Uh, well, first and foremost, thank you all. Um, this presentation was delightful and you guys did a great job. Um, to know me means I won't turn down a plant. So, very much for sharing.
059Um, I will say to the students in this room and I'll actually pip um pick up where you left off with our Cameron. Basically, that by the time you get to high school to college, these are majors in college, right? This doesn't just stop here. You can go to college and pick a degree in what you're doing now. And there's so many different topics and majors that you can choose from in schools across this country. I went to Amherst. There's there's a degree program there. There's one at Cornell. They're all over the country. So, um there are policies from even on a national level as to why there's food waste. Um there's government reasons on a local level, right? There's all kinds of reasons. There's also like the actual agricultural um degrees that you can
060get. Uh even for global climate change we talk about a lot, right? Like how that impacts what's grown across our country. So there are many different majors you can choose from. So as you go into middle school and you start talking about this, as you go into high school and you start talking about this, just remember that. And you can always go back and ask your teachers and say like, "Hey, I think I like this. What can I do with it later?" And they'll tell you if you don't remember today. So thank you guys. >> Thank you, Miss Lewis. Miss Jacob, >> just reiterating uh the thanks for a great presentation. I think I don't want to compare, but a really great energy to close out the year. I'm not going to say the best,
061but it was great energy tonight. Um so, thank you all for coming out. Um in addition to the So, thank you for alerting us to this need to do this at all of our schools. It's really important and I I agree we should be taking this up as a board to continue to discuss this and collaborate with you. Um, in addition to having the the tables at the schools for children to take the food, if there is additional food, can that go to other places like shelters? >> Well, so there's the good >> No, no, no, no. And that's actually something that Dr. Reynolds and I have talked about in the past. Um, >> I think what happens is, you know, at the federal level there, um, nonprofits and schools are allowed to donate to
062uh, food banks, but then um, state laws supersede the federal guidelines. So the federal uh the sorry the state guidelines dictate that certain products have to be maintained at a certain temperature. Um we cannot donate milk to a food bank and then run the risk of you know donating milk that's gone sour. Apples however that shouldn't be a problem. So there are ways around that. I think that I think that there's um ample um you know data showing that our own students could use that food. But yeah, I mean it's it's not it's not you know it's not something that we would exclude completely. We could donate apples to to uh >> uh to someone like Hope as long as we had very specific strict guidelines to follow, but not milk or anything that needs
063to be refrigerated. >> So we're only doing this now at Trinity then. >> Uh oh. Well, well, so actually, no, we so we ran food waste labs across the board. Not in all of our schools, but in eight of our schools. Um, there were so Davis, interestingly enough, was the only school really that had a a a proper share table. It was like even written. It was bilingual. Missida, the kids know what to do. And that's something I forgot to mention in my presentation. Like kids are way smarter than we are. And you know, they it's all about building habits. Once they know to sort their waste, once they know to place the apple on a share table, they will do it systematically. So, I think starting in elementary school is the way to go
064and then hopefully by the time they get to, you know, to the high school, they're not too jaded. But, um, yeah, so some of our schools are doing it one or two. Um, but it's very person specific and it's very school specific. There's a wonderful custodian at Albert Leonard who puts everything in a box, but when he's not there, it goes into the trash. So, if we're mandating it from the top down, then I think we can solve this problem more long term. >> Thank you, >> Ros. >> Um, thank you again for the wonderful presentation and uh my colleague uh Miss Plain Fernandez said it better, I think, than I ever can. But what I really really uh admire and appreciate about this whole thing is that it was started by our students in
065terms of food waste and that they were the ones that discovered it. And so if anybody takes anything away from this is that you all of you uh little little ones here can make a difference, right? And so now you're presenting this to the board. There's very high likelihood we'll be able to take action on it. And so um it starts with little things. And so I'd appreciate you may not to take this to take the horn and and really sort of bring this to our attention as well. So it was wonderful uh to hear from our students today and thank you so much. Thank you. >> Thank you guys so much. We really appreciate it. >> Thank you everyone. Thank you so much. And again, I'm I'm available for questions. >> If I if
066I could just add I I hope and I'm not going to so much focus on the presentation as much as I am going to focus on the outcome of the presentation. I don't want it to be lost on anyone. the power of something you just witnessed. You just witnessed a student sitting on the deis as a member of the board give commenation and recommendation to students who have led an initiative in a school district that must be celebrated. We have not seen that before in our history and I hope that we realize the greatness behind that. Our future is actually in a leadership position today. So, let's give our students a round of applause for that. >> Yeah. >> All right. I know there's a transition period, so if everyone has to leave, you're more
