001um so today we're going to go over the policy and new regulation for the use of restrain and the use of refocus rooms um I do want to start by just pointing out that this is something that's applicable to all students students with a PE as well as students without IEPs um it's a very very small number of children that require any type of emergency interventions and we do uh treat them as such they are emergency interventions that are Last Resort only safety concerns and we only would use any of these interventions with a student that require them for safety of themselves for safety of others okay and again very small number of children but I think it's better to be prepared in the event that we do have some of these um situations so
002in terms of uh the use of every Focus room that is an area for student to safely deescalate and be prepared to re-enter their educational program um the in terms of the space their requirements are the same um the requirements are space that allows the child to need be able to move freely lay down comfortably if needed because sometimes they just are resting in those spaces um the there should be coverings on the wall and floors so that it is a safe space and there should be free of items the only items that we would like to have in these spaces are bean bag chairs because the kids like to use them and items and also we would like to also put Out Of Reach just visual reminders and posters for example that just remind
003some of the deescalation techniques and coping strategies some of the children work on in order to recover and be able to go back to their program the time spent in these type of spaces is monitored as well uh if a student has a behavior intervention plan and this is an intervention that uh would be used we would document it on child's behavior intervention plan and if that was the case a copy of the policy is to go home to the parent um and that in the amount of time a child would spend in these type of spaces is also documented in their behavior plan there's also uh notations about if a child does not have a behavior intervention plan and there's an emergency situation and in those circumstances we really will assess uh each situation
004specifically to that situation but we decided that for the purp of regulation we would put a Time cap of 30 minutes because the time spent needs to be identified as to how long the child will be there and they monitor for that so that you know we're not spending too much time and also to see whether or not that intervention is effective and obviously less use of this over time is what we would want to see there is a lot of documentation that goes along with these type of interventions anytime uh a child needs uh any kind of physical contact in order to maintain saf uh or anytime we need to go to an alternate space in order to deescalate we know who was involved um the amount of time that the intervention was in
005place we also need to document what took place before that and how the child was after and we have to notify the parents on the same day and that is something that is a big change to this um that the parents need to be notified on that same day which we already have anytime any of the children um as you know our behaviorists um do Crisis Prevention intervention training with our staff we also do ongoing training on behavior intervention plans and strategies and anytime any child requires any kind of physical contact to maintain safety the parents are always notified on the same day yeah we've been doing this for years so it's you know that this has come to light we've been documenting parents have been notified bad day and and and it's really all
006about health and safety the kids checked out by the nurse St checked out and we just make sure that everyone is in one piece and safe um to move forward we have an emergency safety intervention form and this form we initially only had for the use of any kind of physical contact with students now we adopt we changed it so that we've included a very focused room as well so in the form that we already were using in District we indicated just very clearly was the use of very Focus room needed and if so the duration of time that it was needed for and then you last page it has a lot of um detailed information for how we tried to contact the parent and how the parent was notified so in the event that
007we're not able to reach a parent via phone on that day then we go through parents Square email send a letter home but multiple attempts to contact the family so that they're on the same page for children that um have this and as part of the behavior intervention plans the parents are able to request the to visit and see what room they may be using space for deescalation um we've been working with buildings and grounds and all the principles and Joi has been wonderful doing field trips with me to every single school just to make sure that we've identified some spaces and started working on making sure that if something is needed we are ready uh in order just to make sure that our kids are safe and with the parent notification again I signed
008off on all these forms that are doing this we I cannot recall one instance that parently not that day we always make sure that everyone is informed and they know what occurred so we can you know move forward proac that so for the for the deescalation room you say that you're working does that mean that we have schools that don't have them yet in place yet or there we have some schools that don't need them okay thank goodness right so we have some schools that do not need them at all but we're still planning on having them ready because you never know um you know uh we we have our children that we know and then we have our children that are new entrance that we don't know and sometimes we have situations that we
009weren't prepared for um that you know come to be in a building so right now we've been prioritizing the buildings with building the grounds and there's some buildings that do not have this need at all whatsoever um so some plans we are working on for summer for some buildings and for some other ones we are working on now we already have some buildings that do have these spaces as well and we're renovating some buying new mats um you know sometimes a large space is not so great because there's so much to navigate so sometimes we said you know what a smaller space would be easier um and more calming than a larger space sometimes when you see large spaces kids tend to run in them um so we've been working with all the buildings for
010that so in some places we do and some we're working on and some we've identified we don't need them but we still identify the space for the following school year okay can you can you give us an idea of how many kids are involved sure being part of that plan in their behavior intervention plans right now um I can't recall too many children that have this as an actual intervention um we have had some situations um and I and I mentioned new entrance because that has happened where we um received the student and sometimes the programs State and sometimes some of the programs are not the same as ours or um they're more specialized and we don't have all that information um so I would say in at South yeah it's very low I in
011South Country I would say maybe one child um so you're talking maybe one in a building at times specific that's that's fine I just was curious and I do hear from the building principles at K2 that not outside of students sometimes the Kinders when they don't have prior school um and they take a little bit longer to adjust September tends to be more active than October some of the things that we were Hearing in September are already settling in October in some buildings so it it tends to be the younger children and this is the last resort this is like the numbers verify that so that's very low and and when you're talking at general education and special education students it's very large number of students and it's a very small number however when something
