001Um but I have on occasion sent them the audio file because things the East and Board of Education regular meeting for June 25th um 7 o'clock. This is actually a special meeting. It was um the postponement of the prior June meeting. Um let's start off with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Exits are located on both sides. You can exit the room and then take right. Um, we're having some challenges with audio visual, so I'm just gonna go around and let you know who's at the table. Oh, you're on. Okay. Cara Thompson is joining us, I assume, and Jackorf will be joining us shortly. Um, all
002right. We're going to try to move this along. It's um so hot outside. And I just want to thank everybody for coming out. Um chair notes, um the public hearing was last night for the budget. Um we had about 12 residents that um that attended that. Um a few, you know, worried about taxes going up. We talked about education um in support of it. The town meeting is on July 8th. The town meeting is just a call that is going to be made to send the budget to referendum. The referendum itself, please everybody mark this date in your calendar and tell your friends. It is July 22nd. Um, absentee ballots will be available. Um, I will find out more details in regard to how those work, when they'll be available. and try to get that
003up on some social media posts um so that people are aware. Um I was disappointed that last night we didn't find out and I we had no formal communication at the public hearing was last night. The chairs of boards and commissions in town are not getting emails saying, "Hey, this is important for your group. You should show up." Um but you know I'm going to concentrate on our communication to our people. Um that is our goal. Um the next thing that I wanted to bring up is um I understand and from listening to the public comments at the board of finance and um hearing from community residents and from staff members. There's so much angst in regard to the list of the possible cuts. This is not anything that we want to do. However, we
004need to be true to the community and not give a sense a false sense of hope that any one of them could be filled or could not be filled. So until this budget is passed, that is the list. It would be totally unethical of us to hire somebody in one of those positions and then find out if heaven forbid the budget failed and we got cut more, then what do we do? We're boxed into a corner. But we've um Teresa and I and along with the rest of the board, we've heard the community loud and clear. We understand your concerns. We're going to work through all of those concerns. Um it's a it's been a tough year. Um the next thing is um just over I think this is classic Trump, right? He wants to
005put a 12 days. We all know that there is an isolationist threat within the one second to see us involvement in another Middle Eastern. Okay. Um there was a a phone call interruption. Um this November um it is municipal elections. I just want to put out a generic message that both the Democratic Town Committee and the Republican Town Committee will be holding their caucuses in July. There will be public notices that are put out. Um so you should kind of keep an eye out for them. If you are interested in running for a position and you are um associated with the RTC or the Democrats or Republicans, you can reach out to any of them. If you don't know who to contact for those, you can call the register of voters. If you are an
006independent or um unaffiliated um person, you can also call the register of voters, get um all the materials that you need so that you can get yourself petitioned to be on to the ballot. Um they're very helpful down there. So, um don't hesitate to to reach out. Um last but not least, email correspondents. Um, same parent, same things about, you know, if the track is locked or the parking lot is locked. Just so you all know, Don and his crew have put a second gate down um down near the track area so that you can park closer. I understand that there's concerns in regard to handicap people getting out of the track when that is closed. We are doing our best to have custodians go down, lock it, and unlock it. Um, sometimes if they're
007leaving early, if there's something going on, it might not happen. So, it's not intentional. Um, and I just want to remind people as well to clean up after themselves down the track. Otherwise, we're going to have more problems. It looks like a group had a water balloon fight and Parker Rex spent the first half an hour of their day cleaning up the water balloons. It looked like it was a a crew that was out there the night before. Um other emails, um budget, we've gotten a few of those in regard to things. And then we um Dr. and I uh have gotten an email from a parent who is requesting tuition to um another school for a high school which we do not do. Um so we've taken care of that as well and that's