067than welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, but if you have to go, >> and remember there's basil for everyone who attended if they want. I'm, you know, first come, first serve, so start running. And thank you, make them sauce awesome someday. I'm excited. Oh, thank you. That's a wrap. >> That went really well. Well done. Thank you. >> Oh, thank you. >> A picture here and your daughter. >> Okay. Holding my basil. >> Sorry. All right, guys. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, everyone. We're going to transition into our public comment period. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're about to convene into the public comment period of the meeting. The board of education adopted policy 12:30 in April 2022 to ensure all members of the public have the opportunity to speak at
068both of our board meetings each month. We believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues. Having said that, please note that the board is here to listen. The public comment period is not designed to be a discussion. Accordingly, understand the board will not respond to your concerns and questions tonight. We take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need be. We will however respond to your questions and concerns at a future meeting or have the proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time. I also want to point out that under state and federal privacy laws, we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school personnel and students. Please know, however, that
069we take personnel concerns very seriously on these matters. We would ask you we would ask you to go through the appropriate administrative channels. Finally, we recognize that right now our nation, our community are polarized on a number of issues. That said, we want our schoolboard meetings to serve as an example to our students that members of our school board and members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect for one another. In that spirit, we'll insist that all speakers and aud members of the audience maintain civility and respect for any divergent views that others possess. We ask that speakers please address their comments to the board directly rather than the audience. In the unlikely event the meeting becomes unruly, the board will recess the meeting and return
070once order has been restored. Finally, I want to remind everyone that you may submit written comments to the board in L of speaking during the public comment period if you so choose. Tonight, we have set aside 30 minutes for public comment where each speaker who has signed up before 3:30 today has three minutes to speak. If a person requests to speak after 3:30, you may sign up in person at the meeting with the clerk and will also be afforded the opportunity to speak. Our first speaker of the night is Mr. Martin Sanchez. Was no and happy pride month. My name is Martine Sanchez and I live at 261 Sichls Avenue. I have two children who have graduated from the New Shell School District and my wife was a teacher at Alvalena Middle School. I was
071also appointed and elected school board member many years ago. And I've been the last couple of weeks many teachers at the high school have called me about a change that's occurring there. I was concerned when I learned that the position of high school social studies chair was being abolished. It is a puzzling action because I cannot imagine more than 40 social studies educators moving forward with their responsibilities next year. You speak of consolidating the social studies program with a humanities approach. I would like to see how this will work in the times we live in now. We need social studies. We need a social studies chair who will mentor, coach, and provide that level of support to experience and not so experienced social studies teachers. We need someone who will be the point person to
072address community concerns about social studies, history, geography, area, and gender studies. Who will be the civics leader? Who will manage the curriculum? Who will have the responsibility to do this work? in addition to the stuff they have already to manage the principal or house principal. I might note that supervising or managing by telepathy usually doesn't work. Is is this consolidation also impacting the math chair, the science chair, the PAVE chair or director? Why did you choose the social studies chair? It sounds that someone at the home office didn't like social studies back in the day. I recently retired after 35 years of doing employee and labor relations supporting up to 3,500 unionized employees. I can tell you that success is managed well when you have good supervision and a dedicated person who will have your
073back or work with you in a continuous improvement way. Is this what you envision or are we reluctant to speak about this? I did not bring this up before as I wanted to ensure that the budget pass. Please reconsider your actions. I will be happy to support you in this reconsideration. Gracias. >> Martine. Uh, next up for public comment is Mr. Gabe Sanchez. >> Hello everyone. My name is Gabe Sanchez and I live at 24D Wood Place. Although I was raised at 261 Sichls as you can imagine. I am a graduate, a proud graduate of Columbus Elementary Middle School and New High School, class of 2010. For the last 12 years, I have been an educator teaching history and Latin American studies classes at middle, high school, and college levels. And for four years, I