012is needed it can be an intense situation that you want to just be prepared for so one or two can feel like a lot one is too many so it's very small but we just want to be prepared for when it is a small amount sometimes we need to work through some things especially in the younger grades thanks thank you foring thank you all right Miss cope you're up two policies evening everyone I know on the agenda we have SE harass the non-discriminating and equal opportunity but we're going to put the order because they are referencing another policies so the great news is as we go through these policies and making the update they as you can see by the r there are very few uh agends that we needed to make to our policies
013which is great because it means that the policies that we had were current in terms of recommendations from the state but taking a look first at the non-discrimination Equal Opportunity policy which is policy 100 for us um one thing to note is that this policy now is combining our c policy 100 and 100- for regulation so we will be removing the 100- that we currently have because this will replace both of them and you know in doing a side by side comparison basically they just attached that entire policy are to this original one so they're now combined one what you're going to see noted here in red are just the additions that were suggested by the state that we have added to our current policy um theyed number of places gender identity and expression as
014well as Citizen and immigration status uh they've also added a statement about reproductive Healthcare decisions also being uh private and that you cannot discriminate against an individual on the basis of their familial status or their healthare decisions for Reproductive uh choices uh in addition they really spend a little bit of time relaying that we as a school district and as an employment a need to provide a safe affirming environment for all of our transgender and gender expansive students as well as making know that we need to post in every single cafeteria in our buildings that as a condition of participation in the federal meal programs that we will not discriminate against any of our students or their families so those were additional pieces um to our policy 100 um taking note on the second page
015which that has annual notification that is what began policy 100r and really what they are doing is they're saying that they are going to take the complaint policy where if a person wants to make a complaints about discrimination on the basis of um equal opportunity and any of the protection classes that they would use the same process that is found on pages two and 10 of the sexual harassment in the workplace uh policy so we've added there for individuals that would be looking for that particular process what they need to do statement which tells them exactly where they would find it in policy 110.2 uh the policy and the procedure that they would call if they want to make complaints on the bottom where you see the cross references they've just added some additional uh
016information there that we will be sure to add to our policy any questions on that in the first paragraph do we lose citizens SL in reg status Place read well it's for for both pieces right so it's citizenship and immigration status for domestic violence and then citizen immigration status or the use of a guide do so you're saying uh and then I I think I don't know if this is true if we do this now or not but like where you do cross references is it possible to put hyperlinks on the ones that are on the website so that someone could easily click there and go to where they need to go yes if it cross references to one of our board policies absolutely if it cross references to any of the state laws we
017need to dig a Little Deeper but we can certainly add this okay have some thoughts on that well we should check with our our security too our cyber security make sure if we're going outside the inside many links just go right to the state la which are safe for us okay so moving on to sexual harassment in the policy um again now this is in a similar way to the to non-discrimination policy this is going to replace policies 110.2 which is really the first three pages of this combined policy as well as 110.2 d r for the regulation which is really pages 4 through 14 so they put these two together in one place and that's how it will be reflected in our policies as well as who will make the adjustments online as well
018so in the first few pag of this again you can see as highlighted in red we've been asked to make adjustments to where in our previous policy we may have used the word in our workplace they want us to replace that with the words the district or if it said when you know are the place of your employee or you know the your employer who had to replace that very specifically with B your school district or the district so you're going to see that throughout the document um in addition they asked us to add the stat military status again the citizen immigration stat status as well as the uh the reproductive health status pregnancy child birth or child birth or related medical conditions so those are additions that you will see that are consistent between
019those two policies um on page one in page two again you will see um on the next page page two that again you see the words the district which are going to replace our previous policy which said our workplace as well as the use of compliance officer in number three um and that carries through uh page and Page four as well so basically we were asked to just replace the the Nuance of that language to give specific titles as opposed to where our previous policy just says designated employee so it gives a title now to the person who's responsible for that District previously was our workplace you saying yes in in some of the the phrasing you'd see something that says our workplace or in our pleas of employee or under the district's employee they
020wanted us very specifically to put the district because I what I believe that when these policies were originally published they were not specifically written for school districts they were written you know wholesale from the Department of Labor and from New York state so they are used consistently through any municipality or any state organization um the guidance that we received with these policies really gave us the language to to change it to be specific to school districts so that that is what you'll really see highlighted in that you that's a little bit different than we previously had um again it was encouraging that for the most part the policy that we had that we their previous guidance still stands um on page four you'll see the same thing which is the addition of the words The
021District page five um same um there were some adjustments that were suggested uh to us that we had already taken into account for example not giving specific details of um examples of different types of uh sexual harassments that they recommended that be removed we didn't have those in there um on page six you'll see that there is for who can be a target of sexual harassment and they did add there in addition to uh an independent contractor a contract worker a vendor or client they're also adding student volunteer parent or Community member or visitor or individuals who could potentially also be a target of sexual harassment so again we as a district have Revisited our our volunteer policies by Ving and going through that full process um so again as a district the board has