008all I have. Any questions? Is it wise maybe to say that there are five seats open on the board of ed in this coming election? There's five seats that are on the ballot. Yes. Yep. And this this um board makeup is is excellent because we have Democrats, Republicans, unaffiliated independents, and it's just it's a great board. Um so I'm excited to see that. Audience of citizens action on the minutes. Motion to approve the regular minutes of May 14th, 2025. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I motion to approve the special minutes of May 20th. Any discussion? All in favor? I Let me just catch up here because I have to write this down for Kelly so she can see my minutes. I some of you that's only a few of us
009were on that meeting. So some people have to abstain from that. I'm ab you don't have to abstain if you missed the meeting. You were approving what was written into the minutes. I actually I I wondered that too. Okay. So just so you know that yes, that is you don't need to, but if you feel more comfortable, that's fine. Um just give me one second. try to write this down. I'm a yes for that meeting because I was there. Sorry to interrupt. Good morning, Mr. Superintendent. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Um, first I'd like to thank all the community members, educators, parents, um, who have been very vigilant in attending public hearings and sharing their regard. We want to focus on positives of the end of the school year with wonderful field trips, celebrations, concert ceremonies,
010and a great high school graduation. The weather held out for these special days. We also announced our district teacher of the year, Mr. and our support person of the year, both of the high school. A lovely reception of their families. Also want to share that as things got out the administrative team and I had um day one of our retreat focus on instruction. We are currently doing a book study students learning and this comes from work. So excited to get ready for the new school year. Currently we are competing state grant requirements state reports that's due at this time it is crunch time next year And it's hard to take a moment to thank Dr. Drio for picking up a lot of that. Um that's just it's a lot of work. Um there's so many
011cramps and when things are not all tied up correctly um it can really cause a lot of headaches, you know. So all right. Um, so I know that there was various uh opinions and feelings about the reading curriculum at elementary school. I'm curious if there were any uh any feedback or any like results, any testing. I know that various grades do testing. if there's anything to report from the reading program at elementary school time until the state tells us to yeah I will share that yeah I mean it was myself just the curriculum that was implemented if there was anything I mean they're available to current staff but state out. So once that's cleared, like I've done before, I'll share the entire Thank you. All right. Uh policy instruction. Um hang on one second. Uh
012I just need to check something real quick because my memory is not what it never was. Um we met last on May 20th um and put a few policies which are in our packet now. Um I can talk about those briefly if anybody wants me to. Um one is pretty routine, badly outofdate time to get up to speed and it's really long which I'd forgotten about till I was reviewing it again. So, those of you who I sent an email saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry twice now because I forgot that one was so long. Um, the other policy, but that's uh we did almost no editing of what Cab had because that's all legally bound. It's just not something you play with. Um the second policy in involves a recommendation to change um some of
013the standing committee stuff and it sparked by um Dr. Dabrio thinking we should change the name of the policy committee which made sense to me. I had no quarrel with that. And I spoke to um Kira and she had no problem with kind of changing the name of her committee. The the the official names in in the um in the bylaws were just sort of very long and ungainainely and it didn't make sense. Um so that just wasn't really worth it. Um I made a few changes um in the actual policy statements. Um the original business and planning, what we are familiar with as business and planning, um talked about business and planning being responsible for sort of like public relations stuff, which made no sense because Kira said, "We've never done that." So that
014didn't make a lot of sense. Um and it talked about setting goals for the district, but it was sort of very broad, right? So, um, I rewrote it and recommended the committee and they were supportive that we kind of divvy it up where business and planning does business and planning setting goals and stuff and works with other committees when they need to. And um, policy and instruction will work with other committees, but they'll set the instructional goals. Yeah. Which just made more sense. Um, And then the the last thing is I'm recommending the creation of a new standing committee for public relations. Um if there's anything the last few years with budget have shown is that we need to market ourselves better and we need to see it as marketing not because we're trying to