074was a department chair at a history program at a private school in New York City. Given my personal and professional background, I'm here to speak about one of the proposed changes that comes with the new budget that was just passed. This is the consolidation of the social studies chair position into a new humanities chair position. And I worry that this might be a disservice to our students and our community more broadly. I want to speak about two ways that I think this will be a detrimental to our community. First, this role is a critical point person for the education of civics and politics throughout the district. I cannot think of a time in US history when we were in more need of robust civics education and educating young people about the ways government does, doesn't
075work, and the ways that they can be involved. Educational research has shown time and again that the best way to muddle through political disagreements, divisiveness, find common ground is through civics's education. We certainly need that again now more than ever. The position of social studies chair is someone who provides direction and leadership on this topic and needs the due attention and care of a trained and experienced professional. cannot fall into the lap of someone else's work combined with many other things because that is just adding more pieces to the pie. We know it will not end up at the highest quality that our students and teachers deserve. My second point is that the district needs a leader for social studies curriculum because the work of social studies is controversial. As we know, the instruction of
076history is a big part of larger debates about inclusion, progress, and identity. These debates can be distractions and harmful to our students and educators. To put it simply, I do not want new Relle or all of you to be caught up in the culture wars about the instruction of history and social studies. I'm trying to look out for you. In order to avoid this, we need leadership, clear vision, and support for social studies educators across the district, and a social studies chair is the role for that. Without that kind of guidance and support, there can be too much of siloing, too much of echo chambers, and too much of fighting over our shared stories. We need this position to protect our students, our educators, and the district overall. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today
077to share my thoughts. I congratulate the board on their recently passed budget, and I do understand the difficult decisions that needed to be made. We hope this that this decision regarding the social studies chair will be re-evaluated for the good of our community. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ke. Uh, next up is Mr. Keith Singleary. How are you? Um, all I just want to say thank you to my friends, my neighbors who have recently contacted me. Um, it's very clear that you guys know I have love for people in Roelle and I appreciate the love the people in Michelle have shown me recently. Um, their questions, their concerns have brought me out here today. Um, so I'm going to be relatively quick. You know, I have a question for the superintendent, the board, as well
078as the general public here. Uh, Superintendent Rendles, um, going through our budget cycle and I have to ask you, when you look back upon this process, are there things that you know that I'm a person that believes in fiscal responsibility? I'm a person that believes in transparency. I'm a person that believes and looking out for all students in need of show. So when I hear comments of untimely communication, lack of transparency, I know these are not values that you have. But those are things that people within our community are telling me about you. So I just ask you to assess how you performed in this cycle and basically make adjustments in the future. I also have to ask, does Dune as well as the board still have a commitment to New Rochelle being viewed as
079a future blue ribbon status district? The reason why I asked that is that as cuts are being made, whether or not it's to the social studies chair, whether or not it's to uh music and the elementary schools, whether or not it's relating to preap courses, whether or not it's related to honors courses. Lord, are you fully dissecting the impact this is going to have to our district? Class of 2026 was amazing relating to the type of schools they got into. It always brings me such pleasure when I go to events and I see all the amazing schools that they're going to. They even improve from the class of 2025. But I wonder if those same same statistics are going to be said 10 maybe even five years from now. These cuts are going to impact
080the progress of our our teachers of high school students that are currently in elementary and middle school. Though we have a good superintendent, we need you to keep them accountable. We need to make sure that there is timely process and communication so that some of these rumors that are festering in our community do not feel loop or grow so that there is some type of dissatisfaction among the ward or the superintendent. So my last comment is to the public of Neoch. Please be involved. Be involved in going of being a member of the board of election. We need more pe people to participate. We need more people to volunteer. Thank you. >> Next up is Miss Brenda Dejako. >> Good evening everybody. Brenda Dejako. So first of the green committee. That was a great presentation.