022instituted a new policy and procedure to make sure that person who's coming in to either be a volunteer or Community member that is working within our buildings that they are receiving all the same trainings regarding sexual harassment and other policies um just like our employees do page seven there were no adjustments there page eight um again now there is a acknowledgement on the third paragraph J the Builder list that if an individual makes an if this is an employee mind you that makes an intentionally false or malicious complaint of sexual that it may result in corrective or disciplinary action taken against the complaintant so that was something we did not have in our previous policy but now it makes be very very clear that false allegations do have repercussions um reporting sexual harassment again um
023in the previous policy it just stated that you would have to report it to the appropriate supervisor now really details that it comes through the Human Resources office which is again where it it should lie page nine makes the same reference to the HR office page again really just changes in the title um for noting the district and the compliance officer which is of course we have two in our district that would be me and Bob Torres and you appointed us both to that role during the reorganization meeting earlier in the year as we move on to page 11 now this is the the beginning of the actually Peach two of Mind absolutely so were you reporting it to Human Resources is that specific enough it's it's to me I'm the compliance officer but again
024IND idual May first call and speak to a secretary and say I need to speak to you I need to talk to someone about an allegation of sexual harassment so we're letting them know what office that they should call um as opposed to calling any of the other offices so so my concern is that if somebody 5 years from now says I did report it to the secretary in human resources and whether or not she passed it on to Christina I don't care shouldn't it be more specific that it should be to you that's just my thought we can that that makes it more specific I I'm comfortable with that anybody else have because I don't want the I I reported it to a secretary I thought you know that was enough and and now
025the secretary is not working here anymore and we can't figure out whether or not it was truly reported or not okay so could could it be wording where it has to be reported directly to the compliance officer within the Department of Human Resources I'm just the I just don't wanted to somebody to be able to claim that they reported it and then that person's not here anymore the other piece of this is that the complaints has to come in the form of writing and so our policy which is not one that was being revised because it was accurate does have a very very specific form that they need to complete which which answers all the questions it has you know the complaintant the complaints what the the issue is it has to be signed um
026by the individual and then that does have to come to mate so that form itself is what launches the actual can more makes it consistent myself yeah because we're referring to compliance officer for almost the rest of the whole rest of the thing except for this one part so okay not a problem um if you move on to page 11 um you will see that we have the appeals process now so that was something that was not part of any of the previous policies um that can that is now added and it basically shares that either part complaint complaintant or the individual who is receiving the allegation is not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation it gives a specific protocol that they would need to notify the superintendent in writing 15 calendar days after
027receiving the notification of the outcome again when we have investigations like this to formal complaints the uh the documentation of the final outcome is always in writing so there there is no confusion everybody is a full understanding what the timeline was what the allegations were what the investigation revealed so they employe would be able to bring that to the superintendent for an appeal and then it walks you through the process again about the superintendent having the informal hearing within 15 days and then has an additional 15 days to go ahead and make a decision and notify everybody in finding again um and it does specify if it were superintendent who was the subject of the complaints it would then go to the board president who would prer the complaint to a train investigator that we
028would um step outside of the district for an impartial investigation moving forward rest of the policy now you will see again just the words the district have been highlighted on page uh 12 the bottom of page 13 is new but again I think we felt very comfortable in knowing that we are doing these things already so now with the final piece is that notice and training which is based upon labor law 2011 and that basically says that any of our existing employees um need to have an electronic copy and a written copy of our access to our sexual policy and that they would be able to be provided uh this information in either English or in their native language so the great thing is that the Department of Labor has already taken their template of
029this which is what our policy is wholly based upon and they translated it into just about every language that you can you can think of and they shared that if we needed to translate it into an additional one that they would do that and send that to us so we have access to that if needed um on page 14 which again continues uh about the employee piece of receiving training they discussed that there needs to be training for new employees um as soon as possible when beginning their employment so it is not a condition of employment that they have completed this training before they are hired but it's as soon as possible I can share with you that as the condition of employment here with us in bore that every single person that that before
030they come to you to be approved they come through an orientation with me where we go through everything I give them a of the of our policy as well as the gcn training sheet which as you know that there is a full module on the gcn training so they are told that they need to read the policy completely they need to have a full understanding of that because some of the questions that are in the quiz for the gcn training are based upon the district's policy which of course is Su supersedes and it's more detailed than the state policy so they have an understanding of that as we go through all of our trainings um and again all of our additional employees that come back every single year that gcn training is our state approved
031module for sexual harassment and everybody's required to take that training every single year and we do that in the fall we offer it in the fall and the spring for employees need to come when they are hired so um you know again it was it was encouraging to know that we are already doing what you know required and we're actually exceeding what those expectations are by moving the timeline up for when they need to be completed and again just to conclude they added another have law that that was not in the previous policy which we will add to our website and to our policy and that really summarizes all of our changes for these two particular policies any questions just so AR the module you're talking about what all the employeers have to take it's