015put anything over on anyone but because folks are busy and don't have time to get engaged. So you have to engage them and you can't do that. I've said this about a million times. You don't engage people when you're asking for money. You engage them before you're asking for money. Um so I'm suggesting that we have a committee that will address that. And um modeled after one of the ways that high schools often work where you have a principal and then the department chairpeople are referred to as the principal's cabinet. I'm suggesting this be run by that so that you would have the chairman of the board, whoever that is, would be the chair of the public relations committee and then the chairs of the various subcommittees would serve on that. And again, this is
016just a suggestion. People may want to do something different. That's fine. But I think to me it makes more sense. Um and it sort of reinforces the idea that we need to as a leadership group take on more direct responsibility as a very small district and the district does not have the personnel to produce everything that needs to get produced. So people in leadership have to you're we're already working um Kira has volunteered I know when I've made the suggestion before to write articles. I think it's time that we start working on that systematically and that's what I'm suggesting when you know we go to approve that policy. The only other thing I'm going to mention um we have a oh one more thing before that we are scheduling a meeting for July. I thought
017we had already set the date and now I can't remember what it was and I don't have it in my calendar. So I've got to go back and look at my text messages and stuff that we use to set that stuff. Um, and that's all we do with it. Uh, and then we'll I can let people know what that's going to be. The only other thing I want to suggest, um, I want to pull, um, policy 3450, which has to do with money in schools, out of the consent agenda, and have a brief brief conversation about it um before we move forward. Okay. Let's pull it out when we get there. Okay. I'm just we can do and that's my report. Still happy with my group. Good. Okay. Business and planning. Kira, we have not
018met since um uh our May full board meeting. So, we met a week before that. So, we do need to meet though definitely in July. Yep. Um, I just talked back to today and what I would like to do is a business and planning meeting but do it as a full board. Um, I think that we're really at the point now with the budget. We need to do that. And any updates in regard to year end money or where we're standing with financial? Um, at this point, um, I think it's just better communicated out full board. Um, we'll come up with that date. I don't want to overload July with, you know, committee and board meetings. Um, we don't have a regular board meeting, but let's just And then we also have negotiation meetings. So,
019um, we'll have to look at schedule and figure it all out. I don't want to I don't want to take away from people's summers. You know, we volunteer enough throughout the year. Um, so what maybe I'll do is I'll throw out options morning, afternoon, evening. What works for everyone at this time of year? You guys have kids and like where do you want to meet? Um, so we'll go from here. All right. Um, go ahead, Laurel. uh personnel in negotiations has not met but we will be meeting July 16th to start the negotiations process and that will be with teachers. Yes. Okay. Capital improvements. We met on we met on May 26 and uh everything looks good. Um even the um I'm sorry we met May 28th. I apologize. Um, they are even the the
020chiller. They were they were there were some cool pictures. They were using a crane to place it. So, I don't know if it was working last night. I don't know if it's hooked up yet, but uh everything is uh steaming along. Excellent. Yeah, I was at the elementary school today. saw the the workers doing all of the HVAC work outside in this glaring heat and they're trucking through. So, thank you to everybody who's showing up and doing hope to say hi to where we at our final meeting of the year and they gave a state of the agency update. Dr. Deto joined me for that meeting. Um, and they really emphasized uh what they call the power of we which is a shared sense of purpose. They focused a lot on what their goals for
021the year would be. And um then they talked a little bit about leadership development um the schools that they are planning on upgrading um as well as the successes of magnet school. And lastly, that the Ocean Avenue building project is in its like second phase. So, they're they're getting close with that. Um, they talked a little bit about some of the legislative updates that we've had the year, especially in the last month with the special education bill. That is huge. That means a lot to all of us. So, um, that was a a huge topic. And then lastly, their early learning center is almost ready to open. And uh as far as the the main meeting um one thing that did come up that I thought was uh really interesting, they are offering not I