081It's great being a part of the green committee. I've been involved in it since started. So she said three years. And to see the work that the green committee did in three years, it's amazing. And it's not like we're she's stopping. We're going further. And this was her first year in the role or there was somebody else. And all the changes that we make between her and Keith have been amazing. It's great for our community. We have to come together in our community because our community is falling apart. Okay? We need to come together. We need to do more things together because the only people that are being hurt at the end are our students. It's sad. It's sad. What we're going through as a community, the things that we're losing the social studies. Well,
082if we're not going to have someone in charge of social studies, are we going to try to do something to get it better for the social studies in the high school? Is that affect the middle school? But you know what? I'll never know because as many times as I speak at the board meeting, I hear someone will get back to you. What am I answer to? I still haven't got reply to any of them. Anything may I speak? We need to come together and work together. Our teachers do as much as they can for our students. We're losing teachers that are affecting our students and the communication they have with them. We're losing all this. We have a charter school coming in. We're losing money to a charter school which isn't fair to our students.
083I feel as a community we didn't DO ENOUGH TO FIGHT AGAINST this charter school. I mean, it's not fair what it's being done to our students. If we don't come together and work as a community as the years go on and this charter school keeps building more grades and more grades, well, how many people are we going to have left? BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE talking so much about our district and it's not right. I WAS PROUD TO SAY I graduated from Nurisha High School. I was proud to say I had poor kid going on the fifth grade graduating from the from Nurisha. Now when when you say that to people, people like, "Oh, look what's going on in your district. Look at all the problems you have." Well, we need to solve the problem or people
084need to get more involved. the community. We need to come up with community events to have community involvement, community action, something something because this is what we're doing is not working. Dropping well program can't get enough special ed teachers. Kids have to be squished out of the district because we can't handle them. This is all money we're losing. We should try to bring our students that we couldn't handle back into our district. We need to look for special education teachers. Uh, we need to do better for our kids. Better for our teachers and staff who bend over backwards for our kids. I mean, I don't know what to say. I love all you guys. I love the way you work, but we need to work together more. Without working together more with a community, how
085are we supposed to bring Newelle up? I want to bring Michelle up because if not going up, it's time to move. >> Next up is Mr. Vincent Malfetano. Hello, good evening. Vince Malatano. Uh, just a couple of things. Uh, our election process is working wonderfully uh for those who have it under control. We had about a 5% voter turnout in this land of freedom. It took about 3% of the vote of 50,000 registered voters to elect our new members. About 1,800 people of a registered population of 50,000 gave you your budget. That's the way everybody likes it. I've watched it up close and personal for 40 years. It won't change and that's fine. You're happy with that. Okay. Well, in the few minutes I have, I just want to point out a couple of things.
086Mr. Sanchez, unfortunately not here. It it raises a good point him and his son about cuts uh proposed cuts for the music. I understand you took 700,000 or so from the chartered program to restore the music in the elementary. Okay. Uh the social studies, I was a social studies AP. I was a social studies teacher down in New York City. Uh 35 years worth all together in high schools. So I know it up close and personal. you need a social studies chair. But in any case, but you didn't get to the tough question. Where are you going to find the money? And this is where I've puzzled with you guys. So, I'm asking you for your friends who get free busing out of town that they're not entitled to by law, but they are entitled
087to because they elect you. Uh, that's politics. I understand that. Your friends to the victor belong to spoils. The folks in town that elected you want the free busing about 2,000 or so ahead. I get it and in good times I'm all for it but it's not good times and again whether it's uh the philosophers I don't know Plato or whoever maybe my monities uh to look at the ethical considerations that you have to go through that says you are going to lose your job today as a school aid or monitor or teacher because we don't have the money because we're going to give this gentleman who sends his son to a $25,000 kindergarten out of the district a free bus to do so. We're not even going to ask these privileged people to contribute
088partially to the busing in bad times. Are you telling me we're we're flush with money? Mr. Singal, what do you think? Are we flushed with cash, folks? Miss Jacob, no, we're not. But you are comfortable with having people lose their jobs or have people scream at you about cutting a music program. That's not who we should be. But to the people of Norishelle, that's what you get when only 5% of you vote. Next up is Miss Kandi Howard. Good evening. My name is Kayie Howard. I am a parent of three children in the district. Two in the high school, one at Ward School, and I'm here today to talk to you about music. Um, start with music. So, I'm lucky enough to have a daughter that is in PAVE. She plays a violin and uh