032taking within like a month of being employed it's not like it's all for T year and they get a choice no no no so before any employee begins with us they come to the board and and they meet with me and what I'll say is for example you know you'll see at our next public session you're going to have a whole slew of employees that were hiring substitutes professionals they come through the full process they meet with me I give them an orientation and say to them I give them a copy of the sexual harassment policy give them a copy of the F confidential policy I give them a copy of the non-discrimination policy I give them a copy of the mandated reporting for sexual and uh physical abuse for children policy they get cop
033of those made for them then I give them a sheet for all the GCA training modules the eight that we offer as well as the two additional webinar modules on mental illness and the Mand reporting which are now added to our our module list and they are told we help them log in we give them a log and a password at that orientation we provide them with the technology because not everybody has the technology available to do it so it can't be done on a smartphone it has to be done on an iPad or a computer so we will set them up INR confer to take if they need to if not again by the time that I meet with them it's usually about two weeks by the time I meet with them to the
034time that they're approved by the board they are told you need to have all of these trainings completed before you begin working with our students and obviously because this this is a training module that is monitored by gcn it sends me an alert when people have completed the trainings it also sends me an alert if a person has not completed their trainings and through our office if there's an employee who has not completed these trainings we will call them and hey your schedu to begin working Monday or you know whatever the day is you've not completed these modules you may not report to work until these things have been completed um you know in a satisfactory manner can be help you would you like to come in and do the training here that's in in
035Human Resources so you work with people to make sure that they receive the training and that they're they're ready before they begin their employment and then for for employees that are taking it each year do you get like how do you track them so again gcn has a great uh tracking mechanism within it where it'll print out give me a spreadsheet for every single you know unit let me know who has completed the modules and when they completed them how long it took them to complete them um and how and how they performed so what we'll do is we set deadlines for people we'll say eight of them so they have to be done on anual basis so we do half in the fall half in the spring and um I sent out you know
036many acknowledgements and emails that you know it's time for the train the directions and then they get weekly reminders until the deadline date if they reach the deadline date there something they haven't completed they're removed from their ass to compl all right thank you very thank you and we have school safety lessons if you recall Mrs Brown yard said probably a month or so suff school board was offering a webinar on school safety about lessons I'm kind of entitled of it Lessons Learned um but Rob and Mr Torres myself were able to listen to the webinar and we just want to give it was actually very interesting and Mr paskin did and it was scary but Mr pasin did a great presentation then to the administrators I thought it would be great if you did
037share it with the board as well thank you good afternoon evening everybody and as Dr Mo mentioned we did have this opportunity to participate in um we also were able to attend a similar kind of presentation in stonberg University back in the spring uh that was run by the Secret Service and it was a similar kind of CER so this was uh an additional webinar focused a little bit more on one particular incident and Mr Torres was did also participate and um unfortunately was not available this evening but he did also present to the administrators with his background and he was also present uh at when I attended the the webinar in Stony Brook or the SE the conference at Stony Brook was talk about very similar kinds of things that you want to look
038out for and try to prepare your staff in order to help make a safe and learning environment which is of course our first and most important goal as part of our district goals Dr M's goals for the district is to make sure that students have a safe learning environment and staff where they feel they feel safe respected and supported uh to develop their strengths both academically and emotionally so uh as was mentioned this was a webinar from school boards Association it was focusing on mass shootings in schools lessons from tragedy and oties for preven and response it was provided by a representative from The Rocker Institute of government jacn who's an executive director of the regional Gun Violence Resource Consortium at that particular at that particular location and she provided her some of her contact
039information and some sites that she also uh shares additional information has done a lot of research she focused on uh resources there was a Al focus on lockdown drills it was a a particular mention and uh emphasis on locking doors and how important it is in in in a any kind of a scenario that uh involves an intruder that locking doors can increase the survival rate which mentioned anywhere from 60 to 80% and um and that still is essentially the most important Focus for a scenario is making that that door is locked uh the first time I heard the the term hard corner I had heard that before and that is talking about a particular area of the classroom where you have the least amount of visibility into the room so for example if that
040was the entrance to the classroom the hard Corner would be adjacent in the opposite side because if there's a window there you would be most likely not be able to see anyone in the in this particular close corner there and it was a focus on talking about trying to keep that area as available as possible so that students and staff could use it if necessary obviously you know uh different situations dictate different scenarios um and and uh it may not always be possible but that was an interesting uh point of discussion and emphasis her main focus was really looking at the the park the incident in Parkland Florida which we we unfortunately all remember uh was actually on Valentine's Day in February of 2018 and her particular Focus uh and her research was looking at
041the background and profile of the perpetrator in particular and how I think there were similar um I would say uh consistencies with other incidents uh so the first things discussed was the fact that the perpetrator had grievances uh which is similar to other scenarios where there are perpetrators who are taking Revenge feeling uh that there's some kind of sense of being wronged and that could happen certainly in the school uh there was a lot of family conflict and disruption in this particular individual's life involving um parents being displaced loss of parents things like that um and a lot of problems or difficult scenarios within the family this particular family had three dozen calls uh response to the home due to issues with the perpetrator and the perpetrator sibling uh during prior to the incident uh
042the educational environment was unstable in the sense that there was a lot of disruption for that particular uh perpetrator as well things that were changing a lot uh educational plan modifications unforunately repeating the grade difficulties uh that the what we I I would think consider an atrisk student there was threats the ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend uh there was the student was known to be was actually was a former student if you if you recall um was known to be a cutter and if you're not familiar with that term that has to do with self harm that the person was self Haring and also had reported a failed suicide attempt the perpetrator was not about talking about a desire to kill unfortunately and also showed a lot of um examples of animal abuse and mutilation uh and