022I I want to choose my words carefully, they're offering um an ABA M's program uh tuition discount for needing care professionals and it's a 15% tuition discount for newly hired behavior techn technicians if they want to pursue um ABA. And one of the things that came to my mind given some of the growing concerns about ABA's impact on autistic individuals, you know, and I I was curious and asked this at the next meeting, how were they ensuring that staff were trained in trauma informed and neurodeiversity affirming methods? because this is a topic that keeps coming up in a lot of the groups that I'm affiliated with. So, that is something that I just want us to keep. Are we aligned with modern developmental science? And um that's something I would love to see get their
023input on. And I actually had a conversation with Kate Ericson after the meeting. So, stay tuned. Long range has not met and safety and security. We did meet at the end of the um year. We did our wrap-up meeting. Um all is going well. I was really happy that um all fire drills, all lockdown drills and everything were done according to standards. And Don indicated when I saw him last night that they're working on grants. Um they just need to get them finished and wrapped up. Um several things were were left undone. Um okay, review business. Anybody have any questions on on those? I know I'm kind of moving fast. Okay. Um, I want to make a motion um to have the superintendent as the authorized signer of the child nutrition program. Um, so the
024superintendent should be on the account at Liberty Bank. Um, that's the bank that we use for this. And um, it should actually have two people on there, the business manager and Oh, this is for state. Yeah, you just put me in a panic because we have policy that explicitly freehand sudden heart attack. So, so anyway, on this um authorized signature, it should be the superintendent and the business manager. In the past, apparently it was only the business manager. So, we need to correct that. Um, so is there a motion to approve the superintendent as the authorized signer for the child nutrition program? So, second. Any discussion? Just a quick question. You said as the authorized. Does that mean that when we get a permanent business manager, they're not going to be signing? No, there'll be
025an added individual. There should be two. The state told me there should be two. Okay. So you and I couldn't sign because No, that that's I get it completely. My question was the focus of the word the the signer as opposed to a signer. It's an authorized signer. So maybe another form will do it again. Cool. Thank you. Give just a really quick 30 second rundown on the child nutrition program for anybody that's know what gender sign is for. So this is the program that we participate in where we get funding for all the rules that are sold. And so once we put in how many sold it needs to then have validation so the deadline came the validation was needed. I was not authorized. So I worked with the state and they said you've
026got to go to your board and you've got to get this done. It's the program that we get reimbursement for participating in. Correct. If anybody had a question, just wanted to and I apologize for misleading the group. My head I think is my brain. And I apologize for the interruption of BB King Blues. Yeah. All right. So, um there's motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I kara I equity statement is the next on our list. Go ahead, Laurel. All right. So, a while back, the um sustainability CT came forward and asked me, and I'm not sure if they spoke with others ahead of me. I know that Teresa was involved a little bit, but we we were so immersed in our budget that we really didn't have the capacity to
027add in another piece. So, at the last meeting, we discussed the equity statement that they're asking us to write, and I offered to take that on as the um person who would put together a draft, and Patty pushed it over to Jim to work with policy. And so, I started to talk to Jim and asked if I could work with um Jackie. I hadn't had a chance to work with Jackie as a new member on any of the committees. So, I thought this would be a great opportunity. This board has been working very hard to bring forward up-to-date discriminationfree policy. We have reddrafted our district vision with our new superintendent. Historically, our policies have always met the highest standards to the best we know at the time. However, it is important to note that we
028were always human and human as a district and humans don't always live up to those standards. To make a statement like this is a commitment to always try to do better. We want to be the best school district we can be. It's good for the students and it's great for the community. This statement in conjunction with our district vision and our mis miss mission statement is a way to make clear our intent. We can set an example of leadership to other districts. So, working with Jackie, we came back and forth with a couple of different ideas and this is where we settled and Patty felt like this was the best approach. I think it kind of ties everything up into a nice neat little bow. Really confused. Go ahead. with all of the work that