089they were able to perform in the NISMA majors and they competed at the highest level and at the highest level they got gold with distinction. So we got highest and highest and that is because we have a music program that begins at the elementary school. Some children get to have private lessons, most children do not. A lot of the children benefit from a nonprofit in our community, but that is not a guarantee. Introducing music in middle school, anyone that has birthed and raised a middle schooler. Trying to get a sixth grader and seventh grader to start something is a lot more difficult than trying to get a fourth or fifth grader to start something. I know none of you believe that music is bad, but I want you to prioritize in your next discussion keeping
090it. I don't know if there's a something we can write where this is not it's that's a non-negotiable, right? It's not just about the instrument. It's about what it's doing in brain development. Um it's just bigger than dollars and cents. And I know everyone's program is important to them, but music is across the entire district and impacts all of our children. So that was what I want I came here for. There will be people emailing you and sharing their time because this is a difficult time to be here because everyone has children. But I did talk to the judges for the NISMA majors and they are the people that listen to music around the entire district. And of course he was shocked because he said there are two schools that he's heard that sound like
091our kids. Everyone's not getting gold. Definitely everyone's not getting gold with distinction. your kids have that. And what he wrote, he wrote a bunch of music stuff and then he wrote in the bottom, don't cut the music program. If you cut fourth and fifth grade orchestra, it impacts, he has chicken scratch music lang handwriting, but basically it impacts the entire program, right? Um I said to the middle schooler parents that were out there listening to their kids, you would not have a program to listen to if you do not have music in fourth and fifth grade. we would all be holding our ears. It is a beautiful thing and I hope that we do not consider it next year or if it is something let's talk about it before. I don't think we should find
092out last minute. I think that to to Keith's point let's be open and very vocal about that with us. I have so much more but that's it for today. Thank you. >> Would anybody else like to sign up for public comment? Miss Mariam to see him. >> Good evening, Mayor Mim. Uh I'm going to continue along this talk about um cutting band and orchestra at the elementary level because to me what it does is highlight how we are making decisions and are not really understanding the impact of these decisions and how could you how could you do this? This is now the second year that you've had band and orchestra on the chopping block. Last year you said we we got it saved because of the million dollars. This year we've got a promise that
093you're going to take money away from charter school. I don't know what you're going to do. The charter school needs the money. That hasn't been explained yet. I'm not sure when you're going to actually vote to amend the budget so that you put it back in. But the point is is that every one of you voted for this budget and you had eight budget presentations, 14 road show budget presentations, right? And still didn't understand what's in your what's being presented to you and understanding the impact that when you cut programs such as this, right, it's difficult to bring it back. We can't just cut it. It is a huge program. And you were cutting the source of it, but then saying that we weren't cutting music, right? Which means if you cut the source, of
094course, it's just going to die out on its own. Just like languages right now, the kids who are taking Latin are like they're cutting it. We don't really have a teacher. We're not going to continue. We could do next year, but we're not because we really don't have a teacher right now. um because we're phasing it out and so people need to make decisions for their livelihood and they they step off whatever happens it it it ends up dying beforehand. So we've done it with this now we're we're talking about we also talked about um night school night school is again for the students who need some of the most support that you voted for for us to get rid of it. So when I asked the night school director cuz I'm thinking she retired
095and we're just not going to place her. She then lets me know, oh no, I was told that I don't have a job June 30th and that um after 20 years of service, right, she's being let go when she could have actually retired next year. So she was very disheartened and thinking and asking how could this happen again strategic operating principles. We value our people. What is it going to do when we dismantle these things? And you guys are voting for these budgets. People want to vote and say we're going to vote yes on the budget because we want to support the kids, but we're not supporting the kids because these programs do not support our kids. We got to learn to do differently. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Okay. Would anybody else else
096like to sign up for public comment tonight? Seeing none, we're going to move on to our new business consent agenda personnel resolutions. Colleagues, can I get a motion and a second to approve consent agenda for personnel resolutions number 26-415 1-3 number 26-416 1-4 number 26-417 1-13 number 26-418 1-4 number 26-419 1-8 and number 26-420 1-4 according to the recommended action for each item. >> So move Lewis >> second Ross. >> All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh we're going to go into our consent agenda resol general resolutions and then there's two roll call votes. So colleagues, can I get a motion in the second to approve consent agenda for general resolutions number 26-421 to number 26-4? effective. What are you? Yes, Miss June 17th Thursday, June 18th June of 17th at 6:00
097here in our church meeting. in favor.