043weapons use would would tell anyone who would listen there is a very GRS one thing that stood out to us there were some pretty graphic descriptions of animals small animals that had been mutilated and brought into school and things like that and shown like very behaviors that would very shocking I think for any of us to to see or here yet it it kind of went un reported at least in this scenario from what we from what she was explaining a lot of research and planning uh based on um information that they gathered uh costuming they referred to as costuming with with vests helmets Shing guards things that would U be involved in uh using weapons there were weapons in school including knives and instances where the perpetrator showed it around the building along with
044bullets and these apparently got not were unreported and were not addressed uh things again that any one of us I think would be very surprised to hear um happening but they did not get get reported or addressed there was a lot of posting on social media sometimes those things got pulled down or or you know from certain social media platforms they just kind of disapp unless they were screenshot uh the the friend of the family reported that the perpetrator was going to pull a Coline specifically use that term so there was a lot of previous warning of of this particular individual the school had never had a drill other than a fire drill prior to this particular incident there was no lockdown drill or any other kind of drill in the scenario um and there
045was a student that left the building as the shooter was entering and um indicated that the person should be leaving immediately because something bad is going to happen unfortunately that student did try to inform a staff member and staff member did try to intervene but I think was either unsuccessful or was injured and or uh was killed during that particular scenario and that there was some discrepancy at least about this part because the fire alarm in this case was not was not pulled it was triggered due to the activity that took place in the in the building and that's what led to the going all so just some background here these are not great things to talk about but I think you know it's important for everyone to be aware of to be not take
046these things light anything lightly and I think we have had many many um scenarios not nearly to that degree of people reporting things to us that were somewhat uh you know alarming and we would look into them right away and I can remember you know a few in my experience things that were much less you know problematic I would say that we were very much concerned about and we get law enforcement involved with or we would look to um look into other services to try to help out um some key takeaways for from the seminar including prevention and obviously reporting following up on tips planning for threats which we all always do response um being a big focus of what we are what we're able to control um the reunification plan uh that's something that
047we have discussed which is a very tricky scenario and one that we you know it's not easy particularly to plan for or practice but uh obviously in that kind of situation it would be important to try to have as best a plan as possible and we do practice and simulate to some degree at least locations that schools would go to uh in getting terms in getting into a little bit more of a detail of a plan that's where things get a little bit more complicated and how we would be um you know dismissing students to families and things of that nature so that's that's definitely a little bit more involved in things that uh we can focus on a little more in the future uh as we've been heard before the relationship building is one
048of the most important parts of prevention and it's about knowing the kids knowing um and and even and um trying to make connections so that the children feel as connected as possible and that's really really important but also when that doesn't go well having other students who are available to be there not only to report but possibly to support scenarios as well um and of course keeping communication lines open and focusing effort on what works and and some of these things were shared um previously as well there were some resources that were provided and the actual webinar link is there um and we can provide that to you if you were interested in checking it out and also some of her own research all of those first couple of uh links there are what um
049the presenter provided to us and focusing on uh there was a lock down Dr Dashboard and showing you know which parts of the country use lock down drills and which don't the focus on lock down drills we our drills uh pretty you know pretty regularly obviously as in compliance with what is required but we also have often asked the law enforcement to come in and participate and watch what's going on try to get a sense ask them for their opinion uh and typically um they they've always been impressed with what we do there were also some additional links from the association of school psychologists on how to handle these scenarios especially with younger kids and making sure that you do things and model things in a common way and also that you prepare your staff
050in a way that they understand that there's a drill and that's not a real scenario but you were practicing and that's something that we do as you remember how many fire drills did you do in your lives uh luckily you probably didn't have too many fires to deal with but we drill because we just want to get that muscle memory down as much as possible and the mental memory down as much as possible so that we don't have to do as much thinking in that situation because of the stress and the emotion that's taking place at that particular time uh there was also a reunification tips and uh uh focus on parent reification some resources there that I included that I thought would be helpful for our administrators because again it's it's a very difficult
051it's one of the things I always thought of as Principle as being one of the hardest things not only after the incident whatever that incident would be would be very very challenging but now you're dealing with how are you trying to get people and kids to their parents and that's that's something that is not certainly not an easy easy thing and there's no one method or blueprint for how to do that so that it's that's tricky and that's something that I think we're going to continue to discuss moving forward at the end of the webinar there was some really interesting questions that were posed the first one was about arming staff uh was came from somebody who was watching and the this particular presenter indicated that uh very few school shootings have been stopped at
052the firearm and those that have clear stop without a firearm based on her research and what she provided so this is from her her responses um there was again a focus on locking doors and and the response was really just to try to simplify that process as much as possible for you know preventing lost time from finding keys and trying to make that as easy as possible as easy as it can be the focus should be on everything someone asked what should be the focus she said pretty much everything full spectrum focus a voiding complacency and just don't go through the motions and we try to you know there been situations I remember as doing lockdown drills where we are going through and we're going through the the the hallways and there's a particular classroom