029we've done in our policies, all of the language that we've looked at in our policies, really trying to be cognizant of new ways that people are referenced and respectfully doing so. And so Jackie actually wrote this really lovely statement and in conjunction as I said with our mission statement, our district vision and our mission goals if this was to become a part of our district, it would really reflect well in our community. So this this statement is going to your committee. So, it's gonna go it's going to go to the sustain sustainable CT committee, but as a district, we can incorporate it into our policy handbook as an identifier that we've really done the work that it that it can interject a question too. I know I'm interrupting, but I'm really confused. The statement you
030made as you were doing that was nothing like what's on type here. It's not. She was just bringing up the history. Giving up the history. I haven't even read the statement. Okay. The statement that's why I got confused. Never mind. I'm fine. Okay. The statement is the part in the in the blue. That's what I thought. That is the statement. That's the new place. What Laurel is asking and Jackie is asking, if I'm understanding this correctly, is for us to agree with this equity statement and send it to the um um sustainable CTS, right? But wouldn't it be nice if we could also have it in our handbook as a part as a so sort of an an alignment with our district vision and our mission statement? So I think that's two parts. So I
031think the first part is let's make sure that everybody's in agreement with the equity statement and then let's send it to the committee and then send it to policy and you guys incorporate or however you want to. So this is going to be a multi-art. Okay. Terry, I can't see it. So would you be kind enough to read it? Yes, I will read it. I'm gonna wait for everybody's I was just gonna say that when we first started, we were here, here, here, and here. And we just slowly uh work together and, you know, narrow it down, narrow it down, because regardless of where we're out, where we're at in general, this is where our community is at. This is a very specific, very intentional statement for our community. Not for what we want for
032the country of the world, but for our community. And we I feel like we both really believe that this represents our So, why don't we start with you reading it? Well, I'd like Jackie to read it. Actually, Jackie is the final author. So bad being loud. Are you really? The East Adams School District is enthusiastically creating an accessible environment where every member of our community is valued, respected, and appreciated. Through policies and regulations, the board strives to achieve standards that recognize the complexities of differences and is committed to being inclusive, equitable, and respectful of all individuals within our community. Our charge is to eliminate the barriers that have prevented the full participation of our community. It's a journey that we are steadfast in alongside and including all of the parents, guardians, and community agencies generating
033equitable education for all students. Is there a motion to send this to the substate committee or the state? Um, hang on. What you read is what should read, but it's not what's here. Um, you just said this. No, it's not. Read it. I don't think you're on the right page. Our charge. It There's no is. It says our charge too. And I was going to say and you had the word is in a different spot. You read it the way it should read. Our charge moving a verb. That's all. Eliminate. Put a motion on the floor. Good discussion. No, I don't think so. I I I don't think so. I think that you you read with a different word, but I think the way that it raises might be fine. Our charge to eliminate the
034barriers that have prevented the full participation of our community quotations is a journey that we are steadfast in alongside and including all of the parents, guardians, and community agencies generating an equitable education for all students. I think that we're separating the subject and the verb by way too many words. Our charge is though that the subject and the whole sentence has to change. Our charge to eliminate I again am not the best reader out loud. So I think you did fine and I think we should leave it the way you read it instead of the way it's written. But that's fine. Is there a motion on the floor? So moved. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second it. Jim and Laurel, correct? Jim and Jim and All right. Is there any further discussion? I made
035a suggestion for a change, an edit. Okay. And people can decide what they like. I It's okay. I feel like saying, which I realize is what I read out loud. Our charge is to sounds to me like that's what our plan eventually is to do. But if we say our charge to quote eliminate that's we're we're currently working on it. But that's just what it sounds like to me. I'm not grammatically grammatically grammatically both statements are correct. Okay. Tay is right. Both statements are correct. Neither one of them. Um, it it doesn't make a lot of difference except I will tell you that if you have unsophisticated readers, they are going to get lost because they're going to lose the verb. Well, I will say that if and if you want to know how, just