053that's a little noisier than it should be and typically we will after we do our full drill we'll come back to that room and have a discussion with them we're not chastising them we're just trying to explain to them listen we're doing this so that you know you you know what to in that situation and we would expect that you have to take this seriously so that this way you understand what's at stake you know that kind of thing and everyone's typically you know they understand it's just sometimes they get a little complacent so we try to remind them not to do that um and it talked a little bit about drilling reminders and making sure that you build Mastery um obviously the adults are very important in the scenario to model behaviors and uh
054to debrief following drills and that's something that we had again remember doing in the past uh we also tried to focus on things like the cafeteria you know that's a that's tricky one and how do you get remove students from a large space where do they go um you know and all those things that you are not going to be able to control in those kind of situations so um the last question was focusing on involving the school Community what can a board do and it really just talked about collaboration and trying to get the message across and trying to give people space to air their concerns and also to be heard so that they are aware that this is something that is taken very seriously and that you're working with people to the best
055of your ability so it was very interesting very informative it's tough to be on a you know a zoom webinar and stay focused but it was pretty easy to do that in this situation because she did an excellent job of presenting and share a lot of very interesting information both about the incidents and also what schools can focus on any questions talk I just so I sat in on this too and you know I say it's scary because it's it it's just really sad that we have to take this seriously the one thing that she said that kind of Hit me hard is that she's like you can't say oh this is never going to happen so us you're going to say this is when this happens we're going to be prepared which is again
056it you know it is what it is but I I like the fact that we're taking this so seriously I mean I know from having children in the school that they've been doing these lock down drills for too long their life um you know and and I what I really liked about this was the analysis of the shooter because I think the more you know when these things happen we're always talking about the guns but we're never talk St we never but but I think the more that we understand the people that that these perpetrators that do this the better we can avoid it because you know I mean I think this guy was kind of a I don't think any of the other Shooters have been this textbook if you want to I mean
057the fact that they missed all of these signs is kind of it's amazing but um you know just these little things and so part of some of my questions are like you know she talked about letting everybody be involved in this you know so because you know it's not necessarily a teacher you know some of these kids that that feel so disconnected the classroom is not their friend right so she had talked about a security guard being there or or even a cafeteria person or custodian like so how do we as a district um kind of train like I know we have a lot of very talented people that are trained to identify these sure but the people that that that you wouldn't necessarily think like are we giving them any kind of list of
058signs to be looking at are we encouraging them to you know be a little extra friendly to every kid that walks through like making that difference so that these kids know that they have someone in the building that they could go to I mean I think a big focus of our security staff is on getting to know the the students and that's typically our strongest staff within the security uh in the security group are the the staff members that know the kids and can anticipate issues even before they are happening and and many will do that um you know in terms of the drilling part of it we certainly involve everybody in that aspect of it that's kind of the response maybe not necessarily the working the student Focus um as much but I think
059it's it's doing presentations like this and and also getting the word out a little bit on um many of our custodial staff you know sometimes as you know um there are many students in the building who they see our our custodial staff as like the their their Heroes you know and they will run up to them and I think the fact that we um reward that and we recognize that is important for other staff to see that that's very important and I think the fact that we're open to people sharing information about students if they find something that is alarming that that's something that we take very seriously so I think it's a process that involved with that in terms of training for the other groups um the mental health survey Ian the mental health
060overview that every staff member is required to take at the start of the Year includes at least 12 warning signs thank you I think the word panic the word panic is important because you cannot panic yeah and you need people that can control situation and handle people that are important you know our secur of God most of them are stops and all that kind of stuff soend situations but you know some of our Paris and some of our other people that are involved with the children and all that stuff that's a point to where we have to make sure that everybody's qualified and everybody knows what the situation anybody can go through a drill it's a real thing I we saw that last year marriage yes marriage CL and stuff like that they they reacted
061very well yeah and uh I know that we went to a couple school board meetings and I know ISO had it they had a live a live situation with all the police officers in their building they were in their buildings and they went through all kinds of scenarios and they did all kinds of stuff they did it in comac they did it in Nassau County they've done it in a couple you know it's something maybe we can look into too and uh it was it was very very good and a lot of good lot of good came out the fire department was involved everybody was involved and it was a a community headquarters you know like where do you stage okay where is where where does something stage do we use the F dep do
062we use the through school do we use you know there's all kinds of staging and there's all there's a lot of prep to the whole situation yeah and that's part of the further discussions is as you get more familiar with the protocols that you have used you start looking at other things that you can do a little bit differently so we have you know that's why I was talking about things like you know focusing on areas like the cafeteria it's easy to control it's easier to control a classroom it's harder to control a large space like that many times when we did our drills in the building we would not have an administrator be the announcement over the loudspeaker why because how what's the likelihood that something is going to happen and someone's going to
063be right there to make an announcement that's unrealistic so we would often have a secretary or a Dean or someone else be making that at least making the announcement they used to that kind of a thing become even know where your basement are where how to how to access your basement how to get into your spaces how to you know hi yeah we talked about that so there were times where we would debrief afterwards and talk about okay it was a little tough to get into this particular location should be moving it somewhere else and that's why you do these things and you practice as much as possible so it is good that they I think increased the drill frequency you know at one point it was only two and we were doing a lot