036go to any high school class where they're teaching Shakespeare. I my vote is to keep it how it's written. That's fine. because we we literally sent it back and forth at least two dozen times to get to this. That's fine. Um and and just as an example, there have been other policies that I've brought questions up about language. And again, it's a semantics thing. You say I That's Well, that's what I'm saying. They're both fine. They're both correct. The last thing is instead of the word and alongside that was just like I know what it means. Yep. So I'm going to modify the motion. Is there a motion to approve the Easttown Schools equity statement with replacement of the plus sign and make that into an and sign? So moved. Second. Any further discussion? All
037in favor? I I was Jackie. You're taking it. You're taking the sign out and putting the word and in. Yeah. Yeah. Is that what they said? That's what I It has been like 100° with like 2,000% humidity for days. I'm going to get a human truck outside. With that, then um we are also going to go ahead and send this. We'll have to do a motion everything to policy to discuss. I'm going to suggest when we get there that we just add it to policy 010 0 and just be part of it. Just just take Yeah. Take it to policy. We don't have to decide. That's right. Thank you. No problem. Okay. Thank you, Laurently spoke out against it, but I'm glad that you pushed for it. So, thank you. discussion and possible action on
038the following policies for first reading policy 5125 student records confidentiality. Jim, do you have anything else to add? Nothing to add to what I said in my report. It's um almost exclusively legally bound language. It's and it and the the need to work on it is simply that like so many of our other policies, it was badly out of date. Perfect. And if anybody has questions, I asked a lot of questions during our policy meeting about it because I didn't know much about it. So that would probably answer the questions that anybody might have. And for the record, she gets credit for that. That's good that she does that. She keeps us honest. She's excellent at asking questions. I appreciate it. Jack policy 9132 standing committee Jim do you have anything else to add or
039anybody I'll answer any questions if people have them but again I discussed it in my policy up update report so y okay Um yeah, you're going to want to pull this out. So, acceptance of the um is there a motion to accept the consent agenda 1 through 7? Um I would like to pull out the first second. So move. Oh, you get it. Oh, okay. My mistake. So, it's Laurel second. Mayor, any discussion? This is I would like to pull out um hang on a second. Let me find it. 3450. I'd like to pull that one out because I want to um chat with folks about it quickly. Okay. Go ahead. All right. Um the the general work that we did in this policy again needed to be updated and I think um again very
040closely followed Cabe's model. Um Dr. Dr. Burrito received feedback from some of the staff um expressing real concerns about the requirement to not have any funds exceeding $100 in the building and the fact that basically this meant that someone was going to have to do a deposit at the night of any of that every time. Um, I contacted um Jody Goldler who runs policy for CABE and said even to me, you know, $100 just doesn't seem what? Nothing. Okay. Even to me, $100 doesn't seem like a lot of money. and he reminded me of something I already knew, which is that statistics that when administrative staff get fired, it's usually because of playing games with student activities money, which is what we're talking about. Um, and then he went on to tell me the story
041of several times he's actually had to do that in his career. Um, and I kind of came back pretty convinced that we should leave it alone, but I keep thinking about it and I I I think we probably ought to make an adjustment and I don't think I I don't want to I don't want to send this back. I don't think it needs to go back to policy. I would like to suggest that we say any money above 500 or 750, whatever you guys are comfortable with, has to be deposited immediately. Um, that gives them a little bit more wiggle time with some of the lower dollar items, which are less of a threat just because they're not it's there's not as much money involved. And these days with inflation and everything, $100 just I
042mean that's not much more than a couple cups of coffee. I don't see any language in here that specifically says anything about a specific amount of money. Um, hang on. Let me find it. I I'm tempted. I hate to say it, but send it back. Okay. And so that you can get that language in there just as you want. Um, and discuss how Actually, it's not there. That's weird. Yeah. All right. We'll still get it done and full board this week. Right. And we can even bring it to the business of full board meeting if we want to. Yeah. I'm going to want to do that because I want to get this out of the way. Okay. Sorry folks. So I would like to make a motion for the acceptance of consent agenda numbers 2
043through 7. So any further discussion? I again just would like to say that the resations are sad to see and heartfelt and they will be missed. All those in favor I I see that there's no other business I have a motion to adjurnn. So move second time is 7:45 everybody don't leave for don't leave yet Cara I just want to try something. Okay. Thanks for letting me zoom though. I'm I'm here.