064of fire drills we do drills for something that doesn't happen very very often and this is also something that obviously is a very very rare occurrence but uh obviously a little bit more alarming so I think with all those pieces it's at the high school for the kids that are out off campus if we were on a lockdown how would they know uh the communication usually is going to our security staff that will be um mentioning if if the doors are locked then at that point they're not getting in yeah uh if there is outdoor people who are outside then they're responsible for getting that word out to as best as they can um you know in a real scenario um it would be you're told you know you really should be locking in everyone
065should be locked in as much as possible and you wouldn't be going around the building because they're coming in and trying to uh take care of the threat so uh but in that situation they would probably be you know figing they can't get in and if there is someone outside at that point which typically there is with all the activities going on that communication will be taking place there um and then for the reunification plan like I have no idea how at what level but I know that I get very specific parents Square messages that are specific to either even sometimes it's a teacher using it um so I know that somehow it knows that my two children are here in this high school and are taking x amount of classes so um and the
066same thing the parent portal like so are there ways that we could use those two things that almost everybody has access to to identify to be like okay you know these 30 kids are here and this is where you find like once everything settles down yeah that's I think the trick is the difficult part is how to get those plans down with a scenario that is going to be everchanging because you have one particular period like you said they could be in one location another the period another location I think initially obviously we look at multiple sites in the high school where students would be reporting to and they would be going there uh and directed There based on where they're physically located within the building and then they go to an alternate location and
067from that point then we would try to be informing uh you know parents as best as possible but I'm wondering if you could do it instead of using their schedule I mean there's a student ID for every kid right so if you use their student ID and like so somehow the kids sign in once they get to that area they sign in and somehow parents sare the portal knows that this ID is by kid can it send me a message to say okay your kids's checked in here and this is where you're going to if you do it individually like that that code or something yeah I don't know if that's set up Ide would be a barcode right at every door when you go in the door you're in that room we have ourem
068tap but we have those are typically located you know they are mobile but I don't you know in that scenario we're probably bringing that but that's part of the discussion is do we have something that we can utilize in that particular situation this is a that area of reunification is one that I've even you know heard from other colleagues and other places what how do you do it what's your it's a very hard thing because you're trying to like you're saying you're trying to trying to plan for things that you have you don't really know what you're planning for and it it's really really tricky um and you would Al have to think that at the time you know there's there's parents going be trying to contact your kid on cell phones you know so
069there that but you also want to make sure children don't always know what they're talking about that's true yeah so it's very tricky and and even would they have would you have access to your children at that point is another question but we talked about things like um establishing kind of a command post area and how would parents know that when they came in you know uh there's a lot of pieces to it for some things that are on principal's Minds so I think it's any we going to focus on more and also I wonder if you could do you know because they talk about how a Community member um you know heard him say something like I wonder if if this is something that you could I don't know if you go out on
070the road or if it's just something you put up on the website like some of the training that you guys do with with all of our staff that that a Community member could you know maybe someone that doesn't have a kid but is a next door neighbor that has a connection to somebody to for everybody to be aware for the whole Community to be aware of the signs of something that could could be and if you see that sign here's where you should contact you know and have like kind of a general yeah I know we have gotten information from outside of the building at times sometimes for things that they're just upset about but sometimes it is information that is is helpful and useful in that regard so I I certainly think they would
071how do you get out to that group is probably the bigger question and challenge something else consider that was today as we yeah it justes get down to the point you make about the building relationships in advance we're talking a lot about post event response where it's more important to no going in to to prevent it and it translates into overall mental health of the students and translates into Substance Abuse Prevention and notification and treatment and because this kid was a a cutter cutter cutting is similar many aspects from what I've read to uh any other kind of substance abuse and it's a lot more widespread than most people yeah know it's uh so this whole idea of building relationships in advance you talk about our security Personnel you talking about custodians really starts in
072the classroom yeah and this is what we're involved in as far as trying to increase the lines of communications between our students knowing they have a safe place to go to trying to look at these different uh Clos symptoms for lack of better word in this in this particular instance remember this was a former student it was not a current student so there's a tendency maybe to get a little more complacent when you don't have when it's not a student in your in your building um and that's where I think we we have to continue to work with our law enforcement and our and this is why we frequently will discuss if we're hearing things that we have concerns about we're getting in touch with them and if we're not hearing back are demanding that
073we GE back to make sure that things are on top of that we're on top of it as best we can and that that they know that we have some concerns so think that's a big part of as well other questions we can probably talk about this for and while you're up there yes uh there's overnight field trip request yes there is so you should have in your packet some information about a a trip request this is a annual um event that will that is that takes place with our theater department and our thesbian Troth uh this particular U event is is at Boma and it's in January it would be taking place on Friday midday they will be leaving midday and returning uh Sunday afternoon uh it is one bus um and the company
074is uh Hampton Jitney U that is being that was being requested or is being reserved for this particular trip so you have the information there in front of you again this is something that they have gone on in the past and is a conference they have been to before um so if you have any questions again again I said it back STS I I would like to see a uh with with everything that's happen theing and everything like that um I would like to see the inspection sheet on on the bus that's going and the you know like a like a material dat you know what's what was done to this the bus when the when the uh tires were changed all that kind of stuff just a uh good inspection or stuff like that
075done before you know I of course we're going to say yes but I would just like to have just a little more safety procedes set policy yeah maybe for them you know I anticipated there would be some concern especially you know what's taking place uh companies anticipating thato recently actually reach out to them and they and I feel this is okay to share with from the president with the company just ref referencing um just safety you know safety response uh that that we received and we reached out to Hampton um to just ask for some of their protocols so they did provide some overall inspection information so I but we can ask for more details on the actual buses they they share but this is just a response from the president on some of their
076safety protocols that felt like it was important to share it so that this way you understand that we are uh you know that we we are asking for the information that again I have I have I understand what you're saying but each bus is registered and has it has its own information and if they can just this this would be awesome to just say okay this is when the last time the bus was done this is the bus they are taking that's the one they are right I can request we can request that I think that should be protocol for that's going to be for anything we go on from now on anything that's outside because obviously transportation we have that relationship anything that's not SE Transportation that's a good idea I think it's regenerate
077so I'm going to ask for them to provide that before we officially ahead with it we have time to go right we have a you know the window is 30 days so well well ahead of that it gives us time to try to get that information I don't know if theyed the bus yet I'm sure they're expecting yeah I don't know if they've assigned the bus yet so that might be something that I I can't provide to you probably a week before they would probably know but in terms of the other um to get that or or you and told that it was reviewed by them everything looks good everything's there everything has been reported to the superintended that everything is over and you know and that would be just protocol that we should have
078it has nothing to do with board I think it's just done within in within your system okay like that's not our job it's just a suggestion for that to the com yeah questions about the trip and again the quest is because it's an overnight trip so that's the part and this one for years yeah so the only thing that's costing us is the transportation that the other sponsors have picking up that's what I'm yeah that's what it appears that there is a nominal student charge for it assuming that's in their budget just got check that I can't tell you too much about it's just that's why I looked at that l she knows any other questions and then I'm going to pretend to be Sue because she unfortunately couldn't be here because she had an
079open house tonight um do you did you guys well you guys should have had opportuni to look over the proposed resolutions that she is voting on next Monday this is from um so every year the um New York State School Board kind of gets together and puts together probably too many resolutions to to basically bring up to our um our politicians and and into Albany to kind of advocate for different things that happen that affect school districts um so we had um Susan guy and I had an opportunity last or two weeks ago to sit um so NASA suff does their own little kind of resolution review um so we sat and did that and um it was pretty it it was not as um it wasn't as drawn out as last time it was
080not as drawn out as last time there there was less to talk about last year I think there were a couple resolutions on here that were very controversial and they are not anymore so I'm going to start and just see if anybody has any so basically we just need to give Susan a direction of how we want her to vote she's going to vote for our district I think we will that night the that was pass on the floor basically in favor of what everybody else was going and uh what you see there is what the way was kept everything was kept except maybe two maybe we voted voted against I believe put the end was did not recommend it two at the end right just all anything was in was recomended was one no
081was a couple so there was so like the sunsetters these are all basically done after this year so we kind of they kind of did that in in group and then if you see an RA that means that there's an um Amendment which you'll see written in red um except for number 24 they we voted for that if you take away the high needs in that sentence on number 24 um because they felt that all districts should should not have to do that um have that burden oh that was theol School the city um I think all the other recommended as a done amended were there um the one that got the most conversation and was the closest vote was number 50 um which is niso Will oppose any legislation or regulation mandating comprehensive K
082through2 gender and sexuality education um you know this one back and forth obviously it's it's a Hot Topic um there's there was a lot of age appropriate concerns of um and District's longing to keep that being able to to keep that um within the indust local yeah local control curriculum keep that curriculum within their own local um so that's kind of but it was it was a very close because you know there was there was conversation on the other side where they want people to have have better education on that and that they're not getting it their you know where they should be getting it and we'll have the inside track on this all next year because you're on masso school something like that board um I do I have tons of time well you
083know in two years I will um and then obviously number 53 was another one that was kind of um obviously that's on everybody's and and a lot of Long Island schools are are affected by the mascots um um there were several people in the room that have lawsuits pending to basically say you know listen you know this is it's not these mascots weren't put out there to offend people they were put out there as as a symbol and you know a lot of districts you know that's part of they see it they see it totally differently you know they see it as a way to connect with that and um you know it's it's it's a hard thing because I you can see both sides um somebody did bring up the Marauders she us they're
084like why is the marauder okay but but you know and a knight's okay but a a warrior is not which you know so it you know you see you see that and it and it's very costly and that that's really what's what's I think the worst part is there's all these schools that have to pay millions of dollars to do this mandatory thing and there's no aid for it and and what are the children going to something's got to get right if you got to pay all this money to redo your gym floor that means you know less things that the kids get and this is a state mandate and it is a state mandate so State should pay for it um and I think I don't know guy was there anything else that stood
085out to you no it was not really a stand out job so you guys have Caitlyn was very nice to scan in all of the the votes so everybody's good with voting how long island voted then may I have a motion to go out of work session and back into executive session for purposes legal legal second all in favor post so Carri and that's it everybody's done good night [Music] everyone [Music] one we had two [Music] people good